
Grab your thumbpick and learn how to break down—and build up—Chet-style arrangements.
Intermediate
Intermediate
- Increase the independence between your picking-hand thumb and fingers.
- Learn different strategies for harmonizing melodies.
- Create alternating-bass patterns that work over simple harmonies.
As inspiring as it is to hear Chet Atkins play some mind-bending fingerstyle licks, it can be quite daunting to decode what he’s doing. Where do all those sounds come from? How do we create our own tunes or arrangements in that style?
It’s useful to break a big job down into smaller parts, and “Chet-style guitar” certainly benefits from that approach. We’ll break this technique down to the smallest components; once we understand the elements, we’ll then be able to build up arrangements using this knowledge. Practicing this way helps beginners form good habits, and it also gives experienced players a chance to identify and fix bad habits that are often the result of ineffective practice.
Gaining independence between the picking-hand thumb and fingers is the foundation of all Chet-style playing, and we’ll be focusing on this foundational aspect most of all in this lesson. Because this style often involves moving shapes and bass lines, a few fretting-hand fingering suggestions are provided next to the noteheads in the standard notation clef. If you’re a tab reader, feel free to just glance at the standard staff for fingering suggestions if a passage is feeling clumsy or you feel the need for some guidance.
Here’s a tip: For authentic tone, place the back of your picking-hand palm just behind the bridge to mute the bass strings. This will serve you well as you begin to develop a strong groove with your thumb.
Although the alternating bass that’s characteristic of Chet’s playing owes much more to Merle Travis than Blind Blake, country-blues players would often drone one bass string below a melody played on the treble strings, as in Ex. 1. This “steady thumb” blues approach is a great way to learn how to keep rock-solid time with that digit. In his formative years, Chet heard a lot of different kinds of music, including pre-war blues. With the quarter-note bass, be sure to practice with a metronome to internalize a good sense of time, and ultimately, groove.
Ex. 1
After establishing the bass, add in melody notes. If a measure is challenging, even a single example can be broken down into smaller parts. Think of each measure in Ex. 1 as a separate exercise. It takes a lot of practice to reach your goals with the guitar, but effective practicing is the fastest and most direct route. Practice each example, or even each measure, until it comes naturally. Be sure to make a distinction between a slow performance tempo and a slow practice tempo. There is no such thing as practicing too slowly.
Of course, it doesn’t really sound like Chet until an alternating bass is introduced, so let’s move onto a more typical Chet-style phrase in Ex. 2. Start out by simply getting used to the bass pattern in measures one and two, and then add some melody notes to the open chord shapes. By keeping the fretting hand simple, we place all our attention on forming a good groove with the picking hand.
Ex. 2
Now that we have a foundation, it’s time to start syncopating the melody, as shown in Ex. 3. The combination of alternating bass and syncopation in the melody gives the example more of a Chet-approved feel. It’s here we begin to dig into the finer details of his playing.
Ex. 3
One such detail is learning to alternate between not just two, but three notes in the bass. Some of Chet’s arrangements contain sections that move between a two-note bass pattern and a three-note bass pattern (check out “Ain’t Misbehavin’” from his 1957 release, Hi-Fi in Focus.) The three-note pattern sounds fuller and relies on having an open string available that matches the chord tone, or an extra finger free in fretted shapes. In Ex. 4 we’ll keep it simple with open shapes in the key of A and familiarize ourselves with the pattern in measures one and two.
Practice alternating the 5–4–6–4 string pattern. That will form the foundation of the house. After adding in some melody notes in measures three and four, we’ll switch to the IV chord, but this time inverting it so that the F# is in the bass. This allows us to use a new string pattern: 6–4–5–4. Those two patterns will cover 99 percent of Chet’s thumbpicking tunes.
Ex. 4
Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins - Instrumental Medley
Mark Knopfler was one of Chet’s biggest fans and the duo released Neck and Neck in 1990 to critical acclaim. Here’s a performance from The Secret Policeman’s Ball in 1987 where the pair play “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Once the new alternating patterns are in place, add some syncopation (Ex. 5). In measure five, you’ll have to either stretch your fourth finger to reach the G# on the 1st string, or shift positions. Fingerstyle guitar is great for exercising the often-neglected fourth finger, but be careful not to overstretch or strain your fingers. If something is uncomfortable, stop and find a new position to play it in. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Ex. 5
Now that we’ve established a solid foundation for the thumb patterns and a good groove, it’s time to combine moving chord shapes up and down the neck with everything we’ve practiced so far. These new shapes facilitate another characteristic aspect of the Atkins style: open strings ringing against a fretted note on the adjacent string, as in Ex. 6. The example ends with a textbook Chet voicing of the A6 chord, which continues the theme of playing fretted notes against the open 1st string.
Ex. 6
When it comes to melodies, so much of the movement in fingerstyle guitar involves finding the best placement of the melody to fit comfortably within a given chord shape. Chet’s hands never moved more than necessary, and as gifted as he was, part of his genius was a masterful economy of motion. One effective way to move around the neck and accommodate a shifting melody is to slide your hand down to the target pitch. In measure one of Ex. 7, for instance, notice how I slide from C# down to A to shift positions. In the next measure, I use a bass line to move up into 10th position for the IV chord. Although the melodies and tunes vary, the approaches and techniques recur time and time again.
Ex. 7
In a 4/4 fingerpicking groove, very often either the 2nd or 4th beat (or sometimes both) will involve a bit of a strum. Chet’s thumbpick would drag onto the 3rd string so that the muted bass was heard in conjunction with the clarity of an open string or fretted note. Often this blended into the total picture he was painting, and on his classic recordings with drums and bass, this can almost be lost to the ears, but it is an important part of the finer details. Simply listening to a lot of old Chet Atkins recordings is the best way to internalize this sound and feel, but like anything, eventually it needs to become personalized via practice.
In Ex. 8 we move the sound from our ears into our hands. Try to place the strum exactly where indicated in the notation to get used to adding this detail into the mix. In the long run, you’ll find it becoming entirely natural and a bit arbitrary exactly where—or even if—you want to strum. The technique becomes more of a mindset than a literal move to perform the same way every time. Have fun with it and remember that Chet never played anything exactly the same way twice. This example concludes with a classic Chet-style single-note lick that features fretted pitches alternating with a recurring 3rd-string drone.
Ex. 8
As a great admirer of Johnny Smith and many other jazz guitarists, Chet was always expanding his vocabulary of chords and harmony. Learning chord inversions is essential to incorporating both harmony and melody in your arrangements. Early on, Chet’s inversions owed much more to Merle Travis than Lenny Breau, but he never stopped expanding.
In Ex. 9 we look at a classic Chet inversion of a D7 chord, placing the F# (3) on the 6th string, with the b7 on the 5th string at the 3rd fret. To make this shape, the left-hand thumb wraps around the neck to grab the low F#, leaving the remaining fingers free to fret the other pitches. An open 1st string sounds great against this shape and is a frequent melody note when Chet uses this inversion. Continuing onward with the left-hand thumb, the G/B on beat 3 of measure three creates a nice ascending bass line on the way to the IV chord (C). We then descend through the G/B again on the way to a D9 shape that places the A note in the bass on beat 1. This gives us a bass line that both ascends and descends. This isn’t merely effective hand positioning, but also musical voice leading and bass motion.
Ex. 9
With all the pieces of the puzzle now coming together, let’s combine every concept we’ve worked on in Ex. 10. Although it seems like a lot to keep track of, anyone can play anything if it is slow and isolated enough. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, remember that the big picture is composed of effective, tiny steps. Take as much time as you need to master each component—no one has ever been able to learn it all within a life and Chet never stopped learning either. Approaching the guitar one note at a time is the surest way forward.
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Ernie Ball, the world’s leading manufacturer of premium guitar strings and accessories, proudly announces the launch of the all-new Earthwood Bell Bronze acoustic guitar strings. Developed in close collaboration with Grammy Award-winning guitarist JohnMayer, Bell Bronze strings are engineered to meet Mayer’s exacting performance standards, offering players a bold new voice for their acoustic guitars.Crafted using a proprietary alloy inspired by the metals traditionally found in bells and cymbals, Earthwood Bell Bronze strings deliver a uniquely rich, full-bodied tone with enhanced clarity, harmonic content, and projection—making them the most sonically complex acoustic strings in the Ernie Ball lineup to date.
“Earthwood Bell Bronze strings are a giant leap forward in tone, playability, and durability. They’re great in any musical setting but really shine when played solo. There’s an orchestral quality to them.” -John Mayer
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- Developed in collaboration with John Mayer
- Big, bold sound
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- Increased resonance with improved projection and sustain
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- Richer and fuller sound than 80/20 and Phosphor Bronze without sounding dark
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Milkman’s Jerry Garcia-style JG-40 combo.
Grateful Dead-inspired gear from Milkman and Scarlet Fire helps to keep the guitarist’s sound alive.
Guitar players wanting to catch the Grateful Dead’s particular lightning in a bottle exist along a spectrum. Some are content to take inspiration from Jerry Garcia’s playing but make their own way regarding guitar choice and signal path. Others strive to emulate Garcia’s sonic decisions down to the most minor details and create signal paths as close to Jerry’s as possible. In recent years, an ecosystem of gear has developed around fostering Jerry Garcia’s electric tone, including everything from guitars, amps, and stompboxes to on-board preamps and speakers.
Entire books about the Grateful Dead’s gear have been written, so we can’t cover it all here. Garcia tinkered with all facets of his sound from about 1971 until 1978, when his signal path reached stability. By then, his On-Board Effects Loop—an innovation he developed to control how much signal reached his effects—was dialed in, his backline firm, and his choice of effects pedals solidified. Even then, adjustments were made, especially when MIDI arrived or when technology like in-ear monitoring was used. Here are some basics.
Scarlet Fire’s recreation of Garcia’s Wolf, originally built by Doug Irwin.
It starts with guitars. For players wanting to get their Jerry on, there’s a wide range of Garcia-esque instruments—with just as wide a range of prices—out there. Recreations of the Doug Irwin guitars and the Fender Alligator Strat abound. China-built models from companies likePhred Instruments can go for as little as $700 or so. Luthier Thomas Lieber apprenticed with Irwin long ago, and his Lieber Guitars will deliver a copy of a variety of Garcia models. Leo Elliott’sScarlet Fire Guitars out of Dallas, Texas, takes things in another direction. Elliott builds Doug Irwin replicas that start at $20,000 and go up from there, with a current wait time of about 18 months for an instrument. He’s outfitted many of the top Garcia guitarists today, including Tom Hamilton Jr. and Jeff Mattson. Elliott says, “I’m a self-taught luthier; I didn’t really build my first guitar until 2010. I understood a little bit about woodworking before I got started, but I learned by reading books and through trial and error. I started building replicas of Doug Irwin’s Wolf guitar right away, which is sort of like building a car and starting with a Ferrari. I didn’t know any better. Then, eventually I got to know Doug Irwin and collaborated with him. So, I got to hold Garcia’s Tiger guitar and get to know it really well, and by 2015, I had built replicas of that guitar. There’s one guy who helps me around the shop, but otherwise, I am building these guitars on my own. I’m collaborating with Doug Irwin on a new series of Tiger guitars, which will retail for 50 grand each.” That’s one way to get your Jerry going.
The JBL-inspired Milkman K-120.
Garcia’s choice of amplifiers is another matter. He preferred Fender Twin Reverbs loaded with JBL Alnico speakers, which were popular amongst many rock bands in the 1970s. The details get complicated; Garcia’s amps were heavily modified, and the Fender Twin served as a preamp that ran to a McIntosh MC-3500 power amp.
It’s hard to find vintage JBL speakers today—at least ones in good shape. San Francisco’s Milkman Sound, founded by Tim Marcus, has created a faithful reproduction of those classic JBLsthey call the K-120. They’re coupling those speakers with a Garcia-style recreation of his Fender Twin that Marcus named the JG-40. “I think 75 percent of Jerry’s tone is in the JBL speakers,” Milkman’s founder says. “But when you start to analyze the other 25 percent, you kind of have to start withDon Rich. [Editor’s Note: Rich was the guitar player in Buck Owens’ band, pioneers of the Bakersfield Sound.] That’s Jerry’s tone, too, but the difference is Garcia’s midrange was a bit throatier. It sounds clean, but really, it’s not clean at the same time. Especially his tone in the late ’70s. There is something about running that Fender Twin Reverb through the McIntosh that would just completely blow out the tone in a really interesting way.”
Garcia colored his tone with off-the-shelf effects. This was, after all, long before the days of boutique pedals. By 1978 and beyond, you’d hear him playing through an MXR Distortion+, an MXR Analog Delay, and an MXR Phase 100. He often used auto wahs, preferring the Musitronics Mu-Tron envelope filter as well as a Mu-Tron Octave Divider and a Mu-Tron combination volume and wah pedal.
When I asked Jeff Mattson, Bella Rayne, and Tom Hamilton Jr. exactly how orthodox they are about using the kind of gear that Garcia did, I got three different answers.
Mattson tells me that because Dark Star Orchestra is doing something very specific, he really has to tailor his sound as carefully to Garcia’s as he can. “Some folks get too hung up on small things, like what kind of cable to use and things like that, and I don’t go that far. But it’s important for Dark Star Orchestra to get Jerry’s sound right because we are covering different eras and different shows. In 2022, for example, we went to Europe and recreated shows from the Dead’s famous Europe ’72 tour, so you have to pay close attention to what kind of gear they were using to do that right.”
Hamilton works differently. He’s always preferred a higher-gain signal than Garcia ever did, landing in more of a British or heavy metal tone. (Randy Rhoads was a big influence.) “I’ve always approached it like, ‘What’s the new information we can put into this thing?’” he says. “Not just recreate but pushing in a forward direction. And anytime I’ve played with the guys who played with Garcia back in the day, they always said to me, ‘You’re here because you’re here. Don’t try and do what we did back in 1978 or do it because Garcia did it that way.’ They’ve always encouraged me to be myself.”
Bella Rayne is just wrapping her head around what it really means to try to sound like Garcia. “Besides Jerry, I’m influenced by guitarists like Dickey Betts and Derek Trucks, so my tone tends to be a bit heavier and bluesy,” she explains. “I’m generally running a Stratocaster through a Fender Twin Reverb. But recently, I was doing a show, and a buddy of mine set up a Jerry rig for me, and that was so cool: JBL speakers, McIntosh head, the whole setup. I had never played through one. I didn’t know what the hype was all about. I plugged in, and it was just amazing; there was such a snap, and I was really commanding the band. I can see myself keeping my current rig but adding a Dead-rig to experiment. But honestly, anything is fine; I am not picky. I just want to play the best that I can.”
Brent Mason is, of course, on of the most recorded guitarists in history, who helped define the sound of most ’90s country superstars. So, whether you know it or not, you’ve likely heard Mason’s playing.
Professional transcriber Levi Clay has done the deepest of dives into Brent Mason’s hotshot licks. At one point, he undertook the massive project of transcribing and sharing one of Mason’s solos every day for 85 or so days. Mason is, of course, on of the most recorded guitarists in history, who helped define the sound of most ’90s country superstars. So, whether you know it or not, you’ve likely heard Mason’s playing. Levi shares the insight he gleaned from digging deep, and he tells us what it was like when they shared a stage last year. Plus, Levi plays us some great examples of Mason’s playing.
PRS Guitars today launched five new three-pickup, 22-fret models across the S2 and SE series. The S2 Series release includes the S2 Special Semi-Hollow and S2 Studio, while the SE Series welcomes the SE Special Semi-Hollow, SE Studio, and SE Studio Standard.
“The distinctive pickup configurations of these five guitars deliver a versatile tonal platform, whether you’re exploring subtle textures or pushing the envelope. The deep dive into our Narrowfield technology is obvious with this launch. With both the S2 models made in our Maryland factory and the SE models made in Indonesia, our goal has been to create guitars that will inspire you and spark creativity, all at an exceptional value,” said PRS Guitars COO, Jack Higginbotham.
S2 Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS S2 Special Semi-Hollow features a pair of 58/15 LT humbuckers in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield in the middle. A 5-way blade switch and two mini-toggles allow players to tap the humbuckers, creating twelve distinct pickup combinations for sonic exploration. The carved maple top and mahogany back encompass a semi-hollow body that adds a natural airiness and depth to the guitar’s tone while enhancing sustain.
S2 Studio
The PRS S2 Studio delivers a wide range of sonic possibilities through its distinctive single-single-hum configuration. Featuring two proprietary PRS Narrowfield pickups in the bass and middle positions and a 58/15 LT humbucker in the treble position, the S2 Studio offers a palette of sounds from single-coil clarity to vocal humbucker tones. This model also has a 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control.
SE Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS SE Special Semi-Hollow is designed with the versatility of a hum/“single”/hum setup, bringing PRS’s Narrowfield DD pickup design to the SE Series in a classic maple-top guitar. The semi-hollow construction also enhances sustain and resonance, while the f-hole adds a classic aesthetic. The coil-tap switching system unlocks a wide range of tones through a pair of 58/15 LT “S” pickups in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield DD “S” in the middle.
SE Studio
The PRS SE Studio’s “single”/”single”/hum pickup configuration provides a wide range of tonal options. This combination of PRS Narrowfield DD “S” bass and middle pickups with a PRS 58/15 LT “S” treble humbucker offers humbucking warmth, single-coil sparkle, and everything in between. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control further enhance its versatility.
SE Studio Standard
The only bolt-on neck in this release group, the PRS SE Studio Standard brings the tone, playability, and versatility of the Studio model to the SE Series and into an all-mahogany design with a vintage-style pickguard aesthetic. At the heart of the SE Studio Standard is its versatile trio of pickups: an 58/15 LT “S” humbucker in the treble position with two Narrowfield DD “S” pickups in the middle and bass positions. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control allow for an array of pickup configurations.
PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year.