I've recently found an old Country guitar tuition dvd in my library. So thought I'd put it on and have a go. I'm mainly a Blues/Rock guitarist so my guitar set up is set up for this. So that means in my case I use 11s on my les paul which creates problems with some bends using the first finger on some double stops in this country style. I guess the answer is country guitarists use a lighter string gauge?
Another thing I noticed in this particular DVD is all the demos are in A and use open strings in pull offs up the neck. It would be hard to pull them off if it was in another key. Is A the most popular key for country?
I am by no means going to change tack and become a country guitarist but the sound has always intrigued me but not enough to study / commit to it.
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Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Don't try this at home folks ...
A lot of people will use compressors to help even out the sound and add a bit of sustain as hybrid picking on a clean tone can be a bit uneven.
A lot of older, more traditional country will be based around basic chord changes like 12 bars and stick to certain keys ( ones that work well with open strings or C and G for the pianists) but 'country' now is as wide and generic a term as saying 'blues' and really covers a range of styles.
I think what you can take from country is developing hybrid picking, multi string bends, chicken pickin, use of open strings, accurate bending,etc, and incorporate those back into something else. Not that I've ever done more than scratch the surface. Just as my simple example if you used a BB King style major pentatonic box shape for playing a blues you could use the same shape over the same chords but take a more country approach and have it sound quite different.
As Danny's been dead for over twenty years I think Greg might have the edge...
I don't think either would/ would have classed themselves as country guitarists but as guitarists who incorporate country ideas into what they do. It's that Gatton, Koch, Buchanan, Campilongo, Donahue, Whittington, Roth school where blues and country meet and bump into rockabilly and jazz on the way.
they were both playing acoustically
I couldnt believe the bends that one of the guys was achieving
so I asked him what he was using - perhaps 9s, or maybe even 8s
No - 13s !
Any chance they were just winding you up?
Hope you didn't shake his hand, could have been painful.
Looked at the guitar afterwards - they were chunky !
I have a couple of country books out and am working on the next one as I type this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911267353/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1499038873
I've also covered a bunch of videos you must own on my Youtube - seeing as you mentioned the Albert Lee one, here's the Brent one
https://www.patreon.com/leviclay | https://www.youtube.com/c/leviclay
For the most part he shows you random scales he uses, but not any real context.
He does have some great chordal ideas, but they only take up about 10 mins of the video.
I didn't see any "jazz" flavour on the whole thing. Pretty disappointed
https://www.patreon.com/leviclay | https://www.youtube.com/c/leviclay