Country Lead Guitar - Picking speed and accuracy

thomasross20

Make sure to hold pick between thumb and forefinger tightly - for years I held it too lightly so a large part of the up-pick action came fro my forefinger and not the wrist which I could see in videos and did me no good. 

What's the actual premise underlying country guitar? High speed major / mixolydian lines? 

Panama_Jack666

bingefeller;659308" said:

The Daniel Donato DVD looks great.  Some of the stuff he plays is ridiculous and he's only been playing for 5 or 6 years!

I have the Scotty Anderson Hot Licks DVD and it's good too.  As well as country he mixes in quite  a lot of jazz.  

The Daniel Donato one is amazing. I have it! Off to see him in October with Koss59!

rocktrout

scotty anderson is outragous !! guthrie trapp is a beast too . im a big fan of vince gill he plays all the right notes !! and of course albert lee 

rocktrout

danny gatton too

millstudios

Anyone listening to Forrest Lee Jr ? Awesome picker and maker of B Benders ....

Panama_Jack666

millstudios said:

Anyone listening to Forrest Lee Jr ? Awesome picker and maker of B Benders ....

I'm just about to listen to him now. I'll report back!

Panama_Jack666

**Update**

Very good! Reminds me of Doug Seven! Cheers for the recommendation!

SimpleSimon

Just getting into this stuff myself, how have you got on @Panama_Jack666 ?

octatonic

thomasross20 said:

What's the actual premise underlying country guitar? High speed major / mixolydian lines? 

No.

Playing changes is.

But playing them fucking fast.

Dominic

I am the ultimate country guitar nerd .........just love it

All the big names have been mentioned somewhere in this thread with Guthrie Trapp coming in late in the day aswell as Forrest Lee and they are both great players too.........

They have all ultimately evolved from Merle Travis, Chet and the equally amazing Gerry Reed ( learn Gerrys Breakdown for a whole bunch of cascade licks and tricks in E ) Doyle Dykes is amazing too -watch his Taylor T5 demo

One guy who is missing is Redd Volkaert - just a lovely old redneck Telewacker -check him out too

 MAJOR /MIXOLYDIAN - PLAYING OVER THE CHANGES- DOUBLE STOP FILLS - CASCADE SCALES - BANJO ROLLS  And the clever little passing notes/phrases when travelling through the 1 IV V basic Country Protocol 

Jerry Donoghue if you want to really learn how pedal steel bends can sound -he makes them look simple (they're certainly not )

  You can't bend your way out of trouble in Country as you can with Blues/rock - all major but you have to be spot-on every note and very little thinking time between them - that 's the problem

Jimbro66

Most high-profile Nashville players of the past 40 years or so have used hybrid picking but interestingly Brent Mason uses a thumb pick. It always seems that playing rolls is so much easier with a thumb pick. The answer for me has been the Herco Flat Thumb Picks which can be used more like a plectrum than a standard thumb pick can. I've been using them since the early nineties - the heavy guage ones, as I find the medium and light guages slip around too much. Anyone else here using them?

SimonC

The trick with most thumb picks is to trim or file them right down, usually there's too much pick protruding and gets you in a right old tangle.

Dominic

SimonC said:

The trick with most thumb picks is to trim or file them right down, usually there's too much pick protruding and gets you in a right old tangle.

And I thought it was just me who had realised this ......so true ,they get stuck between the strings

Panama_Jack666

I've been meaning to post an update to this thread for ages! I will do this weekend!

**edit** as I would like to share some pics with you and can't do that at the minute and I'm at work!