jotka53
Verified buyer
11/23/22
50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know
very good course
50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know
Timeless licks respectfully inspired from the bonafide masters of the western swing
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About this course
"Western swing is nothing more than a group of talented country boys, unschooled in music, but playing the music they feel, beating a solid two-four rhythm to the harmonies that buzz around their brains. When it escapes in all its musical glory, my friend, you have Western swing.” - Merle Travis
Uptempo, highly improvised and extremely guitar-centric Western Swing music pools influences from hillbilly bluegrass, raunchy Texas blues, pre-bebop jazz swing and early rock and roll to produce an infectious sound that, to this very day, gets people up on the dance floor and keeps them there all night long. Spend some time in the shed with Ray Nijenhuis’ 50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know to get yourself off of the dance floor and up on the bandstand.
Although the core of this lick vocabulary is focused on the pioneers of Western Swing guitar, such as Junior Barnard, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Wyble, Cameron Hill, Eldon Shamblin, Leon Rhodes, Bob Wills, Billy Byrd and many others, you’ll recognize their influence in the music of the Allman Brothers, Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, Hot Club of Cow Town, The Time Jumpers, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, George Strait and many, many more contemporary artists and bands.
Ray expertly guides you through an impressive array of guitaristic techniques and ear-pleasing harmonic approaches that you’ll put to immediate use in your own playing whatever style you favor: repetitive fragments, chromatic horn-like lines, double-stop runs, double-stop-slides, two part harmony runs, syncopation combined with chord inversions, emulating the C6 lap steel sound, playing arpeggios with downstrokes only, two-part harmony licks rearranged in double stops for one guitar, counterpoint syncopated melodies, sliding up half-steps for tension and suspense, combining major pentatonic with chromatic passing notes and diminished scales and arpeggios, two-beat rhythm style, octaves, Western swing turnarounds, melodic moving bass lines, boogie woogie style harmonized piano parts, delay effects without a pedal, jangling lapsteel roll-the-bar effects, chromatically descending ninth chord sequences and three-part harmony chord runs.
All of the licks are presented over a rhythm track so that you can hear and practice them in a musical context. Each performance is then followed by a detailed breakdown of the line along with the techniques and harmonic approach being employed to perform it. Everything is tabbed and notated, plus you get all of the rhythm tracks used in the performances to practice the lines with on your own.
Long live Western Swing! Lets dance...
Uptempo, highly improvised and extremely guitar-centric Western Swing music pools influences from hillbilly bluegrass, raunchy Texas blues, pre-bebop jazz swing and early rock and roll to produce an infectious sound that, to this very day, gets people up on the dance floor and keeps them there all night long. Spend some time in the shed with Ray Nijenhuis’ 50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know to get yourself off of the dance floor and up on the bandstand.
Although the core of this lick vocabulary is focused on the pioneers of Western Swing guitar, such as Junior Barnard, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Wyble, Cameron Hill, Eldon Shamblin, Leon Rhodes, Bob Wills, Billy Byrd and many others, you’ll recognize their influence in the music of the Allman Brothers, Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, Hot Club of Cow Town, The Time Jumpers, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, George Strait and many, many more contemporary artists and bands.
Ray expertly guides you through an impressive array of guitaristic techniques and ear-pleasing harmonic approaches that you’ll put to immediate use in your own playing whatever style you favor: repetitive fragments, chromatic horn-like lines, double-stop runs, double-stop-slides, two part harmony runs, syncopation combined with chord inversions, emulating the C6 lap steel sound, playing arpeggios with downstrokes only, two-part harmony licks rearranged in double stops for one guitar, counterpoint syncopated melodies, sliding up half-steps for tension and suspense, combining major pentatonic with chromatic passing notes and diminished scales and arpeggios, two-beat rhythm style, octaves, Western swing turnarounds, melodic moving bass lines, boogie woogie style harmonized piano parts, delay effects without a pedal, jangling lapsteel roll-the-bar effects, chromatically descending ninth chord sequences and three-part harmony chord runs.
All of the licks are presented over a rhythm track so that you can hear and practice them in a musical context. Each performance is then followed by a detailed breakdown of the line along with the techniques and harmonic approach being employed to perform it. Everything is tabbed and notated, plus you get all of the rhythm tracks used in the performances to practice the lines with on your own.
Long live Western Swing! Lets dance...
What you'll learn
- Execute pull-offs without picking the string first
- Apply 9th chord voicings at different positions (6th and 11th fret)
- Execute a lap steel-style jangling effect on guitar using chord slides
- Apply the technique to create intros or endings
- End slide phrases with pinky harmonics
Release date: 01/03/2014 • 2h 38m runtime
Sample lessons
Junior's Barnyard
Lick 7
Double That
Lick 8
Cane's Stomp Doublestops
Lick 16
Jimmie's River
Lick 25
What's included
52 lessons • 50 charts • 50 Jam Tracks
50 Western Swing Licks
Hi, I am Ray Nijenhuis. Welcome to 50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know. Western swing is a melting pot of all kinds of styles from hillbilly buegrass to raunchy Texas blues, to pre-bebop jazz and early rock and roll. Never was there such an unlikely but gloriously rich musical hybrid as western swing. Combining the infectious swinging urban dance rhythms of 30's and 40's jazz with the down home sounds of rural Texas, a new and exciting style was created with a very important role for the electric guitar. Western swing began in the dance halls of small towns throughout the lower Great Plains in the late 1920's and early 30's, growing from house parties and ranch dances where fiddlers and guitarists played for dancers. It started out as a mixture of New Orleans jazz and blues, Mexican melodies, Texas fiddle tunes and popular songs. This happy dance music influenced countless players from Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones who performed San Antonio Rose live in Austin, Texas at Zilker Park for their DVD The Biggest Bang. In a 1968 issue of Guitar Player, rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix said of Wills and the Playboys: 'I dig them'. Ever wonder where the Allman Brothers got the inspiration for their Twin and Triple leads from? Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill, two western swing players, are the inventors of twin lead guitar, taking Charlie Christian solos and harmonizing them. And you don’t even need a second guitar player to do those exciting twin lead runs! You will learn to play it western swing style, playing both guitar parts on your own, all by yourself. We'll look at examples of melodic rhythm playing in the style of Eldon Shamblin with inner voicings and moving basslines that will surprise your band members. We'll look at way cool lap steel and steel guitar simulation without even bending a single string. You'll learn the ins of sounding out, like in the hard driving stye of Junior Barnard, with risky and off-sounding ultra fresh pre-bebop runs with a rock n roll twist. He was one of the pioneers of the electric guitar and the first ever to use natural distortion by driving the power tubes of his amp to the hilt. We'll look at more jazzy western swing licks in the style of Leon Rhodes. And Western swing players were among the first sweep pickers. Western swing licks can still be heard in southern rock bands like The Allman Brothers, Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, Hot Club of Cow Town, The Time Jumpers and in more country oriented settings with Merle Haggard and George Strait. This style of guitar playing has also had a lasting influence on rock and roll and rockabilly. Although the core of this 50 licks course is focused on the pioneering guitar players of western swing in the 1940's, all of these licks can be used in a modern day setting and in a variety of styles. So let's start swinging!
Don't Stop Now
Lick number 1 shows that to create something cool, you don’t necessarily have to look very far or do something complicated. The lick is derived from your basic 6th fret Bb bar chord and makes use of repetitive fragment. To put it simply:by lifting a finger here and placing a finger there you can play around the notes of this pattern. This will result in a very natural and musical sounding combination of notes that - as a bonus - is easy to play.
Skip It
Here’s another lick with a repetitive pattern. This particular one has a few non-triad notes plus some string-skipping added. By using a hammer-on it becomes easy to speed up your playing plus it will make you swing harder! Players like Junior Barnard and Charlie Christian used this a lot.
Adding Chromatics
Lick number 3, another one with a repetitive pattern. This particular one has a chromatic note added in between chord notes to spice things up a bit. By accenting this cool chromatic horn-like line on the B string, you will give the impression that there's two of you playing.
Stay A Bit Longer
Here's a challenging Junior Barnard style double stop run. Western swinger Junior Barnard is one of the pioneers of the electric guitar. His unique style can be described as adventurous, raunchy and raw, hot, sweet, on and sometimes over the edge. Barnard had it all and never played it safe. He played rock n roll before it had a name and may very well have been the very first to have used power tube and speaker overdrive. There was nothing clean about his signature sound. Not for the weak-hearted! It’s really strange that Junior Barnard is not well known among guitar players, but one can only wonder why that is. Maybe because he never recorded under his own name and died in a fatal car accident in his thirties. But in the few years he was around with Bob Wills and Luke Wills’ bands he sure made his mark. This one is a cool example of sliding up the neck in order to achieve a smooth position shift and sliding back down again to keep that lapsteel-like flow going. Oh, and tell your neighbors you will need to turn up the volume for this one.
Off You Go
More Junior Barnard for you here! Lick number 5 shows the raunchy, bluesy side of mid-forties western swing. We’re in the last few bars of a 12 bar blues in G. There’s a couple of slightly out or off sounding double-stop slides that result in a very exciting tension. Mainly because of the lick’s minor third against the major third of the chord. Now don’t worry about this being theoretically correct or not: if you want to make a mark, you need to break the rules every now and then.
Thin Man Rag
Improvisation is a key word in western swing, but many of the intros, interludes and outros were arrangements. Often these two and three part harmony sections were played by electric stringed instruments. Lapsteel and guitar for example, or with mandolin added. This lick is a two part harmony run for one guitar. Not easy to play as the chords change every two beats, but this sequence of double-stops is just too cool!
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Reviews
14 results
gregdeB
11/27/19
50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know
I wrote a bit about what Western Swing was and wasn't in my review for Ray Nijenhuis' Western Swing Guidebook, so Here I'll just focus on reviewing the subject matter of this course. Ray really focuses on the style and licks of Junior Bernard, Jimmy Wyble, Leon Rhodes and Charlie christian. They are all hard hitting Swing Players and all contribute individual styles to the swing music presented here. I am amazed at the authenticity that ray brings to this long lost American music. It's as if he were touring the American south west in the '30's and '40's! His historical insight into this music is unparalleled. Every time I hear a Bob Wills song, I say to myself, "Yup, I learned that Double stop lick from the Ray Nijenhuis 50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know lesson"....every time I listen to a Spade Cooley song I say, "Yup, I learned that displaced Octave Lick from the Ray Nijenhuis 50 Western Swing Licks You MUST Know lesson" The Material presented here is wonderfully Authentic presented by a man who has mastered the Vocabulary and Idioms of the Style! My Only complaint is that there aren't enough song length Backing Tracks to practice to, but that is a small issue compared to the excellence of the course in general. Get Rays Western Swing Guidebook and you can record your own versions of these magnificent tunes to jam along with! I can't recommend this course highly enough if you like Rock-a-billy or Jazz. This is really a wonderful lesson on one of the major wellsprings of american music! Bravo, Ray!
fmaiani
02/18/19
Ray Nijenhuis Rocks! And Swings!
If you’ve never heard about Junior Barnard, this course is for you. If you’ve never heard about Junior Barnard, this course is for you as well. You just have to be interested in swing or in country. There’s a wealth of lovely phrases, tricks, ideas that you can apply in many situations and – yes – even playing swing (without the “Western” prefix). Ray Nijenhuis has the chops and the ability to get the message across (not to mention, impeccable tastes in gear!). This and his other course are great.
Mark W.
Verified buyer
10/17/18
This is my favorite course on Truefire. I'm going back thru it again..so much good stuff
Stan B.
Verified buyer
03/17/16
Thanks Ray, for putting this course out, So many super cool licks from a genre I didn't even know existed. Now I am a big fan of these great guitarist and this music. I hear from it where the Beatles and Rockabilly got their influences. The licks work wonderful in my blues playing. I look forward to getting more courses in the western swing style!
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