Acoustic Guitar Player

The John Butler acoustic  twelve string version of Message in a Bottle, what an interesting combination.

Two things that really appeal to me as a musician are:

1) Restraint and understatement
2) Interpretation of other peoples tunes

The ability to not overplay, even if you have the ability to, is a real art, to hold back and create a little tension and space.  I think many of the reggae musicians have mastered that art,; and the ability to imply music and hold back so the listener unconsciously fills in the gaps.

Interpretation is something that not all players can get their head around because they often wish to repeat what they have heard and not have a second thought that a song may have other possibilities.

I’ve stated before that I like John Butler’s music and when I heard him doing the Police tune, ‘Message in a Bottle’ I was very impressed with the way he made it his own. I like the rhythm part, the brushes as the acoustic bass.

To hear more John Butler click the link John Butler

Todays video youtube post is Lighning Hopkins, the classic acoustic blues guitar player, he has influenced thousands of players across the world.  He was a Texas Blues player and was inspired by Blind Lemon Jefferson. His music holds an important part in Blues Guitar history. There are two songs here, they speak for themself, in it you’ll hear where many of the riffs and guitar lines that are played across the world have come from. Hopkins often included the talking style of vocals. It’s a music lesson in itself.

Enjoy!

It was about 35 years ago when I first purchased a Stefan Grossman guitar book on blues, in those days, very few music books had guitar TAB. That may sound odd to a lot of people now. The books back then were generally arranged for Piano/ Vocal, that means they had little to do with the guitar and were really just a piano arrangement of the tune. Here’s a few Acoustic Blues Guitar Books worth exploring to help you be a better blues player.

Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Mississippi John Hurt Music by Mississippi John Hurt, transcribed by Stefan Grossman. Guitar tablature songbook and examples CD for acoustic guitar. Series: Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar. 96 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.F3176GTA) See more info…

Complete Acoustic Blues Method: Beginning Acoustic Blues Guitar By Lou Manzi. For Guitar. Guitar Method or Supplement. Acoustic; Blues. Book & CD. Published by Alfred Publishing. (22866) See more info…

Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Blind Blake Music by Blind Blake, transcribed by Stefan Grossman. Guitar tablature songbook and examples CD for acoustic guitar. Series: Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar. 96 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.F3432GTA) See more info…

Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil are both legends in Brazil, I think it’s important to hear the great players from other cultures and not get locked into one style.  I became aware of Milton in the mid seventies when he appeared on a Wayne Shorter ( weather Report) album.   The song Raca, appeared on one the easrlier Milton solo albums.  It’s another way of expressing music with a guitar.  Both these two musicians are known for their songwriting. There rhhym playing is excellent…try playing it.

This Pentatonic Major Scale in D is very useful on acoustic guitar. Note how I’ve used the open E string to create a bit of time to jump up the fretboard to the 7th fret.  This scale is very suitable for improvising over a D chord, it doesn’t include the Blue Note of the Country Blues scales.  The Blue note would be an F at the 3rd fret on the 4th string. 

 The notes of this scale are D E F sharp A B and I’ll include the next D so it sounds complete. Leraning simple scales like these are very usually for acoustic players, a lot of acoustic players when they are jamming will just all play the same chords.  A little aresnal of scales will enable you to create a bit of interest in a tune by using simple improvisation.  When two guitar players play the same thing at the same time,  then tend to squash each other.  Look for ways of creating space, the ‘Less is More’ principle is very useful in music. 

Ok, how to play the scale:  Start in the 2nd position, this means the first finger lines up at the second fret.  Ones you play the open E on the high string, move up to the 7th fret.  When descending, once you hit the high E note again on the open E string, move back to the second postion.  

Enjoy it, once you know the scale start to break it up into little melodic musical phrases.

To download the printable version click the link:
Pentatonic Major Scale for Guitar in D

This is part 5 of the 6 part series of Pentatonic scales, Part 6 will be uploaded within the next 5 days

To view part Part 4:
http://the-guitarplayer.com/2008/06/12/pentatonic-major-scale-in-a-part-4-of-6/

Dominic Frasca may not be familiar to a lot of guitar players, but he’s worth checking out.  He’s extremely innovative and is one of the players that is now expanding the possibilities of the guitar.  As guitar players it’s important to be open to new ways of playing.  This youtube is a sample of his work. He’s a serious player, so in the next day or so I’ll post about something that is not as intense.  Credit where it is due, Dominic Frasca is definitely out on his own, redefining how to play a guitar.

It’s always good to hear great electric guitar players on acoustic guitar, it enables the listener to put their music into some sort of manageble, understandable picture where we don’t have to try and decipher what is going on behind the electronics. there is some very good guitar work at about 2 minutes 30 seconds onwards , I like the sound of the guitar very much.  He keeps the whole song going and his timing is great.  Some of the wonderful electric lead guitar players manage to play a little out of time when they are solo.  Enjoy this.

Pierre Bensusan was that good as a guitar player in the mid nineteen eighties that the great (late) Michael Hedges recorded a song in dedication to him on the Aerial Boundaries album, the song was called Bensusan.  After Michael Hedges died, Pierre Bensusan recorded a song in dedication to him called So Long Michael.  Both these players have left an incredible mark on the development of acoustic guitar playing.  Bensusan had some very good early albums, Musiques and Solilai.  My favourite is the Intuite album.

This youtube video features Bensusan doing the traditional tune ‘Merrily Kissed the Quaker’.   Bensusan plays predominantly in DADGAD.  In this video he is playing a Lowden Guitar. Fortunately I’ve been enjoying his playing since the mid eighties and is the player that inspired me to play DADGAD tuning back then.

This guy is so darn good it’s scary.

If you love acoustic guitar and also Blues, the chances are you’d like Stevie Ray Vaughan playing acoustic blues.  I saw Stevie Ray play years ago with his trio, sensational.  But I never saw him play acoustic guitar, unfortunate.  I did get to see him play that beautiful white strat, possibly the sweetest slow blues guitar I ever heard. 

On this youTube video he is playing a twelve string with his lazy strum (said in an affectionate way) , it’s in E and is called ‘Pride and Joy’

For some simple Country Blues scales to help you improvise go to: Country Blues Scales

This is the fourth pentatonic Scale in my six part series of Pentatonic scales.  When I write the fingering for these scales I often think about what is suitable for the acoustic guitar.  I’m writing them in a manner that will get you out of the habit of just running your fingers up and down the neck.

This one is in A, use it over a chord pattern that uses A D and E.  The notes of this five note scale are A B C sharp E and F#.  The ascending is quite straight forward, start on an open A but be ready in the second position.  The descending part is great on the acoustic, you move up to the 5th fret and uses a couple of open notes and then moves back to the 2nd fret.

An additional thing that I’ve done with it is to put it into 3/4 time, count 1 2 3 1 2 3 123 etc, placing a slight emphasis on the first beat.  

 For part three click on scale link

 Part five will be added in the very near future.

John Mayer is still very young but in a few short years he’s been able to gain the respect of guitar players across the world.  This youtube video on acoustic guitar is called Heart of Life; he manages to to mantain a a solid vocal part while having rather interesting rhythmic guitar parts.  This is less frantic than some of his other material, it has a reasonably simple underlying chord pattern.  It’s extremely musical.

A few days back I posted about John Mayer playing with Eric Clapton.  A great combo. 
Click the link to see it http://the-guitarplayer.com/?p=185

Jack Johnson, the man that has redifined the word ‘relax’ and Ben Harper, a player that has always managed to player with a maturity way beyond his age.  To have them together is quite a treat.  For quite a few years during the eighties and nineties there wasn’t a lot happening in mainstream music regarding acoustic singer guitar players, YES, there were plenty of people playing acoustic and singing but it seemed very unfashionable for a long time.  In the 70’s we had, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, john Martyn, Nick Drake Seals and Crofts and others but as the other electric styles came to the fore, the great acoustic singer guitarists didn’t really get much of a mention.  Now there’s Jack Johnson and Ben Harper,  John Mayer, John Butler, Ash Grunwwald and others making people take notice of the singer guitar players once again, minus the Marshall stacks, being accepted as household names.  This will no doubt open the doorway for thousands of others to follow and take up the beautiful artform of singer guitarist.

Enjoy this video, it’s a song called ‘gone’ from the’On and On’ album . Sweey, very very Sweet playing.

Check out Harry Manx at my other guitar Blog Site - Harry Manx youtube

This is the 3rd article about guitar scales, this is pentatonic major scale in the Key of E.  It’s very useful for improvising in the Key of E, it’s reasonably ’safe sounding’ and difficult to go wrong with it if you are soloing in E.  The notes are E, F sharp, G sharp, B, C sharp.  It would be useable over a standard sort of chord pattern in E which included E A and B.  Yes it is useable over other chords,  but if you are new to improvisation just get it down so it works over those chords.  You’ll notice there will be strong and weak tones.

As always, when I write scales I write them with a few twists to prevent you from becoming lazy and to help you focus on what you are doing.  The version I have written starts on the second fret, moves to the 4th, then the 7th and briefly to the 9th.

When descending, you’ll notice I’ve added some open notes on the first and second string.  This is a great way to play, because you’ll get a nice ringing tone of the open notes, almost bell like and it gives you a split-second to change frets.  The bluegrass guys are great at this. 

 The printable version is available in pdf, don’t ruin your eyes trying to work off the screen, print them out and create a folder of them all so you can work through them away from the computer, minus the distraction of checking your email

Click below for the Printable PDF TABS and Notation for guitar

Pentatonic Scales for guitar in E Tab and notation

Here is the link for Part 2 of the Pentatonic series http://the-guitarplayer.com/?p=181

Practice slowly

Ani diFranco doing I’m not Angry anymore on youTube was the song that made me stand up and notice how good she was. This recording is the pinnacle of acoustic music, not because of its complexity, more for its ability to state what needs to be said in a a song, I think a lot of people would or will be moved by this song, it’s so emotional and it’s a very daring song in the way that she manages to lare bare her emotions on the public stage, something that very few people dare to do.

This real music.
Ani diFranco doing I’m not Angry anymore on youTube was the song that made me stand up and notice how good she was. This recording is the pinnacle of acoustic music, not because of its complexity, more for its ability to state what needs to be said in a a song, I think a lot of people would or will be moved by this song, it’s so emotional and it’s a very daring song in the way that she manages to lare bare her emotions on the public stage, something that very few people dare to do.

This real music.

John Mayer and Eric Clapton, a nice combination.  It’s always great to see some of the older musicians playing with much younger ones.   It’s a reasonably simple song, John Mayer takes a short guitar break, he has a very nice sensde of melody and Clapton takes over quite seamlessly. It works very well, it’s music, both playing fingerstyle on acoustics, the balance of the two guitars is very good.  The song is called Broken Hearted.

The Pentatonic Major scale is pretty common amongst rock players.  I’ve written it here in the key of G.  It consists of 5 notes,  G A B D E. If someone were to turn those notes into a chord it would be a G6 add9 , some might call it a G6 sus2.  It’s a fairly straight sounding scale, useful if you are reasonably new to guitar playing, it is a good foundation to work from when improvising over a G chord. 

I’ve added a little twist to it (as always) because I think it’s important not to become lazy.   The first part is very straight forward. Then once you’ve hit the top note on the high sounding E string, I’ve written it so it doesn’t descend directly, it steps down (lower sounding) by missing a note and then goes back up and down etc.  This exercise, when played like this will help you to learn to play across strings and it will help you to hear intervals (the distance betwen notes). Eventually you’ll play it automatically once your hearing has developed a little.

Here’s a great guitar tip:  Learn to hum your solos (to yourself if you like, not through the front of house PA speakers ). This will help you develop a great sense of melody, what you hear in you head you’ll eventually be able to play. 

Guitar Scales Pentatonic Major in G

Part 3 will be written within 3 days, come back and visit.

Are you feeling a little stuck and having difficulty organizing your practice?

 Well, I’ve decided to do a six part  series on scales to get the old fingers going, READ ON

 This is the first of a six part series on guitar scales. I’ve done them for both TAB and guitar music notation.

The Pentatonic scale is the most basic scale used for improvisation.  It is very useful and at the same time. probably the most boring scale possible. Useful because it’s easy to master

and apply, and boring because it is so easy and useful, it is possible to get stuck on it and not venture too far away from it.

I have named this scale the Pentatonic Minor because it is a five note scale, Penta meaning five and Minor because the relationship between the 1st and second note of the scale is a tone and a half (3 frets) apart, this is a minor 3rd interval.  But lets keep it simple for now.

The guitar lends itself to this type of scale, it’s easy to play, and play it can be played fast without too much sweat because there are only two notes played on each string, this enables the player to pick up and down and then move to the next string.

If you’re just starting out just play the first 3 bars, get it going nice and steady, play in time, relaxed and with feeling.

BUT if you can already play, you’re not getting off that easy.  I’ve created an exercise that moves up the fretboard.  It starts at fret one, then moves to fret four, then seven, then ten.  I prefer to work this way than just move robotically up the fretboard fret by fret.  It will force you to think a little more.

The chords behind each one of these sclaes would be:

F minor for 3 bars,  Ab minor for 3 bars, B minorfor 3 bars, D minor for 3 bars

Practice these scales smoothly.  This is not a race!  Oh yeah, turn the tele off.

To download the 1st of the printable Guitar Scales for Rock Guitar Pentatonic Minor click the link below

 Guitar Scales for Rock, Pentatonic Minor Scale pdf

Paul Gilbert on acoustic guitar, you may remember him from Racer X and Mr Big.  In this youtube video he’s on a nylon string guitar.  He is quite clear about his abilities at playing something that resembles Flamenco.  It’s worth watching his fretting hand closely, I’ve seen very few guitar players with such long fingers. I like to see players take a style or a tune and make it their own, and this is a perfect example of it.  His right hand has a very ‘tight’ sort of technique, unusual but effective.  Watching him play it’s easy to see his dedication and commitment to guitar.  I’m very impressed, his music has a freshness to it.  And the fact that he toured in 2007 with Satriani is no doubt a certification of how good he really is.

Enjoy. If you want to see some contemporay flamenco guitar, check out Paco de Lucia