Page 136- When recording an acoustic, put a pickup on it and send that signal to one track; use a microphone to capture the
pure acoustic sound and send that to another track.
ABBREVIATIONSRoman numerals I VII
indicate chordrelationships within a key.
m maj minormajor
Song sectionsbr bridge :
c ch codachorus
hk i introhook
pch v versepre-chorus
Most of the chord-sequence examplesare standardized for comparison
intoFamous songs referred to in C or A minor. C major
orthe key of the original recordings A minor are not necessarily in.
Make Two Guitars Work Together
If you perform live with another guitarist or make multi-track recordings, you have the opportunity to use more than
one guitar part. The traditional divide between rhythm guitar and lead guitar doesn't always apply in a song, because
the lead will usually be confined to a short break in the bridge or middle eight, unless you play counterpoint to the
melody in a disciplined way.
Here are some effective guitar combinations. The trick is not to duplicate a part but to create contrasted guitar tones
to get a fuller and more interesting sound.
- Use one guitar with single-coil pickups and another with double-coil pickups – for example, a Fender Stratocaster
and a Gibson Les Paul. Take advantage of the recently reissued guitars by companies such as Danelectro and Godin
that have lipstick-tube pickups or mini-humbuckers. - Try these pairings: electric + electric, electric + semi-acoustic, electric + acoustic, 6-string + 12-string, nylon +
steel. - Try clean with distorted, standard tuning with open tuning, capoed and non-capoed, standard and detuned standard.
Clean guitars provide harmonic definition; overdriven guitars give punch and aggression. - Make the guitars dynamic by taking care where you bring them into a mix and where you take them out. Play full
chords and triads; balance strumming with arpeggios. Remember that fifths strengthen. Other possibilities include
rhythmic interweaving, twin lead, contrasted voicings and low on the neck versus high on the neck.
Part Playing
One of the basic principles of making guitars work in a recording is part playing. If you have played a lot of rhythm
guitar or sung your songs solo, you will be accustomed to strumming chords constantly to get a full sound. If you
like jamming lead guitar, you will be accustomed to having the freedom to constantly whack out endless streams of
notes. Neither of these approaches will do for arranging songs.
Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music once told me, ''We had a very good producer from the second album onwards, Chris
Thomas, who had worked with The Beatles, had done Dark Side Of The Moon and subsequently worked with The
Sex Pistols. I learned an incredible amount from him about part playing in recording. With Chris it was: 'Look for
the gap, don't play over the vocal, less is more.' You learned how to position things – just as all the great Motown
stuff has incredible position and texture. All the parts add up to something greater. It all locks in."