Don’t we all love playing slide? Here some tips on phrasing and a couple of ideas on open tunings widely used to play in this style.
The tuning I use in the second part of the video is what is know as G open tuning, so from the 6th string (low E) to the 1st (top E):
D G D G B D
6 5 4 3 2 1
I am quite into open strings voicings as I think they are one of the few things you can only play on guitar and no other instrument, and I would compare the sound to that of a piano when the sustain pedal is used: the sound is fuller, sustained, rich in harmonics. in this video I will show you how to find more interesting sounds from the most basic chords, you’ll see it is very easy. I am sure you’ll benefit from this whether you are a songwriter, a jazz guy or into speed metal. In the PDF file you’ll find some of the chords I show you in the video.
Printable PDF: Open String Voicings
A lot of musicians seem to have to wait for the magic inspirational moment to write new material…but as we know, that does not always come very often…and usually it always comes at the wrong time, when you have noting to write/record your new ideas on. Even though there might be moment of your life where you are more ‘in the zone’, I think sometimes you should make things happen, rather than wait for things to happen. This is actually a lot simpler than you think…this is how to do it in 5 easy steps.
step1. Get in a room with your instrument of choice. Close the door behind you.
step2. Clear your mind
step3. Press record on your recording device of choice
step4. Play for at least 2 hours (maybe) taking a couple of very short breaks, focusing on breaking away from your clichés.
step5. Repeat steps 1to4 as many time as needed to achieve desired results
Listen to all you have recorded and try to isolate good ideas or themes…I am sure after a few minutes you’ll get to play some good ideas and you will automatically start trying to manipulate them to make a tune or some sort of form out of them. It is great to keep an archive of the stuff you record, because listening to the material the next day with a fresh set of years might bring up parts and ideas you might have missed. Try to do this on a regular basis, after all, most of the work of learning the craft is based on repetition…
Your mind is a very powerful thing. Have you ever thought how many single actions are necessaries to play an instrument? Even in its simplest form, play a single note on the guitar, it must involve hundreds, if not thousands of impulses in our brain and around our body. This never ceases of amaze me. At the same time something so incredibly complex and powerful, can be our own worst enemy. How many times during your first attempts at playing a C major chord have you said to yourself ‘this is too hard’ or ‘I suck at this!’. Your little inner thoughts are silent for the rest of the world, but they resonate very loudly within yourself, don’t they?
The best piece of advice I can give to my students when they approach an instrument is to be critical, but in a positive way. How is this possible? An example: let’s say I want to play a piece of music I like, but I find it challenging. The worst thing you can do is get frustrated with it and go ‘sod it!’* and throw the music out of the window. You know then for sure that you will never be able to play that piece of music. A better approach to the problem is to ask yourself ‘why can’t I play this tune?’. Am I playing it too fast? Trying to play it all in one go and I should rather break it down in smaller pieces? I assure you this ‘find what’s wrong with what I am doing-and fix it’ attitude will get you to your goal quicker.
To sum it up: avoid negative thoughts from the very beginning as negative thoughts feed only other negative thoughts, and nothing else. As time passes you will look back and realize how much you have improved and how easy it is now to play that C major chord you thought it was impossible when you picked up your guitar the very first time.
Good luck
G
* for the non UK population: sod it= a very British way of saying ‘forget it, I've had enough’
We have seen in the three previous videos where modes of the major scale come from and how to analyze them. Here I will show you how to use them. So in this video you will find a brief introduction to how to recognize basic modal chord progressions (=chords from part of a tune, or chords that make up an entire song). I also want to demystify something I always hear from a lot of younger players: you need to know modes only if you play jazz. The sequences of chords in the video are not just from jazz standards, but from a lot of pop, rock, funk tunes.
So, why do why have to recognize modal progressions? Well, once you have identified correctly the progression, you can use the correct mode to build a solo over it, or a guitar part, with all the right notes! An obvious example of ‘wrong’ modes recognition, is when, like in ‘Oye como va’, a soloist uses the Aeolian mode instead of the Dorian. One of the notes in the scale (the 6th) will clash with the chords played by the accompanist. Or in “Flying in a blue dream” if you used C major to solo over it, when you land on the note F natural this will sound very wrong…as the song is in C Lydian which contains F# in it.
One thing I want to add to the video: I found a lot of examples on the net about people using the Spanish example E7 – F7 to identify a Phrygian progression…that is not correct as Phrygian is a minor mode and E7 is a major (dominant) chord. That type of progression takes the Phrygian Dominant (sometimes called Spanish Phrygian scale) which is the 5th mode of the Minor Harmonic scale. But that’s another lesson…
I will list below some songs that are built around a mode or a chord progression that is not only major or from the natural minor scale. I will add more examples as I run across more of them…for now these are just those from the video.
Ionian
As we said Ionian=major scale…so all those songs that contain chords from the harmonized major scale and gravitate heavily toward the ‘I chord’ (e.g.=C major, if we are in the key of C major) . Usually, like when we say ‘this song is in the key of … major’ that’s what we mean.
Dorian
So What (M. Davis), D Dorian – Impressions (Coltrane) D Dorian – Oye como va (Santana) A dorian –
Phrygian
Nardis (M.Davis) E Phrygian, first two bars – Ana Maria (W. Shorter) intro and interludes (G phrygian).
Lydian
Flying in blue dream (J Satriani), C Lydian
Mixolydian
Kiss – (Prince), A mixolidian
Aeolian
All those songs that we call ‘minor’. An example I use in the video is ‘Europa’ by Santana where most of the original progression is in C aeolian in the original. Also the bridge of ‘Milestones’ (new) by Miles Davis is in A aeolian.
Locrian
As I say in the video this mode and the progressions connected to it are not used a lot. Maybe a good example would be a long 2-5-1 in minor, like in the second four bars of ‘Windows’ by C. Corea.