Finger Style – Country Guitar Online

Country Blues Travis Picking – 12 Bar Fingerstyle Workout

May 9, 2025 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0224

This 12-bar fingerstyle guitar workout is a great way to develop your acoustic picking skills in the country and blues tradition. It’s a fun and challenging Travis Picking riff with that classic country blues feel—perfect for players who love the sounds of artists like Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, or Mississippi John Hurt.

The riff features an alternating bass line played with your thumb (I’m using a thumb pick, which helps get that punchy, percussive tone), while your index and middle fingers pluck melody notes in between. It’s a loopable 12-bar progression that makes for a solid warm-up or focused practice routine.

You can download the full tablature below the video and follow along. If you’re an acoustic guitarist wanting to dig deeper into fingerstyle country, blues rhythm guitar, or solo bluegrass flatpicking, sign up today to unlock all of my premium guitar lessons and tablature here at Country Guitar Online.

12 Bar Fingerstyle Workout TAB Woodtone Strings

Bluesy Country Drop D Fingerstyle Riff

April 11, 2025February 9, 2023 by Devin

bluesy-country-drop-d-guitar-riff-fingerstyle-a0217

Lesson ID: A0217

In this fingerstyle guitar lesson, you’ll learn a really fun bluesy country drop D guitar riff. First, we’ll play through the riff slowly with tablature on the screen. After that, we have a full breakdown of the riff with extra guitar playing tips that you won’t want to miss.

In the later portion of this lesson, we’ll talk about fun ways to add dynamics to your fingerstyle so your playing sounds more interesting. We’ll also cover some really valuable improvising ideas that will help you get creative as you’re practicing with this lesson’s backing track.

Learn the Riff

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Listen to the guitar riff
00:38 min	Lick played at a slow tempo with TAB
01:46 min	Full Breakdown with Extra Fingerstyle Tips
11:06 min	Fingerstyle Technique Discussion
13:49 min	Guitar Riff Improvising Tips

Backing Track

Member Content

Guitar Riff Tablature Woodtone Strings

Fingerstyle Delta Blues in Double Drop D Tuning

April 11, 2025April 5, 2022 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0207

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn a 12 bar fingerstyle delta blues progression in double drop D tuning (DADGBD). This progression is best played at a slow speed and it has a really nice bluesy sound. We’ll work through the tablature two bars at a time until we cover all 12 bars. At the end, practice the 12 bar blues progression with me.

Pay close attention to my thumb that plucks the bass note line. The thumb plucks the bass note on each quarter note count and we’ll play various melody notes in between the bass line with our pointer and middle fingers. Overall, this is a great lesson for working on fingerstyle blues guitar.

The tablature download is available below the lesson video.

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Listen to the delta blues progression
00:46 min	Line 1 – Bars 1 & 2
01:39 min	Line 1 – Bars 3 & 4
02:33 min	Line 2 – Bars 5 & 6
03:26 min	Line 2 – Bars 7 & 8
04:17 min	Line 3 – Bars 9 & 10
05:08 min	Line 3 – Bars 11 & 12
06:05 min	Practice all 12 bars with me

Guitar Lesson TAB Woodtone Strings

Fingerstyle Guitar Inspired by Colter Wall

April 11, 2025November 3, 2020 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0191

In this guitar lesson, we’ll work on some bluesy country fingerstyle guitar that’s inspired the song “The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie” written by Colter Wall. First you’ll learn the main chord progression that we’ll use to practice this type of fingerstyle guitar, and then we’ll work through a nice fingerstyle intro riff and a short instrumental break. During most of this guitar lesson, we’ll use a thumb pick to play an alternating bass line while we use our pointer and middle fingers to play a treble melody line in between the alternating bass notes. Also, be sure to follow Colter Wall on YouTube and you can find more of Colter’s music on his website.