Innehållsförteckning för January 2019 från 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…

“DON’T BE AFRAID TO STEP OUTSIDE THE MINOR PENTATONIC PATTERN. IF WE ADD 6TH AND 9TH WE GET DORIAN MODE” A few days ago I had a workshop at the UK Guitar Show. In it I explored the various scales (alphabets) of the blues and how they effect the language (words). I got a lot of positive feedback so I thought I’d share it with the wider readership. And to keep things very guitar-centric all of this lesson is in the key of A. The Minor Pentatonic is the alphabet from which most people learn their first blues words and sentences. Many times they do a whole lot of scale playing and not enough ‘word’ learning so, if this is where you are at be sure to spend the majority…

THIS FIERY LICK is typical of Zakk Wylde and other modern rockers. In the ascending section (bars 1-2) see how the patterns on the first and second strings are symmetrical. This is as a result of playing the note F# instead of the expected Pentatonic G note. This symmetry makes it a lot easier to play – try it with G instead and you will see what I mean. After the high bend and following sustained vibrato note in bar 3, comes the descending section. Still a sequence-based idea it has been disguised with the addition of the Blues scale derived b 5 note of B b . This line is a tricky and is probably best if committed to memory before attempting to play it up to tempo. Why…

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 shape…

Although I used my own‘Red Special’into a BM treble booster and Vox AC15, a 1955 sixpence and two tape style delay pedals for our pieces, you can get pretty close with regular gear. The tone of a sixpence used as a pick makes a significant difference to the sound of the attack, and obtaining one is relatively cheap and easy (go on, try it). If you have a Stratocaster style guitar select the bridge and middle pickups and roll a bit of tone off. If you have a Gibson style setup the bridge humbucker will do nicely. Set up a fully saturated overdrive sound on your amp and then use the guitar’s volume control to clean up the sound to taste. I also used an old Eko 12-string but any…

Tennessee born and bred, Eric Gales was by all accounts a child prodigy. Starting on the guitar in 1979 aged just four, and with the help and encouragement of older brothers Eugene and Manuel he listened to all the blues and rock greats, but was most taken with Jimi Hendrix’s flamboyant playing style and on-stage personna. With Hubert Crawford on drums and brother Eugene on bass he formed The Eric Gales band, releasing their eponymous debut album in 1991 and garnering himself the accolade of Guitar World’s ‘best new talent’ of that year. With a string of albums to his name including collaborations with both siblings as The Gales Brothers Band, contributing May This Be Love to the Hendrix tribute album Power Of Soul, plus appearing alongside Santana at Woodstock…

Legato came easy to me because I was never good at alternate picking. Having said that I believe there is a real benefit to the style. I think it opens up the dynamics window a bit as it’s easy to flex between really soft, whispers of notes to louder and more energised passages. It’s really a lot about the strength of your fretting hand. I have some patterns to warm up on, but I remember as a student trying to sound like Holdsworth. I realised even on a fretted instrument you could pull a note flat as well as sharp - notes inbetween the frets - so the note goes beneath and above the fundamental pitch. It does require finger strength and control though so lots of careful practice and…

When learning a piece with lots of fretting-hand slurs it can be very beneficial to take a small section and practise those fretting-hand movements in slow motion with exaggerated finger movements. The key aim is not to allow tightness and tension into the fretting hand and forearm (often easier said than done). Notice the curve and trajectory of each finger and aim to keep the curved shape the same both on and off the string. If you find you sometimes miss the string when hammering, try moving the finger very slowly on and off the string (don’t pluck) to achieve a precise and accurate aim before gradually introducing enough speed towards the string to produce a sound. Notice how little effort or tension is actually needed.…

Ever since his 2004 debut album, Standing At The Station, Dan Patlansky has earned his dues the hard way, working his beautiful 1962 Strat in clubs across the world as he furiously delivers SRV and Hendrix influenced lines. With clear foundations in the tradition of the blues, Patlansky is not however interested in holding the traditionalist torch as he pushes the form using modern compositions with tasty harmony and up-to-date production methods. As a youngster Dan didn’t find much attraction to the contemporary pop music his peers indulged in so found refuge in the blues, jazz and soul of his parents’ records. In recent times Dan has been headlining many of the world’s blues festivals and acting as support to acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Joe Satriani – a…

PHOTOSHOT / HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES Almost exclusively playing an oval-hole Maccaferristyle acoustic, Stochelo has played instruments from a variety of makers such as Favino, Eimers and even a Selmer with the serial number 504, just one away from Django’s. Recently he’s been playing a guitar from French luthier Jean Barault . Stochelo’s style is all about making an acoustic guitar work so stay away from amps at first and work on making the instrument project, completely au naturel.…

In this series, we’ve been looking at using certain intervals to create a variety of ideas to fit in with your Mixolydian vocabulary. So far, we’ve studied 2nds, 3rds, 4ths and 5ths. This lesson, we logically move on to 6ths. Within the modes of the Major scale, each 6th interval will be one of two types: • Minor 6th = eight semitones. • Major 6th = nine semitones. To illustrate this, have a look at Diagram 1, which represents the notes of D Major and any of its modes (A Mixolydian is its fifth mode). If you start from any note, and then move in any direction (clockwise or anticlockwise) to another note that is five notes away (in other words, with four scale notes in between both notes), the…

To hear the Mixolydian sound in action, check out Jeff Beck’s classic 1975 release Blow By Blow, with tracks such as You Know What I Mean and Freeway Jam based around this mode. Other recommendations would include Larry Carlton’s superb 1986 live album Last Night with tracks such as Don’t Give It Up, as well as Robben Ford and the Blue Line’s 1995 release, Handful Of Blues, with tracks such as Rugged Road incorporating the Mixolydian sound. Lots of Clapton’s ‘Cream’ soloing was Mixolydian based, too.…

GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without? BP: I’ve been using Dunlop Jazz III XLs for many years now. I like to play pretty hard so a solid plectrum is essential and there are none that are plastic and firmer than these. I used to play the smaller versions which apparently are good for improving your string hitting accuracy but I kept dropping them so the XLs are perfect. I do a lot of finger picking as well and these picks seem to be perfect size for tucking away under my second finger. GT: If you had to give up all your pedals but three, what would they be? BP: Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. I’ve been using this pedal for many years since one…

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN & THE 4TH DIMENSION WITH JIMMY HERRING & THE INVISIBLE WHIP - LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO Abstract Logic ★★★★★ John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra will always have a very special place in the history of jazz-rock music and this new release presents eight of the band’s tracks in a special live setting. Recorded at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre, John McLaughlin’s 4th Dimension band and Jimmy Herring’s The Invisible Whip combine in a celebration to the music from the early releases of Mahavishnu Orchestra. Iconic ‘hits’ such as Meeting Of The Spirits and The Dance Of Maya are present as are Eternity’s Breath. With all tracks clocking in at over seven minutes plus, this is lofty music for concentrating on with wonderful performances from everyone. John McLaughlin is one of…

I’D BEEN AT Guitarist mag just months when my boss bumped into Brian May at an event and asked if he’d be willing to talk to us. He agreed and it was arranged for me to visit Queen’s office in Notting Hill. Brian’s one stipulation was, “Don’t be late, as I have to be elsewhere later that day.” I’ve always had an issue with poor punctuality so no problem there. How wrong could I be? I lived in north Essex so gave myself 90 minutes extra just in case. The office was the other side of London, it was pre sat-nav and mobile phone but I was confident I’d get there on time. I would have done, too, had it not been for an accident that shut the A12 for…

ROB VERHORST / GETTY ➊ Blues In E First up is a fun blues jam in the guitar-friendly key of E. Good old E Minor Pentatonic scale (E-G-AB-D) will go far here, but you can also mix in E Major Pentatonic (think C# Minor Pentatonic as it’s the same five notes, if that helps). You can also add more colour with E Mixolydian mode (E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D) and E Dorian mode (E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D). ➋ C Lydian Jam Here’s a fun Zappa-esque Lydian mode jam. Your go-to-scale would be C Lydian mode (C-D-E-F#-G-A-B), which is basically the C Major scale with a raised 4th. Also, try mixing in some E Minor Pentatonic (E-G-A-B-D), A Minor Pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G) and even B Minor Pentatonic (B-D-E-F#-A). ➌ Ionian Mode Jam (A) This happy little groove track is…

MORENA BRENGOLA / GETTY IMAGES Welcome to our all-encompassing look at Queen’s incredible guitarist Brian May and his various approaches to electric and acoustic playing. The aim of this lesson is to learn and apply some of the tried and tested concepts used by May during his stellar career. The Brian May guitar sound is one of the finest and most recognisable in rock history. His many tones are the product of a unique combination of ingenious ingredients, all cooked up by Brian and his father - plus a little help from a wall of Vox AC30s, a Dallas Rangemaster treble booster and a funny little transistor amp put together by bassist John Deacon. Although upgraded and modernised here and there, most of these ingredients have remained pretty much unchanged…

Eric comes from a background of blues and rock so his palette begins with Pentatonic and Blues scale ideas. However he laces these not only with the usual 6th, 9th, and b 3rd-3rd blues ambiguity, but selects strong but often surprising chord tones and outside notes to make his solos catch the ear. And while it’s no surprise that you can hear Hendrix and Albert KIng in his work, these days it’s as likely to be Eric Johnson whose influence screams out, with fast flurries in fours, fives and sixes darting across the CAGED shapes on the fretboard. His picking is on the money too so there’s a lot to focus on in this tutorial.…

LICK 1 Bar 34 – Four note-repeating lick This bluesy Pentatonic idea is one that Allen is fond of and uses a repeating group of four semiquavers (16th notes). As there are three semiquavers per beat here, 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 2 Bars 50-53 – Triad arpeggios To navigate this section Allen uses triad arpeggios of F, G and A. The arpeggios are conveniently fingered on the top three strings and sound most effective. Ascending from G to A and then a higher inversion of F major really builds the excitement. LICK 3 Bar 54 – Altered scale lick Bar 54 features the…

Be-Bop Deluxe came to prominence in the 1970s with their stylistic blend of classic rock, prog and glam. They formed in 1972 when guitarist and singer Bill Nelson joined forces with fellow guitar player Ian Parkin, bassist and vocalist Robert Bryan and drummer Nicholas Chatterton-Dew. They also had a keyboard player, Richard Brown, who left the band at the end of their first year together. They were initially compared to acts such as David Bowie, but rather than find this a compliment, Nelson was frustrated by it. In fact his general frustration with the band’s music is one of the reasons that they finally disbanded in 1978. During their early days Be-Bop Deluxe began playing in West Yorkshire pubs, and were signed in 1974 to EMI subsidiary label Harvest. They…

Stuart Ryan travels back in time to look at a pioneering singer-songwriter and incalculably influential man of the people, Woody Guthrie. The forefather of acoustic folk guitar style, Woody Guthrie lived through some of the most tempestuous episodes of the 20th century – the Great Depression, World War II, the rise of Communism and the Cold War certainly shaped Guthrie into the artist he became. He was born in Okemah, Oklahoma in July 1914 and grew up in a family where singing was a well-practised tradition, from Scottish folk to American traditional songs. His first stab at a musical career came in the early 1930s when he moved to Texas, but the onset of the Great Depression meant that he was soon on the road and looking for work, guitar…

This month’s column is based around the Mixolydian mode, a sound common in country, blues and rock styles due to its first choice status over dominant chords. With a Major Pentatonic scale contained within its formula, the Mixolydian mode is also often contrasted by the Minor Pentatonic and Blues scales, with players such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Larry Carlton, and Robben Ford well known for combining major and minor tonalities in their soloing, as well as using song structures based around the V Mixolydian tonal centre. Continuing from last month’s lesson, where we looked at the extensions of the IV major 7 chord, this month we’ll move on to extensions based around the V dominant 7 chord, including 9, 11 and 13 voicings arranged in five shapes. We’ll then…

DECEMBER GT289 RHYTHM SKILLS! Taking a cue from 10 of the greatest rhythm players we examine how to up your own game. Every fancied trying the percussive acoustic style? Now’s your chance with our easy video lesson. Plus: Mozart, Ry Cooder, Kenny Burrell, Slash, Bernie Marsden & more. NOVEMBER GT288 ELECTRIC MASTERY Our 50 Tips will improve every area of your playing. Reggae guitar is deeper than you may think; this article will amaze and inspire. Plus: learn the hymn, How Can I Keep From Singing (classical); watch Brett Garsed’s awesome video lesson, and so much more! OCTOBER GT287 ULTIMATE WORKOUT This warm-up-meets-workout focuses on four different styles with musical exercises covering a whole octave, fret by fret. It’s a phenomenal learning and chops building tool! Plus, learn all the…

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…

GIBSON INTRODUCES THE HERITAGE STANDARD 80 guitar following accusations about the quality of Les Paul models not being up to past standards. The whole run of instruments had nicely figured tops but the Elite was endowed with curly maple. Some of the questionable features from the seventies are mercifully scrapped and the guitar is a real winner. ROCK ALBUMS GET HEAVIER WITH Wheels Of Steel - Saxon, Ace Of Spades - Motörhead, Women And Children First - Van Halen, Back In Black - AC/DC, Ready An’Willin’- Whitesnake, British Steel - Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne’s solo debut, The Blizzard Of Ozz. Mainstream albums include Duke - Genesis, Zenyatta Mondatta - The Police, The Game - Queen, Head Games - Foreigner, Gaucho - Steely Dan and U2’s debut album, Boy.…

Brian has one of the most articulate and musical vibratos in all of rock. While not as wide and pronounced as more modern players like Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai it’s noticeably broader than that of, say, Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix. Brian’s vibrato on unbent notes is smooth and languid and if you watch him you can see that the action is more in the rotating of the wrist than merely pushing the string up and down; in reality it’s an intuitive combination of the two. A common May device is to bend the string and then pick it (pre-bend); this is usually followed by a lovely wobble. When bending strings and applying vibrato always support the bending finger with as many spare digits as you have available. This…

“I HAVE DONE QUITE A FEW THINGS IN LIFE AND THIS HAS AIDED ME IN HAVING A STORY TO TELL, MUSICALLY AND VERBALLY” Eric Gales It’s a hot, sunny May day at Arlington Arts Centre in Berkshire and things aren’t going well for Eric Gales. The band’s soundcheck has been going on for a couple of hours owing to a recurring earth loop problem having temporarily defeated the crew. We are in a room adjacent to the stage, playing a waiting game. We’ve already been out for ice cream, awarding Waitrose’s Salted Caramel Lollies a ‘best in show’award in the process… but now, all we can do is wait. The tour manager pops his head around the door and apologises for the delay, telling us that they think…

We once again challenged LA session ace Allen Hinds to improvise a two-minute solo over six of Jason’s bespoke GT tracks. Each of these tracks presents a unique set of challenges and we were delighted that Allen once again stepped up. In this issue we are going to look at the first track entitled Broadway Blues, a 6/8 groove with some jazzy chord changes. Allen starts by using a Jeff Beck style approach with the whammy bar on his Lake Placid Blue Xotic guitar and also includes some bluesy fusion-based ideas. The groove used for this month’s track has a 6/8 feel, and to highlight this Allen plays his semiquaver (16th-note) lines with a swinging gait. “THE NOTATION CONTAINS ALL THE ARTICULATIONS AND PHRASING FROM THE VIDEO PERFORMANCE” As Allen…

Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) was a German-born composer and virtuoso cellist, who trained at the Paris Conservatoire from the age of 14. He was also a remarkably prodigious and influential composer of the operetta genre. An operetta is a slightly loosely defined relation of the opera, and is characterised by ‘lighter’ story lines and musical treatment and the use of dialogue between the songs, with English composers Gilbert & Sullivan being probably the best-known practitioners of the style. In many ways the operetta can be seen as a precursor (and the intersection with opera) of musical theatre. As such Offenbach can be seen as a forefather of the cultural phenomenon of the modern musical. Tales Of Hoffman was Offenbach’s last composition project, written by the French writer Jules Barbier and based…

EASY LICKS EXAMPLE 1 PAUL SIMON CD TRACK 17 These E-A-B11 chords are perfect for beginner guitarist-writers. This acoustic example involves executing a plectrum-style strumming throughout these chords. Pick downward with a controlled and steady‘arpeggiated’rhythm against a metronome. EASY LICKS EXAMPLE 2 ROBERT CRAY CD TRACK 18 This lick in A minor uses slides and quarter-note bends to achieve a traditional inject rhythm and even a little‘funk’into this idea. Observe the slow vibrato on blues feel. Apply chorus effect and plenty of weight with the picking hand to completion of the phrases. INTERMEDIATE LICKS EXAMPLE 3 LENNY KRAVITZ CD TRACK 19 To execute this idea one should strum widely across the entire guitar, using the soft parts of the fretting hand to eliminate the unwanted strings sounding (notated: X). Loud…

Stochelo Rosenberg is rightly considered to be gypsy jazz royalty. For nearly 30 years the Rosenberg Trio, including cousins Nou’che and Nonnie, have been at the forefront of this engaging and infectious genre. If any guitar player disproves the old adage that it’s impossible to be both a technical virtuoso and an expressive feel-based player then it’s Stochelo, who manages to balance incredible speed, articulation and accuracy with a romantic and emotional sense of touch that can be both intense and exhilarating, and touchingly delicate and sensitive. Even within his own family, brother Mozes, cousins Jimmy and Nomy and countless others have all taken much of their sound, technique and vocabulary from Stochelo’s benchmark. His impact outside the gypsy community is just as impressive and significant. As his friend and…

One of the world’s most iconic guitar players, Billy F Gibbons formed ZZ Top with band mates Dusty Hill and Frank Beard in 1969. Born into a musical family in Texas, Gibbons picked up the guitar at age 11. While ZZ Top released their debut album in 1971, Gibbons had already supported Hendrix with his short-lived outfit Moving Sidewalks. The first two ZZ Top albums were well received but it was third release Tres Hombres, featuring La Grange which saw them hit the top 10 in America for the first time and sparked extensive touring. What followed was a career that featured 15 studio albums (sa far!), four of which are mutli-platinum selling; an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a solid reputation as great showmen.…

Try a clean tone with compression, chorus and a little reverb on the chordal examples, and for the lead pieces a warm overdriven tone, as it’s one of the best ways to monitor the effectiveness of your muting (unplayed string noise will often result in dissonant overtones, especially on the higher strings). It’s also the tone of choice for many contemporary styles, and will lend a more fusion orientated sound when using our more jazz-based concepts, and will easily integrate with your existing blues and rock vocabulary.…

PAUL NATKIN / GETTY IMAGES Tapped harmonics are a way of producing harmonics by quickly tapping the string with your fretting-hand finger. Typically the second finger is used so the pick can continue to be held with your first finger and thumb. The advantage of tapped harmonics is that they can be added to fretted notes quickly, and easily incorporated among other techniques. Probably the most famous example of this is Eddie Van Halen’s solo from Michael Jackson’s Beat It in which he seamlessly uses slides, bends, two-handed tapping, dive-bombs and tapped harmonics. All harmonics, be they natural, pinched, or tapped follow the same rules of physics, but first we must understand what a harmonic is. When you pluck a note on the guitar you are hearing a fundamental pitch,…

BERT JANSCH JUST A SIMPLE SOUL BMG ★★★★★ Tagged as the first comprehensive Best Of collection to span Bert Jansch’s five-decade career there’s plenty of music here to satisfy fans and new ears alike. With 39 tracks spread out over two CDs, the songs have been chosen by Jansch fan Bernard Butler (ex Suede) and the Jansch estate from ‘60s albums like The Blue Album and Jack Orion through to his last (23rd) release, 2006’s The Black Swan. In many ways it’s hard to overstate Jansch’s place in acoustic folk music - some claim he’s the Hendrix of the acoustic guitar - and his influence is incredibly wide reaching. His ability to weave improvisational passages into his chord progressions and augment his vocal melodies with counterpoint lines endorses the view…

FEATURE #2 JOSH SMITH Blues video masterclass One of the coolest new blues artists sits down to bring us a one-to-one lesson detailing aspects of his awesome style. CLASSICAL TAB BEDRICH SMETANA Má Vlast (Vltava) Bridget transcribes Vltava from Smetena’s six-poem suite, Má Vlast translating as ‘My Homeland’. FEATURE #3 ALLEN HINDS Solos over Palm Drive This month Allen takes a wonderful solo over this funky groove track penned and recorded by Jason. TECHNIQUE & THEORY NEW THINGS TO LEARN Whammy tricks, Aeolian mode Whammy tricks are impressive and fun, while Aeolian mode (Minor scale) offers some cool minor soloing ideas. MORE GREAT LESSONS 30-Minute Lickbag Six more licks to try out Jimmy Page Led Zeppelin hero’s blues side Ronnie Montrose Style study on US rock legend The Beatles NEW!…