This tutorial was inspired by a friend of mine in the Forum, he wanted to know about the rhythm techniques that great Bluegrass guitar pickers use when playing a really fast song. He also said he would like to know some fills, and short runs to add to his rhythm playing. Hey Eero, this is the next step, and there's still more to come.

This tutorial was inspired by a friend of mine in the Forum, he wanted to know about the rhythm techniques that great Bluegrass guitar pickers use when playing a really fast song. This is only one of them, but I'll cover the others soon. Hey Eero, this is the first of many, so stay tuned for more.

Old Joe Clark is a traditional bluegrass standard dating back to the 19th century. Here, three-finger "banjo-roll" style guitar picking is explained in great detail to get that fast, rolling sound on acoustic guitar. We take advantage of and use the open G triad tuning of strings 4, 3 and 2 to help us along. A fun, driving backing track is used to make the tune complete.

Several subscribers have indicated an interest in learning more about the Chet Atkins thumb and finger style, so this tutorial has been created to go into quite a bit of detail to show the learner how to learn it.

In Bluegrass, pulloffs, hammers and slides are used and are very common. They allow you to divide up the work between your right and left hands, i.e., since most bluegrass picking is very fast, you learn how to pick one note with your right hand and use pulloffs, hammers and slides with your left hand which could result in two, three or maybe even four notes sounding. This tutorial will teach you ...

One thing that I always liked about Bluegrass, was the way the songs were ended. The most common was to play a couple of measures in the 1 chord, add your G run, and you're done. I did add a G chord, which everyone would play if you're picking with a band. This is another lick in the style of Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Clarence White, Marty Stuart, and Vince Gill. The G run has been played by eve...

There are many bluegrass tunes that start with a turnaround, this is where the last line of the the chorus, or verse is played as the intro. This is done even more often playing bluegrass gospel standards, and they use the last half of the chorus. This is also common in country, rock, blues, and other styles as well. This one goes back to the 5 chord in the key of G, which is a D chord. In Nash...

This is the last lesson in our bluegrass solo, and a lick I've always had fun with. Steve Thomas, and I we're sitting around picking when we came up with this. Steve used to play mandolin, and fiddle for New River Band on some of our shows. It was always fun when we had time to sit around and pick, he's played with many famous bluegrass and country artists since then. I picked the full solo at ...

This is the 3rd lick in our bluegrass solo, this will take us back to the G chord. I broke this down in to 3 parts, and there's more flat picking action on this one. The first part is hammering on, and using some open strings. Most of these notes are picked, and the first part ends with an open 3rd string. The second part starts with a hammer on, and then pick the notes on the 4th string. Sl...

These lessons are called bluegrass solo, because we are making up a flat picking solo. The first lick is out of the G chord, and starts out like a banjo lick. You do three down strokes with the pick, on the 2nd and 1st strings. The next downstroke is followed by an upstroke, and then another downstroke. This is mostly done on the 2nd and 1st string, but don't worry if you happen to catch the 3r...