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How Long Does It Take To Play Electric Country Guitar

By Mike Hayes | July 16, 2010

Getting that country twang from an electric guitar has as much to
do with the guitarist’s technique as it does with the guitarist’s
equipment. How long it takes to play red hot country guitar solos
depends on how you organize your practice time and how clear you
are on what it is you need to learn.

Tips on developing your own style

Every guitarist that you can think of who has a recognizable
style has a trademark (or small collection of them) that provide
his/her playing with a special, unique character.

Just as there are basic motor moves in tennis or typing, there
are basic moves in guitar playing. Once these are under control,
they become automatic, and combinations and variations of them
come with relative ease, providing the technical base for a wide
range of musical expression.

A fact that is not widely known is that there are only 19 basic
moves to playing the guitar. Even though this may still seem like
a large number of skills to acquire, keep in mind I am talking
about all styles of guitar playing, the average player needs to
know only about six moves.

How many of these basic moves you will need to learn will depend
entirely on what style(s) of music you wish to play and since we
are discussing country lead guitar in this article I will list
the most important guitar techniques to learn in order to be an
effective country lead guitarist.

Electric Country Guitar – 8 basic techniques to learn

* notes (single note playing)

* chords (three note back-up triads)

* slides

* bends

* hammer-on’s

* pull-off’s

* scales

* double stops

As you dig deeper into each of these techniques you will discover
more specific information that has to be learned e.g., the scales
section would require us to zero in on exactly the type of scales
we need to learn for country guitar which would be : the major
pentatonic, minor pentatonic, blues scale and major diatonic
scale, these would be the most important to learn.

The next trick is to learn these scales in all the common country
(guitar friendly) keys such as G, D, A and E.

By eliminating all the unnecessary information and really
focusing on only the techniques and skills you need to learn in
order to achieve your musical goals you accelerate your learning.

Remember the basic principles in the learning process.

1. Do it once, right. Then just repeat it, from 20 to 100 times.
It can take this long to imprint, but once you’ve got this motor-
programming complete, you’ve got it.

2. When you encounter a difficulty, isolate the smallest
possible amount of information to be mastered, and focus all of
your attention on this alone.

How how will it take? For the dedicated newbie player to learn
and feel comfortable playing country lead guitar it usually takes
between six to twelve months.

The interesting thing about music is that it doesn’t take too
long to learn what to put in a song but it takes the rest of your
life to learn what to leave out.

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