Innehållsförteckning för January 2016 från Total Guitar

Jimi Hendrix is so deeply embedded in our minds sometimes, it’s easy to forget that beyond the wailing solos, flamboyant psychedelia and guitar burning, his playing has had a huge influence on the guitar music that’s come along since. Perhaps more than anyone else, Jimi has inspired players from practically every branch of the guitar family tree. Don’t believe us? Check out John Frusciante’s melodic trills, Mike McCready’s soaring lead, the blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer, Van Halen’s explosive technical and sonic exploration, Josh Homme or Matt Bellamy’s stomping rock grooves… we could go on and on. What’s equally brilliant is that today – 45 years after his death – Jimi continues to inspire. So, when we found out that we were getting the new Fender Hendrix…

TRACKS 07-08 This month we’re looking at the ‘call and response’ rhythm parts in the opening bars of The 1975’s infectiously catchy recent single, Love Me. The riff ends with a synth line and we’ve even recreated this on guitar for you. We’re in standard tuning, so tune to EADGBE to play along. The song starts with F7 and E7 chords played by two guitars in a ‘call and response’ style – that means one guitar plays the first phrase and is ‘answered’ by a second guitar (though you can easily play it on your own). Take time to learn the rhythms as the phrases are the building blocks of the whole track. Tap your foot and emphasise the first note of each phrase to keep time. We’ve recreated the…

Got my first real six string “My first guitar was some cheap Spanish thing. Before that actually I had a plastic guitar with a chord book called Play Like Elvis or something. From there I went through the cheap Spanish thing to a Rosetti, that one had a typical flat fingerboard. That thing was almost impossible to play unless you had an iron bar for a first finger.” Dream on “I was always torn between wanting a Strat and a Les Paul when I was a kid. I used to draw both of them on all of my school books. I ended up buying a Fender Jazzmaster. Shortly after that I got myself an SG Junior. I still love Strats and Les Pauls today.” Let me show you the way…

FROM Steve Jones to Randy Rhoads The Les Paul Custom has always been the hardest-rocking incarnation of Gibson’s iconic single-cut model. Decked out with just the right amount of bling to make it desirable without becoming tasteless, the Custom has continued to be the ‘one to have’, just as Les wanted. Most recently, Bjorn Gelotte of Godfathers of the Gothenburg death metal scene, In Flames has become the latest artist to create his own take on the Les Paul Custom, and we’re giving one lucky TG reader the chance to win one! Equipped with active EMG 85 and 81 ‘Metalworks’ pickups in the neck/bridge position respectively, and finished in and ebony gloss, Bjorn’s Les Paul also features a tweaked take on the classic ‘split diamond’ headstock logo, replaced with an…

FUNK CHORDS TRACK 21 Get your fingers round these hard, edgy sounding chords and you’ll be part way to nailing Jimi’s aggressive funk-rock stylings. The 7#9 is the great man’s best-known signature chord and can be heard in Purple Haze, Foxey Lady, Crosstown Traffic and more. SINGLE-NOTE RIFFS TRACKS 22-23 Some of Jimi’s funkiest material was played with Band Of Gypsys. With a mixture of partial chords, fret-hand mutes and single-note pentatonic lines, this tab example will help you master the vibe of tracks such as We Gotta Live Together. PLAY LOOSE AND TIGHT TRACKS 24-25 Jimi could play tight or loose and this riff is an example of both methods, mixing up a Foxey Lady-style groove with the more strummy chords of songs like Can You See Me. Maintain…

JIMI Hendrix saved the Fender Strat’s arse in the late 60s. While contemporaries such as Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Paul Kossoff were all about the Les Paul Standard, Jimi reestablished the Stratocaster’s iconic status just as rock pioneer Buddy Holly and King Of The Surf Guitar Dick Dale had done years before. The ironic twist is that southpaw Jimi couldn’t find a left-handed Strat so had to flip a right-handed model, and reverse the strings, to make it work. While he’s best known for the big headstock Olympic White Strat he abused at Woodstock in 1969, Jimi owned a various examples of Leo Fender’s iconic invention during his short but explosive career, including a favourite pre-CBS [so pre-1965] Sunburst model with a small headstock. There’s some debate that Jimi…

Back when Jimi Hendrix was plying his trade, Fender guitars came spec’d with a 7.25-inch fingerboard radius. This curvy profile was perfectly fine for fretting chords and banging out riffs, but it made it difficult to achieve a low action compared with the flatter 12-inch ’boards of Gibson Les Pauls and SGs. The basic idea is the higher the number the flatter the ’board, and you’ll find many modern rock guitars boasting a 12-inch to 14-inch radius. These days, Fender supplies most of its guitars – including its Custom Shop Time Machine models – with a 9.5-inch radius fingerboard that, as demonstrated by our Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster, allows a low action without the worry of string bends choking out above the 12th fret. Installing fatter frets also improves the string-bending…

AT A GLANCE  TOP: Solid Sitka spruce BACK & SIDES: Mahogany NECK: Mahogany SCALE: 648mm (25.5”) FINGERBOARD: Rosewood FRETS: 20 ELECTRICS: Fishman Isys 301 w/ USB; volume, bass, treble knobs; phase, tuner buttons HARDWARE: Open-gear tuners – chrome die-cast LEFT-HANDED: Yes (Natural and Satin Natural only) FINISH: Satin Natural, Satin Mahogany, Satin Burgundy Burst (shown), see website for other finish options CONTACT: JHS 01132 865 381 www.jhs.co.uk PREAMP THE Isys preamp’s phase button performs two useful functions: it boosts bass at low volumes and suppresses feedback if you take it onstage LOOKS THE herringbone/abalone rosette is the closest thing to bling here; the transparent scratchplate is all about low-key functionality FINISH AS WELL as this Satin Burgundy Burst, the VEC501 range includes Satin Natural and Mahogany finishes, plus a rather…

ALSO AVAILABLE: PLAY GUITAR WITH… THE BEATLES 1967-1970 Guitar notation and TAB with full lyrics & chord names, 176pp. £24.95 ref. NO91399) Take your place with The Beatles with the help of these specially recorded full band backing tracks and Tab transcriptions. The accompanying 4 CDs have two specially recorded backing tracks of each song, one a full demo with guitar showing you how the song should sound and the other is without guitar for you to play along with on your own guitar. 28 songs, including: Don’t Let Me Down, Get Back, Here Comes The Sun, Sun King, Hey Bulldog, Let It Be and 22 more. www.musicroom.com Backing track (track 76) THIS song comes with a backing track on your CD. Simply insert the disc in your player, press…

CHRIS BIRD AS well as writing and recording Jimi-style guitar parts for this month’s cover feature, TG’s resident tab expert has been working with former music editor James Uings on this month’s Start Playing Now lesson. If you’re new to the guitar and raring to get playing, turn to p62 to get started. JOSH GARDNER THIS month, Josh spent most of his time watching Star Wars trailers over and over, giggling to himself like an excited child. But he still managed to squeeze in a chat with Daughter guitarist, Igor Haefeli, to discuss the making of their superb new record, Not To Disappear - check it out on p12. ROB LAING THIS issue has got Rob thinking; will we ever see a guitarist as significant as Jimi again? “In every…

From Black Sabbath to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, there’s always something a little bit special when a band’s departed iconic frontman returns to the fold. However, no one seems to have told British prog metallers Tesseract, who are casually going about the business of hitting the road in support of towering latest effort Polaris, with original frontman Dan Tompkins back behind the mic as if nothing happened. Currently in Minneapolis on their first US run since Dan rejoined the fold last year, following the band’s spells with two replacement vocalists, founding guitarist Alec ‘Acle’ Kahney is clearly at ease and enjoying the thrill of playing songs from this year’s superb third album for the first time. “It’s going great, Dan’s settled right in,” he explains of the old band…

“THIS IS my favourite guitar. I was on tour with Mark [Okubo] from Veil Of Maya. I was playing a different brand of guitar and the neck broke, so I needed another guitar and Jackson were one of the only companies making the spec I wanted. Mark got me in touch with them and two days later I had a brand new B-7. Ever since I’ve been with them.” “THIS ONE’S special to me because it’s been refinished in Seafoam Green by a good friend of mine in Sydney called Charles Cilia. This is the same spec as any other B-7 except for the pickups, but I’ll get to that later.” “THE PICKUPS are Bare Knuckle prototypes that I’m working on with them. They’re based on the Blackhawk, which we…

1 Clutch PSYCHIC WARFARE Guitarists: Tim Sult, Neil Fallon It’s all here; Tim Sult’s juggernaut blues riffs, Neil Fallon’s vocal gravitas and lyrical genius, plus the godly grooves of rhythm section JP Gaster and Dan Maines. The fevered garage rock urgency of Firebirds, Sucker For The Witch and A Quick Death In Texas set new benchmarks. 2 Faith No More SOL INVICTUS Guitarist: Jon Hudson Their idiosyncrasies are all present and correct, from tongue-in-cheek ballads (Sunny Side Up) to heavy chugging (Separation Anxiety), plus an, ahem, epic or two (Superhero). This high-energy genre hopping allows Hudson to spread his wings, whether it’s with thrash or syncopated wah-driven funk. 3 City And Colour IF I SHOULD GO BEFORE YOU Guitarists: Dallas Green, Dante Schwebel Working with his touring band, there’s a…

IT GOES without saying that Jimi Hendrix is one of the most important guitar players in history – but he’s also one of the most influential. In addition to the groundbreaking genius of his music, his playing style has inspired scores of guitarists of every genre since, many of whom have achieved legend status in their own right – think of Edward Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Kirk Hammett, Ritchie Blackmore to name just a few. This month we’re celebrating the arrival of Fender’s first affordable Hendrix signature guitar (see p70) by going deep into Jimi’s playing style and showing you some of the key elements of his playing that you can use to improve your own technique, as generations of guitarists have done from every corner of the electric guitar’s…

JOHN “At the moment I’m using one of those G2s by TheGigRig, which is a company based near Reading, I think. It’s a very fancy looping bypass switcher thing. It’s not really a brain, more of a router as I favour a stereo setup these days. The gear itself changes, I switch things around a lot because I don’t wanna get stuck into one sound. But I’ll have one clean amp with tonnes of headroom like a Fender ’65 Twin Reissues, amps that sound big with each note. Then I’ll have something with a little more natural breakup, more recently in the form of vintage Fender Princeton issues. Then there’s this weird old amp I found that was made in the 60s called a Premier B-160. This tiny little thing…

ASTORIA, FINSBURY PARK, LONDON 1967 There's a bit of a mystery as to when Jimi torched his first Strat. A toasted Sunburst example was apparently rescued from a gig at the Astoria in March of '67 but no one at the show recalls Jimi setting his guitar on fire. A better documented example is the one Jimi gave to Frank Zappa at the '68 Miami Pop Festival which he later gifted to his son Dweezil. MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL 1967 Jimi's ultimate ‘Axes: Tough As Love’ moment was inspired by The Who trashing their gear. Determined to go one better, Jimi dry humped his Strat up against his Marshall stack, wrestled it to the ground then set it on fire. A star was born. WOODSTOCK 1969 Jimi's headlining slot on day…

AT A GLANCE  BODY: Mahogany NECK: Mahogany SCALE: 635mm (25”) FINGERBOARD: Rosewood w/ dot inlays FRETS: 22 PICKUPS: 2x S2 #7 covered humbuckers CONTROLS: 2x volume, 2x tone (w/ coil splits) 3-way toggle pickup selector switch HARDWARE: PRS Stoptail bridge, enclosed locking tuners LEFT-HANDED: No FINISH: Charcoal, McCarty Tobacco (shown), Vintage Cherry, and Vintage Mahogany satin nitro CONTACT: PRS Europe 01223 874301 www.prsguitars.com TUNERS BASED on PRS’s Phase II locking tuners, these are Korean-made parts, but still have the un-plated brass posts and top-locks of the USA models. Okay, you don’t really need locking tuners on a non-vibrato guitar, but it certainly speeds up string change time PICKUPS WITH quite a vintage-y output, these #7 ’buckers are Korean-made versions of the USA pickups that were first used on the Core…

REPORTEDLY THE MOST covered pop song in history, Yesterday is one of the Beatles’ best-loved songs. Some of our favourite versions are by Chet Atkins, The Bar Kays, Willie Nelson, Eva Cassidy and Joe Pass. Less widely liked is Linkin Park’s 2006 Grammy Awards mash-up with Jay-Z and Paul McCartney himself, but it raised smiles here at TG Towers. With so many versions in so many styles, Macca’s classic is clearly prime open-mic material. To play along you must retune your guitar to ‘D standard’ (DGCFAD), which means every string should be a tone (two frets) lower than standard. There are lots of chords but they are easy; remembering all the shapes is harder than actually playing them. For an authentic rendition you’ll need to play fingerstyle. TG’s top tip…

FOR RGT’s Level Five electric guitar Performance Award lead playing section, you have a choice of musical styles. An example solo has been notated here using a rock ballad track from RGT’s Level Five handbook/CD as a backing. The track is in G minor, and our solo uses several one-octave shapes of the G minor pentatonic scale. Each shape has its own phrasing options, so string bends or short melodic ideas may be easier in some shapes than in others. Mixing up patterns will add a few tricks to your lick-bag. Start by playing through the different scale shapes so you can see how the phrases in the solo link together. Finally, remember that our solo is provided to help you create ideas of your own – you only get…

WHAT IS TAB? TAB is short for tablature, a notational system used to give detailed information as to where notes should be played on the fretboard. Tab appears underneath conventional music notation as six horizontal lines that represent the strings of the guitar, from the sixth (thick) string at the bottom to the first (thin) string at the top. On these lines, numbers represent the frets where you should place your fingers. For example, an A note on the 2nd fret, third string, will be shown as a number ‘2’ on the third line down on the tab. Unfretted strings are shown with a ‘0’. The key and time signatures are shown in the traditional notation. TG also includes a timestamp to tell you where in the original track you’ll…

A household name in his native Japan and fast becoming one across the globe, Miyavi is a lot more than your average guitarist. The 34 year-old formed his own production company J-Glam in 2009 and made his international film debut starring in last year’s Angelina Jolie-directed and BAFTA-winning Unbroken, rising to prominence while putting the final touches to eighth album proper, The Others. Recorded in Nashville, it’s an album full of surprises – fusing together different elements of rock, dance, pop, blues, metal, funk… you name it. But most surprising is how effortlessly cohesive it feels – bending genres to his will, instead of following formulas tried and tested. In fact, the self-proclaimed ‘samurai guitarist’ has long favoured a different approach to his instrument, utilising slap techniques more associated with…

“First I had a stereo Gibson and Rick had a 335 on Matchstick Men. Then I had this Grimshaw that I got from the guy from Badfinger [Pete Ham]. A week later, the bridge collapsed in the middle of a show. Our roadie got me two Teles, and I kept one. I sanded it down and painted it in green Ronseal. The purists can’t stand the fact it’s got different pickups, bridge, frets, machine heads, neck. The only thing that’s original is the body, and even then I’ve taken the lacquer off. “I’m heartbroken that my Tele doesn’t work any more. We had a tuning issue. I’ve always found it very hard to play that Tele. So I had these Status Graphite guitars made. They’re marvellous. Most people want guitars…

Read on as TG’s super easy beginner guitar lesson takes you from tuning your instrument and strumming your first chords through to playing your very first lead-guitar licks LESSON 1 TUNING UP Before you get down to business you need to tune your guitar so everything you play sounds spot on USING AN ELECTRONIC TUNER You should tune up every time you play, so TG recommends using an electronic tuner. Hardware tuners start at about £5 and there are several free smartphone apps you can use, too. Simply play an open string on your guitar – the tuner detects the note you’ve played and will show you whether the pitch of the string needs to be higher or lower. All you have to remember is the order of the strings…

AT A GLANCE  BODY: Alder NECK: Maple, bolt-on SCALE: 648mm (25.5") FINGERBOARD: Maple w/ 241mm (9.5") radius FRETS: 21, medium jumbo PICKUPS: 3x Fender American Vintage ‘65 Gray-Bottom single coils CONTROLS: 1x volume, 2x tone, 5-way blade pickup selector HARDWARE: Classic Synchronized vibrato, vintage-style tuners – chrome LEFT-HANDED: No FINISH: Olympic White (shown), Black CONTACT: Fender GBI 01342 331700 www.fender.com HEADSTOCK REVERSING the head elongates the low E, A and D strings, which adds to the string tension. The reward is improved tonal punch and impressive sustain PICKUPS LIKE Jimi’s flipped Strats, this new model has a reverse-angled bridge pickup pumping out enhance bass and softer treble VIBRATO FENDER has chosen not to reverse the vibrato unit, which keeps it out of the way of your picking hand. A wise…

THE POLICE burst onto the scene in the late 70s. Their highly distinctive and original post-punk, reggae-flavoured blend of pop and rock placed them at the very cutting edge of the new wave movement. The most demanding aspect of this opener from 1979’s Regatta de Blanc album is the reach required to fret guitarist Andy Summers’signaturesus2 chord shapes. In particular, F#sus2 is quite the finger-stretcher as it falls low down on the fretboard, where the frets are farthest apart. The sequence contains no open strings, however, so you could easily practise the piece higher up the neck to gradually build your stretching ability. For example, try starting at the 7th fret so your first chord would be Esus2, followed by Csus2 (8th fret), Dsus2 (10th fret) and Asus2 (5th fret).…

10. Get out of the bedroom If you’re the kind bedroom rock star who only interrupts his legato regime to collect the cheese toastie that his mum leaves on the landing, make 2016 the year that you re-enter society. Join a band. Book a gig. Conquer the world. Rock ’n’ roll should be played on your back in a subterranean sweatbox – not perched at the end of your bed. 9. Learn how your gear works Admit it: you’re Mr Quick Start. You stick to the presets on your multi-effects, have never pressed half the buttons on your POD, and couldn’t tell us what your amp’s send/return sockets do if we put a gun to your head. This year, spend a day getting under the bonnet of your gear –…