
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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Some of these are deep cuts—get ready for some instrumental bonus tracks and Van Halen III mentions—and some are among the biggest radio hits of their time. Just because their hits, though, doesn’t mean we don’t have more to add to the conversation.
Naturally, every recording Eddie Van Halen ever played on has been pored over by legions of guitar players of all styles. It might seem funny, then, to consider EVH solos that might require more attention. But your 100 Guitarists hosts have their picks of solos that they feel merit a little discussion. Some of these are deep cuts—get ready for some instrumental bonus tracks and Van Halen III mentions—and some are among the biggest radio hits of their time. Just because their hits, though, doesn’t mean we don’t have more to add to the conversation.
We can’t cover everything EVH—Jason has already tried while producing the Runnin’ With the Dweezil podcast. But we cover as much as we can in our longest episode yet. And in the second installment of our current listening segment, we’re talking about new-ish music from Oz Noy and Bill Orcutt.
A dual-channel tube preamp and overdrive pedal inspired by the Top Boost channel of vintage VOX amps.
ROY is designed to deliver sweet, ringing cleans and the "shattered" upper-mid breakup tones without sounding harsh or brittle. It is built around a 12AX7 tube that operates internally at 260VDC, providing natural tube compression and a slightly "spongy" amp-like response.
ROY features two identical channels, each with separate gain and volume controls. This design allows you to switch from clean to overdrive with the press of a footswitch while maintaining control over the volume level. It's like having two separate preamps dialed in for clean and overdrive tones.
Much like the old amplifier, ROY includes a classic dual-band tone stack. This unique EQ features interactive Treble and Bass controls that inversely affect the Mids. Both channels share the EQ section.
Another notable feature of this circuit is the Tone Cut control: a master treble roll-off after the EQ. You can shape your tone using the EQ and then adjust the Tone Cut to reduce harshness in the top end while keeping your core sound.
ROY works well with other pedals and can serve as a clean tube platform at the end of your signal chain. It’s a simple and effective way to add a vintage British voice to any amp or direct rig setup.
ROY offers external channel switching and the option to turn the pedal on/off via a 3.5mm jack. The preamp comes with a wall-mount power supply and a country-specific plug.
Street price is 299 USD. It is available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Tubesteader online store at www.tubesteader.com.
The compact offspring of the Roland SDE-3000 rack unit is simple, flexible, and capable of a few cool new tricks of its own.
Tonalities bridge analog and digital characteristics. Cool polyrhythmic textures and easy-to-access, more-common echo subdivisions. Useful panning and stereo-routing options.
Interactivity among controls can yield some chaos and difficult-to-duplicate sounds.
$219
Boss SDE-3 Dual Digital Delay
boss.info
Though my affection for analog echo dwarfs my sentiments for digital delay, I don’t get doctrinaire about it. If the sound works, I’ll use it. Boss digital delays have been instructive in this way to me before: I used a Boss DD-5 in a A/B amp rig with an Echoplex for a long time, blending the slur and stretch of the reverse echo with the hazy, wobbly tape delay. It was delicious, deep, and complex. And the DD-5 still lives here just in case I get the urge to revisit that place.
Tinkering with theSDE-3 Dual Digital Delay suggested a similar, possibly enduring appeal. As an evolution of the Roland SDE-3000rack unit from the 1980s, it’s a texture machine, bubbling with subtle-to-odd triangle LFO modulations and enhanced dual-delay patterns that make tone mazes from dopey-simple melodies. And with the capacity to use it with two amps in stereo or in panning capacity, it can be much more dimensional. But while the SDE-3 will become indispensable to some for its most complex echo textures, its basic voice possesses warmth that lends personality in pedestrian applications too.
Tapping Into the Source
Some interest in the original SDE-3000 is in its association with Eddie Van Halen, who ran two of them in a wet-dry-wet configuration, using different delay rates and modulation to thicken and lend dimension to solos. But while EVH’s de facto endorsement prompted reissues of the effect as far back as the ’90s, part of the appeal was down to the 3000’s intrinsic elegance and simplicity.
In fact, the original rack unit’s features don’t differ much from what you would find on modern, inexpensive stompbox echoes. But the SDE-3000’s simplicity and reliable predictability made it conducive to fast workflow in the studio. Critically, it also avoided the lo-fi and sterility shortcomings that plagued some lesser rivals—an attribute designer Yoshi Ikegami chalks up to analog components elsewhere in the circuit and a fortuitous clock imprecision that lends organic essence to the repeats.
Evolved Echo Animal
Though the SDE-3 traces a line back to the SDE-3000 in sound and function, it is a very evolved riff on a theme. I don’t have an original SDE-3000 on hand for comparison, but it’s easy to hear how the SDE-3 bridges a gap between analog haze and more clinical, surgical digital sounds in the way that made the original famous. Thanks to the hi-cut control, the SDE-3’s voice can be shaped to enhance the angular aspect of the echoes, or blunt sharp edges. There’s also a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats. That also means you can take advantage of the polyrhythmic effects that are arguably its greatest asset.
“There’s a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats.”
The SDE-3’s offset control, which generates these polyrhythmic echoes, is its heart. The most practical and familiar echos, like quarter, eighth, and dotted-eighth patterns, are easy to access in the second half of the offset knobs range. In the first half of the knob’s throw, however, the offset delays often clang about at less-regular intervals, producing complex polyrhythms that are also cool multipliers of the modulation and EQ effects. For example, when emphasizing top end in repeats, using aggressive effects mixes and pitch-wobble modulation generates eerie ghost notes that swim through and around patterns, adding rhythmic interest and texture without derailing the drive behind a groove. Even at modest settings, these are great alternatives to more staid, regular subdivision patterns. Many of the coolest sounds tend toward the foggy reverb spectrum. Removing high end, piling on feedback, and adding the woozy, drunken drift from modulation creates fascinating backdrops for slow, sparse chord melodies. Faster modulations throb and swirl like old BBC Radiophonic Workshop sci-fi sound designs.
By themselves, the modulations have their own broad appeal. Chorus tones are rarely the archetypal Roland Jazz Chorus or CE type—tending to be a bit darker and mistier. But they do a nice job suggesting that texture without lapsing into caricature. There are also really cool rotary-speaker-like textures and vibrato sounds that offer alternatives to go-to industry standards.
The Verdict
The SDE-3’s many available sounds and textures would be appealing at $219—even without the stereo and panning connectivity options, a useful hold function, and expression pedal control that opens up additional options. The panning capabilities, in particular, sparked all kinds of thoughts about studio applications. Mastering the SDE-3 takes just a little study—certain polyrhythms can be dramatically reshaped by the interactivity of other controls and you need to take care to achieve identical results twice. But this is a pedal that, by virtue of its relative simplicity and richness and breadth of sounds, exceeds the utility of some similarly priced rivals, all while opening up possibilities well outside the simple echo realm
Reader: T. Moody
Hometown: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Guitar: The Green Snake
Reader T. Moody turned this Yamaha Pacifica body into a reptilian rocker.
With a few clicks on Reverb, a reptile-inspired shred machine was born.
With this guitar, I wanted to create a shadowbox-type vibe by adding something you could see inside. I have always loved the Yamaha Pacifica guitars because of the open pickup cavity and the light weight, so I purchased this body off Reverb (I think I am addicted to that website). I also wanted a color that was vivid and bold. The seller had already painted it neon yellow, so when I read in the description, “You can see this body from space,” I immediately clicked the Buy It Now button. I also purchased the neck and pickups off of Reverb.
I have always loved the reverse headstock, simply because nothing says 1987 (the best year in the history of the world) like a reverse headstock. The pickups are both Seymour Duncan—an SH-1N in the neck position and TB-4 in the bridge, both in a very cool lime green color. Right when these pickups got listed, the Buy It Now button once again lit up like the Fourth of July. I am a loyal disciple of Sperzel locking tuners and think Bob Sperzel was a pure genius, so I knew those were going on this project even before I started on it. I also knew that I wanted a Vega-Trem; those units are absolutely amazing.
When the body arrived, I thought it would be cool to do some kind of burst around the yellow so I went with a neon green. It turned out better than I imagined. Next up was the shaping and cutting of the pickguard. I had this crocodile-type, faux-leather material that I glued on the pickguard and then shaped to my liking. I wanted just a single volume control and no tone knob, because, like King Edward (Van Halen) once said, “Your volume is your tone.”
T. Moody
I then shaped and glued the faux-leather material in the cavity. The tuning knobs, volume knob, pickguard, screws, and selector switch were also painted in the lemon-lime paint scheme. I put everything together, installed the pickups, strung it up, set it up, plugged it in, and I was blown away. I think this is the best-playing and -sounding guitar I have ever tried.
The only thing missing was the center piece and strap. The latter was easy because DiMarzio makes their ClipLock in neon green. The center piece was more difficult because originally, I was thinking that some kind of gator-style decoration would be cool. In the end, I went with a green snake, because crocodiles ain’t too flexible—and they’re way too big to fit in a pickup cavity!
The Green Snake’s back is just as striking as the front.