In this instructional YouTube video, Aaron Jaxon presents part two of a three‑part series on bluegrass lead guitar position‑shifting runs in the keys of G, C, and D. He begins by playing a full extended run that starts on open strings, climbs to the 10th fret, and returns, then dissects the run into three smaller, digestible sections. For each section he demonstrates the exact fingerings, emphasizing the use of the pinky and ring fingers for slides (e.g., pinky on the 5th fret sliding to the 8th, ring finger sliding from 5 to 7, then 7 to 9) and the importance of alternate picking and pull‑offs to maintain an uninterrupted flow of 16th notes. He highlights common student pitfalls such as using the middle finger for slides or inserting unwanted pauses. The lesson concludes by recombining the three parts into a seamless phrase, adding a minor blues‑scale ending and optional chromatic notes. Throughout, Aaron offers downloadable/printable tabs, a link to a free 45‑minute flatpicking crash course, and encourages practice of the continuous 16th‑note rhythm.
Chapters
And welcome back to the channel here, and welcome to a part 2 to a 3-part video series that I'm doing on bluegrass position shifting runs out of G, C, and D. If you haven't had the chance yet, go ahead and check out that first one that I did. Because I'm going to be following basically the same structure in this video that I did in the first one, where I'm going to show you that entire extended run that I played at the beginning of this video, but I'm going to chop it down into 3 smaller and more easily digestible parts. And then at the end, we're going to put that whole thing together, and you'll have a really nice, very authentic-sounding bluegrass lead run that kind of starts with the open strings, comes all the way up to the 10th fret, and comes back down again. So super excited to share this with you. And hey, if you would like a 45-minute bluegrass flatpicking guitar crash course. Hit the link in the description to this video to grab that, and we're gonna jump in and I'm gonna show you the essential licks and ideas and tunes and solos and picking exercises that you'll need to lay a really solid foundation for developing some really killer bluegrass lead chops. You'll have downloadable and printable tabs for the whole lesson, so again, hit the link in the video to grab that. And all right, let's jump into the lesson here. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're going to start off, um, with this run right here.
We're going to do—
okay, so I'm using quite a bit of pull-offs in that.
So as you can see, there's a couple of places in there where I'm using like 2 upstrokes in a row. Again, I'm just kind of using alternate picking as my guide through this.
But one more time, we'll do— and here's where our position shifts, and then we'll shift back down.
And then, so again, we've got which is just kind of a classic little bluegrass sounding run out of C.
Okay, so that's the first one here.
So on the second one, we're just gonna kind of expand on that one just a little bit here. Let me play it for you and then we'll analyze it a bit. We're gonna do Okay, so this one starts off the same. Okay, starts off exactly the same as the other run did, but right here we're gonna bring that pinky finger— and this is important, make sure you do this with your pinky finger because if not, it's not gonna put your hand in the position to be able to play the rest of this run.
So again, we've got now pinky finger on this 5th fret and We're gonna slide from 5 up to 8.
All right, and now that works out great because now our hand is in the position to play the rest of this.
Okay, so again, let's take this from the beginning.
So it starts off the— in the exact same way as the first run did.
And then make sure you do that with your pinky.
Okay, so again, the first run will do— and then on the second one—
all right, so the big one on that second one, make sure when you get to that 5th fret, do that slide with your pinky finger. And I have to emphasize that because a lot of times when I show this to students, they'll want to— or sometimes they'll even want to do it with their middle, you know, and then it just, it just doesn't work out that way. But, um, anyway, so that's the first two here. Let's jump into the third run on this, and it's going to go like this.
We'll do All right, so again on that one, um, so make sure when you're going from 5 to 7, do that slide with your ring finger.
And then we're going to slide from 7 up to 9 and then hit that 8th fret on the 2nd with your middle finger. So we've got, and then So let's actually take it from the beginning of this third run up through that point right there.
Let's do one more time.
Okay, we're not done here. Though, because now we're going to do, um, so a shift from the 7th fret down to the 5th fret.
We'll do a slide there, and then we'll do a slide from 5 to 3.
Okay, so we've got— and then we're going to end it with a little minor blues scale run.
We'll do— all right.
So let's run that whole one again.
So we'll start off with Okay, so kind of the key position shifts in that one are— you want to make sure you do that with your ring finger, and this one with your ring finger as well. And then make sure you hit that 10th fret with your pinky, uh, because if you try to do that with your ring finger, it kind of changes the position.
And then we'll do—
do that, both of those with your index, and then hit that, that, both of those with your ring finger.
And then—
all right, so one more time on the third one. We'll do—
okay, so before we go on, let's just kind of, um, retrace our steps here. Let's go back to the beginning and let's do the first one, which is going to be All right, and then the second one, just a little variation on that first one.
And then the third one, we're gonna do—
okay, so now Now for the, the big finish here, we're going to combine all of those, and that's gonna go like this. We'll do All right, so let's kind of analyze that one a little bit. So at the very beginning, um, we're really just running— it's the, um, it's that second run. Up until that point, it's literally just the, uh, second, um, run that we did, which you know, incorporates ideas from the first one, but it's just that second.
But now we're going to kind of add in some ideas from the third one, and we're going to do—
okay.
And then after that, um, I've kind of added some notes in here to round out the phrase we're going to do. And if you want, you can end it with our little chromatic.
Okay, so let's try that again.
So All right, so real quick, let's retrace all 4 of these here. So the first one, the second one The third one, and then the fourth one, which just combines, um, 1 through 3. Okay, and so I talked about this in the first lesson for these position shifting runs in G. Um, you just want to make sure when you're learning these that when you're playing these ideas that it's a continuous uninterrupted flow of 16th notes, which on the one hand is, um, is easy to remember because there's not a lot of rhythmic variation there, but on the other hand, um, it can be kind of technically difficult to execute. I just say that because I've taught these to students over the years, and sometimes they'll, they'll, they'll show up, you know, the next week for their lesson, and they've got the right notes and even the right technique, but they're putting these kind of, um They're putting these pauses in there that don't need to be there.
It'll be like—
and those are the right notes, but again, practice it as slow as you need to to make sure it's just an uninterrupted flow of very smooth-sounding 16th notes that give your lead lines a very authentic bluegrass feel. You know, you'll, you'll hear, you know, players like, you know, Tony Rice and Brian Sutton and Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings playing a lot of these kinds of ideas here. So, all right, cool. All right, so again, thanks for hanging out today, and, uh, remember, if you would like a bit more of a deep dive on this style of guitar playing, hit the link down in description to grab a totally free 45-minute bluegrass flatpicking crash course. I'm going to show you the essential licks, tunes, solos, and ideas and exercises that you'll need to lay a really good foundation for developing some really killer lead guitar chops. So as always, thanks for hanging out today, and I will see you in the next video.
