The Ultimate Bluegrass Guitar Solo?!- Learn Kenny Smith's 2nd Studebaker Solo

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today, and I want to welcome you to a lesson on the second solo to Kenny Smith's bluegrass flatpicking guitar classic Studebaker. So if you're not familiar with this tune, I've already done a lesson on the main melody and the main A and the B parts to this tune. You can check that out here. and I will link to it down in the video description. So if you're familiar with this tune, great. If not, Studebaker is to bluegrass flatpicking guitar, in my opinion, what like Eruption or Cliffs of Dover are to like rock players and rock shredders. It's this classic, classic, classic tune with this very memorable melody that is very challenging and takes an advanced level of skill in order to be able to play. And tunes like this, really in any genre, but almost become like a rite of passage for guitar players. It's a great thing to aspire to if you're in the beginner or intermediate stages, and it's a great thing to tackle if you're a more advanced player. But today I'm going to be showing you the second solo that he plays to the original studio recording. No mistake about it, this is advanced. He shreds this, and he doesn't really repeat any phrases throughout this second solo. But I'm gonna do my best to try and make this accessible to you. I'll play it really slow, and I'll chop this solo up into little sections so we can take it bit by bit and then put all of it together. Remember, you can get the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. One of the things I always like to say whenever I'm doing these note-for-note solo demonstrations and lessons, I have used my ear to decipher what Kenny is doing to the best of my ability. I've used my ear, but I've also watched a lot of live performances. And again, this is my attempt to get as close to what he's doing on the original studio recording as I can. That being said, like I said, I've just been using my ear, so there may be a few places here or there where it's not exactly like he's doing, but I really have done my best to try to get exactly what he's doing on the original recording. Okay, so before we jump in and learn this second solo here, let's go through and do just a little rhythm breakdown here. So capo on the 4th fret, play playing this in the great bluegrass key of B. Um, and so, um, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go through and play the rhythm here. I'll throw the chords up on the screen. They'll be relative to the capo, and each chord gets 2 beats. And remember, the format for this tune is A-A-B-A. Okay, so that's going to go like this: 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, there we go. Okay, so even though I played the solo at the beginning of the video, um, let's play it one more time up to tempo with a backing track. All right, so let's jump in and learn this beast of a solo here. And what I want to play through right now is, um, I'm just going to play through the A part, um, and I'll play it real nice and slow here for you, and that'll go like 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and Okay. So bunch of cool little phrases in this A part here. So he starts off with this kind of dissonant sounding in a really cool bluesy kind of way. And then he goes into this classic Tony Rice phrase and then ends on our— it's going into our C shape here. It's technically an E chord. And then it's a really cool phrase right there. And then he's going to jump over here into this little— so this part right here, it's like a real dissonant kind of floating lick. It was hard for me to pick that out exactly from the original recording because with just the way that the mix is, I could tell that there was a phrase there. I think it was that That seems to make sense based on the other phrases that he's playing through here, but again, it kind of got lost in the mix, so I might not be spot on there, but it was as close as I could get to it. All right, but then he goes into this little— okay, which is— for years, way back in the day when I first learned this just from listening to it on CD, you know, I heard that and I was like, oh yeah, until I saw him play it live He does not take the easy way out here, okay, which is great, but it gives it— it just gives it a more fluid melodic sound by doing it that way. And then he comes into this little like— which I've taught that lick on this channel before. I love it. And then Okay, just some great phrases here. So one more time, let me go all the way through this A part on the second solo to Studebaker. Okay, so now we have to go into the B part there, and he just absolutely shreds this B part. He like plays non-stop through it. Ton of really cool phrases here. Let me just go all the way through and play the B part here to the second solo of Studebaker. Okay, so obviously there are a lot of notes in that. So what I want to do, um, right now here, um, let's, let's, let's chunk that down a little bit. So I think of the B part here, I think of this in like 3 different sections. It's just, it's, it works for me to, uh, you know, be able to chunk it down and make it a little bit more accessible. So this first phrase here Okay, and really what that's doing, um, is he's mostly just playing over this D shape. 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4. Okay, and he's you know, using a combination of arpeggios, chord tones, scale tones, just a bunch of really cool stuff here. Um, so Kenny actually plays it like this, okay? Whenever I'm playing this, and especially when I'm playing it like more up to tempo and I'm kind of in the heat of battle, I cheat and I do— so I use the open, uh, 4th string and I hammer on to the— again, speaking relative to the capo— to the 4th fret of the 4th string there instead of, you know, it's just a little easier for me to execute. You can experiment with both, but it's the same notes either way. So All right, and then we're going to go into this next phrase, which goes— okay, so one more time, that little phrase there. It's not a little phrase, it's a, it's a monster phrase. Okay, so, um, before we go on and add the last one here, okay, so let's string both of those phrases together and that'll go like this. Okay, and then let's jump in and learn the last phrase again to the B part of the second solo of Studebaker. Okay, so one more time, let me go all the way through the B part here. All right, so we'll go Okay, so making great progress here, but we're still not done because it goes back to the A part there and he plays it differently here. So the last A part to the second solo of Studebaker will go like this. Okay, one more time. Okay, so there we have it. So many notes in this, but man, just some classic phrases. And again, to this legendary and honestly genre-defining tune. So one more time, I'm gonna go all the way through the second solo nice and slow here for you, okay? So we'll go 1 and 2 and 3 and A part. B part. A parts. There we go. Okay, so one more time, let's hear that up to tempo. So I hope that I've been able to make this very challenging solo accessible to you. And remember, I've got this video organized into chapters down below, so if you need to get to a certain section and just kind of watch it over and over and over again, you can absolutely do that. And remember, I do have the tabs for you down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. Again, Studebaker is just one of these very challenging yet honestly genre-defining tunes. It's basically a rite of passage for flat pickers. At some point you have to learn and try to tackle this tune, which is a great thing because it has a beautiful melody and it has a ton of amazing phrases in here. So remember, I've got a lesson around the basic melody around the first solo to this down in the video description. I've also linked to the original studio recording down below as well. Make sure you check that out. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out, and I will see you next time.