In the previous lessons of this course, I showed you several techniques that will make your rhythm guitar sound more country and bluegrass. You learned how to play the most important strumming pattern in country and bluegrass music, and we practiced our strumming over some nice country bluegrass chord progressions and songs.
In this lesson, we’re going to make our strumming a bit more complex by adding country sounding accent picks and strums. I’ll break down the entire strumming pattern and show you how to play it over a few common open chords. Then we’ll apply the strumming pattern to a country bluegrass chord progression and practice strumming with a modern bluegrass song.
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Strumming Overview |
| 01:01 min | Strumming Pattern with Accent Picks and Strums |
| 02:35 min | Down Beats and Up Beats – Pick and Strum Direction |
| 03:34 min | G Chord – Bass Line Picks |
| 05:26 min | The Best Way to Play an F Chord |
| 07:24 min | F Chord – Bass Line Picks |
| 09:46 min | C Chord – Bass Line Picks |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Progression Overview |
| 00:56 min | Strumming Dynamics |
| 01:41 min | Strumming over a Two Measure Chord Group |
| 03:29 min | Bass Line Picks over a Two Measure Chord Group |
| 05:02 min | Listen to the Entire Progression |
| 05:40 min | G Chord Bass Line Hammer-on |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Listen to the Chord Embellishment |
| 00:52 min | Chord Embellishment Breakdown with Tablature |
| 03:02 min | Pick Direction |
| 04:44 min | Play the Chord Embellishment with the Progression |
| 05:46 min | Practice Tips |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | A Good Song to Use for Practice |
| 02:00 min | Lesson Recap |
Practice playing the strumming pattern and chord progression we learned in this guitar lesson over the song “Thorn Tree Shade” by Volume Five. Although the strumming pattern we learned in this guitar lesson isn’t the same exact strumming pattern you hear in “Thorn Tree Shade”, it blends very nicely with this song and I think it will be a fun way to practice this style of strumming over an actual piece of music.
The embedded player below is brought to you by Spotify — I’d highly recommend using Spotify for online radio. If you don’t have a Spotify account, click here to sign up FREE with your Facebook account or with an e-mail address.
wow great lesson as always!
thanks that helps a lot nice lesson : )
Your way of teaching is simple and easy to follow along. Thanks for the great lesson!!
very good lesson
Love the guitar
What is the model?
Thanks…it’s a 1998 Martin D-15. Back then Martin was still using solid mahogany backs and sides on the D-15. I think they’ve switched over to using sapele wood for on the newer D-15s — still a decent wood, but if you can find an older one with mahogany, that’s the way to go!
Thanks Devin will be joining up today I like your style of teaching
Awesome, thanks Terry! Looking forward to having you on board!
D15 mahogany martin
Very crystal clear teaching…thanks Devin!
Thanks Jocelyn! I really appreciate it.
Great Lesson! I am getting so much out of these lessons, and the progressions you are teaching make practicing very enjoyable. Huge thank you!
Thanks Dan, that’s great to hear! A lot of work goes into the videos so always nice to get positive feedback they’re helping out! Have a good one – Devin
really gonna have to take out the metronome on this one. It sounds so pretty sped up. I will get there hopefully.
In the lessons you have the tab shown as you play the lesson. There isn’t a PDF for practice. In my setup at home My computer isn’t in my practice area so I have to right everything down by hand or try and work from memory. Would be helpful if you could include a PDF
Thanks, Great lessons
Update on previous comment
I came up with a workaround for me. I use my snipping tool to copy the DN UP patterns and can use my Mini Pad to view them If I need to.
I have Macular Degeneration and need Magnification to see tab, etc anyway so I can cast the snips up on my large screen TV to see them better.
Loving the lessons. You’ve got this teaching thing down.
Nice! Sounds like you found a good method…and actually, we’re working on adding Chromecast to our video player and hope to have that launched sometime soon. Should be better so people can cast the videos straight from the site to their TVs. Glad you’re enjoying the lessons and thanks for the comment! Talk to you later – Devin
This one is gonna take some work, especially skipping strings. But I like these kind of drills that I can set a metronome and just go…..eventually it’s just happening without thinking about it.
Thanks Devin, my first day and I’m enjoying this immensely. You are passing on information that isn’t taught by many, none that I know of.
I found that chord embellishment a little tricky
Devin
Lové The chord embelisshments for this one. Would be great to get a lesson with hammer and pull off for country Music ..
another one helpful
Hey Devin, making very good progress with these strumming patterns, but in the process I fell in love with the sound of your mahogany D15. So much so, that I’ve just picked an old one up on ebay UK. It’s a 1998 D15 in good condition, but very much played in, and with a shiny lustre all over, it seems – it’s been played so much that the rosette decal has partially worn off, but there isn’t much fret wear or any other issues apparently. I’ll collect it on the 28th, as I’m in Milan for christmas now. We’ll see… Read more »
A great lesson, Devin. That’s what I always wanted to learn. You are an excellent teacher. You can break things down into smaller pieces in such a way, that I can follow you easily and learn the pic and strum pattern step by step. Thank you.
Hi Devin! This progression is in C major, am I wrong? This progression starts with the fifth degree follow by the fourth and finally the first one which is C….? So my question is: if I want to put some fills in it I would use for example the C major pentatonic which are: the C-D-E-G anA notes. Am I wrong? Thanks Devin for the explanations!
Hey Jocelyn! This one is actually still in the key of G…the G major pentatonic and G blues scales work well here. I hope you are doing well these days!
I thought it was in C major because you play the F chord in this progression, anyway have a nice day and I’m doing well for sure…take care!
Actually you are right that there is a little more to it because the F chord is played. To add some more music theory — you could also use the G Mixolydian Mode to solo over this song. The Mixolydian scale is basically the major scale but instead of a major 7th you lower it to a minor 7th..so in the key of G major, the seventh degree of the scale is normally the F#, but in G mixolydian you would lower the 7th degree to an F instead. I’ll attach a chart I found for the mixolydian scale in… Read more »
Thanks Devin for these specifications it really helps!
Hi Devin I tried to send you a song example with a F chord in a G progression but the (png) extension doesn’t work. The song is Keep the light on in the window by Ed Marsh song, transcribe by Joe Carr….I did a print screen on IPad.
Oups I did a print screen but the extension is a (png) and it seems that it isn’t working.
Like this lesson!
I have a paid Spotify account. I was paying $10 a month and 3 of my kids were paying $10 a month. I switched the whole coin and changed to a family account where I have 6 household members on one account for $14.99 a month. I never have any problems finding the song or artist I’m looking for. I also use the Bandcamp app/streaming service. Otis Gibb recommended it on his blog. Nice thing about Bandcamp is they pay the artist better and more consistently than Spotify. The big artists are all on Spotify. I like that Bandcamp sacrifices… Read more »
Been enjoying the trial so far! Honestly, can’t even remember how I stumbled on this site, maybe Google searched country strumming or something, but glad I did. Really enjoying the lessons so far, was getting stagnate with my strumming, so this has really spiced things up and giving me ideas. So thank you for your time and hard work to share your talent with us.
I did not know that type of picking was happening
Excellent lesson Devin
Terrific lesson today–every day! Your website is the first guitar instruction website that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and couldn’t wait to log in again to and start playing my next lesson. Bravo! (I keep thanking my neighbor for telling me about your website.)
That’s a great lesson Devin. You’ve got me sounding better than I thought I could. I missed something in this lesson though. You were very clear for the G chord which strings to pick (6 43 64 43 and showed it on the screen, but not for the F and C chords and it’s not in the tab either. Please help – I’ve tried to see what you’re doing but I can’t.
OK, I’ve figured it out. It was there after all. Thanks Devin, its a great course
Anyone, after you completed a lesson and mark it as complete, there use to be a visual showing completed vs. having to open the lesson and to see if you completed it.
It looks like the visual is still showing up on my end… are you talking about how the lesson thumbnail goes dark and has a check mark on the main lesson page here https://countryguitaronline.com/browse-all-lessons/ Can you try again and see if it works now? If it’s still having issues, maybe try clearing your browser’s cache. Let me know how it goes!