Musicians

In the "split break" at the end I do a lot of hammer on and pull offs and a rake....toss that in with alternate picking and that is pretty much all of it.

Even though both your teacher and I mentioned "Alternate picking" and how you should learn it, there are really never any songs that I know of that are exclusively alternate picking. You may "rake" here and there then go back to alternate picking, cross picking, or other styles. Discipline yourself enough to be true to alternate picking, but pop some other stuff in from time to time. You will jump in and out of picking styles just like you jump in and out of the major and minor pentatonic scales and major scale...it's really common.

What is cool about the song I linked for you, are those guitar parts are "mine". Mine as in I did not copy my parts from anyone as a whole but might have stolen a few notes here and there. You will find that for now all you really want to do is to learn how to play. Once you start learning how to play at a level that you are good enough to "gig", then all you will be doing is playing other folks stuff that you learned note for note....there are a million "Stevie Ray Vaughns", Hendriks, Claptons, and such out there...learn their stuff then come of up with your own, then you will get a real cool since of accomplishment.

I am not much of a fan of hard line "traditional" bluegrass. I am really a "hippie grass" type of guy. In the late 60's bluegrass got away from the major scale and really went into the blues scale as the main focus. It's real close to playing the blues and we operate pretty much in the same manner, but we do not bend any strings and will stay on the melody line. About the only time we get off the melody line is if we take a second break then it's kind of a free for all. The idea is that you proved your ability to hang on a melody line the first go round and you are now getting a second chance to do "free style". In the song I linked we had three lead breaks for the guitar, banjo, then mandolin, we had another spot for a break so we "split it" and let all three instruments make a statement that were off of the melody.

Good catch on the rake and hammer on and pull offs. I'd say you thought it was finger picking also because in some spots I was alternate picking over two strings.

Once you get your ear trained, can indentify intervals, and have a firm foundation on technique songs and stuff like identifying what someone just done will become a lot easier.

if you go at it pretty hard (say 30-50 hours a week) then in 2-3 years you will become a good enough musician to gig...that is with a strong base on scales, technique, ear training and the like....do not skip them, at least have the understanding of the theory and focus heavy on the technique and you will be playing your own stuff before you know it.