Let’s do some scale review on our major and minor pentatonic scales. Here, we’ll review them in all five positions. Once you feel comfortable with the positions, it’s important to explore different keys with these scales. Here we have a C major scale, and we’ll apply some common bent notes of the scale. Note that in country music, all six strings can be used for bending into notes, but more commonly you’ll find the 1, 2, and 3 strings being used. In this example when ascending, you’ll bend into the D to the E on the 3rd string, G – A on the 2nd string. When descending we’ll incorporate some “pre-bends”—these are notes that start with the string already bent, in which the bend resolves to the next note. For this example descending, we’ll have the B, 2nd string resolving to A 2nd string 10th fret; E – D, 7th fret, 3rd string; and F – E 5th string, 7th fret. You’re basically playing a chord progression with a descending bass line incorporating voice leading with the top note of the chord (the leading tone) and embellished by a whole- or half-step bend. If we release the pressure of our fretting hand fingertips immediately after playing it, we get this sound. In swing eighths, the first eighth note of each pairing is longer and the second eighth note of each pairing is delayed or “felt” later in time. The most common description is a triplet without the middle note. If you count “1 trip-let 2 trip-let 3 trip-let 4 trip-let,” and take out the “trip” of each grouping, you have approximated the swing feel. Sometimes, based on genre and feel, the swing subdivision can be called a shuffle. Generally speaking, in a shuffle feel, each second note of the pairing is even more delayed than in a swing feel. For charts, the convention is to write regular eighth notes, even though they are performed in this “long-short-long-short” way.

Always have at least two fingers behind the note you’re bending: Reinforcing the note with more fingers behind it will give you a stronger-sounding bend, and will really make hitting the note you’re bending to much easier. For this example we’ll be playing a C major scale using the 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 strings, ascending from 3rd fret to 8th. The following article on country music guitar techniques is excerpted from the Berklee Online course Country Guitar.

Travis Picking

Practice this rhythm using down up strums, focusing on consistent timing. Once you feel comfortable with the triplet feel in your eighth notes, we can add the low-end bass part. There’s not one correct answer to this question. If there is an answer, it would be all of them. This can be confusing, but in essence, you tend to use a combination of pentatonic, major, minor, blues scale, modes—major, Mixolydian, minor, natural minor, etc. It ultimately depends on the chord progression or the harmony of the song. Is it in one key? Does it modulate? How long does it stay on the I chord before going to the IV or V chord? All of these variants will determine what scale works. And it’s up to you to decide what kind of “color” sound or mood you want.

Much of the signature sound in traditional country music comes from having a pedal or lap steel guitar in the band. The sound of bending into notes is a key element in country guitar playing. Always have the pitch in your ear before bending. When working on your bends, it’s a good idea to play the note you’re bending to first, by fretting the note, then bending into the note.Older hens generally feel more heavy and solid, unless they develop one of the conditions that cause an aging hen to lose weight. As a hen ages, she will tend to be less active, moving less spryly than she once did, and she will often walk a little stiffly. In all genres of music, there are songs that survive the test of time. These standards are used as the springboard for building a repertoire in a style. In this time we have together we’ll explore a few songs that I feel every aspiring country music guitarist should know. (There are many, many more in the 12-week version of my Country Guitar course!) Over time, these songs have been interpreted in many different ways, and this versatility makes them great tools for developing your chops and your own style. We’ll explore some notable approaches by listening to different versions of each song discussed, and explore how each song lends itself to practicing techniques and tools needed to build a country guitar repertoire.