Why Your Bluegrass Playing Still Sounds Stiff

If you've ever listened to a recording of your own guitar playing, either an audio or a video recording, and thought, man, this sounds stiff, but I don't understand why. Like, the notes are there, the timing is mostly there, but I just don't sound as smooth and musical as the players that I admire. Well, today I want to talk to you about 3 types of stiffness that I see in a lot of my bluegrass guitar students, and I'm going to give you some ways to start fixing that today. And if you'll stay till the end, I'm gonna give you the key to tying all of this stuff together and making your playing sound smooth, fluid, and musical. I have put together a little graphic for today's lesson. You can get that down in the video description and in the top pinned comment to help these ideas sink in a little bit deeper and help keep you on track. So real quick, the 3 types of stiffness that I hear in a lot of my bluegrass guitar students: number 1 are rhythmic stiffness, Number 2 is vocabulary stiffness, and number 3 is physical stiffness. Let's talk about the first type of stiffness that I see with a lot of my students, and that is what I'm calling rhythmic stiffness. So rhythmic stiffness kind of manifests in a couple of different ways. Number 1, it's just with bad or uneven timing, and number 2, it's playing that lacks a pulse and a beat and a bounce and a drive to it here. So let's talk about these 2 different types of rhythmic stiffness. Okay, so on the timing side of rhythmic stiffness here. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take one of my favorite licks. It's this little, um, passage that I picked up from David Greer. The tune is called Big Dirt Clod. I think he plays this on the second solo on that, and it's just a, just a beautiful little David Greer style slippery slidey bluegrass lick. It's one of my favorites here, but what I want to do again to illustrate kind of rhythmic stiffness is I'm going to play it deliberately with bad timing in 3 different ways. I'm gonna play it— number 1, I'm gonna drag. I'm gonna play like too far behind the beat. Number 2, I'm gonna rush. And then number 3, I'm going to just play it with uneven timing, where on some of it I'm kind of in time, but on some of it I'm rushing, some of it I'm dragging. So that'll sound like this. Okay, so there it is with uneven, inconsistent, and just kind of bad timing, which I used to play that way all the time. I would think that if I just had a metronome clicking in the background while I practiced, that I was automatically playing in time. That's not the case. So let me just take the same lick here and I'm just going to play it in time. So another way that rhythmic stiffness can manifest itself here is just having no pulse, no bounce, or no drive to your lead lines there. You might have the correct technique, you might even be playing in time, but if your lead lines have no pulse to them, it's still going to sound stiff. So that'll sound like this. So it's not bad, but it's still stiff because the playing doesn't have any bounce to it. Now, one other video that I have done on this channel, uh, to help you develop smoothness in your playing is this one right here, and I will link to that down in the video description. It's got a bunch of technical things in there that you can practice to develop for making your playing sound a lot more smooth. So bad or uneven timing or just kind of lifeless playing manifests as rhythmic stiffness. So Aaron, how the heck do I fix that? I have talked about this multiple times on the channel. I share this with everybody, um, but I'm going to repeat it here again. For me, the easiest and most fun way to fix both of these— both your uneven timing and both kind of lifeless playing— is practicing along with a train beat drum track. I know I've said it so many times, but it solves both of those problems. It almost forces you to play in time, and when you're playing along instead of just with a metronome, you're playing along with a drummer who's accenting 1-e-and, 2-e-and, 3-e-and, 4-e-and. He's hitting that kick drum on the downbeats and then accenting those 16ths. 1-e-and, 2-e-and. If you'll practice along with that, that type of bounce, that type of feel, those type of accents will start manifesting in your lead lines. Now, I have put together a playlist called TrainBeat Drum Tracks for Flatpicking Practice. You can check it out down in the video description. And I have drum tracks that you can practice along with right here on YouTube, as slow as 40 beats per minute and as fast as 180 beats per minute. And I think the different tempos go in increments of 10, although the ones from 40 to 100 might go in increments of 5. Either way, you've got a lot of them there that you can choose from, no matter where you're at, no matter what your current speed level is. You've got something that you can practice along with there. So real quick, let me take that same idea, and this time I'll play it along with the Train Beat drum track. So as simple as that is, for me, that has been a great way to solve rhythmic stiffness. It helps keep your timing a lot more even., and it also gives pulse, bounce, rhythm, feel, and drive to your playing if you'll practice along with those every day. Second type of stiffness that I see: vocabulary stiffness. Okay, vocabulary stiffness. So this was first made manifest to me the first time I ever went to a bluegrass jam. I think I was 16 or 17 years old, and now I had, um, you know, the past I, you know, 2 or 3 years before that, ever since I was 14, um, I just, I got obsessed with the guitar. I had a great guitar teacher in East Texas and he was very eclectic. He just loved all different kinds of players. I would go in one week and he'd be like, man, listen to this, and it would be, you know, Mark Knopfler, um, you know, Colin Elvis, um, and then the next week I'd come in and be like, man, listen to this, and it'd be Django Reinhardt, or the next week I'd come in and he'd be like, "Watch this video," and it was like an Yngwie Malmsteen instructional tape that he had. I mean, he was just really eclectic. He loved a lot of different players. He loved a lot of different types of music. And he had taught me all my scale patterns. And so by the time I was 15 or 16, I knew all my scale patterns up and down the neck. I knew all of my modes. I could cover the neck in the Dorian or Mixolydian or Phrygian mode in any key that you wanted to. I could harmonize the Dorian mode in like fourths. I knew my melodic minor scales, I knew my harmonic minor scales, you know, and I thought I was pretty good. And so, um, somebody had invited me to a bluegrass jam and I was like, huh, oh, that'll be so easy, you know, G, C, and D, you know. And I, you know, I knew all my jazz chords and I could, you know, play arpeggios. And I remember I went to this bluegrass jam and I don't remember what the tune was that we were playing, but when it got my turn to solo, you know, I would just take my scale patterns a bit You know, or I'd play a pentatonic and I'd do, you know, which was okay. But I remember there was a kid there who was about my age who did not know shit about music theory or scales or any of that, but he had been playing bluegrass since he was like a little kid and he knew the tunes and he knew the vocabulary. And folks, let me tell you something, He smoked my ass. And so this whole idea of vocabulary, learning and developing your vocabulary, sunk in with me at a very early age. So make no mistake about it, I am not a don't learn scales and don't learn arpeggios and theory kind of guy. Absolutely, you should know the fretboard layout, you should know how your instrument is laid out. That is absolutely true, but you have to remember that that stuff They're like the alphabet. They're the raw material. The vocabulary is the words, the phrases, the sentences, the accent, the dialect, the slang, the stuff that actually sounds like music. So here's just a couple of examples. So if, you know, if I was in a jam or if I was, you know, playing along with some folks and I don't know what tune we're playing, but if it came my turn to solo and I, you know, you know, we're playing Nine Pound Hammer, down, down hammer, and I'm like— and maybe I even get really good and I switch in between the major and the minor. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. It's not bad, but it's not this. It's just not. And it's not this. It's made up of the same raw materials. It really is. Using vocabulary instead of just using scale patterns is going to make your playing sound way, way, way more musical. Same way we could come up here, and that's fine, but it's not this. You hear the The difference— it's, it's made up of the same raw material, but it sounds infinitely more musical. I could even come up here, and I think you should know that scale pattern there, but it's not this. You hear how much more musical that sounds? And again, that comes from learning and having a good bluegrass vocabulary developed. Now, I have shared no shortage of lessons on this channel showing you how to develop bluegrass vocabulary. You can check out some of those videos right here, and I'll link to a couple of playlists that I've put together of my own lessons, um, down in the video description where, you know, you can learn a lot of great phrases, a lot of great licks, a lot of great passages. All of that good stuff, develop and increase your bluegrass vocabulary. But if you find that your ideas are stale and that musically the ideas that you're trying to use sound stiff and lifeless, a lot of times that's because you're trying to run scales over this stuff. And the way out of that, the way to make it sound infinitely more musical, is using vocabulary. Again, vocabulary is made up. Of the notes in the scales. But again, remember, the scales are like the alphabet. They're the raw material from which our vocabulary, our phrases, words, sentences that are spoken with an accent, a dialect, and a slang are constructed from. That's the second type of stiffness that I see with a lot of players, is vocabulary stiffness. Let's go into the third type of stiffness that I see. This one is probably the most common, and it might be the one that most people think about. Number 3 is physical stiffness. Physical stiffness. Having too much tension in your arm and your picking hand, in your body, is going to make your playing sound stiff. It's— you could even take a great musical passage like I was just showing you there, um, and you can play it with great timing, but if you're really stiff, it's going to sound like— okay. Okay, so physical stiffness is a big problem that a lot of people have, and honestly for good reason, because whenever the human animal goes to do something that it perceives as difficult, our body goes into its fight-or-flight response, which, which manifests itself as tension. Okay, so a lot of times deprogramming yourself from getting tense while playing is challenging to do because you are going against millions of years of evolutionary programming here, okay? And so one of the best ways to fix that problem is just by awareness. Bring awareness to the level of tension in your arm, in your picking hand. And it might be a little less obvious, but for me, I know whenever I'm practicing this stuff— and a lot of times this happens when I start, you know, playing faster stuff is that I like to get real tense in my shoulders and in my neck. That's where I tense up at. So relaxing that part of your body, relaxing your arm, relaxing your picking hand, being relaxed. Now a lot of times when you're doing this, it feels wrong again because you're going against some very deep programming here. Just trying to relax as much as you can. Okay, again, you can You can check out this video right here for some technical things to practice, especially for your picking hand, to help you kind of get the tension and the stiffness out of your playing. And you can also check out this video right here for some ideas in your fretting hand. I don't think enough people, um, on the bluegrass guitar internet talk about the left hand enough. I just don't think they do. So I remember when I was first getting into this style, it was the early 2000s, and we didn't have YouTube. You know, like we do now. You know, I had guitar magazines and we had like Web 1.0. There were some websites that were pretty decent. I think Flatpicking Guitar magazine had a good website, and you know, there were a few other forums that you could go on, but nothing like it is now. Anyway, I was trying to read everything that I could about Brian Sutton, and you know, I had some Flatpicking Guitar magazines and I had acoustic guitar magazines and, you know, things like that. But he was always talking about his use of his fretting hand and how his study of classical guitar helped him develop a really powerful fretting hand. Now, his fretting hand was just as important to his overall sound as his picking hand was. So I just think a lot of people really underestimate the importance of the fretting hand in this style. And again, you can check out this video right here. I've gone through and I've explained that, and I've shown you some great exercise that you can practice to get the tension out of your fretting hand. I think that kind of the cardinal sin that I see with a lot of people is like doing this number whenever they're playing, like, just a lot of excess motion in the fretting hand. And, you know, I call them like the Balloon Man fingers, the air dancer fingers. You're wasting a lot of motion, and that's, that's a symptom of physical stiffness. So we want— you go watch those old videos of Tony Rice playing, it's crazy, because a lot of times, you know, you hear him playing all of these amazing notes, but sometimes it doesn't even look like his left hand is moving that much. And that's because every single motion is optimized for smoothness and fluidity. Again, physical stiffness. And the best thing that you can do is just bring awareness to the different parts of your body— your arm, your picking hand, your fretting hand, your back, your shoulders, and your neck— and just do your best to relax when you're playing. That's challenging to do because you're going against some very deep programming there, but I promise you, the effort that you spend relaxing yourself while playing is going to pay huge dividends down the road. Okay, so 3 types of stiffness. Number 1, rhythmic stiffness. Number 2, vocabulary stiffness. And number 3, physical stiffness. Again, a great way to solve the rhythmic stiffness problem is by practicing along with some TrainBeat drum tracks, and I've got those linked for you down in the video description. To solve the vocabulary stiffness is really going deep on developing your vocabulary, and again, I've got a playlist down below to really help you out with that. And with physical stiffness, do your best to try and relax your body when you're practicing, when you're playing. Okay, so to kind of tie all of this stuff together here, so this is something that I want to share with you here, and I'm not sharing this to brag. I'm just sharing this because it will really illustrate the point here. I get a lot of compliments on my playing, and a lot of people, you know, tell me that, you know, Aaron, your playing sounds really smooth. It sounds really smooth, and I greatly appreciate that. But I think one of the things that people are underestimating when they're wanting their playing to not sound so stiff is just the time it takes for progress to compound. So if you haven't checked out this video here, I would highly recommend it. Um, in it I lay out a really simple 3-part practice routine that you can implement every single day that is going to help you get to where you want to be as a bluegrass lead guitar player. But I wanted you to remember this here, that when you're, you know, you're fairly new to learning this stuff, or if you just haven't implemented a focused practice routine for a long enough period of time, stiffness is going to be part of the game, and that's okay. So I think when a lot of people are saying that they feel like their playing sounds stiff, it's just that they haven't stuck with it quite long enough for progress to compound, for those kinks to get ironed out, to where your playing is going to start sound smooth. So I wanted to leave you with just a couple little sayings and maybe a couple of quotes here. Number 1: Smoothness is what repetition sounds like after enough time has passed. Let me say that one more time: Smoothness is what repetition sounds like when enough time has passed. Promise you, just being aware of my own development as a player, but also studying the greats of style that, you know, when you hear your favorite players just playing these effortless, beautiful, fast, clean runs, y'all, they have repeated those so many times. I'm talking thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, and for some of them, it's probably even millions. So I wanted to share that with you so you'll remember this: that repetition plus time equals smoothness. Repetition plus time equals smoothness. They're always asking me, Aaron, what's the secret? Y'all, the secret is that I just love practicing guitar, and I have since I was 13 or 14. And I, I will play things over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for years and years and years. Most people would get bored with and quit after a couple of days.. And that's great news for you, because if you'll just commit to consistency and repetition, smoothness is going to eventually come in your playing. It's not going to sound stiff. So there's 3 types of stiffness that I see happening with a lot of my students. There's multiple solutions to each one of those. And then just remember, sometimes the thing that is going to get the stiffness out of your playing is just consistency and time. I want to thank you so much for hanging out today, and I'll see you next time.