20 Bluegrass Licks

What’s it about?

In this JTC debut, Matteo Camera plays 20 licks and a full solo, all heavily influenced by the likes of Tony Rice, Billy Strings and Doc Watson. It’s bluegrass from Italy and it’s packed with takeaways for players of any background.

Each of the four backings is based on a different progression, giving you a range of contexts to apply your learning. The final solo acts as a test to bring it all together, and is crammed with lightning-fast pentatonic licks, bouncy open strings and picking challenges galore.

An introduction to bluegrass, a surefire way to improve your picking and a whole lot of fun. Proudly sponsored by Elixir Strings.

What will I learn?

Across the 20 licks, you will learn how to apply “cross-picking” for those burning arpeggios. You will combine it with open strings and throw in several chromatic passing tones for colour.

As you work on each of these pacey and punchy licks, you’ll also see how to interpret scales within the bluegrass genre. You will also focus on aligning melodies with the underlying chords and targeting chord tones with the changes.

Whether the solo or the licks, every bit of this release has been created to give you a solid foundation of the style, and the key technical and theory concepts within.

What theory is covered?

• Open strings
• Pentatonic scales
• Mixolydian
• Chromaticism

What techniques are covered?

• Alternate picking
• Cross picking
• String skipping

Who’s it for?

This is for players looking for something new. Be it your first step into the genre or another foray into a style you’re familiar with, Matteo’s debut will give you plenty to work on, and a ton of transferable skills.