Country Guitar Licks - Traditional Country | Wes Theobald

This lesson takes you through a short solo over a traditional country groove and chord progression. These country guitar licks use a lot of important country techniques like oblique bends, different pick positions, and open string ideas. LICK ONE The first lick uses a technique calls oblique bends which involves striking two (or more) notes and then bending one of the notes while keeping the other ringing. This is often used to emulate the sound of the pedal steel. In this example, the oblique bends in bars 2 and 3 are used to create a G major (G-B-D) sound by bending the A note into a B while keeping the D note above ringing. LICK TWO The second idea in this example is a very simple eighth note idea. Getting the correct sound here involves changing where you are picking. Most people tend to pick towards the middle of the body but for this example you are going to pick towards the bridge. This gets a brighter, twangy guitar sound that works very well for country guitar licks that use the low wound strings. This sound is heard on a lot of the old Bakersfield country albums (Buck Owens, Merle Haggard). LICK THREE The third country guitar lick in this solo uses the same bridge picking technique as the second lick but adds open strings. LICK FOUR The fourth lick picks up the speed using sixths throughout. Using sixths in your soloing like this is a very common sound in country guitar playing. This lick ascends a G major scale using sixths up to C while filling the space...