Innehållsförteckning för December 2015 från Guitar Techniques

RICHARD BARRETT One of the best players around, Richard is adept at most styles but truly excels in the bluesier side of rock. He currently plays with Spandau’s Tony Hadley. 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. 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! PHIL CAPONE Phil is a great guitarist who specialises in blues and jazz. He teaches at ICMP in London, writes for GT and Total Guitar and has published 10 top tuition books. LES DAVIDSON Les has worked with Mick…

DYING SWAN? I was looking forward to Bridget’s transcription of The Swan and then I saw the queer key she had chosen. Have most people got the time to detune five strings from standard tuning, never mind the repercussive out-of-tuneness problems on cheap guitars when going back to normal tuning. So here’s my tip for anybody tackling this: play it in E major by tuning the A to B and the G to G#. Life’s too short! Alan Beecroft Bridget replies: Alan, your way would also need the D tuned up to an E, as well as the A to B and G to G#. I don’t mind tuning the G up to G# but I don’t want to tune the A and D strings up a whole tone; it’s…

›Boogie Blues (A) You can play with this John Lee Hooker inspired jam in A using regular tuning or take the plunge and tune to an open A chord (E-A-E-A-C#-E), enabling you to riff along and maybe even break out your slide finger! For scales, try mixing A minor Pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G) and A major Pentatonic (A-B-C#-E-F#), perhaps adding some A Mixolydian (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G) and A Dorian (A-B-C-D-E-F#-G) for extra flavour. › Swinging Jazz Blues (Em) First part has the rhythm guitar but before long there’s no rhythm part, leaving you lots of space to comp, solo or both. Use E minor Pentatonic (E-G-A-B-D), E Blues (E-G-A-Bb-B-D) and the E Minor scale (E-F#-G-A-B-C-D). For the C7 chords you can use C Lydian dominant (C-D-E-F#-G-A-Bb) and for B7 I’d suggest E Harmonic minor…

JAMES FORTUNE / REX ROBERT KNIGHT / GETTY IMAGES ABILITY RATING In the two previous articles we explored the concepts of alternate and economy picking and how these techniques could provide increased speed and accuracy. In this final instalment, the focus is less about velocity and more about versatility – as well as showing how hybrid picking needs to be an essential part of your technique. Hybrid picking is basically a mix of fingerstyle and plectrum techniques where your remaining picking hand fingers don’t just huddle round the pick but are also used to sound the strings, opening up a whole new world of possibilities. Like any other technique, hybrid picking evolved over time rather than being ‘invented’ by one specific player. Over the decades there have been many famous…

EASY LICKS EXAMPLE 1 BO DIDDLEY CD TRACK 38 Striking the strings with attitude, using a loud but clean‘just braking up’sound will reproduce the tone of Bo Diddley. Add the importance of the‘scratchy thing’ (as he so quaintly described it) to get this simple but effective rhythm and blues riff style. EASY LICKS EXAMPLE 2 JOHNNY MARR CD TRACK 39 Pick these treble-string triads in a loose calypso-type feel with a short slide into the first note in this example. If desired, accompany with some deeply dark and ironic lyrics to recreate the perfect Smiths soundalike. Single-coils are your best friend sonically with reverb, chorus and delay to taste. INTERMEDIATE LICKS EXAMPLE 3 JEFF TYSON CD TRACK 40 Jeff Tyson was one of Joe Satriani’s guitar students and he had…

ABILITY RATING Welcome to the fourth and final part of our Nigel Price video masterclass. In this article we’re going to look at Nigel’s way to play over a jazzy minor blues. To make the most out of this final encounter we decided to play a blues in bossa feel in order to see how Nigel approaches playing on a straight groove. The result is, again, tasteful playing of the highest calibre. A pleasure to listen to. Before we start looking at Nigel’s solo, let’s talk about the minor blues structure and clarify what we mean. In jazz there are many possible ways to play a minor blues. Some blues are very simple harmonically and feature only three chords: Im-IVm-V (or Vm). Others are a bit more colourful and intricate.…

ABILITY RATING While singer Don Dokken has enjoyed his share of guitar legends since his band’s formation in 1978, it was George Lynch whose playing defined the band’s classic 80s sound. This started with the release of 82’s Breaking The Chains and continued until 1987 with Back For The Attack. George was armed with a bag of tricks to rival Van Halen, making him an instant 80s guitar hero and led to an audition with Ozzy Osbourne where Randy Rhoads narrowly pipped him to the post. After an acrimonious split Dokken reformed in 1992 although George and Don enjoy an on-off relationship these days. The band is still active and features Jon Levin on guitar, whose playing is clearly influenced by childhood hero, Lynch. George was perfect Dokken, where heartfelt…

ABILITY RATING This month we will continue to combine the various reading elements we have studied previously in this series into a single piece of music that, hopefully, you can follow from start to finish. Here we will focus on the low register of the guitar and reacquaint ourselves with the leger lines below the stave. This register of the electric guitar is very often the domain of hard rock and metal music, so we encourage you to engage your distorted tone and bring forth the fury to the fretboard. The most important information is shown at the beginning of the first line of the piece; first, the treble clef tells us that all the notes will be safely within the realm of a standard tuned guitar. Next we have…

TRANSCRIPTION #1 PAT METHENY Have You Heard Jon Bishop transcribes this uptempo jazz swinger with an astounding solo from one of the genre’s greatest players. FEATURE BLUES-ROCK BOOT CAMP Part 2 Continuing last month’s Pentatonic lick fest, Richard Barrett shows how to seamlessly move through the keys. TRANSCRIPTION #2 FRANCISCO TáRREGA Capricho Arabe Bridget Mermikides arranges and transcribes one of Tárrega’s most beautiful guitar compositions. VIDEO LESSON ALLEN HINDS Masterclass, Part 1 This incredible guitarist from LA begins a six-part series on how to make your blues sound cool and sophisticated. MORE GREAT LESSONS Robert Cray Authentic modern blues Bad Company 70s blues-rock icons Bon Jovi Stadium-filling rock! Jackson Browne LA singer-songwriter Tim Miller Modern jazz virtuoso PLUS ALL THIS… Classic 30-Minute Lickbag, Sight Reading, Creative Rock, Chord Camp, Instrumental…

IF YOU’RE LIKE me you’ll own a few guitars. It just happens, really: a desire is awakened for, say, a Tele when really you’re a Les Paul kind of guy and, before you know it, there’s another case vying for space in the house, studio, bedroom, etc. Jason Sidwell, Stuart Ryan and I call it ‘getting the worm’ – like an ear worm of a song you can’t get out of your head, only with guitars. I mention this purely because I dug out my ES-335 the other day (the one in this picture) as I simply fancied playing something different to my P90 Goldtop or maple-necked Strat that have been my main squeezes lately. Everything changed: amp settings, pedal controls, gain structure and whatnot that I’d set up for…

MICHAEL PUTLAND / GETTY IMAGES GT: What is it about guitar instrumentals that appeal to you? I’ve loved instrumentals since taking up the guitar at 10 or 11 years old. It was Duane Eddy, The Shadows and The Ventures that inspired me to play. I was drawn to the atmosphere of guitar instrumentals and the fact that there wasn’t a pesky singer getting in the way! Electric guitars sounded like liquid chrome to me. GT:What can an instrumental provide that a vocal song can’t? A certain ambiguity, an enigmatic quality, a chance to interpret mood without the lyrics dictating a specific interpretation. GT: Anything that you aim to embrace or avoid? Instrumentals can be as wild or as straight as you want, so I take an ‘anything goes’ approach. GT:…

GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without? JS: No. I use regular music store picks, normal sized and heavy. GT: If you had to give up all your pedals but three, what would they be? JS: Tuner pedal cause I need to tune up, RAT pedal and wah-wah. GT: Do you play another instrument well enough to be in a band? JS: There are a lot of really bad bands out there so, yes. I can play very mediocre bass and technically lousy drums but my time is okay. I’ve played bass before on one of my records. GT: If a music chart were put in front of you, could you read it? JS: Yes. Read it; write it. I am proficient in music…

JOBY SESSIONS IDOLS / PHOTOSHOT ABILITY RATING Many hardened guitarists don’t really know their Pentatonic scales. They may say they do, but I wonder how many can play all five shapes of the minor Pentatonic really fluently? If you stand guilty as charged, stick around because we’re here to change all that! The Pentatonic scale is the five-note staple of blues and rock guitar. Literally thousands of classic riffs and solos are derived from it. In this two-part study we’re going to start by looking at the five shapes of the A minor Pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G). This is often mixed up with the ‘Blues’ scale, which is almost identical but contains an extra note (Eb in this key). Firstly, check out the five fretboxes on page 14. It’s essential to familiarise…

ULI DECK / PHOTOSHOT ABILITY RATING It’s very common to categorise almost any western music up until the 19th century as ‘classical’. If it seems somewhat sophisticated, has been notated and, especially if it uses orchestral instruments, then it’s given the ‘classical’ label. In fact, these loose criteria include a huge range of diversity in terms of musical culture and populism. Such is the case with this month’s piece ’O Sole Mio, which is often assumed to be part of the operatic high-art repertoire. But its origins are as ‘pop’ as any music you could name today. It is a Neapolitan song, that is a song written for the Festival of Piedigrotta’s annual songwriting competition based in Naples, Italy that ran from 1830 to 1926. Like one of today’s hits,…

ABILITY RATING Born in 1951 in Middlesbrough to an Italian father and Irish mother, like so many musicians before him Chris Rea worked menial jobs before cutting his teeth as a professional musician. After toiling in his father’s ice cream shop, he purchased his first guitar (a Hofner V3) at the ripe old age of 21, finding inspiration in Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Although he initially wanted to be a scriptwriter and film music composer, around 1973 Chris joined the band Magdalene – replacing David Coverdale – and later The Beautiful Losers. In 1974, he secured a solo contract with Magnet Records, releasing his first single, So Much Love. However, it was his debut album, Whatever Happened To Benny Santini (produced by Gus Dudgeon) in…

ABILITY RATING The aim of this lesson is to help you to break out from the melodic and technical restrictions of playing the Pentatonic scale using its traditional two-notes-per-string formula. This will help you to avoid clichés and provide you with the opportunity to create new sounds maximising on the most practical, flexible and commonly-used scale in popular music. Furthermore, you will start to see how the notes of the scale are distributed on the fretboard in a different way: importantly, it will widen your field of vision, so that you can see the relationships between various positions more clearly. Finally, this technique will allow you to create some ear-catching and impressive-sounding musical effects by opening the door to legato techniques, including picking and fretting-hand tapping. All instrumentalists, such as…

ABILITY RATING Zappa and Shawn Lane loved him. Frank Gambale calls him the ‘Grandmaster’ and other famous guitarist fans include Eddie Van Halen, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John McLaughlin, Greg Howe, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen. Holdsworth is a special artist, with a unique approach to music and one of the most recognisable sounds from the late 60s to the present day. Born in 1946 in Bradford, Yorkshire, Holdsworth’s pianist father encouraged him to practise and, with remarkable discipline, he set about learning to play entirely by himself. Influenced by artists such as saxophonist John Coltrane, he determined to sound entirely like himself and worked out a personal approach to creating music, with improvisation and harmony at the core. Allan’s illustrious career began with jazz crossover groups such Tempest, Igginbottom’s Wrench, Gong,…

NOVEMBER GT249 LEARN THE BLUES SHUFFLE Master this vital style with 11 superb rhythm and lead examples to play. Plus, part two of our picking series. Learn economy picking and play fast and fluid – just like the pros! Tabbed in this issue is the full album version of Gary Moore’s Parisienne Walkways. OCTOBER GT248 SORT OUT YOUR PICKING An exclusive lesson in part 1 of our picking series. Banish sloppy alternate picking and enjoy more accuracy, speed and tone. Plus, get your teeth into The Knack’s wonderful classic, My Sharona – a track chock full of glorious riffs and plenty of solos. SEPTEMBER GT247 PLAY LIKE CARLOS SANTANA A guitar icon since he and his band stormed Woodstock in 1969. Learn Santana’s rhythm and lead style. Play The Allman…

JOE BONAMASSA LIVE AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL Provogue We’ve got used to Bonamassa’s incredible output, but what never ceases to astound is the sheer quality of everything he does. This album finds Joe fulfilling a lifelong ambition to play this legendary New York venue. Recorded at the start of the year, it’s a concert in two sections. Joe is backed by The Huckleberries for the opening acoustic set, then reunites with his regular band, plus horn section, for the harder electric set. The video has all the material in sequence, whereas the CD scrambles the set for a better listening experience. But, whichever you choose, Joe trips through songs from his vast repertoire with total professionalism. Tracks like Dust Bowl, I Can’t Be Satisfied and One Less Cross To…

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 Songs and lessons have the audio built in, with a moving cursor showing you exactly where you are in the music. Simply tap the‘play’button then 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 or smartphone. PLUS! Get a FREE iPad/iPhone sample of GT. For full details and how to receive our digital edition regularly, go to bit.ly/guitartechniques (if you…

HERE’S AN alternative way of harmonising the Phrygian dominant scale. In ascending order, the harmony of Phrygian Dominant is: major/dominant 7, major, diminished, minor, diminished, augmented, minor. I have retained the first, second, fourth and seventh chords but changed the third and fifth to major/dominant 7 and the sixth to minor. This avoids diminished and augmented arpeggios and results in a great sounding (and easier to play) arpeggio sequence. Yngwie Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore, Jason Becker and Tony MacAlpine use similar ideas. Keep the sweeps clean and in-time – palm-muting will help, but don’t rush ahead. Methodical practise is the key to mastering this.…

DANELECTRO BRING OUT THREE WASABI  pedals with a distinctively 50s look but a 21st century delivery. Offering distortion, overdrive and delay, the three pedals are well equipped with controls and linking facilities and all for a reasonable outlay. No wonder they’re causing a stir. ITALIAN-BUILT BRUNETTI AMPLIFICATION  arrives in the UK with an impressive combo built in Modena, where Ferraris are made. Just like the cars, the MC2 is a very stylish production. Valve driven with solid-state rectification it has a power rating of 60 watts and offers three channels and a five button foot switch, which is essential to access all the features it has to offer. With a single Jensen 12-inch speaker this baby is seriously loud. STRICTLY COME DANCING AIRS FOR THE  first time and is won…

DUNCAN MCGLYNN ABILITY RATING Although Joe Satriani is rightly renowned for his amazing guitar chops, it’s easy to forget that it was always his ability to pen a great melody that saw him become the premier solo guitarist of his time. Although many guitarists, from Duane Eddy to Freddie King, Hank Marvin and Jeff Beck, had paved the way for instrumental guitar music prior to Joe’s 1985 album Not Of This Earth, it was Satriani’s experiments in sound and melody (his use of modes in his writing is legendary) that saw him become the pioneer, effectively making solo guitar music cool again. Rubina – named after his wife – was perhaps a hint of things to come, with its haunting melody and astonishing solo section. Joe possessed all the modern…

I recently had the fortune of working on a show alongside another guitarist. The show was pop/rock based with the main musical numbers running the gamet of chugging eighth-note riffers, pretty ballads, funky dance numbers and uptempo rockers. Many shows only need one guitarist so working with another proved a lot of fun as my co-six stringer turned out to be a ‘360 musician’; good tone, solid chops, broad chord vocabulary, stylistically savvy; he read notation and improvised with admirable creativity. Even though most shows are highly pointed in their requirements, the latter ability – creativity – is a must when faced with a chord chart that requires solid rhythm and soloing ability. So every musical base was ticked. During a short rehearsal break, he told me he’s been a…

ABILITY RATING System Of A Down formed in 1995 in California and currently comprise four Armenian-American musicians; lead vocalist and keyboard player Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian on vocals and guitar, bass player Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan. This Grammy-winning band have had three US number 1 albums and sold over 40 million records. SOAD began life as Soil in 1993, before changing their name to System Of A Down after a poem written by Malakian. They recorded three demo tapes with drummer Ontronik Khachaturian before being replaced by Dolmayan. These caught the attention of producer Rick Rubin, who signed the band to Columbia in 1997. They enjoyed some success with their eponymous debut, as well as opening shows for Metallica, but it was with Toxicity in 2001 that they…

Welcome to a new column aimed at expanding your chord knowledge. Starting with major and minor we will be looking at all the chord types, beginning with common shapes with roots on sixth, fifth and fourth strings; also first and second inversions triads. Major chords are built using the root, the 3rd and the 5th of any Major scale - in C that’s C, E and G. Similarly, minor chords are built from the root, the b3rd and the 5th of the natural Minor scale – in C minor that’s C, Eb and G. EXAMPLE 1 TRIAD INVERSIONS IN CLASSIC ROCK TRACK 54 Major triads. The opening bar shows you the three possible triad inversions of D major: R-3-5 = root inversion; 3-5-R = first inversion; 5-R-3 = second inversion.…

ABILITY RATING Growing up in 50s England, Richard Thompson was surrounded by a disparate set of influences. He absorbed the music of the legends he discovered among his father’s jazz record collection: Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington – while his tastes were also dramatically shaped by the rock and roll artists he heard emanating from his sister’s radio. The early jazz influence was soon combined with the sounds of Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis meaning that the young Thompson was destined to create a unique approach to making music. Add in a burgeoning interest in blues, traditional Celtic styles and English folk and you have the makings of a pioneering, multi-voiced artist. Thompson burst on to the English music scene in the late 60s via his band…

WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN Buyit Excellent Good Average Binit! CHANTEL MCGREGOR LOSE CONTROL Tis Rock Music Ltd Guitarist and singer-songwriter Chantel McGregor returns with a second album and it’s quite a leap from 2011’s Like No Other. A child of the blues she has, thanks to four years of touring, become far more rock influenced. So this set of 10 originals is much heavier and more riff based than her previous output. The songs are strong and well delivered and there’s some great playing here too; plenty of commitment, attack and dynamics. Check out Your Fever with its cross rhythms and the title track with its speedy riff over a slow back beat. There’s a lighter side on display too, the acoustic-led Anaesthetize and Home offering a moment to catch…

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). 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. SCALE EXAMPLE The diagram shows the fret-hand fingering for the A major scale (root notes in black). The photo shows part of the scale being played on the fourth string with first, third and fourth fingers. 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 quickly.…