Country guitar lessons in these days of the world wide web are now popular all over the world. If you are wondering what the fuss is about I will just mention some aspects of country guitar playing that excite the interest of music fans and guitar enthusiasts alike. This article will focus on a couple of the more individualistic guitar styles in country music and also talk a little about the Telecaster – the country musician’s guitar.
First let us look at a guitar style that has entered the country genre through blues and rock. The slide guitar, also known as the bottleneck guitar is a lyrical way of expressing feelings through guitar music. It was developed in the early twentieth century by the early blues players, and popularized by young white rock and blues players in the nineteen sixties. Now there are many country guitar players who see the musical possibilities in this style of playing. The key to this technique is sliding an object along the guitar strings to make a whining or wailing sound. This presents the guitar player with many opportunities to play notes that fall between the frets of the guitar as well as imitating the sound of a singing voice.
The term “bottleneck” refers to the practice of many slide guitar performers of producing the sliding sound by fitting the neck of a bottle to their first or second finger. Popular wisdom has it that other players used the blade of a knife. Modern slide guitar players usually go to a music shop and buy a slide. You can play slide guitar with the guitar held in the normal playing position or with the guitar in your lap. A player can use an ordinary steel string acoustic guitar tuned in the standard way or to an open chord, or a resonator guitar which has a distinctive metallic sound well suited to slide playing.
Another guitar style used by country guitar players is chicken pickin’, developed to high art by Walon Jennings. It is used in lead guitar solos and involves the guitar player pulling on the string with his right hand fingers and at the same time damping the string with his left hand. Most country guitar players use a plectrum or thumbpick to play bass notes in conjunction with chicken pickin’ on the treble strings.
Chet Atkins is a country guitar player who was adept at the chicken pickin’ technique but he was most well known for his adaptation of the Travis picking technique. Merle Travis developed an impressive solo playing technique using his thumb to pick bass notes and his index finger to play melody or filler notes. Chet Atkins was so impressed with Travis’ solos that he assumed that Travis was using his second and ring fingers in addition to his index finger. This mistaken assumption led to a whole new generation of country guitar players inspired by the Chet Atkins style.
If you want to take country guitar lessons you should learn about the typical sound that is associated with country guitar music. While rock and roll has as many sounds as there are guitar players, country guitar has its own sound. This is due to most country players opting to stay with the clean, unadorned sound of the Fender Telecaster. The “Tele” had a sound that made aspiring guitar players sit up and take notice combined with a design that made it a dream to play. It is a solid body electric guitar with two pickups, and was the first electric guitar to be successfully produced and sold on a large scale.
In the early days of the electric guitar both rock and country guitar players wanted to be heard by the audience without feedback interfering with the sound of the guitar. The Telecaster filled the bill when it came out in 1950 and has remained a popular choice for solo guitarist ever since. Country guitarists noted for being enthusiastic Telecaster players include Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, James Burton and Merle Haggard.
Ricky Sharples
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Guitarists of all genres: what do you think of this Guitar Player list?
This list was featured in the October 2007 issue of Guitar Player and is called "The Top 40 Common Newbie Guitarist Mistakes."
It was made up by Harmony Central Forum Members and, in the issue of GP, is not numbered–I just numbered them so you can say which numbers you agree with (or disagree with), instead of the whole statement.
1. Investing in distortion boxes instead of a good amp.
2. Learning 100 intros and no songs.
3. Limiting yourself to one style of music–usually metal.
4. Not taking the time to learn music theory.
5. Playing "Smoke on the Water" on the high-E string.
6. Playing too loud, and with too much distortion.
7. Setting your amp’s Gain on 10, and Mids on 0.
8. Relying on picks.
9. Not learning how to perform a basic setup.
10. Not maintaining your gear.
11. Not jamming enough with other players.
12. Over use of legato with a complete disregard for tempo.
13. Poor phrasing.
14. Weak vibrato.
15. Buying too many effects.
16. Listening to tone snobs.
17. Immediately launching into thirty-second-notes during a blues solo.
18. Thinking that playing the local bar circuit constitutes a "tour."
19. Believing that opening for a national act means you’re on your way.
20. Not knowing the difference between tube watts and solid-state watts.
21. Relying too much on printed music and tabs.
22. Thinking a year of lessons and $5,000 worth of gear makes you ready to play in a band.
23. Wearing the guitar way too low.
24. Using too much hand/finger pressure when fretting.
25. Taking guitar lessons from a friend.
26. Giving up immediately because you sound like dog doo.
27. Not learning how all your gear works.
28. Tuning every guitar at Guitar Center to dropped D, and then not returning them to standard pitch.
29. Bringing full stacks to tiny bar gigs.
30. Saying, "All [insert hated style of music] sucks, dude!"
31. Learning with your eyes, instead of your ears.
32. Not learning to play in time with good groove and feel.
33. Not investing in good earplugs for playing loud gigs.
34. Obsessing about playing burning solos, and not caring about rhythm guitar.
35. Thinking that playing fast pentatonic-box patterns makes you a hot guitarist.
36. Not putting casters on viciously heavy amps.
37. Wearing bowling shirts emblazoned with flames and dragons.
38. Realizing guitar is too difficult and taking up bass instead.
39. Spending more time on Harmony Central than actually practicing.
40. Forgetting that playing music is meant to be fun.
Personally, I actually agree with a lot of this. I mean, how many times have you acted out #30? I have heard so many people say that country sucks just because it’s country. I’ve also heard someone say that they hate jazz. And then, I completely agree with #3. A lot of guitarists do limit themselves to one style of music and, like this list said, it tends to usually be metal. Very rarely will you see a guitarist like the late Danny Gatton who could play ANY style from rock and blues to jazz and country and even rockabilly. It also seems that guitarists who are known as country guitarists are more willing to listen to and play other genres. Take Brad Paisley and Brent Mason, for example. Both are great country guitarists, but they can both play jazz and blues very well. I’m not sure about Mason, but Paisley can even play surf rock and rock (Eric Johnson-style, from the short clip I’ve heard) and just about anything else he wants. #15 is another great one. A lot of guitarists do buy too many effects. Henry Garza–from the Los Lonely Boys–only has a Vox V847 wah and an Ibanez Tube Screamer. I find that spectacular, considering many modern guitarists just want to get as many effects pedals as they want. Even I tend to want a lot of effects from the Keeley-modified Boss BD-2 Blues Driver and the Keeley Compressor to the Vox V847 wah, the Visual Sound Route 66 Overdrive/Compression and a lot more than I’m listing.
What do you think of "The Top 40 Common Newbie Guitarist Mistakes" list? What do you agree with and what do you disagree with? Also, what would you add to the list?
haha, i agree with most of them, especially 21, 22, 26, 34, and 39. They are the oness i see the most with people. I don’t agree 100% with number 2. I think that learning many different soloing riffs help improvising a lot. But learning no songs is going to get you nowhere. back in the days when i got my first guitar i was guilty of 39. but that didn’t last long b/c i knew that no practise = no progress. I believe that most kids now, start guitar to get the girls, be cool, etc. and they end up running into number 26. there are those that dream and those that work at it, so motivation is the key to success.
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