Rikky Rooksby - Play Great Guitar: Brilliant Ideas for Getting More Out of Your Six-string

The guitar is a small orchestra.
It is polyphonic. Every string is a
different colour, a different voice.
Andrs Segovia

Copyright The Infinite Ideas Company Limited, 2008

Music copyright 2008 Rikky Rooksby

The right of Rikky Rooksby to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2008 by

The Infinite Ideas Company Limited

36 St Giles

Oxford, OX1 3LD

United Kingdom

www.infideas.com

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of small passages for the purposes of criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the publisher. Requests to the publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department, Infinite Ideas Limited, 36 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LD, UK, or faxed to +44 (0)1865 514777.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781905940561

Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Designed and typeset by Baseline Arts Ltd, Oxford
Printed in India

Brilliant ideas

You play guitar, so what is more important than choice of instrument? First brilliant idea: get a new guitar. Go on, admit it you hoped Id say this, didnt you?

Walk down a city street anywhere in the world and the chances are if you meet a guitar-wielding busker they will be singing to the backing of a strummed steel-strung acoustic.

So you think electric guitars are only for unwashed youths in low-slung denim who like noise with a capital N and have band names like Unholy Doom tattooed on their knuckles?

Think of Paul Wellers Wild Wood, Oasis Wonderwall and Travis Why Does It Always Rain On Me youll never get any of them to sound right on guitar without one of these.

They may be digitally challenged in the finger-length stakes but hey! Equal rights for thumbs now! Your music might occasionally need a fretting thumb.

Heres a quick way to make your guitar playing take off. The clue to playing many songs in folk and blues fingerstyles is the offbeat (syncopated) pattern.

You know about playing guitar with a pick or playing with your fingers. But why not do both at once? Think you cant do both at once? Read on.

As famed French hot-jazz guitarist Des Cartes once said, I strum, therefore I am. Strum well and the whole world strums with you (in an air guitar kind of way).

If harmony is a continent of sound and emotion, each chord is a village. So why not go travelling occasionally and find other places to make your own.

Think of a piano keyboard. It has two colours, white and black. Chords are that way too, on piano or guitar. So come and meet the five flats and sharps.

It only takes one extra note to move from the vanilla world of major and minor chords to the chocolate chip tub of the sevenths and in four flavours too!

Strum any major or minor chord. Its a familiar sound. But did you know there are two more shades of the same colour contained in what youve just heard?

If Idea 11 was seventh heaven, then step up now for cloud nine. Here are some ninths and elevenths chords that are seriously stacked.

When it comes to chords, size isnt everything. Three-string friends to beginner and experienced player alike, here are the triads the harmony gang thats on your side.

Did you know that music harmony has its own neutral zone? Its true a strange dank realm of drooling zombie flesh-eating chords that emerge as neither major nor minor.

Theres one reliable fall-back for finding new sounds and ideas on the guitar. Sometimes all that is required is adjusted original digital technology. In other words, move a finger!

Heres your free upgrade to the adjusted original digital technology of the previous section, called digital removal software otherwise known as lifting a 1st finger thats holding a barr!

One way to find new sounds on the guitar is to take an open string chord and move it up or down. Get ready for hideous, kinky, startling and terrific.

Altering one note at a time in a chord leads you down new musical paths. Let your fingers reshape themselves into new chords and go places you havent been before.

Blues is like a universal language. Everybody recognises it, everybody can follow where a blues is going, and for decades the guitar has been its main mouthpiece.

Woke up this morning Dang! You know, my lover she aint gone! Must be celebration time, and to celebrate on guitar you need another set of five notes.

Youve heard of that old black magic so many blues guitarists claim to know? Well, put aside that shredded bat wing and the voodoo doll, and grab some musical magic.

There are five-note scales that dont get played as often as those used in blues and rock. Heres a chance to explore some of these not-so-famous five.

Is there life beyond pentatonics? Does everything go in fives? Will our caped guitarists escape the hex and find the missing two notes? Tune in to this sections exciting episode!

With a three and a four and a twelve and a You might have heard people say that music has a mathematical element. Well, maths was never this much fun.

Heres a new musical avenue to explore that may see you in future years in the corner of a boisterous pub playing folk tunes with others, your fingers a blur.

Before Hendrix and Clapton, the guitar came to the forefront of popular music by doing what singers do: it carried a melody but in its own twangy way.

Its 3 a.m. In the lounge bar the barman sets you up another drink. Theres no sign of her. You sigh, grab your guitar and play octaves!

With only two notes you can create the illusion of two voices and even whole chords. Do what two singers do when they harmonise, but lay it on the fretboard.

Heard of carbon neutral? Heavy rock wants to be tonal neutral. There are no major or minor chords in the lost, dark dimensions, just a two-finger fifth.

The sky changes, the land stays still. Make a low open string your land and let your fingers make weather. Here is the dramatic foundation of the pedal note.

Imagine music where one note stays the same regardless. Where one note stays the same regardless. Where one note Lets hear it for the drone drone drone.

Lets twist again with those tuning pegs. They can do more than just keep things in tune. With a turn of even one peg, new music beckons in drop D.

Drop D tuning is not just for folk-style fingerpicking and gentle acoustic singer-songwriters. Its a motherlode of heavy guitar riffs. GrrrROWWLL!

Take the 6th string down even further but add a new dimension to the result by putting on a capo. Result: deep bass, and new sounds from common chords.

Guitar retrieved from baggage hold yields new music after long flight? Can it be true? Yes it can. Find some new chords with this one easy tuning change.

Remember those nasty sharps and flats? Time to seek out new musical ideas, and to boldly go into the harmonic rift and into the Kingdom of the Enharmonics!

Wouldnt it be great if you could just play guitar with one finger no more struggling with four-finger chord shapes but wait! There is a way

Heres a chance to try some lead guitar phrases over a chord sequence. Get to grips with some classic bends and scale positions, then play your own.

Get those favourite phrases out of the cupboard and dust them down. If youve been playing for a while, youll have plenty. You can do more with them.