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Chord Strumming - Country Sound

Requested By : Chris S. - Lamont, CA

Chris Writes:

Hey I was just wanting to know how to get that Johnny Cash-like sound while strumming chords. I mostly listen to rock and metal and always thought Johnny Cash's style would be pretty easy to mimic. I guess I was wrong.

Well Chris it's actually not hard at all. Now I typically don't play too many country songs but the best and easiest way I have found to do it goes like this:

To keep it simple let's say you are playing C, G, A, and E min...typical chords-

I will try to keep this simple with minimal technical terms. When you strum the chords hit the root note first (With the C chord the root is A3) then strum the whole chord and after you strum the chord hit the second note in the chord which is D2 and strum the whole chord again...do the same thing for each chord..

A good strum pattern for this is after you hit the single note and strum the whole chord strum it with a down stroke and then an upstroke

Should sound like this - PLAY

Now, if you have another guitarist handy or you are recording, another guitar should play the root note and the second note of the chord with a bit of Palm Muting. Also a little reverb on that guitar will get you closer to Johnny Cash's Style.

Here's what that should sound like - PLAY

You could use a little less reverb - I kind of went crazy with it on guitar 2 but that's the basic idea.

One last thing:  it helps with the country type sound to sometimes add a little riff in between chord changes. The "riff" I use in the  audio example below goes between the G chord and the E min chord. It is only 3 notes on the low E string... E3, E2, E0

Here is the whole thing put together for you - PLAY

So there you go, Country for the Rocker.

I hope you found this helpful, or at least amusing.

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