Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??

Subject: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 02:14 PM

I've seen guitar pickers do a break by playing the melody or a high harmony, fretting only on the first (hi E) and either second or third strings. I have no questions about how to do it, but has anybody ever heard a specific term applied to that technique?? Thanks.

CC

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Willie-O
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 02:41 PM

You mean octaves? (Playing the same note an octave apart, on 1st and 3rd or 2nd and 4th strings.)

As done by George Benson.

Or just double-string harmonies, 3rd, 5ths or whatever.

I don't know of any particular name for the style, except in reference to playing octaves.

W-O

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 02:42 PM

Er...lead guitar? *BG*

Pete

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: GUEST,jonesey
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 03:00 PM

It's called 'double stops'. Different from what fiddle players refer to as 'double stops'. I use this technique mostly for fills and embellishments 'against' the melody. Usually, there's a space at the end of verses or choruses where you can get in a little 2 or 4 bar 'turnaround'. Or if there's a natural melodic 'pause' in the middle of a verse or chorus you can add these. Don't go too crazy as you'll commit the 'sideman's' unpardonable sin of being considered 'busy'. lol Anyway, sorry to digress, but that's the term I learned years ago. It may be called something else depending on your region...

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 03:04 PM

I don't think there is a specific name for it, any more than there is for playing on the higher keys of a piano. It's just making use of the full range of the guitar. To many people, the upper reaches of the fingerboard is terra incognita (Here Be Dragons). The nice people who make guitars put it there for you to use, whether you chose to or not.

(If guitars were pianos, most people would use only the left side)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 03:09 PM

Musically, it's as jonesey says. Double stops. Or "playing intervals." Same thing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 03:15 PM

"The ladies all fall for my twiddly bits"(double entendre from an old song about a guitar player). I think the twiddly bits are what you are referring to.

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 03:25 PM

I never go down that end of the fretboard, Don. Don't want to get my fingers all dusty.

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 04:37 PM

Fair enough. Nuthin' makes a guy feel sillier than gettin' his left hand stuck in the soundhole.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 07:46 PM

Thank you, 1 & all.

I like Jonesy's "double stops" suggestion because I did watch enough of a fiddle video to learn what that means. Not how to do it, just what it means. Intervals and twiddly bits .... Yes, well. Actually the first song I wrote for a lady had twiddly bits. She was so touched she cried over it, but she left on the next bus anyway, which proves either that women are daft the world over or something else entire.

No, it isn't just "lead guitar." Even I know that.

CC

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Deckman
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 08:06 PM

"TWIDDLY BITS!" I ain't 'gonna touch THAT with a ten foot pole. CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: GUEST,jonesey
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 10:40 PM

Immortal line from Gary Shandling(Yank comic for those on the 'other side'): "I once dated a girl who was covered with all these marks from people touching her with ten-foot poles."

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Grab
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:01 AM

There's another technique (only suitable for those with light strings or heavy fingers!) called "unison bends". You play a note on the upper string and play a semitone below it on the string below, and then bend the lower string up until they're the same pitch.

So, for example, play A (5th fret, top E string) and G (8th fret, B string) at the same time, and bend that G up until it reaches A.

It's a popular rock guitar technique - Carlos Santana uses it to great effect in Samba Pa Ti. It's possible on acoustic guitar, but it doesn't have the same effect. It's mainly suited for those moments where you want to really emphasise a single long note - there's no way on earth you could play an entire song like that!

Graham.

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:09 AM

Grab.....I'd say the rockers all got it originally from Chuck Berry wouldn't you?

BTW, if you have a ten foot pole, proportionally your bits are beyond twiddling size...........Just letting you have a bit of my personal experience.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: Willie-O
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 02:26 PM

Unison bends....yeah I do that, now I know what to call it.

Double stops makes sense--and it IS exactly the same as double stops on a fiddle.

A few examples that have caught my ear:

• Robbie Robertsons little Oriental sounding riff in "Shoot Out In Chinatown" on Cahoots. (1st and 2nd strings fingered together gives you that fourth--try it, easy)
• Bruce Cockburn's lazy guitar smooch on "Mama Just wants to Barrelhouse"
• lots of Amos Garrett's playing, such as the famous "Midnight At The Oasis" solo. The master of bending two strings at once--he is something else.

W-O

Subject: RE: Help: What is this guitar technique CALLED ??
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 12:11 AM

chuck berry claims he got it from someone else (guitarist in louis jordan's band?)