Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Guitar Techniques

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 Tony Hadley’s longstanding guitarist Richie has worked with everyone from Roger Daltrey to Ronan Keeting, and is currently working on his own album. 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. 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…

ALEX SOLCA GT: Is there anything particular about guitar instrumentals that appeals to you? LR: I have had the chance now to play the guitar for 60 years and 2020, as crazy as last year was, was also a reminder to me, a lifetime spent with the guitar. It’s 60 years I’ve been playing this year, all in Los Angeles, grew up playing the guitar here. So, I was always fascinated by the guitar as a personality. It was my vocal instrument if you will. The great classical guitarist Segovia always called it a mini-orchestra and that’s proven true. Especially after finally, after all these years, I did this solo guitar record, called Dreamcatcher. So, I got constantly reminded as I was making the record and orchestrating the record and…

One of the obvious ways to make a chord more interesting is to add notes to it. An interesting new chord can be a great starting point for fresh inspiration. But adding notes to a whole progression is a bit daunting. You might get one chord sounding great, but then it won’t work with the next chord any more! That might be because you don’t understand how a given note functions in relation to the chord; some notes (especially 4ths) can be quite disruptive to the progression. But one note is usually a safe bet, and that’s the 2nd, lying a whole tone above the root. You have two choices. You can either add it to a regular Major or Minor chord, or you can use it to replace the…

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVE / IAN DICKSON / MICHAEL PUTLAND / GETTY IMAGES TRACK RECORD As well as the tracks covered in this month’s examples, check out what happened in the following year or so with these brilliant follow-ups: Close To The Edge by Yes, Quadrophenia from The Who, Black Sabbath Vol 4, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, James Taylor and One Man Dog, Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy, Caravanserai by Santana and Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Birds Of Fire. EXAMPLE 1 ALLMAN BROTHERS, LIVE FROM FILLMORE EAST (SLIDE STYLE) CD TRACK 4 Actually, this only uses a bottleneck from the end of bar 4. Duane Allman was adept at incorporating slide playing with regular technique and was comfortable doing so in regular tuning, as here. Use a light slide…

WHILE MUSIC OF all genres can feature diatonic chord progressions - several chords that all belong in one key, such as Cmaj7-Fmaj7-Dm7-G7 which all come from C Major - a lot of music can feature chords that don’t all belong in one key. For example, Grease And Grit features Gm7-A b maj7-B b m7 with B b m7 not being found in G Minor. While non-diatonic progressions can provide much colour and emotion to a piece, it can prove tricky for the improviser. If the changes are quite unusual I aim to bind them together with aspects of the blues, using Pentatonics and the Blues scale to draw the listener in. Other times, I like to use chord tones to home in on a chord or two that is particularly…

In this issue I’ve arranged a work for two guitars, by the profoundly brilliant composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Bach’s talents and accomplishments are hard to overstate, but suffice it to say he is widely recognised as one of, if not the greatest composers and musical minds in the Western canon of all time. His enduring legacy of works displays an unsurpassed command of harmony, melody, and a balance of technical precision with emotional expression. In particular, Bach’s musical control of canon (the imitation of musical material) and counterpoint (multiple independent melodies) are a continuing source of inspiration and inspiration to musicians through the ages. These techniques pervade his work, but a very accessible demonstration appears in his two-part Inventions which were composed as short keyboard exercises in counterpoint. They…

Back in the late 80s, early 90s, Top 40 chart music was enthused with a vibrant US style called New Jack Swing. Amalgamating hip-hop, soul and funk, it was producer-songwriter Teddy Riley who led the movement’s forceful snare-driven swing rhythms and sophisticated chords which were often Major key focused. Check out Teddy’s band’s Guy (Groove Me) and Blackstreet (Baby Be Mine) as well as collaborations with Bobby Brown (My Prerogative, Two Can Play That Game) and Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album (Jam, Remember The Time). With numerous R&B royalty such as Janet Jackson (Nasty), Prince (My Name Is Prince), Whitney Houston (I’m Your Baby Tonight), R Kelly (She’s Got That Vibe) and Stevie Wonder (Jungle Fever) favouring it, New Jack Swing became a dominating chart sound. This month’s example demonstrates a…

Chicago formed, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Chicago, Illinois, in 1967. Originally called Chicago Transit Authority, they shortened their name in 1969 due to the threat of a lawsuit from the Authority itself. Chicago blended rock, jazz, R&B, pop and classical music, with horns featuring heavily in their early recordings. They are one of the most commercially successful groups of all time, shifting over 100 million albums and being the first to sell out Carnegie Hall for an entire week. They are listed as Billboard’s ninth most successful band of all time, and their self-titled debut album was shortlisted for a Grammy Award in 1969. The initial line-up saw guitarist Terry Kath join forces withWalter Parazaider on sax, drummer Danny Seraphine, trumpeter Lee Loughnane, trombonist James Pankow, and keyboardist and lead singer…

In this current series, we’ve been looking at ways of exploring specific intervals within Mixolydian. So far, we’ve studied 2nds, 3rds and 4ths, and in this lesson it’s the turn of 5ths. 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. Within the modes of the Major scale, each 5th interval will be one of two types: 1) Diminished fifth = six semitones 2) Perfect fifth = seven semitones To illustrate this, have a look at Diagram 1, which represents the notes of C Major (and any of its modes). If you start from any note,…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH DEVIN TOWNSEND ORDER OF MAGNITUDE - EMPATH LIVE VOLUME 1 InsideOutMusic 10/10 Devin Townsend has come a long way since Steve Vai’s Sex And Religion back in 1993. His vocals veer from richly melodic to screaming thrash, and his unique guitar style (open C tuning) and colossal productions see him sit ably across prog and metal genres. This two-CD album was recorded in December 2019 in London, with a band that includes guitarists Mike Kenneally and Markus Reuter, plus keyboardist Diego Tejeida. It’s stunning to hear Devin completely live with such able musicians. With 16 tracks coming from his more mellow prog side, there’s still enough punch to cater for most fans; the outro to Evermore, sections of Gato and the whole of Kingdom are very…

THE YEAR 1971 has been described as the best of all for rock albums. Books have even been written about it. Whether or not such a thing is even possible to define (it’s about as subjective as a thing can be), 1971 was certainly an interesting one for me. It was the year I bought my first ‘proper’ guitar, a 1967 Fender Telecaster. I was working in a factory in Chelmsford making corrugated cardboard boxes, madly saving my wages in order to get something a cut above my Framus Hollywood Les Paul copy. As I was working shifts - 6am-2pm or 2pm-10pm - I chose an afternoon shift day and got the train down to London. The Tele was in Guitar Village in Shaftesury Avenue, cost £105, the body had…

I get more than one email about strumming every single day. But the truth is, if strumming is hard for you then you’re doing it wrong. In this article I want to give you as many tips on strumming as I can, so if it’s an issue for you then I might help you work it out. Teachers might find this a useful reference too and many of the emails are from teachers asking for tips on teaching rhythm to those that have learned wrongly and so have ingrained bad habits. The first and most important tip I can give you is that the strumming hand keeps moving consistently. Now of course there are exceptions to this rule and in more complex strumming styles, odd times and for some specific…

If you were into contemporary music in 1971, chances are you’d have owned most, if not all, of the albums covered in this feature. To talk through them in the order they were released: The Yes Album hit the stores in February - their first with Steve Howe, who brought his love of jazz, country and ragtime, and not the prevailing blues influence of the day - you won’t hear much in the way of string bends and vibrato, but who cares when the music is this interesting? James Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon followed in March, demonstrating his adept fingerstyle acoustic as the centrepiece of a dream team, including the Memphis Horns, Carole King and Leland Sklar. Meanwhile, in Birmingham Tony Iommi had been laying down…

This month we are looking at an exclusive solo courtesy of the Strat favouring Oz Noy. Jason wrote and recorded Grease And Grit’s backing track; it features a funky 4/4 groove at 115bpm. The track is in the key of G Minor, with some additional harmonic movement courtesy of chords from outside this key. For the intro Oz uses a question and answer approach. The band makes a Gm6 based riff statement and Oz answers it with finger-twisting chord stabs using a clean and vibrato effected tone. The G Minor based chords of Am7 b 5 and D7 are used as a turnaround and this sets up the Minor II-V-I progression. The verse section features the chords Gm7, A b maj7 and B b m7 which is a unique combination…

Many young electric guitar players consider ‘sweep’ or ‘economy’ picking to be a relatively modern technique often associated with virtuoso shredders such as Yngwie Malmsteen or the amazing Australian fusion guitarist, Frank Gambale. It often comes as a surprise to discover early jazz, blues and rock and roll guitarists exploiting sweep picking ideas, essentially the concept of using a consecutive follow-through directional sweep of the pick to articulate multiple notes with one movement, a good half a century or so earlier. Alternate picking is a great technique for achieving a balanced and even tone and for defining a strong rhythmic pulse to your playing. It does have its limitations, however. If you’re not familiar with the idea of sweeping, try the following exercise: “Just remember that you’re lining up chord…

Fingernails for the classical guitarist are super important to create a good clear tone. A shape that works for you must be established and maintained. They should extend just beyond the fingertips and should curve following the shape of the fingertip. A slight slant on the left side (back of the hand facing you, but opposite for left-handers) will act as a ramp for the string leaving the fingertip when you pluck. You will need an array of nail files and fine sand paper to file and polish for a smooth finish and clean tone.…

Last month we explored the idea of creating bebop licks over a jazz-blues using chord substitution. The idea is to ‘Minorise’ the Dominant chords by superimposing Minor tonalities over them. These Minor tonalities become the source of our melodic lines. The first idea is to substitute a Dominant 7th chord with a Minor 7th whose root is a 5th above it. We’re working with a G Major blues, and chord I in our example is G13, so the Minor chord a perfect 5th above is D Minor. Last time we used Dm7, Dm9 and Dm6 arpeggios as the basis for our melodic lines. This month we’re going to explore the sounds that can be created with the Melodic Minor scale. So let’s look at some D Jazz Minor licks. In…

DANIEL KNIGHTON / GETTY IMAGES Overall 9/8 is a unique time signature in that it can feel odd or even depending on the context. It can be divided evenly into three groups of three eighth notes, which would be counted ‘1 and a 2 and a 3 and a’ giving a triplet feel. The nine notes can also be divided unevenly for a variety of different feels, which is what we’ll explore in this lesson. Example 1 demonstrates the triplet 3/4 feel with a Celtic folk influenced acoustic riff. This piece of music could also be written in 3/4 time with triplet figures over the notes, but 9/8 gives us the same information while looking cleaner on the page - 9/8 can also be referred to as compound triple time.…

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.…

“If a guitarist practises three hours per day for nine months and there is no one there to hear him, is he getting any better?” And with that existential conundrum, I offer you an insight into the practice and learning routine that has made me the King Of Cat Food Commercials, The Emperor Of Entertainment and The Sultan Of Strictly. Follow this schedule and then marvel as middle-aged men accost you at the end of gigs to discuss string gauge options and plectrum thickness, attractive women glaze over when you attempt conversation, and invitations to “I’m A Jazz Guitarist, Get Me A Gig In Here” evaporate. Here then is your New Year’s musical routine and reading list. Run this little lot up the fretboard and see how it goes. You…

THIS MONTH’S LICK illustrates ideas in the context of bars 1-4 of a blues-rock solo. These ideas are all played over the‘I’chord, which in this case is A7. It comprises two‘question and answer’phrases: The first, in bars 1-2, is a simple A Minor Pentatonic‘set-up’statement that’s followed by an answering phrase using an ascending pedal tone lick (with the 5th E as the pedal tone) ending on a cliché Major Pentatonic bending lick. This style of phrase can be heard in the wonderful and fiery playing style of Steve Lukather. The second Q&A idea, in bars 3-4, uses double-stops, the Blues scale and a hint of A Mixolydian. Notice how the double-stops in bar 3 are chromatic - implying an A-G#, G sequence. The final bar is all about musically…

If you wanted a driven tone in 1971 without having to plug into an array of pedals, your only option was to turn the amp up - and in these pre-master volume days, this was LOUD. All but the biggest concerts relied on the backline being heard from the stage, with cranked stacks the order of the day. At these volumes the guitar becomes very sensitive, even if it isn’t heavily distorted. Players discovered they could control the drive by varying pick attack, or rolling back the guitar’s volume. For years we have been chasing this experience without losing our hearing or annoying the neighbours. Today modellers from Kemper, Fractal, Line6 and many others, allow us to do just this.…

You have a reputation as a guitarist that works within the areas of jazz, R&B and blues.What are your favourite elements from these genres and how do you shape them with your music? I’m basically a jazz musician-guitarist that can play other styles of music because I grew up as a studio musician. I started doing recording sessions in Israel when I was 15 so I had to learn the basics of different styles and how to feel comfortable playing to a click. Additionally, growing up in the 80s meant rock and shred was big - I loved it! So, jazz is where my education and harmonic and melodic knowledge is coming from. Funk and R&B is where my groove and pocket is coming from. Blues is where my expression…

The manner in which the pick strikes a string can play a major part in achieving a defined tone and can assist articulation and technical clarity. Many of the world’s best pickers, from Django to Yngwie, play with a slight lean in towards the treble strings, emulating the effect of a classical guitar rest stoke. Exploring the tonal and articulation differences when you present pick to string at an angle, not completely square with the string, can also have similar positive results. Both Robben Ford and Biréli Lagrène hold the plectrum backwards, so that it’s the rounded rear shoulder that contacts the string, providing a smoother treble response and also allowing the pick to glide across the strings when sweeping, so creating less drag.…

Fifty years is a long time, so looking back to 1971 was as much about nostalgia as it was about contrast. In many ways, that time period looks somewhat more vibrant and varied than what mainstream music seems today. Certainly as far as exciting and interesting guitar playing goes, on big songs that countless people cherish. So much has changed and yet much hasn’t; today’s guitarists are still strumming chords, playing riffs, taking solos and using effects. We just need to look a little further than what’s in the Top 40 charts by referencing, say, guitar-strong record labels like Mascot or Frontiers Music and various video sites online. We hope you enjoy our journey back to a time when the guitar was a shining, loud and vibrant thing, smack in…

C BRANDON / GETTY IMAGES Walter Trout is another sideman turned solo artist, and there certainly seems to be a trend following a particular generation of great guitarists who all started out around the late 60s and early 70s. Walter has played for some of the biggest and most iconic names in the history of music, working with the likes of John Lee Hooker, Percy Mayfield, Big Mamma Thornton and Joe Tex. He also followed in the footsteps of other heavy hitters like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor as lead guitarist in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. After touring the world and recording a multitude of records with the band, Trout left in 1989 forming the Walter Trout Band. He achieved great success over the next 10 years with a…

Guitarist Paul Banks and singer Rick Witter formed their first band together in York, north Yorkshire in 1986. However, it wasn’t until four years later that Shed Seven officially started. But Banks wasn’t actually in the first line-up. Instead guitarist and songwriter Joe Johnson held six-string duties. However, shortly before signing their first record deal with Polydor Records, Johnson left the group and Banks took his place. As a result, Johnson was credited for writing some of the songs on their 1994 debut album, Change Giver. The two guitarists would chop and change places throughout the band’s career, eventually working together in a later Shed Seven incarnation. Change Giver was followed by albums A Maximum High (1996), Let it Ride (1998), and the compilation Going For Gold (1999), which featured…

GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without? I must have the Jim Dunlop .60. It’s the perfect medium gauge and it’s got a powdery feel to it that makes holding on to it easier. GT: If you had to give up all your pedals but three, what would they be? Haha! That’s an easy answer because I usually only use three pedals: some sort of overdrive, a chorus pedal, and a delay. GT: Do you play another instrument well enough to be in a band. If so, have you ever done it? I played sax for nine years. I think I could still pull it off pretty well. I could even get through a gig playing bass with a pick! GT: If a music…

FEATURE #2 VIDEO ALEX SILL Digging Deep This staggering fusion guitarist plays and explains his amazing solo on another of Jason’s great tracks. CLASSICAL TAB VIDEO WOLFGANG MOZART Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Bridget Mermikides arranges the Romance Andante from this famous piece from the German genius. FEATURE #3 THE CROSSROADS PT5 Scott Henderson Wheaty shows how the great American blues-fusion master puts familiar ideas in unexpected places. NEW SERIES VIDEO THE RHYTHM ROOST Boogie Blues Jason Sidwell continues his video series designed to sharpen up your rhythm chops, feel and timing. Master the magical art of playing... HEAVENLY HARMONICS! There are so many types of harmonic that it can be a confusing topic. Andy Saphir is here to help with a special feature that shows how to play…