major solo idea - Country

Wrighty22

Hey everyone!

I’ve recently joined a country band and I’m looking to sharpen up my lead guitar playing—especially when it comes to soloing in major keys.

Does anyone have any solid video recommendations, exercises, or riff ideas to help improve my lead work?

Any tips would be massively appreciated. Cheers in advance!

JodyJames

‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ on YouTube has a bunch of great videos with country licks/principles. 

digitalkettle

Paging @Keefy !

A good book on the subject is Lee Hodgson's 'Hot Country'...possibly out of print and £stupid on Amazon but I just found a copy for less than a fiver on Music Magpie.

viz

Paging @Koneguitarist

Keefy

digitalkettle said:

Paging @Keefy !

...

Major pentatonics are a good place to start, especially incorporating position-changing slide - it's much easier than you might think. This form uses 3rd-finger slides up to the major 3rd:

Jimbro66

There are a lot of excellent country guitar tutors on You Tube but I'd suggest Steve Harms and Jason Loughlin for their thorough but easy going teaching styles.

Blueingreen

Always think Mick Taylor's more country-inflected stuff with the Stones is worth checking out.  He's not really a country player, but he's very good example of a guy who's adapted a basically blues-rock style for country, keeping things simple, very musical, and pretty easy to copy.  A good technical country player would probably think of it as beginners stuff but I think it's a good place to start.  And maybe even most of what you need if your main musical interests are elsewhere and you're just looking to master enough country lead to get by.

Keefy

digitalkettle said:

Paging @Keefy !

A good book on the subject is Lee Hodgson's 'Hot Country'...possibly out of print and £stupid on Amazon but I just found a copy for less than a fiver on Music Magpie.

IIRC the Lee Hodgson book quickly becomes scarily advanced. To me, 99% of country playing is about doing the simple things well. When your solo spot comes along, try playing the melody or something based on it - you basically can't go wrong doing that.

Roland

IMO Country guitar is as much about rhythm as it is about notes. You can keep it simple, sticking to the minor and mixolydian scale, and using lots of slides and bends. You can pretend you're clever by inserting the odd chromatic run. Then end every phrase on the root, third, or fifth, like a poem where every line rhymes.

The early Guthrie Trapp videos on YouTube had quite a lot of country content.

topdog91

Roland said:

IMO Country guitar is as much about rhythm as it is about notes. You can keep it simple, sticking to the minor and mixolydian scale, and using lots of slides and bends. You can pretend you're clever by inserting the odd chromatic run. Then end every phrase on the root, third, or fifth, like a poem where every line rhymes.

The early Guthrie Trapp videos on YouTube had quite a lot of country content.

Did you mean *major*?

Dominic

I'm a country player more than anything else ....honestly 90% of what you're going to play will be in G major
Get that Gmaj pentatonic running with chromatic double stops /run downs /walk downs and changes to the C 
There's a way of making things 'sound' country .....my curse is that whatever I play from rock to reggae it always sounds a bit country .........I hybrid pick anyway
Major Pentatonic ( or minor in the relative minor position if you are more comfortable ) and Mixo but it's about getting the double stops running and the odd pedal steel type bends 
Timing and clicky ghost notes are what gets the feel /sound right
Johnnie Hiland,Doug 7 , Damian BIacci all give some good simple country lick lessons to put in your bag 
Half the time Brad Paisley plays a load of gratuitous nonsense outside random notes but he sounds great because of the speed /feel and he always brings it home to a root or major third resolution .......you forget the dissonant open string fills on the way .
Learn to play some open string cascade runs in G ......played fast they sound great when you throw them into the mix .
Oh , and did I say get a Tele and some light slapback behind you ......................Yeehah

greejn

Alex Farran lessons on YouTube feature a lot of country ideas, he really is very good.

koneguitarist

Depends whether we are talking about what we think of as country or that crap coming out of Nashville which is more hip hop and pop. 

In real country double stops are well worth getting your head around. Can help you get from the 1st to 4th or 5th to 1st, always sounds interesting and different to rock fills. If you’re thinking Brad Paisley and the like, I can’t help, 

I listen to a lot of red dirt and Texas country, which is different again more blues and rock orientation. 

Dominic

koneguitarist said:

Depends whether we are talking about what we think of as country or that crap coming out of Nashville which is more hip hop and pop. 

In real country double stops are well worth getting your head around. Can help you get from the 1st to 4th or 5th to 1st, always sounds interesting and different to rock fills. If you’re thinking Brad Paisley and the like, I can’t help, 

I listen to a lot of red dirt and Texas country, which is different again more blues and rock orientation. 

You're so right about the amount of shit coming out of Nashville lately......this dreadful Country/Rap fusion thing to stay relevant and artists with names like Shaboozey .......say no more .......I want my country artists to have names like Skeeter Wagonwheel the Third , Yes Sir .........I think those Merle type days are long gone .....then there was the Alan Jackson / Vince Gill type era and latterly Brad Paisley and Toby Keith (RIP) .....love it all and the  Carrie Underwood stuff but I can't stand the Morgan Wallen /Luke Combs poppy stuff . 
Texas Bands ? ......Midland are just fantastic .....best Country band of the last 15 years.
Also badly hate the new solo acoustic guitar folky country dreary songs like Luke Bryan etc ........busker music .

daveyh

1. Play in G whenever possible
2. use first/open position pentatonic in Em, pull off to the open strings whenever possible
3. learn a second/third string pedal steel bend and use it whenever possible
4. use double stops on the top three strings whenever possible.

Do that and the untrained will think Brad Paisley has entered the room. 

And listen to John Osbourne of Brothers Osbourne for a stunning modern lead country guitarist. He did an episode of ‘Shred with Shifty’ which is well worth a watch.

topdog91

* Osborne

I typed John Osbourne into YouTube and got something quite different...

Roland

topdog91 said:

Roland said:

IMO Country guitar is as much about rhythm as it is about notes. You can keep it simple, sticking to the minor and mixolydian scale, and using lots of slides and bends. You can pretend you're clever by inserting the odd chromatic run. Then end every phrase on the root, third, or fifth, like a poem where every line rhymes.

The early Guthrie Trapp videos on YouTube had quite a lot of country content.

Did you mean *major*?

No, mixolydian with the flattened 7th. The minor contributes the flattened 3rd. There’s a lot you can do in the bluesy area between major and minor thirds

BillDL

Jimbro66 said:

There are a lot of excellent country guitar tutors on You Tube but I'd suggest Steve Harms and Jason Loughlin for their thorough but easy going teaching styles.

I haven't checked out Steve Harms, but I would give a +1 to Jason Loughlin's channel.  He has videos about other styles besides country, including rockabilly and blues, but a large amount of his content comprises country licks and he covers a range of country styles.  They are small extracts from his paid-for tuition, but what he does in each case is demonstrate a lick, explain how and where to use it in a progression, and in some cases adds some additional embellishments, then most importantly he explores how it will work in different keys and on different strings across the fretboard.

One area I would like to get better at is playing chicken pickin' double stops, and to that end a course comprising 28 videos, PDFs of TAB and notation, and backing tracks taught in Jason Loughlin's easy going presentation style for $59 (https://www.theinspiredguitarist.com/p/mastering-country-guitar-double-stops) is actually quite appealing to me.

Josh_Cosku

Sliding Sixths' are very useful after building a control. You can also chicken pick them to sound more countryish. 

Jfingers

Listen to Chuck Prophet's early work. Get as good as him and you'll be happy.

Dominic

I don't think you can really 'get it' until you really  LISTEN to a lot of Country solos .........of course there is the double-stops and faux lap-steel bends but there is no arcane science to the notes played ......it's a certain feel ,timing and ghost notes /chicken picking clickiness that gives it the sound .
In country you tend to play out of the chord changes over the chord rather than the generic blues/rock style based largely on a minor pentatonic over everything 
so ,if you play a little lick over the G be ready to play something over the C ....the minute you are able to put in a little single note walk down between the two it will sound country and very much more so if you can do the walk down in double stops with a clicky ghost note drone in the background.....walkdown double stops always tend to be triplets with the drone note on 1