Tony Rice's Greatest Solo?- Learn The Bluegrass Master's Classic Version Of Blackberry Blossom

Alright, hey y'all, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today again here with another bluegrass flatpicking lesson for you. And I'm really excited about this one because this is, in my opinion, one of the, one of the best bluegrass guitar solos ever recorded. So this is Blackberry Blossom as played by Tony Rice from the Manzanita album. So I am referencing the original studio recording here because I know there's a bunch of live recordings of Tony playing this, and sometimes he plays it a little bit different. Just depending on the situation. But I'm gonna be referencing the original recording. This is just the first solo. I think he plays two, but I wanted to just do the first one here. And yeah, so this is a familiar tune, but the way he plays this is really classic. And I actually listened to this version for years before I sat down and actually learned it note for note. And I'm really glad I did. And I wanted to share that here with you today. So as always, feel free to get the tabs for this. I've linked to that in the description and in the top pinned comment. All right, so let's start off with the A part here. And he played the A part— he plays pretty standard, uh, but I want to go through it here and show it to you. So we're going to do— this is the A part of Blackberry Blossom. We'll do Okay, so all just kind of in second position right there. Just any note that's played on the second fret, assign your pointer finger to it. The third fret with your middle finger, and the fourth fret with your ring finger. I know that may seem obvious to a lot of people, but I like to emphasize that there because I've taught this to students over the years and I've seen them you know, practice it and they'll get the pick strokes right, but then they'll come back the next week and they're playing it like— they're just all over the place. There's a lot of wasted motion there. But yeah, just right out of second position, and that is just straight alternate picking all the way through that, just the whole time.

And then we just repeat that.

Okay, so I guess one thing there, because he plays this at a pretty quick tempo, I think it's, it's kind of in between 125 and 130, and he's playing it, you know, just a straight 16th notes. But one of the things you might want to do if you're going through and playing that and you're finding that maybe you need a little bit of a break on this where he adds that, you can do a rest right there if you want.

You can do rest and—

so anyway, if you're finding it's a little, um, that maybe it's a little fast and you'd like to have just a little bit of a breather in there, That's a place where you can do that, or you can go through and just add the extra notes to that. But anyway, that's kind of— that's how he plays the A part. Pretty standard, kind of sticks right to the melody there. Um, but it's just good, solid, clean alternate picking. The timing's rock solid, good tone. I actually like that A part for teaching even just like my general guitar students, you know, even, you know, people that are, you know, come to me and maybe they're into, you know, blues or rock. as you can see, that I'm a big fan of. Um, but it's— the A part of this is just— it's a great— it's a great way to learn alternate picking, okay? And, and we're not having to rely on like an exercise that does— which I don't have anything against that, I actually like those exercises— but this one is just a lot more musical, and you're also getting a lot of good, you know, if you will, technique nutrition while you're learning this. So again, just alternate picking straight through that. Now when it gets to the B part um, he— it changes up a little bit and he really puts that kind of classic Tony Rice stamp on this. So, um, and, and I'm sure many of you are familiar with this tune, but on the B part of this, um, we go from that G major to E minor. So we get a lot of really, like, classic Tony Rice, like, minor runs in this, which is really cool. So let's jump into the B part here, and he's going to play it like this. We're going to do Okay, so before we go on to kind of the second half of the B part, if you will, Um, let's, let's go over that much again. So this first part right here, so what I would recommend is sticking to the same left hand fingers that I'm using because there's a little bit of a position shift in there. And in order to play that phrase in a smooth, economical way, you want to apply that little position shift. So one more time, it's just And then right here, let's go pinky. And then when you come back here, go to your ring finger. And I've watched him play this live in a couple of places, and it seems like he sticks to that. Okay, so, and I think through that I'm mostly do an alternate picking. Maybe from here I'm doing two downs, and then— so, so that's it for that phrase right here, kind of out of this sort of that little kind of second position major scale. And then we're gonna jump down here and do a little— so down here I recommend doing that as a hammer-on, and then so hammer Slide. Okay, so one more time, we've got— all right, and then this next phrase, he's gonna jump up here and do All right, so that is just, um, which is really kind of out of your, um, if you will, like kind of that— if we were doing E minor pentatonic, that would be like the fourth pattern, like the— or if we made it a blues scale, you know, Or if we were doing the diatonic scale, the major scale, okay, it would be out of that. Okay, so one more time, let me do the first half of this B part again here. So we'll do Okay, there may be a few places in there where, um, where he might play a note in a different position than I am. Like right here, he might come up there, and at the end he might use the open string. I don't know. I know, I know some people who are just really great transcribers can really, really, really, like, you know, um, get the, get, get the, the real specifics of this down. Um, I, I try to get as close to the original recording as my ear will let me, but there's a certain level above that that's, uh, it's a little above my pay grade. Um, but anyway, that's, that's this solo as best as my ear can, um, can figure it out. But we've got more to do here, so now we're gonna do, um, Okay, so let's get that run again. We'll do— so that's just sliding into that, that same little scale pattern, that fourth pattern E minor pentatonic, or that third pattern G major. And then he's gonna jump into these So that's— and with the pick on that, I like to do down, pull-off, down, pull-off, down, up. So down, pull-off, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up. So down, pull-off, down, up, down, pull-off, down, up. Okay, and from there we're gonna do Okay, just— and then he's going to end it with a similar phrase to what we did earlier in the B part. So again, hammer-on, slide, And then, okay, so that last phrase. Okay, so that's it. So let me do the second half of this B part one more time. So we're gonna do Okay, so, so there it is there. Um, again, he plays the A part straightforward there. I mean, just really, really, really clean. And then he really puts that classic Tony Rice kind of minor, sort of jazz-influenced, um, spin on that B part there. And, uh, and again, this is just one of classic bluegrass solos of all time. I listened to this album, you know, to Manzanita, most of my life before I actually, you know, sat down and really jumped into it and, and, and learned it note for note. And I'm really glad I did. So let's one more time just kind of hear how all of this sounds up to tempo. All right, so thanks so much again for hanging out today. Again, remember, you know, with these, with these runs and these ideas in this solo, try to take these ideas and, you know, add them to, you know, what, your canvas, your bag of tricks, your, your lick repertoire, and spend some time trying to come up with your own versions of this. Try to put these ideas in other tunes and in other places. And by doing that, you're kind of pulling from a bunch of these different solos and you're coming up with your own thing by default. So that's a, that's a really cool way to do this. And it's, and it's also one of the more important reasons, um, why in my opinion you should learn note-for-note solos like this. Not just so anytime you're playing Blackberry Blossom you've got something to play, but again, it's so you can kind of add to your vocabulary and you can pick and choose from this stuff you know, in any musical situation that might call for it. So, all right, remember to hit the description down below to get the tabs for this, and I've also got that linked in the top pinned comment here. So as always, thanks for hanging out, and I will see you next time.