Chicken Pickin'

[raf]

I am relatively new here & very new to Teles. I have played guitar since I was a kid...I am a pretty stiff player, mainly playing blues scales with a pick. I am very interested in learning to chicken pick. What is the best way to approach this? Using a pick & fingers feels extremely un-natural to me, not to mention sounds horrid at the moment. Where do I start? How do I get more fluid? What resources can help?

Thanks!

[bouncepogo]

I would also be interested in any help people can give on this topic

[markothefish]

here's a neat lesson from Fenders Players Club .It's a quick Chicken pikcken/Buckeroo lesson with sound clips and tab .Start with this then move on to tougher stuff. here you go Buckeroo lesson

[Gunslinger]

Hi fellas

Without a doubt you need to learn to use those fingers and nails, lots for the techniques country players use can only be acheived with this style. For example that “Mason” style pop, open string licks and double stopping all require extra fingers to get the sound. And thats the most important part, getting the sound (most of it comes from the right hand finnesse)
Practice with a clean amp will help in the long run as you cant hide untidy licks with the overdrive. I use a herco thumbpick but the're not for everyone. For the licks check out:

www.tallstrom.com
www.sizzlingguitarlicks.com

There's some good stuff to be had, plus this board has some of the best pickers in the world (I'm serious) most are happy to help out with advice.

Best of luck, I'm sure more good advice will follow.

Cheers

GS

p.s. Learning banjo roll type licks will help to get those fingers working.

[Jellecaster]

The term "chicken pickin'" actually refers to a specific technique where you mute the string as you pick on the down stroke and then "pop" it on the upstroke. Its kinda hard to explain in text. The best demo that I've seen of it was by Greg Koch in this video

People tend to use the term more generically to refer to country-style hybrid picking. I highly recommend this video as a start.

[Home Grown Tele]

Look for "Chicken Pickin" by Erik Halbig. It's a Hal Leonard instruction book with about a hundred licks and a demo CD included to get you started. It has some good stuff on it.

[IronJoe]

I started right here:

Chicken Pickin Guitar Tab

Section VI has tab and wav files for a lot of country styles.

[rand z]

i have all of the video/dvd's mentioned above and a few more; and all are good. however, if you want to learn to chicken pickin, and hot country guitar licks, imho go right to the source of where many of them started:

james burton's hot lick dvd.

here he shows the basic concepts and ideas of these licks, bends etc and even gives you a history of how he came up with them. james' examples, imho, are a little more basic and easier to follow than the examples in the other dvds listed above, which i believe are more advanced. plus there is a section on most of the dvd in the hot lick series were the examples are slowed down, still in pitch, and its much easier to SEE what James is doing. they usually provide a close up too. most of the other dvds listed above do not have that feature. (they could use it in future productions, though)

all are very good, but as a teacher, i feel James Burton is thebest place to START.

always imho.

rand z tropicalsoul.net

[bender72]

Start using a thumb pick, herco blue or fred kelly speed pick, it's a little ackward at first, but you'll get used to it very quickly.
Also, start wood shedding on some Merle Haggard, Alan Jackson, George Jones types of music. Get Redd's DVD or Terry Downs DVD.

[raf]

Wow, I have a few places to start now! Thanks everyone & keep 'em coming..the more basic the better...I won't be crawling for a while!

[johnnylaw]

Ya gotta learn to crawl before ya learn to fly. Though not technically Chicken Pickin', getting a good grip on basic (bluegrass) banjo rolls is a good jumping off point. Its a great way to cultivate touch, dexterity, and timing.

Consider this: Most of our "straight ahead" tunage consists of rhythmic things (yeah, he's a music scholar!) clustered in groups of eight, or four. When hybrid or bluegrass (roll) picking, we use three digits. So, neither four or eight are multiples of three (and a mathmatician!), right? To make this all fit together, you have to make four or eight plucks out of three pluckers. What develops can readily a yield lovely musical syncopation. I'm talking specifically about forward rolls, backward rolls, and forward-backward rolls.

Try this to get started: Stick to your open D,G, and B strings. This is an inverted G Major chord and should sound good enough, so don't fret!
We will notate the pluckers as T for thumb, I for index, and M for middle. (Hybridders will have to modulate to Pick, Middle, and Ring).

Here are some forward roll examples: T I M T I M T M ; M T I M T I M I M ; I M T I M T I M.

Here are some backward roll examples: M I T M I T M I ; T M I T M I T M

And how about those Forward-backward patterns: T I M T M I T M ; I M T M I T I M

Try practicing these one pattern at a time at first. Go slow and strive for good string articulation and balanced attack. Move on to string one pattern onto itself indefinitely with smooth seamless timing. Then mix it up, say, four forward to two backward, to one forward, followed by a forward-backward, then do it again all over. And over. And over and over and over. Then, sign the divorce papers and continue.

Don't be surprised if you find backward rolls come more naturally than forward rolls. Listen to some Earl Scruggs, like the Ballad of Jed Clampett to help gain a feel for that syncopation stuff. Take the time to rock AND roll.

[raf]

I will be working on these this weekend for sure...I will definitely be working my way up to crawling!

Thanks again!

[CodeBlue]

more please!