"New River Train"-Beginner To Advanced Bluegrass Guitar Solos

Today I'm going to be showing you 3 different ways of playing the classic tune New River Train. I'm going to give you a basic melody version, a slightly more advanced version, and a significantly more advanced version. So no matter where you're at in your playing, you'll get some great ideas that you can plug into this classic tune. Hey there, it is Aaron Jaxon coming to you today. So New River Train has always been one of my favorite tunes. It's just, it's so much fun to play, it's fun to sing along to, it lends itself really well to a kind of brother style harmony, and it's such a classic tune that it's become kind of a jam session favorite. You can go to pretty much any jam anywhere and people will know this tune. So what I want to give you today is I want to give you like a real basic melody version, I'm going to give you another version that's a little bit more advanced, you might call it intermediate, then I'm I'm gonna give you another version that is a lot more advanced. This will show you 3 different ways that you can approach playing this classic tune, and it will also just hopefully give you a bunch of different ideas that you can use in your own playing. So I've done a similar lesson to this on Nine Pound Hammer, and you can check that out here, and I'll also link to that down in the video description. But it's the same deal, I give you a real basic melody, a slightly more advanced version, and a significantly more advanced version. And remember, you can get the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comments. Let's jump into it here, and I'm going to start off with just the basic melody version. So what I want to do with each of these is I'm going to play the version up to tempo and with the backing track. We'll break it down and I'll teach it to you, and then we'll play it again with a backing track. That way you can hear it again after having learned the version. Okay, so kicking it off with just the real basic melody here. So what I'm doing here is almost like a straight-up kind of a Carter-style melody. So let me go through and just play it real slow here for you. So we'll go 1, 2, 3, 4, and Pretty straightforward there. We're just taking that melody. Rat on that new river train, rat on that new river train, that's so And then it's really, you know, very similar to like a, just like a, like a Maybelle Carter style version of it. Okay, so there we have it there. Really straightforward, basic melody version of New River Train here. Now let's hear that again along with the backing track and up to tempo. All right, so let's jump into this second version here, this kind of slightly more advanced— you can think of it as an intermediate version here. But again, we're going to move up on the neck a little bit. We're going to throw in some kind of flashier licks here. But before I teach it to you, let me play it for you up to tempo with a backing track, and that'll sound like this. Okay, so let's jump into it here. Let me go through that solo nice and slow here for you. So that'll go like this: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. So what we're doing when we're starting off here is we're moving the melody up an octave. Okay, and that's that little, you know, we use this, you know, when we're playing bluegrass lead out of a C shape a lot. And that, that area, you know, I sometimes think of it out of this little like triad. You can also think of it out of like a major blues scale. But anyway, we use it a lot. It's a very Doc Watson sounding thing, which Billy Strings has used a lot as well. And then we're going to come back down here and do Okay, so a little C run, and then we'll repeat the melody, but we'll do it an octave down now. Okay, we're doing that because the chord goes to— all right, and then we're going to come back up to this position we were in at the beginning of the solo. Okay, so because the chord switches to an F shape, it's technically a G chord, but we slide up, and that's kind of out of our major scale. You can think of it as a pentatonic. You can think of it out of the, the arpeggio or the triad, but it's all kind of there in that position. And we're going to end it with, um, and I like that because again goes to our G-shape technically an A chord, but then we're going to target this little, um, it's, it's a, it's, it's like a Mixolydian in, um, thirds. And we use these kinds of shapes a lot in bluegrass. We use it a bunch in like country chicken picking guitar. But again, and what I'm doing is essentially making single note ideas out of those, um, and then we're going to come up here and do So right there, I'm taking this but playing those one at a time. And then, and then I'm going to end with— okay, so again, that last little phrase. Okay, so just a slightly more advanced version than our basic melody. But again, now that we've gone through and dissected it a little bit, let me play it up to tempo again with a backing track. So one more here. Now it's time for the really advanced version. So let me play this one up to tempo with a backing track, and then we'll jump into it. Okay, so a lot going on here. I kind of jammed as many hot licks into this version as I could. So, uh, let me go through the whole thing nice and slow here for you. So we'll do 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Okay, so there's a whole lot going on there. I'm starting off with this kind of— that's a long phrase there, But this first little, you know, I've taught that lick several times on this channel. I first learned that from Kenny Smith, but I mean, Tony Rice had versions of that that he uses. You'll hear Brian Sutton use that lick, um, as well. And it's just a good one that you can use over a C shape. And you've got that because you've got your open E string, which is the major third of this chord. So you can— there's a lot that you can do with that, but that's why I wanted to start off with that lick. And then we'll come back, very Tony Ross sounding, and then we're going to throw in this chromatic run. Okay, and so now our chord is on our, um, our G shape. It's technically an A chord, and we're going to throw in this very classic Tony Rice sounding phrase. All right, and then from there I'm going to jump back into this kind of, once again, Tony Rice sounding kind of more Pretty Girls Than Wine.

And now I'm gonna—

okay, this little passage right here What I'm doing is— so, so we're getting ready to switch on our chords from our C shape to our F. We're going from a 1 to a 4. And what I'm doing right there, that is kind of out of like a G minor or G Dorian. And so what we're doing there, it's like it's going from here to say, um, like a 5 minor. Okay, so you could hear how that kind of signals to the listener's ear that we're about to switch to that 4 chord. So all I'm doing is instead of playing the chord there, and then we're into our 4 after that. So that's why I saved this, you know, these kind of, you know, more advanced harmonic concepts for this solo. All right, and then Okay, so now we're on our F, and what I'm going to do after that is— so that's one of the things you can do a lot of times if you're playing a chord progression that's like a 1-4-5. You get to your 4 chord, if you want to signal that you're either about to go to the 1 or to the 5, go up a half step and use these diminished shapes. Okay, and it kind of signals that you're either going to go into the 5 chord or back to the 1. It signals that a change is about to happen. So what I decided to do, uh, and then— so that's— we could keep going if we wanted to. All right, but that's, that's all I'm doing there is And instead of just playing those chords, I'm taking some— I'm making melodic ideas out of those. So, all right, and then after that, where our chord is, um, goes to our 5, it goes to our G shape.

I'm going to do this, which is a really classic classic David Greer idea.

He'll do that a whole lot, these little— but we're taking that and we're doing cross picking and slides again, which is why it's very reminiscent of David Greer. Okay, so one more time, let me go through that whole thing because I know there is a bunch in that solo. So we'll go And 2, and 3, and There we go. So let's hear that one again up to tempo and with a backing track. Okay, so I wanted to give you 3 different ways of approaching approaching this tune for 3 different reasons. Number 1, I wanted to give you this so no matter where you're at, if you're kind of brand new to this stuff, if you've been playing it for a little bit, or you, you've got a really good grip on this stuff, you'd have something that you can take and use in this tune. Number 2, I wanted to just show you 3 different approaches to this tune. And number 3, again, depending on where you're at, some of these ideas might be a good goal to work toward as you're getting familiar with these ideas and this tune. I hope that no matter where you're at as a player you'll get some great ideas that you can use in this incredibly fun tune. Always, thank you for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.