The term “Country Music” is a VERY wide subject today!  Today’s popular Country music is really just Rock & Pop music with a few different instruments added into the mix like fiddle, pedal steel guitar, and mandolin.  Lyrically, in general, it tends to be more about relationships, home, and family.  I kind of personally like that.  The educational problem with Country Music is that there are so many subtly different -isms and schisms to this musical area that it is almost difficult to teach!  So, let’s divide it up into some smaller categories for clarity’s sake…

Modern Country Music – you can best learn how to play violin to this style by learning about Rock, Blues, and Fiddling first!  You’ll also need to check out some of our tutorials on how to electrify your instrument since you will also be competing, volume-wise, with electric guitars and drums sets!

“Country Western” – it used to be a running joke that, to folks who were really into this style… that they would say they liked “both styles of music… Country AND Western!” …like that was all there was in the world!  ;~)  Today, this is often called Old Country with artists like Hank Williams (Sr.) being at it’s pinnacle.  This older style is a great study in simplicity, but is more difficult than it sounds, as to sound authentic, you’ll need to switch major pentatonic scales on the fly to mirror the chord changes.  Usually this will be associated with our Jamming 102 or “Gigger” level lessons.  Some songs from this style will also be included in our “Roots Music” listings.

Western Swing music is sometimes lumped into the Country Western category too.  Style inventor Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were very popular in the US in the 1940’s with Wills also becoming a Western Cowboy movie star.  Western Swing study will need to include Jazz as the chord changes are much more sophisticated and complex with Playboy’s arrangements often including multiple key changes within a song to accommodate the varied vocalists and instrumentalists that were featured in his band.  **I find it an interesting side note that Gypsy Jazz was also being developed in this same time period in Paris, France, and sometimes played the same songs!… just in a different style.  Bluegrass music, invented by Bill Monroe, was also developed in this same time period… only a couple states away from Bob Wills’ Oklahoma, in Kentucky!  It is a different world today for sure.  Styles being so localized is almost surely a thing of the past now.  I’ve heard bands from all three styles all play tunes like Minor Swing, All of Me, and Sweet Georgia Brown.

Country Fiddling – This is a broad term that can include Bluegrass, Old Time, Folk, Cajun, other other more ethnic & geographically-oriented styles like Irish/Celtic …which is a deep enough subject to be a section all of its own!  Mostly it is centered around American “mountain music” that came with the many European immigrants in the later 1800’s.

Outlaw Country – This is a hard drinking, rough and tumble style that developed in the 1970’s with superstar and American icon Willie Nelson at its helm.  Willie, with Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash, are considered to be the “Mt. Rushmore” of this very American style.  Some would include artists like Hank Williams Jr. too.  To learn this style, you’ll need a mixture of Roots Music, Blues, and Folk.

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Here’s an auto-generated list of every lesson that has the word “country” associated with it on the site:

• Don’t beat up your improvising!
• Dill Pickle Rag – Bluegrass
• Bucket List Fiddle Jam tune for members
• A-Toodz Book G Major Practice Along Session
• Playing Electric Violin with Distortion
• Fisher’s Hornpipe – Bluegrass
• Seminole Wind
• Recording Sessions Truck Talk
• Ragtime Annie
• Updated chart for the Acadian Two-Step
• Swamp Fiddle for iFiddle Magazine
• iFiddle Blues Scale Magic
• iFiddle Johnny Gimble Tribute Lesson
• Back Door – Cajun Zydeco
• Three D Major Jams
• Three EZ Folk Tunes
• Lightly Row
• Experience Path – Three Cajun-Zydeco Tunes
• Oh Yeh Ya – Cajun Zydeco
• Experience Path – Three EZ Fiddle Tunes
• Old Time Fiddler’s Learning Path
• MM101-Cotton Eyed Joe
• MM101-Moon Diggin’
• iFiddle 2 – Scales, Arpeggios & Practice
• Music Mechanics – Learning Path
• New-Bee Jammer – Learning Path
• Classical Cross-Over – Learning Path
• Bluegrass – Section
• American Vista Waltz
• South’s Gonna Do It Again – Charlie Daniels Band
• Folk Music Lessons
• Fiddle Tunes Lesson List
• Blues Style Lessons
• Country Music Lessons
• Lesson Lists By Style
• Kookaburra: The Cool Version – Violin and Cello Trio
• St. Annes Reel
• My Path Suggested Learning Studies
• Webinar #1 March 12, 2014 Replay
• All Major Pentatonic Approach
• Improv Any Style – Using 3 Unique Approaches! (overview)
• It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels – Kitty Wells
• Tennessee Waltz – classic hit from 1950
• Country Music Lesson Section
• By Style – FJI learning
• Red Haired Boy
• Wagon Wheel – Old Crow Medicine Show
• Tatering Level 4 – chopping technique
• Tatering Level 2 – – adding double “drone” strings
• Tatering level 3 – chord tone double stops
• Tater Section
• Musical Priest – Irish/Celtic tune
• iii7 – vi7 – ii7 – V7 – I Progression Studies
• III7-VI7-II7-V7-I Exercises
• The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Charlie Daniels Band
• Styles Page
• Fiddler’s Tab
• Oh When the Saints Go Marching In
• Amazing Grace
• Shave Endings
• Acadian Two-Step
• Sugarfoot Rag
• Angeline the Baker
• A-toodz – A minor
• THE MAJOR SCALE SECTION
• LOW 2 BOOGIE WOOGIE BLUES
• LOW 2 BOOGIE WOOGIE PATTERNS
• The Perils of the Classical-only Music Education
• Fancy Boogie Woogie Blues – Shuffle
• FANCY B.W. BLUES
• BASIC B.W. BLUES
• Shuffle Rhythm
• BOOGIE WOOGIE PATTERNS
• BOOGIE WOOGIE SECTION
• Ashokian Farewell Lessons
• I Hated Fiddling!
• Ode to Joy – Beethoven
• A-toodz – E Minor
• A-Toodz Section Contents
• Zydeco
• Bouncy Blues
• Contra Dance
• Cajun Waltz
• Moon Diggin’
• Irish Seaman
• A. Potter’s Wheel
• Raven’s Daughter
• Blackberry Blossom
• Fiddle Tune Section
• The Rarest Rose
• Swallowtail Jig
• Yankee Doodle
• Cotton Eyed Joe
• Ms. McLeod’s Reel
• You Are My Sunshine
• Bile Them Cabbage Down
• Old Joe Clark
• Clinch Mountain Back-Step
• Cripple Creek
• That Fiddle Sound