Country Lead

Country lead guitar is bright, snappy and full of tricks borrowed from the pedal steel and the banjo. This chapter teaches you the sounds that make a lick unmistakably country, starting from the major pentatonic scale.

First you learn major pentatonic licks in G, mixing open strings with fretted notes and landing on the major third. Then you copy the steel guitar with pedal-steel bends: double-stops where one note bends into harmony while the other holds still. Chicken pickin' brings the clucking, popping sound of muted notes followed by snapped ones, and hybrid-picking licks use pick and fingers together for rolls and cascades that ring like a banjo. The last lesson puts it all together in three original country licks in A: a descending run, a bend lick and a thirds lick.

Each tab plays in your browser with a click and a tempo ladder, so you can start slow and work up to the target bpm, and every lesson ends with a checkpoint. You'll finish with in-tune bends, cleaner string crossings and licks ready for your next solo.