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Flatpicking Robert Johnson’s Blues Style

April 13, 2025August 12, 2016 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0087

Robert Johnson‘s unique combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent has influenced generations of musicians. He created his distinct sound on guitar with the thumb and fingers of his right hand. In this guitar lesson video, I’ll show you how to play a blues progression like Robert Johnson using a standard guitar pick in a hybrid picking style. I’ll break down the right hand technique, show you the chord progression, and give you other tips that’ll make your rhythm guitar sound more complex.

Chord Progression Woodtone Strings

Chet Atkins Hybrid Picking Progression

April 13, 2025August 10, 2016 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0086

In this intermediate guitar lesson video, I’ll teach you one of my favorite hybrid picking progressions in the style of Chet Atkins. Instead of using a thumb pick like Chet Atkins did, we’ll use a standard guitar pick in a hybrid picking style (pick in combo with the other fingers of your right hand). The pick will play an alternating bass line while the ring and middle fingers will pick up the melody notes. This picking pattern can be used with any chord progression.

Two Intermediate Country Guitar Riffs

April 13, 2025November 14, 2015 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0043

In this lesson you’ll learn two intermediate country guitar riffs. The great thing about these riffs is that you can play them separately or you can combine them to make one longer guitar solo. The goal here is that we’re continuing to expand your “bag of licks” so you’ll have several licks you can pull from when you’re trading lead back and forth at jam sessions. The more country/bluegrass licks you know the better you’ll be able to improvise your own guitar solos.

Lesson Video

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Lesson Overview
00:30 min	Riff #1 Play Through with Tablature
01:28 min	Upward Pull-Off
02:38 min	Traditional Flatpicking Style
03:03 min	Riff #2 Play Through with Tablature
03:53 min	Both Riffs Combined
05:17 min	Played at Top Speed

Guitar Tablature

Member Content

Lynyrd Skynyrd Style Blues Progression

April 13, 2025November 14, 2015 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0024

In this lesson we’re going to go over an awesome Lynyrd Skynyrd style blues progression that involves hybrid picking. If you’re new to hybrid picking, you might also want to check out my hybrid picking lesson series. In this particular lesson, we’ll focus on using the pick, middle finger, and ring finger.

Once you master this style, it’s really fun to use at a jam sessions. For example, when you’re playing the twelve bar blues at a jam, trading lead back and forth, you can use this hybrid picking style when it’s your turn to play the rhythm part. It always sounds great when you can start out strumming during one section of a song, then switch to a hybrid picking style during another section. This adds some variation that makes your music sound much more interesting to your listeners.