In this instructional video, Aaron Jaxon presents part three of his series on essential double‑stop sequences for country and bluegrass guitar. He explains why he created the series—he wishes he had learned these ideas early on when studying the styles of Brent Mason, Albert Lee, and other legends. The lesson focuses on harmonized Mixolydian scale patterns played in thirds on the 3rd & 2nd strings and in sixths on the 3rd & 1st strings, all in the key of A. Aaron demonstrates hybrid‑picking techniques (pick + middle/ring fingers) and shows three rhythmic approaches: quarter‑note double stops, eighth‑note single‑note runs, and sixteenth‑note “walking” patterns. He emphasizes practicing these ideas with a train‑beat backing track or metronome to develop timing and musicality. Throughout, he references classic country players, offers practical tips for integrating the patterns into solos, and promotes a free 30‑minute crash‑course with printable tabs linked in the description.
Chapters
Well, hey friend, welcome back to the channel. My name is Aaron Jaxon and I'm here to help you with your country and your bluegrass guitar skills. And, um, so what we're going to do today is kind of a part 3, um, on a series that I've been doing on essential double stop sequences for country guitar. And, um, if you haven't checked out the other 2 that I've done on this, be sure and check those out because they'll just go along with this lesson really nicely. Um, but I, I wanted to do these because I, I wish somebody would have sat me down and showed me these ideas whenever I first started getting into country guitar. And I tried to, you know, start learning from the greats of country guitar like Brent Mason and Ray Flack and Johnny Hyland and Albert Lee and just, you know, all the amazing country guitar players. And, um, if somebody would have showed me this first, whenever I got into their stuff and I started trying to learn these note-for-note solos it would have just made a lot more sense, and it wouldn't, it wouldn't have seemed like such unfamiliar territory. So that's why I wanted to kind of share these videos here with you and these ideas, um, because it will get you familiar with, again, a lot of really essential, you know, melodic ideas and double stops ideas that you'll use in country guitar. But it will also get you familiar, you know, with playing with your pick and finger with the old hybrid technique there. So I'm super excited to share this with you. And hey, as always, be sure and hit the link in the description if you would like a free kind of 30-minute little crash course on country guitar. It comes with printable and downloadable tabs in PDF form that are yours to keep. So again, hit the link to grab that. And yeah, let's jump into the lesson here. All right, so let's start with, um, so what we're going to do here today is kind of like I've done in the other videos. We're doing a harmonized Mixolydian scale in thirds and in sixths. And again, I covered that in the other two videos, uh, but today we're gonna do that in A. And so the first sequence that I want to show you is that we're going to play these on the third and second strings. These are thirds in A through the Mixolydian scale. Again, if you know what a Mixolydian scale is, great. If you don't, that's fine, just learn the pattern. So here we go, um, we're gonna do Okay, and then on your, on your picking hand, I was actually just then I was playing the 3rd string with my middle finger and the second string with my ring finger. Just, it just kind of gives it that maximum kind of popping sound. You can also do it if you want to have your pick hit the third string and your middle finger hit the second string. That's fine too. But again, let me, uh, let me show you the sequence again here. We're gonna do Okay, so yeah, these ideas show up a lot.
Let's see that used a lot.
By, you know, Danny Gatten and Albert Lee and Brent Mason. These ideas show up a lot, and that's why I wanted to do a Mixolydian scale instead of a major scale with these. But again, one more time. Now let's go through and we're going to play— instead of playing those as double stops, we're going to play each note one at a time. We're going to do Okay, and then we'll jump into it, and, um, kind of like I've done in previous videos, we want to sort of kind of walk into each idea. We'll do And then we'll do that in, in reverse. Okay, so again All right, so, and here's, here's what I tell my students to do. Like, the first, um, the, the first sequence that I showed you, um, where we're just playing them as double stops, play those as quarter notes. Just 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. And then on the, um, the second way that I showed you, play each note one at a time, but do it as eighth notes. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. And then that third way where we kind of walk into each idea, play those as sixteenth notes. Uh, 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a, 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a. 1, and then it's walking and chewing gum at the same time, y'all. It's tough. Um, so one really fun thing to do with these, um, to, to make it more musical, to make it more fun, and to also work on your timing, is to practice these with a train beat backing track. You can find these all over YouTube. You can find them at different tempos. You know, there's certain, you know, metronomes that have the option for this kind of thing. And go through and play these— those ideas along with like a train beat like this. Okay, so you can see how that makes the whole thing, um, not only is it great to practice with because you're also, in addition to working on these melodic ideas and your technique, You're also working on your timing. So that's a whole lot of fun to do, and you can do that with all of these sequences that I have shown you in all 3 of these lessons. So I highly recommend doing that. So anyway, that's one idea that I wanted to show you. Here's another one. Again, we're doing an A Mixolydian scale, but this time we're going to do it on the 3rd and 1st strings harmonized in 6ths. Again, if the theory is over your head, don't worry about it, just learn the patterns. So that's going to go like this. We're going to do—
okay.
And so yeah, some very kind of pedal steel, you know, sounding ideas there. Um, so now that we played— we went through, played them as double stops tops, um, and, you know, rhythmically as quarter notes. Let's go through now and do each one of them one at a time as eighth notes, and then back down. Okay, and then we'll walk into each idea and play it as 16th notes. Whoops. So again, as, um, as quarter notes, eighth notes.
And as 16th notes.
So let me do that with the train beat here. Okay, so, um, again, you can see how it's a— that's a great way to work on your timing, and it just makes these, um, a whole lot more fun. And it feels a lot more like music and a little bit less, you know, like you're doing, you know, rudiments in high school band or something like that. So, um, one more time here. So we've got, um, we've got the thirds on the third and second strings with the variations that I showed you, and we've got the sixths on the third and first strings. And again, with the other variations that I've showed you there. So anyway, take the material from this video and from the other two, and, um, and if you'll practice those, especially along with that train beat— again, you can find plenty of backing tracks on YouTube, but you can also find, um, I think there's certain metronomes that have like the little train beat feature dialed into it there. And if you'll practice all of these ideas along with that train beat, you're really gonna lay a killer solid foundation for, you know, being a good country guitar player. And honestly, a lot of these ideas you can use exactly like I'm showing you, um, in your, in your solos. I mean, if we just took something here, I'm just going to kind of— I'm, I'm coming up with this off the cuff here, so bear with me here.
But like, you know, if I was to take a You know, I could do—
let's see— A, D, E, A, you know, and that's like some of those thirds right there. Or if I wanted to do it with the 6th, I could do like a 1, 2, 3, 4, D, E, Anyway, that's just kind of me spitballing off the top of my head there, but you can see how those ideas are absolutely usable in your country guitar solos. Um, so there's just a lot of really good things, um, that can come of learning these ideas. And again, especially practicing them with that, um, with the train beat, with the backing track as well. All right, cool. So hey, thanks so much for hanging out today. And again, remember to check out those other two videos. And like I was saying, if you'll practice all of that material and especially, you know, kind of play that along with the backing track, that's, that's going to be some really, really, really good ideas to have underneath your fingers. And again, I wanted to make these videos because I, I wish somebody would have shown me this whenever I was first getting into country guitar. It would have made the whole learning process, um, it would have just made everything make a little bit more sense, and it would have had me, you know, lay some good foundations at the beginning of my study of this kind of guitar playing. So again, y'all, hey, hit that link down in the bottom of this video to get a free little half-hour crash course on country guitar that comes along with printable and downloadable tabs in PDF form that are yours to keep. Um, all right, so again, thanks so much for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.
