Garth Brooks is a country music artist born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and living in the United States. He has won over 100 awards for his music including two Grammys, 11 awards by the Country Music Association and 18 awards by the Academy of Country Music. Brooks grew up playing the guitar as well as the banjo, although he didn’t begin a career as a professional musician until after he graduated from college. He listened to both country and rock music, citing George Jones, Townes Van Zandt, George Strait, James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg as influences. Some of Brooks’ hits and most well-known songs are “The Dance,” “Friends in Low Places,” “The Thunder Rolls,” “Rodeo” and “Standing Outside the Fire.” Brooks plays rhythm guitar and sings lead vocals, and his music has enjoyed crossover success on country and pop music charts.
In many of his videos and performances, Garth Brooks is playing a Takamine GB7C acoustic guitar. Although Brooks is known for combining elements of rock & roll music along with country music, he typically plays an acoustic guitar in concert and on his recordings. His songs do feature some rock & roll style electric guitar distortion, however. Brooks sometimes plays solo in concert and sometimes plays with a backup band consisting of a drummer, keyboard player, lead guitarist and bassist, and some songs also feature fiddle playing, such as “Standing Outside the Fire.”
Garth Brooks’s songs tend to emphasize the contrasting elements of powerful crescendos during bridge and/or chorus sections with a more temperate volume and intensity during verse and introductory sections. Themes of his music often cover emotionally evocative topics like the beauty and pain of life as well as more lighthearted songs about country pastimes. Some of his songs like “Rodeo” feature country twists on traditional blues guitar licks.
The difficulty level of Garth Brooks’s music is intermediate. While his vocal range isn’t likely to be out of reach for most singers, the power behind his vocals requires singing and breathing skill as well as a timbre that develops with time and practice. His guitar playing typically relies on common chords and chord progressions, making it easy for relatively new players to play a Brooks song at the foundational level. However, he also fingerpicks throughout many of his songs, which requires some advanced knowledge, skill and muscle control.
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