GUITAR COACH MAGAZINE : ISSUE 002
Issue 002
The FREE Interactive Guitar Magazine
Blues
Special
Songs, Riffs,
Licks & Solos
Beginners Bootcamp
Riffs & Licks
Coaching Sessions
Guitars & Gizmos
Skills & Techniques
Blues Road Warrior
Eugene
Hideaway Bridges
Play JJ Cale,
Robert Cray,
& Blues Brothers
Step by step video lessons
Plus guitar news, features,
profiles & cool new Apps.
MAGAZINE
Editorial enquiries: [email protected]
Advertising enquiries: [email protected]
www.guitarcoachmag.com
Issue 002
Features
Contents
Note from the Editor
What’s Hot & What’s Not!
The Blues Debate
The Blues: Then & Now
Chord of the Month
Nils Lofgren Interview; Part 2
Guitar Top 10s
Quick Survey
Songwriting & Detuning
FAQs
5
6
11
13
18
25
29
39
52
54
Relax and get into the correct postion to play.
Plus an introduction to Fingerstyle playing
Coaching Session
A great fun session, developing your improv
skills, with our cool Blues backing track
Skills & Techniques
The string muting, bass note picking strum.
It’s got something for everyone!
Guitars & Gizmos
Guitar Makers, plus the latest guitar Apps and
tech stuff
Riffs, Licks & Solos
From The Blues Brothers to Clapton - a series
a classic Blues riffs and licks
Guitarist Eugene “Hideaway” Bridges, a native
of New Orleans, with seven albums to his
credit and three recent nominations from the
Blues Foundation...
Dillon teaches The Blues...page 20
Lesson Videos, Tutorials and Tips
Beginners Bootcamp
Eugene on the road...page 35
7
Jimmy Dillon is an accomplished and awardwinning musician, singer, songsmith and
teacher with an impressive record. ..
15
22
The eJamming revolution...page 49
New technology that allows musicians to jam
and collaborate anytime, anywhere...
28
40
Editor’s note
Guitar Coach Magazine 5
Hi and welcome to our Blues insprired issue...
In this second issue of Guitar Coach magazine, we’ve gone for a
Blues flavour with some of our features, articles and Coaching
sessions.
New this month, we’ve also got a survey for you. This is your opportunity to get the content you want every month. It only takes 30
seconds to complete the survey, so don’t miss this great opportunity to help shape Guitar Coach magazine to suit you!
Also keep your questions coming for our FAQs.
Contributors
And finally keep submitting those ratings and reviews, as they are
what will help us to grow our subscriber numbers and enable us to
continue to publish Guitar Coach free of charge.
So, have fun, and do let me know what you think about the magazine. Just email me at [email protected]
Jonathan Howkins
Editor, Guitar Coach magazine
Many thanks to our contributors:
Eugene Hideaway Bridges
Jimmy Dillon
The eJamming team
Nick Benjamin
Rikky Rooksby
Harrison Marsh
And to our writing team:
Bob Cianci
Graham Land
Ben Vine
Tom Rosier
And our special thanks to:
Andy Partridge of BandJammer
Cover shot: Alyn Coates
Keeping it Free!
We hope you enjoy this issue of Guitar Coach
magazine and we look forward to bringing you
much more great free stuff in the next issue.
All you have to do is either tell your guitar playing friends about it, �Like’ us on Facebook, or
maybe Tweet about us :)
But we need your help :)
You help is much appreciated, thank you.
In order for us to continue to produce this
magazine free of charge, we need to get the
word out to as many people as possible - and
to do this we need your help.
News
What’s Hot and What’s Not this month!
By Tom Rosier
What’s Hot...
Wes Scantlin, lead singer of Puddle of Mudd, could face jail time after a drunken encounter
on a flight because the crew allegedly refused to serve the singer alcohol.
Green Day release 3 new tracks from their up coming trilogy of Albums, Uno,
Dos and Tre, the first of which is due for release later this month.
An eBay auction to support the Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God) Legal
Fund for his recent manslaughter charge includes guitars and basses
from Slash, Megadeth, Gwar and Five Finger Death Punch.
A 13-year-old girl's dream came true Wednesday at the Minnesota State Fair when she got
to meet Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx after the glam-rocker saw her anti-bullying video on
YouTube.
Prog Magazine holds its first ever award ceremony in London.
What’s Not...
Eddie van Halen narrowly avoids death after trialling a diet containing too much cayenne pepper
and nearly had his “stomach explode”.
A new scientific study has noted that pop music, over the last five
decades, has gotten more depressing.
A deadly spider which hid in one of Noel Gallagher’s
guitar cases prompted an emergency quarantine while
experts tried to catch the insect at Jersey Live Festival.
An LA store owner and music producer has received
hate mail after releasing an album of "new" music
from notorious imprisoned serial murderer, Charles
Manson.
Guns N' Roses have hosted a new auction that includes their old
clothes dryer for $110.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield says there are too
many rock bands, but the best will survive and keep the
genre alive.
Guitar Coach Magazine 6
Guitar Coach Magazine 7
Beginners Bootcamp
– Guitar basics; Hand positions
– Introduction to Fingerstyle
Boot Camp
Guitar Coach Magazine 8
Playing Basics: Hand positions
by Harrison Marsh
Any seasoned, acoustic guitarist
will tell you about the perils of
tendonitis and RSI, but it's not
just the professionals that can
suffer.
The best way to avoid these issues
is to get a correct and comfortable
technique right from the start.
There are a few rules with hand
position that apply for both hands;
firstly if it doesn't feel comfortable
don't do it!
New idea's may feel unfamiliar but avoid huge
stretches or extreme wrist angles, becasue you
will almost always find that there is a more comfortable way of doing things such as changing
the fingering of that chord.
Secondly, just like any exercise, warm up and warn
down, ten minutes of scales or simple familiar exercises at a slow tempo before you start will increase your stamina, muscle memory and avoid
any strains making playing uncomfortable.
Though some famously heavy handed players
may disagree, keep everything light. Firstly hitting
the strings harder puts more strain on your hands
and wrists and is unnecessary, and secondly one
tell tell sign of an experienced player is a good understanding and use of dynamics. It's one of the
beautiful things about guitar, and by playing
quite lightly, there's room to increase volume and
attack when you want a passage to sound more
dynamic.
Try this, hold a chord as you normally would and
keep strumming it. Now without lifting your fingers from the strings, gradually decrease the pressure your using in your left hand until you start to
get a buzzing sound. Now the amount of pressure
you were using on that last strum before the buzz
is the minimum amount needed to play that
chord. Is it lighter than you normally hold the guitar? Thought so! Keeping this in mind makes
changing between chords smoother. A similar approach can be applied to the right hand.
A good starting point for the left hand is to assume a "one finger per fret" hand position, i.e if
your index finger is playing the first fret, your little finger should be hovering over the fourth.
With your right hand, experiment to find your
own comfortable hand position but avoid strain
on the wrist and try and keep your hand loose. It
can be tempting to tense up but not only will this
be uncomfortable, your playing will not sound as
smooth as you want it to.
Finally, a few words on how acoustic guitars work.
Strum an open chord, and whilst this chord is
ringing out place your hand flat against the body
just behind the bridge. You should notice that the
sound has changed slightly, becoming slightly
more muffled. The top of an acoustic guitar vibrates as you play as the sound waves flow
through it. If your hand or wrist is contact with
the top of the guitar you are going to deaden the
guitar slightly. It's also going to limit your playing.
You will notice in the video that my hand is hovering over the strings and each finger is resting on
the string it's about to play, or just over the string
that is ringing out. Lightly touching the string
with your right hand finger will stop any note
ringing and in turn stop notes ringing into each
other, making everything much clearer.
Boot Camp
Guitar Coach Magazine 9
Fingerstyle: Introduction
by Harrison Marsh
Welcome to this introduction to finger style acoustic guitar; a playing style
that has found it's way into every genre of music.
Whether it be as an accompanist or solo player,
finger picking is a dynamic technique without
limitation.
friend with your favourite finger patterns becoming automatic; just don't get stuck in the same
few patterns!
Above, and in the video, I have laid out some simple exercises reminiscent of how I got into the
style, over ten years ago.
The rolling arpeggio exercise uses the conventional way of showing which fingers to use as follows PIMA. P= Thumb, I = Index , M = middle, A =
ring
These exercises are designed to be fluid, giving
you a chance to put your own mark on them.
Once you can play them to a standard you are
happy with, take the same right hand patterns
and apply them to any chord sequence you like, or
start mixing up the order your finger pluck the
strings in.
It will take some time to find the right hand position that’s most comfortable for you and to build
dexterity, particularly in your ring finger, which
isn't used to doing anything.
Repetition and time spent with the instrument is
key here. Muscle memory will be your biggest
Mixing pinching, strumming and rolling techniques will give your playing rhythmic variety and
depth.
Experimentation is key to having fun and getting
the most out of finger style guitar. Try growing
your right hand finger nails out for a little more
clarity and attack.
Finally, to understand more about this technique,
like many others, you have to study the great players of the style, whether it be classic blues players
or modern acoustic soloists.
Have fun.
Boot Camp
Fingerstyle Exercises
Guitar Coach Magazine 10
The Debate
Guitar Coach Magazine 11
The Blues: love it or hate it?
For the Blues
The Blues is a fundamental part of every
piece of music you listen to. All of them. And
I'm going to prove it to you.
First of all, let's start at the obvious. The Beatles
would have got nowhere without emulating their
blues influences and bringing them to the mainstream. Don't deny it, it's the truth. And the Beatles had a tiny influence on popular music,
wouldn't you say? Also they covered Chuck Berry
songs. I can almost rest my case there...
Yes, 12-bar can be repetitive and, dare I say it, boring, but the chord structure is a key part of every
style of popular music that has arisen since. You
may not like Chuck Berry, but it's artists like that
which shaped the music you listen to every day,
from metal through to punk and back out to classic rock and prog.
The rock �n’ roll movement changed music forever.
You can’t escape it. Just like you can't escape Lady
GaGa on mainstream radio, or that terrible "Friday" song being played in offices around the
world EVERY FRIDAY. Even if it is "as a joke". Even
these diabolical excuses for songwriting stem
from the basics. Three or four chords, basic structure and a hook.
Punk music is simple, raw and influential. Three
words you would also use to describe the blues.
Because it is the blues. Three chords based around
a pentatonic scale? Definitely blues.
"Metal's based on complicated chord structures
and classical influences" I hear you cry. Well could
they recreate that sound without distorted guitars pioneered by early blues artists such as
Chuck Berry on "Maybellene" and multi-track
recording which was innovated by blues legend
Les Paul? I'll help you out - the answer is no.
Oh and, by the way, if you hate blues because it all
sounds like Status Quo then I have no time for
you. You shouldn't have even been listening to
Status Quo in the first place. What's wrong with
you? Anyone who uses Status Quo to back up
their argument is an idiot.
Against the Blues
So, the blues may be the �godfather’ of popular music today, and yeah sure, without the
blues we would not have rock �n’ roll, pop,
punk and metal cementing its status as the
backbone of the industry for generations of
listeners, but the fact that it could even be
blamed for a tiny influence on Miley Cyrus is
reason enough to hate it, surely?!
Now, for any abuse I give the blues there will always be those who argue that the blue’s has in-
The Debate
Guitar Coach Magazine 12
The Blues: love it or hate it?
fluenced everything, from distorted guitar to harmonic arrangements, but just because something
influenced something else does not give it any
worthy notoriety. Apollo 1 influenced Apollo 11,
but I would hardly consider Apollo 1 a success,
would you?!
Have you heard THAT new country-blues song?!
Of course you have!!! We all have!!! A million
times, by a million different artists who all have
the same southern-American vocal tone and 12bar blues arrangement. This is what I truly hate
about the blues: the repetitiveness… repetitiveness… repetitiveness. It’s like pulling teeth, but
the teeth are being pulled by a man who’s hair is
a little too long, jeans a little too tight and belly is
hanging over said jeans a little too much. Now I
know that all popular music today is repetitive,
and all music has to have a sense of repetition so
that it is simply not just noise, but the blues… the
blues just takes repetitiveness to a whole new
level. I have even gone to the effort of using the
words repetitiveness and repetitive to such an excessive extent to give you the same sense of
repetitive hatred that I hear each time the sound
of the blues worms its way into my poor unsuspecting ears.
Below I have made a list of a few songs to help
put my next point across a little better. Please
have a listen to the following:
Chuck Berry – Johnny B Goode
The Beach Boys – Fun, Fun, Fun
Louis Jordon – Ain’t That Just Like a Woman
Chuck Berry – Roll Over Beethoven
Now the fact that one artist is in this list twice is
almost pathetic. My point is: listen to the intro of
each of these songs. Each are blues artists (apart
from maybe the Beach Boys’, who are in that difficult 1960’s rock/pop/blues era, but for the sake of
my argument they are blues), so already a similar
sound is expected, but the same intro?! They’ve
not even tried to make them sound different.
Lazy! The blues is lazy! If I were to take Queen’s
Don’t Stop Me Now solo and use it in my song
would that be OK?! No, it wouldn’t! I’d never get
away with it, because it’s not my solo, and because it is already well established as a part of a
very popular song. But, then again, I would not
have the audacity to attempt such a feat of pure,
unadulterated plagiarism. And like I said, the fact
that Chuck Berry is in here twice effectively copying himself is shocking. Calling him a musician or
songwriter would be a crime. This surely makes
him a lyricist with an endless backing track at
best. Maybe they have the blues because they’re
not very creative?!
Now everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I
could well be a misinformed cretin (which I’m
not), but if the only positive aspect of a genre is
that when you go to a Status Quo concert and
miss your favourite song when buying a beer you
can catch it again (another 4 times) later in the
set, you’re certainly not onto a winner in my eyes.
Join the debate and let us know what YOU think!
So, what do you think?
We’ve all got our opinions, so let’s share them! Click either the Facebook or Twitter icons
and have your say :)
Tap here for FaceBook
Tap here for Twitter
Blues; Now & Then
Guitar Coach Magazine 13
Blues Locations: Then and Now
For this month's Blues edition of Guitar
Coach Magazine we decided to take a look at
some of the famous locations and cities that
birthed the Blues, and what music they're famous for now.
Memphis – Let's start with Tennessee. Memphis
goes hand in hand with the Blues, from the very
first Blues sheet music. “The Memphis Blues” was
written down by W.C. Handy in 1912 and it has
been the cradle for all blues music since. Some
icons include B.B King and the entire call list of
Sun Records. Today it is widely known as the birthplace of Justin Timberlake.
Chicago – Became the birth place of the modern
day electric blues from 1948. Now it is the driving
force behind America's heavy metal scene.
Montreux Jazz Festival started in 1967 for the
likes of Ella Fitzgerald. Gary Moore, Eric Clapton
and Deep Purple, who wrote “Smoke On The
Water” there in 1971. Now it plays host to Queens
of the Stone Age and even Wyclef Jean in 2009.
New York - New York Blues was a type of blues
music heavily influenced by jazz. It made New
York a centre for folk rock music from the likes of
Bob Dylan, new wave punk from the Ramones and
the Velvet Underground.
Seattle – Played host to a huge Big Band scene in
the 1940's, have since spawned Nirvana and
Death Cab for Cutie.
Great Britain – The U.K. first got to know Blues as
a result of records being brought in through the
dockyards and trade ships. Hitting it's peak in the
1960's and 70's with the likes of the Rolling
Stones, Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton. It's good to
see the genre is alive and well today with acts
such as Seasick Steve and the Jim Jones Revue.
Detroit – With a strong blues scene in the 40's
and 50's led by the bars and clubs of Hastings
Street, it spawned the influence on R'n'B which
led to Motown Records. Today, Detroit's son Jack
White brings blues into the 21st Century with his
bands the White Stripes and the Raconteurs.
Los Angeles - В L.A. had a thriving blues community in the 30's and 40's. It has since exploded into
a variety of genres, influenced by film, punk, metal
and hip hop. Los Angeles has produced a fine array
of bands ranging from The Doors, Red Hot Chili
Peppers, Guns 'n' Roses and Sublime - to name but
a few.
Guitar Coach Magazine 14
Join me for a Special Webinar:
“The Magic Of Improvisation”
To register, just tap the button below
Register Here: It’s FREE!
Guitar Coach Magazine 15
Coaching session
– Blues Improvisation
Coaching
Guitar Coach Magazine 16
Your 20 Minute Coaching Session
Improvisation: Open minor pentatonic
This month, Andy is going to introduce you to the art of improvisation. This particular session
introduces you to the E minor pentatonic scale in the open position.
This particular session introduces you to the E
minor pentatonic scale in the open position i.e.
using the open strings wherever possible, and
demonstrates the notes you can use to enable
you to begin your improvisation journey. A level of
scale knowledge is essential when learning how
to improvise.
We have had bucket loads of requests on this
topic, which is why we have decided to produce a
whole series of improvisation lessons, starting
with this overview.
There is also a downloadable backing track for
you to jam along with, so you can experiment
with playing notes over the top, at your own pace.
Next month, we will be using the same backing
track to show you some techniques and lick suggestions you can use, that will enable you to start
building up your improvisation tool kit.
Hope you enjoy.
The notes of the
Em Pentatonic
Images from Guitar
Toolkit (click an
image for details on
this App)
Coaching
Guitar Coach Magazine 17
Improvisation: Blues Riff
Improv session
Your Backing Track
“The Magic Of Improvisation”
Enjoy this Free teaching Webinar with
Andy Partridge of BandJammer.
Free Webinar: Register Here!
The backing track chords: Emaj, Amaj and Bmaj
Images from Guitar Toolkit (click an image for details on this App)
Guitar Chords
Guitar Coach Magazine 18
Chord of the Month: D9
It’s strage isn’t it? A few days ago we were thinking what weird, perhaps complex, unusual
chord should feature for this month.
Should it have a long name? Should you have to
use 4 fingers and a thumb to be able play it?
Could we find one that had featured in some far
out wacky seventies progressive rock album?
Well – no. Because this issue of Guitar Coach is focusing on the blues our minds turned immediately towards a 9th chord. D9 in fact. Mainly
because the key of D is one of the easier blues
keys to master and therefore quite common for
those of us who are starting out on our guitar
journey. It also has an interesting shape when
played in the open position. We will not be going
into the theory aspect of 9ths, but we will be
more than happy to answer any questions if you
want to use the FAQ section of the magazine.
6
5
X
4
3
The D9 Chord
2
9th chords are known as extended chords (as are
6ths, 11ths and 13ths) and are commonly used
throughout the funk, jazz and blues genres. Although we are concentrating on D9, the inversions of the chord can be applied to all 9th chords
by moving the chord shape up and down the fretboard by understanding where the root note is
fretted.
The 9th shape that we will focus our efforts on is
shown below: The notes that make up the chord
are:
A string – D
D string - F#
G string – C
B string – E
Top E string - A
When played using this shape, the root note is always on the A string – in this case the D (root
note) is on the 5th fret. You can therefore move
this shape anywhere on the fretboard to form
other 9ths.
When the chord is played this way it exudes a
mellow blues sound and is commonly used at the
end of a phrase within a song by sliding down
from the fret above. For example, the 6th fret
(Eb9) to the D9 chord.
To illustrate this, we have used the D9 chord in
one of the riffs in this month’s issue. You can see
this illustrated and watch, listen and learn the
intro to Sugar Mama by Nine Below.
Similarly, many a song has been known to end
using this sequence. The Doors’ Roadhouse Blues
uses the F9 to E9 slide down to finish off their
masterpiece and it is a great way to end a song
that has been bursting with energy throughout.
The slide down brings an apt calmness and finality to proceedings without cutting off everything
with an immediate stop. Whoever first thought of
this is a genius.
If you are playing a standard 12 bar in the key of D
usng the major chords D…A…G try substituting
these majors for 9ths and you will achieve a totally different feel that is less edgy and feels more
rounded and moody. Especially if you slow the
tempo down.
Guitar Chords
Guitar Coach Magazine 19
Chord of the Month: D9
Also try this chord sequence G7-C9-D9. Either in
that order or as part of a slow 12 bar blues, each
for a count of 4 i.e. G7 G7 G7 G7 C9 C9 G7 G7 D9
C9 G7 D9 (Letting the last chord ring and then repeat) The extra texture the 9th chords give the
sequence is very noticeable when compared to
the G7.
The other great sound you can achieve with this
shape can be achieved by plucking the A string,
followed by the D, G and B strings and then returning back to the A string in reverse order.
Andy teaches this as an aside after The Nine
Below Zero riff lesson – so have a listen and you
will see exactly what we mean.
Of course, as mentioned earlier in this article,
other genres of music also make use of the 9th
chord played in the position of the 1st chord diagram. To “get to know” your D9 chord it is important to use it in context with other chords.
Examples you may like to check out are Shining
Start by Earth Wind and Fire (C9, D9 and E9),
Wheels by The Foo Fighters (D9, A, F#M, E) and
last but not least, James Joseph Brown’s classic,
Living in America (Bm, Am7 and D9).
Here are some other ways of playing a D9.
The images are courtesy of Guitar Toolkit. Check
out Issue 1 of Guitar Coach for the full review of
this great App.
Tap here to check out
Guitar Toolkit
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 20
Jimmy Dillon: musician, songwriter, teacher
by Graham Land
“Have fun with it” – The SF, California professional
guitarist shares his wisdom or learning, becoming
inspired and staying motivated
Background & Theory
San Francisco Bay area guitarist Jimmy Dillon is
an accomplished and award-winning musician,
singer, songsmith and teacher with an impressive
record. Jimmy backed up the likes of Bruce Springsteen, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Carlos Santana
and Bonnie Raitt, among many others before embarking on a solo career and recording 4 CDs to
date. A quick listen to just a small sampling of his
repertoire reveals an eclectic mix of blues, rock,
country and Latin styles. Just a glance at his
homepage makes it clear that this guy is one active musician who continues to play a constant
stream of solo and group gigs.
Jimmy is also a passionate guitar teacher with a
series of DVD lessons for acoustic, electric, blues
and slide guitar. He spends his summers teaching
kids how to play rock and roll at Blue Star Music
Camps in Michigan and San Francisco and gives
online lessons as well.
Jimmy offers the following advice to aspiring guitarists who are struggling to learn:
“Don't struggle too much. Have fun with it. Get
with some better players and listen as much as
you play. Remember the 4 T's – Touch,Tone, Time
and Taste. Play with finesse, passion and melodic
sense. Don't worry too much about speed, scales,
shred[ing]. Rather, make it count. Be a good
rhythm player. 'Lead guitar' is so overdone.”
We couldn't agree more.
And for budding guitarists who may be seeking
motivation, Jimmy recommends going to see live
musicians for inspiration and mixing up what
styles of music they expose themselves to. He believes this will help those learning guitar to
“cross-pollinate” and “get out of the box.”
Influences and Favourites
Among his favourite guitarists, Jimmy lists iconic
names like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck,
Jimmy Page, Mark Knopfler, Keith Richards (“Keef
Riffhard”), John Mayer and Pete Townsend, plus a
slough of other guitarists both well known and
well... perhaps a bit esoteric to the casual guitar
player or guitar music fan: David Lindley, Derek
Trucks, Buddy Miller, Harry Manx, Richard Thompson and slide guitarists Sonny Landreth, Ry Cooder
and Leo Kottke.
He's also equally forthcoming about his preferred
instruments:
“Clapton Strat with acoustic Baggs [pickup] in
bridge. It does everything well. Martin OMC –
workhorse, always reliable, great tone and playability. National Style O – super funky blues machine. Veillette Gryphon mini 12-string – beautiful
for extra chimey stuff. James Trussart Silver Magnolia – great for electric slide. 1920s Chicago parlor guitar – incredible tone.”
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 21
Jimmy Dillon: musician, songwriter, teacher
About Jimmy Dillon's Rockin' the Blues Deluxe DVD
course
With his latest instructional DVD, Jimmy shares
his secrets for playing the blues, from inventive
chords, picking patterns, licks and tricks to open
tunings, “internal melodies” and slide guitar techniques – all professional, yet “easy to use”. The
Rockin' the Blues Deluxe course has been designed to suit advanced beginner guitarists as
well as intermediate to advanced players who
would like to lean more blues or incorporate it
into playing other music styles.
Jimmy sees blues guitar as the foundation for
rock guitar.
“I wanted to illustrate how the blues is the roots
and the rest is the fruits. If you can get soulful
and gritty with the blues, your rock will be better
for it. Consider Clapton, Keith [Richards], Jimmy
Page, Hendrix, [Jeff] Beck etc. – they were all blues
informed.”
When teaching, Jimmy likes to keep things relaxed. “For me the journey is always changing….If I
stay loose and free with it things go well. Not too
rigid or pedantic.” A guitar teacher of 10 years, his
favourite part of teaching is when the student experiences a breakthrough. “I like when there is an
'ah ha' moment and the student gets [it]. Often I
learn as much as the student!” He adds, “My wish
is to pass on what I've learned as a lifetime pro
musician to aspiring players everywhere.”
You can visit Jimmy Dillon's homepage jimmydillon.com for more information and to buy his
music or DVDs. If you've got Spotify you can check
out some of his solo CDs there as well as his work
with San Francisco Music Club.
Jimmy also recommends online guitar
community www.guitarists.net for its “great
vibe”.
Teaching Style
The course consists of three one-hour DVDs, each
containing 3-4 chapters. Jimmy uses his own
songs as a platform to demonstrate blues techniques and styles. He believes that DVDs are a
great teaching tool because they can be carefully crafted in order to make them just right.
The student benefits from this care and the fact
that he/she can revisit the lessons again and
again.
Tap here for Rockin The Blues
Guitar Coach Magazine 22
Skills & Techniques
– Blues strumming: Johnny Cash
Skills & Techniques
Guitar Coach Magazine 23
Skills: String Muting, Picking and Strumming
Folsom Prison Blues
Learning to strum is one of the first hurdles beginners will need to overcome. It can prove to
be a frustration of many a guitarist , so it is always beneficial to keep such lessons interesting
by learning patterns to specific songs. This particular strumming pattern is relatively easy to
play, employs a couple of interesting techniques and, most of all is lively and fun!
Folsom Prison Blues is an archetypal Johnny Cash
rhythm and is there to hear on many of his classic
recordings. It is a simple down, down up pattern
played at a relatively high tempo, although not all
the strings are always played and, to emphasise
the rhythm, you can employ a softening technique with your left hand so the notes do not
sound. This creates a percussive-type sound which
gives the pattern a level of distinctiveness. Not
playing all the notes of a chord is a common technique employed by rhythm guitarists and it is
worth trying this out for other patterns. Want to
see more? Have a look at the video.
Skills & Techniques
Guitar Coach Magazine 24
Skills: String Muting, Picking and Strumming
Addition
Here’s the detail on how to play
the ending to the strumming
session :)
The Chords
Chord digrams are taken from the Guitar Toolkit App. Click on one of the images for more details of this App.
E major
A major
B7
Feature
Nils Lofgren: Part 2 of our interview
By Bob Cianci
Springsteen sideman/solo artist expounds
further on his teaching/playing theories and
more
One-on-One vs. Online Teaching:
As we learned in Part I of this article, Nils Lofgren’s online guitar school has been a solid success for the diminutive guitarist, best known as a
sideman with Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, as well as a solo artist of
considerable merit. When asked to compare
learning guitar face-to-face with a teacher versus
online, Lofgren had this to say.
“Sitting down one-on-one with somebody, which
I have done, is nice, and it’s a great way to share,
as opposed to not sharing. Sometimes when
you’re with a teacher, he dictates the flow, and
sometimes he’s going too fast for you. The nice
thing about the online lessons, once it’s downloaded, and I encourage people to do this is, find a
Guitar Coach Magazine 25
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 26
Nils Lofgren: Part 2 of our interview
play for the biggest audiences of his career. Since
then, he has played a supporting role in the band,
but the sometimes-spontaneous Springsteen occasionally throws a curve ball, like the night he
gave Lofgren an unexpected extended solo on
“Because The Night,” something we discussed in
Part I of this article.
“I started working on a solo for that song in my
room at night, and sure enough, for the next forty
shows, I never got to play the solo again! After
the tour ended, we did some charity Christmas
shows in New Jersey and Bruce asked me what I
wanted to play. I did one of my songs, �Shine
Silently,” and when Bruce asked me what I
wanted to do for a second song, I said, �I want to
play �Because The Night’ and play the solo on it!’
So, then I got to play this long piece I worked on.
For the next tour, years later, I got to play the solo
every night, crafting it, refining it, and experimenting. Some of it is tough for my hands, but
every guitarist has some kind of physical limitations.”
lick you like, then shut me off! Work on that, and
that may be the rest of your day. You don’t need to
turn me back on. Just silence the teacher and really get into that one little lick.
“Find things that engage and excite you. I’m a big
fan of American football and basketball, and there
are guitars all over the house. I learned a long
time ago, if the guitars are in a closet or off in my
studio, I won’t pick one up. But I have them
around among the furniture, and will pick them
up to play while I’m watching sports on TV.”
Playing With Bruce:
Lofgren admittedly went through a self-described
“blue period” in the �80’s, and jumped at the opportunity to join the New Jersey rocker’s E Street
band, just after Born In The USA was released.
That album skyrocketed Springsteen to the top of
the charts internationally, and allowed Lofgren to
Out of curiosity, I went to Lofgren’s website and
watched a clip of the aforementioned solo, and
was suitably impressed with the sheer physicality
and artistry of Lofgren’s technique, as he employed extreme bends, deft harmonics, fast-fingered triplets and straight ahead shredding.
Always being a very animated stage presence, Nils
capped off his solo with a forward somersault
and spins. Trust me, it’s impressive.
Fab Gear:
Lofgren has always favored Fender guitars, although he’s been known to pick up a vintage ’52
Les Paul Goldtop, a Telecaster, and a Rickenbacker
on occasion. His main axe is a ’61 pre-CBS Stratocaster-he has another as a spare-with replacement pickups and the finish stripped to natural
wood. With Bruce, Nils straps on Fender Jazzmasters with heavy gauge 13-56 strings, and also uses
a Gretsch Black Penguin or Black Falcon on occasion. He uses and endorses Takamine acoustics,
and also treasures an old Martin given to him by
Neil Young years ago. Lofgren uses Fender amps
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 27
Nils Lofgren: Part 2 of our interview
on the road exclusively; currently two Twin Reverbs, although he has also used Vibro Kings and
Super Reverbs.
Present & Future:
Nils Lofgren is a proactive exponent of self marketing. His website, www.nilslofgren.com, is a
treasure trove of information that lists all his activities, as well as everything the guitarist offers
for sale, including recordings, online teaching
courses and various merchandise. A new project
Lofgren is excited about these days is, Blind Date
Jam, a concept that sprang up over the years
based upon very casual and informal downtime
jams among musicians. Lofgren realized that us
average folk never get to hear some of this oftentimes memorable and spontaneous music. The
concept was to plan nothing in advance. Bring
your instrument, and whatever happens “happens,” as they say. The first edition of Blind Date
Jam is available for sale on Nils’ website, as one
might expect, and features Lofgren jamming with
pedal steel guitarist Mike Smith. The music is
highly inspired and quite moving.
The new Album
The new album, Old School, covers a variety of
topics including desperation, self-doubt, true
love, departed friends, holding on to your
dreams and the world gone mad... along with a
tribute to the late, great Ray Charles.
"These songs reflect characters with some
radical feelings and beliefs," states Lofgren.
"They're definitely thought-provoking."
"Old School has many different types of songs
and feels... some rough, bluesy tracks to haunting acoustic songs," continues Lofgren. "There's
some interesting and controversial characters in
these songs and I look forward to everyone's reaction."
The album is available directly from his web site
www.nilslofgren.com
From a 2009 interview written by this author and
published in Premier Guitar, Lofgren summed it
all up.
“If you find yourself challenged, frustrated and
pushing yourself to learn to play, don’t forget
to enjoy the gift of music. It has to be fun, too. I
find myself consciously separating myself from
all the hard work simply to enjoy playing
music, and I do it on a regular basis.”
by Bob Cianci.
Tap Here To Visit www.NilsLofgren.com
Guitar Coach Magazine 28
Guitars & Gizmos
– Guitar Top 10’s; Covers
– Guitar Apps; Garage Band
– Nick Benjamin, Luthier
Guitar Top 10’s
Guitar Coach Magazine 29
Top 10 covers: that are (debatably) better than the original!
by Ben Vine
Me First and The Gimme Gimmes – Hello
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI0d-kOxb4A
Starting this list we have an explosive punk cover
of “Hello” by Lionel Richie. Me First and The
Gimme Gimmes are a punk cover superband with
members from NOFX, Lagwagon and Foo Fighters,
and approach the track with the same tongue in
cheek ferocity that has earned them a huge cult
following. The guitar solo that comes out of
nowhere and three part harmonies at the end deserve special mentions.
contributed massively to song choices on the
whole of the American IV: The Man Comes
Around album. The track, which was one of the
final releases before Cash died in 2003, received
huge critical acclaim and is now seen as one of
his best recordings. Trent Reznor himself, although at first wary of the idea of Johnny Cash
covering the song, described himself as “deeply
moved” when he first heard it.
White Stripes - I Just Don't Know What To Do
With Myself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVN_h7zO54k
The Specials – A Message To You, Rudy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntvEDbagAw
Jack White is famous for his blues and soul influences, with his other projects such as The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather bringing dirty delta
blues back to the forefront of the music scene.
However, The White Stripes are also well known
for their country, soul and blues influence. Their
cover of Dolly Parton's “Jolene”, which is regularly
played in their live sets, almost made it onto this
list. However the Burt Bacharach/Dusty Springfield classic “I Just Don't Know What To Do With
Myself” holds it's own on a great album that includes the classic “Seven Nation Army”.
The Specials debut album opened with this cover
of Dandy Livingstone's rocksteady hit, and the
single went straight into the UK top ten. The
heavy influence of ska and reggae on the British
punk scene was highlighted by the two tone
movement and The Specials led the way with direct covers of reggae bands such as Toots and the
Maytals and Prince Buster also featuring on the
same album. “A Message To You, Rudy” was the
most prolific and is undoubtably more well
known than the original.
Johnny Cash – Hurt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go
Trent Reznor's song “Hurt” is widely believed to be
about self harm and society, but in 2005 the Nine
Inch Nails track was propelled to new heights as
it was covered by the legendary Johnny Cash. The
cover was chosen by producer Rick Rubin who
Children Of Bodom – Oops I Did It Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGtXlBbWeB4
Children Of Bodom are a finnish death metal
band. Covering Britney Spears. I think these two
sentences are more than enough to allow them a
place in this list.
Guitar Top 10’s
Guitar Coach Magazine 30
Top 10 covers: that are (debatably) better than the original!
The Beatles – Twist and Shout
Nirvana – Where Did You Sleep Last Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgd46QiHz4I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcXYz0gtJeM
“Twist and Shout” was originally a release for R&B
band the Top Notes, but the production of the
song by Phil Spector was despised by the song's
writer Bert Berns. As way of revenge, Berns produced the second version by the Isley Brothers.
Only a year later The Beatles recorded their version for their UK debut album Please, Please Me.
Their version made it into the US single charts
twice, both in 1964 and 1986, off the back of the
film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Surprisingly this
makes it the longest running US Top 40 hit for
The Beatles with a total of 23 weeks. John
Lennon's voice deserves a special mention as one
of the finest early rock vocal performances.
In 1993 Nirvana visited MTV's studio to record an
unplugged episode with all their well known hits.
However they ended the set with an American
Folk song called "In The Pines". Rebranded as
"Where Did You Sleep Last Night", the track is possibly the single most amazing vocal performance
Kurt Cobain ever gave. Recorded just five months
before he died, it is seen by many as his final performance, with the screamed final verse sending
shivers down the spines of the most hardened
rockers to this day.
Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDl9ZMfj6aE
In 2001 Alien Ant Farm burst onto the scene with
their cover of the Michael Jackson classic
“Smooth Criminal”. They quickly left the scene
again after failing to make their second album
gain any attention, but they left us with this explosive pop punk cover. The driving guitars, finger
tapped solo and intermittent Jacksonesque
shouts, this track is definitely a legacy they can be
proud of. Even if there's nothing else. And there
isn't.
Muse – Feeling Good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOEZMjuoIEY
“Feeling Good”, originally made famous by Nina
Simone, was covered by Muse in 2001. The neoprog band made the song their own using their
classical music influences to form the track into a
masterpiece. Now probably played more often
than any other version on the song in film, TV and
on radio, a true testament to how a cover version
can be done just right.
Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AuxJH2Mj30
We considered not including this song as it’s so
common on "greatest covers" lists. However,
when the original artist admits its better than
their own and changes the way they play the
song from that day onwards, it's hard to ignore it.
It's also hard to forget exactly what Hendrix did
with the song, as its so well known now. He took
the original, rehashed it, changed the way it was
sung, added ridiculous guitar solos and then
shoved what was left through a psychedelic
wormhole. What comes out the other side is a different song and a brave interpretation for a fan so
enamoured with Dylan, he used to keep one of
his guitar songbooks in his gig bag at all times.
Guitar Apps
Guitar Coach Magazine 31
App of the Month: GarageBand
by Tom Rosier
Now I don’t think that the inclusion of this app is a surprise
to anyone, and it may even be
an app that you have used in
the past.
GarageBand’. This feature allows
you to pick from a multitude of
instruments and place them
within an XY axis of volume and
complexity, which edits the volume and complexity (obviously)
of the samples selected. This can
allow you to create a backing
track for your audio in a matter
of seconds. Great for when an
idea comes to you quickly and you want something to back it up to give you an idea of what the
finished article could sound like, and has high
enough quality audio samples to actually be the
finished article if you so wanted.
GarageBand is multi-track recording
software which will allow you to record
you guitar playing to create songs
But I certainly think that it is important enough in the iOS environment to deserve a mention,
and a quick scan over some of
the features you may not be aware of.
Tap here to check
out this App
In basic terms, GarageBand is a DAW (or digital
audio workstation), a program for recording live
audio and MIDI data into a program for mixing,
but the latest update for GarageBand is a multitude of products rolled into one, but for the purpose of this review I will try and place emphasis
on the guitar-specific features.
Firstly, as stated above, GarageBand is multi-track
recording software which will allow you to record
you guitar playing to create songs, which is not
only beneficial for song writing, but also tracking
your process as you learn guitar. The quality of the
audio input is surprisingly high and the depth
into which you can edit your audio is pleasing to
say the least.
Now not all of us have the opportunity to play
with a band, or indeed the time. GarageBand has
a fantastic feature that is aptly named �Magic
It then has the Smart Guitar feature, which allows
you to pick from the following styles of guitar
(Acoustic, Classic Clean, Hard Rock or Roots Rock
guitar), which are all loosely emulated versions of
everyone’s favourite guitar tones. This feature is
actually very cool. Using the iPad’s touch screen
you can play the notes of your chosen chord vertically, ensuring that you’re always in tune. This can
also be recorded into the multi-track recording
section of the App, meaning you can layer up your
parts and really get your track sounding the way
you want it.
The Guitar Amp is probably the most interesting
addition the GarageBand app. It’s a truly brilliant
Guitar Apps
Guitar Coach Magazine 32
App of the Month: Guitar Toolkit
idea. 20+ guitar amp emulations in the palm of
your hand. You will require hardware like the Amplitube iRig or Alesis iO Dock to take advantage of
this, but when connected the sound possibilities
are endless. There is no other way you could even
comprehend having an amp collection like this in
your house, and the emulations really are of very
good quality for what they are, and each with
dedicated controls to get your sound just right.
You even have an output using both of these devices, so if you really did want to, you could use
these amps as an input into different recording
software. Not strictly necessary, but very handy if
you wanted to take your recordings to the next
level in terms of audio quality.
piece of recording software that will do you nothing but favours, and the flow of the app is splendid. For $4.99 I can’t really see where you can go
wrong on this one!
Garage Band is not only a great tool - it’s also great
fun creating new sound setups with a range of amps
and effects pedals.
Along with these features, the GarageBand App
also comes with a chromatic guitar tuner, which
is always handy and means that you don’t have to
leave the app to go to another tuning app that
you may have installed. Not a great tuner, but not
a bad one either. It does the job!
A nice little touch within the app, is that once a
mixdown of the track is complete, you can share it
amongst your friends on a multitude of social
media platforms. So you can show your friends
how much you’re improving and rub your abilities
in their face a little. Again, not a completely necessary feature, but a nice touch nonetheless.
The last feature I am going to look at in GarageBand (though there are many more I could go
over) is the Jam Session feature. Brilliant idea. It is
a little bit of a shame that it works over Bluetooth
instead of wi-fi, but a step in the right direction
for sure. The Jam Session feature lets you jam
with someone using the app via Bluetooth, meaning that you can be playing and recording separate instruments and work on arrangements of
songs together, and the beauty of it is that you
can have up to four people in the session at any
one time.
Overall this app has come on leaps and bounds
since its first version, and at present it really is
ahead of the curve in terms of iPad recording.
Combined with the iRig or iO Dock you also have a
Value for money:
Functionality:
Ease of use:
Looks:
Total:
Tap Here For Details Of Garage Band
Guitar Maker
Guitar Coach Magazine 33
Engineer and artist: acoustic guitar maker Nick Benjamin
Luthier Nick Benjamin is, in many ways, a true traditional artisan when it comes to making handmade,
custom and individual guitars.
The label “limited edition” falls far short of describing what is produced in Nick's small, oneman workshop in an old brewery in the town of
Lewes, southeast England.
Armed with an engineering degree, Nick approaches guitar making like an engineer, as well
as a musician and craftsman: “I think of myself as
an engineer […] but the sound is an artistic
choice.” Customers should find this combination
assuring. He further explains that both “accuracy
and quality is what I'm looking for in the way I'm
building.”
According to Nick's homepage, the historic town
of Lewes “is unusual in the world of guitar making in that a small 'community' of makers exists
here; each working separately but supporting one
another and sharing ideas.” Nick averages around
one guitar per month (though he makes six at
once – you do the math!) and to date has only
made about 130 instruments. Each of them
unique.
Coming from a family of designers, engineers and
musicians (his mother was a flautist), Nick built
his first guitar, a classical model, in 1990 at the
age of 17 in his bedroom at his parents' house.
After honing his skills on more classical as well as
electric guitars, he moved on to steel stringed
models, using what he had learned under the
tutelage of two local guitar makers.
For those beginning guitar making, Nick explains
that the traditional Spanish construction style
can be an ideal starting point, due to its efficient
style requiring few tools. The progression to modern methods of guitar construction generally involves the adoption of many specialist tools and
fixtures: the steel-string guitar, in particular, requiring additional neck reinforcing inserts which
necessitate at least some use of power tools.
Making six guitars at once, Nick finds, is the perfect method. “when I make six guitars they're all
different, but I do each process on all six at once. I
actually find this improves the quality of the instruments.”
And who exactly is buying Benjamin guitars?
Nick's customers are mostly keen amateur players in search of a different guitar with a unique
sound, as well as professional guitarists who de-
Guitar Maker
Guitar Coach Magazine 34
Engineer and artist: acoustic guitar maker Nick Benjamin
Photos:
The Benjamin JOM77 with
unique scoop design.
Newton Faulkner on stage
at Glastonberry playing his
Benjamin.
pend on simple, work-ready instruments of very
high quality. Though authentic and traditional,
the modern acoustic guitar needs to be able to be
played anywhere from the living room to the
arena stage, so Benjamin guitars are designed
and built to be extremely compatible with amplification so that they sound great plugged in or
fully acoustic. Besides standard steel string models, Nick offers baritones, twelve strings, Terz
(smaller, higher tuned), nylon string guitars, Venetian cutaway and the signature “Benjamin Scoop”
cutaway models, among others.
Why choose a unique, handmade guitar?
Nick is not trying to reach an exclusive or elite
market, but instead offers a personal experience
to his customers. Acquiring a Benjamin guitar is
like going on a journey. There is the element of
the unknown – not in terms of quality, but of precise characteristics. There is the anticipation,
choosing the woods, model and decoration
schemes, interacting with the maker – and that's
just the pleasure of the process. At the end the
customer gets a beautiful guitar. “It's a double
sort of pleasure, if you like,” Nick explains. In an
age of mass production and uniformity, he firmly
believes that a musical instrument is something
that can still be very personal.
tional woods for guitar making, “a symptom of
deforestation and the overuse of resources,” according to Nick. But these “newer” woods can be
extremely close to traditional timbers in terms of
sound and colour, as well as offer some great
qualities of their own. American black walnut and
cocobolo rosewood are some of Nick's favourite
additions to his arsenal of tropical rosewoods,
ebonies and spruces. Sustainability, if you'll pardon the obvious pun, is key to the future of
acoustic guitar making.
Properties of the wood are crucial. An average
acoustic guitar will have a soundboard made of a
soft wood like spruce or cedar, which are light and
strong timbers. The main body – the back and
sides – should be strong and dense, providing
weight and strength, making rosewood, mahogany and walnut ideal woods. Different
weights of wood can be used to create different
sounds, ranging from deep and dark to light and
airy. The neck of the guitar needs to be strong and
is usually mahogany due to its strength, stability,
sound and the fact that it's easy to carve,
whereas the bridges and fingerboard have to be
hard and are therefore usually ebony or sometimes rosewood.
Some notes about wood use:
Keep in mind when buying a custom ordered,
unique handmade acoustic steel stringed Benjamin guitar you are paying for something special, personal and worth the wait. Nick's prices
start at ВЈ4,000 (the cost of materials plus a
month's skilled labour and workshop rental).
Fancy taking a journey?
Luthiers are now being forced to use non tradi-
http://www.benjaminguitars.co.uk/
And what makes a guitar unique? The main differences lie in the choice of wood, instrument
size, shape, features, etc., but all of Nick's guitars
sound like a Benjamin.
Feature
Eugene “Hideaway” Bridges:
Blues Road Warrior
“Let the blues be blues.
Get to understand it.
Take time to learn before
you try to change what
ain’t broken.”
Guitar Coach Magazine 35
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 36
Blues Road Warrior
Rising blues star credits father for education
& inspiration
Guitarist Eugene “Hideaway” Bridges, a native of New Orleans, with seven albums to his
credit and three recent nominations from
the Blues Foundation, lives the life of a nomadic musician, traveling throughout the
United States, Europe and Australia, spreading the blues gospel far and wide. The 49year old son of bluesman Hideaway Slim, is
distantly related to Tina Turner, formerly
known as Anna Mae Bullock.
“I got my guitar skills form the Bridges, and
my voice from the Bullocks,” says Eugene.
“I remember when I was two years old singing
myself to sleep to the sound of things my daddy
would play. The riffs he played were always in my
head, so one day, I took my plastic spade and put
elastic bands on it. My dad saw that, so he set me
down and placed his guitar in my hands and
started to show me a honky-tonk riff, and that
was my start. I looked within myself to find other
sounds that were in my head.
“Daddy showed me the Jimmy Reed riff and what
you call the 1-4-5 card in blues. We called it your
1st, 2nd and 3rd change and the open E tuned guitar, and that was the end of my guitar class! I was
two, about to turn three when I played back up
for him. Along the way, you see things and do
things that are a real good teacher in life. I always
played what was inside me that was needing to
come out. I was blessed with this music, and you
can’t learn this from a school or a teacher. Someone cannot teach to you. It is in you, or it is not.
“Daddy led by talking to me about life. To be a
good leader, you must learn how to follow and
hear what the song is saying to you, what the
singer is trying to say, and play that together.
When I was seven, daddy says to me, �Are you
gonna’ practice?’
I said to him, “I know how to play my guitar.” He
said, OK, play your guitar, now play something different, and on and on like that. Real soon, I run
out of things to play!
“He said, �See. You don’t know it all. Take that guitar and put it away. Don’t touch it until I tell you.’ I
had the �Big Head’ at seven years old! If he didn’t
stop me, I would have been walking around today
thinking I am the greatest! Daddy was teaching
me that I knew something and it was good, even
great, but I did not know it all. He was teaching
me to always learn, always keep looking, keep
paying attention, as there’s so much to learn, but
only if you open your mind.”
The elder Bridges continued to use his common
sense technique to educate his son in positive
ways.
“Daddy would teach me to listen to the sounds.
Let the guitar talk to you and to the people. I used
my guitar to say what life was saying to me, to
hear what the singer was saying, and finding a
way to accompany that. You have to find it yourself and earn it yourself.”
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 37
Blues Road Warrior
The Church Influence:
Like the vast majority of African-American musicians, Eugene’s father was influenced by the
gospel music and sermons he heard in church.
His family belonged to the First Church of God in
Christ in New Orleans, and Bridges senior found
inspiration in the guitar playing and singing of
Reverend Utah Smith.
“Daddy played like Elder Smith, and I played just
like daddy. Names like B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, TBone Walker and Lightnin’ Hopkins was all just
names to me as a boy. Daddy would play the
records and learn from them, and when I heard
daddy play, it was full of these guys, but putting
himself into it. This is how people say I sound like
B.B. King when I never played a B.B. King song.
“B.B. King was the guy that had a way of teaching
without even knowing he was teaching. B.B. set a
way of having many people on one stage working
together. I would not only see the forest, but the
tree and all the parts; how the drummer is the
time keeper, how the bass holds a dedicated
groove, how guitar, horns and keys work together,
each doing his own job to make that sound full
and real.”
Today’s Blues Scene:
The life of a traveling blues musician has never
been easy and it’s no different today, as the blues
has a tendency to exist in hills and valleys of popularity. Many would say it is way down in the valley right now, with other types of music taking
precedent.
“A popularity contest is the first thing that
comes to me, and that is why I have to let the
music speak for itself. I will only play for the
ones who want the real music and not the
games. I am so sick of the haves and have-nots
game. What you put in is what you get out. If a
gimmick is what the people want, then there’s
a lot to go and see, but if my music is something that speaks to you in any way, I will only
play where my music is welcomed.”
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 38
Blues Road Warrior
Eugene’s latest album: Rock And A Hard Place
Many blues players have complained that getting
work is harder and harder and drawing crowds
has gotten tougher over the last several years.
“In the USA? I wouldn’t know. (Bridges spends
most of his time playing out of the USA-author). I
hear some of the bands talk about people and
having money troubles is a big reason, but I was
signed on a record label when I went to France in
1995, and agents have me working all over the
place.
“Blues and hip-hop is all the same. Between the
1950’s and 2012, the beats have changed, but if
you write down the stories to a blues song and
words to a hip-hop song, you’ll see they are saying the same thing. You can’t just drop in and
sing the blues or hip-hop and get away with it.
You have to live it to understand it, be a part of it,
and then, you must have something to say once
you get in the door.”
The Blues Evolves:
Lots of critics talk about the blues evolving, but
Eugene has other ideas.
“Blues is what it is. It doesn’t need to evolve. If
you don’t like it, don’t buy it or listen to it. You
can’t take an old Ford truck and turn it into something shiny and flash it out and make it fit what
you think someone wants to do with it. Let the
blues be blues. Get to understand it. Take time to
learn before you try to change what ain’t broken.”
By Bob Cianci. Photos by Alwyn Coates
Get Details Of The Album Here
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Guitar Coach Magazine 39
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Guitar Coach Magazine 40
Riffs, Licks & Solos
– Blues Brothers, Sweet Home Chicago
– Robert Cray, Phone Booth
– JJ Cale, Call Me The Breeze
– 9 Below Zero, Sweet Mama
Riffs, Licks & Solos
Guitar Coach Magazine 41
Blues Brothers: Sweet Home Chicago
Written by Robert Johnson and released in August 1937, this song has been recorded by
countless artists.
The intro to the song has also had many versions, but Andy has chosen to teach the one
released by The Blues Brothers, with the guitar being played by the late, great Steve
Cropper.
The Riff.
Its greatness is not its simplicity, more the way
the double stops, vibrato and pauses effortlessly
link into one another, making it immediately
memorable. It can be employed as a generic riff
to countless other 12 bar blues songs and so will
help you enormously when jamming with others.
Just make sure you play it in the right key!!!!
The sound.
I believe this is one riff that sounds great clean
and bereft of effects. But, like all these things, do
what you want with it once you’ve mastered all
the small parts and can put your own stamp on
it.
Riffs, Licks & Solos
Blues Brothers: Sweet Home Chicago
Guitar Coach Magazine 42
Riffs, Licks & Solos
Guitar Coach Magazine 43
Robert Cray: Phone Booth
Now this isn’t a riff, it is the beginning of Robert Cray’s beautifully played solo from his hit
Phone Booth
Why Choose This?
The Sound
Andy really wanted to bring you something different and, in just a couple of bars, you can make out
the distinct Robert Cray soloing style. This particular solo is played over the A minor pentatonic
scale but has a unique feel all of its own, using
pauses and vibrato amongst the “clipped” way
some of the notes are played. It is something new
to learn and takes you off the main highway to,
hopefully, experience and learn something
slightly diverse, but bluesy all the same.
I’d keep it as clean as possible, perhaps with some
gain control. If you have a strat, you’re halfway
there already. If not, experiment away!!!
Difficulty
Probably the most challenging of this month’s riff
videos. But it will show you what you can do with
a basic scale – even though it is only a taster to
the complete solo
Riffs, Licks & Solos
Robert Cray: Phone Booth
Guitar Coach Magazine 44
Riffs, Licks & Solos
Guitar Coach Magazine 45
JJ Cale: Call Me The Breeze
Why J.J.Cale?
As you have probably gathered, Andy is a massive J.J.Cale fan, which has prompted him to
give you a brief insight into the type of riff he plays in between lines when he is not singing.
Known for his great touch, feel and timing, J.J. Cale manages to project an almost laziness to
his playing whilst still making it have passion, often with jazzy overtones. Many a guitarist
can reproduce the notes, but not in the same way that characterizes his style.
What will this riff give me?
How will it help my playing?
This one small riff is played after the first line of
the first verse has been sung and variations of
the same “set of notes” all played with a different
emphasis occur throughout the song. What is
important is the way he emphasizes gaps, plays
notes when you least expect them and most of
all, when he chooses not to play at all.
It is in the key of F# but, like most blues patterns,
it is easily transposed to other keys. As far as this
riff is concerned, learn it with the video and then
play along with the whole song, adding your own
variations by using the same notes but playing
less or more of them, adding in pauses and, of
course, in a different order. This really is a fun
thing to do and will develop your jamming and
ability to improvise.
Riffs, Licks & Solos
JJ Cale: Call Me The Breeze
Meolody Line tab
Lead Lick tab
Guitar Coach Magazine 46
Guitar Coach Magazine 47
Riffs, Licks & Solos
9 Below Zero: Sugar Mama
Who recorded it?
Nine Below Zero are an English Blues band who were at their height in popularity in the early
1980s but continue gigging to this day, having built up a cult following throughout Europe.
Sugar Mama is a departure from their normally
hi-energy style, but is an introductory riff that the
majority of us would consider pure blues.
The Riff
This is a particularly great riff to learn if you are
apt at both singing and playing – especially on
your own. It can easily be transposed to any key
and is full of simple hammer ons, pull off and
slides. The end of the riff ends with a sliding
chord (Eb9 to D9) again, a classic blues “move”
and rolls effortlessly into the verse.
The techniques used in the riff itself are not too
difficult to master; the key here is being able to
learn the structure of the riff and remembering
the changes. Once you have learned it, use it as a
warm up before you start playing – whether that
be at a gig or in the comfort of your own home –
because it won’t stretch your fingers too much,
but will definitely get the blood flowing through
your veins.
Sound
For gigging, give your guitar a tiny bit of gain, distortion and reverb, to try and imitate the sound of
Dennis Greaves’ 1976 Burgundy Gibson ES 335cr.
Clean, but with a growly overtone!!!
Riffs, Licks & Solos
9 Below Zero: Sugar Mama
Guitar Coach Magazine 48
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 49
eJamming: The Premier Online Community For Musical Collaboration
New technology allows musicians to jam and collaborate
anytime, anywhere.
At the expense of showing my age, this writer
never dreamed of jamming with other musicians
thousands of miles away when I started playing
music in the late 1960’s. There was no Internet, of
course, and the only way to make music was to
sit in the same room with other players. Well, it’s
a new day with new technology that allows anyone with basic computer skills and equipment to
play music in real time with others thousands of
miles away: very hip and definitely cutting-edge.
eJamming is the brainchild of music business entrepreneur Gail Kantor, a former backup singer for
Bette Midler, producer, manager and professional
fundraiser, and Alan Jay Glueckman, a screenwriter, lyricist, producer and director, with credits
in movies, records, television, theatre and the Internet. These two, along with technology and entertainment professional Bill Redman, launched a
prototype of eJamming in 2007, and were first
recognized within the technology industry in
2009. But it wasn’t until 2010 that they conquered the problem of “lag time,” with the introduction of what they refer to as 3.0 software,
featuring 16 bit 44.1 kHz live audio streaming.
With this cutting edge technology in place, eJamming has become, in the words of Alan Glueckman, “The premier online community for musical
collaboration, from writing, to recording, to live
jam sessions, with musician members/sub-
scribers logging in from around the globe. It
sounds like the other player is in the room with
you.”
Who Uses eJamming?
We asked Alan who eJamming is for and how it
can benefit different users, and he responded
that ejamming is for, “musicians looking to jam
with old friends and band mates, or to meet new
musicians they can play with. It’s for bands to rehearse, create, play and record together rather
than lugging their gear to a rehearsal space, although it’s never meant to supplant a live rehearsal. eJamming is for musicians looking to
form new bands by meeting musicians and auditioning them live, for teachers and students to
work together online, and to provide a place for
students to practice together in a virtual practice
studio.”
But why not just use Skype to jam together?
“People have told me they’re not happy using
Skype because of the way it feels. It’s very delayed,
whereas, eJamming eliminates the latency or lag
time issue. There are other technologies that purport to offer online jamming, but none offer the
real time, high quality audio and lowest latency
experience that eJamming offers, because we’re
“peer to peer,” rather than server mediated, which
Feature
Guitar Coach Magazine 50
eJamming: The Premier Online Community For Musical Collaboration
means eJamming has half the latency of serverbased systems. And we offer the same high quality audio as CDs.”
Getting Started with eJamming
Simply go to www.ejamming.com/learn-more
and sign up. Once your email is verified, then
download and install the software. After receiving
a “Welcome to eJamming” email, you will receive
information on how to set up eJamming, as well
as a link to tech support, www.ejammingtechsupport.com, which contains detailed information and how to perform tasks such as
unblocking ports, allowing eJamming through
your firewall, and configuring the audio signal
stream through your computer. The eJamming
support website contains pictures and step-bystep instructions how to do everything necessary
to get started. The cost is only $9.95 per month
after a 30-day free trial, $24.95 for three months,
or only $89.95 per year. It obviously pays to go for
the long haul.
And Musicians Said…
Dustin Bogue of the group Brasher/Bogue is a
loyal eJamming participant.
“Playing guitar is in a lot of ways a lot like having
sex…Granted, it’s fun even if you’re flying solo, but
it doesn’t compare to doing it with other people!
“A musician at any level will readily tell you, playing guitar is a lot more fun when you are accompanied by another picker. You can share songs,
theories, chords, licks, stories, ideas, etc, with each
other. That is how we grow. It isn’t always easy to
get together with other players, and a lot of people don’t have a large circle of friends to call on if
they have the urge to jam. Quite simply, eJamming makes it possible.
“The day I found eJamming, I knew it was going
to change things for us in a big way. Since Andy
(Brasher) and I first started writing and performing together, our two biggest obstacles have been
time and distance: not enough time and too
many miles between us. eJamming has literally
bridged the gap on both accounts. Each time we
get together to write online, we are just amazed
that we finally have this tool. We write and rehearse probably three to four times as often as
we did before we found eJamming.”
Andy Brasher chimed in, “As a writing/touring
musician, balancing home life and work life can
be a challenge. Especially if you’re like me, and
you live in one state and most of your musical accomplices live in another. Dustin and I have been
making music together, writing and recording
since 2007. Until we discovered eJamming, getting together consisted of taking turns driving
two hundred miles and spending a few days
away from home. This could be very taxing. Now
that we’re on eJamming, we can write, play, or
record at a moment’s notice without having to
dedicate gas money and a couple hours on the
road in order to create together. We are able to
work more often and from the comfort of our
own homes. The control panel is super easy to
use, and the setup was simple. With tech support’s help, we were up and running that day. “
And Now, Get Ready For…
It won’t be long before the company offers eJamming STUDiiO ®, which will integrate live video
along with audio, and ejamming TEACH В® for students and teachers, featuring enlarged video, notation, plus other teaching tools. And finally,
eJamming JAMCASTLE В®, where musicians anywhere in the world can use eJamming STUDiiO В®
as a live performance capture device and stream
those performances live to smartphones, Surface
tablets, computers and iPads, for fan access everywhere in the world, 24/7. All these developments
are on the verge of reality, according to Alan
Gleuckman.
Stay tuned…
By Bob Cianci
Try eJamming Now!
Guitar Coach Magazine 51
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Altered Tuning
Guitar Coach Magazine 52
Altered States
Rikky Rooksby talks about the opportunities a little re-tuning can offer songwriters.
Think of songs such as Led Zeppelin �Kashmir’, The Rolling Stones �Honky
Tonk Women’, Joni Mitchell �Big Yellow Taxi’, Bad Company �Can’t Get
Enough’, Stephen Stills �Love The One You’re With’, The Beatles �Dear Prudence’, Coldplay �Yellow’, Nick Drake �River Man’, Bob Dylan �Mr Tambourine
Man’, Neil Young �Cinnamon Girl’, and Crosby Stills Nash and Young �Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes’. What do these songs have in common? All were composed
and inspired by a guitar that was not in standard tuning.
Altered tunings are now an accepted method for
creating great new guitar music. Up to the 60s
they were largely the province of folk and blues
guitarists, but the spread of musical influences
from folk protest songs and electric blues into
chart pop and counter-culture rock in that decade
took them into the musical mainstream. By the
end of the 60s headliners such as Bob Dylan, The
Who, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, CSN&Y
were writing and recording songs with them.
When Richie Havens walked out on stage at the
Woodstock Festival, on August 15 1969, to face a
quarter of a million people, he did so – amazingly
- with a guitar in altered tuning. Since those days,
altered tunings have been utilized by acoustic and
electric players alike in many popular genres such
as folk, college radio rock, indie, hard rock, grunge,
New Age guitar and many more.
It is true that thousands of great songs have been
written by guitarists in standard tuning. As a tuning, EADGBE is an excellent, musical compromise
that provides readily playable chords for most
keys and chord types. In some keys – notably C, G,
D and A, and their relative minors A minor, E
minor, B minor and F# minor – enough of the
basic chord shapes have open strings to produce a
pleasingly resonant sound for little physical effort.
In addition, it is easier to have a key change in a
song written in EADGBE.
However, going beyond the familiarity of standard tuning opens some exciting musical doors.
Songwriters can find much inspiration in altered tunings. This is chiefly because perhaps
the majority of songwriters who compose on
guitar do so by finding emotionally-charged
chord changes. Altered tunings provide these
by the bucket-load.
An altered tuning defamiliarises the fretboard.
With the turn of a peg or two it removes – either
partially or completely – the standard shapes and
patterns which a songwriter can find through
habit and which, at times, fail to inspire through
being over-familiar. An altered tuning has the potential to make commonplace chord sequences
exciting again because they sound different when
voiced in new shapes. It can also offer a songwriter the chance to broaden the harmony of his
or her songs through bringing in other chord
Song writing
Guitar Coach Magazine 53
Altered States
types in effective shapes. Even the simplicity of an
open major tuning, where a single finger barre
creates a major chord, makes simple major
changes sound new.
For a songwriter’s in-depth study of altered tunings (complete with a selective chord dictionary)
see my book How To Write Songs in Altered Guitar
Tuning
For a songwriter, fiddling with the tuning is as
much about the generating of inspiration
through defamiliarization as it is about the altered tuning even being audible in the final song.
The objection, �But you could have done that in
standard tuning’ can be countered with, �Yes, I
could have but I didn’t until the idea came to me.
And it didn’t appear until I re-tuned the guitar’.
If you have only played in EADGBE retuning the
guitar and finding familiar shapes no longer work
can be daunting. An easy method for dipping your
toe in the waters of altered tuning is the singlestring change. Re-tuning a single string can be
enough to �refresh’ ordinary chords and the sound
of the guitar. Try �drop D’, where string 6 is detuned by a tone from E to D, or �top drop D’ where
string 1 goes down by a tone.
How To Write Songs In Altered Tunings
Rikky Rooksby is the author of
Backbeat’s series for songwriters
which comprises the best-selling
How to Write Songs on Guitar, Inside Classic Rock Tracks, Riffs, The
Songwriting Sourcebook, Chord
Master, Melody, How to Write
Songs on Keyboards, Lyrics, Arranging Songs and How to Write Songs
in Altered Tunings.
Visit his webpage at
www.rikkyrooksby.com
FAQs
Guitar Coach Magazine 54
FAQs
Here’s a short selection of the most popular questions sent in by you this month. Please keep
those questions coming and I’ll try and cover as many as possible in the next issue.
Question: After taking a 2 year
break from playing the guitar (because I became frustrated) I immediately came up against my old enemy,
the string bend. When I bend and or
bend and release a string I keep hitting the string above with my finger
or finger nail. Have you any tips to
help stop this happening?
I totally appreciate the frustrations you are experiencing and,
as far as string bending is concerned, there really is no substitution for practice. Having said
that, here are a few tips I have
picked up over the years which I
hope will help.
First of all, make sure you are
fretting the note correctly. In
other words, you can hear the
pre-bend note clearly and you
are playing it with the tip of
your finger. This will ensure you
do not have to adjust your finger position on the string or, indeed, apply unnecessary
additional pressure to keep the
note sounding. This will cause
an immediate bend fail.
Next try bending the string up
just one step (one semi tone) or
even less very slowly. Whilst
doing this, look at where your
finger or nail is starting to hit
Question: Guys, I love your magazine and, as a beginner, have one question for you, which I am sure will be
easy to answer. How do I know when
it’s time to change my strings?
Well, quite simply if the strings
have a dull color, sound dead,
muted, become discoloured or
are hard to tune, then it's time
to change them. You will only
realize just how dead they have
become until you here the
brightness and clarity of a new
set when you replace them. As a
beginner it is especially hard to
know when you should change
strings as you will not tend to
notice the dulling of the tone
i.e. not realize the sound has
the hit the string above so you
can make some adjustments.
Such as: If your nail is toughing
the string above (apart from
keeping them short) you will
probably be fretting the string
with your left hand too close to
the nail. If your finger is touching the string above causing it
to sound when you release the
bend your will be bend your
fretting finger needs to be
nearer the tip. Once you have
the fretting finger in the correct
position you will contact the
string above but it will not
sound – well most of the time
anyway. You should then be able
to bend the strings a full step
without any unwanted noises
and hindrance.
Apart from that, just keep practicing so you refine your technique until string bending
becomes second nature.
changed. You will probably be
having too much fun and concentrating on learning to think
too much about the sound.
With experience you will know
when that time has come. The
timeframes often depend on
your own body make up and
how much you sweat or what
chemicals are released from
your hands and fingers.
Continued over page...
Ask Andy
Guitar Coach Magazine 55
FAQs
Question: Although I haven’t been
playing the guitar long I have a continued thirst for knowledge. What does it
mean when it says to tune down or
move your fretting finger a 1/2 step
or a full step?
Question: Although I do not want to
learn too much theory, many tutors believe it is essential you learn your
scales. I definitely think it would help,
especially when I progress enough to
learn solos. To get me going and, in
the simplest terms possible, please
could you tell me the basic difference
between a major and minor scale?
Guitarists who sweat more,
spend hours upon hours playing
or fret the strings aggressively
or with excessive force will all
have to change strings more
often.
All I know is that I change mine
after every gig due to excessive
moisture being expelled from
my body causing the sound
quality to “die” immediately
after I have finished playing.
In order to fully understand the
answer you need to have a basic
knowledge of note intervals i.e.
what notes exist. These are Ab,
A, Bb, B, C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, F# (or
Gb) and G. If you play one of
these notes and move to one of
the notes next to it in the sequence, you travel half a step.
For example, E to Eb or E to F.
This also equates to moving one
fret; so every time you move
from one fret to an adjacent
fret you travel a half step. If you
move two frets, you travel a full
step and this is the equivalent
of playing a note that is 2 steps
away in the sequence, for exam-
ple, E to F# or E to D.
Well, this sort of follows on
from the last question, in so
much as you need to have some
knowledge of the notes and intervals.
whole step to G, then a whole
step to A, then a whole step to
B, then a half step back to C
(only a half step between B & C
as well).
Let’s start by looking at the C
major scale. The first note will
always be a C (this is known as
the root note) and follows the
following pattern.
So the notes in the C scale are: C
D E F G A B C. The example
above is executed on the A
string to make it easy to follow,
but you would normally use different strings to play a scale.
Starting on the C note (say on
the 3rd fret of the A string) you
go up a whole step (2 frets) to D
then another whole step to E,
then a half step to F (only a half
step between E & F), then a
A similar method is used when
you tune down a half or full
step. Standard tuning is E-A-DG-B-E. When tuned down a half
step, it is tuned to Eb-Ab-Db-GbBb-Eb. Each string is tuned a
half step lower. When tuned
down a full step, it is tuned to
D-G-C-F-A-D. Different ways of
tuning a guitar is a completely
separate topic, but I daresay
your thirst for knowledge will
require this explaining as well
at some time!!!! Good stuff –
keep up your interest.
Continued over page...
FAQs
Guitar Coach Magazine 56
FAQs
One suggestion is shown
below:
C - 3rd fret A string
D – Open D string
E – 2nd fret D string
F – 3rd fret D string
G – Open G string
A – 2nd fret G string
B – Open B string
C – 1st fret B string.
To get the natural minor scale
(C minor) you would flatten (reduce the note by one fret) the
3rd, 6th, and 7th notes in the
scale, giving:
C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
Hopefully this has helped you
understand the difference between a major and minor scale.
You should now have enough
knowledge to learn any major
scale and convert it to a minor
scale and be able to start learning and improvising some solos.
Look forward to hearing how
you progress.
Any guitar questions?
Contact Andy with your questions and we’ll include as
many as we can in the FAQ section of your next issue of
Guitar Coach magazine.
Simply tap the contact button below and email your
question.
Thank you!
Tap Here To �Ask Andy’
Reviews
Guitar Coach Magazine 57
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With many thanks to:
Eugene Hideaway Bridges, Jimmy Dillon, Nick Benjamin,
The eJamming team, and Rikky Rooksby
Articles written by
Bob Cianci, Graham Land, Ben Vine, Tom Rosier, Harrison Marsh and Andy Partridge
Special thanks to;
BandJammer www.bandjammer.com for video contributions

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