Guitar Techniquesの May 2022 の目次

SIMON BARNARD Simon is a graduate of ACM and The Guitar Institute, holding a Masters degree in music. He teaches, examines and plays everything from rock to jazz. RICHARD BARRETT One of the most gifted guitarists around Richard has been playing with Tony Hadley for over 20 years. He’s great in all styles but excels at blues and rock. JON BISHOP Jon is one of those great all-rounders who can turn his hand to almost any style. He’s also rock legend Shakin’ Stevens’ touring and recording guitarist. MARTIN COOPER A tutor at BIMM Brighton, Martin’s Rock columns show an incredible breadth of technique and style. His 2006 album State Of The Union is out on iTunes. CHARLIE GRIFFITHS Guitar Institute tutor Charlie first came to fame in Total Guitar’s Challenge…

All audio and video lessons are available online via a bit.ly link (see below) where animated tab versions of every lesson can be found (the same as previously only available in our digital version). What’s more, you can view these on any type of computer, making for a much more rewarding experience. All the audio and video (backing tracks, lessons, masterclasses, etc) is also available to download to your computer (high or low res). Simply look for the red links on the landing page. Type the bit.ly link below into your browser to get to the GT page: https://bit.ly/3MUWVOq…

GT: What is it about guitar instrumentals that appeals to you? J5: I think it started with Eruption. Hearing that guitar solo. Then I would listen to other things like Roy Clark or Chet Atkins. And I was like, “Wow, there's no singer.” And I was so impressed by the fact that these were popular songs that had no singers. Another one is Frankenstein, by Edgar Winter, things like that. I was so taken aback by that. And I think that's what really started it with guitar instrumentals for me. GT: What can an instrumental provide that a vocal song can't? J5: I would say it’s much more difficult to get something across with just an instrumental song, but there's so many songs that have such amazing emotion and such…

DO WE FIND a chord progression starting with Bm-E7 and use our new chords as the starting point for a shiny substituted version? Or shall we just work with these two chords and see where we go? It actually turned into a kind of musical thought-experiment. We have this little two-note shape with two open strings… can we create a whole chord progression by just shifting it around? As a result, our ‘starting’ progression is contrived; it came after the fact! But this reverse process is good practice, broadening your harmonic awareness for future substitutions. HERE’S the basic shape. If you’re playing these chords with fingerpicking or in an arpeggio style, you’ll need to be aware that the bottom note is not the root! BM-E7 IS A pretty common chord…

We sure do appreciate Brett Garsed; Sizzle is his 15th track for GT over the past five years and it’s a corker, with a tight rock groove and tasty chord changes over which he plays stunning lead guitar. Sizzle is largely in the key of G Minor and clocks in at 105bpm. For his soloing palette, Brett mixes G Natural Minor scale (G-A-Bb-C-D-Eb-F) with the G Dorian mode that contains the same notes with the exception of a Major 6th (G-A-Bb-CD-E-F). Brett also adds the Diminished 5th interval (Db) for G Blues scale moments (G-Bb-C-Db-D-F). The track features plenty of harmonic movement and rhythmic syncopation, so while Brett states that he largely improvised, his playing was filmed and recorded after a few listens to get a handle on the feel,…

When someone says ‘street music’, invariably the first thing we think of is South America. There are countless styles of dance which developed historically through their rich and lively culture of street music that’s still present today. Brazil is famous for its samba and bossa nova, Cuba gave birth to the rumba and the salsa, Uruguay the milonga, but it is Argentina that is the home of this month’s dance: the tango, El Choclo by Argentinian street musician Ángel Villoldo. El Choclo is one of the most famous tangos from the vast repertoire of this dance style that exists today, with other notable tangos including La Cumparsita, by Gerardo Matos Rodrígue, and Por Una Cabeza, by Carlos Gardel. Often referred to as ‘the Father of tango’, Ángel Villoldo has also…

Brought to you by… Chris Cain is a legendary player on the American blues scene. A self-taught master, Chris was already playing professionally before he turned 18. He studied at San Jose City College and it wasn’t long until he was back there teaching jazz improvisation to the students. As well as being an accomplished guitarist, he also studied piano, bass guitar, saxophone and clarinet. His combination of blues guitar heritage and jazz studies led to him developing a sophisticated style that helped him cut above the competition. Cain’s father had introduced him to blues at an early age, growing up listening to Muddy Waters, Albert King, Ray Charles and others. He also saw the likes of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Johnny Winter in concert, who all contributed to…

Brought to you by… Buckethead, born Brian Carroll in 1969 is an enigmatic character and guitar virtuoso. Exploring a wide spectrum of genres, Buckethead’s music ranges from metal to avant-garde, experimental to bluesy, ambient and a whole lot more. He is highly proficient and often makes use of unorthodox sounds and techniques, from multi-fingered tapping, to hybrid picking, to slapping and popping, to shredding. Example 1 is a two-handed tapping idea that alternates the first and second fingers of each hand. You could start by tapping your picking and fretting hands to create an even pulse, then take things one step further by alternating between the first two fingers of each hand. This can be applied to the fretboard as hammer-ons, or in the case of lick 1, as pull-offs.…

Arthel Lane ‘Doc’ Watson was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina on March 3rd 1923. Blind from early age, he taught himself guitar on a cheap Stella acoustic and learned the music of his early country influences, the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers. Watson was a master fingerpicker and flatpicker and this column will focus on the plectrum side of his bluegrass playing. Watson began his career playing on street corners and soon joined a Western swing band. A large part of his early life was spent playing fiddle tunes on a Gibson Les Paul but moving to acoustic allowed him to create his signature sound on a more appropriate guitar. Remember that in the early days of country guitar the instrument was generally strummed as an accompaniment tool so…

Plus: A host of great players pick a top track and tell GT why they love him! MORE OF THE WORLD’S BEST LESSONS… FEATURE #2 VIDEO GEORGE MARINOS If You Will This brilliant young guitarist plays and explains a dazzling solo over Jason’s brand new track, If You Will. CLASSICAL TAB JOHANN STRAUSS II Il Pizzicato Polka Declan Zapala arranges this well loved orchestral piece for you to play on classical (or any other) guitar. FEATURE #3 10 ES-335 MONSTERS GT 335 special feature! What better way to celebrate GT’s issue 335 than with 10 of the great players of semi-solid electric guitar? NEW SERIES! REMI HARRIS Gypsy jazz for all Remi concludes his series showing you some of his favourite licks in this intoxicating guitar style. STYLE STUDIES &…

I DON’T USUALLY talk about gear in my GT editorial, but the topic this month is strings, and they are very closely allied to technique, when you think about it. It’s weird how diffferent examples of the same guitar can feel completely unalike. I have two main Strats, a red one with a rosewood fretboard that I keep at home, and a sunburst maple neck one that I use on stage. The red one has bigger frets but for some reason the strings feel more taut, to the extent that I recently restrung it with 009.5s to make bends a bit more slinky than with its usual .010s. Almost simultaneously my sunburst stage guitar, also usually strung with .010s, started to feel rattly and flappy. So I changed that one…

In every workshop I have done there is a conversation with at least one person who feels like they’re ‘not getting anywhere’. They’re falling out of love with the guitar because there’s little reward or feeling of accomplishment. This feeling is commonly found in students that have no goals, and rarely in those that know where they’re going. Figuring out what exactly you want to accomplish on the guitar is going to take some thinking. What do you practise that makes you feel great? Why did you pick up the instrument? What would you like to be able to do on the guitar in a year? In five years? Once you have a long-term goal sorted you should attempt to break it down into medium-term goals, things you would expect…

1 Groovin’ Blues-Rock Jam (A) We start with a simple 24-bar Blues in A. Try mixing A Major Pentatonic (A-B-C#-E-F#) with A Minor Pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G) to sound authentically bluesy. ? Slow Groove Jam (A) Here’s a fun groove jam in A. Use this to work on your funky rhythm guitar chops, as well as single-note and double-stop riffs. Make sure you focus on staying in the pocket, as the best players do. TIM MOSENFELDER / GETTY IMAGES 3 Smooth Groove Jazz-Blues (C) Here we have a jazz-blues style progression in C, with a beat instead of full-on swing. Head for C Major Pentatonic (same notes as A Minor Pentatonic), and add some C Minor Pentatonic (C-Eb-F-G-Bb) for extra bluesy vibes. Use D Harmonic Minor (D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C#) over the A7. 4 Slow…

PEGGY SMITH GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without? LM: The great Billy Gibbons gave me a couple of his picks made of pesos that I don’t leave home without. GT: If you had to give up all your pedals but three, what would they be? LM: Boss Blues Driver, Rocktron Auston Gold, Original Cry Baby GT: Do you play another instrument well enough to be in a band. And if so, have you ever done it? LM: No GT: If a music chart were put in front of you, could you read it? LM: Cheat sheets. GT: Do guitar cables really make a difference? What make are yours? LM: They make a difference, but none of them last no matter what. GT: Is…

Perfect for virtually all steel 6 string acoustic, electric or hybrid nylon string guitars. Print Only JUST £26.50 – EVERY 6 MONTHS Saving 34% Print + Digital Bundle JUST £34 – EVERY 6 MONTHS Saving 48% FREE WELCOME GIFT* TO ORDER ONLINE VISIT www.magazinesdirect.com/GTQ/A27C OR CALL 0330 3331113 AND QUOTE ‘A27C’ TERMS AND CONDITIONS: Offer closes 1 June 2022. Offer open to new subscribers only. Direct Debit offer is available to UK subscribers only. Advertised rates payable by 6 monthly Direct Debit. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery of your first subscription issue. The full subscription rate is for 12 months (13 issues) and includes postage and packaging. If the magazine ordered changes frequency per annum, we will honour the number of issues paid for, not the term…

I hope you’re enjoying the issue! It’s certainly been a heady mix of topics so far, from appraising the stunning guitar work of Eddie Van Halen to the return of the wonderful Brett Garsed (his 15th video performance for GT, that’s over a year’s worth of articles!) via a stimulating look at Allan Holdsworth’s validity for blues and jazz guitarists, and a gorgeous classical guitar piece composed by Angel Villoldo. A word of advice - don’t think for one moment that a classical piece can only be played on a nylon-string guitar. Numerous readers tackle and master these pieces on steel-string acoustics and electric guitars too. The sheer joy of playing wonderful polyphonic music should never be exclusive to nylon players, everyone should feel free to play this music too.…

Brought to you by… The Allman Brothers Band were formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1969 by guitarist Duane Allman and his keyboard playing brother Gregg. They were joined by guitarist and vocalist Dickey Betts, bass player Berry Oakley and drummers and percussionists Butch Trucks and Johanny Johanson. They incorporated elements of rock, blues, country and jazz into their early music and although their first two albums didn’t do well commercially, the band gained a lot of popularity with their third album Live At Fillmore East. Duane Allman notably played electric guitar on rock classic Layla, by Derek And The Dominoes, Wilsom Pickett’s cover of Hey Jude, and various other sessions. But he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971, shortly after the release of the At Fillmore East…

Brought to you by… Black Uhuru has had numerous line-up changes over the years, but it was from 1979 through to 1986 where the band featured famed reggae producers Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (Sly and Robbie). As well as being a successful reggae production team, Sly and Robbie were also an in-demand rhythm section, playing drums and bass respectively. A number of guitarists have held the six-string chair throughout Black Uhuru’s history, with probably the most well known being Mikey Chung, who played on the albums Anthem, Red and Chill Out. Black Uhuru’s current guitarist is Frank Stepanek, who made his first appearance with the band playing lead guitar on their 1986 album, Brutal. Black Uhuru is associated with the ‘rockers’ style of reggae, which is slightly different to…

Brought to you by… This month we’re looking at a chord progression that occurs in countless pop, jazz and blues tunes - the I-VI-II- V turnaround, a device that’s often used to end a verse and set up a return to the start of the next. Sometimes this progression will be used as an intro or vamp to solo over, and we’ll start by looking at the scales. In its simplest form, this progression is diatonic to the home key, meaning that all the notes from the chords come from the parent scale (here C Major). Our second example outlines the chords by using only the notes of their scales. In bar 2, I stay within A Aeolian but I use a line that sounds a little like a blues…

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 two 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.…

From time to time I find myself trapped on social occasions by an individual who professes to be a busy session guitarist. Having tried the various responses, such as incredulity, derision and manslaughter, I now merely listen politely, nod in agreement and attempt to engineer a subtle change of subject with, “These olives are exceptionally good, don’t you think?” I then make my excuses and leave. On returning home, I’ve been known to pick up the nearest instrument and produce a mellifluous rendition of C Sharp Minor Seventh With A Raised Eyebrow. It helps. The golden age of the studio scene occurred somewhere between 1960 and 1985 AD, according to historians and a fair number of banjo players. Allow me to take you back to when, according to studio legend…

SOMETIMES A SINGLE guitar line need a bit of support. We can achieve this by adding a harmony line. For decades, twin, or triple-guitar bands such as Wishbone Ash, The Allman Brothers, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden and others have done this to great effect. However, if you are the only guitarist in the band, there are lots of effective and playable single-guitar ideas you can create with double-stops. This month’s lick is a melodic line in A that has been harmonised using intervals from A Mixolydian: A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G. In bar 1, all the melody notes and underlying harmony are all A chord tones: A (1), C# (3), E (5). The resulting intervals in ascending vertical order are - C#-A (b6), E-C# (6), A-E (5th) and C#-A (b6). The idea continues in bars…

It’s a fascinating question to consider who influenced Eddie Van Halen. How did he develop his unique playing approach? Did he stumble across everything by accident? In this month’s feature we attempt to look at who some of those influences were, how they informed Eddie’s journey and how he then pushed those ideas forward to a whole new school of players. It is well documented that Eddie was a huge fan of the blues-rock icons of the ’60s and ’70s, and much of Van Halen’s songwriting approach is clearly grounded in this style. Eddie’s most commonly cited early guitar hero is Eric Clapton; in interviews he always cited EC as his great early inspiration, but he was also a great fan of Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore and indeed Allan Holdsworth.…

Allan Holdsworth’s playing was simply staggering. He had access to an immensely sophisticated harmonic, rhythmic and melodic vocabulary that was steeped in the tradition of jazz and also assimilated elements of rock, fusion, funk, blues and even classical harmony, but the end result was undeniably his own. Allan was a special artist indeed, with a unique approach to music and one of the most recognisable sounds in guitar from the late ’60s until his passing on 15th April 2017. Born 1946 in Bradford, Yorkshire, it’s widely known that Holdsworth didn’t really ever want to play the guitar, preferring the sound of the saxophone but when practical considerations got in the way (his parents couldn’t afford one!) he turned his attentions to the guitar, albeit without the intrinsic connection to the…

Brought to you by… EXAMPLE 1 EASY LICKS ALBERT HAMMOND JR Chord tones are a great tool for building strong, memorable melody lines. This exercise features diads (double-stops) along the first and second strings, that use the notes from each corresponding chord change. Take your time with the picking pattern as the two consecutive upstrokes may feel less confident than the two downstokes. Use your bridge pickup to get a bright, present tone. Then, add a touch of gain to get the gritty, sustaining notes. EXAMPLE 2 EASY LICKS JOSH HOMME Start by familiarising yourself with the patterns of fretted and muted notes. Each mute is achieved by relaxing the fretting fingers until pitches become more like percussive scratches. This is important as it allows the picking hand to stay locked into the…

Missed one of our recent fabulous issues? Get one now while stocks last. SPRING GT333 ROCK THE ‘80S The 1980s saw huge strides in guitar styles and techniques. We look at the great players that led the charge. Plus: style studies with Prince, Bob Marley, Orianthi and more. Fascinating Q&As with Joe Satriani and Frank Gambale. APRIL GT332 GO GLOBAL! Add new flavours to your playing with 10 cool scales from around the world. Dan Patlansky blues-rock video masterclass; new Gypsy Jazz series; play two Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram style solos; Joe Pass intros/endings. Plus much more! MARCH GT331 FLY ROUND THE FRETS! Jamie Humphries brings you a superb lesson looking at how rock legato techniques have changed over the decades. It’s a great feature! Plus Jimi meets Jazz over the…

Brought to you by… We’ll continue building our library of gypsy jazz vocabulary by learning more licks in the key of D Major. Tunes from the gypsy jazz repertoire often played in this key, include the everpopular Coquette, Daphne, Manoir de Mes Rêves (also known as Django’s Castle), Belleville and Them There Eyes. The D Major parent scale contains the notes D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#, but look out for the passing notes used in the Examples. Example 1 looks at how we can target chord tones of Dmaj7 via passing notes. It also looks at introducing chromaticism and the use of the colourful b6 interval. The next Example stays with Dmaj7 but uses the second CAGED position, looks at sounding the tasty 12th-fret 9th note (E), and a cool ‘enclosure’ around the 3rd…