Bonus: Stevie Ray / Lonnie Mack

Introduction to Stevie Ray Vaughan's Style

So I grew up being a big Stevie Ray Vaughan fan. I first heard Stevie Ray Vaughan when a friend of my dad showed us a video of him when I was like 10. I just thought he was the best thing, like, ever.

Influence of Lonnie Mack

A lot of Stevie's stuff is kind of based on his technique. He uses a lot of hammer-ons and open E sort of stuff. I think that style comes from another Texas guy called Lonnie Mack, who, in the 50s and early 60s, had a song called "Wham."

• It was all that bit, like what Stevie went on to do with "Scuttle Buttin'."
• All that open E stuff's really cool.

Breaking Down a Simple Lick

Here's a simple lick:

If I break that down, it's like:

• First Part: (Insert the tab or notation here)

  It ends with a real big accent, which I love.

• Second Half:

Stevie would do a lot of that kind of playing. You could go on all day if you wanted. Once you've got it down, you can kind of get faster with it.

The Illusion of Speed

It's a bit of an illusion, that one, because it sounds really fast, but it's not. You have all those open strings, and you can hammer-on and pull-off. It's quite snappy to play.

• Key Point: It's much easier to play that sort of stuff with the open strings when you're in the E position than when you have to fret all the other notes.

Adding Dynamics

One thing on that second half, the second part of the lick:

• After it goes, you just kind of scrape upwards, again accenting it:

  "Ding. A ding, ding, ding."

It's got its own sort of timbre to it.

• The dynamics really go up and down.

Conclusion

And again, if you play that with drive, you've got to have fun with it. Anything in that?