Rockabilly Guitar Lesson by Lars Schurse

To mark the release of his new guitar method, Lars Schurse has prepared a guitar lesson inspired by the Rockabilly style. Download the tab to learn the trademark licks of guitarists such as Brian Setzer or Danny Gatton.

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(click on the image to download the Guitar Pro tab)

About the lick

“Thanks for checking out my Rockabilly guitar lesson!

First of all I’d like to emphasize the importance of learning the genre’s vocabulary to master any style of music. So go ahead and check out the masters of rockabilly guitar, such as Cliff Gallup, Brian Setzer, Scotty Moore, Danny Gatton, etc. This solo combines a lot of licks of these musicicians.

A word about the noice choice in bars 1 – 4:

Many rockabilly guitarists like Cliff Gallup combine major pentatonic and blues scale. You can see examples of this hybrid scale throughout the solo.

Let’s take a look at bars 14 – 21:

This is an example of Brian Setzer’s Chord soloing aproach: he starts out by establishing a rhythmic motiv wich is played using quartal voicings. Then he adds tension by adding the #9 and the #5 to the chord. He resolves this altered chord to a D9-voicing.

Bars 22 and 23 give an example of how rockabilly was influenced by country players. This is a Travis-picking lick based on an open E chord. It is an example of somthing that Scotty Moore might have picked up from Chet Atkins.

Bars 38 to 41 consist of one of the most iconic rockabilly licks. I first heard it in Danny Cedrone’s playing. It is an A mixolydian repetition lick. It is quite virtuosic, so be sure to practice it seperately.

You can find another great Gallup-lick in bars 44 and 45. He puts the chromatic neighbour tone in front of each open string. The latter are part of the A-mixolydian scale.

The solo ends with a lick that also is part of the genre’s rhythm guitar vocabulary.

Have fun!”

– Lars Schurse

Want to learn more Rockabilly guitar licks?

Check Lars Schurse’s website