Bluegrass Guitar

["G"]

Hello, I know this is a Mandolin forum, but I can't find a good Bluegrass guitar forum. Any suggestions are welcome.

I sort of played guitar about ten years ago. I would like to play and learn to play bluegrass. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to learn or start. I am basically starting from scratch. I have read practicing with a metronome is helpful.

1. What things should I be doing to learn bluegrass any videos (youtube) or sites to learn on?
2. How do you practice with a metronome?
3. Any other advice is appreciated

Thank you and God Bless,

[Mark Gunter]

Just my opinion here, best place to start is rhythm - since guitar as a solo instrument came later in Bluegrass. Primary thing about Bluegrass IMO is vocals and rhythm, I'd get a real good grounding in that before worrying much about instrumental breaks. A good place to start is by listening to Lester Flatt. Look for any footage of Lester, and look for current players/teachers videos who play in Lester Flatt style.

If you have an aversion to thumbpicking, I suppose you can forget going to the roots and study people like Del McCoury. But I think it's a good thing to master thumbpicking for yourself in Lester's style, as well as developing a flatpicking style. It's a good thing, IMO, to play tunes in more than one style on guitar, though that's not necessarily a bluegrass thing, I like to do it with all kinds of songs. You can work out a thumbpicking arrangement as well as a flatpicking arrangement. But I digress.

I'm not much of a bluegrass player, but a long-time rhythm acoustic guitar player, and my approach to learning bluegrass on guitar is what I've described above. Study Lester Flatt and his followers, and folk like DelMcCoury.

[MikeEdgerton]

Homespun is a Mandolin Cafe sponsor and they have a plethora of Bluegrass learning CD's. Take a look at Steve Kaufman's Basic Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar as a starter on this page with all their other Bluegrass offerings.

["G"]

Mark,
Thank you and I wouldn't be against learning other styles. I appreciate your input. What should I start out practicing... should I just practice strumming chords and switching between chords? Like I mentioned, I am basically starting from scratch and was hoping to lay a good foundation. I will look into Lester Flatt, I am always interested the traditional side of things and learning in that sense.

Any idea how to practice with a metronome?

What do you mean by thumb picking? Like not using a pick?

["G"]

Mike,
Thank you, I took a brief look and that seems to be worth the investment... Do you know will the basics course go over Chords and strumming etc. I am guessing since it is the basic course. I could use a refresher for sure.

[sblock]

Very few bluegrass guitarists, regardless of whether they are playing rhythm or lead, use a thumbpick today. Yes, Lester Flatt used a thumbpick back in his day -- and he was among the minority, even then! -- and so does Wayne Henderson today. If you want to get into bluegrass guitar, my advice is to use a flatpick, not a thumbpick. All the best-known bluegrass lead players today play with a flatpick, and so does the vast majority of bluegrass rhythm players. Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Dan Crary, David Grier, Bryan Sutton, Michael Daves, Chris Eldridge, Julian Lage, ... gosh, the list just goes on and on. They all play with a flatpick, on both lead and rhythm backup.

[MikeEdgerton]

Mike,
Thank you, I took a brief look and that seems to be worth the investment... Do you know will the basics course go over Chords and strumming etc. I am guessing since it is the basic course. I could use a refresher for sure.

Yes, it's basics.

[Josh Levine]

Artist works has a free guitar 101 video class, then once you complete that you can pay to do Brian Sutton’s Bluegrass a guitar class which is excellent.

[Mark Gunter]

OK, so as not to get in trouble with sblock (or the bluegrassers here), I'll remind you what I wrote, "If you have an aversion to thumbpicking, etc." I certainly didn't intend to imply that anyone must use a Kentucky Thumbpicking technique to play bluegrass, only that studying Lester Flat's technique would be a good place to start ... perhaps not for a beginner, I don't know about that. I do use both thumbpicking technique and flatpicking at bluegrass jams. Also, note that both Doc Watson and Norman Blake were not bluegrass musicians though they are important to bluegrass, they're more my style than bluegrass and Doc Watson was one of the best thumbpickers as well as a flatpicker. You can't play Deep River Blues in Doc's style, or many of his other tunes, if you can't fingerpick.

"G", to answer your specific questions,

What should I start out practicing... should I just practice strumming chords and switching between chords?

Definitely you should practice strumming chords and switching chords if you don't already have the ability to do that well. The way to do that is to pick a song you know and learn the chords to go with that song. Practice the chords playing in time to the song, and learn to change chords smoothly. If you don't have that down already in your guitar playing, you should definitely invest in some instructional videos or find a teacher locally. Rhythm is all important, and whether you use a flatpick or any other means, you'll want to learn to play an alternating bass on the beat, a lot of that type music needs a sort of what we call a "boom-chick" pattern of rhythm playing. If you're actually starting at square one, you'll need a lot of help.

Any idea how to practice with a metronome?

Yes, but that's not something easily explained in a forum post. There are many videos on YouTube that approach that subject. The music you're interested in has a steady beat, and when you're practicing you'll use a metronome to "count time" so you can play with good timing on the beat. You can slow the metronome way down to practice slowly when you are just starting out.

What do you mean by thumb picking? Like not using a pick?

You can keep time playing bass notes on a guitar using your bare thumb, or a thumbpick like Lester Flat did, or using a flat pick like most guitar players do. Thumbpicking is a technique, it's also called finger-picking, fingerstyle, Travis-picking, etc. but Kentucky Thumbpicking emphasizes a bass pattern played with the thumb akin to Piedmont style blues. That type of picking influenced early country and bluegrass a great deal. It originated in blues music, was developed by many people in blues and country music, like Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Lester Flat, and others and has a lively following today in blues, folk, country and bluegrass music. Lester Flat had, I think, a profound influence on bluegrass, BUT thumbpicking is not necessary, and maybe not even desirable for many in bluegrass today, as sblock has pointed out.

IMO, if you know your way around the guitar, you can learn a lot just by watching, listening to and emulating players you admire - but it's always a good idea to pick up an instructional course or find a local teacher, if you're totally lost on where to begin.

[gtani7]

I was recently pressed to play for a fundraiser so I had to learn some rhythm guitar in a hurry. There's a few lessons on the web i liked, http://www.bluegrassguitar.com/rhythm.html

and https://www.premierguitar.com/articl...-rhythm-guitar

Just like on mandolin, you can get pretty far with a few major triads, D, G, A, E, some minor chords and occasionally a dom, 6th, sus or something fancy..

It takes some time to get smooth with these strum patterns flatpicking, so i stuck to mando and banjo but since I have more time now I'm going to work thru Happy Traum's BG Guitar book. I also have Tony Rice's book but that's waaaay beyond my abilities.

[Mandoplumb]

Yes Flatt did use a thumb pic but he was miles from Travis. He basically played rhythm with a thumb pick used as most folks use a flat pick. If you are learning BG guitar rhythm is what you should learn first. Boom chuck, heavy on the boom and always push the beat. A good BG rhythm guitar player is hard to find. As for lead about any style that you can drive will work. But don't think about lead until you can play rhythm.

[Denny Gies]

Mark is correct. Without having your rhythm down pat you cannot play bluegrass.

[Mark Miller]

I would strongly recommend Steve Kaufman’s book You Can Play Bluegrass Guitar. It is cheap—less than 20$ when I bought it—and works very systematically from basic strumming to bass note/ strum patterns to short bass runs to basic lead/melody playing. Along the way it also introduces lots of tunes from the core bluegrass repertoire. Check Amazon for it.

[Bunnyf]

If you really need to start from square one, Justinguitar.com offers free structured lessons. Not bluegrass but he can certainly get you going with the fundamentals of chords and strumming. When you get comfortable withe the basics you can go to youtube and get some tips on bluegrass rythym guitar technique (boom chuck) and add bluegrass songs to your practice sessions. Later on you might watch some vids on Carter picking and learn to add in a little melody line.

[Chuck Leyda]

Banjo Ben speaks bluegrass guitar. One price gets you all three schools (Banjo, guitar, and mandolin).
The new website is really well made and intuitive. Everything you need on one page. NFI but I think it's great. I think you get one lesson free when you register so nothing to lose.

https://banjobenclark.com/

[CarlM]

Learn the boom-chick strum and get it down more than solid. Make sure your bass notes are strong and emphasized and the strum is just a light brush on two or three strings. Bluegrass guitar is mostly rhythm though most guys work more on lead.

Learn the g-run. Bob Black once told me that the g-run is what makes a bluegrass guitarist and the best nail it every time. The tune below is on Del and Dawg live and the intro explains a bunch of g-runs, though I could not find the intro on youtube. A lot of instrumental breaks and leads in bluegrass are based on the g-run in different keys. The Del and Dawg Live cd could be a primer on how to play bluegrass guitar. It has the guitar up front and not a lot of clutter.

Modern flatpickers do a lot of lead and a lot more complicated rhythm. A lot of guitarists make the mistake of trying to start with that stuff before getting the pick and brush down. In a band or jam setting simpler strums are better. The Rice strums can muddy up the mix badly unless you are as good as Rice at it. Rice himself is a master rhythm player and his stuff with the bluegrass album band shows it.

Start learning to crosspick. That usually takes a couple of years, or more, to get down and longer to integrate into your playing. Learn the alternating roll first.

[Mandoplumb]

Tony Rice and Clarence White before him are great BG rhythm guitar players but no one should try to copy them until he has Lester Flatt, Charlie Waller and Jimmy Martin down pat, a minimum of about 50 years for most folks,

[UsuallyPickin]

A lot of good answers here. Bottom line you need good timing, the ability to change chords quickly and understand the use of a capo. Alternate the bass , the lower strings in a chord form, and learn to walk / play a bass line that moves from chord to chord. The keys of G and C are where you need to start working. I recommend listening to Doc Watson ….. one of the best flat pickers ever without a doubt his rhythm playing was always in the pocket and usually easy to hear and learn from. When you are ready for it https://www.homespun.com/shop/product/docs-guitar/ R/

[JonZ]

Do not spend a lot of time practicing rhythm...

• Playing rhythm is fairly easy.
• You will be practicing rhythm a lot at every jam you attend.
• There are usually too many people playing rhythm too loudly at jams. So, you will actually be improving your jam session, if you don't play rhythm at all.
• Ripping a face-melting solo is a lot more fun and the reason you want to play Bluegrass to begin with.

...unless you need to.

[Riffjiff]

Hello, I know this is a Mandolin forum, but I can't find a good Bluegrass guitar forum. Any suggestions are welcome.

I sort of played guitar about ten years ago. I would like to play and learn to play bluegrass. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to learn or start. I am basically starting from scratch. I have read practicing with a metronome is helpful.

1. What things should I be doing to learn bluegrass any videos (youtube) or sites to learn on?
2. How do you practice with a metronome?
3. Any other advice is appreciated

Thank you and God Bless,

Ok, a lot of good advice here, I've read most of the answers, great tips , but the one thing
everyone has avoided is: You have to know the so called "theory" aspect to what you're trying to learn. Without it your fingers or intellect won't really know what is happening or going on or what will work with what you're playing. Most people want to skip this part of the learning process, Big Mistake, learn a little at a time, start with leaning the MODES, everything your favorite pro guitarist plays, or mandolin player for that matter, is most likely going to start there. Good luck, lots of good videos on the internet, keep at it, P.S. This is a great web site to get info from, most all of the guys and gals on this web site probably play both Mando and flat top......

[Mandoplumb]

Do not spend a lot of time practicing rhythm...

• Playing rhythm is fairly easy.
• You will be practicing rhythm a lot at every jam you attend.
• There are usually too many people playing rhythm too loudly at jams. So, you will actually be improving your jam session, if you don't play rhythm at all.
• Ripping a face-melting solo is a lot more fun and the reason you want to play Bluegrass to begin with.

...unless you need to.

Playing rhythm correctly is not easy or there would be more people doing it
You're right there will be too many playing rhythm incorrectly and too loud. Does that mean you shouldn't learn
You're also right that playing solo is more fun but if no one learns correct rhythm where is the music.

[doublestoptremolo]

[*]There are usually too many people playing rhythm too loudly at jams. So, you will actually be improving your jam session, if you don't play rhythm at all.

.

Big jams like this would also benefit from fewer guitar solos, so everybody else doesn't have to play quiet enough for the guitar solo to be heard. So ideally the best thing you can do for a jam like this is to not play anything, take up upright bass (if there isn't one already), or hone your lead and harmony singing skills.

[farmerjones]

Seeing how the rhythm guitar is at the heart of a jam, I like referring these pages:

This is the jamming "homepage" in Pete Wernick's site:
https://www.drbanjo.com/new-jammers.php

This is a checklist of thing I or anyone would want to pass along. Why reinvent the wheel?
https://www.drbanjo.com/jam-skills-checklist.php

This is just a list of titles, but he's added where you can listen to each on Spotify.
https://www.drbanjo.com/instructiona...2or3chords.php


Metronomes -
I use a metronome to "polish" a tune/song. I will play along with it to check if I didn't learn something wrong. Sometimes we speed up or slow down according to how difficult a part/passage is. A metronome will reign you back in. Try to internalize timing from this. Nothing beats playing with a few folks, but it's becomes a bear if somebody is a time jumper.

[JonZ]

My comment about rhythm was (somewhat) tongue in cheek. But it also holds a kernel of wisdom, if I may be so bold.

I am reminded of discussions about getting the swing feel right in Jazz. Some people have to work at it, while others simply hear it and reproduce it. So, you get a lot of debate that is really just people saying what they, personally, found necessary.

The main thing is to practice what is hard for you, not what someone says is “important”.

[CarlM]

The main thing is to practice what is hard for you, not what someone says is “important”.

I had hoped and suspected you were kidding. There is some truth to what you are saying but he was asking for suggestions. The thing people mess up most with the least awareness that they are messing up is the rhythm playing. As you said too many people playing too loudly. And some of the best lead playing is an extension of the rhythm playing.