20 Country Guitar Licks
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13 Comments View the complete lesson with tabs, video and explanations. RELATED CONTENT Brad Paisley Releases Cover Art and Track Listing for New Album, 'Wheelhouse' Interview: Vince Gill Discusses His Aptly Titled New Album, 'Guitar Slinger' Interview: Ricky Skaggs Discusses New Album, 'Music To My Ears,' and Working with Jack White Interview: Guitarist Pete Anderson Discusses His Next Album and Life as a Solo Artist Interview: Eric Church on Songwriting, Guitars and His New Album, 'Chief' Pickin' & Grinnin': 20 Tasty Country Guitar Licks Posted 06/04/2013 at 7:27am | by Gary Potter This sweet, pedal steel–like lick is built around sixth intervals played on nonadjacent strings and features lots of slipperysounding ascending and descending finger slides. Notice the halfstep approaches going into the A and E chords. The challenge here is to get all the notes to ring as close to the same volume as possible. You’re looking for a seamless transition from chord to chord, so practice it slowly at first and strive for a smooth flow of notes. This bouncy singlenote line [FIGURE 12] dances around chord tones with “upper and lower neighbors” and is perfect as a fill or for ending a tune. Take note of the position shifts involved, 2772 283 Search News Interviews Lessons Gear Blogs Girls Store Acoustic Nation Subscribe Features Video Reviews Artists Contests Photos Tabs Videos
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Guitar Country Licks
Transcript of 20 Country Guitar Licks
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View the complete lesson with tabs, video andexplanations.
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Brad Paisley Releases Cover Art and Track Listingfor New Album, 'Wheelhouse'Interview: Vince Gill Discusses His Aptly Titled NewAlbum, 'Guitar Slinger'Interview: Ricky Skaggs Discusses New Album,'Music To My Ears,' and Working with Jack WhiteInterview: Guitarist Pete Anderson Discusses HisNext Album and Life as a Solo ArtistInterview: Eric Church on Songwriting, Guitars andHis New Album, 'Chief'
Pickin' & Grinnin': 20 Tasty Country GuitarLicksPosted 06/04/2013 at 7:27am | by Gary Potter
This sweet, pedal steel–like lick is built around sixth intervals played on nonadjacent strings andfeatures lots of slipperysounding ascending and descending finger slides. Notice the halfstepapproaches going into the A and E chords. The challenge here is to get all the notes to ring asclose to the same volume as possible. You’re looking for a seamless transition from chord tochord, so practice it slowly at first and strive for a smooth flow of notes.
This bouncy singlenote line [FIGURE 12] dances around chord tones with “upper and lowerneighbors” and is perfect as a fill or for ending a tune. Take note of the position shifts involved,
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View the complete lesson with tabs, video andexplanations.
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Brad Paisley Releases Cover Art and Track Listingfor New Album, 'Wheelhouse'Interview: Vince Gill Discusses His Aptly Titled NewAlbum, 'Guitar Slinger'Interview: Ricky Skaggs Discusses New Album,'Music To My Ears,' and Working with Jack WhiteInterview: Guitarist Pete Anderson Discusses HisNext Album and Life as a Solo ArtistInterview: Eric Church on Songwriting, Guitars andHis New Album, 'Chief'
Pickin' & Grinnin': 20 Tasty Country GuitarLicksPosted 06/04/2013 at 7:27am | by Gary Potter
Exploring the world of country guitar is adiverse and exciting journey, one from which aguitarist of any background can benefit, whilehaving fun.
Modern country guitar is an amalgam oftraditional and notsotraditional playingapproaches borrowed from several relatedhomegrown American styles. As such, itincludes elements of blues, bluegrass, rockand roll, and even jazz, and it offers a tasty mixof expressive and challenging playingtechniques.
The key musical building blocks that formcountry guitar’s foundational vocabulary arethe major and minor pentatonic scales, themajor scale and the Mixolydian mode, majorand minor chords and their correspondingarpeggios, dominant sevenths and ninths, andthe judicious use of chromatic passing tones.
Mainstay country guitarplaying techniquesinclude flatpicking, fingerpicking and hybridpicking (pickandfingers technique); the
exploitation of open strings and licks played in the “open position,” which have a characteristic“twangy” tone; and lots of string bends and finger slides.
[[ For an interview with GW's King of Country Guitar, Brad Paisley, check out the May 2013issue of Guitar World. The issue also includes features on the 10 Essential Country ShredGuitar Songs, 10 Pieces of Gear Essential to Modern Country Guitar Tone and more!Check out the issue at the Guitar World Online Store. ]]
The goto ax for most country pickers is a solidbody electric guitar, particularly a Telecasterstyledesign, equipped with singlecoil pickups and fairly lightgauge strings (.009s or .010s). Moretraditional country guitarists, such as the legendary Chet Atkins, came of age playing a semihollowbody guitar equipped with humbuckers, and countryrock players, like the KentuckyHeadhunters’ Greg Martin, prefer Gibsonstyle, humbuckerequipped solidbodies.
Classic Americanstyle tube amps, such as vintage Fenders, are the rig of choice for manycountry guitarists. Most players eschew the use of hightech, highgain amps or psychedeliceffects and opt instead for a more “honest”sounding brightclean and/or “organically” overdriventone with some spring reverb and compression.
Interestingly, country guitarists tend to approach soloing in a way similar to jazz musicians, oftencrafting licks that either melodically describe the underlying chord changes via arpeggiobasedideas or emphasize chord tones. (By comparison, the rockoriented approach to soloing involvesfinding a scale or mode that “agrees with” a chord and playing licks and patterns based on thatscale.)
Country guitarists will often strive to emulate the signature licks of fiddle, banjo or pedalsteelplayers, cleverly borrowing a variety of techniques and musical approaches from these
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instruments and adapting them to the guitar. As is the case with any style, the best way to get agrasp of country guitar is to listen to its most celebrated pickers past and present and learn someof their signature licks and playing approaches. Check out oldschool country guitarists such asAtkins, Merle Travis, Hank Garland and Jerry Reed, acoustic bluegrass flatpickers like DocWatson and Tony Rice, and modern electric country players such as Albert Lee, Brent Mason,Brad Paisley, Johnny Hiland, Keith Urban, Jerry Donanue and Vince Gill, to name a few.
In this lesson, Guitar World presents 20 country licks designed to teach you how to play authenticcountry guitar. Each lick incorporates techniques and stylistic elements that are characteristic ofeither a specific artist or a subgenre of the greater country guitar style.
FIGURE 1, based on the A Mixolydian mode (A B Cs D E Fs G), with the minor third, C, added fora bluesy twist, is played in second position and utilizes lots of double and single pulloffs to openstrings, which create an instant countrytwang vibe. You’ll want a good, strong attack on thepicked notes, as this will give you plenty of momentum to make the pulloffs and hammerons asloud and clear as possible. When pulling off, be sure to pull the string in toward the palm as yourelease it.
The bend toward the end of the lick can be tricky to perform. Because it’s on the A string, you’llwant to bend the string downward, pulling it in toward your palm, as opposed to pushing it awayfrom the palm. (This is a good general rule of thumb when bending on the bottom two strings.)Make sure you’re bending the B note up a half step, to C, as indicated. You can check your pitchby comparing it to that of the unbent C note at the third fret. Use this lick as an ending to a solo orsong.
Performed with hybrid picking, FIGURE 2 cascades down the C major pentatonic scale (C D E GA) in fournote groups, with pulloffs used at every opportunity. The right hand alternates betweenplucked upstrokes with the middle finger and downstrokes with the pick. When plucking, reallysnap the string so that it smacks against the fretboard, producing a sharp accent, which will createthat signature country guitar “spank.”
This bluesy lick sounds great over an E or E7 chord. It incorporates doublestops (two notesplayed together), hybrid picking and the use of the f3 from the minor pentatonic scale, in thiscase, the note G in E minor pentatonic (E G A B D). Another way to reckon the f3 is as the s9,which is a very bluesy/jazzysounding alteredtension tone. Begin this lick on the upbeat of beatone, plucking the G and B strings together with your pick hand’s middle and ring fingers. Barreyour frethand ring finger across these strings at the 14th fret and pull it off to an indexfingerbarre at the 12th fret. Alternatively, you could fret the 14thfret notes with the tips of your ringfinger and pinkie. At the end of bar 2, bend the G string at the 12th fret up a quarter step bypulling the indexfinger barre slightly downward, in toward the palm.
This lick is commonly found in what could be referred to as a modern “country chacha” groove.Try to make all the notes in the first bar very staccato (short and detached) by releasing your frethand grip on each note immediately after you play it. The easiest way to perform the picking inthis bar is to attack the D string with the pick and the G string with the middle finger. To sound thedoublestops in bar 2, pluck the Bstring notes with your middle finger while simultaneously pickingthe G string with the pick. You can alternatively pluck the two strings with your middle and ring
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fingers. The challenging part is at the end, where you’ll want to keep the fifthfret E note on the Bstring ringing while bending and releasing the Cs note on the G string’s fifth fret. Try to get a goodpickhand attack on the bend, as this will give the notes momentum to clearly ring through therelease.
This is a common bluegrassstyle run in the key of G, played in first position and flatpickedthroughout, with the brief exception of a gracenote finger slide in bar 2. The second note, Df isthe flat five of the key, which is known as a “blue note.” Notice how the B and the Bf notes (themajor and minor third, respectively) ring together in bar 1, producing a fleeting dissonance. Thiscombined ringing of picked notes—called a floatie by bluegrass players—is a clever move thatemulates the ringing licks that banjo and fiddle players like to play. The slide in bar 2 is bestperformed with the middle finger.
This flatpicked singlenote lick outlines a C chord on the lower strings in first position. The line’sdancing contour and use of open strings, hammerons and pulloffs give it a nice rolling, swingingfeel. The f3, Ef, is added in a couple of places for a bluesy feel, and the move from F to Ef to E onbeat three of bar 1 (4f33) is a classic “hillbilly blues” move. Bar 2 jumps over to the G string witha bluesy tumble back down to the C root note.
This banjostyle lick is played with hybrid picking to better emulate the rolling sound of thatinstrument and facilitate the nearly continuous string crossing. The key here is to allow as manynotes as possible to ring together, so be careful to not inadvertently mute the open G string withthe sides of your fretting fingers. You may find it helpful to practice the lick in fournote segments,then put them all together.
Incorporating open strings into ascending or descending scales to create a harplike effect is acommon country guitar “trick.” This lick is designed so that, wherever possible, an open notereplaces a fretted note. To get that harplike effect, try to keep as many notes ringing together asyou can, at the same volume. Notice how the pattern moves across the strings in threenote“waves.” There are a couple of wide stretches involved, so make sure your fret hand is limberedup before attempting the lick, and ease into the stretches, angling your wrist as you see fit tooptimize your reach.
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especially in bar 2. Use whichever fingering feels right and doesn’t tie your fingers in knots.FIGURE 13 is a firstposition bluegrass lick that sounds equally good on acoustic or electric guitar.Flatpick all the notes that are not hammeredon or pulledoff, and strive for a seemless flow ofnotes. If you’re having trouble connecting the whole phrase, try practicing bars 1 and 2separately, and then put them together.
Demonstrating an approach often used by many of today’s most skilled country guitarists, this lickemulates the celebrated “weeping” sound of a pedal steel, with lots of oblique bends (a techniquein which one note is bent while another, unbent note is sounded on another string). Use yourpinkie to bend the B string in bar 1, supported by the ring finger, and use your ring and middlefingers for the Gstring bends. The final bend is a tricky halfstep bend with the middle finger.You’ll want the notes on the D and G strings to continue ringing while you bend the A stringupward with the middle finger.
An essential technique for country lead guitar, chicken pickin’ is an application of aggressivehybrid picking and left and righthand muting techniques that creates a henlike cluckingsound. Begin this lick by fretting the G string’s seventhfret D note with your ring finger, then pickthe string and bend it up a whole step with the assistance of the middle finger. Hold the bend andpluck the same note with the ring finger of your pick hand while muting the string with your frethand. This should produce a pitchless snapping sound (indicated in the notation by an X) as themuted string ricochets off the fretboard. The second half of the lick consists of a roll across the topthree strings with a held bend on the G string. Let all the notes ring together here until you pickthe final note, the A root.
This traditional Westernswing pedal steel–like chord phrase features a series of shifting triadswith chromatic approaches from a half step below. A good way to practice this lick is to first learneach chord shape and then add the slides. Pick each threestring group with the pick and yourmiddle and ring fingers to achieve a simultaneous note attack. It’s important that the slides,hammerons and pulloffs ring clearly. The C13 shape at the beginning of the final bar requires abit of a stretch. You might find this chord shape easier to finger with your thumb rotated furtherdown the neck to give you a little more reach.
This countryrock lick incorporates a mix of doublestops and bends similar to what Keith Urbanuses in a lot of his solos. Play the opening bends with your ring finger, supported by the middle.There is a quick position shift on beat three of bar 1, at which point you barre your index fingeracross the top two strings at the 10th fret. This part of the lick has a very percussive, yet flowing,fiddlelike vibe, with oblique hammerons and pulloffs on the high E string sounded together with
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alternatepicked 16th notes on the B string. End the lick in the same place it began, in seventhposition, with a bendrelease on the G string’s ninth fret followed by the D root note at the seventhfret.
This lick is a hybridpicked, “reverseroll” pattern with pulloffs that moves down the neckchromatically across two chords. A good way to practice it is by playing one beat, or four 16thnotes, at a time. Your index finger will barre across the top two strings in each position. Eventhough the lick is played over the chords G and D, there is a different implied dominantsevenchord substitution in each eightnote sequence (G7 C7 F7 Bf7) that will add color to any solo.
Inspired by Nashville “hiredgun” studio legend Brent Mason, this slick, challenging lick combinesthe use of hybrid picking, doublestops, hammerons, open strings and single and double pulloffs. Played over an A chord, bar 1 is built around the fifthposition A blues scale “box” pattern.Bar 2 has you moving down to second position with some openstring usage. Break this lick intopieces and slowly work it up to speed.
This is a flashy lick that combines the thirdposition G minor pentatonic box pattern with openstrings that serve to double notes played at the fifth fret, creating a slinky feel and unusualmelodic pattern with repeating notes. The pick hand pits the middle finger plucking the G string inopposition to picked downstrokes on the D and A strings, creating a lightningfast wall of notes. Atthe end of bar 2, the rhythm speeds up to 16thnote triplets, facilitated by the use of double pulloffs to open strings. The final note is a halfstep bend from Fs on the D string’s fourth fret up tothe G root note, which may be performed by either pushing or pulling the string with the middlefinger (supported by the index). For an interview with GW's King of Country Guitar, BradPaisley, check out the May 2013 issue of Guitar World. Also includes features on the 10Essential Country Shred Guitar Songs, 10 Pieces of Gear Essential to Modern CountryGuitar Tone and more! Check out the issue at the Guitar World Online Store.
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