UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
Playing vocal melodies with rhythmic chord tones like this guy
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I’ve been following this guy for a couple of years and had a patron subscription
I particularly like his Leppardized covers of 80s songs and wondered what is the best way to approach this ?
it seems like a mixture of guitar following vocal melody , rhythmic chord tones and bits of scales and double stops. How would someone go about trying to do this for their own choice of cover . Eg for example a Madonna song .
I can manage to sometimes use my ear to outline the vocals , but this guy even when he’s not following the exact vocal outline ,can imply the vocal line by this staccato picking between 2 or 3 strings , which gives it that characteristic leppardized feel I love . Is the secret to it finding closely grouped chord tones / arpeggios that work well against the vocal melody ,or mixing the vocal melody in with chord tones/arpeggios . I notice in some parts of songs he uses diads/double stops to thicken out a melody in a chorus . The guy is very clever at doing this . Is it something one could learn and where would one start .
Two of my fave ones below
Any suggestions how to start for someone with basic music theory knowledge
I’m currently practicing lots of different stuff too (slash ) but could possibly afford a coup,e of lessons in the new year when can sort my practice times out (I’ve recently switched to night practice but would sooner get up early for my main practice so I could enjoy stuff like this an hour or two at night )
thanks for any suggestions
best regards and seasons greetings Paul
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Video 2 straight in at the beginning and the verse
really like this . I do have the tabs so could analyse it if I knew what path to follow and what to look for . I suppose keyboard parts could play a part too
Sounds very similar to how Neal Schon plays for Journey
please I would welcome any more input on this style and how to tackle it .
meanwhile another example I love by a different guitarist in Finland on a Chaka Kahn song
This one does not have the staccato leppardized approach but I love it ,I think it would work well actually like that too,but is outstanding as it is
I really like it and it really gives some songs a great lift .
thanks for weighing in , I,ll check out some journey in a minute and see what neils doing
But I would like to see that rhythmic staccato picking underneath it too, that would really make it pop
https://youtu.be/CDB3QTa_TDw
I liked his arrangements - ta
So if it were me - work out the chords and then go from there..
I can definitely tell what you mean by that Def Leppard sound - those stacatto notes jumping out with that gain / chorus sound is very Phil Collen.
I love those players .
I just had a go at who’s crying now , well who’s crying now was playing in my head and I was playing along in that manner to it mainly by feel of pentatonic type shapes and an idea of the vocal melody and it worked , not as good as the original I posted but it’s a start the rhythmic feel was there , just need to work on note choices and finding all the chord tones /scales .
I think by alternating a bit of that rhythmic staccato , a bit of vocal melody ,and some double stop harmonies so it doesn’t get too repetitive ,it might be possible for me to do.
I really need to get my main morning practice back after waking up so I can work on this stuff for an hour each night along with caged /arpeggios etc .
been working on Slash stuff all year just getting up to speed on certain guns n roses parts of solos
It takes me so long these days , but I can say after a couple hundred days I’m playing stuff I never dreamed of . The hard stuff is now refining it ,cleaning it up at speed .
I have currently been setting myself out some charts to learn all the triad chords along the neck
especially favouring the e b g and b g d string sets so I think that will be a good grounding for what I want to do .
nice combination of heavily muted single lines and power chords...
Ab / C / Bb / G / Ab add 9 / Bb x 2 - and then end with an Ebsus 4 -> Eb triad...
notice that lovely Andy Summer's type Ab add 9 (heavily muted) staccato...
Nice.
[ I should probably watch the video in the OP to see if this is at all the same thing!]
Edit: watching the first video and he is not doing what I thought you meant. Oh well. Tim Pierce is good on these kind of things if you follow his YT channel as his session career tended be about constructing parts.
I find the two middle strings (D & G) really good for getting the rhythm in the picking as you have a root that’s easy to find with all the chord tones 3rd 5th plus the 4th and 7th handy
it’s very clever how sometimes he gets certain notes to fall in with the vocal melody
Feel free to ask me about these things. A lot of what was said above rings true but I have seen other posts (on Facebook groups) about something I play where people have given the wrong answers, so I'm always eager to clarify things if that happens. Maybe I come across as not approachable haha, I hope not, but I'm always willing to help where I can.
Cheers
yes those D G & B strings are absolute magic for coming up with lovely little pieces , chord tones mixed with scales . Love the way it just flows when you play . The tone from that ME 50 is amazing too . You indeed have inspired me to start trying to create my own original music .
I think your stuff should be on the radio ,