Welcome back! Today I wanna teach you some awesome lines that will go sound great over
any bluegrass rhythm guitar.
Bluegrass is just such a cool genre to shred to. I don’t think there is any other technique for
guitar that screams Bluegrass as much Hybrid Picking does. Over the past years I have met
amazing musicians from all over the world and some of them were actually bluegrass players.
The first I wanna show you is a bluegrass inspired lick, though it can also be used old school
country songs. Let’s check it out:
Whenever I’m trying to play a bluegrass inspired lick I just immediately think of passing tones. Passing tones are so important in this style; you have to know where to use them but in general if add a passing tone to a busy line that is being played over a bluegrass track, then it will definitely start to sound like a legit bluegrass lick.
One thing that I see a lot of bluegrass players do is “big leaps”. Skip a string for only one note and come back to the other string to continue the line, it is just so bluegrass, as well as combining legatos with slides in a very busy line. Let’s check out another bluegrass inspired lick I came up with. This lick is built using the D Major Pentatonic scale. Once again, adding passing tones will make it sound so bluegrass:
One big piece of advice I can give you is to learn how to use your middle finger when trying to play with a hybrid picking technique. The “m” on top of the tablature stands for Middle Finger; you are supposed to play this note with your right hand middle finger, and the rest of the notes that don’t have an “m” on top of them with a pick. When you are using your middle finger, try to pluck to string; you will get a much chicken pickin’ sound type of sound. Also, I don’t this is necessary but just in case: Lower your distortion level. Most Bluegrass licks are played with a clean sound or with a slightly crunchy tone (tube distortion).
This is all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and please remember to check out our
entire database of videos here:
Whenever I’m trying to play a bluegrass inspired lick I just immediately think of passing tones. Passing tones are so important in this style; you have to know where to use them but in general if add a passing tone to a busy line that is being played over a bluegrass track, then it will definitely start to sound like a legit bluegrass lick.
One thing that I see a lot of bluegrass players do is “big leaps”. Skip a string for only one note and come back to the other string to continue the line, it is just so bluegrass, as well as combining legatos with slides in a very busy line. Let’s check out another bluegrass inspired lick I came up with. This lick is built using the D Major Pentatonic scale. Once again, adding passing tones will make it sound so bluegrass:
One big piece of advice I can give you is to learn how to use your middle finger when trying to play with a hybrid picking technique. The “m” on top of the tablature stands for Middle Finger; you are supposed to play this note with your right hand middle finger, and the rest of the notes that don’t have an “m” on top of them with a pick. When you are using your middle finger, try to pluck to string; you will get a much chicken pickin’ sound type of sound. Also, I don’t this is necessary but just in case: Lower your distortion level. Most Bluegrass licks are played with a clean sound or with a slightly crunchy tone (tube distortion).
This is all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and please remember to check out our
entire database of videos here: