Today the first part of a series about how to create solos on the guitar. I will keep things really simple but at the same time will give you practical tips on how to create your own solos.

Okay let us jump straight into it: When it comes to playing solos the average beginner and intermediate guitar player will mimick the solos of other players. Logical, as you learn by copying someone else.
When guitarplayers get to grips with playing solos they often learn about scales at the same time, and for a lot of beginners, scales are a dirty word, it is something which scares them to bits. Why? It sounds complex, the fingers no longer have those familiar chordshapes to fall back on, the mind gets lost in the different,  often unfamiliar fingering-patterns which govern so many scales. I will break down scales  (and the fear of them) at some point, but for today I will make matters really simple: Give yourself three notes, play those notes, sing them, make sure you can sing them. Now find those notes on all your six strings. Once you can do that you are ready to create short melodies, which could be the part of a solo.

~ Play (or sing the first note), play the note again, but use a different rhythm, Play this time the second note a bit louder (using dynamics!!) play a slide before you go into your new note. Now create a little riff which uses those three notes: Two will be the same, the Third note is your second note from the Three Notes I asked you to use before. Now play this little Two note riff on all your strings, see how it feels in different places. You may be able to connect the riff of one string to the riff of the next string by using some other notes. Yes you are allowed to do so! The restriction of the Three notes is only to get you going, once your creativity is flowing you should carry on being creative and play.

~ Once you are happy with your Two Note Riff, write it down in TAP form this will enable you to remember the riff anytime,  is also a good method for notating longer songs you may create at a later stage!!

~ Create a Second Two Note Riff, by reversing your notes of the first Two Note Riff! Simple eh? There are countless of riffs from Hitsongs where this technique is being used, I will provide examples at a later stage, let us focus now on creating!!

~ Create now about Five Riffs which follow this strategy, write them down and have fun with them. When you play electric guitar, use different effects to play your riffs. You may want to use some Flange, a bit of Overdrive etc. Anything will do to give those riffs a different sound. It is also a good way to get a feel to creating different sounds in songs. If you play acoustic, play riff with a pick, then fingerstyle, maybe even put some chords in between the riff. Heh, before you know it, this short Two Notes Riff becomes the start of a song. You see how Solos, Knowledge of Scales and Chords all feed into the same goal: Making Music, That is all what you want to do.

Okay, once you feel you can do this Two Note Riff idea any time you play, it is time to add more notes and to learn a bit more about scales, maybe just the major scale.

Next time more about the idea of playing solos, the thinking behind it if you like.
Enjoy for now and hope to catch you soon again!
Eddie

Hello, today a very short article about upgrading your gear and in particular your guitaramp.

For a lot of guitar players the common experience is when it comes to buying equipment: Get a starter guitar coupled with a budget amp. Once people feel they can play a bit they want to buy a better guitar. Logical eh? Yes, but people often overlook that guitaramp. The amp makes a BIG part of your sound, and the better your sound, the better you will play.

My example of above is very cliched, and there are a lot of variations possible:

~ People start off on acoustic guitar, once they feel they get their first chords and riffs under their fingers, they will buy an electric guitar and an amp.

~ People start off on electic guitar, then upgrade to better quality electric guitar, then feel they have overlooked the acoustic guitar and get an acoustic guitar and start to learn more about tone and feel of fingers.

No matter how many examples I will provide, I may still overlook your own unique, personal experience.
What about the following example:

Student wants to learn to play the guitar, starts of with amp which will be suitable for playing in a band, because playing guitar with other people, and playing in a band is the goal. The amp will need to be powerful, loud enough to be heard over the drums. Most people in this case will buy something like a 75 to 100 watts amp. Logical? Yes, but then the band falls apart, amp apears too loud to use when playing with another guitarplayer, amp gets traded in for smaller amp. A few years later  this person regrets having sold that particular amp. What do you do??

# Start off with a small amp when you are starting out. Keep the amp, even when you upgrade to a bigger amp.

#For second amp, buy more powerful amp, but when you play at home, do not crank the volume, no need really as the amp will still sound a lot better than your small amp, because it is more powerful (more headroom– does not distort that quickly when you play it louder on clean settings ect.), does have a bigger speaker, therefore better bass-and treble response.

#Once the band breaks up and feel you no longer need that bigger amp, just keep it and buy another small amp, use this amp now in combination with your other small amp. You will be surprised how loud and full it sounds, almost as good as your bigger amp, only more portable and less bulky to carry around!.

#When guitarplaying is something you do a lot, look into getting a Valve amp. They are more dynamic and sound simply great compared to solid-state amps. You do need to maintain them from time to time: Change valves and some other components, but you will be rewarded with a great sound.

Okay and then I have forgotten to mention pedals: Add them to your basic amp and you will be in for a surprise: Your budget amp will start to sound a lot more expansive and fun to play through.

I know, at the end of this little story I have forgotten your case: Learning to play guitar for a few years now, still struggling with fingers, especially that pinky. Electric guitar? Still played as an acoustic!! You may need to ask yourself what you want from your guitar, and what you want to do musically. Not sure? Happy with whatever goes? Okay you may have to find out  for yourself what you like about playing the guitar.

Whatever your playing scenario is, it is a process, and a long one and do not expect easy ansers as there are none, there is only the experience of joy and it is this joy which makes people want to buy more guitars, amps, pedals, take more lessons, play in bands and make music above all, as much as they can.

Enjoy for now and hope to see you soon again.
Eddie

Hello today a short article about something I do daily: Creating songs, songideas, melodies and chordsequences. For today’s article I will explain briefly what it takes to create a small songidea and to put it on a looppedal.
The whole process in explained and demonstrated on the included video as well.
Enjoy!!

To create an songidea you first must have some musical material. This can be anything such as a riff, bassline, small chordsequence. For this example I have chosen for the following sequence:

     Dm    Dm    Dm    Dm

      F       C      Dm    Dm

The next step is to find a bassline which supports the feel of the chordsequence. For this example I have chosen the Rootnote for each chord. Next you include a drumbeat which supports the bass and the rest of the feel of the chordsequence.  In case you use a Boss RC2 as well you have about 30 various drumbeats to choose from to fit you little songidea. Plenty of choise there!!

Next step is to create a melody which fits your chords and feel.
How do you create a melody you may wonder? Good question! This one starts on the Root and does contain two sections, the second part of the melody acts as a simple variation. Main thing is to make your melody work with your chords, think about feel, sing melody before you play ect. Yes I know a lot of work for some of you, but keep at it and you will get better at it.

Now you have your basic song and melody it is time to create some variation with your chords. You could go for different strums and chordpatterns in different places of the fretboard, add little riffs in between your chords. The whole idea is to add more spice and variety to your songidea.

Once you have done all of this you may want to leave out the melody and start improvising in the same key of the song, again with the aim to add variety to your playing and the basic sound of the song. Just remember: Keep things simple and sparse for the music not to get too cluttered!

Here is the video where the whole process is explained and demonstrated once again:

Hope you enjoyed this article. Why not subscribe to the channel to keep you updated with more useful articles and videos. Please do not forget to like and share the video. Cheers!!
Eddie

For today we will have a look at the song “Norwegian Wood” by the Beatles for Ukulele. I have created a guitarlesson about this song before. Look for the article from 18th of Dec. 2010                                
This time I have chosen to transpose the song in the key of C major, which is a relatively easy key for the Ukulele.

Here are the chordfingerings I use for this song:

            C    Cm     F      G

   A  —-3—-3—–0—–2—–

   E  —-3—-3—–1—–3—–

   C  —4—-3——0—–2—-

   G  —0—-5——2—–0—-

N.B: Notice I play the C chord slightly different from what most of you will use. This fingering is closer to the melodynotes, makes up for smoother transition between chord and melodynotes. Try it and see what you think!

The First part of the song combines a chord with a melody. The song is in 6/8 tempo, which means you get 3 beats on the first chord and 3 beats on the melody.
The strumpattern for the chords is as follows: 

                           Down Down Up Down     Down Down Up Down

              Count        1      2    and  3           4       5   and   6

For the first part of the song you only play the chord for the first 3 beats of the bar, the next 3 beats are made up by the melodynotes. There are only 3 melodynotes per bar, and they make up for the last  3 beats in the bar. Easy!!!

For the second part of the song you only strum the chords for the full 6 beats of the bar, no melodynotes here!!

Here is the first part, which only contains four bars. Once you played these four bars repeat them again before moving on to second section. 

Observe the last bar with only the C chord and no melodynotes at all!!

       C                                     C                                 C                              C                 C

  A  ————————        ————————     ———–5———-     ————————-

  E  ————-5—-3—-        ————————     ——–6——-5—–     ————————-

  C ———————5–        —————-2—5–4   ———————–     ————————-

  G ————————        ————————-    ———————–     ————————–

Here is the second section which is only chords:

     Cm       Cm      F       F

     Cm       Cm      F      G

These chords are played for the full 6 beats, observe strumpattern as given above for this section.

Now watch the video to hear how you can play this song for guitar and ukulele:

If you enjoyed the video and the article, why not subscribe to the channel? Please do not forget to like and share the video. Cheers!!

Happy playing and hope to see you soon again,
Eddie

Searching for songs on Youtube for a totally different reason I stumbled across the many different versions of “House of the Rising Sun”. Most of you, including me, will know this song through the version of the Animals, who popularised this song in the 1960s. They did not write the song but their recording and arrangement made the song hugely successful in the 1960s.

For those of you who may not know the Animals version, here it is:

It is plain to see why guitarfans  all around the world like this song: nice clean sound on the guitar, backed by a relaxed organsound and a great 6/8 beat on the drums. The overal sound not too different from an average Shadows song of the same period. The vocals? Nice and sharp and clear. Overal criticism for modern ears of today? Song is way too long! Yes I agree, but remember this is a folktale of someone who got on the wrong track sometime during his life.

Okay, let us now listen to Dylan’s version, which was  also released during the 1960s, but is totally different in feel, closer to folk. His vocals start off semi-relaxed, in good, old, Dylan style, then he gets more intense and emotional. All of this makes up for a more interesting and musical delivery of this song. 

Now let us listen to LeadBelly’s version, which is again, very different in feel and delivery: Voice very soulful with the guitar just creating the basic backdrop for the message of the song. Very different in feel compared to the Animals version.

Now here is Nina Simone’s version. Her version is closer to soul and jazz, her vocal delivery more intense and rhythmically very different from the Animals version.

Now listen to Jack White’s version, which is closer to the Animals version, but mixed up with all the ingredients which make up the White Stripes including very intense vocals and guitarsound.

Now here is Muse’s version, again closer to the Animals version but all dressed up with Muse’s very own guitartreatments.

What makes a good version? Think about the vocals, feel and arrangement of the song. Experiment with the delivery and you may even want to rearrange the lyrics a bit just to make them fit your own version.

Enjoy for now and hope to catch ya very soon!
Eddie

 

Hello everyone,
What can I say? It has been, again, a while since I created the last blog. You may wonder why, no desire to write, nothing to say…….??.No none of that, just different things happening all the time, but I will try to make the the time to create a new blog from time to time.
Some of you may even wonder where that promised U2 article is, or wainting for more videos? Well all of that is  still to come, but not today, no today I want to point something out which a lot of you may have noticed when you are a regular listener of the radio. What do I mean? Okay let me put this song up first, and listen to the intro, please please listen. Does it sound familiar? Yeah? No? Where have you been all that time???

Okay, now listen to this man here! First of all apologies for the bad quality. On Youtube no original version of George’s “If not for you” from the “All Things Must Pass” album!! Well, there is a job for some of you who like putting videos on Youtube on a regular basis. Please put that studioversion on there, because at the moment the only thing you can find are alt. versions and this, poor sounding, live version here.
Anyway, listen to the intro and you will hear where Noah and the Whale did get their intro from. How did they get away with that one? It is so obvious, anyway………………….

 

Okay, that is it for today, Have Fun and I hope to be back with some more very very soon, in the meantime enjoy your time here!!
Eddie

Today a short article with a guitarlesson for a piece in D major with using alternating and moving basslines.
Next blog I will return to U2 and Edge and the sound of delay, for today this short lesson with a video to back up the lesson for you to listen to.

The six/eight feel does have two accents in the bar: The accent are on the One and the Four. You can count one bar of Six/Eight as follows: ONE two three FOUR five six. The capital letters are for the accents in the bar.

                        What is alternating bass?
 A rhythmic figure which moves the bass: It is common practise to play Root and Fifth of the chord, but it depends on what you like and the rhythm of song. The bass is played first, followed by the chord, then next bass is played followed, again, by the chord. 

                   What is a moving bassline?
A melodic pattern, which is played in the bassregistre on the fretboard of the guitar, to connect one chord to the next chord. When played well it creates an enhanced sound to the chordsequence.

Here is the tab. for the song, the chords are all common, open chords which most of you will know.

           D           D               D                             G             G             G

 E ———————-    ———————-   ——————–   ———————–

 B ———————-    ———————-   ——————–   ———————–

 G ———————-    ———————-   ———————  ———————–

 D –0——————-   –0——–0———-   ———————  ———————–

 A ————-0——–   —————–4—2-  ————2——–  —————–0–2-

 E ———————–  ————————  –3——————  –3———-3———

            D          D                D                               G             G             G                 

 E  ———————-    ———————–   ———————   ————————

 B  ———————-    ———————–   ———————   ————————

 G  ———————-    ———————–   ———————   ————————

 D  –0——————-   –0———-0———  ———————-   ————————

 A  ————0———   ——————4–2–  ————–2——   ————–0———

 E  ———————–  ————————-  –3——————-  –3————–3–2—

           Em             Em           Em                                 A            A              A      

 E ————————   ————————-   ———————   ————————-

 B ————————   ————————-   ———————   ————————-

 G ————————   ————————-   ———————-  ————————-

 D ————————  ————————–   ———————-  ————————-

 A —————-2——-  ————————–  –0——————–  –0———-0———-

 E –0———————  –0————-0–2–3–   ————0———-  —————–3–2–

          Em           Em                Em                                   D           D             D

 E  ———————–   —————————    ———————–   ———————-

 B ————————  —————————-    ———————–   ———————-

 G ————————  —————————-    ———————–   ———————-

 D ————————  ——————-2—0—    –0——————–   ———————-

 A ————-2———-  ————————–4–  ————0———-   ———————-

 E –0———————  –0————————–  ————————   ———————- 

                                                                                                              /
                                                                                                           (let chord ring for one bar)

The technique for moving basslines is universal and can therefore be used to connect any chordsequence. Experiment with some of your favourite chordsequences and see if you can think of some basslines which will spice up the sequence in a musical way.

Here is the video for this lesson:

Thanks for watching. If you like this article why not subscribe to channel, like and share the video. Cheers!!
Eddie

Hello today another blogarticle about U2 and the Edge and the sound they discoved by using delay.
For today I mainly want to focus on the change in the U2 sound and what this meant for later albums. In the next blog I will go into detail how you can create that sound yourself and I will also go into detail about The Edge and his use of the Volume Pedal. All of that is for next blog, for today mainly a short discussion about the change in the U2 sound which happened with the album “The Unforgettable Fire”

The album “The Unforgettable Fire” came out in 1984, by that time U2 was established as a well-known name, but their status as global Rock band was still growing. There are quite a few articles on the net about U2’s albums and the Edge and his use of effects. For most of the articles I write here I use my own experience and my own views of how I see U2 and how I experience their sound and songs. It is interesting to see that a lot of critics seem to see things in a similar way when it comes to “the Unforgettable Fire”: The album can be seen as a transitional album which sits in between the earlier albums “Boy”, “October” and “War” and the next album “the Joshua Tree”.

“The Unforgettable Fire” meant a change for their sound: More and more use of digital delay where the guitars would sit in between drums and bass and form a part of the rhythm rather than being part of the main structure of the song: Usually the guitars play chords and riffs and both of these from the structure and the body of the song. Not with U2, a lot of the guitar parts they created from about 1984 onwards form little embelishing parts which add detail to the song. They can be seen as the extras, and yes, these extras are important, but they do not form the body of the song. The bass from now onwards would lay down the harmonic structure of the song where the guitars could play around with the rhythm and some effects. A lot of bands have copied this approach, not literally, but you can see where there sound comes from. I am thinking of the Killers later work and ColdPlay. In a way ColdPlay can be seen as a modern version of U2, in their global status and their changes in sound throughout the years.

Some of these changes mentioned before were brought onwards by working with producer Brian Eno, but is it fair to say that U2 wanted a change in their sound themselves around 1984. As a result  of the changes in sound, U2 would become bigger and bigger, they had created a template with the sound of delay and other atmospheric treats which they were able to adapt over time, make the U2 sound work within the framework of time and the sound of the popmusic of the day.

Fastforward to the “Joshua Tree” album and we find U2 with a more American, traditional Roots Rock sound which has more in common with Blues and Folk music rather than a British Sound. Having said that, U2 always had that Irish sound, the Folk is in their sound, regardless of how hard they Rock, a song like “New Years Day” brings this all home, no matter what the critics write about “War” being U2’s rawest Rock Album. Truth is the U2 sound is a mix of so many different musics, which is a healthy aproach to making music. The digital delay gave them a more modern element which would help them to stay at the top of their game.

“Rattle and Hum” the last album of the 1980s would see U2 once more in the field of American Roots Music. It opens with the Beatles song “Helter Skelter” played with so much passion and energy. It is really hard to see why critics disliked the album so much. It was once again U2 doing what they do regardless of all the musical trends of the time.

The 1990s would see U2 with three more albums: “Achtung Baby”, “Zooropa” and “Pop”.  “Achtung Baby” was and is still seen as the most important album of all those three. Again it meant a change in sound, more electronic–think of the dance movement of the late 80s and early 90s— but the U2 sound was still there. “Zooropa” contains more softer songs and “Pop” is more beat-based music, more produced and less of a live-rock band sound.

Let me bring you now back to the song and album which started this discussion about the change in sound and the U2 sound in general. Here is a prime example of the U2 sound, complete with delay, harmonics and volumepedal bringing in sounds which remind you more about keys from a keyboard being touched rather than strings of a guitar being strummed.

Here another one, maybe this one is clearer and more in your face with regards to the characteristic U2 sound and its use of digital delay:

Here U2 themselves talking about the album, some of the changes ect.

That is it for today folks, for next blog I want to talk your through some of the specifics of that delaysound, what kind of set-up you can use, the use of volumepedal in that set-up to create other sounds.
Not pretending to know all the effects the Edges uses to get his sound, but I do listen closely, think and experiment. I firmly believe you can get close to some of the sounds Edge uses with only a handful of effects, but that is the stuff for next blog.
Enjoy for now, and hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie

Before I create the next article about more U2 songs and the use of delay have a look at these two articles here. The first one is an interview from 2000 for Guitar Player with Edge about the making of the album “How to Defuse……..”. Second article is about the recordingprocess of the last album.

Here is the first interview:
http://u2_interviews.tripod.com/id91.html  N.B The LINK DOES NOT WORK.

To read the interview go to google and seach for: INTERVIEW EDGE GUITAR PLAYER 2000
Once you have the interview up you will see the same html address. Not sure why my link here does not work. Anyway hope you can find the interview.

Second article:
www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun09/articles/itu2.htm

Enjoy and hope to see you soon again.
Eddie

Today a brief article about the Edge and the sounds he made on U2’s first album “Boy” I will talk you through some of those sounds, how they are made ect. No tabs for now, maybe later as I will mainly deal with the sound of those parts.
I must be kind of crazy you may say to take on something like talking about the Edge’s guitarsound as the man uses that many guitars and effects and one can never be really sure what is going on soundwise. Just go back to the last article to see for yourself how many different guitars and effects he uses. It really is amazing.
Before I go deeper into the sounds and songs of the first album let me first make a few general comments about the Edge’s guitarplaying and the music of U2 in general.

The Edge’s guitarplaying is full of characteristics he uses regularly. To get some of these sounds you need to look at his playing, how he thinks musically. His guitarrig is not the only part where these sounds come from. A big part of the Edge’s sound comes from playing in a Trio Set-Up where Rhythm-and Solo playing are blended into each other. Think of other great Trios such as Jimi Hendrix, Andy Summers from the Police, Johnny Marr from the Smiths and you see similar features popping up: Being able to flesh out the song on the guitar in different ways: Play your chords in different places, go from  playing chords to  playing single notes without any hesitation. The sounds,which are being used by all the guitar players I mentioned above, are used mainly to enhance the song, to add character and variety to the exhisting  bandsound.

Looking at the Edge’s guitarplaying you can see riffs being used which are made up from parts of small chords instead of single notes. The chord he plays are often small, most of them are being played on the top three strings of the guitar, or the inner four strings. He does not use barrechords too often. Barre chords can make your sound muddy especially when you are using distortion. You get a cleaner bandsound  by leaving this registre of the music to be covered by the Bass guitar.
Apart from riffs made up from small chords the Edges uses a lot of harmonics. A main staple of his effects are echo and delay. Not too much delay on the first album, this would become more important from the Fourth Album “The Unforgetable Fire” onwards. I will go into detail about this in future articles about the Edge’s guitar sound. For today’s article I will focus mainly on the sound of the First Album.

The drums and the bass play a major part in U2’s sound as well: We have a drummer here who is not affraid to create his own drumparts: The drumming on some of the earlier songs sounds very fresh, very different from a standard Rock beat. Most of the Bass- and Drumparts fit around the guitarwork of the song, in this way there is space for the song to breath. On top of this we add a vocalist with a lot of charisma and strength and we have the formula for an orginal, fresh sounding band.
When U2 broke through in the early 80s they stood out, they were different, they were loved by audiences from different backgrounds, they were the band who voiced the big anti-nuclear-power demonstrations of the early 80s. Their sound would change throughout the times, but within these changes there would be particular sounds which would remain and form the consistency of the U2 sound. On top of this, the band never had a change of any of their members. They stayed together as a family and they are still there, this is another feature of their successstory.

The guitar sounds on the first album sound very brash and bright. Thinking about the Memory Man (which was the inspiration for creating these articles) a clear example of the Edge using the Memory Man is the song “A Day Without Me”. Listen to the intro and there we have the Memory Man at work used as a delay.

As the song progresses you can still hear the Memory Man in combination with an envelope filter. The whole intro comes back later in the song. Let me not go too deep into the different guitarparts but yes, you can hear several of them, all overdubbed of course. The gallopping basssound, yes that is a guitar as well and gives the song that distintive rhythmfeel, there are even some harmonics  being played at some point. You may have to listen to the song a few times to get used to hearing all these different parts. Great to reintroduce the intro again at a later point in the song. This song is on of the few where the Edge plays a longer solo than his usual chordstabbs. The sound of the solo is very bright and is mainly played on the top two strings of the guitar.

The next song is somewhat unusual in title and effect: An E-Bow. It is introduced at 0.06. To most of you readers it may sound as feedback but it is not, it is an E-bow. Later on Edge would use more of this because of his introduction to Brian Eno, who used this effect on “Heroes” of David Bowie. The effect is reintroduced (or brought up in the mix again) at different points in the song. Again it is very subtle and all makes part of the building blocks of the sound of the song.

Next song does contain some of the chorussounds (1.51) from an Electro Harmonix Clone Theory. They sound very mechanical and metallic as opposed to the smoothness of a Boss CE-1. The basssound on the intro may be a Memory Man, as it sounds more glassy and having a tad more space and wetness on it. It is overdubbed, but you can do these things live, I will explain later on in another article which will go into detail about different set-ups using the Memory Man while using an extra delay in combination with a second amp, but that is the stuff for later on, today only sounds from “Boy” as means for introduction and to open up your ears to those sounds. 

Last song for today, it is “Shadows and Tall Trees”. Again somewhat unusual for the time to record a song in this way: What we hear is an acoustic guitar being played through a Memory Man and a Clone Theory to give it more body. The sound in itself is artistic. Not many people would love to take their acoustic though any of these boxes to amplify the acoustic sound of the guitar, but Edge does not mind. Gives the guitar that metallic sound I mentioned before, but this time it comes from an acoustic. In one of the videos of the previous article you can see the Edge using an acoustic for electric sounds, the guitar does have a device which can detune the guitar automatically. Again, not many players will like this kind of thing, and Edge uses this acoustic guitar to create electric sounds! Fantastic!!

For next article I will look at more U2 songs from a later period. I will not go throuh all the albums, mainly look at echo and delay and some other issues.
I have been experimenting with my guitar set-ups to get some of these sounds. What I discovered  is in one word fantastic because I have never gone out of my way to recreated the sounds of another player. As I was doing so I got close to Andy Summers and Dave Gilmour. In a way there are similar things going on with the sounds of all these players. I will go more into detail about these set-ups in later articles, for next article it is more U2 songs and sounds.

Enjoy and hope to see you soon again,
Eddie