Lead Guitar – Page 15 – Country Guitar Online

Cripple Creek Traditional Guitar Breaks

April 13, 2025December 16, 2018 by Devin

cripple-creek-guitar-lesson-traditional-break

Lesson 8 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course

Course Outline Previous Lesson Next Lesson

Lesson ID: A0162

This is Part One of a two-part lesson series where we’ll work on lead guitar improvising in a country & bluegrass style. In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play two guitar breaks for “Cripple Creek” using the song’s traditional melody.

Then, in the Part Two of this “Cripple Creek” lesson series (coming soon), I’ll show you several different ways that you can use bluegrass guitar licks and crosspicking to modify the traditional melody to make your guitar solo breaks sound more interesting. Both of the guitar lessons in this two-part series will help you add that hard-driving bluegrass sound to your bluegrass guitar breaks.

Overview

Melody 1

Video 1 – Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Full Breakdown

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Breakdown – Measures 1 through 5
05:35 min	Breakdown – Measures 6 through 9
07:31 min	Recap – A Part
08:12 min	Breakdown – Measures 10 through 13
11:09 min	Breakdown – Measures 14 through 17
12:05 min	Practice the Entire Break with Me
13:46 min	Your Homework

Melody 2

Video 1 – Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Full Breakdown

08:02 minBreakdown – Measures 10 through 13

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Listen to the Entire Break
00:50 min	Breakdown – Measures 1 through 5
05:30 min	Breakdown – Measures 6 through 9
10:44 min	Breakdown – Measures 14 through 17
12:44 min	Practice the Entire Break with Me
14:53 min	Backing Track Practice Tip

Backing Track

Member Content

Guitar Melody Tablature Guitar Lick Library Woodtone Strings

Country Guitar Lick Library

April 13, 2025November 29, 2018 by Devin

Our Bluegrass Lick Library has been really popular, so I’m putting together a Country Guitar Lick Library that will cover a bunch of country artist signature licks. I’ll be adding several more country guitar licks to this library in the coming weeks in between recording the full-length guitar lessons.

I just posted the first six guitar licks in the style of Brad Paisley, and below you can watch a sample of Brad Paisley Guitar Lick 1. You can find the Country Guitar Lick Library at the top menu under “Lessons” and I’ll also add a link below this video. Later, I’ll post country guitar licks in the style of Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, and more. If you have an artist you’d like me to cover, you can send me your request in the Country Guitar Lick Library community forum thread.

Guitar Lick Library Woodtone Strings

Brown’s Ferry Blues

April 13, 2025November 9, 2018 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0161

“Brown’s Ferry Blues” was originally written in the early 1900s by The Delmore Brothers. Over the course of their careers, the Delmores wrote more than one thousand songs, including “Brown’s Ferry Blues”, “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar”, and “Fifteen Miles from Birmingham”. The Delmore Brothers grew up in a musical home as their mother, Mollie Delmore, wrote and sang gospel songs for their church. The Brothers blended gospel-style harmonies with the faster paced guitar parts of traditional folk music and blues to help create the still-emerging country genre.

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn a guitar arrangement in the style of “Brown’s Ferry Blues” by The Delmore Brothers. This particular arrangement is also inspired by Doc Watson and Billy Strings. We’ll cover an intermediate guitar break, an easier guitar break for the beginner country & bluegrass pickers, and the rhythm guitar progression. After you master the guitar arrangements, practice your picking over the backing track in the key of G.

Overview

Intermediate Break

Video 1 – Intermediate Break Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Intermediate Break Full Breakdown

Easy Break

Video 1 – Easy Break Playthrough with Tablature

Video 2 – Easy Break Full Breakdown

Rhythm Breakdown

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Chord Progression Overview
00:56 min	Instrumental Break Chord Progression
02:27 min	Chord Progression to Backup Vocals
05:09 min	Chords and Lyrics Example
12:23 min	Strumming Pattern 1
14:57 min	Strumming Pattern 2
17:44 min	Chord Transition Bass Line Walk 1
21:09 min	Chord Transition Bass Line Walk 2
23:36 min	Chord Transition Bass Line Walk 3
26:23 min	“Brown’s Ferry Blues” Song Structure

Backing Track

Intermediate Break TAB Easy Break TAB Rhythm Progression & Tips Bass Line Walks TAB Woodtone Strings

Using Country & Bluegrass Licks to Build a Solo

April 13, 2025October 19, 2018 by Devin

how-to-improvise-with-bluegrass-guitar-licks-a0160

Lesson 7 – Bluegrass Guitar Solo Improvising Course

Course Outline Previous Lesson Next Lesson

Lesson ID: A0160

In the previous guitar lesson in this course, I showed you five of the most common ways to build a guitar solo and we talked about several techniques that will help you improvise better guitar solos. We also discussed the first type of solo in detail — the melodic guitar solo.

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn about the second type of guitar solo where we’ll play stock country & bluegrass licks over the top of a standard chord progression. First, I’ll teach you four stock country and bluegrass guitar licks. We’ll talk about how to use these licks to play a hard-driving guitar solo in a country and bluegrass style. Then, I’ll show you some more of my favorite lead guitar improvising techniques. As you’re studying the concepts in this lesson, be sure to also check out the Bluegrass Lick Library and Guitar Scale Charts that we have available at Country Guitar Online. After you complete this lesson, practice your country & bluegrass improvising over the backing track to “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” in the key of G. Lesson tablature is available for download below the video.

Overview

Playthrough with Tablature

Guitar Solo & Improvising Tips

Backing Track

Member Content

Practice Solo Tablature Guitar Lick Library Woodtone Strings