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Archive for the ‘Guitar’ Category

Quite a few bands, including Queen and Thin Lizzy, have featured twin-guitar breaks that are carefully harmonized. (Nowadays, intelligent pitch-shifters will allow you to create harmonized lines from a single guitar part.) The standard intervals for such harmonizing are thirds, sixths or octaves, though a few fourths add interest providing that they are in keeping with the harmony.

Examples include the guitar lines on ‘Whisky In The Jar’, ‘Don’t Believe A Word’, ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ and ‘The Dean And I’. Non-harmonized combinations of lead guitars are harder for the ear to keep track of because the focus of attention keeps moving back and forth. As a result, there is built-in unpredictability, and each listen often reveals something never heard before.

The effect of two guitars independently soloing can be heard on Wishbone Ash’s ‘Throw Down The Sword’, Janis Joplin’s cover of ‘Summertime’ (part of which is free form and part of which is arranged), Love’s ‘A House Is Not A Motel’ and in many places on Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. To try this, set up the track for your solo and record a take. Do another pass without listening to the first take in your cans. Play both back and pan left and right. If you retained any ideas from take 1 for take 2, it is possible they may coincide, which will give moments of reinforcement. Some phrases could be deliberately played a couple of times if you want three or four guitars at once.

Sometimes it seems as if the people who write songs on the piano have all the advantages. Just think: no barre chords; the ability to play chords with 10 notes; perfectly ordered ninths, 11ths and 13ths; easy inversions; melody in one hand, chords and bass in the other; weird chord changes at the slip of a finger; a seven-octave range . . . and so on.

Well, there is one big exception, and that’s the wonderful world of altered and open tunings. Many guitarists have written a couple of songs in a tuning that is not E A D G B E; others have done almost nothing else but play in altered tunings. For some, this was a case of necessity being the mother of invention: no one showed them how to tune the guitar, so they tuned it themselves until it sounded “right” – which usually meant, had a musical sound –and what they ended up with was an open chord, the simplest altered tuning.

Purists say the guitar has only one “proper” tuning. Ignore them. I once took a guitar into a shop for repair, and that guitar happened to be in an open tuning. I was told by the ignoramus behind the counter that guitars were meant to be played only in one tuning. Wrong! What matters is the music you make, not how you make it. When Moses came down from the mountain with the stone tablets, there wasn’t an eleventh commandment that said, “Thou shalt tune E A D G B E.”

Some blues players don’t use a pick, but the majority of electric guitarists who play lead do. A pick provides force, precision, and speed that fingers can’t muster as easily and efficiently. If you’ve never played with a pick, try following the suggestions in this section.

Hold the pick in your right hand between the index finger and thumb. The point of the pick sticks out perpendicularly from your thumbnail, and only the top third of the pick shows. Don’t grip the pick too hard when playing lead, but don’t let the string push it loose from your fingers either. Play the notes lightly at first to get the hang of playing notes with a pick.

Picks come in different gauges or thicknesses, so if playing with a pick is awkward for you at first, play around with different gauges until you get a feel
that doesn’t fight back as much (thinner or medium gauge picks are more flexible). As your playing develops, try to play with a stiffer (heavier gauge) pick for the fastest response from the string and for the strongest sound.

When starting out with a pick for single-string playing, many people wonder whether they’re exerting too much effort, going too far past the string, or not going far enough. Really, these problems work themselves out without  thinking about them too much.

Generally, as long as you don’t accidentally hit the adjacent string in your single-string picking, you’re not going too far. And after you clear the string and it rings out clearly, you’ve gone far enough. However, your pick strokes do become smaller and your wrist motions more efficient the more you play. Also, the tempo dictates how closely you need to restrict your strokes: Fast songs require a small range, but slow songs don’t require you to turn-aroundon- a-dime, so you can be a little more expansive.