
Steal inspiration, vocabulary, and picking techniques from legendary acoustic players.
Intermediate
Beginner
- Improve your alternate picking.
- Discover how to use the ācountryā scale.
- Create a deeper understanding of chord shapes across the neck.
There have been many bluegrass guitar icons, from the pioneering Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Tony Rice, to such modern masters as Bryan Sutton and David Grier. Today, younger players like Molly Tuttle and Carl Miner keep the genre alive.
Traditionally, bluegrass is played on acoustic instruments. Some people will tell you that putting the words āelectricā and ābluegrassā in the same sentence creates an oxymoron, like ābaroque jazz.ā Although those purists have a valid point, electric bluegrass and newgrass are accepted genres that take influence from the early pickers and apply it to more modern instrumentation. And thatās exactly what weāll do right now.
This lesson will focus on the fundamental techniques and note choices youāll need to unlock the essence of flatpick guitar. Once you digest the basics, youāll be ready to steal endless amounts of vocabulary from the masters of the style. The first thing to discuss is alternate-picking technique. Traditional flatpickers exist in a purely acoustic world, and being heard over loud banjos, Dobros, and fiddles is extremely important. The best way to achieve this is with a strong picking hand thatās capable of projecting each note to the audience.
Ex. 1 is a simple ascending and descending G major pentatonic scale (GāAāBāDāE). This is played with strict alternate picking: Begin with a downstroke, then follow it with an upstroke, then play a downstroke, and so on.
The problem with alternate picking will always be when you cross strings. (Note: Entire books have been devoted to this subjectāweāre just scratching the surface here.) The two aspects weāll examine right now are āinsideā and āoutsideā picking.
Outside picking is what happens when you pick a string, and then while targeting the next one, you jump over it and swing back to pick it. The flatpick attacks the outside edges of the two strings.
In Ex. 2, play the A string with a downstroke, then the D string with an upstroke. This is outside motion. Each subsequent string crossing motion uses this outside picking technique.
Most players find the outside mechanics easier than the more restrictive inside motion. As you may be able to work out, inside picking technique is where your pick is stuck between two strings.
The following lick (Ex. 3) uses only this inside motion. Play it slowly and then compare how fast and accurately you can play it relative to Ex. 2.
You wonāt have the luxury of structuring all your phrases to eliminate one motion or the other, so itās best to accept this reality and develop the skills needed to get by with both approaches. The best of the best didnāt make excuses, they just played down-up-down-up over and over for decades.
Ex. 4 features one note per string. This fast string-crossing motion requires a good level of proficiency with both inside and outside approaches to build up any sort of speed.
The secret to alternate picking isnāt to always alternate pickstrokes between notes, but to keep the motion of the hand going. In short, the hand will move in the alternating fashion whether or not you strike a string. If you have a stream of eighth-notes, theyāll be alternate picked, but if there are some quarter-notes thrown in, the hand wonāt freeze and wait for the next note. Youāll play the note with a downstroke, move up and not play anything, then drop back onto the strings and play the next note with a downstroke (Ex. 5).
This way all your downbeats are played with downstrokes and upbeats are upstrokes. Youāll see people refer to this as āstrict alternate picking.ā With that out of the way, itās worth looking at the note choices of a typical bluegrass player.
A quick analysis of some bluegrass tunes will reveal this isnāt harmonically complex music. Nearly all of the chords youāre going to be dealing with are major and minor triads, so note choice isnāt going to break the brain.
One approach would be to play a line based on the major scale of the key youāre in. For example, if youāre playing a song in G, the G major scale (GāAāBāCāDāEāF#) makes a good starting point.
A more stylistically appropriate approach would be to use the ācountry scale,ā which is a major pentatonic scale with an added b3. In G that would be GāAāBbāBāDāE. Ex. 6 shows this scale played beginning in the open position and moving up on the 3rd string.
Letās put all this into practice. Ex. 7 shows a line built around a G chord using this strict alternate-picking motion applied to string crossing mechanics in both directions. This sticks closely to the country scale, but thereās also an added C in the third measure to allow the 3 to land on the downbeat of measure four.
This next line (Ex. 8) uses the same idea, but now beginning up at the 5th fret area and moving down over the course of the lick.
Itās worth looking at each string crossing to categorize it as inside or outside. This will help further your understanding of the importance of these two picking techniques.
Hereās another idea around G (Ex. 9), but to create some smoother motion, this time we add notes from G Mixolydian (GāAāBāCāDāEāF), as well as a bluesy Db (b5) as a chromatic passing tone. The trick here is nailing all the position shifts as youāre going from the 3rd fret up to the 10th fret.
Our final example (Ex. 10) takes what weāve learned about approaching a major chord and applies it to two different chords. First, we have two measures of G, then C, and back to G.
When playing over the C, your note choice changes to the country scale, but now built from C (CāDāEbāEāGāA). Switching between these chords poses a technical challenge, along with a visual one. Take your time with a lick like this, and make sure youāre able to see the underlying chord at all times.
- Pluck 'Em! A Crash Course in Country Guitar - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Michael Daves: Bluegrass' Jekyll and Hyde - Premier Guitar āŗ
- 10 Commandments of Bluegrass Guitar - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Rig Rundown: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Rob Ickes & Trey Hensleyās New Songbook - Premier Guitar āŗ
Guitarist Brandon Seabrook, architect of fretboard chaos, and his trusty HMT Tele.
With a modified and well-worn heavy metal Tele, a Jerry Jones 12-string, a couple banjos, some tape sounds, and a mountain of fast-picking chops, New Yorkās master of guitar mayhem delivers Object of Unknown Function.
āItās like time travel,ā says Brandon Seabrook, reflecting on the sonic whiplash of āObject of Unknown Function.ā The piece, which opens the composerās solo album of the same name, journeys jarringly from aggressive āearly banjo stuffā up through āmore 21st-century classical music,ā combined with electronic found sounds from a TASCAM 4-track cassette recorder. The end result approaches the disorientation of musique concrĆ©te.
āThe structure is kind of like hopping centuries or epochs,ā he adds. āI [wanted] all these different worlds to collide. Itās like a choose-your-own-adventure.ā
Itās a heady, thrilling ideaābut no one whoās followed his zigzagging career will be surprised at the gumption. As heās cycled through various projects (including the acclaimed power trio Seabrook Power Plant), heās become a resident chaos architect within the Brooklyn avant-garde sceneāexploring everything from jazz-fusion to brutal prog to other untamed strains of heavy rock, typically wielding his trusted 1928 tenor banjo and a modified āheavy metal Telecasterā acoustic-electric from 1989.
But Object of Unknown Function, his first solo album since 2014ās Sylphid Vitalizers, became his own real-life choose-your-own-adventureāa process of rejuvenation by playing with new toys. Along with his usual gear, Seabrookās main compositional tools this time were a 6-string 1920 William O. Schmick Lyric guitar banjo and a 1998 Jerry Jones Neptune electric 12-stringāboth of which became vibrant ānew relationships,ā even if, at first, he felt like he was āstepping out on his guitar.ā
āMy other guitar [his Telecaster] is the only thing Iāve been playing for the past 25 to 27 years,ā he says, laughing. āI was so afraid to try something else: āI canāt play another guitar because itās like an extension of my arm. I know the topography of this neck so well. Itās my sound.ā"
Brandon Seabrook's Gear
Seabrookās 1989 Fender HMT Thinline Telecaster has seen enough wear to rival Willie Nelsonās Trigger.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
Instruments
- 1928 Bacon & Day Silver Bell tenor banjo
- 1920 William O. Schmick Lyric guitar banjo
- 1989 Fender HMT Thinline Telecaster with Sheptone Pickups
- 1998 Jerry Jones Neptune 12-string electric
Amps
- 1962 Magnatone Custom 450
- 1971 Traynor YGM-3
Pedals
- Arion SAD-1 Stereo Delay
- Jam Pedals Dyna-ssoR compressor
- Jam Pedals Rattler distortion
Strings and Picks
- DāAddario XL Nickel Wound 10's
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm
Accessories
- TASCAM PORTA 3 4-track cassette recorder
But Seabrook fell in love āright awayā with the Jerry Jones, and new ideas started flooding out. āThe 12-string is such a magic sound, and the Jerry Jones holds the intonation so well that you can detune some of the double-strings to make different intervals, kind of like a built-in harmonizer,ā he says. āWhen you play chords on that and they ring; itās some sort of majestic, angelic soundāor it can be.ā Photo by Scott Friedlander
Seabrook found the 6-string banjo at Brooklyn shop RetroFret Vintage Guitars, intending to shop for a mandolin. He was struck by William Schmickās construction (āIt uses slightly heavier strings, and the neck is wideā) and, more crucially, the surprising intensity it harnesses: āIt just sounded so metal to me or something,ā he recalls. āSo deep and rich and ominous, but beautiful.ā These discoveries came at a pivotal time: āI donāt know what happened last year, but I felt the need to get some new instruments. And that opened up a new sound world.ā
He eventually linked up with two key collaborators, producer David Breskin (John Zorn, Bill Frisell) and engineer Ben Greenberg (who plays guitar in noise-rock band Uniform), at the small Brooklyn studio Circular Ruin. That setting was ideal for the physical experience he hoped to capture: āI used contact mics on the guitar, and [sometimes on my body], to have a subtle sound design. Itās in thereāyou can kinda hear it [on the album] sometimes.ā
One reason for that impact: This is, by and large, the most intimate record of Seabrookās careerāa downshift from the wall-to-wall wildness that has defined so much of his work. That said, make no mistake. Almost no one else could create the pogoing guitar madness of āPerverted by Perseverance,ā which sounds like ā80s King Crimson being subjected to water torture. (āI actually was revisiting the ā80s King Crimson stuff while I was making this album,ā he says. āI just came back to it after years of not hearing it. Thatās straight-up Telecaster prepared with some alligator clips, and then I use my radio tape recorder on the pickups.ā)
Object sometimes leans into a more traditional āsoloā vibe, like on the dissonant, highly improvised banjo piece āUnbalanced Love Portfolioā; at other points, it piles instruments into towering overdub soundscapes, like on āGondola Freak,ā a heart-accelerating swirl of harmonized 12-strings.
Object of Unknown Functionis the guitaristās first solo record since 2014ās Sylphid Vitalizers.
āIāve been playing a lot of solo things over the past 10 years, and thatās on banjo and guitar,ā Seabrook says. āI was kinda hesitant to make an album of that stuff, although some pieces are totally stripped-down to just me. But I thought I could make a more compelling studio listening experience now that I have a little more of a palette that these instruments are offering. The solo album I did 10 years ago had lots of layers, but I wanted to be a bit more vulnerable on this record and have some songs stripped-down and some full.ā
The resulting project is a āblenderā of all the things Seabrook loves, thrown together in a way that sparks his imagination. āIām just trying to sound like the influences I have, whether itās ā80s King Crimson or Eugene Chadbourne or Van Halen or Joni Mitchellāall these things I hear certain fragments of, and maybe itās only for a measure or a section,ā he says. āI guess I am conscious of messing with form. I love the juxtaposition of certain things.ā
Seabrook is a long-time mainstay of the Brooklyn jazz and avant-garde scene, where, in addition to leading his own ensembles, heās worked with a wide range of artists that includes Nels Cline, Anthony Braxton, Mike Watt, and Mostly Other People Do the Killing.
Photo by Luke Marantz
āI used to be even more of a hailstorm on the audience psyche,ā he continues. āI just recorded a new album with this quartet of synthesizer, violin, bass, and guitar, and I want to bring more lyricism and less feeling of intentional surprise. Iām getting there slowly. A lot of the music I listen to is really lyrical, like folk music or soft rock. I try to put elements of that in here. I guess I do want to make weird twists and turns, but I do put a lot of thought into how to weave them and make them coherent.ā
Itās not like Seabrook has suddenly recorded an Eagles album, but these more refined moments signal a desire to keep challenging himselfāand his audience. āI think itās getting older and being more vulnerable, more confident in your choices,ā he says. āWhen I was younger, I never wanted one second of space. Now I just want to be more connected to the things I truly love. Itās a journey. I never want to think somebody wants to hear a certain thing from me.ā
YouTube It
Video Caption: In this mind-melting performance of ābrutalovechamp,ā captured May 20th, 2023 at Brooklynās Public Records, Seabrook is joined by the epic proportions octet, including everything from cello to recorder.
The Hummingbird Studio EC features a mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top, a Round SlimTaper profile mahogany neck, and L.R. Baggs electronics.
The Hummingbird has become more versatile and expressive than ever with the introduction of the Hummingbird Studio EC, Hummingbird Standard EC, and the Hummingbird Rosewood EC. Equipped with cutaway bodies that provide improved access to the upper frets of the Round SlimTaper profile mahogany necks, L.R. Baggs electronics, and shipped in hardshell cases, theyāre ready for you to take them wherever the muse carries you.
Hummingbird Standard EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12ā radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Standard Rosewood EC
- Rosewood body and sides with a Sitka spruce top gives more bass and harmonic complexity
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12ā radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Studio EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Utile neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 16ā radius
- L.R. Baggs Element Bronze electronics
- Satin finish with one-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
A forward-thinking, inventive, high-quality electro-acoustic design yields balance, playability, and performance flexibility.
High-quality construction. Flexible, responsive, and detailed-sounding pickup/mic system. Lots of bass resonance without feedback or mud.
Handsome, understated design may still estrange traditionalists.
$1,599
L.R. Baggs AEG-1
lrbaggs.com
Though acoustic amplification has improved by leaps, bounds, and light years, the challenges of making a flattop loud remain ⦠challenging. L.R. Baggs has played no small part in improving the state of acoustic amplification, primarily via ultra-reliable pickups like the Anthem, Lyric, andHiFi Duet microphone and microphone/under-saddle systems, the overachieving, inexpensive Element Active System, and theM1 andM80 magnetic soundhole pickupsāall of which have become industry standards to one degree or another.
Lloyd Baggs got his start building guitars for the likes of Jackson Brown, Ry Cooder, Janis Ian, and Graham Nash. So he can tell you that building a good guitar from the ground up is no mean feat. Enter the AEG-1, L.R. Baggsā first flattopāa unique thin-hollowbody design that leverages the companyās copious experience with transducers of every kind to create a successful, holistically functional instrument. In some ways, it feels like an instrument built to match a great pickup systemāa cool way to consider guitar design if you think about it.
Gentle Deconstruction
Admittedly, Iām a flattop design traditionalistāthat jerk that thinks any acoustic sketched out after 1962 looks a bit yucky. So, the AEG-1ās looks were a bit jarring out of the case. That didnāt last. Though itās very shallow and soft curves sometimes evoked a swimming pool outline, that of a nice Scandinavian coffee table, and Gibsonās L6-S (these are highly positive associations in my opinion), the lovely body contours and shallow cutaway have a slimming effect and give the guitar a sense of forward lean at the aft endāalmost like a sprinkle of Fender Jaguar. The more you stare at it, the more it looks like a very artful deconstruction of a dreadnought shape, and a very natural one at that.
The construction itself is unique, too. The sides are CDC-machined poplar ply, oriented so you see the laminate in cross-section. The top is a very pretty torrefied Sitka spruce, which is braced in a traditional scalloped X pattern. The sides are also braced with arms that radiate toward the waist and heel at 120 degrees from each other, reinforcing the soundhole and the substantial neck heel. The back is critical to the AEG-1ās tone makeup, too. Rather than a merely ornamental bit of plywood, itās a lovely Indian rosewood that vibrates freely, enhancing resonance and the many organic facets of the AEG-1ās tone spectrum.
The 25.625"-scale mahogany neck is mated to the body by way of four substantial bolts and an equally substantial contoured heel and heel block. Sturdy, perhaps, undersells the secure feel of the neck/body union. In hand, the slim-C neck is lovely, too. The bound rosewood fretboard is beautiful, and the playability is fantastic as well. The action is snappy and fast, the 1.7" nut width is comfy and spacious. And, in general, the build quality of the Korea-made AEG-1 is excellent.
Resonant With Room To Roam
With the exception of country blues playersāand guitarists like Blake Mills andMadison Cunningham, who dabble in rubber bridges to prioritize focus over breadthāmost 6-stringers want a lot of resonance from their instruments. The AEG-1 resonates beautifully, particularly for a thin-bodied guitar. And the HiFi Duet, made up of the HiFi bridge plate pickup and the companyās Silo microphone, is deep and detailed, so the output is easily reshaped by the flexible volume, tone, and mic/pickup blend controls. But the balance of the constituent parts, and the deft way with which the design sacrifices a little body resonance for string detail, is smart and satisfying to interact with.
This is especially true when you use blend settings that favor the microphone. If you get the tone control on the AEG-1, and your amp, dialed in right (I used a mid-scoop and slight bump in the treble and bass from a Taylor Circa74), the extra bass resonance is warm but without being overbearing, adding mass to tones without slathering them in mud. But you donāt have to get too precious and precise about such settings to make the guitar sound great. Working together, the HiFi Duetās pickup/mic blend and tone controls provide the range and variation to shift bass emphasis or put sparkle to the fore. This range is helped in no small part by the guitarās basic feedback resistance. I spent a fair bit of this evaluation playing loud, plugged into the Circa74, which was tilted toward my head at a 30-degree angle. Only when I bent down to turn the amp off, situating the guitar about a foot-and-a-half from the speaker, did the AEG-1 start to feed back.
The Verdict
Inventive, attractive in form and function, playable, and above all forgiving, full-sounding, and balanced when amplified, the AEG-1 is an unexpected treat. The HiFi Duet pickup-and-microphone system is a star. But rather than feeling like an afterthought, it feels like an integral part of the whole. And itās the cohesiveness of this designāand the wholeness of the many sounds it createsāthat makes the AEG-1 different from many stage-oriented electro-acoustic guitars
During routine quality checks, Blackstar has identified a problem with specific Debut 100 Series amps.
Statement from Blackstar:
"Nothing is more important to Blackstar than the safety of our customers.
During routine quality checks, we have identified a problem with Debut 100R 112 and 212 Combos with date codes from 2403 to 2411.
Due to cabinet production errors, a larger than intended gap between wooden parts of the cabinet can cause some electronic components to be accessible or partially exposed. As a result, in some circumstances a user could come into contact with safety critical internal chassis components. This poses a risk of serious electric shock.
Given the circumstances and our commitment to absolute safety, Blackstar has therefore decided to recall these affected products to resolve the issue. No other Blackstar products or Debut 100R date codes are affected.
Blackstar asks all customers with a Debut 100R 112 or 212 Combo to visit the following link to determine whether their product is affected: https://blackstaramps.com/product-recall/
We wish to thank you for your cooperation and to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
If you have any questions or concerns, or need any support regarding the details of this Product Safety Recall, please contact our team in the UK via https://blackstaramps.com/contact-us/"