Chords for Traditional bluegrass styles, and how to play “Over the Line,” part 1 - with Molly Tuttle

_ _ _ _ [G#m] _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Hey, I'm Molly Tuttle, and in this lesson I'm going to be showing you one of my songs
Over the Line and talking about bluegrass rhythm and flat picking tricks.
So this song I wrote with my friend Steve Pultz, and it's one of the more bluegrass-y
songs I've written.
It starts off with a chromatic kind of bluesy lick and then [G] goes into singing, and I usually,
when I play it solo, I'll take a couple solos on it.
But I thought it would be a good one just to talk about bluegrass vocabulary, maybe
do a bit of technique, and [E] talk about strumming as well.
So the lick starts off, I play it out of E, so I'm using a C shape.
_ _ _ [C#m] _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
So this first [B] part is kind of a chromatic part, and I'm [F#] doing little strums in between.
_ _ _ _ [G#] _ _ [E] _
So it's like a bass run that you might [A#] hear someone playing while they're playing rhythm,
or, _ yeah, I'm basically walking [D] up to the third, [D#] and then [C#] down from the second fret
on the third [G#m] string, [E] _ and strumming on the high strings in between.
_ [B] _ _ [G#] _ _
[G#] _ _ [E] _ _ [B] And then after that I go into a pretty standard-sounding bluegrass guitar lick. _
_ _ _ _ [E] _ And I remember that was really one of the first licks I ever learned on guitar when
I was starting to improvise.
And it helps to have this kind of vocabulary of different [C#] runs.
This to me sounds like a lick you might hear Clarence White play. _ _
_ _ _ So I'm sliding up into this _ two-finger shape here, [B] sliding up my third finger from the, _
if I'm just pretending this fourth fret with the capo on is the zero, sliding from the
third fret to the fifth [F#] fret. _ _ _
_ _ [G#m] Going [C#] five, three, five, [B] three, and then playing this flat third note.
So that creates kind of a blues sound that's very common in bluegrass.
_ _ [E] _ _ _
I'm [F#] going fourth fret, [E] open, and then back to the C. _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [G#] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ And this [F#] last lick, _ _ _ [E] _ again, that's, I remember learning some similar formation of that lick
when I was really young and just starting out playing fills [G] and learning to improvise
on bluegrass guitar.
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
So it's, _ [C#m] _ _ [F#] _ _
I'm hammering on on the second fret, _ and then doing a pull-off with my first finger.
And again we have [G] that flat third.
[C#] _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ So all together that lick sounds like this.
_ _ _ [D#] _ [C#m] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
[E] _ _ _ So [A#] doing, and then ending with the basically C chord equivalent of the G run.
[C#] _ [B] On the G chord we have.
_ If you listen to bluegrass, you've heard [E] that a million times.
So just playing that out of the C shape.
_ _ _ [G#m] So that's how I start the song, and then I go into a verse.
[F#] So we have.
_ [G#m] _ [C#m] _ _ _
_ _ [F#] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
I can't [A] stop once the rubber hits the ground.
[D] I'm bound [A] for Mexico.
[E] _ _ _ Sunlight wakes my sleeping head and [A] turns the [E] mountains gold. _
So the basic [B] strum that I'm using there is the boom check strum.
And we go starting on the fifth string, _ _ _ alternating fifth string, strum, six strings. _
And there's a few [D#] different ways to do this out of the C shape.
I like to just move my third finger back and [E] forth. _ _ _ _
And the reason I like that is so the bass notes don't keep ringing over each other.
I kind [B] of, if you listen to the bass on a song like this, usually you'll hear the bass
player kind of chopping off the notes.
You don't just let them ring over each other.
So I like to match that on the guitar. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
And what you want to do with the strumming part is create a really quick strum.
So you don't hear all the strings.
You're not raking across the strings, but rather kind of flicking your hand.
Like I like to tell students that it's almost like you're flicking water off your hand,
and that makes the strings all kind of ring out together in one big chunk, which creates
a really punchy sound that I like to go for.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
So if I'm keeping it at the same tempo and doing a [F] slower strum, [E] it's going to sound _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ like_
So _ _ _ it's _ [D#] a subtle difference, but kind of an important one.
And the other thing I think about is just not hitting all the strings.
So I'm not [E]
going_
_ _ _ _ _ Because I can really take up a lot of [B] space, especially when I'm singing.
I don't really want the guitar to be just taking up all the space, and it's harder to
hear the vocal [E] then.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[F#] And then in between singing lines, I might play a run, _ _ [B] _ that C run again.
Or the other thing I like to do is an accent strum.
So _ breaking away from just the all down picks, boom, check, boom, check, I'll add in an up
strum to kind of emphasize a certain part of the song.
And the most common pattern that I like to use for those is down, down, down, up, down.
_ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ So it's one, two, three, and four.
One, two, three, and four. _ _ _ _ _ _
So if I was playing it in a [F#] song_
_ [E] I can't stop once [A] the rubber [E] hits the road.
I'm [A] bound for [E] Mexico. _
_ _ Sunlight wakes my sleeping head [D] and turns the [E] mountains gold.
And I've [B] got one too many [A] times to you.
[B] One too [A] many tries [E] for you.
So you hear how I was putting it when I wasn't singing.
So I'm not playing really loud accents over my vocals, or at least trying not to.
But in between those lines, you can really bring up the [E] dynamics of the guitar playing. _
_ [C#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _