Chords for Acoustic Guitar Lesson - Chet Atkins-Style Lesson

_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [C] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [N] Hi, I'm Doug Young.
I'm a contributing editor with Acoustic Guitar, and I'm here to demonstrate
the examples in Acoustic Guitar's 20th anniversary lesson on Chet Atkins.
Chet was, of course,
a huge influence on guitarists and continues to influence guitarists all over the world.
He was a noticeable influence on a young George Harrison on the early Beatle albums.
He continues
to influence modern fingerstyle masters like Tommy Emanuel, Doyle Dykes, and many others. _
In this lesson, we're going to take a look at one aspect of Chet's playing.
Chet was,
of course, a master of many styles.
He could play country, classical, pop, everything in
between.
But he's most known for his thumb-picking _ boomchuck legacy, and we're going to take
a look at that.
Example one _ demonstrates the basic technique, and to do this effectively,
you want to damp the strings a little bit with the palm of your hand.
It helps to use
a thumb-pick, although you don't have to.
And you need to let the top strings ring open
so that the bottom strings are slightly [A] muted, _ _ _ [G] and while the top strings ring _ _ very clearly.
[F] So this allows a lot of separation between the bass line and the melody, and is partly
responsible for why a lot of people, when they heard Chet, thought they were hearing
more than one guitar.
You want to experiment with the muting a little bit.
You could play
anything, like anything from unmuted [D] _ _ _
[F#] to very [Gm] muted.
_ [E] But to really get that [Am] boomchuck sound, _ _ _ _
[E] you just want to find the right [F] setting here for your heel.
Let's take a look at example
one.
It goes [E] like this.
_ _ [F#] _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [F#m] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
Now, Chet always looked like he was playing completely relaxed, _ totally
effortless, and even when he was playing something at breakneck speed, he just never seemed to
break a sweat.
[A] He did play things, however, that were more up-tempo than that.
Example
two is one example of a little more up-tempo style.
It's basically the same thing.
We're
still doing the alternating bass boomchuck, but in this case the bass line is moving twice
as fast, so it's sort of double-timed.
So instead _ [E]
of_
_ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
_ _ Other than that, it's the same
basic idea.
Mute with the palm of your hand, and try to make the melody notes ring.
_ [G]
Here's
example two [A] slowly, _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#m] _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ [E] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
and a little faster.
_ _ _ [F#m] _
_ _ _ _ [G#] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ Above all, Chet was always tasteful and emphasized
the melody, never played a note that didn't need to be played.
_ But he could match flashy
licks with anybody if he wanted to.
And he would sometimes use flashy cross-string runs
or chromatic runs as intros or endings to add a little spice to the tunes.
Example three
[C] is an example of those techniques.
Let's look at the first half very slowly.
The first half
of the lick is a cross-string run, a little bit of a banjo-type roll.
I'll play it slowly.
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ And [G] then the second half is a simple chromatic run.
_ [D#] _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] And then on a chord, it'd be a good ending
for a tune.
Let me play the whole lick very slowly.
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Em] _ Now let's try it [C] up to speed.
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ You
can find the sheet music, the tab, for these examples, as well as my article about Chet
Atkins, online at AcousticGuitar.com or in the February 2010 issue of Acoustic Guitar.
For Acoustic Guitar, I'm Doug Young.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _