Brent Mason is Nashville's top hired studio 
guitarist.Brent actually plays on just about 
any country album that comes from Nashville, 
always being of top choice for hire. He is 
named in writing as the most recorded guitar 
player alive.


Next.....................................  

According to many publications Brent has owned 
country music for over a decade with at least 
seven out of ten of the songs in the top ten at 
any given time, not annually, being played on 
by him since the early nineties. For many years 
he has won the annual Music City Allstars Award 
for being the musician with the most songs they 
have played on being in the radio top ten hits 
for the entire year. This is in addition to his 
CMA awards and Academy of Country Music Awards 
from l993 - 2002, (when they "retired" him", tell-
ing him he would no longer be allowed to win in that 
category as they had a clause that no one could 
win over ten years in a row! To learn more about 
Brent Mason, see the: 
Official Brent Mason website.

To help give you a good understanding of some of 
Brent Masons guitar tools and techniques, consider 
this lesson a detailed summary (or briefing) of this 
top requested studio musicians playing style. If
your'e looking to obtain the bluesy sound that
you'll often hear from Brent's hot blues licks,
make sure to check out the Boss BD2 Blues Driver guitar 
pedal you an find at SameDayMusic.com.

Aside from his blended taste of influences that 
include James Burton, Roy Nichols, Albert Lee and 
others that display his well recognized guitar tech-
niques such as "chicken picken", "double stops", and 
"open string" guitar licks, much of what Brent applies 
to his songwriting technique is a tool from the old 
school known as "The Nashville Number System".

If it's your goal to one day become a studio session 
guitarist in Nashville, when handed the chart called 
The Nashville Number System, you will want to know 
what to do! Although this system may be used in a 
complex detailed format for lead guitar, it is often 
most commonly used for guitar chords to simplify studio 
sessions when reading the The Nashville Number System
charts.

The Nashville Number System works by assigning ordinary 
numbers to each degree of the diatonic major scale. For 
example, played in the the key of A major, the notes are 
A,B,C#,D,E,F#,G#,A. When broken down into modes, some of 
these are defined as major, some minor, as are the given 
related chords. 
Example #1: A is 1 (major), B is 2 (minor), C# is 3 (minor), 
and so forth. See chart below broken down into modes and 
chords.

A major scale:

Notes
Tonic      Mode Name   Mode Type      Guitar Chord
A          Ionian      Major          A Major            
B          Dorian      Minor          D Minor             
C#         Phrygian    Minor          C# Minor         
D          Lydian      Major          D Major
E          Mixolydian  Major          E Major
F#         Aeolian     Minor          F# Minor
G#         Locrian     Minor/Dim      G# Minor/Dim
A          Octave      Major          A Major

Examples continued...

Let's say you were handed a chart from The Nashville 
Number System during a studio recording session that 
read: 1,3,5. That would indicate to play the guitar 
chords A major, C# minor, and E major.
Seee example #2 below

1           2           3
A major     C# minor    E major


Example 3:
If you were reading a chart that displayed 1,4,5, the 
guitar chords would be indicated as follows below, in 
thus deriving the common 3 chord progression A,D and E, 
as derived from A major diatonic scale.

1           2           3
A major     D major     E major

Although these are basic demonstrations, this should 
give you a basic understanding of how to read the studio 
charts that are used by top country guitarist like Brent 
Mason. Moving on to some of the techniques that were 
previously mentioned, as well as other guitar scales 
that you be useful for playing country twang guitar...

Other common guitar scales would include Pentatonic Major, 
Pentatonic Minor and Blues Scale. 
See : Scales Lessons.

Chicken Pickin
First, mute the A string by touching it with your 
index finger somewhere near the bridge pickup. Now, 
pluck the same string with your thumb (t)further 
up toward the neck (denoted by an “X”" in the tablature
shown below.

Next, pluck the open string with the 
nail of your index (i). Repeat, as you build up momentum.
Once you have the basic idea, try using this technique
as you make a full string bend on the 7th fret G string,
and then slowly release the bend until the note is 
returned to it's normal pitch

     t   i   t   i   t   i   t  i
e :-------------------------------------------------|
B :-------------------------------------------------|
G :--x---7---x---7---x---7---x---7------------------|
D :-------------------------------------------------|
A :-------------------------------------------------|
E :-------------------------------------------------|

Banjo Roll
This is one of the most common, taken from Foggy Mountain 
Breakdown" by Earl Scruggs. Standard tuning for this banjo
lick may be altered on the guitar as follows:
small e string is tuned to D (lower small e a whole step)
B string = B 
G string = G
D string = D
A string is tuned down a whole step to G 
Symbols used indicate:
t=thumb   i=index    m=middle

   t   m    t   i      m   t   i   m
d :----0---------------0-----------0----------------|
B :-0-----------0--------------0--------------------|
G :-------------------------------------------------|
D :-------------------------------------------------|
G :----------0-------------0------------------------|
x :-------------------------------------------------|


Double Stops
A "double stop" is commonly referred to as playing
2 strings at once. This example taught in A, includes
the use of the major 3rd interval (shown played as
the note C#) 6th fret G string.
         h           h
e :-5-----------------------------------------------|
B :-5---5-------7---5-------------------------------|
G :-----5-6-----7---5-6-----------------------------|
D :-------------------------------------------------|
A :-------------------------------------------------|
E :-------------------------------------------------|


Open String Guitar Lick Example In A
This guitar lick makes a good ending for a country
song in A, as it ends with the country twang bend
which is derived from A Pentatonic Major.

     s
e :--------0-------0-------0----5-------------------|
B :-----8-------5--------3------5-------------------|
G :-6-9-------6--------2-------b4-------------------|
D :-------------------------------------------------|
A :-------------------------------------------------|
E :-------------------------------------------------|




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