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    The one-man band – Playing both rhythm and lead guitar together

    Posted in: MK guitar style and licks by Ingo on December 02, 2008


    The video in today’s post demonstrates an important aspect of Mark Knopfler’s unique guitar style: the blend of rhythm and lead guitar playing.

    I remember the day I first saw Mark Knopfler on TV in the late 70ies. I knew their stuff from the records, and I heard his lead guitar playing on these. What was striking when seeing him play was that his hands were apparently doing something all the time, he did not pause between all those lead licks on e.g. Sultans of Swing, he was constantly playing something – although you mainly heard the lead licks.

    In this respect his playing is like an ice-berg: what you see is only the top of it, while the biggest part is under water. Just like the part under water, there is a constant rhythm, sometimes only scratching or clicking sounds. Something that is there although you are not always aware of it. This is one reason why it sounds so groovy and why the lead licks sound so effortless, and why often it sounds different when less advanced players cover the song with their bands.

    In later years he emphasized the lead lines with the volume pedal a bit – bringing things in or out, but it works without as well – in the early days of Dire Straits he often left the pedal fully up for parts of the song. Simply make sure to play the rhythm carefully, not as loud as you would do when playing rhythm only.

    I guess this approach resulted from playing alone (e.g. all the finger picking stuff Knopfler used to practice endlessly when not having a band) and from playing with a trio (his band before Dire Straits – the Cafe Racers – had only one guitar, bass, drums, and a singer). When David Knopfler came in with his rhythm guitar, he doubled the rhythm or kept it up when Mark played lead. This way both guitars could be panned to different sides of the stereo panorama without any sound holes. Also these partly percussive elements blend nicely with the drums. A great CD on which this can be studied is Live from the BBC – a radio concert from July 1978 that was officially released many years later.

    I remember an interview with John Suhr – the luthier who built his famous Pensa-Suhr guitars – who said that Mark Knopfler sounds like a band when playing alone.

    Here is the video in the standard video quality version. You can watch a high-resolution version directly at youtube (click here).

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    8 Comments »

    1. Hey Ingo! Thank you very much for this article! You did a tremendous job with the last few articles!!

      Comment by Philipp — 2. December 2008 @ 21:44

    2. Hi Ingo

      Great as always.

      How do you do the lick comming in after “and the horns are playing that sound”________?

      I think I have it figured out but I’m split between two versions?

      Comment by Knopfleberg — 3. December 2008 @ 00:57

    3. Thanks for your comment, Philipp.
      Knopfleberg, I think I play the the f on the g-string with the d on the high e-string, next only the c on the e-string, finally the f and the a (g- and b-strings), not 100% sure of it but sounds alright to me

      Comment by Ingo — 3. December 2008 @ 07:07

    4. Hi Ingo

      Ok, I play the the f on the g-string with the d on the high e-string just like you, next I play the g on the b-string and the e on the g-string, finally the f and the a (g- and b-strings)like you.

      Alternative:
      the f on the g-string with the d on the high e-string just like you, next I play the c on the e-string and the e on the g-string, finally the f and the a (g- and b-strings)like you.

      I cant decide which is most correct?

      Comment by Knopfleberg — 3. December 2008 @ 23:32

    5. By the way….

      I’m sorry I got so caught up in this I totally forgot to say thank you for your great great articles and your effort in doing this, Thank you Ingo.
      I live in Denmark, so overall we are not that far apart, what a day we could have sitting “nerding” knopfler stuff eh ;o) If you are ever going in the Copenhagen area, please write me an email, I would love to buy you a beer in real life ;o)

      All the best

      Allan (knopfleberg)

      Comment by Knopfleberg — 4. December 2008 @ 00:02

    6. Hi Ingo,

      thank you for this article. I really enjoy your blog. Could you please explain Mark’s right hand rhythm technique or the way you do it? I’m interested in the progression of thumb and ring-index-combination. Can’t really figure it out…
      Than you in advance.

      André

      Comment by akmoscow — 6. December 2008 @ 13:11

    7. oh, sorry

      meant middle-index-combination…

      Comment by akmoscow — 10. December 2008 @ 23:51

    8. Hello Ingo,
      Lifelong Knopfler fan here .
      Always wanted to learn to play his songs.
      The beauty of his style is the flow; the way the song just effortlessly moves from bar to bar with no abrupt or pushed changes. It just flows.

      I love that and I am struggling with my first few months of guitar learning – mainly from youtube – and I hope that I can pick up some tips from your site to learn to play even a small little bit of Knopfler’s style.

      I am 42; used computers all my adult life and now have developed some iteration of carpal tunnel syndrome , so its all the more difficult for me to “flow” over the fretboard.

      But I really would love to learn to play like The Knopf.

      cheers and thanks
      glad i found this site today

      Comment by OceanBreeze — 10. February 2009 @ 12:42

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