Rockabilly is a style born in the USA. And, like many other American genres, it pulls influence from a multitude of other styles. Country, Appalachia, and blues are just some of the flavors you’ll find in the rockabilly songbook. Rockabilly is also largely considered a predecessor of rock n’ roll. This American genre a great place to start studying if you are learning about the origins of rock music.
In his course, Rockabilly Guitar Survival Guide: Rhythm, Jason Loughlin shows you the proper techniques and approaches to play rhythm guitar in this style.
Here are eight video rockabilly guitar lessons from the course. But, for the full course, check out Jason Loughlin’s Rockabilly Guitar Survival Guide: Rhythm on TrueFire!
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Travis Picking
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Travis picking is a finger picking technique that loosely imitates stride piano. Your thumb plays an alternating bassline usually on the bottom three strings, and your index, middle and ring fingers pick out melodies on the top three strings. If you play with a pick, you can play the alternating bassline with your pick and pluck out melodies with your middle and ring fingers. That’s what we’ll do here since that’s comfortable for most guitarists and most popular with rockabilly guitarists.
This technique is used in classic rockabilly, but has become much more popular with guitarists during and following the rockabilly revival of the 80’s. We’ll learn how the melody notes can play off of the bassline and two common travis picking pattern.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Minor Shuffle Concept
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Tunes like The Stray Cats’ “Rumble in Brighton” and Johnny Burnette’s “Lonesome Train” use a minor shuffle. Most early rock and roll and shuffles found in rockabilly are major. That commonly means we are using the dotted eighth/sixteenth rhythm or swung eighth note and accenting the backbeat with the 6th of the chord. In a minor shuffle though, you would accent the b3 of the chord. I’ll show you a minor shuffle and how to build a minor riff using the shuffle rhythm.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Minor Shuffle: Overview
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This minor shuffle performance is in G minor and our progression is i-iv-i-V-bVI-V-i. So, I’ll be using call and response, building minor riffs, and using fills and Bigsby dips.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Minor Shuffle: Performance
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Now, listen to how I use a minor shuffle riff to give this performance an identity. This is something that works well as an intro or interlude. Check out where I use fills to bookend a section and get back to the rhythm. I’ve also picked a big minor 6th chord to end on.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Minor Shuffle: Breakdown
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My riff is using the shuffle rhythm and is taking notes from the blues scale. Listen to how I target the b5th. This gives it more of a sinister sound. The second time through, I’m playing the common minor shuffle pattern. Then, the last time through I’m building with the band and using a fill to get back into the rhythm part. The Bigsby dips here are acting as the call-and-response part; something that would happen after a vocal phrase. On my turnaround, I used a triplet rhythm. Presenting the turnaround in a new way just keeps things interesting. We end on a Gm6 chord.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Go, Cat, Go!: Overview
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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.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Go, Cat, Go!: Performance
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Rockabilly musicians are a product of their times and their environment, just like any other musician. Swing music was extremely popular in the 1940’s when players like Cliff Gallop and Grady Martin were kids. You can hear a lot swing melodies and phrasing in their soloing and comping.
This performance will use our swing chord shapes, call-and-response that uses major pentatonic and blues scales, chord substitutions, hits and a common intro and outro.
Rockabilly Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Go, Cat, Go!: Overview
Download the tab & notation for this rockabilly guitar lesson
This intro is very similar to Gene Vincent’s “Race with the Devil”. We walk down a major scale into a low twangy bend into the root. The we have our hits. I’m using a A6/9 chord for these. Then, I fill into my comping. I’m using swing chords for comping and filling in between phrases. I’m also using notes from the scale to get some more movement happening in these shapes. The I chord before the turnaround has some substitutions happening. Nothing we’ve talked about before. So, I guess that would makes these easter eggs in the course!
I’m going from a root position A6 to E7/B to A/C# to Cdim. Using a V chord like E7/B against the I is always a nice passing chord. The Cdim is serving as an B7alt. This would be the V chord of E7. I end with a scale run that adds chromatic passing tones between the 3rd and 5th and the 6th and root.
Digging these free video rockabilly guitar lessons? Check out Jason Loughlin’s Rockabilly Guitar Survival Guide: Rhythm.