Hey Everyone! I’m going to start posting some random “back porch lessons” every now and then to give y’all some different things to work on. These casual lesson videos will cover a variety of things from guitar licks to songs. I will continue recording the usual in-depth lessons, but these will be random lesson videos in addition to the usual lessons. This first back porch lesson is a bluegrass lick that I use a lot when I’m in the key of G. Hope you like it!
In this guitar lesson, we’ll take a close look at some acoustic country guitar licks from “One Bud Wiser” performed by Gretchen Wilson in her documentary called Undressed. This documentary follows Gretchen as she walks you through her life on the road and proves that the music doesn’t stop once the show’s over. It’s a VIP pass to an intimate dressing room jam session with Gretchen’s band, crew, and anyone else that joins in. We’d highly recommend checking out this documentary on YouTube — you can buy or rent it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zU9jlsIXio. Throughout their jam session, Gretchen’s lead guitarist plays some amazing acoustic country guitar licks that are definitely worth learning.
After we study the guitar licks from “One Bud Wiser”, we’ll take a quick look at a couple chord progressions from this song that you can use to practice the licks.
IMPORTANT: We’re using key of A chords and guitar scales in this lesson, but we’ll have our capo on the 1st fret like Gretchen’s band.
We just wanted to post a quick video to show you the new Woodtone Picks that I helped design. Long story short, I prototyped and sampled a ton of different pick shapes, and finally settled on three triangle shapes that felt very comfortable to grip. These new Woodtone Picks are made of an upgraded celluloid plastic and we put a ton of effort into making sure the edges of the picks are super smooth for better tone and less pick scraping noise.
We’re extremely happy with how the picks turned out! I use them as my go-to guitar pick and I’d put them up against any of the other high-dollar picks on the market. I like all of the sizes, but my personal favorites are the .96mm Small Triangle and .96mm Medium Triangle picks. If y’all have any questions about them, just let me know!
Here’s a link to the new picks if you want to check them out:
In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a variation of the song “Nothing To It” written by Doc Watson in the style of Billy Strings. This song is loaded with some classic Doc Watson style guitar licks that you can use when you’re improvising guitar solos in the key of C. The guitar riffs and melody line walks in this song use some unusual note combinations which will really help push your flatpicking to the next level.
If this song is a bit out of your comfort zone, we recommend trying to learn it at a very slow pace. Focus on getting clean pick strokes, relax the grip on your guitar pick, and pick each note softly. This practice method will help you build the right technique and muscle memory — your picking speed and volume will develop over time. Overall, this is a great song for working on flatpicking technique!