There are countless ways to record an electric guitar. While some of these do not really work for distorted guitars, you have even more choices when you want to record a clean guitar: you can plug it directly into the mixing desk, or use a DI-box before. Then there are special recording solutions like digital or analog pre-amps that also emulate the influence of the guitar speaker or even the […]
A few people asked for the gear I used on the last set of youtube videos that I put online last week, namely on the video clips of the following articles: The one-man band – Playing both rhythm and lead guitar together Dire Straits Eastbound Train – Rhythm riff, licks and solo explained Mark Knopfler licks using the b5 note Knopfler goes Jazz – Video with licks from Comfort and […]
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 […]
Eastbound Train was one of Dire Straits’ first songs. It was recorded as a demo before the first album was recorded, and it is the song of the earliest Dire Straits live recording that exists (from the Hope & Anchor, London, December 1977). This live version was released as the b-side of the single Sultans of Swing in 1978, but with exception of the demo (that has a totally different […]
The b5 notes means the flattened fifth note of any scale. If we have e.g. a C-major scale (c – d -e -f -g – a – b – c ), the fifth note is the g , and if this note is flattened, we get the gb. The same logic works with any major or minor (or other) scale. The following video demonstrates the usage and the position of […]
In 1982 Dire Straits recorded their Love over Gold album in New York. According to Knopfler himself, he spent some time before with learning new chords and licks from a book by Mickey Baker. This circumstance, and the collaboration with Jazz musicians of the New York jazz scene – like Mike Mainierei, Michael & Randy Brecker or Tony Levin – seem to be the reason why sudenly more jazz elements […]
In May 1979 Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers were invited to play on Bob Dylan’s new album, Slow Train Coming. This was not the first session Mark Knopfler was asked to play on (he already played on the Steely Dan song Time out of Mind and with Mavis Staple before), but it was the first session for a complete album. The idea came from Barry Becket and […]
This week was again a rather busy one, so not much time for the next article. All I have is a video of me playing Romeo and Juliet on that National Style-O (read style-“Oh”, the letter not the number, see this article for some detail pictures of this guitar), but there are no instructions or explanation. If you want you can check it out nevertheless, see below. This guitar is […]
This article is about a “two-strings scale” sometimes called Memphis Scale. Normally these two strings are not adjacent strings, instead you skip one string and play licks e.g. on the D- and B-string (as in the video examples below), or on the G- and high E-string. With the help of these licks you will increase your vocabulary on the guitar. Whenever you are in danger of running out of ideas […]
What I mean with double-string bends are licks that are played on two or more strings and one or more of these are bent. Such licks appear in countless Mark Knopfler or Dire Straits songs. The following video clip demonstrates how to use such licks, and their relation to the chords they are based upon. Note that the last licks (Once Upon a time and Sultans of Swing) were covered […]