In this blog post you will find another guitar tutorial video, this time not about a certain aspect of Mark Knopfler’s guitar playing but one that explains how to play a particular song again, similar to the ones I did about Down to the Waterline some time ago. As Down to the Waterline is the first song of Dire Straits’ first album, I thought why not go on with the second song, Water of Love (there might be another on on Setting me up – the third song -  in the future). Again my intention is not simply to demonstrate you which notes to play but also to explain what might be interesting or special about particular licks, or how things go together etc. And my intention is neither to show a particular version with 100% accuracy but a mix of licks he played on different versions, or the scales he used to build his licks.

I do not refer to the studio version but to live versions from 1978-79.The studio version was played on two different guitars, a National Tricone and a standard acoustic guitar, and Mark did not play his usual mix of rhythm and lead as he did on stage. Live Mark played the black Fender Telecaster Thinline (the f holes were closed by his friend Steve Phillips), which was tuned to open A)low to high: a – e- a- e- c# -e), capo’ed at the 5th fret to open D  (while the National was probably open G, capo’ed at the 7th fret).

The chords of Water of Love are like this:

Solo

D – D – C – C – G – G – Am – C
D – D – C – C – G – G – D – D

Verse

D- D – D – D – D – D – D – D
Am – Am – Am – Am – D – D – D – D

Chorus

Am – Am – G – D
Am – Am – G – D

So, here is the video. You will find links to two different live version from 1978 in the video itself (at 1:17)

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Related articles

• Video Clip of Dire Straits – Lady Writer – Pinkpop Festival 1979
• Comparing different guitars
• Early Dire Straits radio interview from 1978
• Dire Straits – Where do you think you’re going – spontaneous cover on acoustic guitar
• Brett Whiteley – Alchemy – The picture on the Alchemy cover
• The Dire Straits Rock Pop in Concert TV show in Dortmund 1980

In the videos below we were comparing two Mark Knopfler Signature Strats to a 1964 Fender Stratocaster, also in red (fiesta). Talking about red, note that one of the signature Strats is in the ‘wrong’ colour the very first ones came with, while the other one is the normal hot rod red. It is always interesting to hear how different three Strats will sound, even Strats of exactly the same model with the same specs. We feel the hot rod red Strat sounds warmer and fatter while the darker one has a nice transparent sound, a bit crisper but also warm. The ’64 Strat does not have an ash body like the signatures, but one of alder (like Mark Knopfler’s 1961 Strat), and the fingerboard is not the slab board (that was produced between 1959 and 1962) but the thinner veneer board. This particular guitar has a bell-like transparent sound with a typical slygthly nasal midrange. All in all, three great guitars which all sound different but all great.
All guitars had 10er strings and were played over a Music Man amp, no effects.

Here is a poll in which you can let others know which one you personally like best.

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After the last video in which I already  compared the VFS-1 pickup to a 1955 Fender Strat pickup and to the DiMarzio FS-1, here is a first demo of the complete Schecter-style pickguard with the VFS-1 pickups. I was jamming in the Mark Knopfler style over a self-produced 2 chords backing groove on my metallic pink Strat, which is mainly a 1983 Japanese vintage Squier but with a new bird’s eye maple neck. You are hearing the combination of neck & middle pickups, the switches are in the up position (tapped coil). More demos of others of the 26 possible sound combinations will follow.

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This time I am checking two great guitars, a Suhr MK-1 and a Pensa MK-1. The Suhr is the one that you could already see in this video. Both belong to the same person, a collector from Germany.

Some background on the first MK1

The Pensa-Suhr MK1 was built in 1988 by luthier John Suhr  at Rudy Pensa’s guitar shop in Manhattan. Suhr worked there before he built amps with Bob Bradshaw and became master builder at Fender’s Custom Shop. Later he started his own company – Suhr guitars. For this reason the first guitars were called Pensa-Suhr, and  after John  left simply Pensa. John Suhr also builds guitars similar to the MK-1 (although for legal issues he has to change some details) – if you want a MK-1 you basically have to decide if you want it from the same place or from the same builder.

Pensa Custom MK-1

This guitar is from 1993 and differs in some details from the original MK-1. The body top is not maple but koa, while the body itself is still from mahagoni. The shape of the upper body horn is different – the horn is thinner and longer. It has a SPC mid boost but it is not activated with a push-pull poti. Instead, a third poti gradually blends between the normal and the boosted sound. See the pictures for more details:

 

Suhr Custom Carve Top (MK-1)

This wonderful guitar is from 2006. Note that apparently for legal reasons the official name of this guitar is not MK-1 – only Pensa are allowed to use this model name. It has a mahagony body with a 3/4″ quilted maple top, a maple neck with Indian rosewood fingerboard, Floyd Rose tremolo, abalone dots, EMG pick-ups etc. The top of the guitar is really astonishing – almost three dimensional. We found it sounds darker and warmer than the Pensa.

 

In this youtube video you can see me playing both of them – including riffs from Money for Nothing, Heavy Fuel, No can do, …. The guitar goes directly into the amp, the distortion is from the amp – a Music Man RP112 65. The SPC mid-boost is enabled on both guitars.

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Today I was jamming a bit on the acoustic guitar and still had the camcorder ready from the last video yesterday, so I simply let it run a bit and recorded this sponatneous version of Dire Straits’ “Where do you think you’re going”. If you wonder about the sound or even about the string bending on the acoustic – check out this old blog post about the string gauge on this guitar.

I always find that playing at low volume leaves you more room to get louder when necessary and causes a much nicer guitar sound. Unfortunately you get some noise when recording with the built-in camcorder microphone as it turns up the record level automatically and catches more noise from the cheap mic pre-amp in the camcorder. The camcorder compresses the dynamics, and youtube compresses again I think, so you will lose much of the dynamics anyway but still it makes a big difference I think.

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

Related articles

• Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial
• Video Clip of Dire Straits – Lady Writer – Pinkpop Festival 1979
• Early Dire Straits radio interview from 1978
• Brett Whiteley – Alchemy – The picture on the Alchemy cover
• The Dire Straits Rock Pop in Concert TV show in Dortmund 1980
• Early Dire Straits picture

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