You are a gifted teacher with superb tech skills. Thanks again for ALL of the great lessons. Maybe it’s that I’m left-handed and I’m trying to do something designed for right-handed levels of natural dexterity. It is also one of the only collections that concisely demonstrates his subtlely dazzling virtuosity. Sandman' and 'Yakety Axe' - it functions as the best single-disc retrospective of the guitarist. Very rewarding but don’t underestimate the struggle for beginning guitarists. Since The Essential Chet Atkins concentrates on his instrumental tracks - including hits like 'Mr. It has taken me all week all day each day to develop the muscle memory in right hand fingers for this. (1,000 times)ĭrill #3: You get the drift - break the exercise into four sections - practice them independently then assemble them into larger modules. I spent the first eight hours or so discovering ways to dissect the motions into the following:ĭrill #1: Left hand pinkie on sixth string pluck string three then string four - do this 1,000 timesĭrill #2: pinkie on fifth string-pluck then pluck strings four(pointer) and two (ring finger) simultaneously. It would be a great benefit to the less adept like myself to present a four or five step set of drills that break this lesson into manageable chunks. I have been trying to master it six hours a day for the past five days and I am getting close. Hah! Bad by who’s standards? In every interview I’ve ever seen with Chet Atkins he seemed like such a humble, down-to-earth guy which is pretty amazing considering how powerful he became in the music industry. I remember hearing Chet say that he sounded like 2 bad guitar players playing at the same time. Because so much is going on with his right hand when he plays, it actually sounds like 2 or 3 guitar players. I must admit it’s nice to see that some areas of country music are heading back to their roots and bringing back the “twang” – sorry Chet.Chet is best known for his finger-style technique on his right hand, which always consisted of a walking bass line (his thumb), and a rhythm and melody (his second, third, and fourth fingers).

To help increase country album sales, Chet helped create the “Nashville Sound” which was basically a movement to scrap all of the fiddles and pedal steel guitars and “twang” that had been associated with country music up to that point and introduce a more contemporary, “produced” sound with heavy back-up vocals from groups like the Jordanaires and even orchestral string arrangements. In the late 1950’s as rock n roll became more and more popular, traditional country albums sales were starting to decline.

Chet worked as a session player and backed up several great acts in his early career before graduating on to a solo artist and then on to a prominent Nashville producer, producing acts such as Waylon Jennings and Elvis Presley. It wasn’t until I analyzed what was actually going that I began to realize what a genius he was.īorn Jin Luttrell, Tennessee, Chet Atkins was a pioneer that helped reinvent the guitar. I thought it sounded clean and simple and… well, nice. and to be honest, when I heard my first Chet Atkins album (my dad’s), I wasn’t immediately blown away. So you may be asking, what’s the big deal about Chet Atkins? When I first started becoming obsessed with learning the guitar I kept reading article after article about Chet Atkins and how he pioneered this or influenced that.

Chet atkins yakety axe album