Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2018 i Total Guitar

JOHN J PRESLEY Darkness and dynamics from a new light in British blues The guitar is a fine tool for exorcising anxiety, but sometimes it’s worth reminding yourself of its capacity for nuance. UK bluesman John J Presley started off in a flurry of Black Keys-ian fuzz riffs, but after a stint as Duke Garwood’s guitarist he has learned to admire subtlety, too. “I think the first thing is space and drone or sustain,” he tells TG of his technique. “You know if you’ve got a really fuzzed-up sound and you absolutely hammer it? You almost hear the percussion of it? I think I’ve lost that and it’s more about touching the string than hitting it. Stroking the strings rather than strumming. That’s what I do now: quite high gain…

As the opener on Black Sabbath’s best-selling 1970 album, Paranoid, and featuring guitarist Tony Iommi’s masterful riffing, War Pigs rates as one of the most important tracks in heavy metal history. The song has an unusual structure, kicking off with a slow, spacey intro in 6/8 time, breaking down for a sparse-sounding verse and eventually reaching this month’s riff. Though there are no vocals here, the riff essentially forms the song’s chorus – it comes after the verses, after all, and it’s the ear-worm part of the track. You’ll find whilst playing the interlude section that you’ll be using two-note powerchords in the main, but keep an eye out for the vigorous vibrato and trill in bars 2 and 3. The trill is trickiest; it’s just a rapid flurry of…

JIM DUNLOP CRY BABY 535Q MULTI WAH £150 The 535Q Multi Wah is the first major evolution of the Cry Baby circuit and it adds in controls on the outside of the chassis for controlling the boost level, up to the maximum of 18dB, as well as a rotary selector for the filter range. What is important to note here is that with hardwire bypass it also attempts to solve the Achilles heel of the original: its somewhat tone-sucking bypassed state. JIM DUNLOP DIMEBAG DARRELL CRY BABY £180 The Dimebag signature takes the most obvious mods that can be done to the original circuit and packs them in. Extended filter sweep? Check. Six-way frequency selector for the filter? Check. Boost option? Check. LED indicators for both? Check. Camouflage paint job?…

Upstairs in one of London’s most prestigious rehearsal spaces, a discussion is taking place – dissecting one of the oldest forms of popular music and its place in the world today. Leading the conversation is ZZ Top founder Billy F Gibbons, joined by his Supersonic Blues Machine comrades Fabrizio Grossi and Kenny Aronoff, alongside the band’s special guests Serge Simic and the UK’s Kris Barras. Together, the five musicians explore how and why this near-ancient artform, even after all these years, still has the ability to make just about any human being feel things that other genres simply can’t come close to. Blues power, it seems, is something that will stay in our DNA… What do you feel when you hear the words ‘blues power’? Billy F Gibbons: “Well, I…

They are always on and always used: there is no room for luxuries on the Idles pedalboard. Bowen looks for effects that will react to his playing. He is currently using an Electro-Harmonix POG2, an MXR Micro Amp and Smart Gate, but it’s Death By Audio’s overdrive Acapulco Loco, the Echo Dream 2, Reverberation Machine, and Waveformer Destroyer that are the most essential items in juicing up his tone. “The best thing I find about these pedals is that they respond to what you are doing on the guitar, so if you dig in a bit more the feedback is a little bit longer,” he says. “The modulation gets a bit wilder, the fuzz gets a bit wilder, and I just love that they do that.” Likewise, Kiernan uses Death…

As guitar duo for one of the most influential 90s alt-rock bands, Billy Corgan and James Iha create intricate layered parts with grungy powerchords, ambient dream pop arpeggios and heavy, fuzz-distortion infused riffs. Corgan’s catchy vocal melodies and major scale based riffs in songs like Tonight, Tonight gave the band broad appeal, which earned them huge success. And, though their scale choice is often simple (sticking to major and natural minor scales), Billy’s biting vocal delivery and songwriting chops infuse the band’s material with attitude. Billy tends to use bends, legato and slower melodic lines in his lead work. We’re looking at some typical techniques used by Corgan and Iha. Play through our riffs to get some trademark Pumpkins sounds in your own playing. SMASHING ANGELS TRACKS 22-23 Billy uses…

If you ever needed a reminder that rhythm guitar isn’t always about the guitarist’s right arm, just take a listen to players like The Edge, Johnny Marr, Tom Morello and Jimi Hendrix. Sure, Morello and Hendrix in particular are fiercely funky, but we’re more interested here in how these players have explored experimental fx-laden tones, along with dynamics and textural techniques like arpeggios. It’s a different kind of rhythm playing, but, just like any other aspect of playing the guitar, you can still hone your chops! Try out our examples and try to apply what you learn to your own music. ARPEGGIOS INSTEAD OF CHORDS TRACK 32 Playing the notes of a chord one at a time (known as an arpeggio) is a great way to create a relaxed more…

Kelly’s new custom Gibson Hummingbird might not be the first acoustic you’d expect in the arms of a country outlaw. “Gibson has made me a guitar,” he tells TG. “I bought a Takamine for like 900 bucks when I was 18 and that’s the one I had forever. Now, Gibson has made me a baby pink Hummingbird with black trim. It’s like something Miranda Lambert would play, but I don’t give a fuck! It’s so pretty. They offered to send me a guitar for this tour and for some of these Late Night [TV] performances and I was like, ‘Man, I saw you guys have this baby pink Hummingbird. Send me that!’ They were like, ‘Oh, we don’t make them anymore...’ I said, ‘Well, you wanna send me a guitar?…

Pretty guitar. Shame I don’t play rockabilly stuff, really... Countless guitar nerds miss out on the joy of a Gretsch because they typecast stuff like the G5420T as rockabilly machines. Lest ye forget, Malcolm Young of AC/DC plied his trade on Gretsch Jet and White Falcon guitars. Pete Townshend of The Who also played a big-bodied Gretsch G6120 on the band’sWho’s Next andQuadropenia albums. Those guys didn’t play rockabilly. Is this based on a particular vintage model? Yes, indeed it is. The G5420T is a tribute to the iconic G6120, the guitar that was beloved by Stray Cat maestro Brian Setzer, doomed rocker Eddie Cochran and Nashville shredder Chet Atkins. Like its ancestor this guitar has the maple-ply hollow body, oversized f-holes and, of course, a Bigsby, in this instance…

In spite of the very different shadows that they cast, these four guitars actually feel quite similar. Each has a slim C profile, chunky frets and remarkably low action. Now, you might have heard that Bigsby vibratos don’t stay in tune for love nor money. That’s not our experience. The locking heads on our Yamaha and Italia guitars are without doubt a nice touch but we found the tuning stability just as agreeable on the non-locking Gretsch and Höfner. For the unenlightened, it’s worth nothing that a Bigsby doesn’t offer anywhere near the range of a string-dumping Floyd Rose. The effect is much more subtle. Plus, the sheer chunkiness of the thing adds to the tonal depth and sustain. You can hear that in the clean tones of all four…

Intended for use on both bass and guitar, the Grey Stache has been modelled on both the so-called Civil War-era Big Muff as well as the General Guitar Gadgets modded version, which was itself based on the Violet Ram’s Head Muff and the 3rd late 1970s version of the pedal. It’s also got a momentary feedback footswitch because, well, why not? There’s your standard three Big Muff controls as a result, volume, tone and sustain, but there’s also a mids control and a three-way toggle switch. This toggle shifts the mid response of the pedal. Normally, a Big Muff is characterised by a mid-scoop, and the three-way alternately scoops them further, flattens them, or boosts them, for a more in-your-face, distortion-like tone. FANTASTIC SOUNDS AND A TIDY BUILD MAKE IT…

Richard Hugh Blackmore was born on 14 April 1945, in Somerset, but such is the way with bona-fide rock gods, juicier theories of the man in black’s origin seem more convincing. Perhaps it was a cosmic anomaly that saw him emerge from a meteorite, a latter-day Kal-el with neoclassical chops and an untutored fury, who, with Strat in hand, carved himself into immortality through his virtuoso rock exertions with Deep Purple and Rainbow. 1 START WITH RISING (1976) Rising is a Tolkien-esque tour de force that cloaks muscular arrangements in epic prog-mysticism. Recorded in short order with producer Martin Birch at Musicland Studios, in Munich, Rising saw Ronnie James Dio’s leather lungs endow songs about wizards, cartomancy and death with a regal authority. The union of metaphysical storytelling and the…

DRY YOUR EYES... The true beauty of the Cry Baby is that it has only one real control - the potentiometer that is varied by your foot moving the treadle. Putting your toe down or up sweeps the centre frequency of the filter band. Frequencies outside of this band are attenuated, and frequencies within it are not only retained, but actively boosted. It’s this selective boosting or rejection of frequencies, combined with the dynamic ability to rapidly change them, that gives this famous wah pedal its instantly recognisable sound.…

MUSE DEAD STAR This isn’t a signature sound for Matt Bellamy, but it crops up fairly often in breakdowns and drops. Here, the pedal is on, and completely toe-down for a radical filter effect in the intro - to up the ante, there’s a fuzz in front. Just before the band kicks in, turn the pedal off and let your fuzz come through unfiltered. DIRE STRAITS MONEY FOR NOTHING Although the original pedal used on this track was reportedly a Morley, the parked, partly-open wah sound in the intro of this song is probably the most iconic non-standard use of a wah pedal in rock music, and instantly recognisable. Turn the pedal on and pull it back until you hear that sign. JOE SATRIANI SURFING WITH THE ALIEN Before his…

Billy: “Hound Dog Taylor was off the chart! His band were like a punk group, they just didn’t care and there were no rules. I read a really good piece about them recently, where the writer said, ‘Just thinking about the word blues gives me a headache… if I see one more band with baggy suits, big microphones and funny hats, I’ll lose my mind – give me Hound Dog Taylor on his worst night and that will be better than anyone!’ And I completely agreed.” Kris: “Obviously, there are all the older guys like Robert Johnson who started it all off, but Gary Moore was my first proper introduction to the blues. I started playing at five or six years old because my dad was a guitar player and…

Although the concept of a Smashing Pumpkins ‘reunion’ still feels new for the rest of us right now, for Billy Corgan, the idea of putting the alt-rock titans back together originates in 2005, when, following the breakup of his post-Pumpkins band Zwan, he took out full-page ads in Chicago newspapers and made his case: “I have made plans to renew and revive the Smashing Pumpkins,” he wrote. “I want my band back and my songs and my dreams.” It didn’t exactly pan out as he’d hoped, as only longtime drummer Jimmy Chamberlin signed on – and then he left and returned again. Over the years, several other members came and went, although Corgan did find a trusty collaborator and axe cohort in Jeff Schroeder, who has been a constant in…

There’s an old adage that guitarists spend 90 per cent of their playing time on rhythm duties, but 90 per cent of their practice time on lead. There’s probably some truth to this so this month we’re going to help you with the accompaniment side of guitar playing. However, it’s not all routines, drills and click tracks. No, without so much as a metronome in sight, we’re looking at rhythm guitar in the broadest sense. We want you to be a better, more rounded player by the end of this lesson! With that in mind we’re providing you with creative new chord shapes to try out, some textural, ambient approaches to rhythm playing, as well as all the info you need to improve your timing and your understanding of rhythm.…

Seasoned players and guitar newbies alike need to stay in shape when it comes to core skills like strumming and timing – so that’s what we’re looking at here. And if you thought the minor pentatonic scale was only for lead guitar, think again! This vital scale is at the heart of countless riffs, from Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love to Royal Blood’s bass-fuelled Little Monster. Try out our riffs and hone these essential playing skills. FOLKY ACOUSTIC STRUMMING TRACK 36 From Coldplay style pop to the folky roots-rock of Ryan Adams, basic strumming forms the backbone of countless players’ rhythm styles. This 6/8 rhythm keeps things interesting by adding a light swing feel to the 16th notes so listen out for a slight ‘bounce’ to the 16ths at the…

Outshinedis played in drop D tuning (DADGBE from low to high). The amp tone is lightly scooped, so the bass and treble controls are fairly high, but the midrange is pulled down, creating a heavy but hollow sound. Keep the gain under control and be careful not to use too much otherwise the chords may lack bite. Check the gain level by playing the chords from the pre-chorus and adjust the gain so each note is clear.…

It might be a pensioner but, like Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, the Bigsby True Vibrato is still doing the business, and using its wiggle stick to devastating effect. The first truly functional vibrato unit, the Bigsby was the brain child of Paul A Bigsby, inventor, motorcycle racer and guitar tweaking genius. Bigsby began perfecting his vibrato in the mid to late 40s and by the following decade his design was a feature on Fender Telecasters and numerous Gibson and Epiphone guitars. That said, the True Vibrato’s most iconic partnership was with the Gretsch catalogue where it was offered as an upgrade on Duo Jets and G6120 Chet Atkins models. These days, a Bigsby is an easy way for manufacturers to give their wares some authentic vintage cool. Which brings us…

I get it. This is the perfect guitar for Brexit voters... Maybe, but this Höfner’s model designation isn’t just a clever name. The RAF roundel concealing much of this Verythin guitar’s top is designed to attract the Mod crowd. It evokes memories of pimped Lambretta scooters. So, what’s the skinny on the actual guitar beneath the marketing bumpf? Skinny couldn’t be more apt. Born in the swinging 60s, the Verythin was German brand Höfner’s answer to the Gibson ES-335. Like its illustrious US inspiration, the Verythin has a semi-acoustic body with a solid centre-block. The big difference is that the Höfner looks like it’s been on a low-carb diet. It’s sides are just 32mm deep. Is it built in Germany? Not at this price point. Höfner do produce stuff in…

WHAT YOU NEED 0.5mm thick hardwood maple veneer Bench belt sander (or a belt sander mounted in a vice) Flat scrap of wood Paper hole punch Parcel tape PH2 screwdriver Scissors Sharp pencil Marker pen that matches the body paint job Set of calipers (optional) Setup tools: Fresh strings Tuner String winder String cutters Truss rod allen key Short ruler Radius gauges Feeler gauge Saddle grub screw allen keys SKILL LEVEL Advanced An absolutely critical part of a guitar’s setup, the angle between the neck and body of an instrument sets the plane for the bridge saddle’s height. Having a bolt-on neck offers a great chance to change this angle with relative ease by using a shim. A shim is the name of a simple, miniature, wedge-shaped piece of material…

Following up on its nifty Red Truck multi-effects pedal, Mooer has debuted the Black Truck all-in-one pedalboard unit, which features six built-in effects derived from Mooer’s Micro series. The Black Truck delivers compressor, overdrive, distortion, EQ modulation and delay/reverb, as well as a tuner, FX loop and looper switcher. Handily, there’s also a dedicated direct output with speaker simulation and independent volume, not to mention tap tempo, stereo outputs and an included carry case. It’s safe to say this will cover most playing scenarios and could prove a handy back-up should your rig go down, especially at its £294 price tag. Here’s the lowdown on those onboard effects……

Got my first real six-string… “My dad was a musician and he had two really beautiful guitars around the house. One was a 1953 Martin D-28 and the other was a custom-made guitar by these brothers in Tennessee. As we started to get more interested, my dad was like, ‘Enough of this! Leave my shit alone!’ He bought me a Lotus Strat copy in black and white.” “I THINK IT WAS NEIL YOUNG WHO SAID, ‘EVERY GUITAR HAS A SONG IN IT’ AND I FEEL THAT’” This old guitar “I think it was Neil Young who said, ‘Every guitar has a song in it’ and I feel that. I’ve had times where I would get a guitar and I would be able to write some great stuff on it and…

THE MARCUS KING BAND CAROLINA CONFESSIONS Whatever is giving Marcus King the blues it at least has the common decency to animate his creative endeavours, and with a tangible authenticity here that’s writ large in the violence with which he executes a string bend. It’s also writ large in a searing white-heat lead tone that suggests that, somewhere in the backline, there’s a Class A combo being driven so hard you could grill steak on the tubes. King’s solo on Homesick should be preserved in the Smithsonian for its tone alone. And the phrasing? Unimpeachable. For all its pointed catharsis, Carolina Confessions has a celebratory feel to tracks such as How Long and the psychedelic swamp-funk stomp of…

Not only is blues a springboard for many other styles, such as country, rock and jazz, but it can also teach us many things about the art of phrasing in solos. Often it’s the small technical details like string bends, slides and vibrato that go into making a great solo. The final piece of the puzzle for many guitarists, however, is targeting the best notes at the right moment. With this in mind, this month we’re focusing on how to further your lead skills through clever use of space, harmony and note choice. We’ve even added an extra jam track (track 11) to your Guitar Skills CD for you to play over. There’s no right or wrong but an understanding of how each lick ‘fits’ over a certain chord or…

“I see we’re doing muting again! Didn’t we look at this last month?” Sort of! Last month we looked at palm muting; this time it’s fret-hand muting. Don’t turn the page though. We’re not retreading old ground. This is a different technique that allows you to play in cool, creative ways. “Okay. What’s it all about then?” Well, you probably know that resting your fingers on the strings deadens the sound – provided you don’t fret any notes, of course. You’ve probably also noticed that the strings don’t go completely silent. Strike the ‘muted’ strings and you’ll hear a chunky, percussive sound. Give it a go! If you’re plugged in it’ll sound best with some distortion. “It’s really easy! It’s not very musical though. Does anyone really do this?” Yeah,…

Now that everybody in the world is angry, it would be an ironic twist indeed if joy proved itself the more subversive and effective emotion to recruit in service to furious music. At least, that’s how Bristol-based post-punk quintet Idles see it. After their strident 2017 debut, Brutalism , Idles have earned a reputation for trafficking in combustible angst, but they share a belief that reshaping anger via the weaponising of joy might just help us exorcise the demons that are pulling society apart. The title of their sophomore album, Joy As An Act Of Resistance , articulates this mood succinctly. Idles are looking past the anger and invite you to do likewise. A colourful spectrum of candy apple reds and surf greens at…

Billy: “It’s a song-by-song issue. We did an old song yesterday, and I used my Reverend [BC-1 signature] guitar, which has a little bit of a humbucker sound, and James was playing a Les Paul. But it didn’t sound right to me because the sound of that song is very much the Strat with the Les Paul rhythm. I told my guy, ‘You gotta dig out one of those Strats.’” James: “I think I’ll stick to the Les Pauls. For the most part, with the Pumpkins, and even in A Perfect Circle, I just have to play a Les Paul. They just have that heaviness I like.” Jeff: “I’ve been thinking about my amps a lot. I found an amp by a maker here in Chicago named Brian Carstens; he’s…

TRACK 28 PARTIAL CHORDS Playing a few notes of a chord is a great way to create a rhythm part that fits in with other chordal instruments, such as keyboards. Our F shape is a great way to simplify an F barre chord. Em7 is a typical Nile Rodgers shape and the C6 chord gives you the kind of sound that soul session supremo Steve Cropper uses in songs such as Soul Man. Try out the Amadd9 for a dark, moody sound. TRACK 29 WIDE INTERVAL CHORDS This trick will give you a clearer, less muddy sound than standard barre chords – an approach often used by John Frusciante, Eric Johnson, James Bay and most notably in Blackbird by the Beatles. It’s simple: most chords cover more than an octave;…

We round off our rhythm lesson with three broad concepts. First is the idea of combining rhythm and lead guitar. Most players do this and bands with only one guitarist are the main exponents: Rush, Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix for example. It’s a vast topic, so it’s perhaps better to focus your practice on rhythm and lead separately and rely on inspiration to bring your ideas together. We’re also looking at odd time and 16th-note style funk rhythms. And if you’re bitten by the odd time bug, take a look at Classic Track on p68 where Soundgarden’s Outshined weaves through 7/4, 4/4, 6/4 and 5/8 time signatures. For now, try our bite-sized example in 5/4. IN THE BACK OF THE VAN TRACK 46 Few guitarists are as adept at…

First impressions? The RS720B is the undisputed heavyweight champion in this line-up. Your plucky Gretsch, Italia and Höfner contenders average a little under 3.6kg (8lbs) apiece. That’s in the same ballpark as an alder-bodied Fender Telecaster. The Yamaha tips the scales at a heftier 4.1kg (9.1lbs). You’d expect those sort of numbers from a Gibson Les Paul Standard. Why would I want a heavier guitar? Well, the extra beef doesn’t hurt when you’re talking about tone. Add in the RS720B’s solid mahogany and flame maple tonewoods, set-neck construction and the chunky Licensed Bigsby B50 vibrato anchoring the strings and you wind up with a guitar brandishing some incredible sustain. The pickups have a real Gretsch vibe... Yeah, the humbuckers have slotted covers to echo the eye candy of a classic…

I didn’t know that Austin Powers designed guitars... Actually, British guitar guru Trev Wilkinson is the bloke behind the Italia brand. The groovy Mondena Challenge references the bonkers offset body creations set loose by Eko in Italy and Teisco in Japan back in the 1960s. We should also say that Italia build quality is significantly higher than the old school curios that have inspired them. All show and no go then? Nope. The Modena Challenge is high spec with its German-carved Korina body, bolt-on maple neck and rosewood ’board. As for the metal bits, you get three mini humbuckers, an anchored tune-amatic bridge with roller saddles and a set of locking tuners. Of course, the Challenge wouldn’t be on these pages if it wasn’t for its Licensed Bigsby B50 vibrato.…