Brad Paisley

• Thumbpick + fingers is the technique — wear a thumbpick on the right thumb for bass string attack and use the ring and middle fingers to pluck treble strings. This enables the simultaneous bass line + melody of chicken-picking
• Heavy compression is mandatory — MXR Dyna Comp or Keeley-modded compressor at high sensitivity. The "squish" sound is part of country tone
• Clean amp — any distortion kills the articulation and the attack that makes chicken-picking audible
• The Telecaster bridge pickup provides the bright twang — humbuckers are too warm for country lead playing
• Speed comes from the wrist, not the arm — the right-hand movement for fast picking is a tight wrist rotation, not arm movement
• Hybrid picking (pick plus fingers) is the foundation — practise the basic "bass-chord" alternating pattern at very slow tempos before adding melodic fills
• Pentatonic major (not minor) is the primary scale for country leads — major pentatonic produces the "happy" country character. Minor pentatonic sounds too bluesy
• String bends with the ring finger supported by middle and index — country bends are precise and quick; they reach pitch immediately and vibrate there
• Study "Alcohol," "Ticks" and "Online" for the range of his playing — from clean rhythm to screaming solo runs, these three tracks cover the Paisley vocabulary

Brad Paisley is the most technically gifted guitarist in mainstream country — his chicken-picking speed, clean Telecaster tone and ability to blend bluegrass, jazz and rock vocabulary into country music made him the genre's biggest guitar star.