In this video, country guitar wizard Matheus Canteri’s helps to unlock the secrets of hot country picking by sharing six of his favorite licks. Matheus is best known as a Brazilian born solo artist and as a sideman now working in Nashville and touring all the major music festivals.
The electric guitar tone here fits perfectly in the classic country style. Matheus plugs his home made Telecaster-style guitar straight into a clean Vox amp. The bridge pickup is selected which provides that signature Tele-style twang. If you’d like to get a similar tone with your setup we'd recommend dialing in a lively clean tone from your amp and selecting your bridge pickup. You can also experiment with adding a touch of slap-back delay. Simply set your delay pedal to a single, fast repeat which is nearly as loud as the original note.
In the video, Matheus plays various, classic country lines that will work over an E7 chord. To bring the phrases to life Matheus uses various articulations such as finger slides, hammer-ons and pull offs.
One of the key tricks to facilitate the effortless speed and accuracy on display here is the hybrid-picking technique. Hybrid picking just means the plectrum is combined with the fingers of the picking hand. This is a potent technique for this style of delivery, so we have notated all the picking directions from the video examples for you to study. Using the fingers to pluck the strings not only increases facility, but also adds a pleasing snap to the tone.
Matheus also uses the open strings, which is another classic country technique. The main scale of choice here is the E major pentatonic scale (E-F#-G#-A-C#) and this can be combined with the E minor pentatonic scale (E-G-A-B-D) to create one big hybrid scale. The chromatic tones can be used to link the notes of the E7 chord (E-G#-B-D) and this is a key way those more advanced sounding country guitar lines can be created.
Playing lead guitar ideas at breakneck speed on a clean, electric guitar with the bridge pickup selected can feel very exposed, but it’s rewarding to build up your ability to articulate with consistency and musicality in this setting. The examples are performed on the video at a blistering 300bpm with a slower version afterwards to help you identify the nitty gritty. We’d recommend practicing even slower to start with as it’s essential that all the picking directions are dialed in before turning up the tempo.
Once you’ve learned and mastered the ideas in these licks it would be a good exercise to challenge yourself and play them in a variety of different keys.
Hopefully there will be a new technique, lick or phrase in here for you to perfect. If you find one you like, then you can memorize it and use it in future solos.
The examples
Example 1
This first lick has a bit of everything in it including open strings and a mixture of the E major and E minor pentatonic scales. Lots of passing tones are used here to make a smooth line with plenty of color The main concept for the picking is any note on an adjacent string that would require an up pick is replaced with a pluck of the second finger. This may feel a little awkward at first, but with a bit of practice you should find it easier to play faster with consistency.
Example 2
This example moves all over the fret board and the position shifts are made to sound more musical with finger slides. To slide between two notes simply keep your finger pressed down as you move from one fret to the next. This lick may take at bit of time to memorize in full, but it is made up of lots of snippets of great vocabulary. These snippets can be jumbled up to create new phrases.
Example 3
This example features the E minor pentatonic scale. The lick is created using a two string, horizontal pattern that ascends and descends. The basic pattern of picking, finger slides and hammer ons is the same in each position so once you have learned it, it’s just a case of memorizing the fingering positions.
Example 4
For this example Matheus uses double stops (two notes together) and these are plucked with the second and third fingers of the picking hand. A classic trick is to use finger slides to slide in and out of the double stops by a semi tone. The lower notes are played with a down pick and can be muted by lightly fretting them. This creates a percussive sounding country guitar line.
Example 5
Example five combines hammer ons and pull offs with hybrid picking. The use of repeating patterns is a great way to build phrases. The top note of this pattern can be changed to provide some variety. You can repeat and vary the pattern as much as you wish to build longer and more varied lines.
Example 6
This final example uses the E minor pentatonic as a base. The use of subtle string bending helps to add a little bit of feel when going back and fourth from the B note pedal tone. The Bb passing tone is diminished fifth from the E minor blues scale (E-G-A-Bb-B-D).
Matheus in action
Improvisation in D
This video shows Matheus improvising over a country track in D with his B-Bender guitar.
One Horse Town
The Matheus Canteri Band playing a Blackberry Smoke classic titled One Horse Town.
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