Learn Beginner Country Soloing in 10 Days

What you need to know to get started:

Wondering if you're ready for this class? You don't need to be a master of soloing, but a few core skills will go a long way. Before starting, you should be comfortable with:
- The fundamentals of bending, hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and vibrato.
- The basics of pentatonic scale soloing.
- The soloing material in the Late Beginner Learning Pathway.

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The first three lessons:

Eugene kicks off the class with three lessons that take those existing soloing skills and show you how to adapt them to the country tradition. You’ll work on bending, hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and vibrato – all with the iconic twang of country guitar.

Next, you’ll focus on charting new territory by exploring iconic country techniques and concepts. In Day 4, you’ll channel the spirit of the banjo by using open strings create a cascading, over-ringing effect in your solos.

In Day 5, you’ll get theoretical by learning how to target scale tones and blend scale language to find the right balance of moodiness versus optimism. In Day 6, you’ll tackle double stops – an essential ingredient in any respectable country solo.

With some essential vocabulary and fretting techniques under your fingers, we’ll turn toward your picking hand and tackle two must-know techniques: Hybrid picking and chicken pickin’.

Hybrid picking is yet another technique that we’ve pinched from our banjo brothers and sisters. Rather than strumming all of the strings, hybrid picking uses a mixture of the pick and fingers to grab notes in a chord. You’ll work on that in Day 7 to build speed and precision, gain greater dynamic control over your solos, and get more tonal options at your fingertips.

Next comes chicken pickin’ in Day 8. It’s a variation of hybrid picking that adds an extra snap to your notes via muting. This technique will do some serious heavy lifting for the twang in your tone.