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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Check out this guide to rock guitar technique If you're ready to start playing some rockin' tunes on the guitar, there's no better teacher than Rock Guitar For Dummies. This is the ultimate guide to playing rock 'n' roll on six strings, even if you've never picked up a guitar before! Master the riffs and melodies of your favorite songs and artists, or make up a few of your own. Find out how to choose the right amplifier, strum power chords, and maintain your guitar. Moving over from another style of guitar playing? You'll love this guide's deep dive into rock guitar technique. You'll even learn to differentiate the sounds of classic rock, heavy metal, grunge, progressive rock, and beyond. Plus, you'll get access to online resources, including audio and video clips, to bring your rock 'n' roll education to life. * Get step-by-step instruction on playing rhythm and lead guitar in a variety of rock styles * Practice with countless exercises and songs to add to your repertoire * Download and stream over 150 audio and video tracks demonstrating the exercises and techniques in the book * Find essential tips and tricks for tuning up, changing strings, and maintaining your guitar If you're a novice or intermediate guitarist wanting to rock 'n' roll, this is the friendly Dummies guide for you.
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Rock Guitar For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022950747
ISBN 978-1-394-15919-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-394-15920-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-394-15921-5 (ebk)
Rock Guitar For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Rock Guitar For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: So You Wanna Be a Rock-and-Roll Star
Chapter 1: It’s Only Rock Guitar … But I Like It
Differentiating Between Rock and Acoustic Guitar — It’s Not Just Volume
Knowing the Essentials: The Power Trio
Getting a Grasp on How Electric Guitars Work
Accessorizing Your Guitar
Chapter 2: Holding Your Own
Getting Ahold of the Guitar
Forming a Left-Hand Position
Striking a Right-Hand Position
Gearing Up to Tune Up: Electric Tuners
Looking at Music Notation: Not Enough to Hurt
Making Music: How to Play a Chord
Chapter 3: The Other Half: The Guitar Amp
Following the Signal Chain
Taking a Guided Tour of the Amp
Boxing It In: The Cabinet
Taking Control: The Control Panel
Making a Graceful Exit
Sounding Out: The Speaker
Plugging In and Turning On
Getting a Sound
Making Do if You Don’t Have an Amp
Demystifying the Technology
Part 2: Basic Playing Techniques
Chapter 4: What the Left Hand Is Doing: Chords
You Gotta Have Chords
Playing Open-Position Chords
Putting Power Chords into Play
Getting Behind the Barre
Chapter 5: The Right Stuff: Right-Hand Rhythm Guitar Techniques
Strumming Along
Mixing Single Notes and Strums
Disrupting Your Sound: Syncopated Strumming
Giving Your Left Hand a Break
Suppressing the Right Hand
Stretching Out: Left-Hand Movement within a Right-Hand Strum
Giving Your Fingers Some Style
Getting Into Rhythm Styles
Chapter 6: The Leading Edge: Introduction to Lead Rock Guitar
Taking the Lead
Striking the Downs and Ups of Lead Playing
Starting at the Bottom: Low-Note Melodies
Going to the Top: High-Note Melodies
Playing in Position
Getting in Tune with Lower Register Riffs
Making It Easy: The Pentatonic Scale
Playing the Pentatonic Scale: Three Ways to Solo
Improvising Leads
Chapter 7: Groovin’ on Riffs
Getting Your Groove On: Basic Riffs
Playing Two Notes Can Be Better than One: Double-Stops
Combining Single-Note Riffs and Chords
Discovering Your Own Style
Part 3: Beyond the Basics: Sounding Like a Rock and Roller
Chapter 8: Playing Up the Neck
Beyond Open Position: Going Up the Neck
Playing in Position
Using the Movable Pentatonic Scale
Seeking Out the Five Positions of the Pentatonic Scale
Changing Your Position
Knowing Where to Play
Chapter 9: Playing Expressively: Making the Guitar Sing
Bringing Down the Hammer-Ons
Having Pull with Pull-Offs
Slippin’ into Slides
Bending to Your Will
Sounding a Vibrato That Makes You Quiver
Adding Spice Through Harmonics
Passing the Bar Exam
Putting It All Together
Part 4: Mastering Different Rock Styles
Chapter 10: Rock and Roll: The Early Years
It Don’t Mean a Thang if It Ain’t Got That Twang
Sending R&B Mainstream: Bo Diddley
Giving Rock a Texas Twang: Buddy Holly
Bringing Doo-Wop Up Front
Combining Country and Blues: Rockabilly Rhythm
Creating Rock-and-Roll Guitar Style: Chuck Berry
Surf’s Up
The British Are Coming, The British Are Coming
The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There”
Chapter 11: The Golden Age of Classic Rock
Playing Advanced Riffs and Rhythm Figures
Studying the Classics: Classic Rock
Fusing Country and Rock Lead Styles: The Eagles
Going to the Edge: U2’s Guitarist Brings Epic Textures
Chapter 12: Heavy Metal and Its Mutations
Bring on the Metal
Making Rock Stars: The Arena-Rock Era
Introducing the Euro-Metal Invasion
Putting Fans in the Stands: Heavy Metal Hits the ’80s
Raging into the New Millennium
Chapter 13: Progressive Rock and Jazz-Rock Fusion
Welcoming the First Wave of Progressive Rock
Joining Two Rock Styles: Progressive Meets Heavy Metal
Hitting the Charts with Jazz Rock
Looking at the Legends of Jazz-Rock Fusion
Part 5: Becoming a Gearhead
Chapter 14: Gear Lust: Assembling Your Dream Rig
Getting What You Want Out of a Guitar
Choosing the Perfect Amp to Give Your Guitar Life
Chapter 15: Wild and Crazy Sounds: Effects
Identifying Effects
Choosing an Effects Format
Coming to Terms with Terms
Processing Gain-Based Effects: Overdrive, Distortion, and Fuzz
Turning It Up or Down: Dynamic Effects
Playing by Ear: Tone-Based Effects
Getting Volume Under Control: Other Volume Effects
Making a Change: Modulation Effects
Putting Your Sound in Context: Ambient Effects
Organizing Your Effects: Pedalboards
Chapter 16: The Care and Feeding of Your Electric Guitar
Using the Tools of the Trade
Changing Strings
Cleaning the Parts of Your Guitar
Optimizing Your Guitar’s Performance: The Setup
Repairing Amps and Effects
Troubleshooting Guide
Storing Your Guitar
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Chapter 17: Ten (Plus One) Rock Guitarists Who Changed History
Chuck Berry
Eric Clapton
Jimi Hendrix
Jeff Beck
Jimmy Page
Eddie Van Halen
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Eric Johnson
Steve Vai
Kurt Cobain
John Mayer
Chapter 18: Ten Must-Have Rock Guitar Albums
The Beatles, Rubber Soul (1965)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced (1967)
Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II (1969)
The Who, Who’s Next? (1971)
The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street (1972)
Jeff Beck, Blow by Blow (1975)
Van Halen, Van Halen (1978)
Joe Satriani, Surfing with the Alien (1987)
Metallica, Metallica (The Black Album) (1991)
Korn, Issues (1999)
Chapter 19: Ten Classic Guitars
Fender Telecaster
Gibson Les Paul
Fender Stratocaster
Gibson ES Series
Gibson Flying V
Mosrite Ventures Model
Rickenbacker 360/12
Ibanez Iceman
“Super Strats”
Paul Reed Smith
Appendix: Using the Online Audio and Video Files
Relating the Text to the Online Files
Audio Tracks on the Web
Video Clips on the Web
Index
About the Author
Advertisement Page
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 5
TABLE 5-1 Classic Songs in a Variety of Grooves
Chapter 14
TABLE 14-1 Common Guitar and Amp Combinations
Chapter 16
TABLE 16-1 Troubleshooting Guide
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: A typical electric guitar with its major parts labeled.
FIGURE 1-2: A typical guitar amp with its major parts labeled.
FIGURE 1-3: Four common electronic effects used by guitarists (left to right): ...
FIGURE 1-4: A gaggle of guitar gadgetry (clockwise, from top left): picks, stra...
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: Holding the guitar in a typical sitting position.
FIGURE 2-2: Holding the guitar in a typical standing position.
FIGURE 2-3: The left hand looking relaxed and poised for fretting.
FIGURE 2-4: Fretting a string. Note that the finger is not in the middle of the...
FIGURE 2-5: Correct right-hand placement allows you to sweep your arm up and do...
FIGURE 2-6: Hold the pick firmly, with just the tip sticking out sideways from ...
FIGURE 2-7: This Boss TU-3 tuner has a large meter for easy reading of a pitch’...
FIGURE 2-8: Anatomy of a chord diagram.
FIGURE 2-9: One bar of an E chord with rhythm slashes.
FIGURE 2-10: An example of guitar tablature.
FIGURE 2-11: A photo of the left hand fingering an E chord. Notice how the fing...
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: The cabinet is the wooden box that houses the speaker and electroni...
FIGURE 3-2: The control panel groups together and supports the jacks, switches,...
FIGURE 3-3: The tale of two volumes: preamp and power amp, channel and master.
FIGURE 3-4: The tone controls of an amp’s EQ, or tone-shaping, section.
FIGURE 3-5: The control for amp reverb is usually limited to one knob: the volu...
FIGURE 3-6: The two controls that modify the chorus effect on the Roland JC-120...
FIGURE 3-7: With an effects loop, you can route your signal out of the amp for ...
FIGURE 3-8: A 12-inch speaker (measured by its diameter), built especially for ...
FIGURE 3-9: When starting to build a sound from scratch, place the controls in ...
FIGURE 3-10: These two setups yield about the same overall loudness. The first ...
FIGURE 3-11: The Korg Pandora PX-5D, a mini multi-effects processor that featur...
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: A chart showing 24 open-position chords and their fingerings.
FIGURE 4-2: Two ways to play an A power chord.
FIGURE 4-3: A 6th-string-based power chord at the 5th fret, A5.
FIGURE 4-4: A 5th-string-based power chord at the 1st fret, B♭5.
FIGURE 4-5: Mixing 6th- and 5th-string-based power chords in a single progressi...
FIGURE 4-6: The F barre chord.
FIGURE 4-7: A G minor barre chord using the E-based form.
FIGURE 4-8: A G7 barre chord using the E-based form.
FIGURE 4-9: A G minor7 barre chord using the E-based form.
FIGURE 4-10: A G7sus barre chord using the E-based form.
FIGURE 4-11: A B♭ barre chord using the A-based form.
FIGURE 4-12: The alternative way to finger an A-form barre chord.
FIGURE 4-13: A progression using A-based major barre chords.
FIGURE 4-14: The A-form versions of minor, 7, m7, 7sus, and major 7 barre chord...
FIGURE 4-15: A progression with alternating E- and A-based forms.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Playing an E chord in one bar of four quarter notes.
FIGURE 5-2: An eighth-note progression using right-hand downstrokes.
FIGURE 5-3: An easy 4/4 strum in eighth notes using downstrokes and upstrokes.
FIGURE 5-4: Strumming in quarter notes and eighth notes to convey different lev...
FIGURE 5-5: A medium-tempo progression using 16th notes.
FIGURE 5-6: An eighth-note shuffle in G using downstrokes and upstrokes. You ca...
FIGURE 5-7: A bass-chord pattern in a typical country-rock groove.
FIGURE 5-8: The bass-note-and-chord treatment provides a more varied and intere...
FIGURE 5-9: A moving bass line over a chord progression.
FIGURE 5-10: Common syncopation features.
FIGURE 5-11: A common rock figure using eighth-note syncopation.
FIGURE 5-12: A common rock figure using eighth- and sixteenth-note syncopation.
FIGURE 5-13: A straight-eighth-note strum employing left-hand muting to simulat...
FIGURE 5-14: A rhythm figure with palm mutes and accents. Strike only the lowes...
FIGURE 5-15: An eighth-note 5-6 progression using all downstrokes and a moving ...
FIGURE 5-16: Fingerstyle arpeggios played with the right-hand thumb, index, mid...
FIGURE 5-17: A straight-ahead 4/4 groove in the style of the Eagles.
FIGURE 5-18: A two-beat country groove with bass runs.
FIGURE 5-19: A medium-tempo funky groove in a 16-feel.
FIGURE 5-20: A heavy metal gallop using eighths and sixteenths.
FIGURE 5-21: A typical Reggae backup pattern highlighting the offbeats. Note th...
FIGURE 5-22: A song in 3/4, featuring a moving bass line.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: Quarter-note melodies on each of the guitar’s six strings in open p...
FIGURE 6-2: A quarter-note melody played across different strings.
FIGURE 6-3: A one-octave C major scale, ascending and descending.
FIGURE 6-4: A two-octave G major scale, ascending and descending.
FIGURE 6-5: A one-octave A minor scale.
FIGURE 6-6: An Am7 arpeggio.
FIGURE 6-7: A rocking low-note melody exploiting the low strings of the guitar.
FIGURE 6-8: A low-note melody in moving eighth notes.
FIGURE 6-9: A high-note melody in open position.
FIGURE 6-10: A two-octave G major scale in 2nd position.
FIGURE 6-11: A classic walking-bass boogie-woogie riff in G.
FIGURE 6-12: A neck diagram showing the pentatonic scale in 5th position.
FIGURE 6-13: A descending eighth-note C pentatonic major scale.
FIGURE 6-14: Solo in C major over a medium-tempo 4/4.
FIGURE 6-15: An A minor solo over a heavy backbeat 4/4.
FIGURE 6-16: An A blues solo over an up-tempo shuffle.
FIGURE 6-17: A slow blues shuffle in A.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: A powerful-sounding riff using only half notes and whole notes.
FIGURE 7-2: A riff composed of mostly quarter notes, with one eighth-note pair.
FIGURE 7-3: A riff composed of mostly eighth notes, with one quarter note on be...
FIGURE 7-4: A boogie shuffle in quarter notes, with a few eighth notes thrown i...
FIGURE 7-5: A steady-eighth-note riff in E minor, with two chromatic notes, B♭ ...
FIGURE 7-6: A two-bar riff in steady eighth notes.
FIGURE 7-7: A riff that steps through quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes.
FIGURE 7-8: A hard rock/heavy metal gallop riff based on eighth and sixteenth n...
FIGURE 7-9: A fast sixteenth-note-based riff in a hard-rock style.
FIGURE 7-10: An eighth-note riff with beat 1 anticipated, or tied over from bea...
FIGURE 7-11: An eighth-note riff with anticipations on beats 1 and 3.
FIGURE 7-12: A highly syncopated eighth-note riff.
FIGURE 7-13: A moving double-stop figure used as a chordal device.
FIGURE 7-14: A double-stop figure on nonadjacent strings.
FIGURE 7-15: A hard rock progression mixing chords and single notes.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: Open-position chord forms played up and down the neck.
FIGURE 8-2: Moving double-stops over an A pedal.
FIGURE 8-3: The available frets in 5th position.
FIGURE 8-4: The A minor pentatonic scale in its home, or 5th, position.
FIGURE 8-5: Notes of the A minor pentatonic scale in 7th position.
FIGURE 8-6: The 2nd-position A minor pentatonic scale, immediately below the ho...
FIGURE 8-7: Three pentatonic scale forms presented as interlocking patterns and...
FIGURE 8-8: A melodic figure that shifts on the 4th note of each sequence.
FIGURE 8-9: An ascending melodic figure illustrating the difference between lat...
FIGURE 8-10: The five pentatonic positions in C major/ A minor with their corre...
FIGURE 8-11: A pentatonic melody in all five positions.
FIGURE 8-12: A short blues lick starting in 5th position and ending up in 7th p...
FIGURE 8-13: A lick that dips down to 2nd position to get some “big bottom.”
FIGURE 8-14: An ascending line that progresses through three position shifts.
FIGURE 8-15: A riff in 7th-position G major pentatonic.
FIGURE 8-16: An F major lick with an added flat 3 in 7th position.
FIGURE 8-17: A low riff in 1st-position F minor pentatonic.
FIGURE 8-18: A table showing the 12 keys and their relative minors, the fret nu...
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: A hammer-on from a fretted note.
FIGURE 9-2: Various hammer-ons in a blues-rock groove.
FIGURE 9-3: Two kinds of pull-offs to fretted notes.
FIGURE 9-4: Several different types of pull-offs.
FIGURE 9-5: A slide allows you to connect two notes without having to pick the ...
FIGURE 9-6: Various slide techniques in a musical passage.
FIGURE 9-7: Two ways to bend on the 3rd string, 7th fret.
FIGURE 9-8: An immediate bend and a bend in rhythm.
FIGURE 9-9: A bend and release in rhythm, in sync to the chord changes above it...
FIGURE 9-10: Three ways to use a pre-bend and release over a set of appropriate...
FIGURE 9-11: A vibrato executed with the left-hand fingers.
FIGURE 9-12: Natural harmonics on the 7th and 12th frets.
FIGURE 9-13: A pinch harmonic concluding a melodic phrase.
FIGURE 9-14: Two different kinds of bar moves: a dip and release, and a bounce.
FIGURE 9-15: “Just an Expression” uses a variety of articulations as expressive...
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: The “Bo Diddley Beat.”
FIGURE 10-2: A bluesy double-stop riff and a featured chordal figure.
FIGURE 10-3: A I–vi–ii–V in D, in 12/8 time.
FIGURE 10-4: A I–vi–IV–V with a heavy backbeat.
FIGURE 10-5: Mixing single notes and chord in a I–vi–ii–V shuffle.
FIGURE 10-6: A classic, driving rockabilly rhythm figure.
FIGURE 10-7: The 5-to-6 rhythm figure in a 12-bar blues.
FIGURE 10-8: A 12-bar solo using Chuck Berry–style double-stops.
FIGURE 10-9: A surf chord progression and lead solo.
FIGURE 10-10: A progression using all open-position chords for their twang fact...
FIGURE 10-11: Melodic, song-inducing riffs.
FIGURE 10-12: A low-note/ high-note riff.
Chapter 11
FIGURE 11-1: Extended riff-based figure in A.
FIGURE 11-2: A chord progression with embellishments.
FIGURE 11-3: A dynamic all-chord rhythm part.
FIGURE 11-4: A low-note riff reveling in its insistence and simplicity.
FIGURE 11-5: Chordal riffing inside assorted left-hand chord forms.
FIGURE 11-6: A blues-based lead solo in the style of Eric Clapton.
FIGURE 11-7: A Hendrix-style lead featuring bent notes and whammy-bar moves.
FIGURE 11-8: A heavy low-note riff, followed by a blues-based solo riff.
FIGURE 11-9: A minor-key, Latin-flavored lead line.
FIGURE 11-10: An E pentatonic major passage in a southern rock style.
FIGURE 11-11: A southern-flavored funky riff.
FIGURE 11-12: A blues-based boogie riff with a pinch harmonic.
FIGURE 11-13: A rhythm figure and lead passage in the style of Stevie Ray Vaugh...
FIGURE 11-14: A funky single-note riff and lead.
FIGURE 11-15: A country rock solo in the style of the Eagles.
FIGURE 11-16: An arpeggiated rhythm figure in the style of U2’s The Edge.
Chapter 12
FIGURE 12-1: Dark, menacing heavy-metal power chords.
FIGURE 12-2: Rock and Baroque music blended into a formidable whole.
FIGURE 12-3: Classic mid-’70s metal riff.
FIGURE 12-4: Big Boston–style strummed chords on an electric.
FIGURE 12-5: Two-handed tapping lick in the classic Van Halen style.
FIGURE 12-6: Straight-ahead blues-rock.
FIGURE 12-7: A Mixolydian-based lick.
FIGURE 12-8: Polished metal riff of 1980s metal.
FIGURE 12-9: Using a diminished scale over a dominant-7, or V7, chord.
FIGURE 12-10: Speed metal that blends heavy rock with punk energy.
FIGURE 12-11: Wild harmonic “trick” using a Floyd Rose whammy.
FIGURE 12-12: A moody, bent-string grunge lick.
FIGURE 12-13: A hip-hop-inspired metal riff.
Chapter 13
FIGURE 13-1: A jazzy lick using two-string double-stops.
FIGURE 13-2: A unique melody accented with a whammy bar.
FIGURE 13-3: An unusual lick involving notes that slide up the fretboard.
FIGURE 13-4: A bluesy lick placed within a progressive format.
FIGURE 13-5: A haunting arpeggio of simple chords.
FIGURE 13-6: Airy electric chords that use ringing open strings and a full stru...
FIGURE 13-7: A heavy-rock riff with an unusual non-diatonic note at the end.
FIGURE 13-8: An interesting combination of slurs, chromatic licks, and bluesy b...
FIGURE 13-9: A simple lick that deftly blends jazz and funk.
FIGURE 13-10: Single-note picking over major and minor chords.
FIGURE 13-11: Melodic lead lines with interesting full- and half-step bends.
FIGURE 13-12: A fusion-style flamenco-style lick requiring precise flatpicking.
FIGURE 13-13: A funky solo lick in the style of Jeff Beck.
Chapter 14
FIGURE 14-1: Four archetypical guitars. From left: Fender Stratocaster, Fender ...
FIGURE 14-2: Three different cutaway styles (from left): The single cutaway of ...
FIGURE 14-3: The control layout of a Fender Stratocaster (left) and a Gibson Le...
FIGURE 14-4: The Fender Telecaster uses different types of pickups in the neck ...
FIGURE 14-5: The “Super Strat” combines single-coil and humbucking pickups.
FIGURE 14-6: Thanks to its ability to produce bone-crushing riffs with help fro...
FIGURE 14-7: Amp configurations (from left to right): combo, head and cab/stack...
Chapter 15
FIGURE 15-1: Although its circuitry is solid-state, the Ibanez Tube Screamer is...
FIGURE 15-2: The Boss Metal Zone offers extremely high gain and built-in EQ.
FIGURE 15-3: The Boss Compression Sustainer CS-3.
FIGURE 15-4: The Boss GE-7 EQ is a seven-band graphic EQ that covers the core o...
FIGURE 15-5: The Vox Wah-Wah powered many a psychedelic hit; it’s still produce...
FIGURE 15-6: With two outputs, the Boss CH-1 Super Chorus can make a mono guita...
FIGURE 15-7: The phase shifter, like the Boss PH-3 shown here, was a mainstay e...
FIGURE 15-8: The Boss DD-3 is one of the most popular digital delay devices and...
FIGURE 15-9: You can arrange all of your effects (and their power supplies) on ...
Chapter 16
FIGURE 16-1: Basic tools every guitarist should have (clockwise from top left):...
FIGURE 16-2: A chart showing different sets of electric guitar string gauges. T...
FIGURE 16-3: A Sperzel locking tuner uses an internal vise-like clamp to hold t...
FIGURE 16-4: Many guitars — such as the Fender Stratocaster pictured here — hav...
FIGURE 16-5: A Tune-O-Matic bridge (A) with a stop tailpiece (B).
FIGURE 16-6: (a) Six inline tuners, where all the strings wind in a counter-clo...
FIGURE 16-7: Adjust the action on a Tune-O-Matic bridge with side-mounted thumb...
FIGURE 16-8: Vibrato springs connect the bridge to a claw that’s mounted in the...
Guide
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Appendix: Using the Online Audio and Video Files
Index
About the Author
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Introduction
Face it, being a rock-and-roll guitar player is just about the coolest thing you can be — next to a secret agent with a black belt in karate. But even if you were a butt-kicking international person of mystery, playing rock and roll would still be cooler because it involves art, passion, power, poetry, and the ability to move an audience of listeners. Whether “moving your listeners” means mowing down crowd surfers with your stun-gun power chords or making the audience cry with your achingly wrought melodies, no other art form allows you to wreak such devastation and look so sensitive doing it. And playing the guitar is also a heck of a lot safer than hanging upside down from the helicopter of your nemesis as he tries to drop you into a shark tank.
Whatever rocks your world, Rock Guitar For Dummies will help you to bring the message out through your fingers, onto the electric guitar you’ve got slung so insolently around your neck, and piped through that turbo-charged amp you’ve got cranked up over in the corner. All you have to do now is learn how to play. And for that, you need only your eyes to read the text, your eyes and ears to see and hear the online audio tracks and video clips, a set of willing digits (that would be your fingers), and a little time and patience. Rock Guitar For Dummies will handle the rest.
About This Book
Rock guitar is a specific subset of the larger world of guitar playing. If you find you need some help in the real basics of guitar, irrespective of rock or any other genre, I recommend picking up my other Dummies book, Guitar For Dummies. Now before you think I’m just shamelessly plugging my wares, consider that while Rock Guitar For Dummies was written not as a sequel, it is a very specific and focused look at a single genre: rock. As such, Rock Guitar For Dummies assumes a slightly higher level of guitar literacy (“literacy” is a funny word to use when discussing any genre that includes the bands Black Sabbath and KISS, but there you go). It doesn’t mean that I launch into arcane discussions of music theory or demand you perform acrobatically advanced techniques, but I tend to condense issues such as syncopation and forming barre chords with the left hand. If you find you want more information on those issues, Guitar For Dummies may provide the solution. Besides, the only thing better for your musical education than owning a For Dummies book on guitar is owning two For Dummies books on guitar. End of “shameless plug” section.
If anything breaks the mold of a traditional approach to learning, it’s the pursuit of rock guitar. I present to you many ways to master the material in this book, and I don’t recommend any one way as superior to another. Here are some ways in which to take advantage of the different means offered:
Look at the photos:
Photographs are purely visual and require no text to explain them. Simply look at the photos of the hand positions and the shots of the gear to get a purely visual read on what’s going on.
Read the tab:
In true guitar fashion, I present guitar notation in a system designed exclusively for showing music on the guitar: tablature (“tab”). Tab isn’t your one-stop-shopping solution for all your notational needs, but it’s really handy for seeing exactly which string to play and on what fret. Plus, it works really well when accompanied by standard music notation.
Listen to the online audio tracks:
Some old-fashioned teachers don’t like you listening to the piece you’re supposed to learn. Not so here. I want you to internalize the music in this book through every means possible. Also, I want you to hear the different tone and signal processing represented in the examples — and that just can’t be communicated in the notation. The same goes for watching the accompanying 15 video clips. Seeing a video of a guitarist performing the music examples on your screen is like sitting across from a virtual guitar teacher.
Read the music:
You know that expression “As a last resort, read the manual”? It’s meant as a joke, because often the info you need is right there in the written documentation. And the same is true with
Rock Guitar For Dummies.
Although you don’t
need
to read music to play any or all of the exercises in this book, doing so will help you understand better what’s being asked of you and may speed up the learning process.
And finally, even though rock and roll is supposed to be about rejecting conventions, I did establish a few of them while writing this book. Keep the following in mind:
Right hand and left hand:
I use the terms “right hand” and “left hand” to indicate the picking hand and the fretting hand, respectively. Guitar is one of the few instruments that you can “flip” and play in a reverse manner, where your right hand becomes your fretting hand. But with apologies to the left-handers out there who do flip (and therefore have to perform a translation), I stick to calling the hand that frets the left one, and the hand that picks the right hand.
Up and down, higher and lower:
Unless otherwise noted, I use “up,” “down,” “higher,” and “lower” to indicate musical pitch, regardless of how the strings or frets are positioned. This sometimes can be confusing to a beginner because when you hold the guitar in a playing position, the lowest-pitched string (the low E) is closest to the ceiling. Also, the angle of the neck tends to make the higher-pitched frets closer to the floor as well. But most people make the transition easily and never think about these directional terms in any way other than with respect to pitch.
“Rock” versus “Rock and Roll”:
Some fussy professor-types may distinguish between the terms “rock” and “rock and roll,” but I use them interchangeably. It’s a “feel thing” (an irrefutable argument you can use to justify virtually any act or decision in rock and roll).
Foolish Assumptions
You don’t need to have any ability to read music or previous experience with the guitar to benefit from Rock Guitar For Dummies. All you need is an electric guitar and some sort of means to amplify it (either through a guitar amp, a small headphone amp, or even a spare input on your home stereo or boom box). If you know you want to play rock and plan to use an electric guitar when doing it, this is the book for you.
As I state earlier in the introduction, however, rock guitar is a subset of guitar in general, so if you feel you want a more basic approach or just want to expose yourself to more styles than rock, by all means take a look at Guitar For Dummies. Because you’ve purchased a book called Rock Guitar For Dummies, I’m not going to make you mess around with songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”; instead, I’m going to let you rock out!
Icons Used in This Book
Scattered throughout the margins of this book you find several types of helpful little icons that flag an important piece of information:
A reference to a well-known song that illustrates the point currently being discussed.
Important info that will come up again and again, so you may want to read this one carefully and tuck it into your memory banks.
Detailed explanations of the trivial and obscure that make great cocktail party fodder, but that you can skip if you want. Just be aware that you may hurt my feelings if you skip over too many of these.
A handy tidbit of info designed to make your life easier — offered at no additional cost.
Serious stuff here that you can’t ignore lest you damage something — such as your gear or yourself.
This icon signals an opportunity to play a complete piece in the style of the exercise or excerpt. You can listen to the tracks and watch the videos at www.dummies.com/go/rockguitarfd2e.
Beyond the Book
In addition to all the great content contained withing this book, you also have access to helpful online content as you work you way toward becoming a genuine guitar rocker. Check out the following:
Cheat Sheet:
Go to
www.dummies.com
, type
Rock Guitar For Dummies Cheat Sheet
in the search box, and get some helpful info and tips you can refer to whenever you need to, even if you don’t have your book handy. If you need to supplement your chord vocabulary, the Cheat Sheet is a great resource. The Cheat Sheet also shows the electric guitar with its major parts labeled (remember, the hole where you insert the cable is properly called an” output” jack, not an “input”), as well as a simple diagram explaining tab basics in case you ever need a refresher.
Audio tracks and video clips:
To listen to and watch the audio tracks and video clips I refer to throughout the book, head to
www.dummies.com/go/rockguitarfd2e
.
Where to Go from Here
If you’re anxious to play, you can go ahead and skip Chapters 1 through 3 and get right to the playing chapters (Chapters 4–13). If you’ve never had a guitar in your hands for longer than a sixteenth note’s time, however, go ahead and read the text from the beginning to familiarize yourself with the terrain. If you’ve played guitar before, know some basic chords, and aren’t intimidated by looking at notation when you play, you can skip right to Part 3, which presents the techniques you need to master to play the more advanced aspects of rock guitar (such as playing up the neck and playing expressively). If you’re feeling really brave and think you know most of the techniques already and can recognize their symbols in the notation, skip right to the styles chapters in Part 4. Listen to and view the online files as you follow along in the notation for an even richer experience. You can always come back and read the text later, after the authorities (whoever they are) have turned off your power or confiscated your gear for creating a rock-and-roll nuisance of yourself. Just remember the famous teenage-rebel rallying cry: “They can lock me in jail for playing rock and roll, but they can’t keep my face from breaking out.”
Part 1
So You Wanna Be a Rock-and-Roll Star
IN THIS PART …
Discover the basics of what makes rock guitar special — and so much fun.
Figure out correct left- and right-hand placement and how to hold the guitar when sitting or standing.
Familiarize yourself with the other key ingredient in playing rock guitar, the amp.
Get an introduction to those groovy gizmos and magic boxes called effects.
Accessorize your guitar with a few essential items that are fashionable as well as functional.
Chapter 1
It’s Only Rock Guitar … But I Like It
IN THIS CHAPTER
Hearing the difference between electric guitar and acoustic guitar tone
Knowing the essential components of the electric guitar sound
Discovering the inner-workings of the electric guitar
Getting the gear that goes with your guitar
Rock guitar does not have a dignified history in music. It doesn’t come from a long lineage of historical development where composers such as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms wrote lovingly for it, composing concertos and sonatas highlighting its piquant and gentle qualities. It was not played in the great European concert halls or in the parlors of fine households.
Not only was rock guitar unknown to the great composers of the ages, but they couldn’t have even conceived of such a thing, even in their worst nightmares. (So imagine what they would have thought of an Ozzy Osbourne concert — a nightmare no matter which century you hail from!) Indeed, even if they could have heard, through some sort of time travel, an electric guitar banging out the riff to “Satisfaction,” they would have hardly recognized it as music.
Rock guitar is a modern, late-20th-century invention, a phenomenon of the electronic and post-electronic age. It has no memory of a bygone era when youth was respectful of elders, music was a polite pursuit, and musicians gave a rusty E string about social acceptance. Forget all that!
Rock guitar is for people who like their music loud, in your face, electric, and rebellious, and who owe no debt to history. Rock guitar is probably not the wisest choice of instruments to tackle if you want to garner acceptance from the music community.
So, if you want respect, take up the oboe. But if you want to set the world on fire, attract throngs of adoring fans, and get back at your parents to boot — pick up an electric guitar and wail, baby, wail, because rock guitar will change your life.
First, though, you gotta learn how to play the darn thing.
Differentiating Between Rock and Acoustic Guitar — It’s Not Just Volume
When you see someone flailing away on rock guitar — on TV, in a film, or at a live concert — be aware that what you’re seeing tells only part of the story. Sure, someone playing rock guitar is holding an instrument with six strings, a neck, and a body — qualities that describe the instrument that classical guitarist Andrés Segovia played — but the sound couldn’t be more different. That difference in sound is the key to understanding rock guitar. What’s important is not the leather, the hair, the onstage theatrics, the posturing, the smoke bombs, or the bloody tongues, but the sound coming from that guitar.
It was the sound of the electric guitar, so different from that of its predecessor, the acoustic guitar, and placed in the hands of some early, forward-looking visionaries, that forced a cultural change, a musical modification, and a historical adjustment to the way we experience popular music. Songwriters had to write differently, recording engineers had to record differently, and listeners had to adopt a major attitude adjustment to get their ears around it. Heck, people even had to learn new dances.
But what makes the sound of an electric guitar so different from an acoustic one? If you didn’t think about it, you might say, well, volume. Rock guitar is just a whole lot louder than its acoustic counterpart. Although that may be true most of the time, volume alone is not what makes rock guitar unique. True, rock is listened to at high volumes — its message tastes better served up loud — but volume is a by-product, an after-effect, not what makes rock different or what drives it.
To become familiar with the qualities of the electric guitar, try this simple test. Listen to Audio Track 60 of the audio files that accompany this book (found at www.dummies.com/go/rockguitarfd2e). As you listen, turn the volume down so that it’s quiet, very quiet — quieter than you’d normally listen to music, rock or otherwise. You’ll hear that the guitar sounds, well, just different. In fact, if you have to strain a little bit to make out that what you’re hearing is a guitar at all, you’ll be aware that the tone (the quality, or character of the sound, independent of its pitch and volume), in spite of the low volume, doesn’t sound like the guitar that your camp counselors strummed around the campfire when they led you in a rousing chorus of “She’ll Be Comin’ Around the Mountain” or “Oh Susannah.”
To really understand rock guitar, you need to explore some of its qualities other than volume. Don’t worry, though; the book gets back to volume eventually.
Sound quality, or timbre
When guitarists “electrified” to their acoustic guitars, they originally intended to give the guitar a fighting chance in the volume department. Unsatisfied with the results of placing a microphone in front of the guitar, they sent the guitar’s sound to a speaker by placing a magnetic element called a pickup — so called because it “picked up” the sound of the vibrating strings — under theuitarr’s strings. (You can find out more about pickups and their function throughout this chapter.) Players quickly found, however, that, unlike a microphone, a pickup didn’t just make the sound louder, it changed the tone too. But how? It wasn’t that obvious, but it was tangible.
The basic differences between a guitar coming out of a pickup and a guitar playing into a “mike” (slang for microphone) are as follows:
The sound is smoother and less woody.
The sound is more electronic, with purer-sounding tones, like those of an organ.
The sound has a less defined life cycle, or
envelope
— a beginning, middle, and end. These stages, so clear in the sound of a plucked acoustic guitar string, are blurred together in an electric guitar.
The following sections further explore how electrifying the instrument affected its sound — to the eventual benefit of rock guitarists.
Signal
When progressive-minded guitarists of the ’30s and ’40s first put electromagnetic elements under their strings to “pick up” their vibrations and send them along a wire to an amplifier, they did a lot more than increase the volume — though they didn’t know it at the time. They were on their way to creating one of those “happy accidents” so common in art and science (and this was a little of both, really).
Originally, jazz guitarists playing in the big bands of the day were merely seeking a way to cut through all the din of those blaring horns and thundering drums. The mellow guitar, regarded by most other musicians as a mere parlor instrument with dubious stage presence, was no match for the louder brass and percussion instruments. The banjo had a sharp, cutting quality, and was better at projecting on the bandstand, but its tone was falling out of fashion in favor of the more full-bodied, versatile tone of the guitar. Problem was, the guitar just wasn’t that loud, so something had to be done.
Slapping on heavier-gauge (thicker) steel strings helped a little bit (an improvement over nylon strings), but it still wasn’t enough. Placing a microphone in front of the guitar, as was done for vocalists, worked somewhat but was cumbersome, and the mike picked up the surrounding sound as well as the guitar. Plus, who wanted to bother miking the lowly guitarist way over in the rhythm section when you had some hotshot crooner in the spotlight at center stage?
To avoid these problems, someone got the idea to put a magnetic element just underneath the strings to carry the signal electronically to an amplifier. Because the strings were metal — specifically, an electrically conductive magnetic metal — the sound of the strings traveled electronically through the pickup, down the attached wire, into an amplifier, and then out of a speaker.
The sound of an electric guitar originates in the electronic domain, hence the term signal. The signal is the electronic impulse the electric guitar makes that travels down the line (or signal path) to the amplifier and out the speaker, where the signal then becomes an audible sound.
The electric guitar was born, but getting from simple electrification to rock-and-roll nirvana was still a bit of a journey. It would be some time before guitarists would recognize the monster they had spawned in the unholy union of electricity and acoustic guitar. (Get used to frequent uses of imagery involving evil, wickedness, and other bad stuff; it’s all part of rock-and-roll lore.)
Distortion and sustain
When the six-string Dr. Frankensteins of the ’30s and ’40s were electrifying their guitars, they weren’t envisioning what Jimi Hendrix would do decades later at Woodstock and Monterey. Just like the well-meaning doctor in Mary Shelley’s novel, early electric guitar designers were wholesome and good. These pioneer inventors wanted to reproduce the sound of the acoustic guitar as faithfully as possible. Fortunately for us, they failed miserably. But electronics’ loss was music’s gain, because even though the electric guitar sound was nothing like the acoustic sound — or the acoustic guitar sound as heard through a microphone — it nonetheless had a very pleasing, and musically useful, quality.
The effort to produce an exact amplified match of the original acoustic guitar failed primarily because it introduced distortion (altered, impure qualities) into the sound. The louder the sound, or the more the guitar “worked” the electronic circuitry, the more distorted the sound got. As the electronic signal “heated up,” the sound became fuzzier (where the high frequencies became more muted), and the tone generally warmed up (sounding more rounded and less brittle). All this distortion increased the sustain (the tendency for the tone to ring indefinitely at the same level), which was noticeable in even the lowest of volumes.
Distortion, normally a bad thing in just about any other electronic endeavor, had a beneficial musical effect for guitar tone. As the guitar became thought of more and more as a lead instrument, guitarists found they could work the distortion factor to their advantage. A louder guitar wasn’t just louder; it had a different, better tonal quality than a guitar coming out of the same apparatus but at a lower volume.
This timbre (a fancy musical term for tone, or sound quality), distortion, and increased sustain took the plunkiness out of the guitar’s tone and made it more smoothly melodic — more like the buzzy, reedy qualities of, say, a saxophone or a blues vocalist, which is why so many early rock guitarists cut their musical teeth on the blues. Whereas the guitar had formerly been a rhythm instrument, owing to its clipped sound, rapid decay (the quality of a sound to die away), and strident tone, the “electronic” guitar now had properties more suited to melody-making. The guitar was poised to step out of the background and up to the spotlight itself. All it needed was some brave souls to tame this new sonic monster.
I must note that plenty of acoustic guitarists at that time were playing melody, notably Django Reinhardt. Reinhardt even bent strings (see Chapter 9), something that would become the province of electric guitarists everywhere but is generally shunned by classic guitarists who deem the technique “unacousticlike.”
Oh yes, and volume
Of course, electrifying a guitar did accomplish what it set out to do — make the guitar louder. Although it needed an electronic crutch, in the form of amplification through an external apparatus, this system of pickups, wires, and a portable amplifier (where the guitarist didn’t need to rely on the auditorium’s sound engineer) gave guitarists the freedom to play in all sorts of styles — melodic, rhythmic, and chordal — and freed them from the “rhythm section ghetto.”
An excellent example of an early electric guitarist who realized and exploited the newfound qualities of the electric guitar was jazz guitarist Charlie Christian. It’s important to note that even though Christian was not a rock player (rock just didn’t exist in the ’30s and ’40s), he is worshipped by electric guitarists everywhere — from blues to jazz to rock — for being an incredible visionary for realizing the power of the electric guitar’s tone.
Some people may claim that Christian was, in part, responsible for inventing the electric guitar pickup, but this is just a myth. However, he certainly did his part to popularize the pickup-configured electronic guitar, and he is one of its best early practitioners because he recognized — and exploited through his musical genius — its sustain (and not just volume) qualities.
After the guitar could play as loud as the other, more charismatic instruments (such as the trumpet and saxophone), it wasn’t long before the guitar would become a featured instrument, both from a personality perspective as well as an instrument for solo exhibitionism.
Listening to some classic electric guitar examples
You can talk all you want about the tone of the electric guitar, but the best way to understand its tonal qualities is to listen to some classic examples. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is not only a classic rock song, it’s one of the best illustrations of the differences between electric and acoustic guitar.
The song begins with a plaintive vocal by Robert Plant, accompanied by a Renaissance-sounding acoustic guitar. The accompaniment gradually builds, and then at 6:42 guitarist Jimmy Page launches into the solo section with an opening phrase (a musically complete passage or thought of any given length) that sums up the essence of the electric guitar in just two short measures. Listen to the first note, which seems to hang in mid-air and sing — as if powered by its own set of lungs. The rest of the solo is a tour de force of technique, phrasing, and tone, but it’s that opening riff (a self-contained musical phrase) that grabs you.
Another well-known example is the guitar solo section of the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” played by Don Felder and Joe Walsh. This solo is given plenty of room to breathe by the accompaniment. The gliding quality you hear at the end of Felder’s first short phrase (the fifth note in the opening sequence) is a string bend, where you stretch the string by pushing it out of its normal alignment causing the pitch to rise. Listen to how the note, again, sings. This singing quality, broken down to its component attributes, has a smooth sound (timbre); a reedy, fuzzy quality that does not resemble the plucked sound of the acoustic guitar (distortion); and an elongated, non-decaying volume and intensity (sustain).
These examples are both in the melodic vein. Things really got weird when guitarists started abandoning melody altogether and chose to exploit timbre, distortion, and sustain for their own purpose. Jimi Hendrix was one of those who took distortion and sustain to the nth degree, but I get to him in Chapter 11.
Knowing the Essentials: The Power Trio
All right, the preceding section helps you to understand the tonal differences of an electric guitar versus an acoustic one, and that an electric guitar has pickups (or magnetic elements) that carry the sound (technically a signal) via an attached wire to an amp and a loudspeaker. What else do you need?
A burning question for most aspiring rock guitarists is, “Since I have an electric guitar here, does that mean I also have to have an amp?”
Yes, you do need an amplifier. Just as you can’t hear a scream without ears, so, too, you can’t hear a guitar without its amplifier and speaker (in guitar terms, an amplifier can refer to the amplifier circuitry and the speaker, which are often housed in the same box). Electric guitars can have the biggest, most-powerful, nuclear-charged pickups on board, but without an amp, the guitar will make no more noise than if the pickups were absent completely.
Sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. No amp, no electric guitar sound. Anytime you see somebody walking around with an electric guitar, you can bet they are looking for an amp. Therefore, you must have at least two elements to even be audible on the electric guitar — the guitar itself and the amp. (Technically speaking, you also need a wire, or cord, to attach the electric guitar to the amp.)
Realistically, however, guitarists these days routinely introduce a third element into the signal chain (as the path from the originating guitar pickups to the terminating amp speaker is known): intermediary electronic gizmos known as effects. These typically sit between a guitar and an amp, and connect to each other with short cords, via in and out jacks (the electronic term for sockets, or something you can insert plugs into). Effects perform their own magic on the signal.
Following are graphic illustrations and descriptions of the three essential components in rock guitar playing: the electric guitar, the amplifier, and electronic effects devices.
The electric guitar
The electric guitar is the principal player in the three-part system that comprises the rock guitar sound. And whether it has a natural mahogany finish or is painted Day-Glo green with purple lightning bolts across the body, all electric guitars have common properties. Like a “regular,” or acoustic, guitar, an electric guitar has a neck and a body, six strings, and tuning keys on the top of the neck that allow you to tighten or loosen the strings to the desired pitch — the process known as tuning. Unlike the acoustic guitar, however, an electric guitar sports pickups (electromagnetic devices that “sense” the strings’ vibrations and create a small current), knobs, and switches for controlling the pickups, and possibly other hardware (such as a bar, described in the following bulleted list) that acoustic guitars don’t have. Figure 1-1 shows the various parts of the electric guitar.
FIGURE 1-1: A typical electric guitar with its major parts labeled.
The following list tells you the functions of the various parts of the electric guitar:
Bar:
A metal rod or arm attached to the bridge that varies the string tension by tilting the bridge back and forth. It is also called the tremolo bar, whammy bar, vibrato bar, and wang bar.
Body:
The large, shapely wooden mass that provides an anchor for the neck and bridge. The body can either be solid, hollow, or partially hollow, and houses the bridge assembly and electronics (pickups as well as tone and volume controls).
Bridge:
The metal assembly that anchors the strings to the body
.
End pin:
A metal post screwed into the body, where the rear end of the strap connects. The other end of the strap connects to the strap pin.
Fretboard:
A flat, plank-like piece of wood that sits atop the neck and has frets embedded in it. This is where you place your left-hand fingers to produce notes and chords. It is also known as the fingerboard.
Fret(s):
This term can be defined in any of the following ways:
Thin metal wires or bars running perpendicular to the strings that shorten the effective vibrating length of a string, enabling it to produce different pitches.
A verb describing the action of pressing the strings to the fretboard
.
A verb describing a guitarist’s anxiety, as in, “He frets because he thinks he’ll have to replace the frets of his fingerboard so that it frets correctly.”
Headstock:
The section that holds the tuning machines and provides a place for the manufacturer to display its logo.
Neck:
