Have you ever noticed that some chords of  News were changed in the live version that Dire Straits used to play on the On Location tour (Making Moviers tour) in 1980/81?

The original chord sequence of News – as recorded on the Communiqué album – was:

Em -  Bm -  C -  Bm -  Am – Am -  C -  C

Live it was changed to:

Em – Bm – C – G/B – Am – Am  G/B – C – C  D

In words: The second Bm was changed to a G (while the bass still plays the B). This also lead to some changes of the melody over this chord. The G before the last C chord (also with a B in the bass) was just a transition chord (played for the last two beats of that bar), the same is true for the last D which was the transition to the Em of the next verse.

Here is a video which shows them playing this version:

 

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Some of you might already have noticed that this site has its own shop since a few days. You can enter the shop with the MK-Guitar.com Shop button on the right side of the header section.

After some initial beta testing I am proud to announce that you can  buy stuff like

* Gear (partly vintage stuff)

Ernie Balls, Morleys, effects, instruments … mostly used, ocassionally new stuff
Not too much yet, but I hope to offer some more nice stuff here in the future (check regularly since these things are normally single items, first come, first serve…)

* My backing tracks

Many asked in the past for these, they are the ones I created to use on some of my youtube videos.
Note that I finally sorted out all legal aspects and can now offer these  legally here, which means with buying these you will not only support this site, but also MK himself
If some of the articles of this blog were helpful for you in the past, you can now say thank you by simply buying one or more of these tracks alternatively to the Buy-me -a-beer thing below the posts.

At the moment there are only three backing tracks (Brothers in Arms, Six Blade Knife, Wild West End) but I have the following tracks already in personal use, still need to fix some final details: Sultans of Swing (long version), Romeo & Juliet (like on recent live versions), Song for Sonny Liston, Setting me up, Southbound Again (live  “boogie” version), Down to the Waterline

* Fan Items

I have a few spare copies of some of the Dire Straits books and stuff like that.

* Planned: Own products

Yes, there are actually some nice things in the pipeline …

* Planned: Video Tutorials & eBooks

There are occasionally some weird tricks, techniques, patterns etc. which I learned to play after actually studying these things since I started to play guitar in 1979. Please understand that I am not necessarily keen on giving *everything* away for free e.g. on youtube, but I decided to offer all I know in some kind of video tutorials.  I am still working on conceptual details, watch out for things to come.

Also note that I meanwhile reduced my regular job (one reason … to have more time for things like this site…) so it makes sense that this site might generate some income – the more, the more time for it in the future

Of course there will still be more free stuff on youtube as well.

Planned: Use the shop to sell your stuff

If you now or at any time want to sell any MK related gear, you might also want to offer it in this shop. This way you might reach an interested audience and the stuff can reside there as long as it takes to get a decent price. You don’t need to ship stuff to me of course, just use the shop as a platform to find a buyer. You can contact me in case for details.

I hope you will have fun browsing the store. Use the comment function of this article for suggestions or opinions.

"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

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Today I was on the Fender website and accidentally found a nice little tool there: the online guitar tuner.

When you click on one of the six tuners of the peghead, the software will play a sample of the corresponding note, played with a clean Fender sound.

There are some very useful options: loop on or off (the note will be played again and again in loop mode), and you can select the tuning - standard or all different kinds of open or special tunings. You can even create your own tuning.

The only thing that is missing is the option to fine tune to another root pitch than 440Hz – but to be honest, not something many of us really need.

I like the idea to tune the guitar using your ears instead of a tuner device – helps to keep your ears fit

"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

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• Red – redder – the reddest: fiesta, dakota, candy apple, hot rod, and more Fender colours
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As many of you might already have noticed, I recently added a forum to this site.

We have the comment function below each blog post which has been used to discuss everything that is related to the post subject, but many times completely new threads emerged within the comments which became easily off-topic in a way. For this reason – and to make it possible for readers to start a new thread any time – I added a proper forum. The forum plug-in I found for this purpose is really great and offers a lot of cool functions. Almost every feature you know of other forums is here, too (like directly embedding youtube videos or pictures, PM’ing other members, and so on.

You can get to the forum via the link under ‘Pages’ at the top of the left sidebar. And there is a list of the latest forum posts a bit below in the sidebar, you can also get to the forum by clicking on one of the list entries.

You need to register to post but don’t be afraid, you will not be pestered with many newsletters or such. This is mainly to avoid spammers.

So after the last few days of testing I officially announce the new forum with this post. I hope there will be many interesting discussions, looking forward to it

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Romeo and Juliet is a song I have been playing on my National for many years, but I never tried to play the wonderful ending of recent live versions where the piano leads through a rather unusual chord sequence. Yesterday I played around with the piano a bit and had a look at this.

After the last verse Romeo and Juliet features a two-chord sequence over which Knopfler plays solo: Bb (or Bbmaj7) and C.

When the drum stops, this sequnce (Bb – C ) is repeated two more times. Next comes a sequence of five chords, the piano is the dominating instrument here:

Bb – Am – G – F (9) – E

Note that Romeo and Juliet is in the key of F, so you would expect a sequence that leads to an F chord. This one however completely ignores the key – the G and especially that last E do not belong here in any way. Thus it functions as a surprising change in the mood of the sound, highlighting the carefully constructed composition. Wonderful.

To hear what I am talking about, check the following youtube video, starting from 8:55 :

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Related articles

• The Circle of Fifths: What is it for? – plus: example analysis of Knopfler songs
• Eastbound Train: opening chord analysis
• The bridge section between Expresso Love and Down to the Waterline on the Making Movies tour
• Chord changes in News on live version of the Making Movies tour
• Mark Knopfler – You can’t beat the house – Variations of the standard blues scheme
• Installing a Highlander iP-1X – The best pick-up for the National resonator guitar

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