Inhaltsverzeichnis für October 2018 in Guitar Techniques

SHAUN BAXTER One of the UK’s most respected music educators, Shaun has taught many who are now top tutors themselves. His Jazz Metal album is considered a milestone. RICHARD BARRETT One of the finest blues and rock guitarist we know, Richard is a stalwart columnist for Total Guitar, Guitarist and GT. He’s also Tony Hadley’s touring six-stringer. JON BISHOP Jon is one of those great all-rounders who can turn his hand to almost any style. No ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’, he nails every one with ease!. MARTIN GOULDING One of the world’s foremost rock and metal guitarists, Martin teaches for dime-online.org and has written for many of the world’s top guitar mags. CHARLIE GRIFFITHS Guitar Institute tutor Charlie first came to fame in Total Guitar’s Challenge…

“THERE’S BLANK CHORD BOX PAPER ON MY SITE; I SUGGEST YOU PRINT A FEW PAGES TO WRITE DOWN YOUR DISCOVERIES” In this article, I thought I’d share with you something that only mentally clicked with my brain recently, but that my ear had figured out some time ago – something of a ‘secret ingredient’ that all the coolest chords have. And that secret is, that beautiful sounds often (but not always) rely on some dissonance. Dissonance, for those not familiar with the term, means, “a tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonious or unsuitable elements” and musically this would mean adding some notes that don’t harmonise ‘nicely’. We’ll play some dissonant note pairs shortly and you’ll hear them for yourself. Rather than just tell you about it,…

See in the first two bars how I have used the same eighth-note, 16th-note triplet rhythm idea. During the first three beats of bars 1 and 2 the triplets are the same notes - A-F#-E in bar 1 and E-D-B in bar 2. The only note that differs is the one found on each eighth-note downbeat. On paper this looks almost too simple. But when you try it up to speed you may find it tricky. I have given my fingering, involving only three fingers, but feel free to amend. This lick uses Bm Pentatonic (B-D-E-F#-A) throughout; the point being to show how changing just one note can create movement. Look at the‘down’beat notes to see how in bar 1 they are B-D-A-F# and in bar 2 F#-A-E-D; this pattern…

RELATING TAB TO YOUR FRETBOARD HAND LABELLING Here are the abbreviations used for each finger: Fretting hand: 1, 2, 3, 4, (T) Picking hand: p (thumb), i (first finger), m (second), a (third), c (fourth). NUT & FRETBOARD The fretbox diagram above represents the fretboard exactly, as seen in the accompanying photo. This is for ease of visualising a fretboard scale or chord shape quickly. CHORD EXAMPLE The diagram represents the G chord in the photo. The ‘O’ symbol is an open string, and a circled number is a fretting finger. Intervals are shown below. CHORD EXAMPLE (WITH CAPO) The blue line represents a capo – for this A chord, place it at fret 2. Capos change the fret number ordering – here, the original fret 5 now becomes fret…

PICTORIAL PRESS / ALAMY A few years back I attended a live Jimmy Page interview with The Guardian’s music editor Michael Hann at the Cadogan Hall, London. Jimmy was there to talk about his new photographic autobiography, detailing his experiences during his time with Led Zeppelin. Even though I’d been a fan since the age of 14 (after sneaking off school with my friend to listen to his older brothers’ record collection), I was still amazed at the reverence towards him that the audience displayed. You could have heard a pin drop; there was no coughing, no shuffling, no mobile phone interruptions. Nobody even left their seat. I wondered who else could command similar levels of admiration and respect - certainly no politician that’s for sure! “IT WOULD NOT BE…

This has been an interesting journey for me as I started with extremely light strings. I’m not sure what the low strings were but the high E was a .008. I took four lessons from a local teacher when I was about 12 and he put the light gauge on after he tried the fencing wire that I had on the guitar initially. He said it would make it easier for me as a beginner and he was right. I gradually moved to .009s and stayed there for a few years but eventually slide guitar took more priority so I moved to .010 - .048 and used that gauge up until the mid‘90s when I went to .011 - .052. Seeing as I prefer to play slide in standard tuning…

Barre chords can be tiring for the fretting hand. Strength is needed to hold down all six strings, especially when the remaining fingers are needed for additional notes. But often not all six string are needed under a barre, so try working on pressing down different combinations of strings. For example, when playing the C chord in bar 68 here you need only fret the sixth, second and first strings so the first finger can have a slight curve and press down in just two places; near the fingertip and the base of the finger. This requires a lot less pressure than pressing down all six strings.…

HARRY HERD / GETTY IMAGES Josh Smith was just three years old when he was given his first guitar. At six he started taking lessons and quickly became obsessed with the blues, listening to Muddy Waters, BB King and T-Bone Walker every available minute of the day. Being exposed to these lush sounds alongside regular lessons shaped the young Smith, by all accounts, into an unstoppable guitar-playing force. Growing up he was always striving to play with serious and like-minded musicians, but at 12 years old this was pretty difficult, as you can imagine. Once Josh had graduated from high school in 1997 the touring began, hitting the road with his own power trio, Josh Smith and The Frost. This is when he started to work on his vocal and…

ROB VERHORST / GETTY IMAGES Mike Stern’s resume is a who’s who of jazz. Miles Davis, Billy Cobham, The Brecker Brothers, Jaco Pastorius and hosts of others. He’s featured in collaborations with John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Lee Ritenour and Eric Johnson and he also keeps in touch with up-and-coming players, so keep your eyes peeled for a recording with French Gypsy jazz virtuoso Adrien Moignard. At last count, Mike had recorded 17 albums as bandleader and he’s consistently either touring the world or performing around New York, his hometown for many years. You’d be hard pushed to find a musician as enthusiastic as Mike. He bounds with energy and radiates passion and joy whenever he has a guitar in his hands. Even his accident in 2016 when he sustained damage…

DAVID LYTTELTON In this current series, we’re looking at ways of using various intervals to create a variety of medium-paced ideas to expand your Mixolydian vocabulary. Last issue we looked at the smallest intervals (minor and major 2nds) so today we take the next logical step by looking at major and minor 3rds. Intervals are a great way of developing approaches that have distinct flavours. Each interval-type has its own innate character, and this is something that we can use to our advantage in order to control the musical complexion of what we do when improvising. Compared to other intervals, 3rds (like their inversion, 6ths) sound soft, sweet, melodic and form the basis of Western harmony (tertiary harmony). Technically speaking, 3rds come in two types: minor 3rd = three semitones…

Try a clean tone with compression, chorus and reverb on the chordal examples, and practice the lead ideas using a warm overdriven tone, as it’s one of the best ways to monitor the effectiveness of your muting. The overdriven sound is also the tone of choice for many popular contemporary styles. This type of tone will lend a more fusion orientated sound when using some of the jazz-based concepts we’ll be covering, and easily integrate with your existing blues and rock vocabulary.…

WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN MICHAEL ROMEO WAR OF THE WORLDS PART 1 Music Theories Recording ★★★★★ For fans of neo-classical shred, and indeed of guitarists like UIi Jon Roth and Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Romeo’s Symphony X was a real joy with blazingly exotic guitar lines aplenty plus strong compositions. With the 10 tracks featured on War Of The Worlds Prt 1 (Part 2 due soon), Romeo demonstrates that his Caparison guitar and Engl amps provide plenty of fuel for his chops. Opener, Introduction is a lush orchestral piece that shows both his soundtrack influences (John Williams’ softer Star Wars themes, etc) to modern, progressive metal leanings. It’s a heady start, crisply produced and cinematically executed. Fear The Unknown features a crushing 16th-note riff - Romeo can pick! - with a…

Guitar Techniques’ 50 Tips to... ELECTRIC MASTERY! They say the best way to improve anything is in small steps, one at a time. Our 50 Tips To Electric Mastery is designed to hone all your skills, boosting picking, bending, legato, Pentatonics and Blues scale, speed, and a whole lot more! FEATURE #2 REGGAE GUITAR Rock steady, Marley & more We examine the many sides of reggae in perhaps the most in-depth article on the subject ever in a guitar mag. CLASSICAL TAB ROBERT LOWRY How Can I Keep From Singing Bridget transcribes this moving hymn, written by Lowry, adapted by Pete Seeger and adopted by Quakers... FEATURE #3 BRETT GARSED Solos over Back In The Day A gorgeous clean slide solo from our Aussie guitar hero, fully tabbed…

EVERY MONTH IN our Sixty Seconds With... Q&A we ask the question, ‘Do you have a pre-show warm-up routine?’ The responses vary from the relatively dismissive, ‘No, I just get on stage and play’, to pretty detailed descriptions covering how they relax, stretch, exercise, get the mind in the right place, have a beer, a chat with the band, the scales played and vocals practised. So this month we asked Jacob ‘Quist’ Quistgaard, who’s extremely busy gigging all over the world with Roxy Music front man Bryan Ferry, to provide us with as complete a warm-up routine as possible. The kind of thing that would set the fingers up for even the toughest show. Jacob runs through four musical styles - rock, blues, jazz and classical - and provides some…

A man goes into a shop to buy a packet of salt. Every shelf from floor to ceiling is crammed with nothing but Sodium Chloride of all types and in every conceivable size. In fact, there appears to be nothing else available from this particular emporium. He completes his purchase but feels compelled to ask the owner about his remarkable one-product range and whether he sells huge quantities of salt. “Me? Not really. I can sell two, maybe three packets per week. In a good month, a dozen packs, tops. But the guy that sells me salt - boy, can he sell salt…” Due to the debatable career choice made in my yoof after careful indecision (and currently residing in my bulging “It-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time” file), I appear to have acquired a…

➊ B minor blues We start with a blues jam in the key of B minor, with a basic turnaround progression similar to that of the BB King classic, The Thrill Is Gone. Use B Minor Pentatonic (B-D-E-F#-A), B Minor (B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A) and B Harmonic Minor (B-C#-D-E-F#- G-A#) as your go-to scales. Arpeggios: Bm (B-D-F#), Em (E-G-B), Gmaj7 (G-B-D-F#) and F#7 (F#-A#-C#-E). ➋ Acoustic blues (G) Here’s a fun raw and acoustic blues in G. It basically riffs in G and then occasionally goes up to the IV chord (C). Use G Minor Pentatonic (G-B b -C-D-F) and G Minor blues scale (G-B b -C-C#-D-F) for a start - and then try mixing in some G Major Pentatonic (G-A-B-D-E) for a more Mixolydian sound. ➌ G whole tone jam This quirky…

Over the following pages we will explore four warm-up exercises, drawn from four different musical genres that are all popular in GT: rock, blues, jazz and classical. The idea here is that while the chromatic ‘spider’ warm-up is and always has been a solid warm-up exercise, there’s no saying we can’t use more musical patterns to create much more interesting work-outs. Using cool licks or musical ideas and concepts as warm-ups will not only gain us new playing vocabulary; but stepping up the level of effort you put into your warm-ups and workouts will also bring several other benefits. First of all, warming up properly is a really, really great way to prevent ailments, whether from sudden odd movements or repetitive strain when playing. Warming up helps guard you against…

The key thing to remember here is that the slide must be placed directly above the fret to avoid sounding flat, and not behind where you would normally place your finger. The next issue is damping. Damp (mute) behind the slide by laying your first finger parallel to the slide on the strings, this controls unwanted harmonics. Damp in front of the slide by using a combination of palm muting and “finger guarding” (as Sonny Landreth describes it). This is achieved by resting your unused picking hand fingers directly onto the strings above the string you are playing to prevent them from sounding as you move the slide.…

LICK 1 Bars 16-17 – 16th-note legato lick Brett uses this style of phrase all the way through the solo so it’s worth getting to grips with how he articulates these. The use of position shifts, finger slides and hammer-ons and pull-offs are all key to the sound. Lick 2 Bar 48 – Three-note repeating lick This idea is one that Brett is fond of and uses a repeating group of threesemiquaver notes. As there are four semiquavers per beat, the start of the pattern shifts around within the bar and this superimposes a cool syncopated feel. This style of idea can be repeated for as long as you wish. LICK 3 Bars 63-64 – Quarter-note triplet phrasing This lick helps to release a bit of tension after all the…

Many years ago the great Paul Gilbert told me his licks were starting to sound the same to him, regardless of the many variations he was developing. In short, he had realised his hands were like a high performance car - he could blaze for days - but where should he go with it? It’s a fair point; a guitarist might culminate at some point into a great musician after prolonged study and practice. So what was once musically inspiring and baffling becomes manageable, meaning the grass on the other side is now no longer quite as green. Furthermore, the initial context may not matter once that musical awesomeness has been secured. For example, David Bowie’s ’90s guitarist, Reeves Gabrels once talked of wanting to acquire technique chops akin to…

His Chapin T-style guitar is Josh’s main axe but you can also find him sporting a Strat, Les Paul or 335. He’s fond of overdrive, fuzz and octave pedals, and gets great Leslie sounds from his Eventide H9. Amp-wise he prefers‘blackface’style Fenders with a Vox alongside (or Morgan’s take on these classics). Go for a vintage valve amp sound with Tube Screamer-style overdrive and any of the wobble-type effects you may have. Don’t overdo the gain but get the power from digging in.…

HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES Following on from last month and carrying on our examination of the great Nashville style guitarists, in this issue we are looking at ‘The Alabama Wild Man’, Jerry Reed. A friend and regular co-writer with Chet Atkins, Reed is a legend in the world of fingerpickers. His signature funky style is probably best described as ‘musical gumbo’ – drawing from country, blues, jazz and so much more. Everything he played was infectious and driven by an unbelievable groove. Jerry Reed was born in Atlanta, Georgia on March 20th, 1937. He took up guitar as a child and by 19 was a professional musician and songwriter – one of his first successes came in 1958 when rockabilly legend Gene Vincent covered his track Crazy Legs. A…

ZUMA PRESS / ALAMY Welcome to this month’s column on developing fretboard fluency, with the first in a four-part series exploring extended harmony. Starting off with our basic tonic major 7 chord, we’ll work through the major 9 and major 13 forms arranged in five shapes. We’ll then study two approaches for creating extended arpeggios: the first – simply adding the triad from the next consecutive scale degree to our basic major 7 arpeggio; and the second – superimposing other arpeggios from the key. In addition to our extended chords and arpeggios, we’ll also be looking at some of the other common four-note forms such as the major add 9 and major 6th, which we can use to add colour to the basic tonic chord tonality. Throughout the lesson, we’ll…

PATRICK FORD / GETTY IMAGES Last month we introduced the tritone interval and used it in a variety of musical settings both melodically and harmonically. The tritone is an interval spanning three whole tones, or you could think of this as two notes six semitones apart. If you already know a root-5th powerchord, you can start with that, then drop the higher note down one semitone. When played simultaneously, these two note create a dissonant and dramatic sound which can have a lot of applications in various genres. This month we will focus on using the tritone double-stop as a chord fragment. These two notes can be seen as a fragment of either a diminished chord, or as part of dominant chord. The first example is inspired by Robert Fripp’s…

ALTER BRIDGE LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL Napalm ★★★★★ The arena rockers’ shows at London’s most prestigious venue had a real celebratory air, with Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy’s illustrious playing duelling away with the Parallax Orchestra’s epic backing. On record the sheer density of Alter Bridge’s rocking sound doesn’t quite allow the strings and horns the same limelight, the orchestral stuff only really coming to the fore on the quieter In Loving Memory and Watch Over You. But there’s no denying the impact of both these great players working in unison on the majestic closing duo of Blackbird and Open Your Eyes.…

Tap the links Finding your way around the magazine is easy. Tapping the feature titles on the cover or the contents page, takes you straight to the relevant articles. Any web and email links in the text are tappable too! Animated tab & audio All the mag’s main lessons have the audio built in with a moving cursor that shows you exactly where you are in the music. Simply tap the ‘play’ button and you’re off - you can fast-forward or scroll back at will. Play the videos Certain articles have accompanying videos full of useful insight and additional information. Once again, tap the play buttons to enjoy video masterclasses on your iPad (recommended) or smartphone. PLUS! Get a FREE iPad/iPhone sample of GT. For full details and how to…

GT: What is it about guitar instrumentals that appeals? DM: Being a guitarist I would say there is no better instrument to interpret a solo piece, mainly because of the range in pitch and six-part polyphony. Some pianists might argue. Hi Jason Rebello! GT: What can an instrumental provide a listener that a vocal song can’t? DM: I think instrumentals can provide a more subliminal narrative, making for a more interactive dialogue with the listener. When I hear instrumentals I create my own stories and connect with the player and composer. GT: Are there any tendencies that you aim to embrace or avoid, such as rhythms, harmony, playing approach, tones? DM: Taking away all ego (which is hard for us lot), just tell the story and only shred if entirely…

A FIRST FOR EGGLE GUITARS is the signature Tony Iommi Artist model that naturally draws its inspiration from Tony’s famous Gibson SG. Although the body shape is slightly offset and the trademark Eggle headstock is employed this black beast of a guitar really looks the part. Whether you go for the standard dotted ebony fretboard or the‘cross’inlaid version (at extra cost) the weight of the Brazilian mahogany neck and body makes it feel a very substantial‘beast’. THE BBC BEGINS REGULAR DIGITAL AUDIO Broadcasting (DAB); the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) format is announced; Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station is now supplying energy to the National Grid; Yahoo! is founded; eBay comes into existence and Windows 95 is released by Microsoft. IN THE MIDST OF THE BRITPOP REVOLUTION with Oasis and Blur…

With pre-show warm-ups you can’t predict what time you’re going to get. There might be other acts on, so you get a song or two and you’re off. But at home, warming up and practice need dedicated time and, if possible, your own space free of distractions. Get a cup of tea or glass of water; set up your metronome or jam track and allocate a few minutes to each exercise. Make it a ritual. Start slowly, and look for accurate note creation: don’t gloss over mistakes; go back and nail them. Gradually up the tempo but only when you can play the exercise perfectly. Thirty minutes, then a five-minute break, then another 30 minutes is ideal. You’ll see change in no time!…

This month sees our sixth instalment of our jumbo eight-part video master class series with Australian legato legend Brett Garsed. This time we are turning up the fun factor with a medium-paced backing track to navigate as we look at tackling Jason’s track entitled King Bee. As Brett explains this one doesn’t have so many chord changes, making it a good fun jam. The tonality is mainly B Natural Minor (B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A) for the verse and chorus and then shifts to a rather nice F Lydian style sound in the bridge. F Lydian (F-G-A-B-C-D-E) is the fourth mode of the C Major scale. This means they share the same notes so you can simply play the notes of the C Major scale and get the same effect. We have written out…

“BY HIS UNTIMELY DEATH BARELY IN HIS 30S, SCHUBERT HAD COMPOSED OVER ONE AND A HALF THOUSAND WORKS” For this latest classical guitar arrangement we return to the work of one of the ‘greats’, the astoundingly prolific Austrian composer Franz Schubert. By his untimely death barely in his 30s, Schubert had composed over one and a half thousand works. These included 20 string quartets, seven symphonies, several masses and – perhaps his most enduring legacy - over 600 songs for piano and voice. The work rate to achieve this (not to mention with beautiful pensmanship) beggars belief. In one year alone he composed over 20,000 bars of music (half of them for orchestra). During his short lifetime, the general public and music community did not quite catch up with his…

EASY LICKS EXAMPLE 1 JACK JOHNSON CD TRACK 28 Approach this example assigning a thumb and fingers to the fifth, fourth, third and second strings, and slapping the guitar on beats 2 and 4 (x in the tab) to create a consistent, percussive rhythm. When this has been achieved, move the fretting hand up and down to voice the chord changes. EASY LICKS EXAMPLE 2 ACE FREHLEY CD TRACK 29 Attitude is what gave Kiss their huge success, and the ability to creat cool, the relevant places with the fretting hand, delivering plenty of attitude on the catchy riffs. Using a light rock overdrive, play the A5 chord steadily muting in G-D chord changes and dig into the lick at the end of the idea. INTERMEDIATE LICKS EXAMPLE 3 JIMMY…

LIVEPIX One of the most innovative bands of the past 25 years Radiohead has notched up over 30 million album sales, while receiving ongoing commercial and critical acclaim for their ever-evolving style. Having only a cursory listen to their 1995 classic The Bends and then to the opening track of Kid A will show how much the band has pushed its own artistic boundaries, as well as the listening boundaries of its fans. Maybe some albums are hailed as classics more than others, but there are gems to be found on each release; in fact they pretty much have a record to suit every mood within their catalogue. Formed in Oxford, England in 1985 the band consists of vocalist-guitarist Thom Yorke, guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien, bassist Colin Greenwood…

LIVEPIX While best known as a fine singer and songwriter with hits including I Can’t Make You Love Me and Nick Of Time, Bonnie Raitt is also a highly respected slide guitarist. BB King called her, “The best damn slide player working today”. The California born guitarist made her debut in 1971 and has recorded 17 albums since. Her major breakthrough was 1989’s multi-million seller, Nick Of Time, but follow-ups Luck Of The Draw and Longing In Their Hearts sold fabulously too, and featured some of her biggest singles. Her unique mix of blues, folk and country has earned her 10 Grammy awards, a Hollywood Walk Of Fame star and a host of other accolades. Slide has been at the heart of the mix from the start. Bonnie took up…

The maj9 and maj13 chords are commonly used as resolving tonic chords in jazz, most notably in the context of a II-V-I progression, which forms the backbone of many standards. To hear this progression in action, along with extended chords, arpeggios and chromatic enclosure lines, check out some of the great jazz guitar recordings including: Visits Paris by Jimmy Raney (1954), Nothing But The Blues by Herb Ellis (1957), The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (1960), Virtuoso by Joe Pass (1973) and Live by Jim Hall (1975).…

SEPTEMBER GT286 PLAY BETTER ACOUSTIC Summer still brings us blazing days and balmy evenings so what better time to up your acoustic chops with 50 Tips To Acoustic Mastery, Acoustic Blues In Three Tunings, super takes on Amazing Grace and Oh When The Saints... plus all your electric regulars! AUGUST GT285 CRANK UP YOUR BLUES! Using three, as opposed to two-notes-per-string licks will add slickness and sophistication to your blues. Learn the licks of five of Nashville’s hottest players. Plus: Ray Davies, Paul Kossoff, Abide With Me, Robert Fripp, Nile Rodgers, Brett Garsed, and more! JULY GT284 WIZARDS OF OZZY! We took Ozzy Osbourne’s axemen as perfect examples of how rock guitar has evolved. Top solos in the style of each player provide a history lesson in rock guitar! More…

“I’M USING A 1959 ES-335 REISSUE AS MY MAIN GUITAR, A NON-REVERSE FIREBIRD WITH THREE P90S AND A GOLDTOP LES PAUL, ALSO WITH P90S” GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without? DD: I’ve always used Herco 76s. I found one in my pocket and I’ve been using it ever since. The other ones I tried don’t feel right. GT: If you had to give up all your stompboxes but three, which ones would they be? DD: I’d keep my Moog Drive because it has a great tone and I like that it has a frequency knob. Earthquaker Dispatch Master has a great long reverb, and of course the Digitech Whammy - I like the octave and harmony sounds. When I’m playing with John Carpenter…