Lesson 6 – Rhythm Fill Riffs and Lead Guitar Course
Lesson ID: A0094
Now let’s make your fills sound even more country! In the previous lessons of this series, we’ve seen how the 5th position key of G major and blues scales overlap. The next step is to combine these scales into a “hybrid” country/bluegrass scale. See the Charts tab below for a diagram of this hybrid scale.
In video 1 of this post, I’ll break down the scales and give you some extra pointers on how you can start to combine the major and blues scales. In video 2, we’ll go over several nice bass note chord transition fills that use this hybrid country scale.
Hybrid Scale
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Lesson Overview |
| 00:52 min | Hybrid Scale Breakdown |
| 07:51 min | Creating Chord Transition Fills |
Fill Riffs
| Video Start Time | Lesson Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 min | Video Overview |
| 01:35 min | Progression Round 1 – All the Way Through with Tablature |
| 02:04 min | Progression Round 1 – Detailed Breakdown |
| 08:33 min | Progression Round 2 – Detailed Breakdown |
| 12:12 min | Progression Round 2 – All the Way Through with Tablature |
| 12:36 min | Progression Round 3 – Detailed Breakdown |
| 16:44 min | Progression Round 3 – All the Way Through with Tablature |
| 17:12 min | Progression Round 4 – All the Way Through with Tablature |
| 18:01 min | Progression Round 4 – Detailed Breakdown |
Thanks for all the detail and hard work on this one Devin. Great lesson! I’m really enjoying this course.
Still really liking these lessons. Keep them coming!
Awesome lesson thanks man!
Such a good lesson
your a great teacher devin. thank you for making theses lessons possible.
Thanks 🙂
Thanks! This is starting to make sense how to get that country sound
Finnally someone to teach me in a way I can understand. Thanks Devin. 🙂
Thanks for watching!
So after having spent a few days, I’m really enjoying the course. I think you do an excellent job of patiently teaching both the techniques and the theory. The only thing I’d like to see you add is a full demonstration, without pausing. For instance, in this lesson tag on a video of you playing the entire four rounds, at speed or maybe slowed down just a hair, for people to practice all of them in context. Just a thought (and I know, more work for you). That said, this was money well spent.
Awesome, glad you’re putting the course to good use!…and thanks for the suggestion. I’ll keep that in mind on the future lessons. Maybe I can go back and add some practice tracks for these at some point.
relatively new picker here and sometimes when i have trouble with pull-offs or hammer’s.. i find it easier (a lot easier) to jst pick straight thru them. I’m thinking that after i learn the lick (or song) up to speed… i can always go back and work on those pull offs. The up/down pick strokes seem to fall in the same place either way… but i wonder if this is a bad idea? i mean, i’d hate to be making things harder for myself further on down the road?
I think it’s fine to pick straight through the notes when you’re learning all the licks. Nothing wrong with that at all. Honestly, sometimes I’ll play these same licks picking every note, and sometimes I’ll throw in hammer-ons and pull-offs in different spots. I added the hammer-ons and pull-offs to the practice tablature just to give the licks a little variety. It’s really good if you can build the speed to pick straight through the licks also because a lot of these bluegrass tunes call for straight picking. Always time to master the hammer-ons and pull-offs later. Think you’re on… Read more »
I had the same question. I thought I’d be messing myself up if I picked straight through. Thanks, and I will practice picking through as well as ‘ho’ and ‘po’. Good question.
Question 1 – Can you recommend a G Major Country jam track that can be used to practice along with your G – C – D – G chord progressions?
And Question 2 – if I use a G Major jam track, can I use ALL three scales – G Major, G Minor and G Minor Pentatonic?
I’ll see if I can find a jam track that I have on the site with the same chord progression in this lesson. This backing track here will get you pretty close https://countryguitaronline.com/12-bar-blues-country-twang-guitar-lesson/ I might go back and record a quick jam track for this hybrid country blues scale lesson at some point. You should be able to use the G major pentatonic scale, the G minor pentatonic scale, and the G blues scale over the G major jam track in most cases…especially if it’s a “bluesier” country jam track in G major. You’ll probably want to avoid the G… Read more »
Really appreciate the thorough reply – very helpful.
How would I go about downloading the backing track so I can save for future sessions?
You can bookmark the backing track by clicking the “Add to Favorites” button below the video and find it quickly at the top menu under Lessons > My Favorites. We’re haven’t enabled backing track downloads yet but we might sometime soon since several people have requested it.
Understand. Just as a FYI – if the jam track was available as a download – there are a number of audio packages that can play the track at various speeds based on percentages – so 50% or 120%. They also can play and loop between two points which help in terms of practicing a particular section of the music.
That’s kind of the benefit of watching the backing track videos here at CGO as a member…you can click the “-” and “+” buttons at the lower center of the video player to adjust speed and use the AB Loop button to loop between two points. Hoping that’ll be helpful for the jam track videos and for the Playthrough with Tablature lesson videos.
i can’t wait to be able to just play licks when i want. I have put lots of time in learning scales of all types. The problem is when it comes my turn to play a solo it sounds like I’m practicing scales. I’m trying to break out of this.
Progression 4 thé bar with D is so nice…thanks Devin….so fun to play!
Ive been playing for over 50 years and have even played in bands but never got past the rhythm section. After a few lessons here with you I have confidence Im not going to be embarrassed in the parking lot, in the very near future
“Look at this piece of sheet music..”
lol dude. Can’t help myself,
Phenomenal lesson, man!
Feel free to delete.
Your lessons own!
Loving this stuff and I’m happy with your ramblin’ as it’s pointing to where we’re going with this. It’s very much how I learned when I was a boy – we’d sit around and jam and someone would show everyone else something one of the older kids had taught them and we’d incorporate that in our playing. Only this is taking it one step further so we understand where it all comes from and can therefore improvise our own licks etc. Wish I’d taken it all a bit more seriously as a kid but that’s life! Thanks.