Understanding blues guitar can really improve your country and bluegrass guitar playing. In this guitar lesson, we’ll teach you the most common way to play the 12 bar blues and then we’ll go over six awesome blues turnaround riffs that will turn some heads at your next jam session.
In this lesson, we’re going to travel up the neck in the key of G using the 1st position hybrid country guitar scales. I’ll teach you the four main scales you need to learn in the 1st position and I’ll show you how to use these scales to get a country and bluegrass sound out of your guitar. Then I’ll show you some of my favorite country and bluegrass fill riffs in the 1st position key of G.
In the previous lessons of this course, I taught you several important strumming techniques that’ll make your rhythm guitar playing sound country and bluegrass. We covered the basics in lesson one of this series, and then we worked our way up to some fairly complex country bluegrass rhythm in later lessons.
In this guitar lesson, I’m going to show you seven different strumming patterns that will make your playing sound even more country. I’ll break down each strumming pattern in detail and then we’ll practice our country strumming over the classic country song “Write This Down” by George Strait.
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Rhythm Guitar Course Recap |
| 02:32 min | Down Beats and Up Beats – Pick and Strum Direction |
| 03:58 min | Strumming Pattern 1 |
| 05:06 min | Strumming Pattern 2 |
| 08:05 min | Strumming Pattern 3 |
| 09:50 min | Strumming Pattern 4 |
| 11:41 min | Strumming Pattern 5 |
| 14:23 min | Strumming Pattern 6 |
| 16:00 min | Strumming Pattern 7 |
| 17:14 min | Creating Your Own Strumming Patterns |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | How to Practice |
| 01:16 min | Intro Chord Progression |
| 02:22 min | Verse Chord Progression Breakdown |
| 04:27 min | Verse Chord Progression Playthrough |
| 05:06 min | Chorus Chord Progression |
| 06:35 min | Instrumental Break |
| 06:48 min | Helpful Tips, Bridge, and Ending |
Practice playing the seven strumming patterns we learned in this guitar lesson over the song “Write This Down” by George Strait. This song is great for practicing country rhythm technique because it’s played at a relatively slow pace and it has that classic country sound we’re focusing on in this lesson series.
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In this guitar lesson, I’ll teach you some short bluegrass licks that will get you started improvising your own bluegrass guitar solos. We’ll break down the licks with tablature and then I’ll show you how to use these licks to play a basic guitar solo over a common bluegrass chord progression. After you master the licks, practice the arranged solo and your improvising skills with the jam along video! If you like this lesson, check out our Bluegrass Lick Library.
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Overview |
| 01:56 min | Lick 1 – Breakdown with Tablature |
| 02:30 min | Proper Left Hand Fingering |
| 04:36 min | Lick 2 – Breakdown with Tablature |
| 05:19 min | Lick 3 – Breakdown with Tablature |
| 05:51 min | Lick 4 – Breakdown with Tablature |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Rhythm Progression |
| 01:27 min | Playing Bluegrass Licks over Rhythm |
| 02:37 min | Basic Bluegrass Solo – Measures 1 through 8 |
| 04:07 min | Basic Bluegrass Solo – Measures 9 through 16 |
| 05:32 min | Practice the Solo Arrangement with Me |
| 06:19 min | Wrap Up |
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Jam Track – Format |
| 00:43 min | Jam Track – Count In |
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