This Rhythm Edition of the Rockabilly Guitar Survival Guide by Jason Loughlin will take you through all the necessary concepts and techniques to play rhythm guitar in this style. The course is broken up into two sections: In the first section, Jason will run down the scales, chord shapes, strumming techniques, etc. that give rockabilly its signature character. Then in the second section, you'll work through 12 performance studies that put all these new concepts into musical context, inspired by some of the quintessential rockabilly tunes:
Rockabilly Strumming - This performance is in the key of E. Our progression is I-IV-I-V-I. I'll be using open position chords incorporating accents, pulsing chords, adding color tones like the 6th and b7th, using crescendos, muted strums and hits. Anything we can do build in energy and dynamics we're gonna try here.
Rockin' in C - This performance is in C and our progression is I-IV-I-V-IV-I. We'll be using some different patterns, call-and-response and chord hits. The first time through I'm playing the b3rd to the 3rd on the backbeat. This very similar to a boogie pattern except we're playing it with straight eighth notes rather than swung. The second time through we're walking into the root from the 5th and putting the 6th on the backbeat and using octave C's for a call-and-response part. Our last time through the progression we're doing our walkup from the 5th and using a C9 chord as hits at the end of each phrase.
Minor Shuffle - This minor shuffle performance is in G minor and our progression is i-iv-i-V-bVI-V-i. I'll be using call and response, building minor riffs, using fills and Bigsby dips.
Boogie Woogie - This performance in E will take us through three variation of the boogie rhythm. We'll add half-step approach notes, jumping octaves and repetitive figures. The progression is I-IV-I-V-I.
Sun Pickin' - This performance is in E major and follows a simple I-IV-V progression. We'll go three times through the form. We'll be using basic travis picking patterns off of inversions of major chords, using augmented chords and adding lots of notes from major scales, pentatonic scales and blues scales.
Go, Cat, Go! - This will be over a track in A major with a swing feel. Our progression is I-IV-I-V-IV-I. It will start with a major scale run into hits. When we repeat the form, we'll start with the hits.
Big Easy - This performance in G is over a I-IV-I-V-I progression with a New Orleans feel, or our rhumba bassline. I'll be doubling the bassline, using call-and-response, incorporating melody notes in chords to line up with the bass ostinato.
Last Dance - Time to finally ask Betty Sue if she'd like to dance. Like so many ballads of this era, we're playing in 6/8. This triplet subdivision makes a lot of sense for slow tempo tunes cause the three eighths to a beat keeps things barreling forward. This performance is in A major and almost always uses chords and chord inversions on the top 4 strings. The progression is I-vi-IV-iv-I-VI-II-V-I-IV-I-V+.
Film Noir - This performance is chalked full of lots of great harmonic sounds. Our progression is i-iv-i-bVI-V-i. This is done over a slow swing. I'll be adding movement to the chords wherever I can. I've also added a cascading melody over the i chord. I'm using an E melodic minor and I'm letting strings ring into each other wherever possible. The quickest way to get to the melodic minor scale is to just flat the 3rd of a major scale. The formula is W-H-W-W-W-W-H.
Big Octaves - Our track is in the key of E. It's basically a E blues progression with a V-bVI-V turnaround. I'll be using an E minor pentatonic scale for my melody. Trying to get a lil grit in your sound for this one. Be sure to check Johnny Burnette's "Train Kept a Rollin'" for an example of this technique.
Dead Thumb - This performance in F follows a common F blues progression. Our "dead thumb" will always be on the root of the chord. For the melody, I'll be using the blues scale and the minor pentatonic scale.
Shim Sham - This performance is in C minor over a "Sing, Sing, Sing" beat. It's a cool minor variation of our New Orleans style bassline. We'll use minor chord inversions on the top four strings and I'll use some diminished shapes as a quick way to get to the 3rd, 5th, b7th and b9th of dominant chords. Also, we'll see a substitution of a iv over a i chord.
Jason will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way, and you’ll get standard notation and tabs for each of the performance studies. Plus, Jason includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with them on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.