Chicken Pickin' Educational Material

[Cody_J]

Hey everyone! I just finished putting together this video, and it could use your help!

This video is my review of country / chicken pickin' educational material that I particularly love, and that I would recommend for different types of learners. However, I limited the video to only material that I have firsthand knowledge / experience with. My goal is to have other people chime in on the video comments themselves with their own recommendations, so that when people find this video in the future, they'll not only hear my recommendations, but they'll see other people's suggestions in the comment section as well.

Particularly, there's an "essential listening" section that could use some serious beefing up!

I really hope this resource is helpful, and will save some people a bit of money and headache. There's so much amazing learning material out there today, but a lot of it is targeting certain players, whether that is someone truly new to guitar, or advanced players looking to spice up their playing. Sometimes, the educational material is not clear who the target player is, and that come occasionally leave the consumer scratching their heads, or actually wind up purchasing something that might not be best for their current level of playing. My goal was to try and point folks in a direction that might be best for them based on my own learning journey!

 

[dcupright]

Thanks for that Cody, just watched. As someone wanting to get better at this style of music I will be checking out your recommendations!

 

[Cody_J]

Thanks for that Cody, just watched. As someone wanting to get better at this style of music I will be checking out your recommendations!

Awesome! I'm so glad people seem to be responding well to the recommendations! Out of curiosity, is there any material that you've tried before that either worked well for you, or didn't work so well?

 

[dcupright]

Awesome! I'm so glad people seem to be responding well to the recommendations! Out of curiosity, is there any material that you've tried before that either worked well for you, or didn't work so well?

I do better one to one, I think I need the accountability! I do best with small pieces of info.

Although it is not chicken picking I have gotten the most from Active Melody online.

 

[Cody_J]

I do better one to one, I think I need the accountability! I do best with small pieces of info.

Although it is not chicken picking I have gotten the most from Active Melody online.

I certainly understand that. The accountability part really resonates with me! Haha.

 

[twangjeff]

That's a really cool video concept. I'll add a few things that may be helpful for newbies:

1.) Get with a band, and learn the songs. There is more benefit from learning a dozen Merle Haggard songs, or George Strait songs, or insert whoever you like here, than there is in all of these lesson programs combined. I also notice that people from other generes tend to not understand how to set the gear for the right tone, that is something that a few dozen gigs will help firm up. Everybody in their first dozen or so country gigs goes through the, "I hate compressors... wait this really helps... I squash everything... and eventually moderate compressor usage."

2.) Guitar plays spend a lot of time focusing on things like the Hellecasters, Hot Wired, etc. etc. NOBODY in the world cares about that stuff except for other guitar players. Watching a Danny Gatton video will in NO WAY prepare you for a country gig, because 90% of what he talks about is not going to be of any value to you when the band starts playing Miami My Amy.

The best way that I have seen country newbies become proficient quick, is by learning Merle Haggard and Alan Jackson songs. You can use Youtube now to slow them down to figure parts out which is a great luxury. Merle Haggard gives you a sampling of most of the major pre-Mason guitar players like Roy Nichols, James Burton, Reggie Young, Clint Strong, Redd Volkaert, the list could go on for a long long while, and Alan Jackson gives you Brent Mason which for better or worse IS modern country guitar.

 

[Junkyard Dog]

Don't forget about the lesson from Bill Kirchen on TrueFire! It is not all chicken pickin', and I guess it also not all country, but there are some nice tasty licks and fills in there that can certainly be applied in a lot of country songs. AND it turns out that Bill Kirchen, in addition to being a great player and nice guy, is a really good teacher too!

 

[Cody_J]

Don't forget about the lesson from Bill Kirchen on TrueFire! It is not all chicken pickin', and I guess it also not all country, but there are some nice tasty licks and fills in there that can certainly be applied in a lot of country songs. AND it turns out that Bill Kirchen, in addition to being a great player and nice guy, is a really good teacher too!

That's a great recommendation! I'm a big fan of Bill Kirchen's, but I admittedly have not checked out that Truefire course. I will add it to my list!

 

[Junkyard Dog]

Another thing I would like to add is that instructional material like this (videos, books, etc.) is developed for a general audience...i.e. it is not personalized instruction. Which is fine, but what I mean is don't expect every single lick/technique/concept to be something that appeals directly to you. For me personally, I usually find a couple, maybe three, or maybe only one thing that I can learn, that I want to learn, etc. from a $20 video/book...which is still totally worth it to me! And then years go by, and I'll look at it again and find something else in there to inspire me.

 

[Cody_J]

Another thing I would like to add is that instructional material like this (videos, books, etc.) is developed for a general audience...i.e. it is not personalized instruction. Which is fine, but what I mean is don't expect every single lick/technique/concept to be something that appeals directly to you. For me personally, I usually find a couple, maybe three, or maybe only one thing that I can learn, that I want to learn, etc. from a $20 video/book...which is still totally worth it to me! And then years go by, and I'll look at it again and find something else in there to inspire me.

That's definitely true! And I have done that plenty of times with material -- still do! haha. That's actually some of the "supplemental" material that I suggested from the video. I still find myself going back to some of those old Hot Licks videos and picking up new stuff I skipped before.

That said, I did my best to choose specific items for this video that IF someone went all the way through the material, start-to-finish, they would come out the other side with an understanding of what they're doing. However, the pick-and-choose methodology is certainly one most of use still use with decent effect!

 

[Linderflomann]

Nice video! Subscribed to your channel.

 

[Linderflomann]

Oh BTW, one course that I recommend above the others by Jason Loughlin is Country Connections. It goes more into the scales to use when soloing over the changes; whereas the Survival Guide is more a collection of etudes. Also very good, but I think Country Connections is more foundational and should probably be bought first.

 

[Cody_J]

Nice video! Subscribed to your channel.

Oh BTW, one course that I recommend above the others by Jason Loughlin is Country Connections. It goes more into the scales to use when soloing over the changes; whereas the Survival Guide is more a collection of etudes. Also very good, but I think Country Connections is more foundational and should probably be bought first.

Thank you!! You know, it's funny you mention Jason Loughlin's "Country Connections." I have that course, and found it very interesting and informative, but when I was putting this list together, for whatever reason I totally blanked on including it. That's a great recommendation, though! I wish I had put it in the video...

 

[Linderflomann]

Thank you!! You know, it's funny you mention Jason Loughlin's "Country Connections." I have that course, and found it very interesting and informative, but when I was putting this list together, for whatever reason I totally blanked on including it. That's a great recommendation, though! I wish I had put it in the video...

Story time: I was visiting NYC back in 2013 and went to see a movie (Inside Llewyn Davis IIRC). Afterwards I went to a bar on the same street as the movie theater... turned out to be Skinny Dennis, and Jason Loughlin happened to be playing that night. My exposure to country guitar was fairly limited at that point, since there's not a whole lot of chicken pickin' going on in Europe. I had a love for Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons records, but had never seen anyone play like that live. So anyway, Jason played and I was blown away. The chicken pickin', the steel guitar bends, the Chet Atkins stuff, I'd never seen anything like it.

Went on Google the next day, learned that he created courses for this site called Truefire, which I'd never heard of before, and bought the Country Guitar Survival Guide Lead Edition right away.

I was intrigued, but it was frankly a little bit beyond my understanding and ability. I kept following Jason and bought Country Connections when it came out, and that really made things click for me, which is why I recommend it.