Play Great Guitar: Brilliant Ideas for Getting More Out of Your Six String

I of 52 Brilliant Ideas

Rikki Rooksby

Infinite Ideas (Apr 2008)

Tags:
Guitar, Techniques, Reference, Education

Guitarttt Techniquesttt Referencettt Educationttt

Knowing how to play the guitar is just one of those things we'd all love to be able to do. Think back to your formative years - at parties it was always the kid with the guitar who got all the attention, and it's probably that same kid who is now raking it in with their uber-cool band while you slave away at your desk. Now your dreams of guitar-playing stardom* can come a little closer to reality with the help of our fantastic new book Play great guitar. Packed with expert advice for getting more out of your hobby, plus over 25 original compositions to try yourself, Play great guitar is guaranteed to give you plenty of inspiring ideas and more practical skills so you can improve your playing and enjoy your guitar even more. You don't even need to be able to read sheet music, as all compositions also include full chord notation for ease of playing. Ideal for those just starting out, as well as more experienced players, Play great guitar has something for everyone, whatever your musical tastes. Simply brilliant.

“The guitar is a small orchestra.
It is polyphonic. Every string is a
different colour, a different voice.”
Andrés Segovia

Copyright © The Infinite Ideas Company Limited, 2008

Music copyright © 2008 Rikky Rooksby

The right of Rikky Rooksby to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2008 by

The Infinite Ideas Company Limited

36 St Giles

Oxford, OX1 3LD

United Kingdom

www.infideas.com

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of small passages for the purposes of criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the publisher. Requests to the publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department, Infinite Ideas Limited, 36 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LD, UK, or faxed to +44 (0)1865 514777.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978–1–905940–56–1

Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Designed and typeset by Baseline Arts Ltd, Oxford
Printed in India

Brilliant ideas

Brilliant features

Introduction

1.    It’s a classical gas, gas, gas

You play guitar, so what is more important than choice of instrument? First brilliant idea: get a new guitar. Go on, admit it … you hoped I’d say this, didn’t you?

2.    This machine kills boredom

Walk down a city street anywhere in the world and the chances are if you meet a guitar-wielding busker they will be singing to the backing of a strummed steel-strung acoustic.

3.    Tune up, plug in, turn on

So you think electric guitars are only for unwashed youths in low-slung denim who like noise with a capital N and have band names like Unholy Doom tattooed on their knuckles?

4.    Cop a capo

Think of Paul Weller’s ‘Wild Wood’, Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ and Travis’ ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me’ … you’ll never get any of them to sound right on guitar without one of these.

5.    A rule of thumb

They may be digitally challenged in the finger-length stakes – but hey! Equal rights for thumbs now! Your music might occasionally need a fretting thumb.

6.    Going offbeat

Here’s a quick way to make your guitar playing take off. The clue to playing many songs in folk and blues fingerstyles is the offbeat (syncopated) pattern.

7.    Flatpicking – best of both worlds

You know about playing guitar with a pick or playing with your fingers. But why not do both at once? Think you can’t do both at once? Read on.

8.    The art of strumming

As famed French hot-jazz guitarist Des Cartes once said, I strum, therefore I am. Strum well and the whole world strums with you (in an air guitar kind of way).

9.    Learn some new chords

If harmony is a continent of sound and emotion, each chord is a village. So why not go travelling occasionally and find other places to make your own.

10.  Get flat – stay sharp

Think of a piano keyboard. It has two colours, white and black. Chords are that way too, on piano or guitar. So come and meet the five flats and sharps.

11.  Seventh heaven

It only takes one extra note to move from the vanilla world of major and minor chords to the chocolate chip tub of the sevenths … and in four flavours too!

12.  Be diverted – get inverted!

Strum any major or minor chord. It’s a familiar sound. But did you know there are two more shades of the same colour contained in what you’ve just heard?

13.  Exotic stacks

If Idea 11 was seventh heaven, then step up now for cloud nine. Here are some ninths and elevenths – chords that are seriously stacked.

14.  Triads you can trust

When it comes to chords, size isn’t everything. Three-string friends to beginner and experienced player alike, here are the triads – the harmony gang that’s on your side.

15.  New light on ‘power-chords’

Did you know that music harmony has its own neutral zone? It’s true – a strange dank realm of drooling zombie flesh-eating chords that emerge as neither major nor minor.

16.  Lift a finger/add a finger

There’s one reliable fall-back for finding new sounds and ideas on the guitar. Sometimes all that is required is ‘adjusted original digital technology’. In other words, move a finger!

17.  No holds barred, or no barrés held?

Here’s your free upgrade to the ‘adjusted original digital technology’ of the previous section, called ‘digital removal software’ … otherwise known as lifting a 1st finger that’s holding a barré!

18.  Move on up, move on back

One way to find new sounds on the guitar is to take an open string chord and move it up or down. Get ready for hideous, kinky, startling and terrific.

19.  The one-note shift

Altering one note at a time in a chord leads you down new musical paths. Let your fingers reshape themselves into new chords and go places you haven’t been before.

20.  Instant blues

Blues is like a universal language. Everybody recognises it, everybody can follow where a blues is going, and for decades the guitar has been its main mouthpiece.

21.  Sweet blues

Woke up this morning … Dang! You know, my lover she ain’t gone! Must be celebration time, and to celebrate on guitar you need another set of five notes.

22.  You hexy thing

You’ve heard of that old black magic so many blues guitarists claim to know? Well, put aside that shredded bat wing and the voodoo doll, and grab some musical magic.

23.  The not so famous five

There are five-note scales that don’t get played as often as those used in blues and rock. Here’s a chance to explore some of these not-so-famous five.

24.  Seven up (and down)

Is there life beyond pentatonics? Does everything go in fives? Will our caped guitarists escape the hex and find the missing two notes? Tune in to this section’s exciting episode!

25.  Magic numbers, magic changes

With a three and a four and a twelve and a … You might have heard people say that music has a mathematical element. Well, maths was never this much fun.

26.  It’s the reel thing

Here’s a new musical avenue to explore that may see you in future years in the corner of a boisterous pub playing folk tunes with others, your fingers a blur.

27.  The twang’s the thang

Before Hendrix and Clapton, the guitar came to the forefront of popular music by doing what singers do: it carried a melody – but in its own twangy way.

28.  Two notes from one

It’s 3 a.m. In the lounge bar the barman sets you up another drink. There’s no sign of her. You sigh, grab your guitar and play … octaves!

29.  Two voices, two fingers

With only two notes you can create the illusion of two voices and even whole chords. Do what two singers do when they harmonise, but lay it on the fretboard.

30.  Riffing out

Heard of ‘carbon neutral’? Heavy rock wants to be tonal neutral. There are no major or minor chords in the lost, dark dimensions, just a two-finger fifth.

31.  A hand full of weather

The sky changes, the land stays still. Make a low open string your land and let your fingers make weather. Here is the dramatic foundation of the pedal note.

32.  When a note stays the same

Imagine music where one note stays the same regardless. Where one note stays the same regardless. Where one note … Let’s hear it for the drone … drone … drone.

33.  A touch of retuning

Let’s twist again … with those tuning pegs. They can do more than just keep things in tune. With a turn of even one peg, new music beckons in ‘drop D’.

34.  A sneaky rocker

‘Drop D’ tuning is not just for folk-style fingerpicking and gentle acoustic singer-songwriters. It’s a motherlode of heavy guitar riffs. GrrrROWWLL!

35.  Voyage to the bottom of the C

Take the 6th string down even further but add a new dimension to the result by putting on a capo. Result: deep bass, and new sounds from common chords.

36.  Top down a notch

Guitar retrieved from baggage hold yields new music after long flight? Can it be true? Yes it can. Find some new chords with this one easy tuning change.

37.  Through a harmonic rift

Remember those nasty sharps and flats? Time to seek out new musical ideas, and to boldly go into the harmonic rift and into the Kingdom of the Enharmonics!

38.  Look Ma, no hands

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just play guitar with one finger … no more struggling with four-finger chord shapes … but wait! There is a way …

39.  Taking the lead

Here’s a chance to try some lead guitar phrases over a chord sequence. Get to grips with some classic bends and scale positions, then play your own.

40.  New wine from old bottles

Get those favourite phrases out of the cupboard and dust them down. If you’ve been playing for a while, you’ll have plenty. You can do more with them.

41.  Learning to decorate

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, says the proverb. Likewise, how do the pros get to sound so good? There’s more than one way to play a note.

42.  Ethereal bells

Hidden on each fret of the guitar are the high-pitched ‘ghost’ notes known as harmonics. Learn how to get them and where to find any harmonic you want.

43.  White knight/black knight

Here is the grandaddy of all rock rhythm figures, from boogie-woogie piano and Chuck Berry in the 1950s to Status Quo and Oasis doing ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’.

44.  Moonlit stroll

Simple guitar fingerpicking can be an accompaniment to singing. But with a few embellishments it can sound like instrumental music in its own right.

45.  A fistful of lute

Take a trip back in time with the Infinite Ideas Time Machine and sample (no, not that kind of sample, Perkins!) the sound of the age of Elizabeth and Shakespeare.

46.  The transatlantic rag

Could it be two nations divided by a common … key signature? Here’s a fusion of American and British fingerstyle guitar music to stretch your hands and your musical imagination.

47.  The big ring

You know that irritating moment when you’re trapped in a bus or train, and there’s a big ring, and someone reaches for their cellphone? Well, this is so much better!

48.  Twelve’s ocean

Think of the intros to The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’, David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Tangerine’, or Boston’s ‘More Than A Feeling’ … what gives those acoustic guitars that sparkle?

49.  The joy of bass

The pulsing, deep throb of the electric bass. You may have never consciously listened to it. But it’s there, in the depths, driving the groove of most songs.

50.  Write a happy song

Have you got a song inside you? Many harbour the desire to write a song. It isn’t that difficult a thing to do, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people doing it!

51.  Write a sad song

Is it raining on your parade? Everyone likes sad songs. There have probably been more tear-soaked chart hits than happy songs. Songwriters will tell you its easier to write a sad song than a happy one.

52.  Listen to a new guitarist

Many great players have played the same basic instrument as you. Down the decades their recordings still sound, to amaze and inspire. It’s your inheritance.

Brilliant features

Each chapter of this book is designed to provide you with an inspirational idea that you can read quickly and put into practice straight away.

Throughout you’ll find three features that will help you get right to the heart of the idea:

   Here’s an idea for you Take it on board and give it a go – right here, right now. Get an idea of how well you’re doing so far.

   Defining idea Words of wisdom from masters and mistresses of the art, plus some interesting hangers-on.

   How did it go? If at first you do succeed, try to hide your amazement. If, on the other hand, you don’t, then this is where you’ll find a Q and A that highlights common problems and how to get over them.

Introduction

You know, you’re never alone with a guitar

Hold a guitar and you hold the world’s most popular musical instrument. The piano may beat it for range and complexity, but you can’t take a piano on the bus or hitch-hiking. The guitar is seriously portable. And if your guitar is the type that doesn’t need electricity, you can carry it anywhere and play almost anywhere. Right now, there are thousands of people across the planet, squatting on a beach somewhere or sitting in a city park, strumming a few chord shapes and singing.

You’re never alone with a guitar, whether it’s acoustic or electric. We’re accustomed to them now, but back in the 1950s, it was as if electric guitars were from Mars. An electric guitar is the sound of the later urban twentieth century. Plugged in, it makes a simple chord last for many seconds. Plugged into a powerful enough amplifier and turned up L-O-U-D, the six strings of a guitar make enough noise to fill a hall the size of an aircraft hangar. Don’t you think that’s quite something?

You’re never alone with a guitar because of its history. Run your hand over those six strings, those frets, and think of the thousands of great popular songs that originated in it. The guitar is also an instrument that allows even a beginner who knows only three chord shapes to make pleasing harmony. And certainly enough sound to sing over. Think of all the buskers in the subways and the parks. Many songs that only had three chords have made the world swoon.

You never finish learning a musical instrument; it’s an adventure that never ends. This book is another part of that adventure. Exploring music is exchanging one event horizon for the next, in any direction, 360 degrees of opportunity. Which way you go just depends on what kind of music you want to play.

If guitar is a hugely popular instrument, it is also one which people learn in odd and haphazard ways. When I began my journey with the guitar there were almost no tutor books, no guitar magazines with TAB transcriptions, no tutorial videos and DVDs and no websites. Sheet music for songs was arranged for piano/vocal. If you were fortunate it might include chord boxes … but not necessarily the right ones nor in the right key! So you figured things out as best you could by ear, by looking at photographs of players’ hands, or by knowing someone who could show you something new.

On the guitar journey there’s always something new to find out. Often doors will open with a touch of lateral thinking. Play Great Guitar gives a range of new ideas for the instrument, whatever style of music you like. Everyone has times with the guitar where it seems as though there’s nothing new to discover. You feel stuck with what you know, and what you know seems overfamiliar. Flick through these pages and try out these ideas, and this will help you get unstuck.

These examples provide ideas and techniques which apply to a variety of musical genres. It doesn’t matter whether you play on acoustic or electric, with a pick or with your fingers. Some give chord boxes for you to experiment with in your own way. Others provide standard music notation with guitar TAB underneath. These are available as mp3 files (see opposite) on the Infinite Ideas website, so don’t worry about whether or not you can read music. The combination of audio and TAB will ensure you pick things up. The audio gives you the rhythm and an overall impression, the TAB tells you where to put your fingers.

Play Great Guitar can be dipped into as you please. Discover new sounds, and connect techniques and patterns you already know. You’ll maximise the knowledge you already have, and glimpse new musical horizons. Things you never understood before will become clear. You’ll find new slants on chord shapes, chord types, fingerpicking and strumming, scales and single note melodies, and altered tunings. There are even a few short pieces for you to learn, and, if you harbour some creative ambitions, a few hints about writing a song. Among these pages you may find the sound that will personally appeal so much that it prompts a whole new musical adventure.

Think of your guitar. Maybe you can see it propped up, out of the corner of your eye as you read this. The silence of your unplayed instrument, waiting, is not an empty silence. It is a silence teeming with potential sounds – like an ocean crowded with fish – with as yet undiscovered music. Over the years I’ve been out fishing many times, and I’ve pulled some of the ideas and approaches in these pages out of that silence. Now they’re waiting for you, your fingers, your guitar. Go and discover them!

Throughout the book some ideas are marked with the symbol . These ideas feature short original compositions by the author that will help you put into practice the techniques detailed in the text. To help you follow the pieces, Rikky has supplied MP3 files of himself playing the compositions. To hear Rikky playing his compositions go to www.infideas.com/guitar and follow the instructions to download the MP3 files you require.

1

It’s a classical gas, gas, gas

You play guitar, so what is more important than choice of instrument? First brilliant idea: get a new guitar. Go on, admit it … you hoped I’d say this, didn’t you?

The guitar is a versatile music-making tool. What could be more natural than to have two? Imagine a mechanic who turned up to fix your car with only one spanner.

GUITARS OLD AND NEW

If you go on a journey, it is sensible to choose a good travelling companion. A new instrument can really reignite your passion for the guitar. So let’s review the possibilities.

Before parting with your money, you want to know what a particular type of guitar can do for you. So take a fresh look at your own guitar. How old is it? How long have you had it? How did you come by it in the first place? Did you choose it, or did someone get it for you? Is it the right guitar for what you want to do? Is it holding you back in some way? Is there a style of guitar music you would like to play which won’t work on your current model?

People usually learn guitar on a cheap, knocked-about instrument. That’s a good discipline, tough as it seems, because when you get a better one it makes many things seem easier. But it is not good to persist with a poor instrument if it discourages you – either because it is hard to play or because it doesn’t have a good sound for the music you play on it. Cheap guitars have two main vices. First, they are hard to tune and are not in tune consistently across the fretboard. The higher up the fretboard you venture, the more obvious this becomes. Second, they have a high ‘action’. The action is the height of the strings from the fretboard. A high action makes it hard to hold down notes, especially more than one at a time, as in a barré chord.

When you go to buy a new guitar, check the action of the guitars. Try a barré chord at the first fret and anywhere from the fifth fret upward. How easy is it to hold down? The action should, at the extreme, never be higher than a ¼ inch anywhere on the neck. Play a chord and listen for how long it sustains. Run your finger carefully along the edge of the fretboard to make sure there are no sharp edges on the fret ends. See that you feel comfortable with the weight and the shape of the instrument. Compare as many as you can. Guitars can vary in quality by a surprising amount even in the same price bracket.

THE CLASSICAL/SPANISH GUITAR

Assuming you have a steel-strung acoustic, the first new guitar option to review is the classical or ‘Spanish’ guitar. Associated in world music with flamenco, and in the concert hall with greats such as Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream and John Williams, a classical guitar has a very individual character. They are found more often in second-hand shops than other types, so you could save some money that way, although these will often be poor quality. Mason Williams’ single ‘Classical Gas’, José Feliciano’s cover of The Doors ‘Light My Fire’ and the Beatles ‘And I Love Her’ are good examples of popular songs that used it.

In terms of playability the neck of a classical guitar is wider, so barré chords are more of a vertical stretch. The fretboard is shorter and access above the twelfth fret is limited, unless you get a modern model with a nontraditional cutaway. The action is often higher than other types of guitar, but this is compensated for by the tension of the strings being less. The all-important bit is the fact that it is strung with nylon strings. These are softer on the fretting fingers and have a different tone colour to the steel strings of a folk acoustic – not so bright and ringing, more rounded and warm. For children there are smaller sizes available.

Here’s an idea for you…

It isn’t fair to say the classical guitar has only one sound, dictated by the nylon strings. Experiment with where you strike the string and the tone changes. Play close to the bridge to get a treble, brittle tone; play on the edge of the soundhole for a neutral sound; play right over the edge of the fretboard to achieve the mellowest tone. These tone variations apply to all guitars, including electrics, but are especially noticeable on acoustic guitars, and a central means of expression on the classical guitar.

Defining idea…

‘The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different colour, a different voice.’ Andrés Segovia

How did it go?

Q   I have a classical guitar. Can I not strum chords on it?

A   You can, but strumming chords is less effective compared to strumming a steel-strung acoustic. The nylon-strung guitar has less sustain, it doesn’t sound so bright when strummed, and the ‘muted’ quality of the sound is increased if you don’t use a pick but strum with your thumb or the side of your hand. Therefore, the darker, mellower tone sounds better played fingerstyle. String bending is not an option, and the options for altered tunings are limited.

Q   Do I have to read music to play classical guitar pieces?

A   There are books of classical guitar pieces available which also provide TAB notation (and sometimes a CD of the music played), but my advice would be to avoid these and go with learning to read music. This is not that difficult, because you soon recognise the open strings and they act as a signpost to the pitch of everything else.

Q   Are there any techniques special to classical guitar?

A   To get the most tone during a solo playing single notes, use the technique known as the ‘rest’ stroke. Strike the string with a fairly straight finger, almost at right angles to the string, bringing it through the string until it rests on the one immediately lower in pitch. This technique is never used on a steel-string or an electric, but funnily enough it is used on electric bass guitar.

2

This machine kills boredom

Walk down a city street anywhere in the world and the chances are if you meet a guitar-wielding busker they will be singing to the backing of a strummed steel-strung acoustic.

The ‘folk’ guitar has become the true guitar of the people. This is the type of guitar that allows you to create a loud enough harmony to sing famous songs and write your own.

THE STEEL-STRUNG/‘FOLK’ GUITAR

It’s as portable as a classical guitar but makes more sound, which is ideal for strumming in those busy precincts. Steel-strung acoustic guitars come in more shapes and sizes than you might think. Not all are physically bulky and deep-bodied measured front-to-back, so shop around and try slimmer-bodied acoustics – like the so-called ‘parlour’ models – if the larger ones feel too awkward. If you think you want to stand up and play, check that the guitar has the requisite strap-buttons already attached to it.

The thickness of the neck and width of the fretboard also contribute to how playable the guitar feels. Check the width of the fretboard by playing a first position C chord. We can notate this shape x32010. The first character is the lowest pitched string (the 6th) and the last character is the top (1st) string; the numbers are frets, and ‘x’ is a string not played. See if it is hard to put your first finger in position so that it doesn’t touch the first or third strings and stop them vibrating cleanly. Make sure the nails on your fretting hand are kept very short, otherwise they interfere with holding down notes and making a good contact with the neck. Fingernails can also leave marks on the fingerboard. (Also on the subject of fingernails, if you want to fingerpick with your nails keep them well-shaped so that they’re less likely to snag on something and break.)

Another possible design feature is a single ‘cutaway’ – a bite out of the body that allows easier access to the higher frets. Unless you play lots of high single-note ‘lead’ lines a cutaway is not important (though some like cutaways for aesthetic reasons). Most acoustic guitar music is fingered well below the seventh fret, and relative beginners play mostly in the ‘open’ position around the first couple of frets, where open-string chord shapes are located.

Some steel-strung acoustics also offer the option of a built-in pick-up so the guitar can be played through an amp. You may think this only means you can play it louder, and if not performing it isn’t something you will use. Well, surprise! Actually, that pick-up is potentially an entry to a whole new world of sound. It means you can plug your guitar into an effects processor and subject it to sound modifying, such as chorus, phasing, reverb and echo. You can plug into an amp, add a little reverb and a short echo, and then place the amp several feet away facing you. Balance the volume of the acoustic guitar to what comes out of the amp, and get a fuller, more colourful sound, great for playing on your own.

In terms of playability the neck of a steel-string acoustic is narrower than a classical guitar, so barré chords are less of a vertical stretch but may require more pressure. The fretboard is longer and joins the body around the fifteenth fret. The brighter, metallic tone colour is effective as a background for other instruments or for dominating an arrangement. Fingerpick it or strum it or both, play instrumentals, sing or write songs, bend or retune strings – the steel-string acoustic does all these things.

In popular music the steel-string acoustic is everywhere, appearing in a huge number of styles from folk, country, blues, rock ’n’ roll, pop and on TV and film soundtracks. The sound of the steel-string guitar signifies country and urban living, roots, sincerity. This was exemplified by the MTV Unplugged series of concerts in the 1990s, in which famous bands and guitarists put aside their electrics and amps to get closer to the people by going acoustic.

Here’s an idea for you…

Experiment with your string gauges. When it comes to strings, choice is a compromise between conflicting gains. The lighter the string the easier the guitar is to play. Barré chords and string bending are easier with light strings. The heavier the string the less likelihood there is of fret buzz and rattle, and the more volume and tone you can get from the guitar. But heavier strings are harder on the fingers and can make the action tougher because of increased string tension. Err on the side of lighter gauge to begin with and see how you get on.

Defining idea…

‘You play less [on acoustic], and it counts more because you don’t have the amp to resonate the notes.’
Izzy Stradlin, Guns ‘n’ Roses

How did it go?

Q   Do I have to read music to play acoustic guitar pieces?

A   Not necessarily. Most books of steel-string acoustic guitar pieces available provide TAB notation (and sometimes a CD of the music played). These encompass folk tunes, standards, show tunes, chart instrumentals and arrangements of famous songs. If you prefer at this stage to strum the chords to songs, look out for the chord songbook format which provides lyrics and chord boxes.

Q   Are there any techniques special to steel-string guitar?

A   Probably the first ones that come to mind are playing slide (or bottleneck) guitar, as in blues, and bending strings, neither of which are done on a classical guitar. To play slide effectively, however, the guitar needs to have a higher than average action and heavier gauge strings. This is to stop the slide rattling on the frets and pushing the strings against the fretboard. Slide guitar music is often performed in altered tunings, which is another technique more common to steel-string guitar than classical. Tunings feature in Ideas 33–38, 45 and 47.

Q   Owww … Help! My fingers are sore.

A   Don’t worry. When you start playing on steel strings, either coming from nylon strings or beginning guitar, it is usual for your fingers to get sore on the tips. Stop well before you get to the point of blisters. Practise a little each day. Gradually the soreness will go away and the skin will harden.

3

Tune up, plug in, turn on

So you think electric guitars are only for unwashed youths in low-slung denim who like noise with a capital N and have band names like Unholy Doom tattooed on their knuckles?

Take a fresh look at the most abused instrument in the known musiverse, the sound of the urban mid-late twentieth century, all in six strings, 22 frets, and several electro-magnetic pick-ups.

TURNING ON TO ELECTRIC GUITAR

If you already play acoustic you may wonder, what is it like to make the transition to electric? It may be much less of an issue than you imagine. For a start, the electric is tuned the same, so all the notes and chords are in the places where you left them. But the electric has lighter strings. Your sore fingertips are cooing with pleasure already. This makes string bending practicable and easier. Electric guitars tend to have better actions (i.e. lower) than acoustic guitars, so cheap electrics are often easier to play than cheap acoustics. Electrics can be hollow-body (like the f-hole Gibson 335) or solid body. They can have a single cutaway (as on the Gibson Les Paul which is otherwise based on the body shape of a classical guitar) or a double cutaway (as on the Gibson SG or Fender Stratocaster).

They have two or three pick-ups, of the kind known as single and/or double-coil. The pick-ups give an emphasised version of the sounds which naturally occur on an acoustic guitar when you play right over the soundhole at the edge of the fretboard, just at the edge of the soundhole, or close to the bridge. A guitar with three single-coil pick-ups provides five different tones from its selector switch, and these can be further changed by turning the tone controls. A guitar with two double-coil pick-ups provides three basic tones from its toggle switch, which can be further altered with the tone controls.

Some electric guitars are equipped with a vibrato bar (or tremolo arm) – which lets you wiggle it to bend the pitch of the notes. Think Hank Marvin/The Shadows/‘Apache’ for mild wigglification; think Hendrix/Woodstock/‘StarSpangled Banner’ for extreme wigglification.

PLUGGING IN: THE BIG BOX THINGY (AND THE GOOD NEWS THEREOF)

Traditionally, electric guitars require an amplifier to be heard. However, an amp is not strictly necessary. If you’re not bothered about other people hearing you, or you want to play late at night, invest first in a suitable effects processor. It lets you hear your electric guitar on headphones with effects such as overdrive, echo and reverb. Your partner can be watching TV in the next room and have no clue that the vague tinkling noise they hear as you strike the strings sounds to you like 300 watts of insane valve amplification drowning out passing jumbo jets. Some effects units can also feed in sound from a CD so you can play along.

Now, here’s a special message to my female readers. There is no law in the musiverse which states that female guitarists are destined only to thrum cheap nylon-strung guitars or struggle with steel-string acoustics. Lots of blokes play electric guitar, and lots of blokes sell them in music shops. Women, do not let this stop you investigating electric guitars. Electrics offer much less resistance when it comes to physically managing the fretboard (lighter strings, lower action) – and you can make it sound however you want. This can make all the difference when you’re starting out.

Versatility. That, in one word, is what the electric guitar excels at. You can play just about any style of music you want to on an electric, from smooth, clean, mellow jazz lines to acoustic simulations, to phased funk, to screaming, clanky heavy metal.

This versatility has increased exponentially since the advent of digital ‘modelling’ techniques in the 1990s. It is now possible to buy an electric guitar that approximates a dozen famous guitar sounds.

Here’s an idea for you…

Try playing through a song and just play the root notes of the chords on the bass strings. An electric guitar part doesn’t have to mean playing chords. On tracks like The Beatles’ ‘Help’, T.Rex’s ‘Metal Guru’, Oasis’ ‘Live Forever’, Catatonia’s ‘I Am The Mob’, and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, some of the guitar parts are single-note phrases, accentuating the root notes of the chords. This is great for beginners because it sidesteps the initial challenge of holding complete chords but allows you to play along with CDs. Later you can switch to full chords.

Defining idea…

‘I want every girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming.’ Courtney Love

How did it go?

Q   People say learn on an acoustic first before you buy an electric. Is this true?

A   If you really want to play electric guitar styles then get one from the start. Techniques like string bending or high soloing can’t be done on an acoustic, plus you won’t have the initial satisfaction of playing simple riffs. But if you have to learn for a time on acoustic there are benefits in terms of hand strength. Cope with the physical challenge of holding chords on an acoustic with its higher action, and when you do go to electric it will seem so much easier.

Q   What are ‘copy’ guitars and are they as good as the originals?

A   ‘Copy’ guitars resemble certain famous (usually) American brands and models. Thirty years ago they were cheap but of dubious quality. In the mid-1970s companies like Tokai started making better quality imitations for a third of the price of the originals. Not long after, companies like Fender and Gibson developed budget versions of their own models under names like Squier and Epiphone. Copy guitars can offer good value for money, and the chance to own something that looks like the real thing. The originals use superior materials, have better pick-ups, are finished to a higher standard and have That Name on the headstock. Whether they are better by the proportion implied by the multiples of the copy’s price they cost is open to debate.

4

Cop a capo

Think of Paul Weller’s ‘Wild Wood’, Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ and Travis’ ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me’ … you’ll never get any of them to sound right on guitar without one of these.

Ah, the capo. What a fabulous gadget. To use it properly is to love it. No batteries, no recharging, no mains, and it fits in your pocket.

For the guitarist a capodastro (or ‘capo’ for short) is a very flexible friend, and more user-friendly than that other flexible ‘friend’ … your credit card. The former helps you play in difficult keys; the other keys you into difficulty … every time you enter a music shop or visit guitars-r-us.com. A capo will make sure your rendition of many songs is right on the money; a credit card will make sure guitars-r-us.com are on your money. By the way, for those of you planning foreign holidays, ‘capo tasto’ is Italian, ‘capo’ meaning head, ‘tasto’ meaning tie, fret, or key. (This should serve to get you arrested if you use it when speaking to a member of the Italian police who isn’t a guitar player.)

CAPOS DOWN THE AGES (OR AT LEAST SINCE ELVIS)

The capo was invented to solve practical problems caused by wanting to play fretted instruments in other keys than the ones with easy fingering. The capo became popular in the early 1960s when singer-songwriters associated with the folk and protest movements, such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, used capoed acoustic guitars. So did the singer-songwriters who followed them – Simon and Garfunkel, Donovan, Cat Stevens, James Taylor and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Varying the key of songs is important, especially if your knowledge of chords is limited. Since the 1960s the capo has been a permanent fixture of guitar technique in many styles.

A capo reduces the number of barré chords in a song. It can also increase the playability of a guitar by lowering the action a little. If the string tension is tight, try tuning a semitone below concert pitch and put a capo at the first fret, or even tune a tone down with the capo at the second fret. Also, once the capo reaches the sixth or seventh fret the guitar sounds different, because of the loss of low bass notes and the addition of more high notes. You can even make new chord shapes that involve stretches impossible lower down the neck.

If you work with another guitarist, or multi-track guitar parts, a capo can be employed to double a chord sequence in different positions, so the two guitars play contrasting shapes on each chord. This gives a fuller musical texture and can even approximate a 12-string even if you don’t have one. If a chord sequence in A major in open position is also played as if in C major with a capo at the ninth fret, the overall span of sound is richer.

PUTTING IT ON RIGHT

Capos come in many designs, and since the 1970s capo design has improved greatly. Putting a capo on a guitar often causes the need to retune. This is because for the capo to not muffle the strings it must exert pressure. This pressure may cause the thicker strings to go slightly sharp. The heavier the gauge of strings the more noticeable this is. You can put it on with your left hand, but many people get their right hand to help put it on as part of their music-making.

To get a clean sound and better intonation the capo needs to be placed close to the fret, but not too close otherwise the capo interferes with the fingering of chords and notes on the first adjacent fret. If the capo is placed away from the fret to give your hand more room to move it can increase the amount of tuning problem. Capo positioning means ensuring the capo is aligned vertically, so the strings are not pulled up or down from their usual position.

Here’s an idea for you…

A capo is the easiest way to change the key of a song to suit your voice. Imagine a song in G major with the progression G–C–D–Em. The chords are simple but let’s say the key is too low for you to sing. By fixing the capo at the third fret you can play the same open-string shapes but are now singing a minor third higher in Bb major (the true pitch of the chords now being Bb–Eb–F–Gm). A capo can also bring a key down if the highest notes of the melody are too high.

Defining idea…

‘‘Drowned’ is in the key of C. I use a capo on my guitar at the fifth fret then I play the song in the “G” shape, it gives a nice ring to the chords.’ Pete Townshend, The Who

How did it go?

Q   My friend says that capos are a cheat.

A   Well, silly them. Playing an instrument is about making music. Technique and technology serve that end. A capo allows you to play fluently in difficult keys. Try playing Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘America’ or T.Rex’s ‘Ride A White Swan’ without a capo! Even if you had the strength to play in a key with many barré chords, such as Ab (as with ‘Swan’), it makes a different sound and prevents the embellishments typical of fingerpicking styles because you won’t have any free fingers. A capo lets you get more out of a single open tuning (see Idea 35) by raising its pitch to different keys.

Q   Does it matter what sort of capo I get?

A   Most capos fit most necks but a curved neck will mean a straight capo won’t make good contact with the top and bottom Es at the same time. If you want to capo a 12-string or nylon-strung guitar, check the capo copes with the wider neck. Second, how quick a change do you need to make and how critical is tuning stability? If you need a capo for live performance then it is worth spending extra on a quick-release model.

Q   I’ve heard there are capos that let you set individual strings?

A   True – but they’re like exotic pets. You can live without one – unless you know exactly what you want it for!

5

A rule of thumb

They may be digitally challenged in the finger-length stakes – but hey! Equal rights for thumbs now! Your music might occasionally need a fretting thumb.

The thumb has its place in holding down strings. It makes some chords easier, some sound better, it can mute notes you don’t want and free up fingers for other things.

A THUMBS UP FOR THUMBS UP

Most of the time the fretting thumb perches behind the neck while the fingers do the work. A good rule of thumb …er … with the thumb is to allow it its natural curve; don’t bend it at the knuckle, nor press too hard on the back of the neck. The advantage of a low thumb position is that it allows the hand to open and stretch. To feel the difference, put all four fingers on the bottom string, first finger at the fifth fret, second finger at the sixth, third finger at the seventh, fourth finger at the eighth. If you keep your thumb over the top of the neck this will be difficult. Drop it halfway down the back and voila ! Your fingers open out and you can get them all on at once. But there are good reasons for allowing some leeway with thumb position when it comes to playing a range of guitar music. Over the page are twelve of them – chords that require it.

With the Gmaj7, if you play only the top four strings it’s a Bm chord. But it actually changes into a Gmaj7 if the thumb adds a G in the bass. Since all four fingers are occupied fretting notes, without the thumb there is no other way to achieve this. You can play Gmaj7 other ways, but not with this sound. In the case of the Dm/F, this is an awkward chord to hold down without using the thumb.

The F and Fm are especially tricky for beginners. They’re a little easier if the thumb takes the root note on the 6th string, thus removing the barré from both. Played this way they ease tension in your hand in a song where there are many barré chords. The Fmaj7 is normally played as the top four strings only, but putting the thumb on the root note gives a deeper voicing and allows the 5th string note to be played. The inverted D (D/F#) can be played just with the fingers but in reality many players use this form with the thumb. F#m7add11 is a great sounding chord but unfortunately if you only use fingers it is impossible to get a decent root note F# under it. This can be remedied if you use your thumb.

Gm is normally a barré chord at the third fret. But one of its notes is a D, so a barré Gm fails to take advantage of the open D string. But you can achieve it with the thumb holding G in the bass as in both of these. A small change – but even one open string can make a difference to the resonance of a chord. There are G7 shapes that don’t need the thumb, so why this? Well, the advantage is with one finger for Gm7 and two for G7, this leaves the other two fingers free to add decorative notes when jamming on these chords. The same thing applies to this version of the major chord. The little finger is free to add notes to the chord and then take them off. The thumb is holding the root note on the 6th string and damping the 5th.

Here’s an idea for you…

You can use your thumb to clean up your strumming by muting unwanted bass notes. These are low open strings that either don’t fit in the chord or are not the root note. Just rest the end half of it on the top of the neck and squeeze – mild pressure squashes your thumb onto the offending bottom E string if it is ringing under an open A, C, D, Am or Dm shape. The thumb can also do this muting job at the same time as holding down a bass note.

Defining idea…

‘I don’t believe in getting too technical. If it works and sounds good – then that’s it for me.’ Brian May, Queen

How did it go?

Q   Why have I always been told to keep my thumb below the neck?

A   If you’ve studied classical guitar you’re probably used to keeping your thumb low. There’s a good reason for it: a low thumb makes it easier to hold down barré chords. But there’s no need to stick rigidly to this. It’s not because your thumb might be at risk of functioning as a TV aerial, or because it once had to stay low in trenches to avoid snipers.

Q   Is it possible to play a double octave with the thumb helping out?

A   Yes it is. Have a look at the last chord box, marked ‘Octaves’. The thumb holds the bass note and mutes the 5th string. The third finger holds a note and mutes the 3rd and 2nd strings, and the first finger takes the top string. This gives you three notes ringing and three muted. You strum all the strings and should only get three notes. This is quite an advanced technique, which Jimi Hendrix deployed in his jazzier moments.

Q   Is it true Richie Havens plays mostly with his thumb?

A   Yes. Odd things happen to people’s technique when they are self-taught. Richie Havens opened the 1969 Woodstock Festival armed only with an acoustic guitar and his idiosyncratic thumb-fretting technique. But it only works because his guitar is in an open tuning (see Ideas 38 and 47). For more, visit his website, www.richiehavens.com.

‘I’m not good enough to be playin much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get it so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers. I really appreciate when someone can blow me away with live acoustic blues.’ Johnny Winter

6

Going offbeat

Here’s a quick way to make your guitar playing take off. The clue to playing many songs in folk and blues fingerstyles is the offbeat (syncopated) pattern.

Learning this rhythmically freer finger style gives your playing more melodic interest and rhythmic sparkle. Apply this pattern to any simple chord sequence you know and you’re halfway toward an instrumental.

WHY FINGERPICK?

The human hand has been digitally arranged (pun alert, folks!), like a pre-sliced pizza, to have fingers that can do things independent of each other. In a way, strumming the guitar is like a pianist playing the piano with a glove on one hand. Playing with the fingers allows you to separate out the basic elements of harmonic music: bass line underneath, melody on top, and harmony in between.

When you first learn fingerstyle the patterns are rhythmically simple. Standard easy patterns hit one string at a time, either in 3/4 or 4/4. In the former a bass note is played first, then strings 3–2–1–2–3 using the index (i), middle (m), and ring finger (a), (i–m–a–m–i) on the plucking hand. A typical pattern in 4/4 would be: thumb–3–2–1–2–3–2–3. To get a more interesting effect with these change the order of strings played after the bass note, so they don’t go predictably up and down in pitch.

THE OVER-HANG THANG

Fingerstyle guitar really takes off when you learn to syncopate. The thumb is the crucial agent. It alternates from the bass root note of a chord to another note in that chord. These thumb notes mark the beat. Plucking fingers supply upper notes, sometimes on the beat with the thumb, but often in between, i.e. on offbeats. These offbeat notes over-hang the next beat. This is syncopation – not to be confused with appearing in many newspapers at once (that’s syndication!).

Try this short piece, which has an 8-bar phrase, repeated, and a second 4-bar phrase. The thumb notes are easy to see because they have tails that go down. The first 8 bars use the chords of G, C and D11 – which sounds difficult but actually is played by moving the C shape up two frets. Hold all the notes you need for that bar at the start of each bar; don’t put them on one at a time. The finger pattern itself lasts two bars, there being one change in the second bar of each pair, where the third finger strikes the top string. In bars 9–12 small variations make things more interesting. Watch out for the double hammer-on on the first beat of bar 16.

Do you keep losing the beat? Don’t worry – that’s a normal first experience. The trick is to keep the thumb steady on the beats and make your fingers play to it, not the other way round. Every note played by the thumb is on the beat. Tap the beat with your foot. Take this slow at first, slow enough to think about each note. When you feel you have the pattern, speed up gradually. Eventually you’ll play it without consciously thinking. You can then experiment, adding more syncopated notes with your fingers.

Here’s an idea for you…

To train fingers and thumb to work separately, you can break down the given task. Tell your thumb to play the open D string four times in a bar, at a slow tempo, once on each beat. Then use your first or second finger to play a tune on the top two strings, one note at a time, with some of the notes falling in between those played by the thumb. If you can keep your thumb steady during this you will have taken a first step toward being able to do the whole thing.

Defining idea…

‘If you want sustain on acoustic, you have to pull it out of your fingers more.’ Andy Summers, The Police

How did it go?

Q   How do I know which bass strings to pick on any given chord?

A   The thumb generally starts a bar by hitting the root note, so whatever chord you hold you need to know where the lowest root note is. With the eight master shapes, the root note is on the 6th string in E, Em and G; it’s the 5th string in A, Am and C; and the 4th string in D and Dm. For beats 2 and 4 the thumb usually plays the ‘fifth’ of the chord, which is on the 5th string in D, Dm, E and Em; the 4th string in A, Am and G; and the 3rd string in C. Occasionally, you can alternate between the root note and the ‘third’ of the chord. This is possible on a C chord if the thumb plays the 5th string and then the 4th string.

Q   Do I have to play this fingerstyle idea on an acoustic guitar?

A   No, you can play an electric with your fingers, including this type of syncopated playing, if mindful of potential drawbacks. On an electric the strings are slightly closer together, making it harder for the plucking fingers. Second, getting a comfortable hand position sitting down with a small-body electric may be tricky. Third, the electric’s sustain makes notes last longer and that causes some patterns to sound messy at quicker tempos because the notes ring for too long.

7

Flatpicking – best of both worlds

You know about playing guitar with a pick or playing with your fingers. But why not do both at once? Think you can’t do both at once? Read on.

Here’s a versatile approach to playing that lets you change within a beat from fingerstyle to strumming to single note melodies and lead fills. It’s the best of both worlds.

This style of playing is known as ‘flatpicking’. Fingerstyle players might say, ‘why do I need to do this? I can strum with my thumb.’ Playing with a pick gives volume, clarity and evenness to strummed chords, and rhythm and emphasis to bass notes. The pick is a sort of substitute thumb but has an edgier tone, more defined compared to the woolly ‘thrum’ sound a thumb gives. Any pattern of fingerpicking that has thumb and two plucking fingers can be copied with the pick. It feels slightly awkward at first but you get used to it. Divide the work between pick and fingers.

PICK THE GOOD PICK

To get the most out of flatpicking have a suitable pick for the job. Surprising as it may seem, the thickness of a plectrum makes a considerable difference to the sound of a note on the guitar, as well as how easy it is to play. The thick/thin plectrum contrast is like the guitar equivalent of drummers going from sticks to wire brushes. So experiment with plectrums, which come in gauges from thin to thick.

Thick picks suit when you want to play fast and produce a loud tone, but don’t feel so good when you’re strumming. Thin picks wobble too much for fast playing but sound great for strumming, producing a softer, airier tone. Thin picks are also good for practising upstrokes since they offer less resistance. If I’m flatpicking a song that involves any heavy riff or fast lead I’ll start with a medium-to-thick plectrum. If it involves soft strumming, then I’ll grab a thin pick.

PLAYING THE PIECE

The aim of this piece is to give a taste of the variety of musical figures the flatpicking technique facilitates. The pick plays any note with a tail going down plus the second note in the bar if there is an arpeggio pattern – as in bars 1–2. The upper notes should be played by the second and third fingers. Notice in bar 3 a change – the fingers pluck two notes together (you could have a whole piece with that approach alone). Watch out for single note runs with hammer-on/pull-off figures in bars 4 and 8, and the decoration in bar 10. Bars 10 and 12 include chords played only with the pick. On the fretting hand, chord shapes occupy either half or a whole bar, so look ahead and work out what’s needed so you can put down all the notes to be used in a given shape. This allows them to sustain, so the full colour of the chord is heard. The basic chords are named above the bars, but you don’t need all the fingers on that you would if you were strumming them, just the ones that are played.

Here’s an idea for you…

Try playing fast triplets to get the flatpicking action smooth. Set a medium tempo, hold down a chord on the top three strings – play three notes on each beat, the lowest note with your pick and the other two notes with second and third fingers. Initially, each is a conscious movement, but gradually it becomes a single movement, and then you can speed it up to give a classical fast-rolling arpeggio. There’s a great song by The Police called ‘Bring On The Night’ which is a fine example of how this can be applied.

Defining idea…

‘No guitar player can go wrong if they play acoustic guitar steadily, if they’d keep their hand in on the acoustic.’ Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones

How did it go?

Q   My hand feels slightly awkward trying flatpicking. Is this normal?

A   Yes, whether you usually play with a pick or fingerstyle. The main cause is the fact that the first finger is not available for plucking duty because it grips the pick. This means your middle finger becomes a substitute index finger. As the middle and ring fingers pluck the strings you’re conscious of the tendons pulling. The more you play like this the more this sense of stiffness fades. The basic pick action from the thumb is not affected, because you use thumb and first finger to hold a pick normally.

Q   Does this technique work for electric guitar?

A   Yes, and advantageously. Most electric players use a pick anyway, so it’s not such a huge step. Pick and fingers gives flexibility. If you write riffs it may make you come up with something different. If the song you’re playing has a fingerstyle passage you can avoid that business of putting the pick in your mouth – which always risks being a bit of a choker! You can pull at the strings with your fingers to get a snapping effect. This gives lead phrases more texture. Listen to Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits who mostly plays electric with a thumb and two fingers. His solos on ‘Sultans of Swing’ are full of the colour that comes from playing with the fingers.

8

The art of strumming

As famed French hot-jazz guitarist Des Cartes once said, I strum, therefore I am. Strum well and the whole world strums with you (in an air guitar kind of way).

Strumming is so basic that guitarists take it for granted and do it instinctively. But learn some new patterns and you can improve the sound of the songs you play.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE STRUM

The popular ‘chord songbook’ format acknowledges that many people never take their guitar playing much beyond strumming. Open a chord songbook by a famous band and you find lyrics with chord names above the words, but no music or tab. The idea is to strum the chords and sing the tune from memory. Chord songbooks assume inexperienced players can bash their way through a chord sequence. The relative simplicity of strumming technique means you concentrate on what your fretting hand does as it goes from one chord to another, and don’t have to worry about your plucking hand.

A strummed guitar performs two musical tasks: one is harmonic, the other rhythmic. Melodies are supported by harmony, i.e. chords, that give the melody a context. Different chords colour the notes in contrasting ways. A strummed guitar supplies a ‘wash’ of harmony. Acoustic guitars have limited sustain; within a short space of time the notes fade away, so you hit the chord again. Strumming sustains the chord’s presence and keeps the harmonic ‘wash’ under the melody. Second, strumming creates rhythm through the frequency with which chords are struck, and by percussive noises. Both are important for solo performers with guitar, whereas guitarists playing with a rhythm section don’t have to carry the rhythm with their strumming and adjust accordingly.

STRUMMING PATTERNS

In this exercise there are 16 patterns using an A chord. If you listen to the audio file you’ll hear that each bar is repeated, with a one-bar gap between each pattern (where you will only hear the click). The first three patterns relate to the three basic rhythmic ‘levels’ of strumming: quarter-note (4 strums in a bar of 4/4); eighth-note (on and off the beat, 8 strums in a bar of 4/4); and sixteenth-note (twice on and off the beat, 16 strums in a bar of 4/4). Most strumming patterns mix the first two ‘levels’. Start by strumming downward on a slow-to-medium beat, counting 1… 2… 3… 4… (bar 1), then strum eighths down and up on each beat, counting 1-and 2-and 3-and 4-and (bar 2).

The remaining patterns demonstrate how to make strumming more interesting, either by choosing an eighth-note strum as the basis but removing some of the strokes and letting the chord ring (see bars 10–15), or by syncopating (as with the tied notes in bars 7 and 9), or by squeezing in the odd pair of sixteenths (as in bar 7). The cross-head notes in bars 15–16 are a useful percussive effect. Just before the pick hits the strings the edge of the strumming hand touches the strings, muting them. As the pick strikes the damped strings it gives off a percussive sound that has little or no harmonic content. Also, the edge of the hand pushes the strings inward as it makes contact, causing them to bang against the frets, adding to the percussive effect.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you are recording a song or instrumental, close-miking will capture the clicking noise a soft pick makes and adds to the percussive side of a track. In a heavily arranged mix (with keyboards and/or strings) the sound of the guitar chords is often less apparent than this clicking. This noise can also be had from an electric guitar recorded direct into a portastudio or other recording device. The direct signal can be overdriven to blazes while a mike records the acoustic sound of the strummed electric straight off the strings. Two sounds from one!

Defining idea…

‘I play guitar like I’m playing the drums.’ Bo Diddley

How did it go?

Q   Does it matter what kind of pick I use, and do I have to use one?

A   Strumming is easier with a light, flexible pick. Hard picks resist the strings, which is fine when playing fast down-and-up strokes, as then you don’t want any ‘give’ in the pick which will slow you up. But strumming with a hard pick feels clunky. Light picks allow you to brush the strings and control the volume. As for whether you should use one, players strum with or without a pick. It gives a more even sound, especially when recording, and strumming with a pick you can always switch straight into single-note riffs or lead.

Q   I only have a nylon-string guitar at present. Does that mean I shouldn’t strum?

A   Steel-string acoustics definitely sound better strummed than nylon-strung guitars. Played with a pick, ‘Spanish’ guitars sound a bit muddy.

Q   How do I know how often I need to strum during a song?

A   Good strumming patterns balance tempo against sustain. At a slow tempo, you hit the strings more frequently because the chords die away. At faster tempos, you don’t need to hit them so often, unless doing so is part of the musical style – as it is in funk guitar. If you’re playing a song and the chords die away too quickly leaving the melody unsupported then you need to strum more often in each bar.

9

Learn some new chords

If harmony is a continent of sound and emotion, each chord is a village. So why not go travelling occasionally and find other places to make your own.

We all have times when it seems as though we can’t think of anything new to play. One of the fastest ways to address this is to learn some new chords.

One reason for the guitar’s popularity is that you can get music out of it with minimal technique. The simplest way is to strum chords. When people first get a guitar they learn a few shapes from a book like Chord Master, or from a guitar-playing friend. It’s as easy as having a chord in your fretting hand and then hitting the strings all at once to make it sound. Most people soon pick up the eight master shapes (A, C, D, E, G, Am, Dm, Em), a smattering of open-string chords, and then the odd barré shape. The good news is you don’t actually need tons of chords to play most rock/pop/soul/folk. So, let’s forget about quantity, and pose a different question.

Have you ever worked out how many chords you actually know? Make a list and see how many you remember. Write the names down. Since there are 12 notes you should have 12 shapes for every type of chord (major, minor, seventh, etc.). How many did you get? If you haven’t been playing that long I bet your list had these: A, C, D, E, G, Am, Dm, Em, A7, D7, G7, B7, Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Am7, Em7, Dsus4 and Asus2. And I would bet it didn’t have Ab, Bb, Db, Eb, Bbm, Bm, Cm, Fm or Gm. Well, not to worry about the sharp/flat chords – we’ll meet them in Idea 10.

WHAT WE HEARD ON OUR TRAVELS

Here are twelve exotic shapes which you have probably never encountered, drawn from right across the continent of harmony. The Am7add11 is a spacey variation on the popular Am7 chord; this sounds lovely picked, with echo and chorus effects. The Amaj7 is a rare fingering of an otherwise common chord. If the major 7 is something of a chocolate gateau (to change metaphor from geography to food), this voicing is an extra topping of cream. The E6 shape is fun if you strum it and lift your little finger on and off – which lends itself to rock ’n’ roll.

The F6/9 is a sixth chord with an additional note. The Gsus2 is another spacey chord (any chord which is a ‘sus’ is neither major nor minor). The Dm7 is an easy shape which dilutes straight Dm, and by putting your little finger on G on the bottom string we get the next chord, the sophisticated G11. If you take a major chord and raise its fifth by a semitone it turns into an augmented chord, as here with F+. Those of you who like jazz will enjoy the A9b13. Some chords come with extra spice, in the form of mild dissonance. Try the F#7add11, the tragic Cmadd9, and the ‘who am I?’ diminished seventh, the chord with no less than six names! This one is D#/Ebo dim7, but it could equally be called A, C, F# or Gb dim7.

Here’s an idea for you…

The quick way to never get caught out needing a chord is to learn two barré shapes per chord category. One should have the root note on the sixth string and the other on the fifth or fourth. Why two shapes? Because they will be located in different areas of the fretboard – low, middle or high – so you can create a sequence with the minimum amount of hand movement. These barré shapes are the chord equivalent of an InterRail ticket that lets you travel between many places in a short period of time.

Defining idea…

‘I always think, “There’s got to be another chord change that’s not so obvious.”’ Andy Summers, The Pollce

How did it go?

Q   These new chords are great. But what types should I learn first?

A   There are roughly twelve chord types that feature in pop, folk and rock songs. They are, with how they’re written if the root note were to be C in brackets: major (C), minor (Cm), seventh (C7), major seventh (Cmaj7), minor seventh (Cm7), suspended fourth (Csus4), suspended second (Csus2), major sixth (C6), added ninth (Cadd9), ninth (C9) and minor added ninth (Cmadd9). Remember that some can be found in open string shapes, but if you have a barré shape for each type that one shape will generate a chord for all twelve pitches. Try to learn a shape for each type, so you can find it on any of the twelve notes.

Q   Why are some chords given varying shapes in song books?

A   This can be for several reasons. It arises because you only need three notes to make a complete simple chord – a triad (the subject of Idea 14). On the guitar these three notes can be doubled or tripled to get a fuller voicing and this allows for variations. So an open string G chord is often played 320003 (GBDGBG). But it could also be 3x0003 (GxDGBG) which only needs two fingers, or 320033 (GBDGDG), or with a third fret barré 355433 (GDGBDG). They are all perfectly valid G chords, each with its own particular sound.

10

Get flat – stay sharp

Think of a piano keyboard. It has two colours, white and black. Chords are that way too, on piano or guitar. So come and meet the five flats and sharps.

Learn how to deal with those sharp/flat critters – just simple major and minor forms – and you will find there are many more songs you can play.

SEVEN AND FIVE

The seven ‘white’ (because of the piano keys) or ‘natural’ notes are A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Five of these – A, C, D, E and G – are among the eight open master shapes on the guitar. The remaining five notes – sometimes called ‘black’ notes (they are the black keys on a piano) are A#/Bb, C#/Db, D#/Eb, F#/Gb, G#/Ab. Notice that every black note has two names, one a sharp (#), the other a flat (b). Which name is cited depends on musical context, which is too variable to generalise much about. It is common for people who play a little guitar not to know these black-note chords. As full barré shapes they aren’t that easy, but I’m providing handy chord boxes with easier versions. Hopefully, in a song you won’t stay too long on the chord anyway.

Incidentally, don’t confuse the concept of ‘sharp’ or ‘flat’ with a term like major or minor. The name of the chord C# minor gives you two pieces of information, not three. It is based on the note C# and it’s a minor chord. If you try and find it by starting with a C chord on the basis that there’s a ‘C’ in the name you’re barking up the wrong tree. C# minor has nothing to do with the note C and everything to do with the note C#.

TWELVE QUICK CHORD SHAPES

The first three chord boxes articulate A#/Bb. The first avoids a barré; the second has a full barré, giving a deeper sound; the third involves a barré with the little finger but is well-balanced, and popular on electric guitar. If you move these shapes up three frets they give C#/Db – boxes iv and v give shapes for (another) C#/Db and for D#/Eb. Both are derived from an open D chord, moved back one or forward one – which is easy to remember.

Boxes vi and vii provide for F#/Gb and G#/Ab with just a half-barré on the top two strings. These are technically inversions (see Idea 12) but they can be substituted for a root position version of these chords to make things more comfortable. Boxes viii and ix can be grabbed without a barré at all – you have to mute the top and bottom strings – but they’re useful and give your hand a rest from playing barrés. The last three boxes offer ways of generating the sharp/flat minor chords, using the Am and Em shapes. It may seem odd but D#m doesn’t occur in an effective shape below the sixth fret. This is because if you move a standard Dm shape (xx0231) up to get D#m it becomes awkward; no one uses it.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you write songs you can take creative advantage of the fact that the guitar doesn’t really like sharp/flat chords. For your intro or verse put together a chord sequence with a number of sharp/flat chords, for example, Bb –Ab –Fm–Eb . These will be barré chords. Then change key for your chorus and go into a key where open string shapes are available. The darker tone of the barré chords will be suddenly replaced by the brighter resonance of a D major sequence like D–Em–G–A. Listen to the Beatles ‘If I Fell’.

Defining idea…

‘Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.’ Jimi Hendrix

How did it go?

Q   Do I really need to learn sharp and flat chords?

A   Yes, you do really. It’s true that you can transfer a song into an easier bunch of shapes with a capo (see Idea 4) but if a song changes key, or has a mildly adventurous progression, it won’t be long before you come to a sharp/flat chord. For example, it is not uncommon to find the chord of C# in a song in A major, or F# in E major, or Eb in F major. And this can happen even with a capo.

Q   Sharp and flat chords don’t sound as good to me as the others. Why is that?

A   First, they usually don’t have open strings, so they don’t resonate as much. Second, even as held chords they don’t resonate so well on the guitar. The way round this is either to use a capo or, if you’re writing a song and want a genuine sharp or flat key, retune the guitar in such a manner as to generate some ‘black’ chords with open strings in them. Sometimes a sharp/flat chord sounds better when a fourth note is added – like a seventh or add ninth.

Q   Are sharp/flat chords always barré chords?

A   If they have a full complement of notes and a root note in the bass the answer is probably yes. Unless you have been reading ahead and fiddled with the tuning!

11

Seventh heaven

It only takes one extra note to move from the vanilla world of major and minor chords to the chocolate chip tub of the sevenths … and in four flavours too!

Seventh chords are everywhere in songs and take you closer to specific styles like blues, MOR cool or singer-songwriter balladry. The bonus is they’re often easy to hold down.

THE ONE-STEP/TWO-STEP DOWN

The recipe for sevenths is straightforward. Take a major chord and think of its root note. Now select a half-step (a semitone) down from that note. Whatever this new note is, add it to the major chord and you have a major seventh chord. (Yum! Yes, you may lick your fingers.) The recipe cooks best if you avoid placing this extra note at the bottom of the shape; introduce it in the middle or at the top.

Here’s an example. Hold down a C chord (x32010). What note is a half-step below C? Answer: a B. Do we have a B available without losing one of the three notes that make C major (C E G)? Yes: the second (open) string is a B. Lift your first finger off that and you get x32000 (x CEGBE) – the lovely, white chocolate taste of Cmaj7. That’s one of the four flavours.

Try another. Repeat the process but go down a whole step (a tone). What note is a whole step below C? Answer: a Bb. Do we have a Bb available without losing one of the three notes that make C major (C E G)? Not in this position, but there is a Bb in reach: the third fret of the second string. The little finger can take this and you get x32310 (x CEBbCE) – the dark chocolate of the seventh chord of C7. We’ve lost the note G, but that’s expendable without damaging the identity of the chord.

Repeat this process with a minor chord like Am (x02210 – xAEACE) to get the common minor seventh (Am7 = x02010 – xAEGCE), and the rarer minor/major seventh (Am/maj7 = x02110 – xAEG#CE). The former is a pleasing milk chocolate chip; the latter, chocolate with rum and raisins!

A FLAVOUR FOR EVERY OCCASION

The four types of seventh chord are given in boxes i-iv: two major and two minor. You won’t often hear the minor/major seventh (iv), which conjures up dark alleys and spies dialling distant numbers in phone boxes. Next, compare the A7 in ii with the example in v. Same chord, but a markedly different sound. It is all to do with where the seventh – the extra note – is placed in the chord. Lower down it tends not to stick out; higher up, it’s prominent. To turn C7 (box vii) into C maj7 lift your little finger and take your first finger off the B string. To turn D7 (box viii) into Dmaj7 play a barré on the top three strings at the second fret. The major seven chords have a romantic character; the sevenths sound assertive and bluesy. With the D shapes you can see that there is only one note difference between them. The E7 in box ix can have its seventh doubled if you lift the finger off the fourth string. The G7 in box xi will turn into Gmaj7 if you move your first finger up one fret. The Bm7 barré shape gives all the minor sevenths as you move it up the neck.

Here’s an idea for you…

Some seventh chords can change the key. Decide your destination key note and count five notes up to find the chord which is its seventh. We’re in C major and want to change to A. Five notes up from A is E. After you’ve played a C chord sequence like C–F–G7, change to an E chord, then E7, then A and you’ve changed key. Or say we’re in C major and want to go to Bb major. Five notes up from Bb is F. So an F7 tacked onto your sequence will lead to a Bb chord and a new key.

Defining idea…

‘It’s got to be emotional. If I’d wanted to get into science, I would have been a mathematician.’ Allan Holdsworth

How did it go?

Q   What’s the difference in playing a minor seven chord instead of a straight minor?

A   The seventh in a minor chord has the effect of diluting it so it doesn’t sound as sad and gloomy. If you’re writing a song that has a number of minor chords this is a good way to lighten them up. To the uninitiated, in an uptempo rock song minor sevenths will sound like ‘jazz’ chords. Thin Lizzy’s hard rock classic ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ owes something of its sassy atmosphere to the presence of several minor seventh chords in the verses, which was unusual for hard rock.

Q   Is it true that you can play B7 instead of B, and Fmaj7 instead of F, in most songs?

A   Yes, you can do this and most of the time get away with it. This is a good trick for beginners, especially as everyone gets hand ache initially trying to hold down F and B. (Oh no, here’s another song with an F and B in it, they exclaim!) How effective the substitution might sound will vary. The B7 can make a B passage sound less sure of its identity; the Fmaj7 can sound dreamier than you want. (Try changing the Fs in Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’ into Fmaj7s and you’ll hear what I mean.) Other examples include C#7 – easier to play than C#, and F#7 – easier than F#.

12

Be diverted – get inverted!

Strum any major or minor chord. It’s a familiar sound. But did you know there are two more shades of the same colour contained in what you’ve just heard?

Inversions are an excellent method for extending the colour of your chord playing and a time-honoured means for linking your chords more effectively, so they flow better.

BLUE, DEEP BLUE, PALE BLUE

Understanding inversions is easy if you think of shades of colour. Blue includes green-blue, deep blue and pale blue. You could go to a party with an item of clothing of any of those three shades – it would still be you and still blue. Likewise, with chords. The majority of chords in guitar music are in root position. This means the lowest note is the one that gives the chord its name. In a simple major or minor chord there are three notes. D major is D F# A. With D at the bottom we have a root position chord. If the middle note (the ‘third’) is lowest – here an F# – we have a first inversion. If the top note (the ‘fifth’) is lowest – here an A – we have a second inversion. You can also invert minor chords. If D minor is D F A, it becomes a first inversion by having F as the lowest note, and a second inversion if A is lowest.

Compared to root chords, a first inversion has a moving energy, as though the bass note wants to either rise or fall a step. For this reason, the most frequent use of first inversion chords is in descending chord progressions, linking the root chords, such as G–D/F#–Em–D–C–G/B–Am–D/F#. Singer-songwriter material is full of them. Second inversion chords don’t have this energy but can also be substituted into descending or ascending progressions. The second inversion chord has a dreamier effect, less focused. Surprisingly, it occurs in some of Nirvana’s grungier numbers such as ‘On A Plain’. A progression with no root chords would sound as not really anchored. A few inversions between the root chords can make for more colourful music.

TWELVE NEW SHADES

The A/C# is slightly awkward and plays only the middle four strings, but it is a movable shape. The C/E is easy and wants to rise to F. The C/G second inversion can be used to give a fuller sound where you would normally play a root C chord. The second C/G shape, transposed to Eb, was played by Hendrix in ‘The Wind Cries Mary’. The D/F# chord we first met in Idea 5; here it is held by the fingers. It is commonly placed between G and Em. The second inversion D/A can be found in riff-based songs like The Darkness’ ‘Out Of My Hands’. F/A is another easy inversion because of the open 5th string. It wants to rise to Bb or G/B which is the next box. Along with D/F#, G/B is the commonest inversion on the guitar; two fingerings are given. It is found between C and Am, as in the verses of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’. Inverted minor chords are rarer. The Bm/F# is heard in the Beatles’ ‘Help’ and the Am/C can be moved up the fretboard if the top string is not played.

Here’s an idea for you…

You can make a very pleasing chord sequence out of a series of inverted chords. Try C/E–D/F#–C/G–D/A–G/B as an example. As it proceeds upward we expect any moment to land on a root chord, but it doesn’t happen. This makes the sequence dramatic and it can increase tension and interest. It also lends a chord sequence mobility, one of the features of first inversion chords. A related trick is to oscillate between two chords which are first inversions. Have a listen to Judy Tzuke’s hit ‘Stay With Me Till Dawn’.

Defining idea…

‘A lot of people think we’re using electric 12-strings, but ‘American Girl’ is actually two 6-strings playing different inversions of D major in unison.’ Tom Petty

How did it go?

Q   Does it make any difference if I ignore inversions and just play the relevant root position chord?

A   The chord won’t sound wrong, because all the notes match. However, removing inversions from a chord sequence may make it less interesting. It will certainly change the bass line, which may be an important element in the progression. Sequences with descending bass lines often have inversions. Procul Harum’s Summer of Love classic ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ or The Beatles’ ‘All You Need Is Love’ wouldn’t be the same without their inversions.

Q   I’m a guitarist in a band. If I play an inversion what note does the bass play?

A   The task of playing inversions can be wholly given over to the bass guitar, because even if the guitar reverts to root position chords the right notes in the bass line will make those guitar chords sound like they’re inversions anyway. Those low bass register notes are the ones the ear uses to determine the harmony. That’s an easier method than changing the guitar chords. In a song based around an A–D–E progression, you could get the bass to play C# under A, F# under D, and G# under E. That gives the progression a different quality which might suit an intro, or bridge. Otherwise, matching guitar inversions with the right bass notes – so the bass plays C# under the guitar’s A/C# – enhances the inversions.

13

Exotic stacks

If Idea 11 was seventh heaven, then step up now for cloud nine. Here are some ninths and elevenths – chords that are seriously stacked.

With these shapes you can get further into the blues, go rock and rolling, blow smooth jazz or get the funk out, and take your guitar sound into new territory.

THE MUSIC OCEAN’S NINE AND ELEVEN

Chord dictionaries can be intimidating things. They start happily enough – nice plain majors and minors with open strings, and hardly a barré in sight. But how soon, turning the pages, they turn to horror: a parade of eye-watering shapes that look like some terrible form of finger-torture, with squiffy names like Abmaj13+5 (no 3rd). Eek! Have another teacake, vicar, and excuse me while I pass out! Some of these books even have photos of hands doing these contorted shapes, suggesting seven joints per finger. Are these photos faked? Are these the hands of aliens?! (Cue X-Files theme.) We should be told! But actually, on closer inspection, maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.

We’ve looked at sevenths, so let’s take the next step: ninths. A ninth chord is formed when you add a note on top of a seventh. By the way, the numbers 9, 11 and 13 come from extending a scale, say of C major C D E F G A B (numbered 1–7) into a second octave with 8 as C, 9 as D, and so on. For reasons that there isn’t time to go into here, the only valid numbers in that second octave, as far as harmony is concerned, are 9, 11 and 13 (the ear doesn’t recognise any of the other numbers above 7). Each ninth is a variation on the types of seventh we looked at in Idea 11.

Ninth and eleventh chords are tricky to find on the guitar in acceptable fingerings, and a full thirteenth chord is in fact impossible because it requires seven notes (and a guitar only has six strings … usually!). For this reason it is necessary and allowable to omit notes from these extended chords. Sometimes that has the unwanted effect of making them ambiguous.

The first five boxes (Cadd9, C9, Cmaj9, Cmadd9 and C7#9) demonstrate the contrast between these types of ninth. The add9 is open and breezy, the 9 is harder, the maj9 is dreamy, the minoradd9 is tragic (notice the slightly different fingering to the one in Idea 9), and the 7#9 is jaggedly assertive (this has come to be known as the Hendrix chord because of his inclusion of it in songs like ‘Purple Haze’). All except the Cmadd9 are movable shapes. From these we go to the vague-sounding C11. As it is often hard to find the correct six notes in an effective, playable grouping, both eleventh and thirteenth chords on guitar are compromises which don’t always have the full complement of notes.

The second six chords are based on the note G on the sixth string. You can try G9, Gm9, G11, two Gm11s and G7add13. Notice how the full minor ninth (Gm9) doesn’t sound as tragic as the Cmadd9 chord.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you want to intensify and deepen the minor sound of a song in a minor key or with minor chords, try substituting the minor add ninth chord. If you add F# to an Em (making a chord with E G B F#) you have the type of minor add ninth often used in minor key blues (check out early Fleetwood Mac tunes or Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Dirty Pool’ on the album Texas Flood). This chord is especially effective on Amadd9, Dmadd9 and Emadd9 shapes as these are easy to find on guitar.

Defining idea…

‘Many people think that if they know technical stuff they won’t be sensitive, emotional, heartfelt players anymore … It’s a cop-out, because it takes a lot of time, energy and devotion to learn music.’ Steve Vai

How did it go?

Q   Can you explain the difference between a ninth and an add ninth?

A   The add ninth is a major or minor chord with an extra note a tone above the root note (D add ninth is D F# A E). These chords are relatively easy to play and are common in songs. They can spice up an otherwise straight major–major change like C–F (try Cadd9–Fadd9) or G–C (try Gadd9–Cadd9). The add ninth creates a bracing, mildly unresolved tension. It has more ‘air’ in it than the crowded full ninth in which there are five different notes (D9 is D F# A C E). The full ninth has a seventh in it; the add ninth does not.

Q   In what musical styles can I use a ninth chord?

A   Played in a quick sixteenth-note strum with intermittent damping, the five-note ninth chord typifies funk classics like James Brown’s ‘Sex Machine’. For extra funk slide the chord either back a fret or forward a fret every now and then. Before Brown, it featured in 1950s rock ’n’ roll, blues and jazz. Try playing a whole 12-bar sequence in A, but instead of playing A, D and E, or their sevenths, use A9, D9 and E9. You can further modify this ninth by flattening or sharpening the fifth, though this can mean rearranging the fingers. For more, see my book, Chord Master.

14

Triads you can trust

When it comes to chords, size isn’t everything. Three-string friends to beginner and experienced player alike, here are the triads – the harmony gang that’s on your side.

Triads are bite-sized chords – they pack all the musical information and meaning of a standard chord reduced to just three strings which are comfortable to play and chain together.

GANG OF THREE

Many guitarists just pass the triad by, but triads are worth knowing about. By contrast, on other instruments (like the piano) they’re encountered early on. People learning the piano aren’t expected to play chords that involve holding down four, five or six piano keys at once, which is effectively what confronts beginners on the guitar tackling chord shapes like G and C.

The idea behind a triad is simple: it only takes three notes to make a simple major or minor chord. Chords are constructed by stacking notes either by four semitones (a major third) or three semitones (a minor third). The major chord has the formula 4+3 for its intervals, and the minor chord the opposite, 3+4. It works like this. Let’s make a chord of A major. The root is A and the next note must be a major third above it (4+3). Four semitones above A is C#; then we need the note three semitones above that, which is an E. Therefore, the chord of A major consists of A C# E. Try the same thing for A minor. The note above the root needs to be a minor third away (3+4). Three semitones above A is C; then we need the note four semitones above that, which is an E. Therefore the chord of A minor consists of A C E. If we only play three notes and don’t double or treble any of them we have a triad.

TRIAD BOX-OUT

I’ve chosen what I think are the twelve most useful triad shapes, in four groups of three. There are three majors and three minors on the top three strings, plus three majors and three minors on strings 2, 3 and 4. On the chord boxes the root note is marked by an ‘R’. This note tells you what the pitch of the chord is, depending on where you put these shapes on the fretboard. Notice that in each group of three the root is first lowest, then in the middle, and then on the top. Every shape can produce twelve chords – one for each pitch. If you can remember them all they provide 144 chords from just twelve shapes! Six shapes for every minor chord and six for every major.

All the shapes are easy to play and only two require a half barré (although several could be played with a barré, which would leave your other fingers free to do other things). Experiment finding the ones that fit together. Play i at the first fret then iv at the third and fifth frets, then ii at the third and fifth frets, and then vi at the third. Those are the six main chords in the key of Bb major. Notice how they could be played without moving too far up the neck. You can arrange similar sequences starting from any of the triad shapes.

Here’s an idea for you…

When improvising a guitar solo you are probably thinking in scales; why not take some of these triads shapes on the top three strings and play them instead? You have three major triad shapes and three minors. Look at the sequence you’re playing over and insert an arpeggio – i.e. playing up and down the chord shape – on the triad shape which matches the chord. So if it’s an A chord you’re soloing over you can use the ‘D’ triad shape at the ninth fret, the ‘A’ shape at the twelfth fret, and the ‘E’ shape at the fifth fret.

Defining idea…

‘If you learn something new everyday, which I like to do, then you’re going towards something that’ll serve you later on.’ Ry Cooder

How did it go?

Q   I found these easy to play. Why don’t these replace barré chords and such like?

A   As they only use three strings, triads don’t lend themselves to being strummed. You can strum them, but it requires a careful and foreshortened stroke. The idea of full chord shapes with four, five and six strings is that they create more sound and volume. Triads are good for decorations and accompanying figures but not so good for the main chordal part – unless played through overdrive on electric. But if you want your song to have more space in it, along the lines of the arrangement style of bands like The Police or Siouxsie and the Banshees, then you could use triads instead of full chords.

Q   Why are these shapes only on the top four strings?

A   That’s because almost all the triad shapes you’re likely to encounter will either be on the top three strings or strings 2, 3 and 4. It is possible to form triads on the lower strings but they sound murkier and less effective. The higher in pitch the triad, the brighter it sounds. Occasionally a triad might be arpeggiated into a riff by playing the notes one at a time, not all together. It might then resemble a Nirvana riff such as ‘Come As You Are’ or Bryan Adams’ ‘Run To You’, although both of those riffs have open strings.

15

New light on ‘power-chords’

Did you know that music harmony has its own neutral zone? It’s true – a strange dank realm of drooling zombie flesh-eating chords that emerge as neither major nor minor.

You’ve probably heard people talk about ‘power-chords’. Well, now you can try some of these shapes that underpin so much rock guitar, especially at the heavy end of things.

INTO THE NEUTRAL ZONE

Okay, I was exaggerating about the drooling. Erm … and the zombies. Oh alright, yes, and the flesh-eating thing. But it’s true there is a group of chords which exist in a sort of harmonic neutral zone, because they’re neither major nor minor. This is sort of odd, because much of the emotion of music is expressed through the major/minor contrast. To most ears majors sound happy when set beside minors, and minors sound sad when put against majors. Most music you hear oscillates between them constantly. There are three kinds of neutral chords you’re likely to come across: the suspended second and suspended fourth (Asus2, Dsus4, etc.), which usually involve adding or taking off a finger (see Idea 16), and the ‘power-chord’ or fifth.

Power-chords are labelled as C5, D5, E5, etc. Look at any rock sheet music and you’ll see loads of them. Like the sus2 and sus4, a fifth is neither major nor minor because it lacks a third (a G# or G in the key of E or E minor). It is the third that defines major or minor. This neutrality of the open fifth makes it suitable for hard rock. Power-chords come in two fingerings. The heavy rock/punk fifth (E5 made of the notes E and B) is usually played on two of the lower guitar strings. You finger it by choosing a note on the 6th, 5th or 4th string, and then adding on the next string up the note two frets higher (G5 = 35xxxx). This fifth is for aggressive music, be it punk/grunge/hard rock/ heavy metal. No matter how different their politics, their lyrics or their haircuts, Green Day, Nirvana, Queen, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Metallica share one thing: they all use fifths.

DOUBLING UP A POWER-CHORD

These chord boxes show how the two-note fifth can have either note doubled or trebled so you can play most or all of the strings and get a strummable and resonant chord. The lower A5 is favoured by Pete Townshend of The Who; take the little finger off the 2nd string to turn it back into an A major. The A5 at the seventh fret is one Paul Kossoff of Free would have played, as is the E5 at the same position. The first B5 might remind you of Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’; the second B5 is deeper. The C5 is one I devised some years ago. Both the D5s can be folk-ish, especially with a capo, higher up the fretboard. There’s a low E5 which has a droning sound. The F5 requires the muting of the third string, except at the third fret as in the first G5 box. The second G5 is favoured by Oasis, Green Day and many others.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you are accustomed to playing two-note fifth chords, give them extra resonance by adding a third string that has the root note an octave higher. The two common shapes would be on strings 6-5-4 or 5-4-3. A G5 would be 355xxx and a C5 would be x355xx. You get this extra root note on these shapes by flattening your little finger so it frets the higher two strings, the ones at the fifth fret in this case. You have to also adjust your pick action to ensure you strike the extra string at the top.

Defining idea…

‘The guitar is a much more efficient machine than a computer. More responsive.’ Colin Greenwood, Radiohead

How did it go?

Q   Can I use a fifth-chord and the major or minor chord on the same root note in synchronised guitar parts?

A   Yes. The fifth in Guitar II adds strength to a full chord played by Guitar I. This is true whether they are electric or acoustic, major or minor.

Q   Are these power-chords just for electric guitarists?

A   Not at all. The chord box shapes sound perfectly good on an acoustic steel-string. In fact, create an interesting effect by substituting one chord in a sequence from a major or minor to a fifth. Its neutrality contrasts with the others. (The two-note fifths work better on electric, especially if they’re distorted. Such power-chords can stand a lot of distortion/overdrive!)

Q   What about improvising lead over a sequence of fifths?

A   As long as the root notes of the fifths belong to the same scale that you’re using to play the lead; the two will work together. The flexibility is such that I could play the E natural minor scale (EF#GABCD) or an E mixolydian (EF#G#ABC#D – E major with the seventh note lowered a semitone) over the fifth sequence E5, A5, B5 and D5. Both will work. Of course, they sound different. You can solo over a progression of fifths with several scales and there won’t be a clash. Possibly The Clash, but not a clash.

16

Lift a finger/add a finger

There’s one reliable fall-back for finding new sounds and ideas on the guitar. Sometimes all that is required is ‘adjusted original digital technology’. In other words, move a finger!

Many players and songwriters have found distinctive and inspiring chords by this artless device of seeing which fingers could be moved or added to make a new chord.

CHORD WITH NO NAME

Remember that song by the group America, ‘Horse With No Name’? Sing the chorus but substitute the word ‘chord’ for horse and you’ll evoke the right sense of adventure for this section. Usually chord shapes are provided for us by books like this one, sheet music and chord dictionaries such as Chord Master. However, there’s nothing to stop you finding shapes of your own. You may not know what they’re called, but the names may not matter. Many songwriters choose an unusual-sounding chord as a way of sparking their inspiration.

Let’s experiment with this technique by trying it out on a common chord, A major (x02220). Hold this in the usual manner with your first three fingers. Since we’re not using the little finger we’ll start with that and see what it can do. Chord box i shows what happens when you put the little finger on the 2nd string: a ‘neutral zone’ chord of Asus4 with its distinctive tension. Play this chord, then take the little finger off and play the straight A – notice the release of tension. If we add the little finger to the 3rd string we add a Bb note to the A chord, which is very dissonant. As it would be hard to find a use for such a chord (unless you’re in a death metal/jazz fusion band!) we’ll pass quickly on. Chord box ii shows what happens when the little finger goes on the 4th string – an A+ (augmented), if the open E string is muted. To make the chord sound disturbing add that open E string.

When the little finger is on the top string, as in chord box iii, an A7 is created. This would normally be fretted with a barré holding the notes at the second fret and the third finger taking the place of the little finger. If the little finger fits on the second fret of the top string we get an A6 (chord box iv) which again is easier as a single first finger barré. If you can stretch that far, the little finger can hold down a G on the bottom string (chord box v) which results in an inverted A7, A/G. This chord sounds great changing to a D/F# or F# m. That’s about as much as can be done with the little finger to mess with an A shape. Time for another tactic: lift a finger off.

We take a finger off the 2nd string as in chord box vi, we get another neutral zone chord, Asus2. If the finger comes off the middle note of A it results in another A7 (box vii), and if the finger comes off the 4th string the result is a D9 (box viii). Finally, boxes ix–xii apply the same experiment to an Em chord, creating with the little finger a tragic Emadd9, the tense Em6, the neutral Esus4 and the dissonant Emaddb9.

Here’s an idea for you…

There is only a one note difference between a major and a minor chord. So if you locate this note (the third), raising it one semitone in a minor chord will turn that chord into a major, and lowering it by a semitone in a major turns that chord to a minor. As an example, hold down an A chord with your second, third and fourth fingers; then place your first finger at the first fret on the second string. Simply lifting your little finger now changes an A chord into an Am.

Defining idea…

‘Marc Bolan’s idea of an A7 was just lifting a finger off a string so that it was an A major with a foreign note in it, which was charming. It worked several times.’ Tony Visconti, Producer

How did it go?

Q   Can I do this with any of the fingers?

A   Yes, any, and more than one if you like. It comes down to what is physically possible and in reach.

Q   Can I predict what type of chord I’ll get by doing a certain movement?

A   There is no formula that allows you to automatically assume that lifting finger ‘x’ will create a certain type of chord. There are many other factors involved, such as what shape you’re holding and where on the neck. The position of the chord on the fretboard changes the relationship it has with the open strings. This technique of lifting a finger is about adding an open string (unless the chord you start with is a barré chord). One thing to bear in mind is that if you add a note lower than any of the others, or that changes the root, this may change the nature of the chord fundamentally.

Q   What do I do with some of these exotic chords?

A   If you’re a songwriter or composer listen to the chord. Ask yourself whether there is a chord that it is similar to, or wants to change to. That may give a clue as to the keys it fits into, and also the start of a chord progression such as could make a verse or chorus.

17

No holds barred, or no barrés held?

Here’s your free upgrade to the ‘adjusted original digital technology’ of the previous section, called ‘digital removal software’ … otherwise known as lifting a first finger that’s holding a barré!

Barre chords are a necessary evil of the guitar and at some time or other drive us all crazy. Why not take advantage of their undoing and turn them into new chords?

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A LIFT-OFF

This is an excellent way to discover exotic chords, some of which you won’t find anywhere else. You can apply this technique to any chord where the first finger holds a barré over most of the strings. The standard barré chords for F (133211), B (x24442), Fm (133111) and Bm (x24432) are a good place to start. The chord boxes begin with the F. Lift the barré off the top two strings but keep it on the root note F on the 6th string. That makes Fmaj7add11 (box i), which has a Spanish/flamenco sound. Move it to the third fret (box ii) and it produces a resonant G6 – notice the two Bs at the same pitch on the 3rd and 2nd strings. Move it to the fifth fret and get Aadd9 (box iii), and at the seventh fret it turns into Badd4.

In both these chords something occurs which you might miss just strumming. Play each string from the 6th upwards in pitch. When you reach the 2nd string you’ll hear it is actually lower than the previous. The notes no longer go in pitch order low-to-high. That discrepancy happens in many of these chords once you reach the middle of the fretboard. It is part of what gives them their distinctive character. Maximise this by fingerpicking them with the syncopated pattern from Idea 6.

Box v is an expressively resonant Cmaj7 chord in which the 3rd and 1st strings sound the same note (compare the Cmaj7 which is x32000), and could launch a romantic ballad. In box vi, instead of taking the barré from a straight D major chord (10–12–12–11–10–10), I’ve imagined starting with a D7 (10–12–10–11–10–10). To do this keep the barré on the lower three strings but make sure it doesn’t touch the top two. This creates an unusual D13 with two open strings.

Can this technique work with a minor barré chord? Yes it can. Boxes vii–x are based on an F#m barré chord (244222). In box vii the barré is replaced by the thumb fretting the root note to give F#m7add11. Move this up two frets and it produces G#m6 (box viii). If the thumb is too awkward remove it and avoid the sixth string. At the fifth fret this shape results in Amadd9 (box ix) and at the seventh Bmadd4 (box x) – a shape that David Gray included in ‘Sail Away’. Compare this with box xi where the barré has been taken off a standard Bm chord (x24432), which moved up to the fifth fret gives a Dmadd9 (box xii). The extra notes created by the open strings have been marked so you can see how they change.

Here’s an idea for you…

Lift a barré chord momentarily, strike the strings to get a percussive click, then squeeze the chord back on. You can actually make your strumming more rhythmic by doing this, and the other advantage is that it momentarily gives your hand a rest. Learn to squeeze on and off in rhythm. Barré chords create much tension in the hand and it can be good to let go of that, even for a few instants. This way you turn a problem into an opportunity, and it might even make the difference between getting through a song and not.

Defining idea…

‘I write all my songs on acoustic guitar, which I can just about play ten chords on. I do them all on an E shape, and put a finger on the bottom E, so I’ve always got a E and B drone, whatever chord I do.’ Damon Albarn, Blur

How did it go?

Q   Why do we have barré chords on the guitar anyway?

A   It’s because we don’t have enough fingers to assign one to each note – and if we did maybe they would get tangled in a high wind and we’d spend endless time unplaiting them! With only four fingers to hold notes (five if you count the thumb on the 6th string), it is inevitable that sometimes one finger must press down more than one string. This is possible because standard tuning puts enough of these notes in a line at one fret (you can’t barré in a diagonal line).

Q   I notice on boxes i–vi that the chord type kept changing. Why doesn’t the same shape give the same type of chord at each fret?

A   This is because the notes you fret retain their identity as a chord among themselves. If you began with a major chord you’re probably still fretting a major chord when you remove the barré. But the open strings form an altered relationship to the fretted notes each time you move along the fretboard.

Q   Why does my guitar suddenly sound much ringier when I play these chords?

A   This is the contrast between the fretted notes and the open strings. It becomes more strident as you go up the fretboard, with unison notes forming (two of the same pitch) which amplify each other, or the pitch order changing among the strings.

18

Move on up, move on back

One way to find new sounds on the guitar is to take an open string chord and move it up or down. Get ready for hideous, kinky, startling and terrific.

Memorable chords are be made with a little shift (literally) of lateral thought. Open string chords behave unpredictably when you do this – so you never know what you’ll get.

SLEIGHTS AND SLIDES OF HAND

Making music is sometimes about happy accidents. Inspiring sounds on the guitar sometimes appear purely through experiment with the physical act of holding chords. In this instance the technique is to select an open-string shape. (You can’t do this with a movable barré chord. Those are not attached to any specific fret and when moved, although the pitch changes, the type of chord you’re getting does not.) The point about open-string chords is that they are wedded to one position. If moved, you not only change the pitch but undermine the nature of that chord. Sometimes this results in uninspiring dissonant chords not suitable for use. On other occasions it leads to effective and often exotic chords, because the open strings match the fretted notes in terms of a major or minor scale to which that chord belonged. Crudely put, the notes sound ‘in key’.

Use such found chords in three ways. First, the jangle of fretted to open strings can suggest melody. Second, this could be an interesting chord for a progression. Third, make rhythmic use of this by sliding a dissonant found chord into a normal one. The dissonance is only a colouration of the destination chord. Try it by taking a D chord, slide it back one fret to Db/D, and then slide forward (box i). This is an idea T. Rex used in the riff of ‘Baby Strange’.

More examples: take a C chord (strictly a C/G) and move it up two frets to get a D11 (box ii). Here’s Bill Berry of R.E.M. on ‘Man on the Moon’: ‘We were sitting around in our rehearsal studio and I hit that C chord on the guitar and then turned around to grab my beer, and my hand and the chord slid up to the third fret … and everybody went “Oh, that sounds great! Let’s use that for the verse bit.”’ A C shape is the basis for box iii, which gives Fadd9 if moved to the sixth fret. Take an A chord and move it up a fret and you get a chord which David Bowie put on the intro of ‘Starman’ (box iv). Move D up two frets and it gives an E7/D and at the fifth fret a different way of playing Dm7 (boxes vi and vii). This triad shape features with others in The Who’s instrumental ‘Sparks’ from Tommy.

Move a D7 up one fret and you get a dissonant chord played by John McGeoch with Siouxsie and the Banshees (box viii). Move an Fmaj7 up one fret and you get F#7 (box ix), up one more and you get G6. An E chord moved up one fret creates a very Spanish sounding chord (box x). A B7 moved up makes C#7 at the third fret (box xi), a D7add13 at the fourth fret, and E7 at the sixth fret (box xii).

Here’s an idea for you…

A good way to use some of the wilder chords you discover by shifting open strings is to save them for the conclusion of a sequence or the end of a song. In such a position they can be highly dramatic. Sounds that are too jarring to pause over can be heard for a moment before being resolved into a normal chord. R.E.M. memorably did this at the end of ‘The One I Love’, where an Em shape is moved down to the first fret before the song finishes on Em itself.

Defining idea…

‘I like to sit and watch TV while noodling on the guitar, because sometimes your fingers just discover things by themselves.’ Richard Thompson

How did it go?

Q   Can I really put these weird-sounding chords in a song?

A   You can. The trick is how you change to them in a sequence and how you leave them. In other words, imagine you’ve found a weird chord by this technique. Look for a common note between it and the previous chord, or a chord that it resembles. If your first chord is a C and the weird one has a B in it, how does it sound if you make the C a Cmaj7 (x32000) which has a B. Then perhaps you could find a chord after the weird one which also has a B in it, or maybe one of the other notes to carry over. That way you create some links by common notes.

Q   Why are these chords not used more often?

A   That’s because they are rarely simple major or minors, or recognisable chords like sevenths. They tend to be dissonant – to contain sounds that are not immediately smooth or sweet, but instead are tense to varying amounts. As listeners we don’t as readily attach emotions to such chords – but we can with a little prompting from a lyric and an arrangement. If you have some words which are concerned with an unusual or dark feeling then one of these chords may work better than predictable majors or minors. But I would use them sparingly – one or two is quite enough in most progressions!

19

The one-note shift

Altering one note at a time in a chord leads you down new musical paths. Let your fingers reshape themselves into new chords and go places you haven’t been before.

Maybe you feel that you tend to go round the same chords and you can’t find an unexpected change. This approach looks inside the chord for the possibility of change.

GO BY ANOTHER ROUTE

There are familiar ways of changing chord that guitarists play all the time. But you can uncover some fascinating progressions if you reflect on a single-note change and where it could musically lead. Every change then potentially leads to another multioption position. Every chord has potential to mutate into many others. It’s obvious on a piano because there the notes are laid out in front of you. The guitar asks for more effort to find playable shapes.

The boxes offer two six-chord sequences. The first is constructed by moving notes up the 3rd string; the second works on the principle of any note in the chord being available for change. We start on an ordinary D chord (box i). The note A on the 3rd string shifts up one fret to create D augmented (D+, box ii). Augmented chords are an oddity of the musiverse. Remember a major chord has three notes separated by a 4+3 formula (in semitones). Well, an augmented chord results when a major third goes on a major third (4+4). It’s neither major nor minor. No one spends many beats on one of these, but they do happen precisely in situations like this, passing between two other chords.

From the D+ we go to D6 (iii), as the A# moves to a B. Strictly speaking this is a Bm/D (a Bm first inversion) but with the persistent open string D under chords i–iv it is likely to be heard as D6. One more change takes B to C and D7 (iv). Boxes v and vi go to a Gsus4/D chord which resolves downwards into G/D. From there you could begin the sequence again. Experiment with how many bars you can spend on each chord. One bar to each chord would result in a six-bar sequence, but it could be squeezed into four bars if several chords had two beats.

The second sequence (boxes vii–xii) commences with a four-string E chord. This lends itself to arpeggio playing rather than strumming. From the E in box vii, G# on the 3rd string rises to A and an Esus4 (viii). If the note A continued one more fret it wouldn’t be pleasant, so instead, why not move another note? If the 2nd string B rises to C we get a (second inversion) Am/E (ix). This can be changed by one move to Fmaj7 if the E on the D string goes up one step to F (x). Adding the little finger to the second string raises the C to a D and thus Dmadd9/F (xi). Finally this chord can turn into Dadd9/F# if the F on the 4th string rises to an F#. This last change requires a shift of fingers.

Here’s an idea for you…

Single-fret changes work with whole barré chords. Take Am7 at the fifth fret (575555) and imagine you’re playing a song in G major. A typical chord change would be Am7 up two frets to Bm7 (797777). But you could insert an A#m7 (676666) between by sliding the shape up one fret at a time. This works with any chords that are a tone apart. The inserted chord is called a ‘chromatic’ (from the word for ‘colour’) because it does not belong in the key. Listen to the verse-end of Bill Withers’ ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’.

Defining idea…

‘What I try to do is put myself into a state of mind where I empty myself of all ideas and let something develop. It’s like rolling the dice. You don’t know what will happen.’ Eric Clapton

How did it go?

Q   The first four chords reminded me of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’. Are they the same?

A   Yes … and no. The main riff of Zep’s full-of-Eastern-promise epic can be loosely described as D–D+–D6–D7. They weren’t the first to write a song with it, though I doubt if any other songwriter got such titanic power with it. However, ‘Kashmir’ needs an altered tuning on the guitar (DADGAD). Jimmy Page plays different shapes which add extra notes to this progression. If you don’t want to go the whole hog with retuning, just lower your E string to D when you play these shapes. ‘Drop D’ tuning – as it’s known – is featured in Ideas 33 and 34. The same sequence occurs transposed down into A in a track titled ‘Get It On’ by 1980s hard rock group Kingdom Come.

Q   I like the sound of the D+ chord. Can I get inversions out of it, like the ones featured in Idea 12?

A   Strange as this seems, I’m afraid you can’t. The augmented chord is one of those chord types that enters your musical life like a humanoid figure in a silver spacesuit striding down a ramp from a flying saucer and saying, ‘Greeting earthlings’. Believe it or not, each of its three notes can serve as the root note (muffled scream!). If you try to invert an augmented chord whichever note you put lowest becomes the next root note. So D+ is also F#+ and Bb+.

20

Instant blues

Blues is like a universal language. Everybody recognises it, everybody can follow where a blues is going, and for decades the guitar has been its main mouthpiece.

With one scale of five notes it is possible to play surprisingly effective blues lead guitar. Here are the notes and the pattern that lie at the ultramarine core of the blues.

ONE NOTE AT A TIME

Strumming is great, but there’s much more to the guitar than just strumming chords. A whole new world of guitar is revealed when you decide to have a go at playing single note ideas. It could be a famous melody on the top strings, or a riff on the lower strings, or a lead guitar phrase. Playing single notes also helps your chord changing because it gives your fingers more exercise than simply moving between familiar shapes. So you win every way.

In blues and rock the most popular scale is the pentatonic minor. ‘Penta’ for ‘five’ and ‘tonic’ for ‘note’. It’s the scale which people often first learn on the guitar. Start on A and the notes are A C D E and G. It has a distinctive tough quality when played over a 12-bar sequence of major chords (in blues) or a sequence where each of these notes is represented by a major chord (in rock). It will also work, though with a different character, in most A minor progressions. But if the progression is in a major key with major and minor chords exercise caution, as the pentatonic minor may clash with the minors.

Have a look at the music/tab. The key signature of three sharps at the start tells you that this is in A major. This key’s notes are A B C# D E F# G#. Compare that with the pentatonic minor for A: A C D E G. Notice there are three notes in common: A, D and E. Two notes (B and F#) are omitted. What’s interesting is the remaining two notes. We have C# and G# in the major scale versus C and G in the pentatonic minor. In this context these are ‘blue’ notes. They deliberately clash with the harmony of the backing, because chord of A has a C# and the chord of E has a G#. Whether played by an instrument like guitar or sung by a vocalist, ‘blue’ notes have a big role in making blues music sound like the blues. They are easy to spot in the music notation because they wear a natural sign

Bars 1–2 of ‘Instant Blues’ trace out the A pentatonic minor scale over two octaves, from A at the fifth fret on the 6th string to the A two octaves higher at the fifth fret on the 1st string. The rhythm has the expected ‘dum-di dum-di’ swing of a slow blues. Notice how phrases rise and fall in pitch, and how certain rhythms are repeated. Use alternate down and up strokes in bar 11 to play the 9–8–7 triplet figure – they make it easier to strike.

Here’s an idea for you…

In bar 9 of ‘Instant Blues’ the pentatonic minor occurs in a ‘box’ of frets 9-8-10-8-10. Try playing through a 12-bar with only this position. By focusing on not playing too many notes (which you can’t here because your pattern is deliberately limited), you can practise timing them to land effectively with each chord change. Each root note of the three chords A, D and E is within this five-fret pattern. If you can play imaginatively with only these notes you are nearer to doing it with a full two-octave pattern like that one laid out in bars 1–2.

Defining idea…

‘Don’t try to sound like me. You can love me but don’t try to sound like me. Play the blues your way.’ John Lee Hooker

How did it go?

Q   If I improvise with these notes my phrases tend to sound like a scale. Why is this?

A   If your phrases remind you too much of a scale, it means that you’re probably travelling up and down the strings and playing in too even a rhythm. A scale is only the raw material for a musical statement, just as letters of the alphabet are the raw material of words and sentences. To make a good phrase you have to select notes, shape them melodically and play them in an interesting rhythm. This makes them sound more like a solo. Don’t forget to leave gaps – don’t play continuously. Think of a singer’s melody – there have to be pauses to take breath if nothing else.

Q   How important is it for me to bend notes?

A   Very important in blues and blues-influenced rock. However, since this is a book aimed at acoustic and electric players, I have been restrained about putting in too many or too wide bends. String bending requires the light-gauge strings of an electric. On an acoustic it is hard to bend a note more than a semitone, a half-step. If you have an electric try bending the notes that occur in the piece and see which ones sound good bent, or are easy to finger. Whether a note sounds good bent is also influenced by the chord over which you bend.

21

Sweet blues

Woke up this morning … Dang! You know, my lover she ain’t gone! Must be celebration time, and to celebrate on guitar you need another set of five notes.

Here’s a five-note scale that will lift your lead playing and give it a joyful, upbeat, positive vibe – and it’s just as easy to finger as the previous one.

FIVE STEPS TO HEAVEN

The pentatonic minor isn’t the only five-note scale guitarists play. It has an essential sister scale called the pentatonic major, whose notes in A are A B C# E F#. In comparison to a pentatonic minor, the pentatonic major seems happy, bright and upbeat. This scale sounds great not only in a 12-bar blues or rock ’n’ roll progression but in any major key song. The pentatonic major fits over any of the six primary chords of A major, namely A, Bm, C#m, D, E and F#m (for more information about chord progressions and keys see the books How To Write Songs On Guitar and The Songwriting Sourcebook). It is a very forgiving scale – played in the right context most phrases come out sounding reasonably musical. Unlike the pentatonic minor, if the progression is in a major key, with its major and minor chords, you don’t have to worry as the notes of the pentatonic major blend with both.

Blues and rock players have their own personal bias in terms of how much of these two scales they use. Some lean towards the pentatonic minor, and some to the major. There’s a lot of pentatonic minor lead in Jimi Hendrix’s blues songs, whereas in B.B. King you will hear many more pentatonic major phrases. You can find your own mixture.

The key signature of three sharps at the start of ‘Sweet Blues’ tells you that, like ‘Instant Blues’, this piece is in A major. Remember that this key’s notes are A B C#D E F# G#. Compare that with the pentatonic major for A: A B C# E F#. Two notes notes (D and G#) are omitted, but otherwise the scales have five notes in common. There are no ‘blue’ notes, which is visually clear from the fact that there are no natural signs on the music notation. All the notes of this pentatonic major scale agree with the harmony over which they’re played.

The first three bars demonstrate what can be played on a scale position at the second fret. This pattern culminates in the note A, which is the first of bar 4. If you wanted to go higher you have to find a higher position for the scale – i.e. to go to another pattern on the fretboard. Bar 4 brings the music all the way down the scale but instead of ending on an open string A, it ends on a fretted A. This connects to the next four bars which lead across and up the fretboard on the A pentatonic major scale. Look out for the hammer-ons in bars 5–6 which help smooth the movement. Bars 10–12 use a box pattern around the fifth fret. See how far you can play just using those frets.

Here’s an idea for you…

Take the five notes of the pentatonic major and play them starting from any root note on the 5th string. Take the D at the fifth fret. Pretend it’s a riff, not a scale. Now play it from the bottom string two frets lower, at the third fret. Then play the first riff again. Then play it from the bottom string at the fifth fret. You’ve made a new riff sequence which can carry through a 12-bar sequence rather than playing whole chords. You can hear something similar on the Temptations’ famous ‘My Girl’.

Defining idea…

‘As a guitar player, you can gravitate to the blues because you can play it easily. It’s not a style that’s difficult to pick up. It’s purely emotive and dead easy to get a start with.’ Boz Scaggs

How did it go?

Q   Can I play both the pentatonic major and minor of these scales in a single piece of music?

A   It depends on the harmony and character of the music. The answer is yes, if you’re playing a 12-bar or similar progression in a blues/rock style. You can use both in a major key song, but watch for any minor chords that come in because the pentatonic minor of the key won’t blend with them. For example: take a song in A major whose chords are A Bm C#m D E and F#m. The three minor chords are saved for the bridge/solo. If you play A pentatonic minor (A C D E G) C will clash with the C# in C#m and F#m, and G will clash with the G# in C#m.

Q   Can I play the pentatonic major scale in a minor key?

A   You can’t play the pentatonic major in a minor key because it clashes with the key. Although we hear flattened notes – ‘blue’ notes – as expressive in a major key, the reverse – hearing sharpened notes against a minor key backing – doesn’t work in the same way. The key of A minor has the notes A B C D E F and G (or G#). The scale of A pentatonic major (A B C# E F#]) has three notes in common with it but more importantly a C# that clashes with C and an F# that clashes with F.

22

You hexy thing

You’ve heard of that old black magic so many blues guitarists claim to know? Well, put aside that shredded bat wing and the voodoo doll, and grab some musical magic.

Transform the pentatonic scales from the previous sections by adding a note that gives them a dark twist. These six-note ideas will gild your blues/rock playing.

PUT A SPELL ON YOU

You’ve all heard of a ‘hex’, right? Another word for a spell. Well, add one note to a pentatonic scale and it becomes a hexatonic scale. This gives you two new musical spells to work with. If you do this to the pentatonic minor the result is what is known as the ‘blues scale’. The extra note is the flattened 5th, which if we’re taking A as our start note produces the scale A C D Eb E G. You can get this extra note either by fretting it, or bending the note a fret lower up a half-step (easily done if you’re playing an electric, but possible on acoustic too). Depending on which you choose, there’s a slight difference to the musical effect. Either way this note adds a dark edge to phrases.

Likewise, you get a major version of the ‘blues scale’ by adding a flattened third note to the pentatonic major: A B C C# E F#. This adds an unexpected ‘spice’ to the pentatonic major. As with the previous blues scale, this lowered third is obtained by bending and other times by fretting. The same restrictions about key apply to this scale as the pentatonic major in the previous section. Now let’s try them out.

‘You Hexy Thing’ exhibits several characteristics associated with these extra notes. It begins with a riff-like phrase on the A blues scale. Listen for the effect of putting the normal fifth (E) next to the flattened fifth (Eb) going into bar 2. Contrast the sound of the last three notes in bar 2 (which are fretted) with the last three notes in bar 3 which develop round an open D string. In bar 4 the last three notes (A C C#) imply the A pentatonic major with the additional flattened third. In bar 5 you play the same scale starting on a D (D E F F# A B), but in bar 6 a C unexpectedly appears, giving a bluesier edge to this descending phrase. Watch out for the fingering at the end of bar 8, which helps you make the movement up the fretboard for the higher phrases.

As a general point, listen for phrases which echo each other, or repeat at different octaves and positions. This is an important part of playing interesting lead lines. They should have some melodic shape so as not to resemble undigested scales, and repetition is a good means to allow your audience to get the phrases in their minds.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you want these new notes to stand out, and have light gauge strings, you can bend the previous note to them by a tone or a semitone. Bending to them gives them extra colour and drama. Try striking them repeatedly and letting them down slowly, or pre-bending them – where the string is bent before you strike it and the note is first heard at the top of the bend and then descending. You’ll need an electric guitar for this, as acoustic strings are too hard to bend this far.

Defining idea…

‘I find a blue note whenever I can. I try to find the poignancy in any kind of lick.’ Johnny Marr, The Smiths

How did it go?

Q   Some of the phrases in ‘You Hexy Thing’ sound slightly jazzy. Why is this?

A   Glance at the music notation and you can see many additional sharp, flat and natural signs being added to the music. If a piece stays firmly in key and only uses the notes of its main scale these additional signs would be unnecessary. The fact that they are there makes it plain that the melodic line is stretching the key a little. These off-key notes are termed ‘chromatic’ notes. They often feature as half-step movements between notes, and this is one of the reasons (along with the rhythmic swing) that you might be reminded of a jazz style here.

Q   Are there other notes that can be added occasionally?

A   If a guitarist has the imagination there are a number of extra notes that might be fitted in. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s solo on ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ (from the album Texas Flood) is in E major and is mostly E pentatonic minor; (E G A B D). There are many phrases based on the E minor blues scale (E G A Bb B D), but he also fits in an F# (the second/ninth of the scale) and D#. The main point is not to spend too long on these additional notes. That way they won’t seem to conflict with the chords over which you’re soloing.

23

The not so famous five

There are five-note scales that don’t get played as often as those used in blues and rock. Here’s a chance to explore some of these not-so-famous five.

The scales we’ve looked at so far are played by most guitarists, so why not give your solos character by experimenting with less well-known five-note scales.

STEPPING STONES

It is possible to take a major scale and choose a different row of five notes to the ones that make the pentatonic major featured in Idea 21. Such ‘alternate’ pentatonic scales appear in folk music across the world and through time. They sound more exotic to our ears because we don’t hear them as frequently as the pentatonic major and minor. If a seven-note scale is like a continuous bridge across a stream, these scales resemble stepping stones thrown down in various gap-sizes into the water.

‘The Not So Famous Five’ gives three examples of alternate pentatonics, and each is in a different key. The first leads off with a 4-bar phrase in C major. It uses the notes C D F G A, which is 1–2–4–5–6 on the major scale, compared to 1–2–3–5–6 when you play the pentatonic major. If these notes were re-sequenced (D F G A C) the result would be D pentatonic minor. However, since many of the phrases start on C or emphasise C, and because the chords emphasise C major, it functions differently to what it would if the music were in D minor or D major. Bar 2 repeats part of bar 1’s pitch and rhythm but has a variant ending, going down in pitch rather than up. A shift of position in bar 3 brings the music back to the fifth fret.

After the repeat, the music changes key to G major for bars 5–8 and we get our second example. This pentatonic scale is G A B D F#⁽1–2–3–5–7), again compared to G A B D E (1–2–3–5–6) on the usual pentatonic major. This scale strongly implies a Gmaj7 chord (see Idea 11 for seventh chords) and therefore has a dreamy, romantic feeling. Notice how bar 7 imitates bar 5 in phrasing and rhythm, and the strong chordal feel of bar 8, where the notes of a Bm7 chord (B D F# A) are played one after the other.

For the last four bars the music changes key into D major. The lead uses a third scale of E F# A B C#, which is 2–3–5–6–7 of the scale of D major. What’s unusual about this is that if you stick rigidly to it you never actually hit the key note D. Normally in lead guitar that would never happen – after all, the key note is the safest of all notes! This evasion of the key note creates a peculiar tension, as of an expectation forever thwarted. At the same time the frequent occurrence of C#, the seventh, also gives it a gentle and dreamy character.

Here’s an idea for you…

One way to approach this creatively is instead of constructing a new finger pattern for the scale on the key note, adapt a pattern you already know. For example, the scale used in bars 9–12 (E F# A B C#) if rearranged as F# A B C# E, is actually F# pentatonic minor. In which case, if you move any pentatonic minor scale to the right place, so it starts on an F#, you are playing the right notes for this D major chord sequence anyway. You won’t have had to construct the right finger pattern starting from the note E.

Defining idea…

‘The most mundane licks can turn into something completely different with the right effect.’ Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins

How did it go?

Q   Is this the same thing as changing the pentatonic scale to fit the three chords of a 12-bar?

A   No. In that instance you mean playing A pentatonic major or minor when the chord is A (i.e. in bars 1–4, 7–8, and 11 of a 12-bar progression), D pentatonic major or minor when the chord is D (i.e. in bars 5–6, and 10), and playing E pentatonic major or minor when the chord is E (i.e. in bars 9 and 12). This, in fact, is a common misconception – that every new chord in a sequence requires a change of scale. You can play through a 12-bar with only one scale and much of the time this is what players do. If you choose to add another of these scales, that’s fine, but try bringing in only one or two. Changing scale too often can be unsettling to the listener, can make you confused about where you are on the fretboard, and spoil the phrases that could have been played had you stayed in one place.

Q   The phrases I got from these scales sounded unpredictable.

A   That’s to be expected. The reason for this is that the missing notes are ones that you might usually hear. With them gone, there is a sense that something is not quite right. How much of a factor this is depends on how well you can fit your phrases over the chord sequence.

24

Seven up (and down)

Is there life beyond pentatonics? Does everything go in fives? Will our caped guitarists escape the hex and find the missing two notes? Tune in to this section’s exciting episode!

Most of the music you hear is based on the full major scale. Draw on it for melodies a-plenty and exercise for the fingers, whatever style you play. Holy seven steps, Batman!

DOH! RAY? ME!

To adapt the lyric of a song by the Four Tops, just seven numbers could straighten out your musical life. The major scale is indeed a thing of beauty and the basis for most Western music, whether popular or ‘classical’. It consists of seven notes arranged in a sequence of intervals (the gaps between them): tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. In frets this would be 2–2–1–2–2–2–1. You can test this by fretting any note on any string below the eighth fret (to ensure you don’t run out of them). Play that note, then move up that string according to the 2–2–1–2–2–2–1 pattern, hitting each note as you go. The result, wherever you started, will be a major scale. This is the scale you once knew in school by the doh-ray-mi-fa-so-la-te-doh sounds (before Homer Simpson made ‘doh’ mean something else!).

If we take C as our starting note, the notes for a scale of C major would be C D E F G A B C. In that scale the two half steps happen to line up with the pairs of note (E–F, B–C) which are a semitone apart anyway. This is why the scale needs no accidentals (sharps or flats). But if you begin on any other note you must add accidentals to some notes to make them express the 2–2–1–2–2–2–1 pattern. In the major keys sharps and flats never mix. So a major scale that requires a sharp never needs a flat (though it might need more than one sharp, up to a maximum of seven), and vice versa with flats (up to a maximum of seven flats).

The piece that’s included in this section is once again in the key of A major. Bars 1–2 use all the notes of the scale of A major, starting with the leap of an octave. Bars 3–4 play an almost identical phrase one octave lower. This means that in the first four bars you have played the A major scale over two octaves. At bar 5 the melody moves upward, still at the second fret, with some open strings to make the fingering easier. Bars 5, 6 and 7 are variations on a single phrase. Halfway through bar 7 you change position, heading up to around the fifth fret. One more shift – in bar 8 – takes you to the high E at the start of bar 9. After this the melody gently phrases its way back to the low A at the end. There are no bends in this piece but there are plenty of opportunities for slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs (the subject of Idea 41).

Here’s an idea for you…

Learn a scale pattern that starts on the 6th string and goes straight across over two octaves to the top string and back. Then play a pattern that starts on the 5th string and goes up and down for two octaves. Then move your first pattern up one fret and repeat the process, with the 5th string pattern also commencing one fret higher. Don’t attempt to play too fast. Use down and up strokes of the pick, or alternate fingers. See how long you can play before your hand gets tired. It’s a good stamina builder.

Defining idea…

‘What is a chord, if not the notes of a scale hooked together? Scales will unlock the neck for you.’ John Mclaughlin

How did it go?

Q   Why do these scales not sound very ‘rocky’?

A   Most rock music is influenced by the musical idioms of the blues – which means the chords found in a 12-bar and the pentatonic scales that accompany them. You associate the clash between the lowered ‘blue’ notes and the harmony as the identifying sound of rock, complete with string bending and distortion. The major scale doesn’t create this effect. Its notes blend into the harmony. Some still sound slightly tense against the chords but that’s another kind of tension. However, rock solos do draw on major scales from time to time.

Q   Why do I find these scales harder to play than the pentatonic scales?

A   This is down to the fact that they have seven notes instead of five. As a consequence they require all four fingers of the fretting hand to play them properly. But therein lies part of their usefulness. One of the ways of increasing your speed and dexterity on the guitar is to regularly practise scales that need all four fingers. That way you exercise all of them. If you only play pentatonic scales it is easy to neglect the development of the little finger. If you have a metronome, or something similar that can give you a ‘click’, establish what speed it is set to and try playing in time. When you can do it slowly, gradually increase the speed.

25

Magic numbers, magic changes

With a three and a four and a twelve and a … You might have heard people say that music has a mathematical element. Well, maths was never this much fun.

Certain numbers can unlock the fretboard. If moved about by such numbers, phrases or chords can flower in a new position, so you get more from applying what you know.

COUNT ME IN

Whenever you come up with a good musical idea on the guitar you have the chance to develop it by transposing. It thus retains its identity but sounds higher or lower in pitch. As the number 12 means the number of notes there are, anything moved up or down 12 frets goes up or down an octave, whether a lead phrase, riff, scale or chord (that’s why most guitar fretboards mark the twelfth fret with an extra dot). Move anything across from one string to the next one adjacent without changing fret and it goes up a fourth. The single exception is going from the third string to the second, where it goes up a third, as those two strings are closer together.

‘Magic Numbers’ demonstrates what is possible applying numbers to a riff. This is a common songwriting technique in riff-based songs. After all, if you come up with a good riff you want to make the most of it. Bars 1–4 are a typical hard rock riff created with notes mostly from the scale of A pentatonic minor (see Idea 20 to refresh on this).

Notice that bars 1 and 3 are identical – we’ll call this phrase ‘x’ – but bars 2 and 4 offer alternate ways of ending it – call them ‘y’ and ‘z’. This gives you a formula for writing riffs: x+y+x+z.

Having played the riff on the pitch of A we want to play it again but higher. With no open strings in bars 1–4 the riff can be moved (i.e. transposed) up a tone to B by moving up the fretboard by two frets. You can hear a tone-up transposition of a riff at the start of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker’ and in the last chorus of Kingdom Come’s ‘Living Out Of Touch’. Alternatively, we could transpose by three semitones. In hard rock this sounds appropriate because it evokes the interval that starts the pentatonic minor scale (in A, A–C–D–E–G where A–C is a minor third). To transpose a riff from the 6th string in this way you move across a string and down two frets – this is shown in bars 5–6; or move up three frets on the 6th string. This is shown in bars 7–8. They have a slightly contrasted tone because of the difference in string thickness, but otherwise either is valid and the choice depends partly on where you go next.

Bar 9 gives the ‘x’ phrase transposed onto D and bar 10 transposed to E. We could have passed straight to either from the original riff, in which case transposing up a fourth means crossing from the 6th string to the 5th or the 5th to the 4th, or 4th to 3rd. To finish off, bars 11–12 feature fifths at different octaves. Notice the pattern of going up two strings and two frets.

Here’s an idea for you…

Take the pentatonic minor scale featured in Idea 20. If you move any pentatonic minor pattern down three frets it automatically turns into the pentatonic major notes for the same key. (The pentatonic major is discussed in Idea 21). This is great for making your blues lead sound more professional because the shift down provides a firm contrast of mood – the minor scale being less positive and the major one more upbeat. Eventually you learn how to create this contrast without even shifting position. But the three-frets-down shift is a great trick.

Defining idea…

‘There’s only six strings and 12 frets, man. But the more you play it, the more things come out of it.’ Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones

How did it go?

Q   What about shifting a chord sequence up to change key?

A   This is straightforward if all the chords are barré chords because the shapes remain the same, but not if some of the shapes use open strings. Move a chord sequence of barré chords up a semitone and although you haven’t moved far physically, in musical terms you are now in a key which is distant from your first one. Play G–C–D in barré chords at the third and fifth frets, then one fret higher gives Ab –Db –Eb . Counter-intuitively, move up a tone (from G) and your new key A is not so far musically. The dizzy effect of rapid transpositions can be heard in the verse of Queen’s ‘Now I’m Here’.

Q   So if I take the riff in bars 1–4 and shift it onto the 5th string I will have the riff on D instead of A?

A   Yes. This could have happened in bar 5 or in bar 9. In bars 9–10 the first phrase of the riff – which we labelled ‘x’ – is used on its own. In other words, the original four-bar riff is edited to a single-bar phrase. Why? Because having played the full riff several times it makes sense to do something new with it. Since the listener has heard it all the way through before, you can cut it down and imply further transpositions on D and E – which is more dramatic.

26

It’s the reel thing

Here’s a new musical avenue to explore that may see you in future years in the corner of a boisterous pub playing folk tunes with others, your fingers a blur.

Speed is an overrated musical technique … but by heavens it’s fun! One way of getting more of it is to learn some fast melodies, such as can be found in folk music.

FROM 0–60 BARS IN A SECOND

Sometimes guitar players ponder speed – the dream of moving your fingers in such a blur of notes that the laws of physics themselves bend and collapse and a wormhole in space opens up, leading you back billions of years in time to before the solar system had evolved, and then zip! billions of years into the future when the sun is dying, and then zip! billions of years back to end up … in a folk club?

In sensible moments we know speed isn’t everything. There are many pleasurable activities in life where speed is not the point at all, as I’m sure you know. Quite. Have another bun, vicar. Certainly, in music, speed quickly evokes the law of diminishing returns. The first few seconds of a fast phrase can be amazing, and then everything gets blurred and … well, a bit dull. After all, what’s the point of playing notes that can’t be properly heard and appreciated? Since there are only twelve notes you can get through all of them in just a couple of seconds. Then what? I remember Carlos Santana once talking about players who ran up and down scales as though they couldn’t find the right note. So frankly, I’m sure as mature readers and players we’re agreed that wanting to play fast is just silly and infantile (makes dismissive gesture as of brushing crumbs off jacket) and we are Above All That. Well, mostly … Oh, go on then …

There are moments when speed gets the blood coursing through our veins, and I feel one coming on right now. Moments when the letters ‘bpm’ (beats per minute) start to look like ‘bhp’ (brake horse power). One method for getting faster is to learn to play folk dance tunes, especially those known as jigs and reels. Steeleye Span’s electric folk albums – The Lark in the Morning, Please To See The King, Ten Man Mop – and early albums by Breton musician Alan Stivell – are good places to start for examples of this type of tune, as is Mike Oldfield’s arrangement of ‘In Dulce Jubilo’, often heard on the radio at Christmas.

These tunes were traditionally played on fiddles rather than guitar, so their fingering is different to what you might expect in a guitar melody. Nevertheless, you can lay them out on the fingerboard pretty easily. There is rarely any need to bend notes – slides and pull-off/hammer-ons can be useful though for smoothing out phrases. ‘It’s the Reel Thing’ is based around the fifth fret until bar 9 where it re-locates to the second. If you divide the notes properly between all four fretting fingers and alternate picking you should be able to make this work. The audio plays once through slowly and then much faster.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you hear a folk tune you want to play on guitar, but which doesn’t originate on guitar, give some consideration to which key you play it in. It is much easier to play if it is in a key whose scale contains the open strings of the guitar. For melody purposes this means the top three or four strings – E B G D. Good keys for this purpose are C, G, D, A and E. Not only do these offer relevant bass notes on open strings, the higher open strings can cover some of the melody notes.

Defining idea…

‘I’m probably best known for zooming around the neck, but I have just as much, if not more, love and appreciation for great melodies and harmonies.’ Paul Gilbert, Mr Big

How did it go?

Q   How do I stop getting my fingers in a tangle?

A   It is important with guitar music of any technical difficulty to ensure you get the fingering right. A good fingering enables you to play more easily than would otherwise be the case. It keeps the notes in one area of the fretboard as far as possible, and hand-shifting to a minimum. The work is divided between all four fingers. The little finger – often neglected in pentatonic rock lead – comes into its own in this type of dance-tune material. At the same time a good alternate picking technique is important to get speed in the hand which is creating the notes.

Q   How do I get faster on the guitar?

A   Playing scales with a metronome is useful because that gives you an exact figure in beats per minute. Set a metronome or click at about quarter note equals 100 (100 bpm). Play a note on each click, then two notes on each (effectively 200bpm) then three notes (effectively 300bpm), then slow the metronome and see if you can put four notes on a single click. The most instantly rewarding thing you can do is to play along with CDs – whether this is strumming chords or playing single notes. It forces you to play quicker to keep up. Playing on your own, it is easy to take as long as you like over a chord change.

27

The twang’s the thang

Before Hendrix and Clapton, the guitar came to the forefront of popular music by doing what singers do: it carried a melody – but in its own twangy way.

Get into an early 60s vibe by playing melodies on the lower strings. These are much easier than playing lead guitar solos and bring out the resonance of the low notes.

WHEN TWANG WAS KING

It was the Cold War and the start of the doctrine of M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Deafness), with generals plotting how to use this new-fangled weapon, the electric guitar. The Russians attempted to put a Fender electric into orbit when one defected from the US in 1956. This didn’t work, so they built a metal ball called Sputnik and launched that into space instead. It happily orbited, bleeping in a threatening we’re-up-here-first kinda way. Happily, electric guitars did a lot more than bleep – they twanged.

The first solid-body electric guitars commercially available in the mid-1950s were soon associated with youth. They came in bright car-paint colours designed to appeal to teenagers, unlike earlier electrics that were hollow and resembled classical instruments with their cello f-holes and subdued wood finishes. Initially the electric guitar’s musical role continued that of earlier guitars, providing a chordal accompaniment, as on Buddy Holly hits. But coupled with an amplifier, the electric guitar could hold its own as a solo instrument playing single-note melodies. At the same time, because it was new, the sound of an electric guitar melody was arresting, cool and modern.

By 1958 American guitarist Duane Eddy was hitting the charts playing melodies on the lower strings. The thicker strings had a fuller tone than the upper strings. Their twang was accentuated when played with a pick and made bigger still with echo and studio reverb. This was space-age music, daddio! On Eddy’s ‘Peter Gunn’ the grinding guitar phrase duelled with a snorting saxophone. There’s something of the same guitar style on Eddie Cochran’s hits.

Twang soon proliferated. Within a couple of years guitar instrumental bands sprang up all over. NATO smuggled a number of guitar combos into West Berlin hoping to encourage an outbreak of teenage rebellion behind the Iron Curtain. This led to the Cuban Heel Crisis, when the groups’ cover was blown by their stylish footwear. In the UK the Shadows dominated British pop until the advent of the Beatles with instrumentals like ‘Apache’ and ‘Wonderful Land’. When a theme tune was needed for the James Bond films, commencing with Dr No (1962), it was given to the instrument of the moment – the electric guitar – which is how that theme (dang da-da dang dang, da da da dang da-da dang dang!) became the most widely heard electric guitar tune ever. Twang also created ‘surf guitar’, instrumentals such as the Ventures’ ‘Walk Don’t Run’, and features on early Beach Boys records. Bruce Springsteen paid homage to twang on Born To Run, saying, ‘I wanted to make a record that would sound like Phil Spector. I wanted to write words like Dylan. I wanted my guitar to sound like Duane Eddy.’

The tune for this section is typical of a twang low-string melody and works on acoustic or electric. It uses all the notes of the E natural minor scale (EFGABCD).

Here’s an idea for you…

Something else you can do with low strings is to try playing the bass notes of a chord, one at a time, turning them into arpeggios. Just play the lower three strings for this effect. Depending on the type of chord – this works best with chords that have open strings in them – you can discover some unusual patterns. You can even play easy versions of chords that are normally awkward to finger. Two famous examples of such low-string figures occur in Bryan Adams’ ‘Run To You’ and Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’.

Defining idea…

‘We had the idea of putting the guitar low down … That was [John] Barry’s idea – to put [the James Bond theme] on guitar. We were aware of Duane Eddy.’ Vic Flick

How did it go?

Q   Is there a special technique for bending the lower strings?

A   Being thicker, the lower strings can be harder to bend than the upper ones. The trick is to pull them downwards rather than push them upwards. The notes at the fourth fret on the lower strings, if bent, raise their pitch to the next open string above. With a strong hand you can bend the notes at the third fret up a tone to the next upper open string. This is an important component of the twang style.

Q   How can I increase the twang and get a really authentic early 60s sound?

A   The essential bits of gear (and we’re talking about electric guitar) would involve a Fender Stratocaster with medium gauge strings (not light), i.e. 010–011 gauge. The heavier string has much to do with tone, and in the early 1960s it wasn’t possible to get light strings. The tremolo arm on the guitar generates Hank Marvin-type vibrato. Then you want a valve amp (or replicating digital effect) and an echo unit which emulates analogue tape echo.

Q   How do I turn a melody like this into a full composition?

A   All you need is a second guitar to strum chords, a bass player and a drummer. That’s the basis of the guitar band sound, although as the Shadows got more successful their records added orchestral parts from strings and horns and extra percussion.

28

Two notes from one

It’s 3 a.m. In the lounge bar the barman sets you up another drink. There’s no sign of her. You sigh, grab your guitar and play … octaves!

This is the fastest route to a little jazz sophistication. Take a tune, or just improvise, but play octaves instead of single notes. Result? Cool sounds and firmer fretting.

A MUSICAL SPAN

An octave is the note twelve semitones or six tones above or below the note you start with. It is the next ‘version’ of any given note once you have played or gone over all the other eleven. When people sing they naturally divide into octaves according to whether they can pitch a tune high or low. Octaves are fundamental to music. It was dividing that span that produced our scales and the harmony derived from them.

So how do you find octaves on the guitar? With one of two shapes: the first has the notes two strings apart, and is held by the first and third fingers. The second is when they are three strings apart and fretted by the first finger and the fourth finger. The former is easier to move about. There are also non-movable octaves involving the open strings, where only one note in the octave is fretted, the open string giving the other. This works with the notes E, A, D, G and B. Octaves naturally form part of guitar chords as notes are doubled up. If you take an ordinary E chord it contains two octaves on E and one on B; an A chord has one octave on A and one on E; a D chord has one octave on D.

Next question: how do you pick octaves if they’re not on adjacent strings? If you’re plucking with your fingers then it isn’t a problem: simply select thumb and finger. With a pick your fretting fingers mute the unwanted string in the middle as you strike both notes. If the octave is three strings apart the muting technique is more demanding, in which case the answer may be to use a pick and finger, with the flatpicking technique described in Idea 7.

So, what is the role of octaves on guitar? Traditionally, jazz players such as Wes Montgomery used them to add weight to a tune without complicating or distracting from it. This was sometimes because they needed the guitar line to cut through more or to fill space. Octaves have been often neglected by rock players, though Jimi Hendrix reached for them more than most, especially playing live in the three-piece Experience, where the octave doubling made for a bigger guitar sound. Later songs like ‘Dolly Dagger’, where the riff is in octaves, and his filmed Woodstock live performance are good examples. The air of sophistication octaves bring to a solo is typified by Scott Gorham’s insertion of them into Thin Lizzy’s ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’. A static octave guitar figure runs almost all through Isaac Hayes’ ‘Shaft’. Alternatively, an octave can be played as successive notes, in riffs such as Led Zeppelin’s ‘Wanton Song’ and ‘Immigrant Song’, or The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’.

Here’s an idea for you…

Here’s a good way to practise octaves and turn them into a finger workout, and at the same time learn about the fretboard. Find some simple first position scale patterns which stretch over one octave and have some open strings. Try an E major scale starting on the 6th string or an A major scale starting on the open 5th string. Work out how to add an octave above every note and play the scale in octaves. Some of the octaves are fretted, others a combination of fretted notes and open strings.

Defining idea…

‘When you get tired and run out of ideas, you’ll find freshness and comfort in octaves.’ George Benson

How did it go?

Q   I find it difficult to keep my fingers in the right shape. When I move, one or the other goes wrong, and I forget which fret I’m supposed to be at.

A   People often find this when they initially try octaves. The trick is to select one finger or the other as a guide finger, and watch it. Decide which finger is your reference point. If you play something with one octave shape, then you can use one finger (usually the top one) to keep your sense of position. If that finger moves to the right fret each time, and if the other stays the correct distance away, then the lower note will also end up in the right place.

The other important thing is to work out a sequence of octaves that doesn’t involve many changes of hand shape/string. Going up and down with octaves on the 1st and 4th string is easier than playing them roughly in one position on the fretboard. This is the opposite to most scales, which are easier played in one position going across the fretboard, and nonsensical going up and down one string!

Q   Actually, I’m no good at these and I want to cheat. Is there a way?

A   With an electric guitar you can cheat with effects such as an octave-splitter or a harmoniser. This will automatically put an octave (or any other interval) above or below your original note.

29

Two voices, two fingers

With only two notes you can create the illusion of two voices and even whole chords. Do what two singers do when they harmonise, but lay it on the fretboard.

Thirds are an essential component of guitar lead, lending warmth and sweetness to chord decoration and fills. Whatever style of music you play, you’ll find there’s a place for them.

Thirds crop up all over guitar music. Think of the introduction to Van Morrison’s ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ and you have a sequence of thirds. Think of the twin lead guitar in bands like Thin Lizzy, Wishbone Ash, Queen and Muse, and you have thirds. Think of the long ascending figure in Led Zeppelin’s ‘Achilles’ Last Stand’; that’s also in thirds, or the soul music guitar fills by Steve Cropper with Otis Redding. In bands with two guitarists, players can take one note apiece and the combination will be a third. But thirds are also played by a single player in many ways. They can quickly fill out the harmony if you don’t have time, or fingers, to play whole chords.

Before you start ‘Two Voices, Two Fingers’, get in position. Hold a standard open D chord (xx0232). This shape contains the notes for the first two beats of bar 1. On the third beat push your third finger up to the fifth fret and let your first finger fret the note on the top string. The third finger is the guide here. Move them up two frets to get the last beat of this bar. Then in bar 2 notice how the shape foreshortens, with the second finger taking the top note. That is typical of a sequence of thirds – they comprise a ‘wide’ shape (the minor third) and a ‘narrow’ shape (the major third). (The exact shapes depend on which two guitar strings you’re playing.) Use the same fingering to come back down in bar 2.

Bar 3 is a variation on bar 1. Climbing back up to bar 4, something happens. The thirds turn into sixths. Now you are playing strings 1 and 3, instead of 1 and 2. Listen for the difference in the sound. The sixths have a hollow but graceful quality compared to the closer warmth of thirds. A sixth is what you get if you turn a third upside down.

Bars 5–8 transpose the ideas of bars 1–4 onto an A chord. Notice how the ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ shapes in the ascending figure in bars 4–5 have a different fingering. Here, the thirds are either on the same fret or only one fret apart. This happens because of the asymmetry of the guitar strings – strings 2 and 3 are closer together in pitch than any other pair. They are, in fact, a major third apart. Major thirds on these two strings can also be played with a single finger half-barré. As in bar 4, in bar 8 the thirds change into sixths. Bars 9 and 11 show how thirds can be mixed up with sixths. Bar 10 has three examples of a third combining with a bass note to give a particular chord voicing which works well in fingerstyle pieces.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you have a sequence of thirds in a key whose scale includes an open string note, you can experiment by pulling off either the upper or lower note onto the open string. For example, plan out a sequence of thirds in G major and play them on the 2nd and 3rd strings. If you pull off the higher finger you add the open B and if you pull off the lower finger you add an open G. This creates some striking musical phrases. Then you can select an effective rhythm for them.

Defining idea…

‘My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.’ Joan Jett

How did it go?

Q   How do I know how to harmonise a tune with the right thirds?

A   Write out the notes of the major scale for the desired key. Take D major – D E F# G A B C#. The correct third above any note is always two notes on along the scale. A third above D is F#, a third above E is G, a third above F# is A, etc. until you reach a third above C# which is E. Starting with the root note, there is a fixed sequence of thirds which can be formularised as 4334433, where 4 is a major third and 3 a minor one. On the fretboard, assuming you start with the first note of the scale D on the lower of the pair of strings, this could be memorised as NWWNNWW, where N = the ‘narrow’ shape and W the ‘wide’ shape.

Q   Can I play thirds low down on the guitar?

A   You can, but they’re not as effective. Play GB (32xxxx) and compare it with an octave higher (xx54xx) or an octave above that (xxxx87). The difference is considerable. The low GB sounds muddy compared to the other two. So you rarely find sequences of thirds on the lower strings. The exception is in riffs, where they sometimes appear, especially over the open E string. There are low thirds in the songs ‘It’s Too Bad’, ‘The Place I Love’ and ‘The Butterfly Collector’, by the Jam.

30

Riffing out

Heard of ‘carbon neutral’? Heavy rock wants to be tonal neutral. There are no major or minor chords in the lost, dark dimensions, just a two-finger fifth.

But even this simplest of guitar figures – the twofingered fifth or ‘power-chord’ – can be prodded and pushed and expanded into shapes for riffs with more imagination.

THE DEVIL RIFFS ABOUT A BIT

Back in Idea 15 we looked at so-called ‘power-chords’. Easy to move around in their two-note version, they characterise the heavier styles of rock guitar, from 1970s blues-rock and hard rock to heavy metal and 1980s thrash, and also new wave/punk like Green Day. Almost any chord sequence can be turned into a sequence of fifths.

Given this is such a popular shape, it is natural to consider what else you can do with it. First, taken as objects in their own right, try playing one note in a fifth and then the other, not both together. Try this with D5 played as x57xxx. If you do that with a fifth on the top two strings and add some echo you’ll get a guitar figure that resembles ‘With Or Without You’ by U2. If you do it with a low fifth you’ll get a riff like Led Zeppelin’s ‘No Quarter’ or Dire Straits’ ‘Money For Nothing’.

A second option is to fret a fifth on the lower strings and lift either finger off to an open string. How it sounds relates to the musical relationship between the fifth you’re holding and the open string. The Cult’s ‘Wild Flower’ begins with a B5 on strings 5 and 4 (x24xxx), and the first finger lifts off the A string. That note A is a flattened seventh in relation to B5, so it gives a tough sound. Same thing works with an F#5 at the second fret on the bottom two strings (24xxxx). The effect would be different if you played a C#5 on strings 5 and 4 at the 4th fret (x46xxx) and lifted the first finger off the A string. You would then have a G# on the sixth fret of the 4th string and an open A on the 5th. Eric Clapton’s riff in ‘Layla’ is another example of lifting a first finger off a fifth, on Bb5 and C5 successively. This idea can be developed by adding notes to the fifth as well as going to an open string, as in Dire Straits’ ‘Expresso Love’ and the Darkness’ ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’.

Fifths slide effectively from one to the other. A semitone slide from the previous fret gives an Eddie Cochran/Sex Pistols delinquent riff. In a few places you can play a fifth and match an open string above it or below it to one of the two notes, creating either an octave support or a unison. For example, play C5 (x35xxx) and then add a unison G by using the 3rd string open (x350xx), or play an E5 (x79xxx) and add the open E underneath for a more resonant effect (079xxx). For an in-depth look at riffs see my book Riffs.

Many of the above ideas are incorporated into ‘Riffing Out’.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you have fast tempo fifths it makes sense to change the fingering. Hold E5 (02xxxx) with the first finger on the second fret of the 5th string. Then play F#5 (24xxxx) with the second finger on the bass note and the little finger on the fourth fret note. Push the second and fourth fingers up one fret to get G5 (35xxxx). The first finger stays still, awaiting the next E5. This is handy when going from open to fretted fifths and back again. It was used by Metallica’s James Hetfield to play the chorus riff of ‘Enter Sandman’.

Defining idea…

‘… live your life; don’t lock yourself in your room eight hours a day and think of nothing but guitar. Learn how to live well, how to appreciate flowers. You have to have a human side.’ Vernon Reid, Living Colour

How did it go?

Q   Is it better to use my third finger or my little finger when playing fifths?

A   I feel the little finger is better since it is less of a stretch, it can barré the next string up to add the root note an octave higher to make a three-note fifth (G5 = 355xxx), and your third finger is free to add an additional note.

Q   Can I put the same fifth under a major or a minor chord?

A   Yes. Since a fifth contains only two notes, the root note and the fifth, it doesn’t have a third, and the third is the note that makes a chord major or minor. So an A5 (AE) can be played under an A chord (AC#E) or an Am (ACE). An E5 (EB) will support an E (E.G.#B) or an Em chord (EGB). One non-metal way of using fifths is to play them with a clean tone under an acoustic strummed guitar, to which they lend strength. They are also used with muting in quieter parts of songs, thus making a contrast with those sections where full chords are played.

Q   Is it true that there are congealed backward satanic messages in this book?

A   You mean ‘concealed’, and the answer is, no. Infinite Ideas only believes in books that are read forwards. Nor do our heads revolve, whether after dark or at any other time.

31

A hand full of weather

The sky changes, the land stays still. Make a low open string your land and let your fingers make weather. Here is the dramatic foundation of the pedal note.

One of the most pleasing of musical devices is to change chords over a static bass note, so that the chords form new colours with a bass note that may not belong to them.

NO BATTERIES REQUIRED

First, let’s be clear that the word ‘pedal’ here has nothing to do with the good old ‘stomp-box’ – the guitar effect circuit housed in a little metal box that you tread on to get echo or raging amounts of distortion. The ‘pedal’ we’re concerned with here is a purely musical concept, not a piece of musical equipment. And look on the bright side … you don’t have to ever unscrew it and change the battery!

How easy it is to get a pedal note on the guitar is a question of what’s technically possible. If you fret a pedal note you may find it difficult to form chords around that note, since you can’t lift the finger that frets the pedal note. It can be done, but it makes your hand look like it has taken up a strange form of yoga or been injected with genetically modified octopus. This is why most pedal notes on guitar occur as one of the three lowest open strings, E, A or D. (Use a capo for pedal notes in other keys or go for an altered tuning). That way none of your fingers are tied up fretting it.

The most common type of pedal is the key note or the fifth of the scale, since they are the two defining notes of the key and its harmony. Interesting tension can be had by making the pedal note a different note of the scale than that. You can even play a game whereby the chords and pedal are at war and the pedal only turns out to be the true key note some time later.

‘A Hand Full of Weather’ is in the key of A major but with a blues influence. It can be played with a pick or with fingers. For bars 1–8 the pedal note is the key note A, the open 5th string. Above it a series of triads are struck and allowed to sustain. The eagle-eyed among you may notice that the C/A chord in bar 3 is what is usually known as Am7. So why the change of name? Well, sometimes chord names depend on context, and in music the ear has priority over the eye (or chord book). The musical context makes us hear these chords over a static note, so we hear this one as a C triad over an A, rather than an Am7. We hear an element of tension we don’t normally associate with Am7. Bars 5–8 offer a variation on bars 1–4. From bar 9 the pedal changes to a D above which triads move on the top three strings. The ideas in this exercise occur in many hard rock songs.

Here’s an idea for you…

Here’s a songwriting tip. A pedal note is a good way to get more from a single sequence of chords when you’re putting together music. If you have chords that sound well together try them over a pedal note. If you are recording or playing with someone else the pedal can be a bass guitar or keyboard part; if you’re on solo guitar reduce the chord sequence to triads – which will leave the E, A or D strings available to be a pedal. Later in the song you play the sequence without the pedal.

Defining idea…

‘… the idea is not to get as complicated as you can, but to get as much of yourself into it as you can.’ Jimi Hendrix

How did it go?

Q   Who should I listen to for good pedal notes?

A   In rock, most bands eventually get around to writing a number with a pedal note riff or progression. If I had to name one band for this it has to be The Who. Pedals are a central feature of the way Pete Townshend composes. Recall the part pedal notes play in ‘Substitute’, ‘Sparks’, ‘Bell-Boy’, the intro of ‘5.15’, or the F# pedal on the intro of ‘Pinball Wizard’ (which, unusually, is a fretted note not an open string).

Q   I notice in the example that the chords are often struck on the last offbeat of the bar. Why? Wouldn’t it be neater to play them on the first beat of the next bar?

A   Neater, perhaps, but nowhere near as effective or interesting. Hitting them just before the bar-line seems to pull the music forward. This effect is another instance of syncopation. It is crucial to the rhythmic effect of rock music. It makes the chords form an interesting tension with the steady rhythm of the pedal note which clearly marks the beat. Another interesting point about the music in this example is how clearly signalled the syncopations are by the standard notation. Even if you can’t read music fully you can see the ties which link the sounded chord at the end of the bars to the sustain of those notes (not struck) in the next bar.

32

When a note stays the same

Imagine music where one note stays the same regardless. Where one note stays the same regardless. Where one note … Let’s hear it for the drone … drone … drone.

As can be heard in world music, a drone is like a strand sewn through a piece of music on which other notes and chords can be threaded and changed.

Drone notes are an antique musical device found throughout the music of the world. What could be simpler than playing a note over and over? It is the simplest way to support a melody. Drone notes are static – they don’t change and one of their functions is related to the use of music for trance/hypnotic effects in religious ritual. For example, they are an important part of Indian music, and feature in the groundbreaking 1966 song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by the Beatles, from where they passed into wider use in popular music. Wherever people use the word ‘trance’ a drone is not far off. Alternatively, think of Scottish bagpipes, where a drone is established before the melody starts, and continues throughout the melody. A drone doesn’t change in the way that a chord sequence changes the harmony under the notes. The effect is easy to achieve with keyboard and synthesisers, because of their powers of sustain (as you can hear in German synth band Tangerine Dream).

The drone note is usually the key note, with a melody above or around it. On the guitar an easy way to experiment with a drone is to put it in the middle of some fifths and move them around. The fretted notes form interesting combinations with the drone note. Drones are a way to make a piece of music sound old or ‘folkish’. One of the heads of the many-headed hydra beast that is heavy rock even has ‘drone doom’ written in black felt-tip on its furrowed forehead, a style which employs detuned electric guitars. Drones have also influenced instrument design. Some stringed instruments down the ages have had extra strings that resonated even if they weren’t actually struck to give a supporting drone to the main parts.

To get a taste of a drone, try ‘When A Note Remains The Same’. This can be played fingerstyle or with a pick and fingers. It begins with a fretted fifth and the open G string in the middle. In bars 2–4 the bass note drops a semitone at a time, but the open G drone continues throughout forming different harmonic relationships with the notes around it. In bars 5–8 the initial sequence is repeated but with a variation. Watch for the way the little finger adds notes on the 2nd string. At bar 9 there’s a change of rhythm and direction. The initial fifth from bar 1 now moves up to the sixth, eighth and eleventh frets, the open G still sounding in the middle. The idea in bars 9–10 is repeated in bars 11–12. The last four bars move onto the top three strings. The B string becomes the new drone. Around it descend a sequence of sixths, repeated, all on the beat, with two fifths to end with on the original string combination.

Here’s an idea for you…

A note can function as a drone in more than one key. Take the B string, which we might associate with playing in G. Strike it and the top E string together. Fret any of the following positions on the top string: 2 (F#), 4 (G#), 5 (A), 7 (B), 9 (C#), 11 (D#), 12 (E), 14 (F#), 16 (G#), 17 (A), 19 (B). These notes make a scale known as the B mixolydian. It sounds like a disease rabbits might get, I know, but actually it’s the major scale on B with the seventh lowered by a semitone. It suits this kind of drone playing.

Defining idea…

‘[Stephen] Stills and I … discovered this D modal tuning at around the same time in ’66 I think … This was when “ragas” were happening and D modal made it possible to have that “droning” sound going on all the time.’ Neil Young

How did it go?

Q   What’s the difference between a pedal and a drone?

A   The distinction is not clear-cut in theory. Remember that a pedal note remains the same, like a drone, but is the lowest note in the harmony. It could be argued that true pedal notes only come into being when there is a set of chords changing above them rather than a single note melody.

Q   In what other ways could I get an effective drone on the guitar?

A   The easiest way to get drones on the guitar is to enter the world of altered tuning. Generally, if you find a means of fretting an octave and moving it up the neck whilst strumming all or most of the strings you will get a drone effect. Open major tunings like open G (in Idea 38) or open D (in Idea 47) work reasonably well. However, the effect is strengthened in a tuning which doesn’t make a simple chord. If you take open G (DGDGBD) and lower the 2nd string a tone to A (DGDGAD), or take open D (DADF#AD) and raise the 3rd string to G (DADGAD), you may find it easier to get this type of sound where ordinary chords are not created. Another direction to go is to create a tuning only made of roots and fifths. Listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s early albums, or the Page/Plant track ‘Wonderful One’.

33

A touch of retuning

Let’s twist again … with those tuning pegs. They can do more than just keep things in tune. With a turn of even one peg, new music beckons in ‘drop D’.

Not all guitar music is played in standard tuning. Some alters the tuning for special effects. The simplest route into this brave new world of tuning is to change one string.

WOKE UP IN THE HOTEL DROP D

Here’s a story for you. I once took an acoustic guitar into a music shop to have some adjustments made. At that time I was writing songs in a variety of altered tunings, and I had left the guitar in open D. I was curtly informed by one of the Minions of the Narrow-Minded who worked in this shop that the guitar was meant to be played in EADGBE. Clearly in his narrow little world, the 11th Commandment was not Let It Rock but Thou Shalt Not Retune. So much for the music of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Nick Drake and hundreds of others.

Standard tuning (EADGBE) is an effective compromise for tuning, insofar as it allows you to play with relative ease in most keys and to change key. But there are other musical effects and chords which standard tuning does not facilitate. The final arbiter of the validity of technique is music. It is the music that matters, and everything else is secondary. Enter the concept of altered tunings. The simplest form of altered tuning is one in which only a single string is changed. This might not seem on face value to be a promising move. But even a single string retuned can result in delightful new chords and a fresh stream of inspiration on the guitar.

Probably the most popular single string alteration of the guitar’s tuning is what is known as ‘drop D’. This name is slightly misleading, because it isn’t a D that has been dropped but an E – the 6th string – which has been detuned a tone to a low D. With this change, the guitar is retuned DADGBE. To carry this out, either keep playing the 6th string and detune it until it sounds an octave below the open fourth string, or tune down until the seventh fret on the 6th string is the same note as the open 5th string. Welcome to ‘drop D’. The management hope you will enjoy your stay …

So, now what? You can explore this new tuning by playing through any chord shapes you know from standard tuning and listening for the results. If the bass note is obviously not correct because it is one tone out try re-fingering the chord, thus creating a new shape (you have to do this with G, for example). But listen also for the way the altered bass note might cast a fresh light on the chord shape. Notice the fabulous deep resonance the tuning gives to standard D and Dm chords, because you can now strum all six strings. ‘Drop D’ tuning is popular for fingerstyle because it allows for an alternate thumb octave bass with open strings, so the rest of the hand can move. The picking pattern is adapted from Idea 6.

Here’s an idea for you…

The point of a drop tuning is to play in a key that most exploits that new open note. So ‘Drop D’ is ideal for D major – but also for D minor, though players tend to forget that. Play a standard Dm chord (xx0231). With the lowered 6th string it should now be all six strings (000231) which is far more resonant. Then play Dm shapes at the fifth fret (000765) and the tenth fret (00010–10–10), or an expressive Dm9 (003210). Apply a simple fingerpicking pattern for impressive results.

Defining idea…

‘Altered tunings are wonderful – they’re a different logic.’ John Doan

How did it go?

Q   Does messing about with tunings damage my guitar?

A   It does not, but follow one simple rule: avoid tuning strings up in pitch. They might break and it puts more strain on the neck. Construct your tunings by going down in pitch. Strings can also break tuning down, surprisingly enough, especially if old or if you slacken off too fast. Take care with the top E string – if any is going to snap, it’s that one. A small drawback is that changing tunings in a short space of time can cause temporary tuning instability, because of the way tensions change on the whole neck during the process. So you have to check the tuning of the whole guitar, not only the strings you altered. Altered tunings sound better when they have had a chance to settle in. Professional players have extra guitars left permanently in their favourite altered tunings. (Pssst! Good excuse to buy another guitar!)

Q   How do I get back to normal tuning from drop D?

A   You play E on the second fret of the 4th string, and tune the open 6th string up until it is an octave below this E. Otherwise: play the open 5th string (A) and then the note at the fifth fret on the lowest string (G). This note will be a tone below what it should, so tune up the bottom string until that fifth fret note once more matches the open A string. Then you are back in standard tuning.

34

A sneaky rocker

‘Drop D’ tuning is not just for folk-style fingerpicking and gentle acoustic singer-songwriters. It’s a motherlode of heavy guitar riffs. GrrrROWWLL!

Here’s an easy method for creating grungy sequences in power-chord fifths that you can play with one finger, or deep swampy single-note riffs.

WOKE UP IN THE BASEMENT OF THE HOTEL DROP D

Having a lowered 6th string means you can play riffs in single notes that take advantage of it. A famous example is Led Zeppelin’s ‘Moby Dick’, and a less famous one the Move’s 1969 single ‘Brontosaurus’. The reduced string tension on the 6th in ‘drop D’ also means you can do wild, lugubrious bends on it and work these into the riff itself. In some respects the application of the ‘drop D’ tuning to electric guitar from folk guitar in the late 1960s led to a rediscovery of the enthusiasm for the metallic lower tones of the guitar that had originally been a part of the late 50s ‘twang’ style (see Idea 27). It was as though Duane Eddy had a love-child with Morticia Adams under a full moon to the squeaking of bats and the ‘Monster Mash’ …

This tuning provides an easy way to play the kind of power-chords/fifths described in Idea 30. For this, the giveaway information is in the lowest three strings of the tuning: DADGBE. The notes D and A make D5; adding a D above the low one simply makes the D5 sound fatter. These are open strings, which means you can hold down this fifth chord on the bottom three strings with only a single finger barré. That means you can move them around very quickly – which is how all those thrash metal bands manage to play riffs at that velocity. The next thing to work out is which fret positions fit together. The simplest hard rock formula is to take a D pentatonic minor scale (D F G A C) and play fifths on each of those notes going up the fretboard. The frets needed are 0–3–5–7–10–12 to give D5, F5, G5, A5, C5 and then D5 an octave higher than the open string version.

‘A Sneaky Rocker’ shows what you can do with ‘drop D’ tuning in a heavy rock/riff context. It features three contrasting approaches to ‘drop D’ tuning. Bars 1–4 are a riff that uses fifths with a few single accented notes at the end of bar 2 and a variation to end bar 4. This riff fits the formula x+y+x+z first mentioned in Idea 25. In bars 5–8 a new riff comes in, written in single notes. This riff also uses the x+y+x+z formula. Bars 9–12 show how to play a standard rock rhythm figure on G and A in a much easier fingering than happens in standard tuning. The otherwise difficult stretches are removed. To find out more about this figure see Idea 43. These ideas work as effectively on acoustic guitar as electric, but have a different character on each instrument.

Here’s an idea for you…

These riffs in fifths lend themselves to serious Spawn-of-Satan-Slavering-At-The Gates metal. If you want a darker sound – for example, to emulate the kind of riff that Metallica create – combine the pentatonic minor positions given above (0–3–5–7–10–12) with fifths at the first and sixth frets. The first fret is Eb 5 and the sixth fret is Ab 5. Extend this to the Locrian mode. Play fifths at 0–1–3–5–6–8–10–12–14. Stress the 1 and the 6 positions, especially going onto the open strings, with plenty of distortion and hand muting.

Defining idea…

‘You just turn a few pegs and get a different tuning and suddenly you get almost like a different instrument.’ Keith Richards,
The Rolling Stones

How did it go?

Q   Why do some of the notes I play on the 6th string sound out of tune?

A   This may be the result of your fretting technique not having adjusted to the reduced tension of the detuned string. The reduced tension means too much finger pressure sharpens the note. Experiment with this by fretting a note on the 6th string and squeezing it harder – you should hear it go out of tune. So don’t use any more pressure than is needed. This applies more on an electric than acoustic, because of the former’s light-gauge strings. Otherwise, are you inadvertently pulling the string downwards? That is easier to do with reduced tension – and it will sharpen the note.

Guitarists who play a lot in tunings where string tension is decreased sometimes move to a heavier string gauge. This increases the tone – heavier strings have more metal to vibrate – and returns the tension to what a lighter gauge would be in standard tuning.

Q   Could the sixth be tuned down further?

A   Yes, though problems with intonation will increase. Each retuning is a challenge to figure out how to make the new 6th string fit with chords. The most direct route is to take it as the key note and find the chords in that key. So a 6th string tuned to C# would suggest a song in C# major or minor. (For more on this type of tuning see the next Idea).

35

Voyage to the bottom of the C

Take the 6th string down even further but add a new dimension to the result by putting on a capo. Result: deep bass, and new sounds from common chords.

If you don’t want to play in exactly the same tuning, a single string alteration, along with the capo change, will make the difference.

We’ve explored ‘drop D’ and lowering the 6th string as a way into the world of altered tuning. But it need not stop there. There’s nothing to stop you lowering other strings from standard tuning (as we’ll see in Idea 36). But before we do that, there’s one more trick we can do with the lowered 6th string. Let’s put a capo on the fourth fret and then take the 6th string down one more tone from ‘drop D’ so it is two tones lower than it should be.

Ignoring the pitch change caused by the capo, we’ll think of the 6th string as being a C (it’s actually an E). To get there hold an open C chord and tune the sixth so it sounds one octave below the note fretted on the fifth string. We now have chord box i – a C chord with an octave C bass note. This is an attractive and characterful sound. Some of Bob Dylan’s early songs use this detuning approach. You can strum this C for a powerful droning bass, or fingerpick with the thumb alternating between the 6th and 5th strings.

The chord boxes show the kind of preliminary research that goes into exploring a new tuning for the purposes of writing a song. We take the detuned 6th string as the key note. With the capo on the fourth fret, think of it as C (although pitch wise it is actually E). Boxes i-v in themselves provide a lovely sequence which could easily be a chorus for a song. Listen for the way the detuned 6th string deepens the ordinary C shape and then colours the Am, F and Dm shapes. The Am/C and F/C are examples of the inversions discussed in Idea 12.

Boxes viii and ix are exotic substitutes for the F/C when the sequence wants to return to C. The remaining boxes vi, vii, x and xi are handy chords for the key of C but heard in unfamiliar voicings. Notice that in all of them the open 6th doesn’t sound. This is actually important, because you don’t necessarily want it to sound all the way through a song; that would be monotonous. In any altered tuning you need some chord shapes that will temporarily remove the changed note(s), to refresh it, so when the detuned 6th returns we feel anew its power. Box xii suggests another way of building from the detuned 6th string, treating it as the key note of C minor rather than C major.

Finally, take the capo off, check the tuning to compensate for the capo having gone (capos affect tuning) and play with this tuning in first position. This is much lower in pitch – do you think it sounds better with or without the capo?

Here’s an idea for you…

Use a capo to avoid getting trapped in one key’s open tuning when gigging, and to reduce retuning on stage. Plan your material when you write it by composing several songs in the same tuning and contrast them with a capo. Thus, you get several songs from one tuning without playing in the same key, and without slowing proceedings by constant retuning. For example, a capo at the second fret in open G gives open A, and at the fourth fret open B (as with the Rolling Stones’ song ‘Tumbling Dice’).

Defining idea…

‘Usually I put on a thicker string when I tune down.’
Michael Hedges

How did it go?

Q   I’m learning a song but I can’t pitch the notes. How do I remedy this?

A   Transpose the melody up or down so it’s comfortable for your range. The chords must be transposed into the new key. If you’ve exchanged a key with open string chords for one with barré chords, a capo is the answer. This applies even more to altered tunings because of the unique sound produced by particular shapes. If you change the shape when transposing it might ruin the effect or even make a progression unplayable. Imagine a song in open D (DADF#AD). The new vocalist who joins your band wants to sing it in G, a fourth higher. The song could be moved into open G (DGDGBD). You try this and find the best chord shapes are lost. Instead, the solution might be to return to open D and capo at the fifth fret.

Q   What do people mean by ‘detuned standard tuning’? What is that for?

A   Detuned standard tuning – Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb – means that everything you play in standard tuning comes out a semitone lower. It means you can play songs with the shapes of favourite guitar keys like E and A major but the singer has some of the high notes brought down. String tension decreases, making bending easier and/or a shift to a heavier gauge string. The guitar’s tone sounds different a semitone lower. Led Zeppelin availed themselves of this technique for vocal reasons during their now legendary reunion gig at the O2 arena in London in December 2007. A number of the songs, including ‘Stairway to Heaven’, ‘Good Times, Bad Times’, ‘Rock and Roll’ and ‘Black Dog’, were played detuned by a whole tone.

36

Top down a notch

Guitar retrieved from baggage hold yields new music after long flight? Can it be true? Yes it can. Find some new chords with this one easy tuning change.

If you write music on the guitar and you suffer a creative block, messing about with tunings is a good way round it. And they don’t have to be complex.

HIGH ALTITUDE HIJINKS

As guitarists, we all have periods when it feels as though we’ve heard all the chords and played all the scales and nothing is inspiring. Getting out of that mindset is what this book is for. An altered tuning can make a shape you already know sound exciting. One odd note introduced into a chord that is usually predictable brings out a new colour.

You can devise new tunings in many ways, as we’ve seen in the last couple of Ideas, but serendipity can be the mother of new tunings, as the great English folk guitarist John Renbourn once told me. John was describing something that happens to guitarists on tour: ‘If you’ve just been on an airplane with a guitar and all the strings are tuned down [to avoid damage] you get to your hotel room and check to see if it’s alright. You’ve got jet lag and you want to go to sleep, but it’s in some ridiculous tuning. You’ve no idea what it is and it’s irresistible. That’s fun as well.’ The other time when tuning opportunities naturally arise is when you change the strings and are in the middle of tuning them up. When they’re nearly at the right pitch keep an ear for the sounds they make. Out of that you might make a new tuning.

In the previous three Ideas (33–35) we’ve been retuning the 6th string. Let’s now try the opposite approach and mess about with the top string. If we detune by a tone we get the tuning EADGBD. This tuning is a mirror-image of ‘drop D’. To get the most from it we have to think along a different tack. This note change happens at the top, not the bottom, so it is not about bass effects, root notes and pedals. Instead, it’s about chord decoration and possible drones. Coldplay used this tuning for their song ‘Trouble’.

Try out these chord boxes. Rule 1 with an altered tuning – play shapes you know and see what happens, so box i is a standard open A shape, but the altered top string introduces a D. Box ii is the expressive minor version. Box iii is a nice ringing Bm (try moving it up the fretboard) and iv is an open-string version of the so-called Hendrix chord mentioned in Idea 13. Box v is a rich major ninth with all five notes, vi is a fifth chord lent extra ring by the unison on the top two strings. Boxes xi and xii show that effective chords are sometimes also easy to play.

Here’s an idea for you…

Once you get the hang of this tuning, why not combine it with ‘drop D’ to create another tuning? This is DADGBD, where both the 6th string and the top string are down a tone. It is ‘double drop D’, which sounds like a medical condition, but is the guitar equivalent of two shots of espresso in your coffee. Poised roughly halfway between open D, open G, and DADGAD, it suits the keys of D and G. To hear what it’s capable of listen to a song by Neil Young called ‘Cinnamon Girl’.

Defining idea…

‘You make a traditional chord shape and any finger that doesn’t work, you just lift it up and let the string just ring. I’ve used that tuning throughout my career right up to today.’ Neil Young

How did it go?

Q   Why is chord box i called Aadd4 and not Asus4?

A   For a chord to be a suspended fourth the third of the chord must be removed (i.e. suspended). In the chord of A the third is C#. The notes are A E A C# D, so the third is still present. Therefore it cannot be Asus4, which is A E A D E in standard tuning. This Aadd4 is what I think of as a ‘shimmer’ chord – one that has a minor second. The C# and the D are on adjacent strings and a semitone apart, creating the distinctive ‘shimmer’ of dissonance. It’s horrible if you play just those two notes, yet beautiful within a chord. Box vii also has two strings that are only a semitone apart. This chord sounds better picked than strummed.

Q   Three of the these chord boxes are sixths. Is that just coincidence?

A   Not really. Sixths are something of a casualty of standard tuning on the guitar. They’re straightforward enough chords (C6 is C E G A) but not easy to find in playable shapes in EADGBE. The reason for this is that there are two notes in this type of chord – the fifth and the sixth – which are only a tone apart. That causes fingering problems on the instrument. By tuning the top string down a tone these problems are ameliorated. Hence it is suddenly easy to get an effective sounding sixth.

37

Through a harmonic rift

Remember those nasty sharps and flats? Time to seek out new musical ideas, and to boldly go into the harmonic rift and into the Kingdom of the Enharmonics!

Every sharp/flat note, chord or scale has a double identity. Use your imagination to journey through it and suddenly find yourself in another part of the musiverse.

IT’S A KEY, JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

Some tuning alterations have more to them than meets the eye. Let’s develop the idea of detuning the top string in some way. In the previous Idea we took it down a tone to get EADGBD. So if you’ve come here from Idea 36, tune your top string up a semitone so that it is in tune with the note at the fourth fret on the 2nd string. If you’ve come from Ideas 33 and 34 please tune your 6th string back to E, and if from Idea 35 take that fish out of the headstock, remove the capo, and tune the 6th string up two tones to E. If you have arrived from some other point in space and time with a guitar in standard tuning, first, let me just say ‘Welcome to Earth. You have landed in Play Great Guitar and we hope you enjoy your stay. Please refrain from singing any Aldebaran 17bar blues as they contain toxic levels of despair which are injurious to humans. Join with us in this musical endeavour. You need to detune your top string by one semitone.’

This new tuning is EADGBD#. An open D string and an open D# – hmmm – could spell trouble in a clashing sort of way. In which keys might we find D#? Well, the obvious one is E major, where D# is the seventh note of the scale (E F# G# A B C# D#). So this tuning should create some effective chords in that key, as the first seven chord boxes reveal. They are variations on the primary chords of E major. Boxes i and ii are a more resonant Emaj7 and B7 than is possible in EADGBE. Boxes vi and vii show chords for C#m9 and G#m7 which would not have open strings in standard tuning. Many songs don’t have more than four or five chords, so these would be enough to support most or even all of a song.

But wait, something is happening to the tuning! ‘There’s a rift opening in harmonic space, Captain.’ By rethinking that detuned string, we make a jump into the musical harmonic rift and emerge somewhere else in the musiverse. Now, look what’s happened to our tuning [cue horror soundtrack chord]: it’s mutated into E A D G B Eb. Eb?!

Here’s an idea for you…

To develop this tuning into either E major (as EADGBD#) or Eb major (as EADGBEb) you could detune one other string so it belongs to either of those keys. For example, tune the G string down a semitone to F# to have a note that belongs to E major and B major. Alternatively, tune the B string down a semitone to Bb and you have another note that belongs to Eb major. Either adjustment brings many more suitable chords for that key and you can be creative with its potential.

Defining idea…

‘It can make a chord sound a hell of a lot better if you mess the tuning up a bit just to get the key you’re playing in, lots of open strings and stuff.’ Jonny Buckland, Coldplay

How did it go?

Q   Hang on, so what is going on with this Eb mutation thing?

A   It’s all about the enharmonic principle – that sharp/flat notes can be seen as either one or the other. Now you may think, what difference does that make practically? It’s only a label. But if we think of D# as Eb we start looking for chord shapes in a key far distant from E major, namely Eb major. How might this help us in dealing with Eb major? That is a notoriously awkward key for the guitar, and the primary chords in it are barré chords. This open top string retuned as Eb might create some playable shapes in that key, as chord boxes viii–xii show. Eb, Fm, Gm and Cm in standard tuning usually don’t have an open string.

Q   I tried this retuning and my top string snapped. How else could I play a song in Eb major without all this detuning malarkey?

A   If your top string snapped it may be that it was old (metal fatigue), that it snagged at the machine head or the nut, and/or that you tuned too quickly. Don’t worry – it happens from time to time. The alternative to play songs in Eb major is to put a capo at the first fret and pretend you’re in D major, or at the third fret and pretend you’re in C major.

38

Look Ma, no hands!

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just play guitar with one finger … no more struggling with four-finger chord shapes … but wait! There is a way …

Guitars can be tuned so the open strings make a chord. It’s time to explore the open tuning and one of the most popular, open G, blues riffs and shimmer chords.

GETTING THE FINGER OUT

Standard tuning is versatile and allows you to play in most keys effectively. But it isn’t the final word in guitar tuning. We might approach tuning with the desire to make one or two keys more resonant. This is done by tuning to a chord. Standard tuning EADGBE contains three notes of a G chord – D G B. So if we detune the top string by a tone to D, the 5th string a tone to G, and the 6th string a tone to D, the result is DGDGBD – a 6-string G chord.

The first consequence of an open tuning is that a barré across the neck gives a major chord if the tuning is major, and a minor one if the tuning is minor. A ‘three chord trick’ song can be played with the open strings plus a single finger barré at the fifth and seventh. If you want a bluesier sound mix up the barré at the third and tenth frets with these three chords.

One striking feature of open tunings is unison notes, i.e. two notes at the same pitch, one open and the other fretted. Chord box i may look like plain G, but it has two unisons – the 6th and 5th strings are the same G, and so are the 4th and 3rd strings. The Gm featured in box ii has a unison at the top of the chord. Box iii is a Cadd9 with a unison G between strings 4 and 3. Move it up to the eighth fret for Ebmaj7 (box iv) and to the tenth fret (box v, with an open 6th string) for a Dm7add11. Any D chord, major or minor, can use the deep bass root. Hear this in box vi, a D which only consists of the notes D and F#, with both Ds doubled in unison, and box vii’s Dm7.

Open tunings also have more ‘shimmer’ chords, my term for chords with minor seconds/major sevenths. One note will be fretted and the other open, and they ‘beat’ against each other, being dissonant. Chord box viii is an example of a Gmaj7 chord with this effect. Strum it here, then at the sixth fret and first fret before returning to the third, for a Jeff Buckley-type progression. If you want a blues effect strum the open strings then go to box ix and x. Try the same shape at the fifth and seventh frets. Finally, the classic open G string riff is to take either box xi or xii and put them on and off. You can do this also when your first finger is holding down a barré anywhere on the neck. Instant Rolling Stones!

Here’s an idea for you…

Open tunings are good for bottleneck (slide) playing, for fingerpicking, and for ‘raga’ effects, where the fretting hand moves octave shapes up and down with the open strings strummed at the same time. To do this in open G, fret the 4th and 1st strings (the two Ds) with your second finger on the 4th string and your third on the top string. Try this shape at frets 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 16, strumming all the strings except the 6th. You can also do a similar thing with the 5th and 3rd strings.

Defining idea…

‘I might make a mistake tuning, or a string gets knocked, or it’s drifted way down. Then I don’t know what tuning I’m in so I make it up as I go along – which adds different sounds.’ Peter Frampton

How did it go?

Q   I find it hard to get a good minor chord sound in this tuning. How can I fix that? Is this normal?

A   Often in open major tunings it is hard to find an effective minor chord, although there are usually exotic extended minors such as add ninths, add elevenths, etc. Abbreviating the minor so it only has four strings in it can help. Otherwise, see if dropping to a minor tuning might help. Detuning the third in an open major tuning converts it into an open minor. You have to locate which string is functioning as the third of the chord. In the case of open G the third is B, which is the open 2nd string. If open G major is DGDGBD, then open G minor is DGDGBb D

Q   What do I do if I want an open A tuning?

A   If you want an open A tuning don’t tune the strings up from EADGBE to EAEAC#E but tune down to open G and then put a capo at the second fret. The open strings would then be open A. If you experiment with tunings, remember they should go down rather than up, to avoid increasing tension on the neck and breaking strings. You can tune up to EAEAC#E on an electric (as on Led Zeppelin’s ‘In My Time Of Dying’) but I wouldn’t leave your guitar in that overnight.

39

Taking the lead

Here’s a chance to try some lead guitar phrases over a chord sequence. Get to grips with some classic bends and scale positions, then play your own.

Do you feel that you have neither the knowledge nor the technique to even attempt playing some lead guitar? Well, try this and it might change your mind.

There’s an example overleaf of how to fit some lead guitar phrases over a typical rock four chord sequence of A–C–G–D. The sequence is nominally in A major but it has a strong blues influence. When soloing over a chord progression always have a good look at the chords because they give indications as to which scales will work and which won’t, and where you might have to change scale. Here, the obvious scale to start with is the pentatonic minor featured in Idea 20. Let’s go through this solo carefully.

Bar 1 pitches low and moves up this scale to the note C, which happens to be the chord for bar 2. Herein lies an important technique. If you want your phrases to sound like they truly fit with the chords over which you’re soloing, aim to make them begin and/or end on a note which is in that chord. This makes the note sit in with the harmony. The strongest effect in this regard is when you hit the root note over the matching chord. In ‘Taking the Lead’ this happens in bars 2, 3, 6, 9–11. Additionally, several of the remaining bars start with another note of the chord.

Bar 2 features the extra note added to the pentatonic minor scale which makes it the blues scale, as discussed in Idea 22. In bar 2 an Eb appears giving a bluesy quality to this classic phrase. You could solo all the way through this sequence using just the A pentatonic minor scale. But it is more interesting to work some other ideas in. This explains what happens in bar 4, where a D pentatonic major phrase appears over the D chord. This makes a marked contrast in tone with what has gone before. Bars 3 and 5–7 all contain bends, indicated by the vertical arrow. Bar 5 features a famous blues lick back on the A blues scale. Bar 7 introduces a hint of G pentatonic minor (G Bb C D F) over the G chord before we get another famous major hammer-on phrase over the D chord in bar 8.

The third time around the sequence we have a classic rock ’n’ roll figure in what are called ‘double-stops’ – where you hold two notes down, often with one finger. Bar 10 is a transposition up three semitones of bar 9 (for more on transposing and ‘magic numbers’ see Idea 25). Bar 11 is a variation on bar 9 and the sequence finishes with another classic blues phrase over an E chord. To get this solo to sound its best remember to always think ahead, to where you’re going next, in order to make phrases flow into each other smoothly.

Here’s an idea for you…

Next time you play over a classic 12-bar blues sequence, try taking the figures in this solo from bars 9–11 and move them around the neck. This instantly produces a strong good-time rock ’n’ roll feel, such as you might associate with an original 1950s rocker like Chuck Berry or bands like The Faces or The Rolling Stones. For a 12-bar in A the phrase in bar 9 of this example is played at the fifth fret, the tenth fret (for D) and the twelfth fret (for E).

Defining idea…

‘It can be easier to play a complex, long solo than try to fit one into 16 bars of a pop record. You have to be really careful to make it work; you’ve got to be complementary.’ Keith More

How did it go?

Q   I’m trying to play this on an acoustic guitar and I find the bends difficult. Can you suggest a work-around?

A   The work-around for bends is to fret the destination note. If the bend is a semitone up that means going up one fret, or two frets if a tone up. It can also help if you slide up to the note. In bar 2, where a D is bent up to an Eb, try a slide of D to the Eb . In bar 3, where a G is bent up to A, you need a slide of two frets (as does the C up to D bend in bar 6). For the first note of bar 5, ignore the grace note D, which will remove the bend, and just play Eb.

Q   If this sequence is in A major why can’t I play an A major scale?

A   A major’s six primary chords are A Bm C#m D E and F#m. In ‘Taking the Lead’, there are no minor chords, though the A, D and E are present. However, it uses two chords which are based on flattened notes of the scale: C – the b III chord – and G – the b VII chord. Any A major scale has the notes C# and G# and these will clash with this A–C–G–D sequence. You can squeeze A pentatonic major phrases into the A or D bars – but your timing must be good!

Q   Now I’m confused! What do the Roman numerals represent?

A   They describe the relationship between chords in any given key. It’s a simple labelling system that is explained further in Idea 50.

40

New wine from old bottles

Get those favourite phrases out of the cupboard and dust them down. If you’ve been playing for a while, you’ll have plenty. You can do more with them.

Even the most familiar guitar ideas and phrases can take on a new lease of life if played in a new musical context. Good lead playing benefits from lateral thinking.

LET YOUR HARMONY DO THE WORK

It is easy to learn certain phrases (often drawn from pentatonic scales) and then play them in the appropriate key. They work, they fit, and after a while you get used to playing them that way. But they can yield more music. At one extreme this might mean transferring them to another musical style to the one from which they come (think of the Hendrixy lead guitar on the Isley Brothers’ soul hit ‘That Lady’). It might mean playing them with a changed guitar tone – say with chorus instead of overdrive. But even before you reach that point there’s another possibility: put them over chords where you wouldn’t expect to find them. Obviously this can’t be done randomly. What you have to do is choose a key where the phrase in question shares some notes in common with that key or a chord, and then the placing of the phrase will make it sound different. In other words, let your harmony do the work.

‘New Wine From Old Bottles’ is an example of this approach. It takes some phrases from the solo in Idea 39 and puts a new slant on them. Although a guitar phrase may have a certain melodic shape which is part of its identity, it can change drastically if you harmonise it with a new chord. This solo is constructed from three four-bar phrases, each based on a distinctive idea.

In bar 1 we take a phrase from bar 3 of ‘Taking the Lead’. There it was over a G chord and part of a blues-influenced progression. Here it has no blues influence and happens over a minor chord. The same phrase is repeated in bar 2, now over an Am chord. Notice that it sounds different. Bar 3 takes the phrase that was in bar 8 of Idea 39, where it had a major quality, and puts it over not one but two chords, Bm and C. Bar 4 uses the phrase from bar 4 of Idea 39, but puts a minor chord underneath it. The next four-bar phrase introduces a significant change of rhythm by taking the last bar of ‘Taking the Lead’ and setting it first against an Em chord (instead of the E major of Idea 39) and then an Am. A variation of this choppy rhythm is given in bar 7, before bar 8 rounds off the second of the four-bar phrases.

The third phrase (bars 9–12) creates a contrast with what has gone before by using two-note pairs based around the chord notes (compare with those in Idea 39). Once more, bar 9’s idea is repeated in bar 10, but the chord changes so it is heard afresh.

Here’s an idea for you…

You can also use the hammer-on technique to generate notes without playing them with your picking hand. On an acoustic, fret the third fret on the top string (G), play it, hammer-on and pull off the fifth fret with your third finger and then immediately pull-off onto the open string from the third fret. Finally, hammer-on the third fret note and repeat the process. This is a good way of building strength. If you have an electric guitar it is easy because the sound of these un-struck notes is amplified.

Defining idea…

‘When old licks start to come out, try and permute them; but you shouldn’t be afraid to do them when the time is right. Everybody repeats themselves to a degree.’ John Scofield

How did it go?

Q   I’ve played the phrase in bar 5 many times, but it usually sounds like the blues. This doesn’t. Why is that?

A   This phrase is built from the scale of E pentatonic minor (E G A B D). Here you’re playing over the chord of Em and in a context that suggests the key is E minor. In most minor key rock songs the natural minor is used. The notes in E natural minor are E F# G A B C D. Notice there is no clash between the notes of this guitar phrase and that scale – they blend. Therefore, no blues effect. To get the blues effect you have to play this phrase in the context of E major over an E chord. The scale of E major is E F# G# A B C# D#. The notes G and D will clash with it and give the sound we associate with the blues.

Q   I’ve heard the phrase in bar 8 lots of times. So why does it sound different here?

A   This three note pull-off figure is often heard in blues-rock, as a favourite ‘repeat’ lick – a short phrase repeated rapidly. Usually, its three notes are treated as a minor chord. In this instance the notes C–A–E imply A minor, so a guitarist would normally play it over an Am, or for a blues effect over A. In bar 8 of ‘New Wine from Old Bottles’ the phrase takes on a different character, implying a D9.

41

Learning to decorate

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, says the proverb. Likewise, how do the pros get to sound so good? There’s more than one way to play a note.

One way to make your guitar playing sound more accomplished is to bring in a variety of approaches to the basic art of playing a note and moving from one note to another.

THE FIRM OF SLYDE, HAMMERON, PULLOV AND BENDIN

Initially, when learning guitar, you’re thinking about playing the right notes and changing from one to another. But there’s more to playing notes than just getting a finger to the right fret. Here are some common techniques to build into your playing. These are the things which experienced guitarists do all the time without being conscious of them.

Fret a G at the eighth fret on the 2nd string, and then play the A which is two frets higher. Then play the G and slide your finger up two frets. The A is now produced by your finger sliding to it; it isn’t struck. This is the slide. Then there’s the timing. Count 1-and 2-and 3-and 4-and in a steady tempo and play the G on the first beat and the A on the first ‘&’. This is equivalent to two eighth notes. The first note in the slide can be turned into a grace note if you do the slide very quick on the beat, so that you’re on A almost immediately. Repeat the exercise, but this time start on the A and slide down two frets.

The next technique is the hammer-on. Play the G and snap your third finger down on the A. The A is sounded by this movement. The reverse is a pull-off, where you have your third finger on A and your first already on G two frets behind. Play the A and pull your third finger downward and off the string; this will sound the G. The movement is very much a plucking action with the third finger. If you combine these two movements you get the hammer-on/pull-off. Play the G, hammer-on the A and then pull it off to get the G again. The only note you strike is the first G; the other two notes are created by the fretting hand. Now try doing this repeatedly and fast – which creates the rock guitar trill.

The techniques described above suit the acoustic guitar. Bending, however, has a limited application on acoustic because of the string tension but really comes into its own on electric guitar. Bends fall into four degrees of pitch change: the quarter tone ‘smudge’ bend, the semitone bend, the tone/full bend, and the tone-and-a-half bend. Bends should always be done by more than one finger – do them with your second or third finger and make sure the other fingers are on the frets behind supporting. The ‘smudge’ bend is typical of blues playing and can be done on acoustic. The semitone bend can also be attempted on acoustic. Take the note A at the tenth fret on the 2nd string. Hold it with your third finger, with the first and second on the same string’s previous frets, and bend it up until it matches the eleventh fret note in pitch. You can play the eleventh fret note first and then when it’s fresh in your hearing you’ll know what to aim for.

On an electric you can then try bending this note up a tone, comparing the pitch against the twelfth fret B, and then try pushing it up three semitones to C (check the destined pitch at the thirteenth fret). Go carefully with this one – it can be a string-breaker, especially on the top string, which is the thinnest.

Remember the firm of Slyde, Hammeron, Pullov and Bendin, and you’ll never forget that there are many ways to play a single note.

Here’s an idea for you…

Guitar bashing. Really? Flamenco guitarists generate rhythms of teeth-rattling ferocity on their nylon-strung guitars using their nails and the back of their strumming hand. Flamenco players also have a repertoire of cunning moves by which they percussively beat and tap the guitar in-between chords. There is a steel-string version of this, where players hold a chord and bang the top, sides or back of an acoustic to make the strings vibrate. This ghostly, drummed guitar tone is not very loud but a mike will bring it out, either in the studio or live. Just don’t overdo it!

Defining idea…

‘I started getting interested in the notes that I could hear being generated when I hammered on while playing a classical guitar.’ Fred Frith

How did it go?

Q   I tried to do the slides and bends on my little finger and it didn’t seem to work.

A   The little finger is rarely used in slides and bends. It is sometimes used in hammer-on/pull-off figures where there’s a stretch. It isn’t really strong enough to do slides and bends, so normally you would make sure one of the other fingers carries them out. The exception with bends is if you do a double-stop, i.e. two notes on adjacent strings with the third and fourth fingers – then the little finger works OK.

Q   When I do a bend the strings seem to get caught under my fingers and make a noise when I try to come off it.

A   This is normal. In some ways it is inevitable in most bending situations that the fingers will get caught – the wider the bend the more strings go under your fingers. After all, a bend pushes a string out of its usual position – they’re supposed to run parallel. Avoid the other strings sliding across the nails on your fretting hand when you do a bend. The way to control this lies partly in your striking hand. Your pick hand can mute the strings when you move to the next phrase. You can also stop these notes sounding by putting the pick against them. It is important to develop muting on electric guitar where, with distortion and volume, there are many extraneous noises.

42

Ethereal bells

Hidden on each fret of the guitar are the high-pitched ‘ghost’ notes known as harmonics. Learn how to get them and where to find any harmonic you want.

Harmonics are a lovely way of adding an ethereal touch to a guitar piece, playing an unexpected sound, or otherwise decorating a guitar part.

Harmonics are delicate, high-pitched notes which can be produced on any stringed instrument. U2’s song ‘11 o’clock tick tock’ from the album Under A Blood Red Sky has a memorable passage where The Edge plays the London ‘Big Ben’ chimes on harmonics. They also feature in the Police song ‘Message In A Bottle’. The questions are: where do you find them, how do you play them and what do you do with them?

The loudest harmonics on the guitar are found at the twelfth fret. This is how to play them. Put a finger on the 6th string at the twelfth fret, right over the raised metal section, not over the wooden area of the fingerboard where you normally play the note. Don’t press the string down, only touch it. Strike the string and almost immediately pull your finger off to let the harmonic ring. If it works you hear a ghostly E pitched as if you had held the note down. Repeat the process at the twelfth on each of the strings. If you do all of them from 6th to 1st string, you can finish with six harmonics sounding: lay your first finger flat across the twelfth fret – touching, not pressing down – and try to play all the harmonics at once.

Use the same technique at the seventh fret. You are now getting notes an octave above what it would have been if you had fretted it, and an octave and a fifth above the open string. Going across the strings this produces B E A D F# B. Then go to the fifth fret. There you will find the open string notes in harmonics two octaves above, one octave above the harmonics you played at the twelfth fret. Finally try the fourth fret. These harmonics are quieter and harder to project. They are two octaves and a major third above the open string (G# C# F# B D# G#).

It is important to recognise that the harmonics on the top three strings make a minor chord. So you get Em at the fifth and twelfth fret, Bm at the seventh fret and G#m at the fourth fret. Similarly, strings 2–4 give a major chord. So you get G at the fifth and twelfth fret, D at the seventh fret and F# at the fourth fret.

Other pitches in harmonics can be had by the technique of artificial harmonics. This works on the principle that harmonics are always available for every fretted note or chord at a distance of four, five, seven or twelve frets. The question is, if your fretting hand is busy, how do you find a finger to touch the string at that distance and strike it too? The answer is to divide the work among the fingers of the plucking hand. Here’s an example:

Hold the note G on the third fret of the lower E string. Add twelve to three and you get fifteen. Go to the fifteenth fret and touch the string over the metal fret with the index finger of your playing hand. Then pluck the string with your third finger and lift the index finger away to let the note ring. It’s tricky because it requires good coordination. Now, hold a C chord, x32010. If we add 12 to those numbers we get x–15–14–12–13–12. If you apply the index finger touch to each of these frets on the five strings you can play the entire chord in harmonics. Once you get the hang of this you can play any chord in this arpeggio one-at-a-time way, and scales or melodic phrases too. Try it slowly at first. As you get accustomed to the amount of touch required and the positioning you can speed up these harmonics.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you’re recording a song and you want to decorate it with harmonics and the standard open positions don’t fit, there are a couple of things you can do that will help. One is to put a capo on so that those frets 4, 5, 7 and 12 away from the capo will create notes that fit the key. Another technique is to go in for some selective retuning. Detuning the 5th string by a tone will give you a 4-string major chord in harmonics on strings 5–2.

Defining idea…

‘A single harmonic can fill the Albert Hall.’ Andrés Segovia

How did it go?

Q   How can I make the harmonics louder and stronger?

A   On an acoustic this is partly a matter of touch. If you pull your finger away too soon you don’t get the harmonic; too late and you muffle it. When your timing is good you can hit the string harder. Groups of harmonics register more than single ones. On an electric guitar harmonics are more audible because you have more volume to play with. Effects like distortion, chorus and phasing also strengthen them. Echo and wah-wah lengthen them in various ways. With distortion and phasing if you strike any string repeatedly, as though playing a mandolin, just touching it with your fretting hand, you will hear harmonics jump off every fret in a sort of rainbow cascade of pitches.

Q   Are harmonics the same thing as the notes you get with feedback?

A   Yes. Harmonics are overtones of the open string. The first four overtones are one octave, octave and a fifth, two octaves, and two octaves and a third (there are many more but these are the most noticeable). When feedback develops it will graduate to one of these four overtones, which is why feedback notes tend to be high-pitched. These overtones are present in every note and part of its richness. They are also known as ‘partials’ – hence the joke, ‘Would you like some harmonics with that?’ ‘Yes, I’m quite partial to them.’ Ha ha!

43

White knight/black knight

Here is the grandaddy of all rock rhythm figures, from boogie-woogie piano and Chuck Berry in the 1950s to Status Quo and Oasis doing ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’.

A simple formula, like the movement of a knight on a chessboard, liberates this rock rhythm figure so you can play it in any key and in two contrasted positions.

OFF-AN’-ON-AN’-OFF-AN’-ON-AN’…

The figure overleaf can be played in a swung rhythm, in which case it sounds like blues, or it can be played in even eighth notes, in which case it sounds like rock ’n’ roll, or Status Quo if you do it loud and fast enough. Beginners learn it first through its open string versions. It comprises two notes, moving from a fifth to a sixth. In the first four bars of the example you have the figure first based on the open A string, then the open D string and then the open E. The root note open string stays the same and two notes alternate above it. There are many variations. With these open string shapes you can play a 12-bar sequence in the key of A, but not any other. For other keys you need a movable shape that can be pushed round the neck. And this is where the fun starts …

Bars 5–8 are still on A, D and E but relocate the ideas of bars 1–4 to the fifth and seventh frets. This is a bit more of a stretch. There is also a slight change of rhythm, each chord being hit just before the bar line (‘anticipated’), an effect that is important to the rhythmic feel of rock. Memorise the shape of these three figures, which we’ll call the ‘white knight’. It reminds me of the double movement of the knight in chess, going one forward and two to the side in an ‘L’.

Bars 9–12 repeat the figure but in a higher position, starting on the 5th string at the twelfth fret. Notice that there are now three notes in each figure, not two. This upper note, held down with the third finger, is an octave above the root note. It thickens the sound but if you find it awkward you can omit it. If you like it you can add it to the shapes in bars 5–8. The A figure is at the twelfth fret, with the D and the E at the tenth and twelfth on the 6th string. Memorise the shape of movement that takes you through these figures, which we’ll term the ‘black knight’ (no relation to Deep Purple’s ‘Black Night’). It reminds me of a backward ‘L’ shape, one down and two back.

Both the ‘white knight’ and ‘black knight’ patterns are movable. Therefore, you can play either of them in any key, and if you work with another guitarist you can play the same sequence with Guitar 1 as ‘white knight’ and Guitar 2 as ‘black knight’, ensuring that each guitar is fingering them in a different part of the neck.

Here’s an idea for you…

Hold down a barré anywhere on the top four strings with your first finger. Select strings 3 and 4 and play those two notes together. Now add a third finger two frets higher on the 4th string and play both strings. If played in the same rhythm as the example’s bars 1–4, these two positions give you another version of this rhythm riff, this time higher pitched. You can give it to one of your guitar parts if the other guitar is playing either of the ‘knight’ patterns.

Defining idea…

‘Another thing I learned just recently concerns laying back, and pushing on notes, playing certain notes softer and certain notes harder. It’s like a real subtle thing that makes a ton of difference.’ Kirk Hammett, Metallica

How did it go?

Q   Ow! That’s just too difficult a stretch! Help! What shall I do?

A   This is a good exercise for stretching the fretting hand, as well as getting in a boogie. Drop your thumb below the neck so your hand can open out. Hold the root note with your first finger and the next note on the 5th string with your second finger. Practise this figure above the fifth fret where the frets are narrower – if necessary go up to the tenth until you get the hang of it. Gradually your fingers will adjust to the stretch.

Q   I wanted to do this in a song which was in F, but playing it down at the first fret made both the F and Bb chords hideous. I mean, my first finger is at the first fret, but my little finger is supposed to touch the fifth?!

A   F is the most difficult key in which to play this figure. The solution is to start with the F figure at the eighth fret on the 5th string, then find Bb at the sixth fret on the bottom string and the C at the eighth fret on the 5th string, i.e. what I’ve called the ‘black knight’. (But you can hear Mick Ronson play the first fret F figure in Bowie’s ‘Cracked Actor’.)

Q   And by the way, how long have you been playing rock guitar?

A   Over twenty-five years, off-an’-on(-an’-off-an’-on-an’) …

44

Moonlit stroll

Simple guitar fingerpicking can be an accompaniment to singing. But with a few embellishments it can sound like instrumental music in its own right.

What do you call a chord that has turned into a melody? An arpeggio – namely, a chord whose notes are played one at a time, instead of being strummed.

A FLAVOURSOME RIPPLE

These days if you hear a guitar the chances are you hear it strummed, as a chord machine. But chords don’t have to be strummed. You can play the notes of a chord one after the other and make arpeggios. Then you begin to hear intervals between the notes, instead of a barrage of sound, and with those intervals can come a sense of melody. Arpeggios feature on most instruments and in many musical styles. They are particularly effective on instruments that can play chords with sustain – like the guitar, harp or piano. Romantic piano music is full of arpeggios – think of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, or in the rock field the opening of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. The classical guitar repertoire also has many arpeggio-dominated pieces.

‘Moonlit Stroll’ begins with a Dm chord at the fifth fret. Hold all the notes needed for the bar before you start. You will find that most bars in the piece arpeggiate a single shape, so try to put all the notes down at the start of the bar. If you put them down one at a time you will lose the sustain effect of the notes bleeding into one another. Bars 2–4 modify this initial chord by having the note on the third string drop one fret in each bar. This requires you to do a little finger-shifting with your fretting hand to get the shapes. Bars 5–7 alter the picking pattern, with the last two notes being on the top two strings, and bar 8 provides a necessary contrast by altering the rhythm pattern altogether. The root note of the A chord is played twice in the bar, rather than once as was the case with the D in bars 1–4.

The pattern of bar 8 becomes the pattern for bars 9–10, and now the music is moving upward. Bar 11 does something different with the arpeggio to lead to the final chord. This arpeggio stretches almost two octaves and asks you to change position, from the second fret to the fifth. Make sure you play the note at the sixth fret on the 3rd string with your second finger. That puts you in the right place to play the last four notes and then the Dm shape which started the piece.

As far as your picking hand goes, follow the pattern of p-i-m-a-m-i-m-i carefully, so thumb and all three fingers are working. Play at a moderate speed to begin with, so you can avoid pauses between the bars on changing position.

Here’s an idea for you…

The up-and-down rippling fingerpicking in this piece has many variants. The main point is to make the thumb hit the root note of the chord at least once in each bar. The fingers can then take any of the other notes in any order that seems playable and musical. Apply this to a sequence of chord shapes and you will be half way to creating a guitar instrumental for yourself. Choose chords that don’t cause you a difficulty in changing and let the notes ring as much as you can.

Defining idea…

‘A guitar has moonlight in it.’ James M. Cain

How did it go?

Q   I found this much easier than some of the other fingerpicking pieces – like those in Ideas 6 and 33. Why is that?

A   The most likely reason has to do with rhythm. The pieces in the ideas you mention feature the rhythmic effect known as syncopation. They require the picking hand to, in a sense, do two things at once. Not everyone finds that easy. In ‘Moonlit Stroll’ the arpeggios move up and down in a flowing rhythm. The only technical challenge is playing the bass note on the last beat of the bar at the same time as plucking a note with a finger.

Q   If I want to play more music like this, what sort of guitar is best, and do I need to read music?

A   You can play this type of fingerstyle music on any guitar, though it doesn’t physically feel as comfortable on electric. A steel-string acoustic gives plenty of sustain, but makes it sound less ‘Spanish’ or classical. So, if you enjoyed this I would think about a nylon-strung classical guitar. There’s more about them in Idea 1. As for reading music, traditionally, classical music pieces were printed only in conventional notation, but that has changed in the last decade. Shop around and you will find classical guitar books with tablature. However, I think it is better to do without tab and read music – which is not so hard and very useful.

45

A fistful of lute

Take a trip back in time with the Infinite Ideas Time Machine and sample (no, not that kind of sample, Perkins!) the sound of the age of Elizabeth and Shakespeare.

No, you don’t have to buy a lute to play this. There are many lute arrangements for guitar, giving guitarists the pleasure of gaining access to this subtle and moody repertoire.

Back in the 1590s this book would have been called Play Great Lute. At that time the lute was one of the most popular stringed instruments and the guitar, as we know it, didn’t exist. The lute is enjoying a higher profile of late owing to the fact that Sting of The Police recently made an album about the Elizabethan lutenist and songwriter John Dowland, Songs From The Labyrinth, which featured many of Dowland’s lute songs. Sting is not the first person in the rock field to develop an interest in the lute. In the early 1970s Jan Akkerman of Dutch band Focus took up the lute, and included a charming lute piece of his own on the band’s Focus III album, called ‘Elspeth of Nottingham’. The lute also found an important champion in the classical guitarist Julian Bream who recorded several albums of lute music (albeit with a classical guitar sensibility) in the 1970s, including The Woods So Wild. Today, there are many expert and authentic players such as Paul O’Dette.

The lute has a delicate sound which does not project like the guitar. This is despite the fact that its strings (except the highest) are doubled (known as ‘courses’), and, as with a 12-string guitar, the fingers fret two notes at a time. During several hundred years of popularity, it was mostly played fingerstyle, developing a more ornate and contrapuntal style in which there is often more than one melodic part moving independently. Lutes went through various developments in terms of the number of bass strings which were added. The more extravagant models ended up with fingerboards too wide to be completely barréd. Many of the extra bass strings were intended to be played open more often than fretted.

‘A Fistful of Lute’ is more chordal than many lute pieces, and as such is closer to those that were out-and-out dance tunes. To get closest to a lute sound play it on a classical guitar and put a capo at the third fret. Also, move your plucking hand closer to the bridge and away from the soundhole. The piece consists of a four-bar phrase (1–4) which is then repeated with a few variations (5–8) – notice how the top line has more notes on this second time through – and is completed by a third phrase (9–12) with scale-like runs of semiquavers. Watch out for the way the melody of bar 3 is echoed in the bass in bar 4. The resonant first chord of bar 9 (a B5) is typical of lute pieces in B minor and is made possible by the altered tuning used in this piece.

Here’s an idea for you…

Having the G string tuned down to F# is a great way of coming up with sounding chords in any key where F# is used. In the lute piece we were playing in the key of D, but what about the keys of B or B minor, or F# major or minor? You will find some great open string chords in those. You can also treat the F# as a Gb if you want to play in extreme flat keys or to play a blues in Eb major where the Gb is the flattened third. This can be a songwriting device.

Defining idea…

‘If a lute player lives to be a hundred, he spends ninety-nine years tuning and one year playing.’ Anon.

How did it go?

Q   What is the reason for detuning the 3rd string from G to F#?

A   Many lute pieces are in the equivalent of the keys of D and B minor. This small detuning brings the guitar closer to the layout of notes on the lute. As F# is an important note in both keys, and their scales and chords, having it as an open string makes these pieces less difficult to finger when arranged for guitar. You have to remember that the note G is now at the first fret on the 3rd string, and A is at the third fret.

Q   Can you play lute pieces on a steel-string guitar?

A   Yes, that’s possible. Folk guitarist John Renbourn extended the range of the acoustic steel-string guitar from its blues/folk repertoire in the 1960s by arranging lute pieces for the guitar. This required altering the tuning but worked surprisingly well, since steel strings take on the archaic brittleness of a harpsichord or viol, and the sustain helps the contrapuntal effect of the music. However, playing lute pieces on guitar needs a clean fretting technique so as not to accidentally mute strings that are supposed to ring for several beats through a change of shape.

Q   If I wanted to pursue this music further, can I buy a lute?

A   You can buy a complete instrument or a kit form. It’s a more complicated business than buying a guitar because of the variety of types.

46

The transatlantic rag

Could it be two nations divided by a common … key signature? Here’s a fusion of American and British fingerstyle guitar music to stretch your hands and your musical imagination.

You may be used to strumming chords and playing rhythm, or playing solos, but here’s a piece that challenges you to play the bass, the harmony and the melody.

SHADES OF RED, WHITE AND BLUE

The 14-bar instrumental over the page has the distinctive swing of a ragtime piece, with elements of jazz, blues and British folk guitar. It can be played either with a pick and fingers, or thumb and fingers. On balance, the latter is probably easier. Notes with tails that go down are played with the thumb, although in bar 9 you may wish to experiment dividing the bass line between thumb and a finger. Sometimes the bass note is allowed to ring for a bar (see bars 6–7) but most of the time it keeps the beat. Some of the picking patterns use the syncopation technique featured in Idea 6. If you haven’t played such rhythms before it is a good idea to try that section first and then return to this.

Bars 1–3 are built on an A chord with a first finger barré at the second fret and the melody coming down the top two strings. Keep the thumb nice and steady on the beat. In bar 4 the harmony changes to an E chord. The first two beats are played in open position and then you have to change position. The top E on beat 3 is not the open string but is fretted, while the second finger holds down a G# in the bass (a momentary example of a first inversion chord, like those described in Idea 12).

In bar 5 the harmony gets jazzy. It might look difficult from the music but actually the shape you hold down for the first half of the bar is only moved up one fret to get the rest of the bar. It often happens in guitar music that the finger movements are not as hard as the music might imply by sight. Bars 6–7 feature two variations on the blues ‘turnaround’ phrase on a D chord – this sort of phrase is often heard in bar 11 of a 12-bar blues. To facilitate bar 7, hold the D chord the usual way and move your first finger back one fret to get the Ab when it’s needed – an inelegant fingering, but what the heck! Bars 8–11 take us away from A major, sounding more as though they’re in D, and there’s a hint of the British folk-baroque style (hence the title of the piece). Be careful to let the notes ring as much as possible in this section. Finally, in bars 12–13 three minor 7 barré chord ideas moving chromatically down fret by fret from C# to C to B enable the music to finish back in A major.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you want your guitar playing to be entirely self-contained, this is the way to go. People learning guitar sometimes have the disappointing experience of playing the chords to a famous song to their friends, who then comment that it doesn’t sound like the song. Chord sequences are only part of a song’s identity. Thousands of songs share the same basic chord changes. For the song to be identifiable it might need its melody and lyrics sung. But with guitar instrumentals, the music stands on its own.

Defining idea…

‘Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything.’ Joe Pass

How did it go?

Q   I find this quite difficult to play continuously. How do I get it to hang together?

A   First, play it quite slowly and concentrate on keeping the thumb bass notes on the beat. Check you’re fingering it correctly – watch out for fingers that don’t need to move, and guide fingers that can connect chords. Hold down as many notes for a given bar as you can at the start of the bar. It is also important to think ahead – visualise where you’re going next, both in terms of finger-shape and also where the music is leading. That way you avoid playing each bar as a separate entity. This is what happens when you get bamboozled by the bar lines and see them as fencing off each idea from the next.

Q   Bar 5 sounds peculiar to me. Are you sure those are the right notes?

A   Yes, it is right. That’s the jazzy bar. Looking at the notes you see accidentals appear, a sure sign something funny is going on in the harmony. Bar 5 has an E b, a C and a G; all three don’t belong in the key of A major. But these chromatic notes tease the ear only for a second or two and then are gone. The chord on the first two beats is actually a weird entity called a diminished seventh. They are so weird I avoided mentioning them earlier when we were looking at seventh chords in Idea 11!

47

The big ring

You know that irritating moment when you’re trapped in a bus or train, and there’s a big ring, and someone reaches for their cellphone? Well, this is so much better!

Nothing transforms the sound of the guitar like a true open tuning, when all the strings make the notes of a simple major or minor chord. Here’s how.

OPEN D TUNING

There are many open tunings but let’s go with one that has real depth of sound: open D (DADF#AD). This is how you get into it. Tune the bottom E down to D. Leave the 5th and 4th strings as they are. Tune the 3rd string down to F#, the 2nd down to A, and the 1st down to D. When you’ve retuned, to check it:

   fret seven on the 6th string should match the open 5th

   fret five on the 5th string should match the open 4th

   fret four on the 4th string should match the open 3rd

   fret three on the 3rd string should match the open 2nd

   fret five on the 2nd string should match the open 1st

Open tunings have varying degrees of resonance depending on whether the root note falls on the 6th or 5th string (others factors being equal). So, open D – where the root note is a detuned 6th string – is more resonant than open G (Idea 38) where the root note is the 5th string. On open D you find you’re playing the 6th string more often than with open C.

‘The Big Ring’ uses a number of classic open D shapes. It may look hard from the music on the page, but it won’t be when you try it. Bars 1 and 3 use the open strings and a single finger barré to create a D–A–G chord change (try to barré the A chord with your third or fourth finger, saving the first for the G). Bars 2 and 4 demonstrate two ways of colouring the G chord by putting fingers on and then taking them off. This is the same technique as was discussed in Idea 38 on open G tuning. In bars 5–8 the piece introduces three beautiful minor chords characteristic of this tuning. Look out for the variation on the Bm chord in bar 7.

Bar 9 provides a change from full chording to an arpeggio figure based on A. Hold the second eighth note with your first finger and use it again on the fifth eighth note halfway through the bar, with your little finger taking the note at fret 7. In bars 10–11 another characteristic idea in open tunings comes in. This is to move an interval up or down the fretboard with the open strings acting as a drone behind. In bar 10 you hold down a sixth on the 1st and 3rd strings, and in bar 11 an octave between the 5th and the 2nd strings. Experiment with these by moving them up and down the neck. You can also take the shapes from the second half of bar 8 (which are thirds) and apply the same approach to them.

Here’s an idea for you…

From open D a twist of one tuning peg takes you to a deep open D minor. Reduce the 3rd string by a semitone to F. You can check you got it right by holding the F on the third fret of the D string itself and then playing the 3rd string open: they should be the same. Every barré in this minor tuning gives a minor chord. You’ll find Gm at the fifth fret and A minor at the seventh. To get a major chord add a finger on the 3rd string one fret up from the barré.

Defining idea…

‘The more I can surprise myself, the more I’ll stay in this business, and the twiddling of the notes is one way to keep the pilgrimage going.’ Joni Mitchell

How did it go?

Q   On the music it looks as though there are often chords in which the same note is written twice. What is that all about?

A   That’s quite right. Look at the Bm7 in bar 5 and you’ll see that there are two F#s. This is striking visual evidence of one of the magical features of an open tuning – it has a tendency to produce chords where a fretted note and an open string match in pitch, making what is known as a unison. These greatly enhance the resonance of the tuning. Moving away from such chords by a fret either way often produces shapes in which there are pungent, shimmering minor seconds or major sevenths. These also add to the character of the tuning. These sounds are not that easy to get in standard tuning.

Q   Who should I listen to who uses open tunings for songs?

A   Undoubtedly Joni Mitchell, whose albums such as Blue (1971), For The Roses (1972), Court and Spark (1974), Hejira (1976) and Turbulent Indigo (1994) demonstrate her open-tuned guitar approach. She used open D for songs like ‘Free Man In Paris’, ‘People’s Parties’, ‘Both Sides Now’, ‘Chelsea Morning’ and ‘You Turn Me On (I’m A Radio)’. Mitchell is possibly the best-ever advert for the creative potential of retuning the guitar. It was the idiosyncratic sound of the shapes she got which sparked her creativity and made her write songs.

48

Twelve’s ocean

Think of the intros to The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’, David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Tangerine’, or Boston’s ‘More Than A Feeling’ … what gives those acoustic guitars that sparkle?

What you hear is the distinctive chime of the acoustic 12-string. The 12-string guitar has an additional resonance and ring which provides extra delight in playing, and inspiration for songwriting.

12-string guitars are wonderful instruments, provided they are comfortable to play. That isn’t always the case. String gauge and action are critical on a 12-string. A low action and light-gauge strings will facilitate playing. If you’re buying one, try as many as you can. You may need to spend a little more, or buy second-hand and have the guitar properly set up. In addition, they take longer to tune than a 6-string. But it’s worth it. The 12-string acoustic has a shimmering sound with high notes where you don’t normally hear them. The sound is bewitching and very stimulating for songwriting inspiration. Since the strings are the same pitches as a 6-string, all the notes are in the same position on the fretboard. All the shapes, scales and other figures you know transfer onto the 12-string.

The idea of doubling strings to get more sound from an instrument goes back centuries, as we saw in Idea 45. With the guitar it was a small step to get the idea of doubling the strings but tuning them an octave higher to increase the pitch range of the instrument during normal playing – and make more sound! The standard way to tune a 12-string is to have the top two strings tuned to the same pitch (EE, BB) and all the others tuned in octaves (eE, aA, dD, gG). Notice that the higher pitched string is physically the higher of each pair. However, sometimes the G strings are tuned in unison. The reason for this is the tendency to snap the high G string because it is so thin.

If you find you keep breaking the G string, here are some remedies. If the guitar is lightly strung, this will be an 0.08 gauge string tuned up to the G above a guitar’s top E. A very thin string at high tension, this is the one that snaps most frequently. Some owners eventually get fed up with this and treat the G string the same as the top two strings, i.e. have two Gs at the same pitch. Alternatively, tune the entire 12-string a semitone or a tone below standard pitch. This relieves tension on the neck, lessens string breakage, and may make the guitar easier to play. Concert pitch can be restored with a capo at the first or second fret. (In the film Jimi Hendrix, released in the early 1970s, there’s a memorable sequence where Hendrix plays ‘Hear My Train a-Comin’ on a detuned 12-string.) 12-string guitars are great for arpeggio figures, played alone or for doubling a 6-string if you’re playing with someone else or recording a second guitar part.

You have to adapt your playing technique to a 12-string. Strike the pairs of strings evenly, especially if using a pick on single note runs or fingerpicking. (Some players who play folk-style on 12-string prefer fingerpicks). Change the angle of your pick slightly so you definitely get both strings sounding.

It’s normal to find barré chords more difficult. Playing barré chords on a 12-string requires more strength than on a 6-string. There’s more chance of a string lining up with a part of the underside of your fretting finger which is not making a good contact, so positioning can be awkward. To help, make sure the action on the guitar is set as low as possible (if in doubt take it along to a guitar repairer for adjusting – many music instrument shops have someone who does this). Moving to a lighter gauge of strings can also help, or even tuning a tone below concert pitch and then putting a capo on at the second fret. Otherwise, try substituting open string shapes for fretted shapes wherever possible, or use a capo to put the guitar into a better set of chord shapes for the key you’re playing in.

Here’s an idea for you…

People with large or chubby fingers often find that the strings on a 6-string are too close together, and that it is difficult to get chords to sound cleanly with all their notes. The fretting fingers keep touching the strings either side and muting them. Sometimes the answer is to adapt chord shapes by re-fingering them. In extremis, you could always buy a second-hand 12-string acoustic, take the extra six strings off and play it as a 6 string. The wider neck will give your fingers a bit more room.

Defining idea…

‘I find every guitar’s got a sound of its own and you can use them all and get something different out of each of them.’ Jimmy Page

How did it go?

Q   I’m not sure I can get used to this – there are too many strings!

A   The first time you strum an acoustic 12-string is a startling experience. First, the body is usually bigger than a 6-string. Second, and more important, there doesn’t seem to be any spaces between the strings. Your fretting hand tries to negotiate between the strings on the fretboard, and your strumming hand feels like it’s trailing across the strings on the inside of a piano. Fingerpickers will notice this even more, with the additional challenge of plucking two strings at once. Don’t worry – your fingers will get their bearings. When you first own one it makes a 6-string sound quite ordinary. Don’t worry – this effect does wear off! Then you come to appreciate the relative merits of both types of acoustic guitar.

Q   What about electric 12-strings?

A   Electric 12-strings combine the resonance of the acoustic version with the additional cut and sustain of amplification. They can be heard in mid-60s Beatles songs like ‘You Can’t Do That’ and ‘Ticket To Ride’, in the Byrds (most famously their cover of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’) and early R.E.M. The most well-known models are made by Vox, Fender and Rickenbacker. Many people associate the electric 12-string with the Gibson 6/12 doubleneck guitar, but that hybrid is a different (and heavier) beast with musical properties of its own.

49

The joy of bass

The pulsing, deep throb of the electric bass. You may have never consciously listened to it. But it’s there, in the depths, driving the groove of most songs.

Playing bass is a great way to extend your guitar skills. It provides new musical satisfactions and tunes in to a layer of your favourite music which you may have never noticed.

THE STORY OF DOUBLE BASS

Time for a story. Once upon a time there was a very fat but upstanding member of the string section of an orchestra, called Double Bass. Sometimes it was plucked and sometimes bowed. It gave out very low notes which supported the music’s harmony and kept the rhythmic pulse going. Double bass loved Viola, but Viola was attached to Cello. They and two violins amused themselves by forming a group called the ‘string quartet’. They went off to play music where they wouldn’t get overlaid by chirping woodwind or blasting brass or rolling timpani. Some even got together with the piano and formed a trio. But they wouldn’t let Double Bass into their group. The bass notes of the cello were deemed quite low enough, thank you.

So Double Bass got its revenge by moonlighting with a pianist and a drummer to play jazz in late night lounges. With plenty of alcohol on hand, it dropped its bow, got absolutely syncopated, played millions of notes, and dreamed of long-lost Viola. Here was consolation at least … but then a crazy new music called rock ’n’ roll happened. Suddenly everybody got louder. And in the mayhem Double Bass found people even trying to stand on it!

Then one night a man called Leo Fender came to Double Bass in a dream and said, ‘You have secret powers that I will release with electricity.’ Next day, Double Bass heard a rock ’n’ roll group rehearsing and dashed – superhero-like – into the nearest phone booth. There was a strange sound of the splintering of wood. Out stepped Electric Bass and his transistorised Chinese sidekick Am Pli Fier. He was ready to take on the whole world of rock ’n’ roll. ‘Oh goodness!’, exclaimed Double Bass’s flame Viola, ‘My, you’ve grown frets! And pick-ups! You’re no longer an upright instrument! And no one will try to climb on you anymore!’. And so Double Bass started its dual life as upright member of the orchestra and the superhero of throbbing low-pitched bass in all forms of popular music, and lived Happily Ever After.

So you see, the electric bass is hybrid in its character – partly looking to its orchestral self, and partly toward the guitar. The four strings of a bass are tuned E A D G, one octave lower than the six strings on a guitar. In practical terms this means that all you are familiar with on the lowest four guitar strings is transferable knowledge. The notes are in the same places on the bass. Scale patterns are the same too. Some riffs work moved over to the bass. And no one expects you to play an F chord!

Musically, playing bass involves two tasks: one is to supply the root notes of the chords to support the harmony. A bass player tries to find effective ways of doing this, for example linking the root notes together with passing (in-between) notes drawn from the appropriate scale. The second function is to be rhythmic, and lock into the drums. Traditionally this is where guitarists who take up bass come unstuck – they play too many notes and don’t think rhythmically enough.

You can learn bass lines from conventional notation or TAB. Most of the time you can groove playing one note at a time. Some players play chords. Some (like Jaco Pastorius) even turned the instrument back toward the upright bass by removing the frets, to play ‘fretless bass’. When you learn bass you will be amazed by how much classic bass lines contribute to a song without us noticing. You also learn a skill that can be used on your own song demos if you’re a songwriter.

Here’s an idea for you…

Many guitarists are familiar with a sheet music format called the chord songbook. These books give lyrics and chords for well-known songs. As long as you know the song, or have a recording of it, you can strum along. There’s no music to read. You can use these books/arrangements for bass playing. Simply read the chord names as root notes on the bass and try to play a few of each on the beat before proceeding to the next. This way you can start inventing simple bass lines.

Defining idea…

‘You’re the bass player, the bottom – you drive the band.’ Matt Freeman

How did it go?

Q   Should I play the bass with my fingers or with a pick?

A   You can play with either. Playing with fingers comes naturally to those who play fingerstyle guitar, especially classical (the ‘rest stroke’ hand position is very similar to the ‘hanging wrist’ shape for bass). Playing with a pick treats the bass more as a guitar. This suits a brighter, twangier bass sound with lots of sustain. Fingerstyle bass sounds better with the treble wound off and not too much sustain.

Q   Is it true there are acoustic bass guitars?

A   Yes. They don’t have the penetration or focused sound of the electric bass, but they are light, don’t need an amp and blend well with acoustic instruments such as guitar and mandolin.

Q   Is it true you can get basses with more than 4 strings – 5, 6, 7, 8 … 12!?

A   Yes, it is … but don’t let’s even go there!. Some of those necks are so wide you could throw them in the sea and land aircraft on them. I mean, if God had meant bass players to have more than 4 strings He would have … ah … erm … done something. Or not done something. Or made Leo Fender an octopus.

Q   My mate says there’s a brilliant Detroit duo who do play-along CDs for bass players, but can’t recall their name …

A   The White Stripes (ahem … joke).

50

Write a happy song

Have you got a song inside you? Many harbour the desire to write a song. It isn’t that difficult a thing to do, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people doing it!

You don’t need to be a great guitarist to write songs. An ear, a bit of creativity, a few chords, some words, and a little know-how to put it together … like this.

A song is made of lyric + melody + chords + tempo/rhythm. Any of these are a potential start point for a song. A song’s structure requires an intro, an outro, a verse and a ‘hook’. The intro sets the scene for when you start singing; the outro concludes. The verse makes the bulk of the song. Popular verse-lengths are 4, 8, 12, and 16 bars, with longer verses like 20 or 24 bars possible. The ‘hook’ is the bit of the song which lodges in the listener’s mind almost immediately, often lyrically the song’s title. A hook can be as short as a 1-or 2-bar phrase. When developed it becomes a separate section, the chorus. That chorus may itself have one specific bit which is a hook within a hook.

The most popular way to write a song is to begin strumming a chord sequence. This evokes a certain feeling or atmosphere, which inspires words and/or a melody. As far as choosing chords, you can find ones that relate by ear. The guitar’s eight master shapes (A, C, D, E, G, Am, Dm, Em) fit together well, although not usually all in a single song as they do not belong to one key. Each major key has seven chords, one for each note of the scale, labelled with roman numerals, I–VII. I, IV and V are always major; II, III and VI are always minor; VII is a diminished chord and rarely used.

Imagine writing a song in the key of C major. Its scale is:

I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII
C | D | E | F | G | A | B
maj | min | min | maj | maj | min | dim

Dropping the B (diminished), the six likeliest chords for a song in C are C, Dm, Em, F, G and Am. These chords go in any order, as long as the chord C isn’t made to sound less important than the others. Most songs end on the key chord, but otherwise you are free to do what you like. Try strumming each chord for four beats so they have one bar each, then create interest by remaining on a chord for two bars (8 beats) or even half a bar (2 beats only).

These chords also have first and second inversions. Counting the inversions means three ways of playing these six chords provides a resource of eighteen chords for a song. In addition, you can turn these chords into sevenths: Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7 and Am7. (This order of maj7–m7–m7–maj7–7–m7 is true for all major keys). For more harmony opportunities, lower chord VII by a semitone, in C major from B to Bb, and turn it into a major. This is the flattened VII chord for progressions like C–Bb–F–G. Now write some words and try humming them over the top of your chords. Your ear will guide you as to whether you have the right notes or not. My book How to Write Songs on Guitar deals with these issues.

Here’s an idea for you…

If you want to write a major key song but with a harder edge, for example a blues-rock influence, you can make some small adjustments to the chords you select. First, take out the three minor chords of the key. That leaves you with chords I, IV and V – in A major that is A, D and E – then bring in the b VII chord – in this case G. Then bring in the b III chord which here is C. Then further experiment by playing these chords as sevenths (A7, D7, E7, G7, C7), add9s or strummable fifths.

Defining idea…

‘When I first started writing songs I started using a guitar. The first one I wrote was … based on three chords – G, G7 and C.’ Paul McCartney

How did it go?

Q   Is it possible to create a song from only a bass line or a drum loop?

A   Yes. You can compose from a rhythm and/or a bass line and build the song from there, adding melody and chords later. This approach suits any popular music style where rhythm is king, especially if the song is constructed within the recording domain.

Q   Is there an advantage in writing the words or the melody first?

A   Words first is how many songs were written in the middle decades of the last century. The beauty of this is that it encourages you to write a good tune, and there is no more powerful hook than a strong tune. Some people find it easier to write melodies with a sheet of lyrics in front of them.

Q   I’ve written songs and they sound like rubbish versions of other people’s.

A   Don’t ask too much of your early efforts. Listen to what John Lennon and Paul McCartney were writing before 1963! A few write well and individually from early on, but the majority of songwriters write many songs before they get good at it and integrate their influences. Everyone has musical influences and people they admire. Learn from those people. Over time you gradually find your own voice and those influences get absorbed into what you do.

51

Write a sad song

Is it raining on your parade? Everyone likes sad songs. There have probably been more tear-soaked chart hits than happy songs. Songwriters will tell you its easier to write a sad song than a happy one.

You’ve written a song in a major key. So the next question is how to write one in a minor key. This is partly about a change of mood but also a change of chords.

IT’S MY CHORDBOOK AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO

Like the major key, each minor key has seven chords, one built on each note of the scale, numbered in roman numerals, I–VII. The minor complication (pun intended) is that there is more than one kind of minor scale. As a result you can have slight variations in the chords.

Imagine writing a song in the key of A minor. The most common form of the A minor scale in rock is the natural minor. Its scale is A B C D E F G giving the chords Am, B dim, C, Dm, Em, F, and. G. The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that these are the same chords as those in Idea 50 for C major, except in a new order. It is as though we have started at VI and turned it into the new I. The diminished chord is now II, which we discard. This leaves the six likeliest chords for a song in Am as Am, C, Dm, Em, F and G. These chords can be played in any order you like, as long as the chord Am remains the central one.

As with the previous example, if you need more ‘colour’ in the harmony these chords can be played in first or second inversion. Counting the inversions, this means you have three ways of playing each chord and six chords giving a resource of eighteen chords for this minor key song. The sevenths go like this: Am7, Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7 and G7. This sequence of maj7–m7– m7–maj7–7–m7 is true for all the minor keys when the natural minor scale is used as the basis for the chords. Turning the three minor chords here into minor sevenths will lighten the atmosphere, as in a romantic ballad or, at a quicker tempo, in a soulful shuffle. If you want to make the atmosphere of a minor key song more tragic try Amadd9 or Dmadd9, and to make it threatening as well as sad try Asus2 and Dsus2 along with Am and Dm, or Am6 and Dm6.

If you want to give the minor key song a stronger identity, and make more of a contrast with the harmony of the C major song, draw on the A harmonic minor scale (A B C D E F G#). Only one note is changed – G to G#, but that note changes chord V from Em to E, and you would sing G# against that E chord in your melody. If you play the chord sequence Am–Dm–E–Am you will hear how this E chord promotes and strengthens the feeling of the sequence being in a minor key. In addition, it is also permissible to bring in a D chord instead of Dm.

Here’s an idea for you…

It is an interesting challenge to work out how to write a sad song without using any minor chords at all. This is possible, and it makes you aware of what other factors lead one to hear a song as sad. Obviously the lyric will be a big factor, but in musical terms techniques that work involve slowing the tempo, using inverted chords (see Idea 12), altering major chords with extra notes, using sus2 and sus4 chords and fifths (see Idea 15) and making your melody as expressive as possible.

Defining idea…

‘It was my 16th birthday – my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do.’ Stevie Nicks

How did it go?

Q   How do I know which notes in the melody fit with my chords?

A   The simplest guide is your ear. Against any chord, the 1st, 3rd and 5th of that chord when sung will fit snugly. The other four notes of the scale give differing amounts of tension. Test this by playing a major chord and singing a major scale from that root note, slowly, one note at a time so you can hear the change from notes that sit in the chord to those that are outside it. If a melody only formed 1st, 3rd and 5th relationships with the chords underneath it would probably be too predictable and therefore dull. Tense passing notes add spice. My book Melody goes into more detail on this.

Q   If the same six chords feature in the C major happy song and the A minor unhappy one, what is the difference? Isn’t it only that their numbers have changed?

A   Their numbers have changed (in C major, an F chord was IV; in A minor it’s VI) which means more than just labelling. A change of numeral signals a change of intent and meaning. When Am is ‘being’ chord VI in C major it has a particular identity. When it is chord I in A minor it has another – it is now the most important chord in that key, around which the others revolve. It is the gravitational centre of the A minor key, and that musical gravitation affects the melody, words and mood of the song.

52

Listen to a new guitarist

Many great players have played the same basic instrument as you. Down the decades their recordings still sound, to amaze and inspire. It’s your inheritance.

So many different approaches have been taken with those six strings and that fretboard. These players shine like stars in their varying styles.

LOOK TO THE GUITAR CONSTELLATIONS

If ever you feel tired by the sound of the guitar it is more likely that you’re tired of the guitar being played in a particular manner. Refresh your outlook on the guitar by investigating recordings of other guitarists and guitar music.

Play Great Guitar began with the classical guitar. To sample the classical style listen to Andrés Segovia, John Williams and Julian Bream, who played music from many centuries, not all of it Spanish. Deeper in this repertoire lie the Preludes and Études of the Brazilian composer Hector Villa-Lobos, or guitar concertos like the Concerto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo.

For fingerstyle steel-string guitar try Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Martin Carthy – who came to fame in the 1960s playing ‘folk baroque’. Further back in the jazz field there’s Django Reinhardt. Singer-songwriter Nick Drake (Five Leaves Left) used many unusual tunings for his songs. America had John Fahey, Leo Kottke (especially for 12-string) and Stefan Grossman. The albums Crosby, Stills and Nash and Déjà vu are fine collections of harmony singing and altered guitar tunings.

Michael Hedges’ Aerial Boundaries was a landmark album for experimental acoustic guitar.

If blues is your thing, seek out Robert Johnson (King of the Delta Blues Singers), Leadbelly, Son House, and for electric blues Muddy Waters, Hubert Sumlin, the three kings – Albert, B.B. and Freddie – and more recently Stevie Ray Vaughan (Texas Flood). For mid-60s British blues check out Eric Clapton on John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers or Cream’s Disraeli Gears, Peter Green on Mayall’s A Hard Road or the Fleetwood Mac album Then Play On, or Jimmy Page on the first Led Zeppelin album.

If you like ‘jangle guitar’ – where the guitar parts are chordal, arpeggiated and rhythmic – listen to players like Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, Peter Buck with R.E.M. (Life’s Rich Pageant) or Johnny Marr with The Smiths (The Queen Is Dead). The electric guitar was taken in new directions by John McGeoch with Siouxsie and the Banshees (Ju-Ju), U2’s The Edge (The Unforgettable Fire) and Andy Summers of The Police (Synchronicity).

When it comes to early electric guitar a copy of The Shadows’ Greatest Hits will be full of not-too-difficult melodies. For lead guitar played fingerstyle sample the first Dire Straits album. According to TV documentaries Jimi Hendrix was a great guitarist because he wore funny clothes and set fire to his instrument. If this is your concept of Hendrix, grab a pair of headphones and immerse yourself in the soundscapes of Electric Ladyland. Don’t forget Carlos Santana who took electric lead into Latin American music.

After Hendrix, rock guitar was given a major stimulus by Eddie Van Halen’s pyrotechnical playing on Van Halen, where the technique called ‘tapping’ was popularised. This technical direction was developed by Al Di Meola, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai on albums like Passion and Warfare. Also highly proficient, but with a European jazz-rock approach, was Jan Akkerman of Focus (Moving Waves and Focus III). To prove you don’t have to be fast and/or clever to make memorable guitar music, what about Mick Ronson, Ron Wood and Neil Young? None are technical players but each had an individual tone. Listen to Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, The Faces’ A Nod’s as Good as a Wink, and Neil Young’s Harvest. Dave Gilmour’s slide and echo sound effects with Pink Floyd or Brian May’s guitar harmonies on early Queen albums (Sheer Heart Attack) are two more approaches.

Some guitar records exhibit great technique. But that’s not the only criteria. Great guitar playing is primarily great because it’s expressive. It’s where a guitar style – the notes, the tone – perfectly fits the music and the sense of what wants to be said.

Here’s an idea for you…

Another way to refresh your ear is to listen to music which is not guitar-based, especially outside the realm of popular music. The world of music is so much bigger than the things we tend to hear. Popular music only uses a tiny fraction of the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic possibilities that exist in the ‘classical’ field – especially in the music of composers working between 1890–1960. It is vital to listen to music that has a different ‘grammar’ to the generally short structure and phrasing of songs; it extends your sense of what music can be.

Defining idea…

‘… never stop listening to other players. You’ll never be as good as you want to be … and that’s the way to stay so you’re always open to being wowed by someone else.’ Peter Frampton

How did it go?

Q Is it true that playing along with CDs is a good idea?

A   Yes. It’s good for your technique, insofar as it forces you to keep time and keep up with the music. You can also try improvising lead, or substituting chord shapes, once you know a song. To make things easier, you can buy special portable CD players which allow you to plug your guitar in and put effects on. You can hear the CD and play along on headphones. They will even let you slow phrases down. Many rock guitar parts are just that: parts. They don’t work on their own; they need the whole song.

Q   Isn’t there a danger that if I listen to other players I won’t find my own style?

A   That’s a common fear, but misplaced. Very few players turn out to be originals – they are one or two in a million. Many more, however, manage eventually to develop their own ‘voice’ on the guitar. How? Most go through a phase of learning by listening carefully to and replicating the guitarists they enjoy. It sustains your enthusiasm when you’re grappling with the early technical challenges. Gradually, these influences are absorbed. But otherwise, if you just want to play like x or y, who cares? There’s nothing wrong in simply wanting to play your favourite guitar music so you can feel immersed in it.

The end…

Or is it a new beginning?

We hope that these ideas will have inspired you to try new things with your strings. We hope you’ve found some interesting tips and techniques that will help you take your playing to the next level. You may not be a guitar hero yet but you should be getting a lot more out of your instrument.

So why not let us know about it? Tell us how you got on. What did it for you – what really made your six-string sing? Maybe you’ve got some tips of your own that you’d like to share. If you liked this you may find we have more brilliant ideas for other areas that could help change your life for the better.

You’ll find us, and a host of other brilliant ideas, online at www.infideas.com.

Or if you prefer to write, then send your letters to:

Play great guitar

Infinite Ideas Ltd

36 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LD, United Kingdom

We want to know what you think, because we’re all working on making our lives better too. Give us your feedback and you could win a copy of another 52 Brilliant Ideas book of your choice. Or maybe get a crack at writing your own.

Good luck. Be brilliant.

Offer one

CASH IN YOUR IDEAS

We hope you enjoy this book. We hope it inspires, amuses, educates and entertains you. But we don’t assume that you’re a novice, or that this is the first book that you’ve bought on the subject. You’ve got ideas of your own. Maybe our author has missed an idea that you use successfully. If so, why not send it to yourauthormissedatrick@infideas.com, and if we like it we’ll post it on our bulletin board. Better still, if your idea makes it into print we’ll send you four books of your choice or the cash equivalent. You’ll be fully credited so that everyone knows you’ve had another Brilliant Idea.

Offer two

HOW COULD YOU REFUSE?

Amazing discounts on bulk quantities of Infinite Ideas books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations.

For details call us on:

+44 (0)1865 514888

Fax: +44 (0)1865 514777

or e-mail: info@infideas.com