How Many Guitarists Does It Take To Make A Band?

How Many Guitarists Does It Take To Make A Band?

By Graheme Wilson

In a band with a lineup of guitar, bass and drums the guitar player is going to be very busy. She will be the only melodic instrument. When she plays lead there will be no rhythm and when she plays rhythm there will be no lead. So it is a tough job. She has to decide what she is going to concentrate on. Some of the choices are :

1. Play mostly rhythm and jam in a riff in the middle, like Mick Green in The Pirates or Wilko Johnson in Dr. Feelgood 
 

2. Play mostly lead and hit part chords to give it some power like Jimi Hendrix or Robin Trower

3. Play all rhythm and forget the lead like Paul Weller in The Jam and Pete Townsend in The Who.

4. Play long lead solos and get the bass player to fill in with chords like Eric Clapton in Cream

What if you add another guitar player, that should make it interesting?

Well you would think so. I have seen so many bands with two guitar players playing the same chords at the same position on the fretboard. Why?

The manager of my first band also made this point. I was the lead guitar and he wanted me forget doubling on chords and leave them to the rhythm guitarist. so I started working on lead parts and only played single notes. Then our band found its sound, It was different, cleaner, more defined.

Prince told his guitar player, “If I see you playing more than one note at a time I will kick your arse”

So if you do have the luxury of two guitarists in your band make sure that they never play the same chords together, maybe you could fine them and top up the bands kitty. If they ask why tell them that its boring and shows a lack of imagination. You need a good imagination to be an arranger. Then you will have a unique sound to back up your extravagant claims and increase your fan base on social media.

©2014 Yew Tree Media
www.yewtreemusic.com

That Big Rock Rhythm Sound

That Big Rock Rhythm Sound
  
The Sound You Love
How is that your favourite band has that big sound that your band can only dream about? Whoever they are that sound you admire has taken a lot of work to get to the point where you and other fans notice it.

Leave It Out
One way to create a big rhythm guitar part is to play fewer notes. This is the opposite of what you might think.

The art of creating big guitar chords is to play chords without the third note. So for example a C chord consists of the notes C-E-G. Leave out the E and play the C and the G notes.  The distortion will now sound smoother and cleaner,  a touch of compression and you are heading in the right direction. Double the rhythm part and pan it left and right.

Electric Or Acoustic?
You are thinking electric guitar I bet, but why not try using an acoustic guitar as well? The Rolling Stones did this.

©2014 Yew Tree Media

Easy Music Writing

Easy Music Writing
by Graheme Wilson

 
You can play the guitar( even if only a little). You have never written a note of music on paper.

If both these statement apply to you then step right this way.

Tune your guitar, I use an electronic tuner.

Put your finger on the 2nd fret 4th string of your guitar. Tap your foot four times, slowly. Play the note on each tap.  Get some music paper. Write a dot 4 times over the lowest line of the music paper, leave some space between the dots. Draw a vertical line on the right of each dot. The notes are done. Now draw a vertical line across all five lines. Congratulations, you have written a bar of music.


Here is my version

This is the basic idea. There are more symbols but this will get you started.

©2014 Yew Tree Media

www.yewtreemusic.com

GIve The Singer A Chance

You have a singer in your band and she wants to sing a song by her favourite singer. Sounds simple doesn't it. The band learn the song from YouTube. Come rehearsal time the band are ready to go. They play the song and the singer ... well, how can I put this, she can't reach the notes, she can't sing it.

Her voice is pleasant enough, no problem with the tone then, its all about range. A singers range is the lowest note they can comfortable sing and the highest note they can sing without sounding like a cat with someone standing on its tail.

As much as your singer admires her favourite singer she doesn't have the same range. What can you do?

These are some of your options :

• Forget the song - Nice and easy, go learn something easier to sing.
• Fire the singer - Harsh, she can probably sing most of the other stuff fine.
• Change the key - Oh, never thought of that!

Find the key that she can sing the song in. This way you stand a good chance of keeping your singer and adding a new song to your set. She will be happy and and so will the band.

Changing the key is also called transposing. Look at a song with three chords C-F-G7. Your need a lower key so two steps down would be Bb, time to reach for the capo guitarists! This is not a good key for guitar players but keyboard players will love it. Shift it down to A, that is a good guitar key. The new chords are A-D-E7. Learn the song in the new key and try out the singer again, chances are that everyone will now be smiling.

(c)2013 Yew Tree Music
www.yewtreemusic.com