RIFF OF THE MONTH RETURNS WITH MY GUITAR HERO

After a four year hiatus, our popular Riff of The Month feature returns this month!  This short monthly feature explores the history of guitar riffs, whilst inspiring and challenging you to progress with your guitar playing.  We begin with my personal guitar hero Slash, a guitarist that inspired me to begin playing in 1989, after hearing the opening guitar riff of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.  A riff that Slash had originally written during a jamming session.

In an interview with Q Magazine some years ago, Slash said  "Writing and rehearsing it to make it a complete song was like pulling teeth,".   He also wasn't happy that the song developed into a ballad, since Guns were more about having a bad-boy demeanor.  Fast forward 36 years, it’s hard to believe that the band's debut album Appetite For Destruction took the best part of 12 months to get off the ground, after debuting on the Billboard 200 at 182.

For our first feature I’ve chosen ‘Back From Cali’, a punchy riff that featured on the 2010 self-titled debut album from the former Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist.  The album is a collaborative masterpiece, featuring Ian Astbury, Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, Myles Kennedy, Chris Cornell, Andrew Stockdale, Adam Levine, Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Duff McKagan, Kid Rock, M. Shadows, Rocco DeLuca and Iggy Pop.  Here, it’s the Alter Bridge frontman Myles Kennedy that takes the lead.  Slash was so impressed with Kennedy’s vocal performance on album tracks ‘Back From Cali’ and ‘Starlight’ that he later asked him to front his solo touring band.

Back From Cali’s opening guitar riff is made up of trademark double stops, a style consistent from this influential iconic guitarist, and it rocks hard!  Learning to play this riff properly will help improve your guitar playing techniques, including the use of double stops, finger strength, timing, phrasing, melody and slide guitar playing.  I hope you all enjoy learning to play this one!

THE MAGIC OF BEN HOWARD

This week I have been visiting the early acoustic style of Ben Howard’s guitar playing. During his first decade as a signed artist, he’s released four studio albums, and was nominated for The Mercury Prize in 2012 for his debut Every Kingdom. This influential singer-songwriter has also won a handful of prestigious music awards, including two BRIT awards for British Breakthrough Act, and British Solo Male Artist, and the Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for ‘Nica Libres at Dusk’, from his third album Noonday Dream.

Ben plays guitar left-handed, and makes extensive use of alternate tunings, which helps him craft beautiful arrangements, and shape interesting melodies.  He also compliments these tunings by using a partial capo, in order to access bass notes that would otherwise be unavailable to him.   

Ben has a distinctive percussive strumming style, called the "pick and go".  His method of laying the guitar flat on top of his knees and playing it percussively was influenced by contemporary folk songwriter and guitarist John Smith.

For this week’s transcription I’ve chosen the beautiful ‘Old Pine’, which opens Every Kingdom, and sets the tone for the rest of the album perfectly.  The tuning here is CGCGGC, it’s a tuning that almost dominates his writing around this time.  It’s dark, moody and atmospheric, and if you're creative, you’ll find yourself experimenting with new musical ideas every time you pick up your guitar in this tuning.

Over the course of four studio albums, Ben has also experimented with electric guitars and FX pedals, which has given his music a more ambient sound over recent years.  Working with The National’s Aaron Dessner on his latest album Confessions of the Whiteout, has seen his sound take on another dimension.  Here he introduces electronic elements, and blends them wonderfully with his immaculate guitar playing.  Usually I’d recommend a few songs for you to listen to, but here, it really doesn’t matter which song or album you start with, they’re all brilliantly written and produced. I, for one, will be listening and introducing students to Ben Howard's music for many years to come.

A CREATIVE SPACE FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS

For a while we’ve been thinking of ways to create a safe and creative space for our young music community. Many ideas were discussed before finally settling on our Youth Forum. In October 2021 we hosted our first event, and it was lovely for us to hear the thoughts and ideas of our young students as they all met online for the first time.

In our first forum we discussed what works, and what doesn’t for children learning music in schools here in Wales.  As we reflected on the comments of our students, it was clear that one of the most common problems was a lack of access to musical instruments in schools for children to play.  Our vision for 2022 is to offer every child the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument, so this was an ideal discussion for our first event.  At this point, we’re delighted to announce that as of next year, Guitar School will begin to donate a wide range of musical instruments to local schools for children to play in their break times.  This has been made possible from the kind support of our students' parents, Blackstar Amplification and Welsh multi-instrumentalist, Novo Amor, who have all donated generously to our campaign so far.      

As our youth forum grows we want our young students to be involved as much as possible. These events will always be free of charge, and our students, their families and friends will always be welcome.  We will hold creative monthly workshops to keep you all engaged and connected throughout the academic year.  

So onto our next event, our first creative workshop will be held on Monday November 22nd at 7:30pm and our topic will be ‘Collaboration’.  This will be a chance for our young students to develop their songwriting skills, as we work together to create some original songs in a series of creative online events.  In this workshop our students will learn - 

The basics of using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for your music production.

    How to install, set-up, and navigate your chosen DAW interface.

    How to record, add and import audio files into your DAW project.

    How to mix and export your files in your DAW.

    How to share your ideas with other members of our youth forum.

    How to collaborate with other musicians.

So if you’re a budding songwriter, or would love to learn how to begin creating your own music in the comfort of your own home, this is the place for you.  We look forward to welcoming you on Monday 22nd as we begin to work on our first project together. 

PAUL MCCARTNEY DID IT IN HIS SLEEP

Songwriting is a complex art and a topic that could be discussed forever more. There are many different ways for a musician to write a song or create original music, there is no one-size fits all approach, and there is no right-way to do it. Whilst it’s true there is a structured method on how to create a song using music theory, in reality, many of the legendary songwriters are self taught. Some know none or very little music theory, and it’s not often they’d begin their songwriting process in this way.

Part of the beauty of songwriting is it’s different each time, it’s a unique process of creativity. To create a piece of music that didn’t exist before is something truly magical. Songs are special, songs are beautiful, songs mean different things to different people. They have the power to transport you back to a time of happiness or sadness. Some songs have huge instrumental arrangements and some have absolutely none, again there is no formula for this and that’s part of the magic. It doesn’t have to be a Bohemian Rhapsody, think of Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry Be Happy’ or Suzanne Vega’s ‘Tom's Diner’. These two songs featured no musical instruments at all, just the voice, a cappella. The purist of songs, just a melody and a fine story to tell is sometimes all you need.

Paul McCartney did it in his sleep

Paul McCartney is regarded as one of the most successful songwriters of all time. During his time with The Beatles he wrote over 70 of the band's songs on his own. Many more followed with Wings and has continued throughout his solo career. Over the years he’s written songs in many different styles and genres but there’s one that has a very interesting story about it’s creation. The one in question went on to become the most covered song in pop music history, and it all began with a dream.

So, how did Paul McCartney write ‘Yesterday’ in his sleep? This is a question I’m often asked and it’s one I have pondered over for many years.  Did he? Is that a thing?  The answer is yes, and when you think about it it’s quite easy to understand how it was done.  We all dream about things we think of during our day.  Places we have been, something we have seen, a smell, a feel, a taste.  A songwriter is no different, musicians are always thinking about lyrics, melody, harmony, rhythms, arrangements, song titles, album titles, the list goes on.  It’s always there in the back of a writer's mind. So it’s 100% feasible that Paul awoke one morning with the melody for ‘Yesterday’ in his head after dreaming it that night.

At the time of writing the song Paul had a piano at his bedside. When he awoke that morning he rushed to the piano to play the melody and find the accompanying chord progression. At the time he wasn’t sure if he’d written, or subconsciously stolen the melody, and had to be reassured numerous times that it was an original. Playing it to everyone he met, asking if they recognised it, Paul says “Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought that if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I would have it.” Once he was confident that the melody hadn’t been written before, he slowly began to develop the song. At this stage he had no lyrics, no song structure as such, just the basic melody and the accompanying chords he had found on the piano that morning. Then came the words.

“Scrambled eggs, Oh my baby how I love your legs, not as much as I love scrambled eggs'' 

These lyrics were fitted to the melody that had been in his dream. Songwriters will often write random lyrics to enable them to remember the phrasing of the songs melody. A lot of the time the artist will revisit the lyrics at a later stage. The ‘Scrambled Eggs’ title became a joke between The Beatles, as they struggled to think of an appropriate name for the song. When Paul finally settled on ‘Yesterday’, it’s documented that it was somewhat of a disappointment, as the fab four had been having so much fun singing ‘Scrambled Eggs’. The song developed over the coming months, eventually becoming the beautiful piece we know and love today. If only every song was this straightforward to write!

A writer can be inspired at any moment, often when they’re least expecting it.

You could be out on a family walk, enjoying a morning coffee or on the school run when inspiration strikes. The only thing for certain, is creativity will not and can not be forced. You can’t say “I’ll write a song on Tuesday”, or “I have some free time on Wednesday so I’ll write then”. Some days ideas will flow, and other days they just won’t be there at all. You have to be patient, but like everything in life, if you put enough hard work in, you’ll get your Scrambled Eggs.

This week I have arranged ‘Yesterday’ for solo-fingerstyle guitar. You can download a free version of the guitar TAB and music notation here. Good luck and as always enjoy your playing!