Rhythm on the Verse
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Lesson transcript
Music Lesson: Mastering Rhythm Guitar
If anyone's into my music, they'll know that I am all about rhythm. So the one piece of advice I always give people for rhythm guitar is:
"Just keep it going, keep it going. Never stop doing this."
It doesn't matter what your rhythm is. That's all you need.
Example: Black Horse
For Black Horse, for example, it sounds very complex rhythmically, but all you're doing is this:
- Choosing where your accents are
- Using your left hand to dampen the strings
So you're just going like that. If you can get really good at that hypnotic metronome rhythm, then you can start playing around with the stops and the dampenings.
Backlash and Vinegar
Now let's talk about Backlash and Vinegar. Imagine I'm sitting on my tour bus, it's raining, and I'm in this weird place. The music speaks to me about kind of a cocoon , being in a small space.
Tempo
The other thing to note about Backlash and Vinegar is that it's a slow tempo song. I always play it too fast and have to remind myself to:
- Give the lyrics space
- Give the sound space
Don't go too fast.
Verse
For the verse, we start with:
"I carved a hole in the sun. Black edges, easy to get lost in there. Easy to get lost out there."
The second chord has another really interesting shape. It's not a regular A minor. Here's how it sounds if I played regular chords:
- "I carved a hole in the sun. Black edges, easy to get lost."
You know, that D chord sounds quite jolly, while the A minor is solid. Instead of using a normal A minor, I take the G string out, so you've got an open chord.
Chord Shapes
What's that? A, S? I don't know the note. Maybe B or D? I haven't got perfect pitch; I wish I did. The key is just finding interesting shapes that aren't distracting.
- You're moving around with the chords a little bit.
- You're not taking away from the melody because the melody is queen.
You must always serve the melody of the song. If you're producing anything or playing anything , for me, anyway , the songs that I love to listen to by other people always support the melody. It's always about the song, no matter what you're doing.
Transition
That's the verse. What I do is start off with that very intimate beginning:
"Easy to get lost out there..."
Then, I open it up. Suddenly, it feels like you open a door because light comes in when you open up those chords.
"I found myself, find a way, trying to fill the gaps to stop the..."
Another technique I'm using is sliding a bit. Keep your fingers down on the strings to get a nice legato sound.
Legato is the professional term for that slide, which is really nice.
Next Steps
And then we have what's called the pre-chorus.
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Photo credit: Tom Oxley
Since scoring a worldwide smash with her debut album 'Eye To The Telescope' in 2004, which went on to sell over 5 million copies, KT Tunstall has remained at the forefront of UK singer-songwriter talent.
KT followed up that early success with the albums 'Drastic Fantastic', 'Tiger Suit' and 'Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon' in 2007, 2010 and 2013 respectively, keeping the platinum sales rolling and cementing the Scottish singer-songwriter's reputation as a major recording talent, as well as a mesmerising live artist.
2012 and the years that followed saw a seismic shift in outlook - the loss of her father, a divorce, and a relocation to Venice Beach, California.
After a period of healing, soul-searching, and a change of scenery, 2016 hailed the arrival of the first of a trilogy of KT Tunstall's albums, the critically acclaimed UK top 10 album 'KIN'. The trilogy evokes, separately and in sequence, spirit, body and mind. With 'KIN' being her phoenix-from-the-ashes 'spirit' album, 2018 marked the second offering of that trilogy, the 'body' album 'WAX'.
KT Tunstall has toured the world many times over. She outsold every other female artist in the UK in 2005, won the 2006 Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, won the Ivor Novello Best Song award for her huge, self-penned hit 'Suddenly I See', and a Q award for Track of the Year.
She also landed a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance with 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' and lent her tunes to a host of movies and TV shows ('Suddenly I See' being used in the iconic opening scene of the modern classic Meryl Streep film 'The Devil Wears Prada').
The first single from her latest release, 'The River', was named one of Rolling Stone's 'Songs You Need To Know'.
The last few years have seen something of a creative rebirth for KT Tunstall. Upon relocating to the west coast of the USA, she was accepted as one of six annual fellows for the Sundance Film Institute's Composers Lab (hosted by George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Northern California) and has since scored music for short and feature films.
She has also been awarded the Inspirational Artist gong at the Women In Music Awards and was chosen as the first ever female Grand Marshal (following the likes of Sir Sean Connery) to lead April 2018's annual New York Tartan Week parade. In May 2018 she and Mike McCready, of legendary multi-million selling Pearl Jam, released a cover of Tom Petty's huge hit single 'I Won't Back Down' with proceeds going to Pearl Jam's Vitalogy Foundation.
In 2018, KT performed sold-out intimate headline shows across the UK and US and toured worldwide supporting acclaimed artists including Simple Minds, The Pretenders, and Barenaked Ladies.
2019 saw KT perform a large headline tour across the UK and Europe with her all-female band, playing festivals all over the UK (including a headline set at Glastonbury Festival). She toured the US & Canada, Japan, China, the Netherlands, Mexico and Brazil, as well as supporting Hall & Oates on their UK arena tour.
Touring continued for KT in early 2020 with headline shows in the US, performing with Jools Holland across Europe, and playing New York's legendary Madison Square Garden, supporting Hall & Oates.
In her Song Studies course, KT pulls back the curtain on the guitar parts and songwriting craft behind her biggest hits - a rare chance to learn how a Brit Award-winning, Grammy-nominated songwriter actually builds a song.
