In this guitar lesson, I’ll teach y’all one of my favorite hybrid picking patterns that involves plucking a basic melody line with your fingers while the pick alternates between bass notes. This technique will prepare you for playing songs in the style of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. You can play this pattern over just about any chord and it’s useful for country, folk, bluegrass, and blues guitar. First I’ll teach you the hybrid picking pattern and then I’ll give you tips as we work through the practice progression. Download practice tablature below the video, and after you master the hybrid picking pattern, play along with the practice video!
Devin
Hybrid Picking Rhythm with Chord Embellishments
Up until this point in our hybrid picking course, I’ve taught y’all a few of my favorite hybrid picking patterns that you can use in country songs as a replacement for strumming. In this lesson, I’ll show you some nice chord embellishments that will make your hybrid picking rhythm sound more interesting. First, we’ll work through a 16 measure long practice progression that’s loaded with chord embellishments. After you master the progression, practice along with me at two different speeds!
Bluegrass Guitar Solo over Song by The Grascals
In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn two full-length guitar solos over a common bluegrass chord progression. The first guitar solo is a basic solo with a nice melody that will push your pick control to the next level. The second guitar solo is slightly more advanced and loaded with some awesome bluegrass licks. Throughout the lesson, we’ll also talk about how guitar scales are used to create each of these solos. After you master the solos, practice them over the instrumental break in the song “Where I Come From” by the Grascals.
Practice with The Grascals
Try to play these two bluegrass solos over the song “Where I Come From” by The Grascals using the embedded player from Spotify. A nice instrumental break starts around 1:17 in this song. We’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. Also, check out The Grascals on iTunes. They’ve got a ton of other great songs to choose from.
Country Hybrid Picking with an Alternating Bass Line
In this lesson, we’re going to add more to the country hybrid picking pattern that we studied in the previous lesson of this series. We’ll get comfortable alternating the bass line with our pick which will get you ready to learn some of the more difficult hybrid picking patterns that we’ll be covering later in this course. After you learn the pattern, try practicing it over the chord progressions of your favorite country songs.
