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Simple Guitar Scales For Country Music

By Mike Hayes | June 17, 2010

So you’ve got your Fender Tele the Twin Reverb amp and your book
on chicken pickin’ country guitar but you still sound more like a
‘plucked chook’ than a smoking hot country guitar player, what’s
wrong with this picture you seem to be doing everything right?

I can’t fault your choice of guitar and amp and the idea of some
chicken pickin’ sounds fine to me, I’d say the problem started
with that country guitar book!

To be honest it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a country
guitar book or a rock guitar book most of the information in
either book is pretty much the same but as you know there’s a
whole world of difference in the music.

O.K. it’s time to roll up your selves and sharpen your picks …
let’s get to work on the ‘REAL’ country guitar playing.

Basically most of the information or thinking behind the stock
standard published guitar books available at most music stores
are drawn for the classical guitar text; which means no matter
how much you practice this stuff you ain’t going to sound
country; why? because fundamentally most of the scales in these
books use closed strings, certainly most rock guitar playing
involves playing scales where the notes are closed but for
country guitar you need plenty of open strings.

Country Guitar scales with open strings.

Let’s do a comparison between traditional scale thinking and the
country guitar players’ approach to the exact same material.

Here’s a descending G Mixo-lydian mode the way it might be
presented in your “How To Play Guitar” book.

G Mixo -Lydian mode (descending)

G – F – E – D – C – B – A – G

—————————
-8–6–5——————-
———-7–5–3———-
——————-7–5—-
—————————
—————————

There you have it ‘dull as dishwater’ and it certainly ain’t
country!

Here’s one way a country guitarist might play the exact same
scale.

———-0———————–
-8-p-6————-0————-
————7-p-5———–0—-
————————–7——–
———————————–
———————————–

What do you think? I sure you’ll agree it’s more colorful and
interesting with the inclusion of some pull-off’s and open
strings it certainly has more of a country flavor.

Oh, by the way this descending G Mixo-Lydian mode makes a great
introduction for the key of C; simply strum a G7 chord, play the
descending G Mixo-Lydian mode and into your song in the key of C.

How about another comparison, this time a G major scale

G major scale (descending)

G – F# – E – D – C – B – A – G

—————————
-8–7–5——————-
———-7–5–3———-
——————-7–5—-
—————————
—————————

Notice how we only had to change one note to convert the G Mixo-
Lydian mode over to a G major scale.

Now for a typical country guitar approach.

———–0———————-
-8-p-7—————0———-
————–7-p-5———0—-
————————–7——-
———————————–
———————————-

This descending G major scale will sound great as a lead in to an
Em or G chord, try them out next time you are practicing your
guitar.

Topics: Country Guitar, guitar scales | No Comments »

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