In this instructional YouTube lesson, Aaron Jaxon teaches bluegrass guitarists how to solo over the extremely common 1‑5‑1‑1 turnaround that appears in countless traditional bluegrass vocal tunes. He credits his student Dave Saleh for identifying the pattern and notes the use of AI tools in that research. Building on a previous video that covered soloing with G‑shape to D‑shape patterns, Aaron introduces three new melodic phrases that use a C‑shape to G‑shape approach, drawing from the C major blues scale and the G minor blues scale. For each phrase he demonstrates the lick, explains the theoretical basis (scale choices, chromatic ideas, sliding from minor to major third), and then shows how to insert the phrase into three classic bluegrass standards—"More Pretty Girls Than One," "Toy Heart," and "Dark Hollow"—at the turnaround at the end of the tune. He further reveals that the same 1‑5‑1‑1 turnaround also occurs at the beginning of these songs, allowing the phrases to be used in multiple song sections. Aaron emphasizes the musical advantage of targeting the quick “5” chord for greater harmonic sophistication, encourages learners to internalize the phrases rather than rote memorization, and provides tabs in the video description and pinned comment. He also references a playlist of at least 20 (and many more) tunes featuring this turnaround, urging viewers to explore and apply the concepts broadly.
Chapters
If you play bluegrass guitar, you have heard this turnaround thousands of times. It happens all the freaking time in bluegrass music, but the problem is, is most players don't know how to solo over it effectively. So in this lesson, I'm going to give you 3 different phrases that you can use to solo over this turnaround. I'm going to show you how to plug it into 3 classic bluegrass tunes, and if you'll stay till the end, I'm going to blow your mind because I'm going to show you how you can use all of these phrases in all of these tunes, and you can use them in multiple places in each tune. It's gonna blow your mind, so stick around. Okay, so this lesson is a continuation of this one right here, and I'm going to link to that down in the video description. If you haven't had a chance to check that out, please go and watch that, because in that lesson I lay out this turnaround that happens in a ton of traditional bluegrass vocal tunes. And I always like to give credit— my student Dave Saleh from the Atlanta area had pointed this out to me. He did a bunch of research on his own and even used a couple of AI tools to help him see how this very simple turnaround happens all of the time in traditional bluegrass music. So real quick, the turnaround that talking about is a 1-5-1-1 chord progression, and each of those gets 2 beats. Okay, so in the first lesson, I showed you how to solo over that using a G and D shape. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3. So again, we'll go 1, 1, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1, 1. I gave you a bunch of phrases that you can use to solo over that 1-5-1-1 turnaround using a G shape to a D shape. So today I'm going to give you 3 phrases that you can use to solo over the same turnaround, but today we're going to use a C shape to a G shape. You get the tabs for each one of these phrases down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. All right, so the first phrase that we're going to learn is going to go like this. Let's do it again here. Okay, so all we're doing here, we're kind of starting starting off with a C run and then going to G and then back to C and then adding some, okay, some like major scale and chromatic ideas. So in theory speak here, this is kind of right out of our C major blues scale, and then we go to G, same deal, G major blues scale. So we're taking two of those ideas there and then coming back and—
okay, okay.
So one more time, this first phrase here. Okay, so now I'm going to plug that end to the classic tune More Pretty Girls Than One. So what I'm going to do with this solo is I'm going to keep it pretty basic and pretty melodic up until we get to the turnaround at the very end, which— 1, 2, 3, 4, 1— and then I'm going to plug this phrase into it. So that will sound like this. All right, so let's learn another phrase that we can use over this turnaround, and that's gonna go like this.
Let's do it again.
Okay, slow it down here for you, and it'll go like this. We'll do All right, one more time here. Okay, there may have been one time where I was playing that with more pick notes and one time where I was playing it with more hammer-ons and pull-offs. But I mostly want you to get the melodic idea here. So again, theory speak a little bit here. C major blues scale to G minor blues scale, sliding from the minor third up to the major third. So we've got C major blues scale, G minor blues scale, back to C. Okay, so one more time here, we'll do— okay, there we go. Okay, so now let's plug that phrase into the classic, classic bluegrass tune. I think this was on the original recordings, Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. Toy Heart. And I'm going to do just like I did with More Pretty Girls Than One. I'm going to throw this phrase into the last 2 bars, into the turnaround of this tune, and that's going to sound like this. Alright, so let's learn one more phrase that we can use over this turnaround, and that's gonna go like this. Okay, I'm gonna slow it down here for you, and we'll do— Okay, one more time. Okay, so a little theory speak here. We're starting off right here, C major blues scale.
You can also think of it as of the triad.
So, and then from there, basically G minor blues scale back to C. And instead of doing our, um, C run up here like I've already done, I'm just moving up. Just gives it a little bit of a different tone.
So one more time.
Okay, so there we go there. I love this little phrase here. So now I want to plug this into a classic bluegrass tune. So I'm going to plug this into Dark Hollow, and I'll do just like I did with Toy Heart and with More Pretty Girls Than One. I'll wait until the last 2 measures where this turnaround happens, and I'm going to plug this phrase into that. That'll sound like this.
There you go.
So there are 3 phrases that you can use over this turnaround. Again, this happens all the time in traditional bluegrass vocal tunes. All of the time. And again, I would highly recommend checking out this video, and, um, you know, I've got it linked down in the video description as well. And with that one, I show you a bunch of phrases that you can use over a G shape to a D shape. But I also wanted to do a C shape to a G shape today because this also happens all the time in bluegrass music. One other thing that I did want to say is that for these turnarounds, you can just play like a 2-bar C lick over this and it'll work, but I like these turnarounds a little bit better because we target that quick 5 that happened. So I think it just sounds cooler, or to put it in more kind of nerdy theory speak, it has a higher degree of harmonic sophistication. But in just learning a few of these, you can implement them in so many different tunes here. All right, so one more time, let's hear these phrases in each of these tunes back to back. Okay, now for the fun part that I promised you here, so You can use all of these phrases in all of these tunes, but not only that, you can use them in multiple places. Because one of the things that I didn't tell you about these tunes— you may have already figured it out here— is that that 1-5-1-1 turnaround also happens at the front end of these in addition to the back end. Okay, uh, like in, uh, More Pretty Girls Than One. Um, Mama talked to me last night, she gave me some good advice. Right there. Mama talked to me last night. All right, so it's at the front of this chord progression in addition to the back of this chord progression. Toy Heart.
You played with my poor heart like a toy, that toy broken in hand apart.
There it is at the front and the back. All right, how about Dark Hollow? I'd rather be in some dark hollow. So with each of these the turnaround happens in two places. It happens on bars 1 and 2, and it happens on bars 7 and 8. So not only can you use all of these turnarounds in all of these tunes, you can use them in multiple places. All right, so just an example here. All right, so like with More Pretty Girls than One, we could start off with phrase 1. And then end it with phrase 3. Okay, so we could use both of those, the front and the back. So how about in, uh, Toy Heart? Well, we could kick Toy Heart off with, um, you know, like phrase 2, and then end with phrase 1. Okay, so with Dark Hollow, we could kick it off with phrase 1 and end with phrase 2. Okay, so the possibilities are endless here. You could plug each one of those into each one of these tunes in multiple places. It's crazy. But what you're getting here is some very, very, very usable vocabulary with just a couple of phrases. You can plug it in to so many different tunes. So again, I got the tabs for you for each of these phrases down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. I am not going to give you the tabs to every single one of these solos here because again, the purpose of this lesson is not just showing you a bunch of licks to learn by rote memorization. I want you to take these, I want you to learn them, but then I want you to get creative and plug them into tunes. And again, I know I've said it multiple times here, but make sure that you have checked out the first video where I explain this turnaround and I show you how to solo over a G shape to a D shape. I'll also link down below to a playlist that I've made of— I think it's at least 20 bluegrass tunes that have this turnaround in it, this 1-5-1-1. Turnaround. There's 20 different tunes on that playlist, but that's just scratching the surface. There are at least like 75 or 80 of these tunes that I know of that use this turnaround. So just remember that whenever you're learning these, these are infinitely usable bluegrass phrases. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out today, and I will see you next time.
