Customer Reviews

Nashville Country Lead Guitar

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I obtained this book to help with my country chops and give me some new ideas for my own solos in a country setting. Mission accomplished! The book contains 25 solos over a variety of classic country chord progressions. This book is definitely geared towards the intermediate level player - I found several of the solos to be challenging and I've been playing for several years. I will likely end up using a few of the solos as technique exercises as they are excellent chop builders. And I've already found myself incorporating some of the licks in the solos in my own improvised solos.

Like the other books I have by Larry McCabe the notation and symbols are explained in depth. The book also contains suggested listening for various country styles and instruments. The included CD contains a recording of each solo, as well as just the rhythm changes (guitar, bass, drums) for each solo so the user can play by himself/herself over the changes.

A friend just got a call to go on a short tour with a country band (not his usual genre). I will be loaning him this book to help with his country chops, and I hope he doesn't keep it too long. Great book!

Electric guitar soloist looking for a classic flare will be pleased with the selection of twenty-five electric honky-tonk solos comprising "Nashville Country Lead Guitar", by veteran music educator Larry McCabe as he presents electric guitar solos for those playing electric guitar for aspiring and practicing country music guitarists at the intermediate level. This outstanding collection is made up of classic "twangy" country guitar style of the 1950's and 60's. Each of the twenty-five full length solos are played over a typical country cord progressions. The range in difficulty from early intermediate to challenging intermediate and is not intended for beginners still needing to a acquire basic expertise with the guitar. Included is an accompanying CD with each of the solos performed with a classic country band. Arranged in alphabetical order the musician can choose a piece and try it, if it is too difficult they can then select another. Written with clear instruction and explanation, "Nashville Country Lead Guitar" is an excellent choice for someone wishing to learn this style -- and highly recommended for personal and professional guitarists and guitar instructors.

I'm glad I found this book. I used to have one of the earlier printings a few years ago and I really enjoyed it. For the last several months I've been trying to hunt down a copy of it, so I was very happy to see it available again here recently. This book is good and solid in that it covers a wide variety of country "flavors" such as fast single-note soloing, double-stops, pedal-steel type licks, bluesy sounds and string snapping. It's a great collection of classic and contemporary sounds. The price was great and it came with a cd that also includes rhythm parts to play along with.

This is an excellent book for any guitarist wanting to learn the
electric country honky-tonk style of playing. This is the postwar style
pioneered by performers such as Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Lefty
Frizzell, and similar artists.

Each solo is an improvised solo on a standard country progression. If
you write out the chord progressions for several country standards,
you'll probably find some of the progressions here. Memorize the solos,
transpose them to other keys, extract phrases for specific uses, and
you'll get a lot of mileage from this book.

The solos are expertly played and a delight to listen to. Some require
four fingers and a solid alternate-picking technique, a challenge for
many blues and rock guitarists. It is a valuable book and one I highly
recommend.

This superb collection of solos is highly recommended to all ambitious country guitar students. It is not a beginner's book but one for those who can already play with good alternate-picking skills.

The solos are written to universal country chord progressions, typically three chords and twelve or sixteen bars, the form found in thousands of songs. Learn the solos and then apply bits and pieces of them to your favorite chord progressions and songs. For example, if you need to play a two-bar phrase on a V chord, simply extract a two-measure V chord phrase from one of the solos, transpose it to the proper key, and there you are. Nearly instant application.

Need to link a I chord to a IV chord? Find an example in the book, and then apply it to anything you want to apply it to. This is a fantastic way to be creative and not only copy licks note-for-note from hit songs. The great thing is that the method requires and encourages creativity on the part of the user. Working with this book for awhile will definitely build your concept and technique.

As I mentioned, the chords for many standards are here (including "Jambalya," which is titled here "Flying While Using a Doghouse for Wings"), so all the material is perfectly applicable to real songs. Very highly recommended to all aspiring country guitarists, especially those interested in developing an original style.

This book was exactly what I've been looking for in a Country Lead Guitar book. 25 excellent solos in a wide variety of keys. I consider myself an intermediate guitar player and new to the Country Music sound. I loved the variety of the solo's in general, covering a great mix of different Country Music sounds, speed, and difficulty. I put the CD in and made it all the way to track 4: Black Wolf, and knew that one was a great starter and the one I wanted to learn first. It is a great solo with a pretty low degree of difficulty, and sounds great plugged in! I'm in the middle of learning 1130 Grand Avenue (track:9) right now and I'm just having a blast! I own several Red Dog Music Books and I have never been disappointed with the content or quality, top notch all the way. Many thanks to the Author.

I purchased this book and CD about 2 months ago. When it arrived, the CD would not work. I tried the CD in 3 different CD players which I know work well and it wouldn't make a sound in any of them. I got some sort of "error message" on all of them.

So I contacted Amazon and they sent me a complete new book and CD and said I had to return the first one. The only problem was the new CD had exactly the same fault as the first one. It wouldn't play on any of my CD players either. I'm pretty sure that at least one other person who reviewed this book/CD had a similar problem with the CD also.

So, anyway, I returned BOTH copies of the book and CD since the book wasn't going to do me much good without the CD to hear what the songs are supposed to sound like. I was quite upset at the hassle I had to go through sending messages back and forth to Amazon and eventually sending both books and CD's back. It really wasn't Amazon's fault and they were pretty cooperative in the matter, but it was just a pain in the butt to go through all that and end up with nothing.

I gave this book/CD a 2 star rating instead of one star because I did like the spiral binding of the book which made it easy to lay flat. I will caution anyone considering ordering this book/CD that it definitely is not for beginners or even early intermediate players. All the songs are in 2/4 time and practically all of the notes in the songs are 1/16 notes so the notes really fly by fast. You'll need some really quick fingers to be able to play any of these songs. However, if you're a strong intermediate to advanced player, then you might like the songs...... that's assuming that you can get a CD that works. Hope you have better luck with it than I did.

Two other things about the songbook that I forgot to mention:

First: The book shows the recommended fingering for each note on each song. Since these songs go by really fast, this can be a big help in some instances to learn the best way to play each note so that you can move quickly to the next note.

Second: The TABS show the fret numbers of the notes being played IN BETWEEN the lines (strings) rather than on top of the lines like most TABS do. While this does make the numbers easier to read since they don't have a line through them, it also can make it confusing since the numbers are in between the lines rather than on the string that is supposed to be played.

This is a decent collection of solos from the post-war to bakersfield era. No hot country, not outlaw, Ray Price, Buck Owens, early George Jones kinda stuff. The solos are good, of moderate difficulty. I was really glad to find this because most of the instructionals out there seem to focus on hot country, and this doesn't. There's a standard notation across most tablature and this book doesn't use it, which I find odd. Most irritating to me is that the second half of my CD doesn't work. Because I worked through the solos systematically, I didn't discover this until the expiration window had passed. I've been unable to contact McCAbe or his publishing company, Red Dog Music Books to ask for a replacement. So, I guess this would be a decent buy, if the cd worked or if I'd been able to get a replacement. As it is, I wouldn't recommend buying anything from McCabe.

Its not for me to judge what is "Country" or not, and while alot of the guitar licks in this book do indeed sound like Country music (as opposed to rock or blues), these licks have nothing to do with Nashville style Country guitar, whether that be from the Brent Mason/Brad Paisley/Johnny Hiland school of hot Country guitar OR if its the old school Honky Tonk licks played by the greats on Lower Broadway in Nashville.

This book and cd will teach you very detailed, intricate riffs for which I would be amazed if you are ever able to insert such a riff into anything else you are playing. Not sure that you will even be able to glean any real theory of value from this very tedious exercise. If you learn a very intricate riff from a song, at least you can play the riff in that song. These are stand alone riffs that are going to be hard to extract more than bits and pieces for use elsewhere.