Country Rhythm Guitar Lesson in the style of Chet Atkins

Hey guys! In this guitar lesson, Jon MacLennan will teach you a cool country rhythm idea in the style of Chet Atkins. So if you would like to start with country rhythm guitar please check out this lesson. Hope you like it!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pcgx803Z4dY

How’s it going everybody? My name is John McClennan and I’m here today with guitarcontrol.com, really excited to bring you this video. Today we’re going to look at sort of like a country comping or a Chet Atkins style, Merl Travis sort of rhythm playing. I like to call it the boom-chick because you get the sound… So let’s talk about breaking this down. For me, I came from more of a jazz background so when you have comping you’re looking at sort of stuff like… That kind of rhythm playing. Now, this sound is completely different. And so let’s go over the chords that we’re going to use in this example. We have an E7, and this is just like if you made a C chord on the 5th fret and then you just add your pinkie. I love this chord and it’s just so easy to get if you know C. You’re just adding one note to it. And then we’re going to start here and play that chord and then let’s talk about the right hand here, because what I’m doing is I’m actually palm muting. And that’s where I lay this part of my hand back here where the bridge and the strings meet. So I get this. It will sort of pop-out. If you’re too far forward it’s not going to work. you’ve got to go right back here. Again, I’m going to play the root note with my pick and then I’m going to strum the rest of the chord and I’m going to mute the strings so you get this sort of sound. Now it’s not — some people think it’s pick and then fingers, but it’s actually all pick and you’ve got to just mute it to death here. Then what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your third finger and you’re going to alternate bass notes. You’re going to play once here and then you’re going to drop it down to the low string, 7th fret. Now my pick is going to play that note, bass note, chord, bass note, chord, all palm muted. The next chord, A7 and then I take my first finger off to get the low E in there. Again, all muted bass notes. It’s the same thing, boom-chick. Then I’m going to play D7 which is exactly the same as E7, just two frets lower. And then G7, which is exactly the same as A7, but two frets lower and I’m not going to use the open string this time. Here what I’m going to do is I’m going to play from the low 6th string and then strum it and I’m going to play the 5th string so it alternates like this. So you’ve got the root of the chord and the 5th. It reminds me of a really silly joke. How many country bass players does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, five. So that comes from the root or the 5th of the chord that the bass player is always playing. Again, that’s where our boom-chick is coming from. Let’s go through the whole thing. You’ll want to just turn on the click and work on just getting that real powerful sound. So be sure to click the links below for the tab and we’ll see you in the next video. Have fun practicing that. See you later.

How to play your favorite songs from the 60's & 70's on the guitar

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