Embarking on the journey of Bluegrass Guitar playing can be incredibly rewarding, and the right learning resources are essential to your success. For aspiring bluegrass guitarists seeking a comprehensive and effective method, look no further than Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer. This meticulously crafted book, born from four decades of teaching experience, has become a cornerstone for countless bluegrass musicians, including award-winning players.
This 96-page spiral-bound book is more than just a collection of tunes; it’s a thoughtfully structured lesson program designed to guide you from beginner basics to bluegrass proficiency. The primer distinguishes itself by presenting material in a graduated fashion, ensuring a smooth learning curve and building a solid foundation in bluegrass guitar techniques.
Within the pages of Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer, you’ll discover a balanced repertoire featuring both classic fiddle tunes and engaging bluegrass breaks tailored for vocal pieces. This dual approach not only expands your musical vocabulary but also equips you with the skills to excel in both instrumental and vocal bluegrass settings. To further enhance your rhythmic understanding, select pieces include dedicated rhythm pages, offering insights into authentic bluegrass chord voicings and runs, vital for mastering the genre’s distinctive groove.
The book also bridges the gap between learning and inspiration by including transcriptions of recorded solos from bluegrass legends. Alongside these invaluable transcriptions, Jack Tuttle’s original arrangements, specifically created for teaching purposes, provide clear and accessible pathways to mastering bluegrass guitar. Furthermore, Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer extends beyond tunes, incorporating essential elements such as scales, arpeggios, pick exercises, chord diagrams, tag endings, and a page dedicated to commonly used bass runs. This holistic approach ensures you develop well-rounded bluegrass guitar skills. Catering to diverse learning preferences, the book is presented in both standard music notation and tablature, making it accessible to all levels of musical literacy.
To truly appreciate the quality and accuracy of the transcriptions within Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer, downloadable PDF samples are readily available on Jack Tuttle’s transcription page, allowing you to preview the book’s meticulous detail firsthand.
Explore the Rich Repertoire: Table of Contents and Audio Resources
To complement your learning experience, each tune within Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer is accompanied by audio files, accessible via the links in the Table of Contents. This feature allows you to hear the tunes played correctly, aiding in your understanding of rhythm and phrasing. Additionally, a curated Spotify playlist featuring versions of the songs provides further listening inspiration and context.
Table of Contents with Audio Links:
- Boil Em Cabbage Down: simple fiddle tune for working out pick direction rules G
- Long Journey Home: playing melody with chords filling the spaces G
- Old Joe Clark: easy fiddle tune for more pick direction practice G
- The Girl I Left Behind Me: easy fiddle tune in G
- Bury Me Beneath the Willow: melody break with more strumming G
- Bury Me Beneath the Willow (rhythm): Strumming with standard bass runs
- Soldier’s Joy: easy fiddle tune played out of C
- Soldier’s Joy (rhythm): chording with standard bass runs out of C
- Sittin’ on Top of the World: melody based solo with some strumming G
- Sittin’ on Top of the World (rhythm): demonstrates the “accent strum” common in bluegrass G
- Jaybird: easy fiddle tune for working on pick direction on off-beat 8th notes D
- Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: another melody with strumming, more sophisticated
- Arkansas Traveler: fiddle tune out of C with some longer 8th note runs
- The Bluebirds Are Singing For Me: solo for vocal piece, longer 8th note passages C
- Wildwood Flower: classic melody based solo out of C
- Red Haired Boy: fiddle tune with more notes
- Sweetheart You’ve Done Me Wrong: a bit of cross-picking out of C
- Liberty: notey fiddle tune C
- Before I Met You: solo for a Flatt & Scruggs waltz
- Swallowtail Jig: 6/8 jig, not really bluegrass, but worth knowing how to play
- June Apple: fiddle tune played out of A (no capo)
- I’ll Fly Away: common song, getting a bit more advanced now
- Forked Deer: cool popular fiddle tune out of C
- Gonna Settle Down: Flatt & Scruggs song, upping our game G
- Whiskey Before Breakfast: standard fiddle tune out of C
- Whiskey Before Breakfast (rhythm) some alternative ideas for rhythm playing
- Cherokee Shuffle: popular fiddle tune G
- Cherokee Shuffle (rhythm): getting away from alternate bass playing G
- Foggy Mountain Top: a more sophisticated approach to playing melody G
- St Anne’s Reel: standard fiddle tune with lots of arpeggios C
- Bill Cheatum: standard fiddle tune with some more complex ideas G
- Bill Cheatum (rhythm) more BG rhythm guitar ideas G
- Molly and Tenbrooks: Bill Monroe song, melody with more bluesy ideas G
- Squirrel Hunters: trendy fiddle tune D
- Dark Hollow: common song out of C
- Dark Hollow (rhythm): more BG rhythm ideas for C
- Salt Creek: notey fiddle tune G
- Clinch Mountain Backstep: Ralph Stanley modal banjo tune with extra beat G
- Short Life of Trouble: fast waltz G
- Short Life of Trouble (rhythm) more BG waltz ideas G
- Billy in the Lowground: common fiddle tune out of C
- Down the Road: solo for Flatt & Scruggs song
- Cripple Creek: a tune everyone should know G
- I’m Blue I’m Lonesome: some more cross-picking C
- Lonesome Road Blues: up tempo vocal or banjo song G
- Angeline the Baker: fiddle tune out of D
- Worried Man Blues: upping the game for vocal style solo
- Ragtime Annie: common fiddle tune C
- I’m Waiting to Hear You Call Me Darling Flatt & Scruggs song D
- Big Mon: classic Monroe fiddle tune G
- Blackberry Blossom: one of the more difficult fiddle tunes G
- Pretty Polly: modal song with more advanced solo G
- Turkey In the Straw: common fiddle tune everyone has heard G
- I Wonder Where You Are Tonight: Flatt and Scruggs getting more complex now D
- Foggy Mountain Special: Scruggs banjo tune, a bit of a swingy approach
- I’ll Never Shed Another Tear: Flatt and Scruggs song, lots of notey runs
- I’ll Never Shed Another Tear (rhythm) more ideas for BG rhythm
- It Takes One to Know One: Jimmy Martin waltz with downpicking
- It Takes One to Know One (rhythm) some of Jimmy’s ideas here
- Little Maggie: modal song, lots of bluesy scale runs
- Cumberland Gap: one Scruggs made popular on banjo
- Paddy on the Turnpike: common fiddle tune, based on playing of Clay Jones
- Man of Constant Sorrow, tons of blues ideas D
- Kentucky Mandolin: Monroe mandolin tune played out of Em
- Salty Dog: less melody, more scales, circle of 5ths chord progression G
- Carter’s Blues: from the playing of Larry Sparks, using mostly downpicks
- Fire on the Mountain: common fiddle tune with some syncopation A
- In the Pines: common old waltz, sophisticated soling D
- In the Pines (rhythm) more ideas for BG rhythm on a waltz D
- Head Over Heels in Love With You: Flatt & Scruggs song, getting more advanced
- East Virginia Blues: common song, some cross-picking but a bit of everything here
- Gold Rush: classic Monroe fiddle tune
- Toy Heart: Monroe song, lots of melody but also some longer 8th note runs with syncopations
- Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow: fairly advanced solo
- Highway of Regret: Stanley Brother song with lots of blues notes
- Beaumont Rag: transcription from Jeff White, off an Alison Krauss album
- Rebecca: common mandolin tune by Herchel Sizemore
- Blue Ridge Cabin Home, Tony Rice solo (no melody here!)
- Blue Ridge Cabin Home (rhythm)
- Think of What You’ve Done: Stanley Brother song, transcription of Bryan Sutton from Ricky Skaggs album
- Tag Endings: for ending fiddle tunes
- End Licks (vocals): how to take a song home at the very end
Note: Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer is the updated and renamed version of Jack Tuttle’s Bluegrass Guitar Collection, vol 1. If you are searching for the MP3s for the earlier book, they are still accessible here.
For anyone serious about mastering bluegrass guitar, Jack Tuttle’s Guitar Primer stands out as an indispensable resource. Its comprehensive approach, coupled with the author’s decades of teaching expertise, provides an unparalleled learning experience. Whether you are just beginning your bluegrass journey or seeking to refine your skills, this book offers a wealth of knowledge and musicality to guide you towards your bluegrass guitar goals.
