The Sound Hounds

This You Tube video was sensational. A great idea and an all star cast.

The Video:

Behind the scenes:

In case you don’t recognize all 29 acts in the video — and who would — here’s a list of all of them, in order of their appearance:

I have been learning how to play The Chain by Fleetwood Mac from the album Rumours. The chain is a good song to learn and discuss  because it has many elements that can cause confusion when someone is trying to learn by ear. First, there are actually two guitar tracks so it is hard to decide which part to play. The part that is predominant to my ear may not be to someone else learning the song. Second, Lyndsey Buckingham uses an altered tuning on this tune. His sixth string is tuned down to D. This is known as Drop D tuning. If you do not know that before hand it can be rather frustrating. And third, He uses a capo on the second fret to raise the key a whole step. Again, if you do not know this it can be confusing and frustrating.

I have a process I use when learning songs. First, I try to learn it by ear. It is good ear training and it is fun to see how accurate I can get it. There are several tools I use when learning songs. First, I try to find the song on Spotify or Itunes. After I find the tune I import it into an app called The Amazing Slow Downer. With this app I can slow the song down, I can loop, and dissect the song piece by piece. Also, I can pan the mix hard left or hard right. Some songs have guitar parts mixed hard left or right, especially older songs. If I have problems learning the song after that, I will find the sheet music. If it is not in my collection, I will visit musicnotes.com. Their sheet music is usually accurate. A lot of the free tabs online are not accurate. But, we get what we pay for… or don’t pay for.

After playing around with The Chain I went on Spotify to see if I could find a live version so I could observe Lyndsey playing it with just one guitar. Sure enough, there is a live version from the live album called The Dance. I also found Fleetwood Mac performing this song on You Tube from their tour of the same name. Lyndsey played it quite differently than the studio version on Rumours. One big change was he had no capo and did the song a whole step lower than the original.

The Chain is cool because it can be performed as a solo piece on acoustic guitar. It has it’s roots in folk music. It can also be played in a rock band. The Chain is a great song and a pleasure to play.

Three basic elements when improvising are the arpeggio, the blues scale, and the major scale. Throughout the summer, I will be posting new blog posts and videos on the subjects of improvising and getting the uptown blues sound. So, please subscribe and keep in touch.

Uptown Blues is the sound you hear from blues players that tend to have a jazzier sound to their playing. Robben Ford and Duke Robillard are a couple examples. Most blues players tend to use the minor blues scale predominantly, which is the most common tool for playing the blues. Lightning Hopkins is a good example of using the minor blues scale primarily. While there may be various tricks used to get that uptown sound, a great way to get it is to mix the major blues scale with the minor blues scale, creating a hybrid of the two scales. In This series of videos I explain how to combine the major and minor blues scales to get that uptown blues sound. If you like the videos please subscribe and leave comments. I tend to produce more videos when I get feedback from the public. Enjoy and keep jamming!

1. Using tones and semi-tones (whole steps and half steps), how do you construct a diatonic major scale?
w w s w w w s

2. What three intervals of the major scale are used to construct a major triad?
1 3 5

3. What are the five types of triads and what intervals construct these triads?
major 1 3 5, minor 1 b3 5, augmented 1 3 #5, diminished 1 b3 b5, suspended 1 4 5.

4. What is the difference between a Major 7 chord (CMaj7) and a Dominant 7 (C7) chord?
A major 7 has a 1, 3, 5, 7 while the dominant 7 has the 1, 3, 5, and b(flat) 7.

5. What are the seven triads in the key of C?
C Dm Em F G Am Bdim

6. What is the difference between a minor pentatonic scale and a minor blues scale?
The minor pentatonic has the 1, b3, 4, 5, b7. The blues scale is the same intervals except it also has a b5.

7. Why is Am called the relative minor of C major?
Because they share the same key signature or they have the same notes. Am is built off the 6th degree of the relative major. The C major scale has the notes C D E F G A B while Am scale has A B C D E F G.

8. What are the three blue notes?
b3, b5, b7

9. How is a C9 chord different than a Cadd9? A C9 has the intervals 1, 3, 5, b7, 9 while the add9 has 1, 3, 5, 9.

10. What does pentatonic mean? penta means five and tonic means tone. The pentatonic scale is a five tone scale. It has five notes.

1. Using tones and semi-tones (whole steps and half steps), how do you construct a diatonic major scale?
2. What three intervals of the major scale are used to construct a major triad?
3. What are the five types of triads and what intervals construct these triads?
4. What is the difference between a Major 7 chord (CMaj7) and a Dominant 7 (C7) chord?
5. What are the seven triads in the key of C?
6. What is the difference between a minor pentatonic scale and a minor blues scale?
7. Why is Am called the relative minor of C major?
8. What are the three blue notes?
9. How is a C9 chord different than a Cadd9?
10. What does pentatonic mean?

The answers to the quiz will be on the next blog post.

I will be performing at Santa Fe Flats Wednesday, May 13. Music and great Mexican food.

I have been enjoying working on Cuckoo Cacoon from the Genesis Album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Steve’s playing is very sophisticated. He uses tons of slash chords. Check it out:

The A section:

DMaj9 to CMaj7 several times.

Then, Dm7/G    G/F    A    A/G    F#m7    G#m7 (#5)    F#/B

B section (flute solo acc.)

Em7/A    Dm7/G    D/C    B♭6    Dm    B♭6     B ♭    Cadd9    D/F#

If you look at the chords it looks more like a jazz song doesn’t it? Steve Hackett was a big part of the early Genesis sound.

A methodical approach to learning chord construction and intervals on the guitar.

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Improvising On Guitar