In this post I’m going to shamelessly promote the forthcoming EP from my band Brocken Spectre by looking at the intro to our song ‘…If The Men Came’ – click to download the pdf at the bottom of the post. It’s a rare dose of clean tone for us so I suppose you could call it our ballad (it doesn’t stay that way).

We start with a broken (arpeggiated) C#m9 chord but rather than just play it up and down I’ve chosen to play some available chord tones (B – b7 and E – b3) on open strings. Doing this allows us to let part of the phrase ring through, a technique borrowed from acoustic playing and often seen in bluegrass lines. THe fact that it’s in 6/4 time should have no bearing on the difficulty as we’re playing the phrase rather than worrynig about the time signatures. The drum part mirrors the time signature anyway so we don’t have to worry about polyrhythms.

After 2 times through this we hit a broken Dmaj13 chord, again with chord tones played on open strings (B – 13 & E – 9) to provide the ringing sound. We’re going to play through these first two sections twice. Third time we’re going back to the C#m9 phrase then up to a barred Dm7, hammering on from the E-F (9 – b3) on the B string then from the A – C (5 – b7) on the E string. This is repeated a whole steup up as an Em7 chord. Again the time signature is irrelevent as we’re just playing the phrase.

Next bit is a descending linear phrase based around Aadd9 with a brief hint of B major courtesy of the notes B & D#. Again there are notes on open strings to be left to ring as directed. This leads into a ringing C# augmented triad arpeggiated across the G, D, A & E strings. The next bit requires a low B so if you don’t have a 7 or 8 string guitar you’re goin to have a problem – go buy one!

The simplest way of thinking of this section is as a shifting power chord shape wih the root on the low B. It shifts along a half-whole diminished scale using the A string as a sort of pedal tone. Doing this creates some interesting triads – F#m, F, D5 (not a triad I know) and D5 with an added b5 for a touch of evil 🙂

Palm muting and letting ring during this whole intro are key technique points as they provide the dynamics within it, and remember we’re playing phrases not time signatures so don’t get bogged down with counting – we’ll have plenty of that in another post!

Happy playing 🙂

ITMC Clean intro

My Current Favourite Guitarists

Let’s face it, all of us who play the guitar have different favourite players for a whole different variety of reasons so it’s fairly likely that the two guys I’m going to write about will NOT be everybody’s favourite, so this is entirely my opinion and not intended to start a so and so is better than so and so argument.

Fredrik Thordendahl – Meshuggah

Ok, so I’m a massive Meshuggah fan and have been for years, I love the heaviness, the brutality and complexity of their music. To someone who doesn’t like the more extreme end of metal they can be pretty impenetrable largely down to the style of the vocalist (who is also awesome in my opinion) and the sheer weight of their music. Mr Thordendahl is a founder member of the band and as far as I’m aware has been the major influence in their transformation from highly technical thrash metallers to genre creating groundbreakers. He has a genius for rhythmic manipulation, and is my main influence in terms of my rhythm guitar style. But he is far from a one dimensional player, in fact his lead playing is stunning. Unlike most other metal guitarists he tends not to rip out lengthy speed picked lines over a single riff but he can play over chord changes, the hallmark of a serious jazz player and all done with a wonderfully smooth legato technique. In more recent years he has chosen not to unleash this soloing mastery on Meshuggah’s albums as they have moved towards a more groove orientated style, however there are plenty of examples on ‘Destroy, Erase, Improve’, ‘Contradictions Collapse’, and ‘None’. Probably the best examples though are on his ‘Sol Niger Within’ solo album which is chock full of the trademark twisting polyrhythmic riffs and guitar/sax jazz improv duels over some crazy chord changes. Here are some examples for your listening pleasure: 33 Demo, Missing Time, Secrets Of The Unknown. All of which leads neatly on to……

Allan Holdsworth – Solo artist, Soft Machine, UK, Gong to name but a few

The guitarist’s guitarist and probably F.T’s biggest influence. It’s difficult to know where to start with Holdsworth as every last little bit of what he does is unique and recognisable as his work. His approach to the guitar is amazing, preferring to use it more like a woodwind instrument than a guitar (in terms of his note choice and feel). His rhythm playing abandons traditional chordal accompaniment in favour of a chord melody approach where he plays a distinct melody using the top note of the chord, regardless of whether that note is the root note of the chord or the #11 of an extended chord. It’s a fascinating way of using chords to create melody rather than using them as bolster for a separate melody line, and it requires an encyclopaedic knowledge of chords and their structure as well as knowing all the frets as notes rather than fret numbers. Oh, and big hands too to get to some of the ridiculous shapes!
Onto his lead playing, and I’m not sure there are words to accurately describe what he does. It’s almost like he floats over the chords, there’s never a note out of place even when he’s playing totally outside. For the most part though he’s a very melodic player and is happy to stick within the framework of whichever chord he’s playing over, although his genius lies in his ability to accentuate the more obscure chord tones as opposed to the safe points of root, third and fifth. Then there are the huge intervallic leaps, both on one string and also with massive string skips. His legato technique is unreal, there’s almost no attack from picked notes plus his hammers and pull offs are smooth as silk. If you’re into contemporary jazz guitar then Holdsworth in my opinion is the pinnacle, in a class of his own.
Then of course there’s the synthaxe. What? Yep, look it up, it’s insane but AH has managed to use it effectively for many years.

Lastly, his attitude to what he does is so humble. He’s a shy chap from Yorkshire who, according to the intro to his instructional video, ‘didn’t think he would have anything to say which would be of interest and doesn’t consider himself to be any kind of teacher’. But then I’ve found that most guitarists who have skill on this incredible level have a similar attitude to their own ability. I know from personal experience that Greg Howe is the same, and Guthrie Govan appears to be, but then I don’t think any of these guys have actively sought fame and fortune, but certainly the fame has sought them out due to their incredible talents.

Here’s my favourite Holdsworth tune for you, from the album ‘Wardenclyffe Tower’, ‘Dodgy Boat‘

Check out music from Szleppard

Szleppard is the outlet for Phil’s solo musical efforts, the most recent of which can be found at Szleppard’s Reverbnation page.