In this instructional YouTube video, Aaron Jaxon presents part three of a series on extended bluegrass flatpicking lead runs, focusing on the key of D. He explains why D is a favored key for flatpicking and offers a free 45‑minute crash‑course with downloadable tabs for beginners. The lesson breaks a long, up‑and‑down run into three smaller, digestible patterns, demonstrating each with detailed left‑hand fingerings, slides, pull‑offs, and a chromatic segment. Aaron emphasizes the importance of using specific fingers (middle, ring, pinky) for certain positions to maintain hand ergonomics, and he advises practicing each pattern slowly before combining them into a “monster run” that spans from the open string to the 12th fret and back. He stresses maintaining a continuous flow of 16th‑note rhythm, gradually increasing tempo, and mastering each idea before adding the next. The video concludes with a reminder to view the related G‑ and C‑key videos and a call‑to‑action to download the free lesson.
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Well, hey friend, and welcome back to the channel. My name is Aaron Jaxon here, and welcome to, um, another lesson on playing some extended bluegrass lead runs up and down the neck. This video is kind of a part 3 to a series that I've been doing on these extended bluegrass lead runs. If you haven't checked out the other 2, be sure and check those out because I show you how to do essentially what I'm going to show you in this video but in G and in C. Today I'm going to show you how to play a bunch of these extended bluegrass lead runs out of D, which is just a great key for flatpicking. I really love playing in this key. So hey, real quick, if you would like a kind of crash course as a sort of introduction to bluegrass lead flatpicking guitar, um, I've got a free 45-minute video lesson complete with downloadable and printable tabs that I would love to send you. Just hit the link in the description down below, and I'm going to send that to you, and we're going to go through and talk about the essential techniques and licks and ideas and tunes and solos and all kinds of other good stuff that you'll need to lay a really solid foundation for learning this kind of guitar playing. So again, hit the link down in the description to grab that, and let's jump into the lesson. So let's jump into it here, and I'm going to do this kind of like I did the other two here, and I'm going to show you that whole entire extended run that I played at the beginning of the video, but I'm gonna break it down into 3 smaller chunks that are a lot easier to learn and to get down and to get underneath your fingers. And then at the end, we'll combine all those together into one monster run that takes you from the open strings up to the 10th fret and back down again. So let's jump in here, let's start with this first example. So we're gonna do So one more time on that will do. Okay, so here's the key on this one.
We'll do—
so make sure when you get to that right there that your middle and ring finger— because again, that puts your left hand in the position to play the rest of that run. And then, and then we'll come back down. So one more time on that one, we'll do— okay, so that's the first example. Let's jump into the second example here, and we're going to do Okay, so this one starts off just like the other one did, but we're gonna do— so right there, and this is really important, use your middle finger to hit both of those, to hit the 3rd and 4th frets.
And then we'll do—
okay, so like the last half of that run, we'll do— so we want to do that slide from 5 to 7 with the ring finger, and then slide from 5 to 3, and then 3 to 1. Okay, so this little second pattern here will do. Okay, so now let's jump into the third idea here, and this one is going to go like this. We'll do, um, All right, so that one's a lot of fun. Um, so we'll start off with this little chromatic run on the 5th, and then we're going to take the pinky finger— this is really important— and we're going to slide from 7 up to 10. So that's a big slide there, but you want to make sure you do that one with your pinky, because if you don't and you try to do that with your ring finger or your middle finger, your, your hand's not going to be in the position that it needs to be to execute the rest of those notes. So again, we'll do Okay, so we'll do— and then after that, let's take that ring finger, slide it from 9 up to 11. All right, and then we'll hit the 10th fret, and then we'll do— guess I'm doing a pull-off right there. And then after that, we're going to slide from 9 to 7 on the 3rd string, play the 9th on the 4th, and then slide from 7 to 5. All right, and then we'll do— all right, so we'll again, we'll do, um, Okay, so that's the third example there. Let's, let's go through that third one one more time, the whole thing. We'll do, um, okay, so we're going to combine all three of these, but before we do, let Let me go back through here and let's play each of these 3 ideas one at a time. So the first one we'll do. All right, and here's the second one. And here is the third one. Okay, so now let's combine all three of those together here into one monster run that starts from the open string, comes all the way up, goes all the way back down. All right, so that's gonna go like this. We're gonna do Okay, so that's just a combination of all 3 of those ideas that we've already done, and then I added a few notes at the end just to kind of flesh out that idea just a little bit here. So let's start again from the beginning, and we're starting off exactly the way that we kick off really the first and second ideas. Okay, so we'll do Actually, that's note for note, um, kind of the first half of the second idea. So remember, the really important thing right there is to, um, is to— when we get on the third, third and fourth fret of that third string, hit both of those with your middle finger. That way your hand's in the position. And then right here, slide from 5 to 7 with your ring finger, and we'll do Okay, and then now we're kind of into the third idea here, and we're gonna do— all right, and then I've just added a couple of notes at the very end of this just to kind of flesh out this phrase a a little bit here.
We're going to do—
okay, so let's try the whole thing again here. And again, this is, uh, this is, um, examples 1 through 3 combined all together here. So we'll do Okay, so real quick, let's go over all 4 of these ideas here. So we've got the first one. We've got the second one. We've got the third one. And then we've got all three of those combined. All right, um, okay, so that's a little more up to tempo there. Again though, um, it's, you know, it's cool to to, you know, shoot for being able to play these runs and these licks at a fairly fast tempo. But definitely don't worry about that. First, get them down. And I've said this in previous videos here, you want to make sure that with each of these that you've got a continuous and uninterrupted flow of 16th notes, because we don't— we don't want unnecessary pauses. You know, we don't want We want that to sound really nice and smooth. So keep that in mind as you're going through here and learning each one of these. And again, just take each idea one at a time and practice that until you get it, and then add the next one and then after you got all 3 of those, then add that last one at the end to be able to, you know, go from the open string up to the 12th fret and back down again. So as always, thanks so much for hanging out today. Remember, if you haven't had a chance to check out the other 2 videos that I did on this same topic— but I did one out of G and I did one out of C— be sure and check those out. That's a— those are great videos to watch along with this one. And if you'll learn, um, the material from all 3 of those videos, you're going to have a lot of really cool bluegrass lead ideas that you can work on. You can work on your speeds, you can work on your technique, and when you go through and play them, it'll— it sounds like really, really cool authentic bluegrass lead ideas. So again, thanks for hanging out, and remember, if you would like a free 45-minute kind of crash course in this style of guitar playing, hit the link down in the bottom of this video, and I'm going to send you a free 45-minute little crash course, and you're going to have downloadable and printable tabs that are yours to keep, yours to hang on to, and and we're gonna learn a lot of really cool stuff in that. So as always, thanks for hanging out, and I will see you in the next video.
