Welcome to... "Micro-Lesson 096" This Micro Lesson works on a Southern Rock riff in the key of "G."
The riff has close ties to the sounds of groups such as Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers. It uses a lot of open string and two-note chord intervals, (Double-Stop) sounds to push the chord qualities through the changes.
Starting from interval combinations that are giving us a color of a, "G Power-chord," we repeat a phrase that leans into the open, "G" third string.
The turnaround intervals apply the chord tones of a, "C Power-chord," as well as, the, "Bb6," chord. The technique best used for this riff would be that of, "Hybrid Picking."
Hybrid Picking is the application of both the pick and the fingers. Watch my video lesson titled, "Comping and Hybrid Picking," if Hybrid Picking is a new technique for you. Take your time if "Hybrid" technique is quite different to get used to initially. After awhile, the technique will become better developed and easier to do. Enjoy! Micro Lesson 096: "Key of G" Southern Rock Riff
In this video, Guitar World and The Music Zoo—a top-notch music store in Long Island, New York—present "How to Buy the Best Guitar."
The video is hosted by Guitar World's Paul Riario, is a guide to buying the best electric guitar for your needs, based on the type of player you are and the sound you're trying to achieve.
It also features a cameo appearance (or two) from a true Aristocrat, guitarist extraordinaire Guthrie Govan. He even mocks Riario for not having his own signature guitar (while they're standing in directly front of Charvel's Guthrie Govan signature models).
As a guitarist, Steve Lukather is a wonderful paradox. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, he doesn’t class himself as a wizard of the fretboard, and although he’s a technically adept player, he places far more faith in heart and taste than blinding chops.
Music Radar.com got in touch with Steve shortly after he’d finished waxing stadium supergroup Toto’s first studio album in a decade, classically entitled XIV, to ask him what makes him tick as a musician. His answers, disarmingly frank and often irreverent, cut straight to the heart of what it means to make music on guitar – not just sterile displays of technique.
Though he’s certainly no slouch when it comes to navigating the frets with fire and flourish – you can hear it on powerful tracks from the new album such as Chinatown and 21st Century Blues. Read on to find out what Steve thinks is important to know – and what to let go – when you play guitar.
1. Push Hard For The Best Performance “Making [the new Toto album] was blood, sweat, tears, love, pain, tears, f**k-yous, hugs, laughter… it was all that. And that’s why I brought in CJ Vanston, to kind of be a liaison between me, Dave [Paich – vocals and keyboards] and all the guys. Because he’s a great musician, somebody we respect, a great engineer and he helped so much. And of course we had fun – but we kept pushing each other, man.
"You think you’ve heard every lick. You gotta dig deep when you play with guys who have heard all your s**t, you know?”
“We had a couple of times when we almost killed each other but without any tension you make pussy music. Tension sometimes makes you work harder. Sometimes I get mad, like on the solo on Holy War. I was really pissed off at Dave – he kept messing with me and I got pissed off and played that solo. You can hear it’s like, ‘F**k you, Dave!’ But I say that with love – I’m just kidding. When you’ve been playing with each other for over 40 years you get to know them and it’s hard to surprise my friends. And yet I try to do that. You think you’ve heard every lick. You gotta dig deep when you play with guys who have heard all your s**t, you know?”
2. Make each note mean something “I really try to play to my strengths, man. I’m never going to be Guthrie Govan: he’s a brilliant player. I’m not going to be Joe Satriani – I wish I was – or Petrucci and all the guys that play like that. I love ’em all but I figured I’m an older guy now, I’m not in a race. There are a million guitar players better than me – there’s no bulls**t about that.
"I was like, ‘Let’s just slow down and play the meaningful s**t'”
"So I wanted to say, ‘I’m going to try to dig deep with phrasing and choice of notes’ rather than, ‘Oh, look how fast I can play’ because there are guys that do that a million times better than me.
"If you get caught up in that ‘Fastest Gun In The West’ s**t it can bury you. So I was like, ‘Let’s just slow down and play the meaningful s**t.’”
3. Learn to laugh off criticism “I’ve been guilty of the ‘athletic guitar’ aspect of things myself, particularly when I was drinking too much and that was almost six years ago, but – thanks to the miracle of YouTube – every humiliating thing I could have done in my life is there for all to laugh at.
"Every humiliating thing I could have done in my life is there for all to laugh at"
"I had lunch with Eddie Van Halen the other day and we started laughing and going, ‘Will they leave us alone?’ We had a couple of bad years! Look back at 40 years, it wasn’t all bad, you know?”
4. Do your own thing "My son is a professional musician now. But when he was starting out he was doing the tapping thing – and I said, ‘If I see you do that again I’m going to get a bolt-cutter and cut your f**king finger off. That’s for uncle Eddie – that’s his s**t. Nobody’s allowed to do that any more – we all had a chance at it one time but no man, no more.Develop your own thing. Develop your vibrato and your time – the rest is easy, you know?’ So he consequently went a completely different way.
“What happens is people go, ‘I want to play the guitar’ and the first thing they do is hit Google: ‘How can I play this?’ and the next thing you know you’ve learned all these tricks but you’ve never learned how to play rhythm guitar with a groove.
"It’s like cutting into a cake that’s all frosting and no cake”
"So, therefore, you can sit on the edge of your bed and play all this s**t but if you play with a drummer, or, God forbid, you’re put in the position where you have to record with the red light on, you’re going to fall down the stairs, break your arms, your neck, everything else because you don’t know how to do it. It’s like cutting into a cake that’s all frosting and no cake.”
5. Practice what you don't know “Don’t practise what you know – practise what you don’t know.
"Don’t make it easy for yourself when you’re sitting at home alone. Then when you’re on the gig you can do whatever you want, because you’ll have taken the time to enhance your vocabulary.
"Play from your heart not your mind"
"I would say that’s really what it is: enhancing the harmonic content of your playing. But play from your heart not your mind. Start out simple and work your way through it, because it’s like having sex for the first time – you don’t want to climax in two seconds.”
6. Train your ears carefully “Having a good ear is really important. What I used to have to do painstakingly was lift the needle off records. So not only did I get the ear training that is required to learn things off a vinyl record, I also got to learn the solo and the mechanics.
"It was a lot longer and more methodical process – very frustrating at times – and it nearly drove my parents crazy.
"The internet has taken the mystery out of a lot of stuff"
“Now, the internet has made learning easier, but in some ways it’s a shame, because it’s like a magician: when you find out that the guy doesn’t saw the woman in half and you see what it is, you go, ‘Really? That’s all it was?’
"The internet has taken the mystery out of a lot of stuff and also the quest for it has become much easier – and therefore it’s churned out a lot of generic guitar players.”
7. Hit the back wall “A lot of times playing fast is bullshit.
"It’s great to impress your friends in the living room or in a club, but if you get in a big place you’re never going to connect.
"You can play a million notes, but they’re meaningless until you hit the money note."
"Playing fast in an arena-sized venue is meaningless. You don’t hear the articulation even if you have a great PA system.
"You gotta hit the back wall – guys like Dave Gilmour, they have that: the ‘money note’. You can play a million notes, but they’re meaningless until you hit the money note.”
8. Make it all connect “What gives me the most pleasure? When it all connects with the right phrase and the right note, the right vibrato at the right time.
"It’s that pleasant, satisfying surprise when you wind up a solo and know that you took the journey and landed on your feet. Even if you thought you weren’t going to.
"That’s when it feels good.”
Toto’s new album XIV is out now on Frontiers Music Srl. Their world tour kicks off in Glasgow 21 May. Head to www.totoofficial.com for details
Welcome to... "Micro-Lesson 095" This Micro Lesson contains a fast 16th-note scale run from the key of "A Minor."
The run rapidly shifts along neck positions from the 3rd position up to the eighth. Connections across the positions move through several guitar phrasing techniques including; Slides, Hammer-ons and Pull-offs.
Initially, the line begins from the, "A Minor Pentatonic," scale. The Natural Minor Scale takes over in measure two. Two interesting things about this run are how it both retains the same rhythmic structure in each measure, as well as, targets the tonic of, "A," at both points of resolution.
It’s been a longstanding view that musicians are drug-abusers and drunks who live life very much on the edge, constantly on the road gaining very little sleep and even less sustenance as they chow down junk food, each of these elements working toward a premature end to their lives.
Obviously, this is a little bit of “Nanna” and outdated notion, however a study published last year did cement that musicians do in fact have a shorter life expectancy than the general public.
Continuing on this dark yet interesting train of thought, a new study has emerged that compares the life expectancy of genders in music, as well as their genres and cause of death, providing some rather shocking findings.
Taken from, The Conversation, the average life expectancy of today’s musicians from a myriad of genres including blues, jazz, country, gospel, RandB/doo wop/soul, pop, folk, world music, rock, electronic/disco/funk, punk, metal, rap and hiphop have been examined, as well as main cause of their deaths, providing a very interesting and surprising insight into the demise of music artists.
The first chart plots genres over time, from the older sounds of blues and jazz across to newer kids on the block like rap and hiphop, comparing genre and gender against life expectancy for US males and females born in the same year.
Blues, jazz and country appear to have the longest life-span, around the 60 – 66 age mark, whilst the short-lived end of the spectrum is punk, metal, rap and hiphop suffering shockingly between 25 – 35.
It’s a rather close and intertwining trend between males and females, with men in country, doo wop, and soul on average said to live longer then their female counterparts, and surprisingly, this continues for electronic, funk disco, as well as punk, metal and even rap.
The ladies out-live men in blues and jazz, yet don’t take over until folk and world music, which shows the largest difference of the entire graph, with women musicians life expectancy falling below men for the entire remainder on the graph.
The study then explores the actual cause of these deaths next to each aforementioned genre, splitting these into five categories: accidental, suicide, homicide, heart-related and cancer.
Sadly, the highest cause of death in the examined musical types sees rap and hiphoppers die due to homicide at a shocking 51 per cent, this group however having one of the lowest scores for suicide, heart-related issues and cancer. Whether there’s a correlation between their lower life expectancy and causing a small figure for heart-related and cancer which is more frequent in older people hasn’t been made clear, but could well be a possibility.
Other bold statistics that stand-out from the summary shows that punk and metal musicians tend to die from accidents, and sadly, metal musicians are found to have the highest rate of suicide at 19.3 per cent whilst gospel and RandB artists sit at 0.9 and 1.6 per cent, respectively.
For blues and jazz artists, notably the two genres with the highest life expectancy level, are said to be met with the highest heart-related and cancer fatalities, yet both have very low levels of accident, suicide and homicide.
Of course, this is but one study on the life and death of different musicians, however it is a curious comparison. Take a deeper look at the statistics for yourself, are there any major surprises from The Conversation’s findings?
This weeks GuitarBlog discusses the concept of how guitar players will apply chromatic ideas around common blues licks.
When applying this, "Blues Chromatic," technique the guitarist will generally either use a very linear method of straight, 'step by step,' movements, or they'll use a method of approaching "scale" or "chord" tones from above or from below by perhaps a, "step or two," (in and around a chord tone).
These chromatic concepts can be slipped in at any time during a blues lick. The most popular areas will generally include the start or at the ending of a phrase.
In this video, I'll cover how these blues chromatic lines get established, and how guitar players can start to think about using chromatic parts in blues phrases. Enjoy!
Creating beats on a drum machine or on a sequencer can often seem overwhelmingly difficult for the newcomer at first. But learning to sequence drum patterns can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time with only a little practice. In fact, most introductory level music students can start inventing beats to practice against the first session they sit down to try it.
HOW DOES THIS WORK? Drum machines and sequencers use a grid system to map out where the different parts of a percussion kit will attack the hits. In 4/4 time signature, the measure is divided into four segments, (quarter-notes). Each of these four segments are again divided into four sub-sections, (sixteenth-notes). The grid is 16 across and represents, "16," sixteenth notes across the entire measure. Each of these 16th-note areas of the measure are running horizontal and only represent the place across the measure where an attack will occur. But, traveling down vertically, we will find up to 12 more boxes, (depending upon your own programs /systems /machines layout and options), where you can assign different percussive attacks. These can include any amount of different percussion tools, such as the; snare, hi-hat, kick (bass drum), toms and symbols as well as, claps and cowbell. The more advanced design, the more options!
To create a "beat" we would simply add any particular percussive attack into whichever area of the measure where we'd want the attack to occur. Different drum styles will have different patterns across the percussion instruments. For example, a jazz beat would have less kick and snare but more cymbal. A shuffle would tend to have more snare, and kick along with a lot of cymbal. Every style will be different however, so spend time experimenting. Look at the example below. It was taken from a "Soundation.com" sequence track of a rock style drum beat. Notice the use of the grids to create a closed hi-hat, kick and snare idea. EXAMPLE ONE:
In "Soundation" (shown above) the drum tracks can be tested with the keyboard keys to the left of the sequencer grid. You can add in whichever part of the percussive kit makes the most sense for the style and the part that you're creating. Soundation provides a handy drum machine users guide on their site to help get you started.
In the popular "One Motion" flash based online drum machine, we have a much simpler grid (see example two below). In this online drum machine, we only have
the option of five pieces of a percussion kit at a time, the OneMotion
drum machine is very limited. (keep in mind that the One Motion online drum machine is flash, and it will not operate on most mobile platforms. For a more "mobile friendly" option, try out the HTML5 Drum Machine at www.html5drummachine.com). EXAMPLE TWO:
When practicing the creation of your sequences, just keep in mind that each box of the grid represents a unit of time as a sixteenth-note. If the box is colored, it represents an attack. If it isn't, then that location of the measure is considered to be a rest, (silent).
Since most drum patterns are 4/4, this grid is highly effective for many styles of music. However, if the time signature changes, we can adjust the drum sequencers horizontal grids to match the time signature. In example three below, the grid has been modified in the "One Motion" online drum machine to establish the time signature of 3/4. EXAMPLE THREE:
Essentially there's no "wrong" way to create beats... just beats that perhaps don't sound very good. So, you'll never go wrong with your first try. Begin by getting started on creating beats with 4/4 time (since it's so popular). A simple rhythm using a closed hi-hat on every second 16th, along with a snare drum on beats 2 and 4 will always be a fun and simple start. Then, add in your kick on the 1st, 7th and 9th sixteenth-note. This will establish a great basic rock rhythm for you. In fact, this is the default rock beat on the "VirtualDrumming.com" website.
Start sequencing your own drum ideas today, it's a lot of fun and will provide hours of great jams after you build your favorite arsenal of drum loops. Have fun! - Andrew Wasson
