Being a better 2nd guitarist

[jrm]

Hello friends:

I play electric guitar and sing harmony vocals in a band that I love. We do original tunes and I'm really wanting/needing to grow more as our songs grow.

I have no desire to be a guitar solo virtuoso/noodler/wanker/chord chugger (no offense to anyone who does... it just doesn't fit the direction our tunes are going). I just want to play what is tasty and appropriate for our music. Usually that manifests itself into the kind of accompaniment parts one might hear from Coldplay, U2, the Fray, Dave Matthews Band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.. (kind of eclectic I guess), not always guitar but usually always a tasty form of accompaniment that adds and doesn't distract from the music.

Currently I jsut kind of make up chords that I find out later are inversions or simple arpeggios to accent what everyone else in the band is doing. I have no theory knowledge (I can read somewhat but can't apply it easily to the fretboard), and end up just playing things that I've picked up over the years. I am working my way through Tomo's AYGP DVD and a basic method book from Berklee Press which is helping me learn to read in a way that transfers to the guitar. It's helpful, but I need more!

How/what would you suggest I study? It seems like there are so many options, but most stuff appears to be geared towards shredding and soloing which is not what I want. How would you recommend a person move forward in this manner? I'd love to get lessons, but the nearest ones are two hours away... so not much of an option there.

Any recommendations or words of wisdom will be greatfully appreciated!

-jon

[agreatheight]

As for what to read / watch / study, I couldn't say... but I'd listen closely to some really insteresting two guitar bands, and I don't mean Iron Madien, lol. Maybe start with some Toad the wet Sprocket, a very underrated band that does amazing things with two guitars. Dulcinea would be a choice album. Lots of complimentary parts, inversions, capo'd chords and the like. I think you can get the tab book for that record, too.

Good luck!

[gtrfinder]

You have a great perspective on this. I accompany a female performer who primarily writes the songs with her husband (they both primarily play acoustic). I play electric on everything. We also have a drummer and bassist.
I try to think of my role in the band much like you think of yours. We dont have a keyboard player, so when I'm not playing a harmony or a counter melody I try to play textural stuff.
Something that has helped me was listening to keyboard and synth players from other bands. Also I listen to guys like Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, and the like to get some background ideas.
Sometimes the most subtle things you do make the greatest impact. For example, we have a song that really did'nt need much electric guitar on it (in my opinion), so I used a chorus, some delay, tremolo, volume knob, etc... and just played roots and fifths very quietly in the background. It filled out the sound without getting in the way.

[guildchild]

i do a lot of this type of thing too. if you need inspiration, check out an album of elvis costello with bill frizell. it's just elvis singing and frizell on electric.

it's not the most simple stuff in the world, but it's genious and terribly inspiring for this type of thing. frizell is my hero, so i may be biased, but sounds so amazingly full, simple and beautiful. you may not be able to directly translate his performance over to an accompaniment role with a singer/songwriter on ac guitar, but it WILL inspire you.

[MrDoty]

Learn your arppegios (sp.) all over the guitar, that helped me a lot with coming up with 2nd guitar parts. I solo also, arps really made my soloing take a big leap as well. it gives you so many options with every chord that comes along that you can really let your imagination wander and come up with something really uniqie. arps are probobly the most important thing I ever learned on the instrument. hope that can help you a bit.

[jrm]

thank you for this helpful info gentlemen. I've not listened to Bill Frissel, so perhaps that should be among my next musical purchases (along with Brian Eno, and assorted others).

I do believe that learning my arpeggios would be very helpful. Do you know of a method book that would help break it down for me? I understand I shoudl be abel to just look at a fretboard and break it down in such a way that I can find arpegggios, but I'm not there yet and some guiding material would be very helpful.

I'm not lookign to play much jazz though, so I'm not sure if arpeggio books mainly lead to jazz comping and such. Perhaps my perception is groundless, so any advice would be much appreciated!

[FoxV]

I do believe that learning my arpeggios would be very helpful. Do you know of a method book that would help break it down for me? I understand I shoudl be abel to just look at a fretboard and break it down in such a way that I can find arpegggios, but I'm not there yet and some guiding material would be very helpful.

You've got a great attitude about this.

Here is one recent book I picked up that looks to be good (for learning arpeggios, scales, and the fretboard): Guitar Fretboard Workbook. It's written by an MI dude (MI = the Musician's Institute of LA....which turns out shredders, I know, but I've never seen a place that has developed such good material for teaching people what usually seems like really boring stuff. Berkeley may have some good online courses now that I think of).

I would second the recommendation to learn your arpeggios. They will be extremely useful, and they don't only apply to Jazz. Not at all. It's hard to know where to start though, because so many resources, while good, may lead you in the wrong direction, or slightly off course.

I know in my search, I have liked being led off course a bit (so, like you, though I'm not terribly interested in Jazz, I have gained a lot of very good knowledge studying Jazz scales and such).

Here'd be my suggestions, tuned (of course) to your own taste:
1.) Get on them arpeggios. Lot a bang for the buck here. Just start with simple triads. Learn the 7ths on down the line (if you want to learn them).
2.) Consider learning theory in all its forms. This is amazingly helpful. But, it may not be your cup of tea. Frankly, if it isn't, that probably means you're justing learning from the wrong source. Theory is awesome stuff (because what theory is, isn't really what we usually think of as "theory...that is, music theory is not THEORETICAL stuff....rather, it is the compilation of common practices...meaning shit people have learned that works...and you want to learn more things that work!!!)
3.) Consider learning the fretboard. This will really, really help. It's tedious. But it is amazing.
4.) Consider ear training. Again, this is amazing shit.
5.) A little of this a day (any of it) goes a long way! So don't force it down your throat. Be enticing about it.
6.) Consider lessons. Nothing like lessons to give you a direction. Even just a few lessons can be hugely helpful.
7.) This may sound dorky, but I've found guitar magazines to be pretty cool. Even the ones that seem to be for shredders. They often have cool blues, jazz, pop tidbits, that are a lot of fun to pick up. But maybe my perspective on this is skewed, 'cause I travel on planes a lot, and reading these guitar mags on my down time gets my learning juices flowing.


My apologies, I got way out of hand. The guitar is an entire universe of universes. If you truly dive in, you will be amazed at the beauty that opens up before you.

Peace,

Fox

[yZe]

Always be aware of

1. Textures
2.Registers

Texture
If the 1st rhythm guitar is playing busy, then you play a sparse rhythmic figure

If the 1st rhythm guitar is playing a more chordal part, then you find a repetive single note ostinato of no more than 3 or 4 notes

REGISTER

If the 1st rhtyhm guit is playing low register chords or open chords, then you play chords in a higher octave range

Find the sweet spot between the Bass guit & guit or keys

[A440]

this is an area that not many guitarists (that I've played with) excel at. I was lucky enough to do one original project that was a total delight in this respect. IMO, a true musician doesn't step all over the other player's toes

inversions are a good place to start

off the top of my head, I really enjoy Counting Crows in this regard. They actually have 3 guitarists now, but it's nothing like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Allman Bros. no flames, I love both of those bands !

seriously, the Crows are great at keeping it spacious, and not just doubling all the parts. another good team is Fripp and Belew, even though they're playing guitar synth much of the time.

[Aj_rocker]

why dont you work out what you like. Say you like U2, work out what the edge is doing over chord pattern. You just need to be able to hear the chords and play them. Or maybe work out the guitar line and then the chords. both will help to you to have some way of playing over the chord changes and adding to the song rather than stepping on toes.

hope you get that


AJ

[jrm]

Hello AJ: That is already something that I have been doing. Hearing what I can and working the notes out. It is a very useful exercise and I find that it has helped quite a bit. However, I am stuck at knowing what he does, instead of why he does it. Why do his lines work? Is there a commonality in how he chooses what he plays? At this point its like someone is giving me the fish... but I want to learn how. Does that make sense?

In short I'd like to find the structures that work for him (not just the notes) and see how I can apply them to our own unique music. Perhaps I am missing the intent of your post though! That is always a possibility.

[Maction]

I don't post here much, but this thread caught my eye. I've been playing in a two guitar band for a while and here's my highly non-technical approach, self-taught, meathead approach:

1. Play Less: A song's vocal melody doesn't start at the first beat and end at the last, and neither should the guitar parts. Rest for verses, bridges, choruses, intros, outros, etc. Encourage the other musicians in the band to do the same. If you're lucky maybe even the drummer and/or bassist will catch on. Watch the dynamics blossom.

2. Listen: Use you parts to accent your drummers crashes, double the bass lines an octave up, and of course there the dreaded "guitarmony" (harmonized lead lines). If and when you do double the other guitarist's parts, make sure you are exactly locked in. Play in the same position, same rhythm, and with same accents, and see how powerful it becomes.

3. Retune/Capo: Try writing some parts in open G, D, or with the top and bottom strings dropped to D. These tunings share open strings with standard E to E, so you can switch quickly between songs. Capo if needed. This will give you access to different open strings and intervals than the other guitarist, and help you create some cool textures.

[guildchild]

Here is one recent book I picked up that looks to be good (for learning arpeggios, scales, and the fretboard): Guitar Fretboard Workbook. It's written by an MI dude (MI = the Musician's Institute of LA....which turns out shredders, I know, but I've never seen a place that has developed such good material for teaching people what usually seems like really boring stuff.

Just for the record, not all MI grads are shredders! :o I, for one, really suck at it. Of course, I did run into my share of class mates who had LITERALLY never played without distortion... but that wasn't the majority when i was there in 97-98. I think GIT can turn out some pretty well rounded players, but it's maybe 10% of the total class. Also, Barrett Tagliarino wrote the book. He still holds first place in the "best slide solo i've ever heard" category....and he did it with a 9V battery he found laying around in the classroom.

Sorry to be off topic.

Back to the topic, that is a great book, I teach from it often. It's basically the guts of the CAGED system...layed out very clearly.

[Old Tele man]

+1 on PLAY LESS...do not "step on" the lead guys lines!...complement them!

[jrm]

that's the goal. I want to be an excellent complimentary player.

Thanks for the reccomendations on that workbook. It sounds very helpful. Are there are any other reccomendations?

[FoxV]

Just for the record, not all MI grads are shredders! :o

I agree. I shouldn't have use that stereotype so loosely. I just wanted to say to the initial poster that he shouldn't overlook GIT/MI guitarists (and the books they produce) just because of that "shredder" stereotype.

Sorry...back on topic.

[MrDoty]

I agree with foxV good post man all that is HUGE, I will add another comment. its really important to tie all the stuff you practice into what you are playing with a band or to a song that you know. say you practice 1 position of a g major triad, mess with that over a g major bass groove for a little while till it feels good to you. in my opinion thats when you have "learned" that matereal.

[Aj_rocker]

Hello AJ: That is already something that I have been doing. Hearing what I can and working the notes out. It is a very useful exercise and I find that it has helped quite a bit. However, I am stuck at knowing what he does, instead of why he does it. Why do his lines work? Is there a commonality in how he chooses what he plays? At this point its like someone is giving me the fish... but I want to learn how. Does that make sense?

In short I'd like to find the structures that work for him (not just the notes) and see how I can apply them to our own unique music. Perhaps I am missing the intent of your post though! That is always a possibility.

kool, you got half the heart!! What i was trying to say which u didnt get is its great to be able to hear and write down the note. But you need to analyze the chord pattern.

So basically find out what the bass line/rythem guitar is and then find the key out. When you do that you then can pair the two together. So you can get some infromation you can use in a context you understand and therefore more likely to use.

For example if i hear BB king play a lick, i can slow it down/play it 100 times and work it out. But thats no use what so ever without know what chord(s) it fits over. When i know both i can use it as my own!

i hope you get it, its late here and im sure im not making too much sence so do question me on it!!

take it easy

Aj