Description
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a standalone Bluegrass Rag composition that was written to help you improve your speed and accuracy by the inclusion of several short lead runs that are played using alternate picking. It’s a lot more fun to have a song to work towards than to sit and practice boring finger exercises!
Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson
Part 2 - For Premium Members
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Slow Walkthrough
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Video Tablature Breakdown
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Thanks Brian! I can use a speed up. ☺
I have really enjoyed the first half…I never tried to play blue grass…and learning all these C runs are fun.
Improving my speed and accuracy is exactly what I need. And at 75 I intend to make it happen. Thanks Brian
Improving speed and accuracy is my goal as well…..at 74:-)
I’m 70 and have played Bluegrass since I was 17. But quit playing a long time during my career. I can’t play as fast as when I was younger. This is great and will really help me get back some speed! Great lesson as always Brian!
Just what the doctor ordered. Bluegrass runs, Caged system, 6ths , double stops. Amazing
Man I love Fridays. Would you do an arrangement lesson where the song you write has an Intro a few verses a bridge a chorus an ending and a cool soul gripping hook that just cannot be forgotten after being heard? I start each lesson at 50 or 60 percent speed and rarely get up to 100 percent before the next lesson. And I practice these tunes for hours everyday over and over and over again.
Thumbs up for flatpicking bluegrass.
Hi Brian,
There still is no title of any information on the Soundslice music sheets. Is this something you can fix? We always had this info in the past.
Thanks for your help.
Thanks Brian. Title info know shows
Wonderful Brian love that c rag doc sound
Always stayed away from Bluegrass due to the speed and accuracy required. Until this lesson- you made it fun and took the mystery out of it.
Focusing on Blues Rock pentatonic and arrangements this is a refreshing pathway and achievement, working up alternate picking with the open strings. Thanks, Brian!
Loving it. All that i want. Runs and speed practice.
What scale is C scale over F?
Hi Lars,
Starting a given major scale on each note of the scale creates the major modes. Starting on C would be C Ionian (the C major scale), starting on D is D Dorian (a minor scale with a major 6), E phyrgian (a minor scale with a flat 2), F lydian (a major scale with a #4), G mixolydian (major scale with a flat 7), A Aeolian (the relative A minor scale) and B Locrian (a minor scale with a flat 2 and dimished 5th).
John
Right up my alley! Love this stuff Brian. A big thanks!
Makes me want to lock my electric guitars away!
Playing bluegrass humbles you as a guitar player. I love when Doc tells the story during a live recording of Deep River Blues that after 10 years of practicing he was able to get the lead note in. Even for him, it took him a long time to learn something but he stuck with it. Boy, I’m glad he did. Motivation for us all.
Playing a clean tune can take months (more like years for me). This kind of lesson gives you the right bite size nuggets to work with. Even if we don’t play the tune at your tempo, the notes sound great. Maybe that’s what some of us enjoy are the sequence and sound of the individual notes you come up with each week. Pure happiness.
So many great licks in this one, Brian. I think it will be a very popular lesson.
John
THANK YOU BRIAN. RIGHT UP MY STREET. REGARDS TONY
This is right up my alley. I love bluegrass even though at my age (88) the speed is hard to keep up with.
Brian wrote a week ago something that registered with me. He said, “There are no bum notes! A good player knows how to make a bad note good. It’s not the note you start with, it’s the one that it leads to. You can always correct it by making it resolve to a “right” note, then it’s part of the story . . . if you finish telling the story, you’ll see that they were leading somewhere.”
It gave me a whole new perspective on mistakes. I’m going to quit worrying about “bad”notes and concentrating on the note that I need to resolve to.
lots of great stuff there.. just what I wanted .. william h. said it.
Awsome! Thanks Brian!
Awesome, Brian!
Another Awesome lesson Brian!! Thanks so much!
Great lesson Brian. Enjoyed the alternate picking too, I’ll enjoy practicing this one to help me speed up my playing.
Thanks
Another great, interesting and well taught lesson. I am one of those that would go up and down the fret board . No more. You are so right that making it into a little tune or song is a lot more fun. Playing and learning, can’t get any better than that. I have been a member for 2 1/2 years and still get excited to see the new weekly lesson. You do a fantastic job teaching and you look like you really enjoy doing it .
Thanks Brian. I love every Bluegrass-Lesson and this is another great one!
Great lesson – particularly like the alternate picking
transitions to chord strumming, with or without a rest,
Love this one! Really enjoy the bluegrass. Makes it easy to comprehend playing the chord changes .
Great lesson Brian I love these solo acoustic lessons! Bar 19 of tab doesn’t match your lesson where you slide up chromatically through the 5th, 4th and 3rd fret to get to C
Excellent lesson Brian! I’m making progress lately, I’m very grateful for every thing you do for us. You’re a very good teacher and communicator!
Good exercise. If you took the Rag swing feel away. It would be like a Bach piece, perhaps even more complex. Lots of notes. With the Slice Tab Crawler it’s also a good sight-reading exercise with the variable tempo/speed control. Very melodic. I like it.
G’day Brian,
Love the flat pickin’. But as you have been telling us for years now, the notes are always in there.
M.J. Oz!
Thanks for the great lesson. Is there a way to download the premium content? I’m going to spend some time where internet access is terrible.
I attend a weekend acoustic jam night where bluegrass is a major theme, so this lesson was very helpful. I’d love to learn more bluegrass riffs in “G”, as that seems to be the dominant key used. Thanks!
Rookie question: Is the acoustic solo in Pure Prairie League’s Amie performed using alternate picking on a scale?
Sweet. What year is that D-28?
1956
Great lesson and I have been wanting to learn some Bluegrass basics to get started.
When you went to the F scale over F, could you have also called that C Mixolydian? You landed on the F note so is that why you called it F instead of C Mixolydian? I am still digesting your modes lesson and got a lot out of both of these.
Thank you, Mark
Brian, video is now asking me to ‘sign in’, but I’m already signed in? Hmmm … gremlins?
Great lesson Brian. Many thanks.
Loving learning this one, especially the licks.
Interestingly, when you play the licks they look difficult but when you explain them and I then play them they are not difficult.
Why are the all the videos gone except the slow walk thru ? Every lesson . I want to do these lessons but I cannot pay for nothing .
Hi Brian,
On the third measure, the third beat, of his piece and many other places, your strumming does not produce any sound but a tick. How do you accomplish this? is it muting with the right hand or muting with the left hand? My rhythms sound messy without knowing how to do this. 🤔Thanks
Another fantastic lesson. I am 81 years old and do not read music. I really appreciate the opportunity to learn different genres of music while, at the same time, receiving some practical explanation for the selection of notes and licks that are involved. I’ve been with Brian now for just over a year and he has renewed my interest in playing the guitar. Sincere thanks Brian. Please keep up the great work.
Some licks indeed look difficult at first. However, I started to realize that when I followed your instructions regarding which finger to use exactly at which moment, they were not difficult at all. It’s like magic. I love it. Nobody has taught me this aspect of guitar playing. Thanks.
Hi Brian, Ive been a member now for about 3 weeks and after doing a couple of other online courses I was reticent in starting yet another. I am so glad I joined your group. It’s just what I needed, I’ve looked at a few and after the How to Practice Lesson I’ve locked in EP 590 as my goal over the next couple of weeks. Cheers to you, I’ve been playing of and on for 50 years and just loving my recent progress.
I really like the variety of lessons and styles of playing that you offer Brian. It’s nice to be working on “jazz” licks one day and bluegrass the next. Keeps thing’s really interesting! Thanks!