SOUND ADVICE
sound. When you’re first starting to learn,
it’s especially difficult to not concentrate
on what you, yourself, are doing. It’s hard
to step away from that and hear what the
whole thing sounds like. The tape will do
that for you. Go back and listen to see how
everything fits together. You’ve got to listen
for what a song needs. Even if you’ve got
three guitarists in the band (remember Moby
Grape?) at one point two of them have got
to be comping behind the third one. They
are going to have to work as one instrument.
If you think of yourself as two lead guitars
working together, then suddenly you have
a whole new different approach to rhythm
guitar. You might play two or three notes and
start thinking in terms of counterpoint. If
you’re thinking of three notes, you can start
throwing in leading tones.
2
On Developing
a Part.
When you get close to a song it will tell you
what kind of texture to play. One thing that
I like to do is try and be a horn or string
section. For instance, in “Sugar Magnolia”,
I’m a cross between a brass section
and a guitar. I’m playing lots of triads, a
contrapuntal a line, here and there, and
then another triad. There are two separate
registers that I play off of. The alto register
is the brass section and the baritone register
is the guitar. It goes back and forth, and I
try and get a swing thing happening between
the two. In this particular case, the song
developed because I was playing brass licks
that I heard on a Delaney and Bonnie record.
I was going for brass licks and whatever
time I had in between, was filled with guitar.
Then I thinned the whole situation down so
it wouldn’t be such a big mess that nobody
could play over it. Once again, when you’re
playing in a six-piece band you’ve to be
sparse and succinct to get through.
3
On
strumming.
“The song “Sugar
Magnolia” developed
because I was playing
brass licks that I heard
on a Delaney and
Bonnie record. I was
going for brass licks
and whatever time I had
in between was filled
with guitar.”
I use my whole hand to play the strings. I
do brush strokes with the back of my nails
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GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
OCT/NOV