Nine Pound Hammer: 3 Ways To Play It (Beginner to Pro)

Today I'm going to show you 3 different solos that you can play to the classic bluegrass tune Nine Pound Hammer. I'll show you a beginner, intermediate, and an advanced version, so no matter where you're at, you'll get something that you can use in the context of this classic tune. Stick around to learn more. Okay, so if you have ever been to any bluegrass jam anywhere, you will know that Nine Pound Hammer is a tune that almost everybody knows. So this is an incredibly fun tune to play, and it's also great for trying out new licks and phrases and passages. It's just a great tune for test driving new ideas that you're adding to your vocabulary. So today I'm gonna show you a more beginner-level solo, a more intermediate-level solo, and a more advanced-level solo to play in this tune. And I've got the tabs for you down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. All right, so let's first jump into the beginner-level version of Nine Pound Hammer. Okay, so you've heard me play it kind of up to tempo. That was about at 100 beats per minute. But what I want to do now is I want to slow that solo down even further. I'm going to slow it down to 50 beats per minute. I'm going to play it again, and you're going to see tabs that scroll across the screen to show you exactly exactly what I'm doing. Okay, so this beginner version here is pretty straightforward. I'm really just kind of targeting the melody here, and we're doing And then, okay, so I'm targeting the melody, but I'm also throwing in that little, that little, um, Billy Strings uses it all the time, but, uh, you know, so did Doc Watson, and that's where Billy got it from.

All right, and then All right, so first half of that.

All right, second half will do. So I'm really just targeting the melody note here but throwing in a couple little Doc-isms, little Billy-isms. Um, I'm saving the Tony Rice-isms for the intermediate and advanced versions of this. But just one more time, let me go through and I'm going to try to play the solo and sing the melody. That way you can hear how I'm targeting the melody.

So like Well, the 9-pound hammer is a little too heavy. It's for my size, buddy, for my size. Well, roll on, buddy. Don't you roll so slow.

Bluegrass Zen training, y'all. Sing the melody while playing a solo. I just wanted you to be able to hear how I'm really kind of just focusing and targeting on the melody again for this kind of beginner level solo here. So again, use the Strum Machine if you need to practice this. You know, you know, you heard me play it at 50 beats a minute. That's a great tempo if you want to get it up to 100. That's fine, but this is just a really good little melodic solo that you can use in a jam session if you're playing with other people that will work just great over Nine Pound Hammer. Okay, but now let's jump into the intermediate level solo to Nine Pound Hammer. Okay, so now that you've heard me play it up to tempo— and I did increase the tempo from the beginner version, I think that one was at about 115 beats per minute, um, so I'm playing more notes and I also increased the tempo there— but now that you've heard me again play it up to tempo, let's take it way down, way down to 50 beats per minute. And same deal as the beginner solo, I will slow it down and then I'll play it, and then you'll see the tabs scroll across the screen. So you can see exactly what I'm doing. That'll sound like this. So I'm kicking this one off kind of the same way I did the beginner, but then we're gonna do— all right, so that little, um, Um, let me take you— so I'm taking this kind of Tony Rice-inspired passage, and I'm doing that as we go into C, and then just a little cross-picking through my C chord. And then after that, we'll do— and again, that's that little Doc-ism, that little Billy-ism. All right, and then what I'm gonna do after that, that's a very Brian Sutton-inspired passage. And, um, you know, a lot of people would consider that, you know, an advanced lick because, I mean, it's Brian. I mean, of course. Um, but I actually— I'm throwing that in the intermediate level because those little—

that—

those little triplets that he does that will do down hammer up down.

And even though it's challenging, it's not quite as hard as it sounds. And then, then we'll end with just, again, just that Tony Rice kind of passage. Again, first half of the intermediate Second half. Okay, so on this one, this is just straight Tony Rice, and then That was over our G. And now for our C. I love this little passage here because we start off with our little— and then take your pinky finger right here to slide, and that puts us in our, in our little major pentatonic.

Okay.

And then we're going to end with this really classic Tony Wright.

Okay, so that little—

and we'll do—

so with this one, he uses that all over the place. He kicks off the whole Manzanita album with a, you know, at the end of the Age solo, he does a You know, and in like, um, How Mountain Girls Can Love, he plays like a— he plays it in G, but— and then the capo's not on for that one. But anyway, that— he used that little passage all over the place in slightly different forms. But that's how we're going to end this one, and then we'll do So there we go, there's our more intermediate level solo here where I'm, I'm— it's not as sparse and it's not as just kind of bare bones melody as the beginner level solo is, but we're kind of adding in some spice, we're adding in some busier phrases and passages, and, um, you know, we're adding some Tony Rice influences. But one other thing I wanted to say on this, um, another great intermediate level solo to learn for Nine Pound Hammer is just the Tony Rice Manzanita, um, uh, version of this song. That solo he plays on there, it's a great intermediate level solo to learn over Nine Pound Hammer. And honestly, it's a solo that every— in my opinion, every bluegrass player should learn. I have done a little bit of a lesson breakdown on this channel for that one. You can check that out right here. But, um, all right, there we go. So there's a beginner and an intermediate level solo here. Let's jump into the advanced version. Here we go. All right, so I'm throwing in a bunch of notes here, a bunch of ideas. Um, so you've heard me play it up to tempo. Again, I increase that tempo I think that was at about 130 beats a minute right there. So now let's take that tempo way down to 50. Again, I'll play that solo again and you'll see the tabs scroll across the screen here. It'll sound like this. So we're just adding a bunch of stuff, uh, into this one here. So we're gonna do So that's kind of like the first— it's really two phrases together.

All right, and then again, I'm throwing in our Doc-ism, our Billy-ism.

I'm gonna throw in that David Greer passage right there. All right, let's keep going here. Second half of the advanced 9-pound hammer solo. Okay, all right. So, um, you know, I know that was a lot right there, but I wanted to give you 3 little solos that you can play here. That way, no matter where you're at in your progress in this style, or, you know, where you're at in your your development, no matter where you're at, you can take one of these or different parts of these and you can use that in your own playing. And you can use that over this tune, which you can play anywhere with almost anyone. Almost everybody knows this. You can go to pretty much any jam and, you know, use the strum machine and play some of these ideas as slow as you need to. Don't let the speed of this stuff intimidate you. Take these ideas, learn them, get them nice, nice and clean and solid and in time, and you can increase the speed later. But anyway, I really do hope that no matter where you're at in your development, that you've got something out of here that you can use, that you can add to your playing, you can add to your repertoire and vocabulary. And mostly, I hope you can have some fun with this. So thank you so much for hanging out. Check out some of these videos right here, um, for some other really cool lessons in this style of music and the style of guitar playing. And I will see you next time.