In Jam Session #46, we had another awesome round of Q&A where Steve takes our questions LIVE! He also answers any submitted beforehand too, of course, for those whose schedules may not allow them to be present live on the webinar.
These Q&A guitar sessions have become some of my favorites as anything is fair game! I always learn a lot…not only from my own questions getting answered, but those of the other band members as well. Sometimes a band member will ask something I don’t even think of asking at the time, but am glad to get the answer!
Guitar Techniques Covered
Steve went over a lot of different guitar playing techniques in this session, including:
- What are harmonics?
- What are pinch harmonics and how to perform this special guitar picking technique?
- and more!
Harmonics
With harmonics, we’re cutting the distance in half
Example: touch (not press) the high e string at the 12th fret to get the “2nd harmonic”
touch the high string at the 7th and 19th frets to get the “3rd harmonic”
More examples:
Harmonic #2 | 1/2 the string length | octave |
Harmonic #3 | 1/3 the string length | twelfth |
Harmonic #4 | 1/4 the string length | double octave |
Harmonic #5 | 1/5 the string length | seventeenth |
Harmonic #6 | 1/6 the string length | nineteenth |
Harmonic #7 | 2/7 the string length | halfsharp 20th |
Harmonic #8 | 3/8 the string length | triple octave |
Harmonic #9 | 1/9 the string length | twenty third |
Pinch harmonics: as you pick, your thumb rubs the string. You have to experiment where you pick for every note.
Tip: visit GuitarGeek.com for a breakdown of a given artist’s setup (helps with nailing the tone of a song)
Guitar Effects
- Reverb – makes it sounds as if you’re in a bigger room
- Chorus – doubles the sound (Steve doesn’t like this effect as much)
- Delay
- Flange – sounds like a plane taking off
- Tremolo
- Phaser
Oh yeah, we also were provided with a great resource to get the low down on your favorite guitarist’s effect setup. Simply visit GuitarGeek.com to visit the “GuitarGeek Rig Database” and you can see the breakdown of the guitarist rig setup!
Needless to say, all this info will go a long way to helping you nail the right tone when you want to learn to play your favorite songs as well as dialing in a desired tone when creating our own songs.
Steve also said we were always welcome to post any Youtube video link into the Jam Space and he’ll let us know what effects we can use to replicate the tone! Awesome! “The Band“…membership has it privileges. 🙂
The best way to learn how to apply these effects is to experiment with them on some beginner songs for guitarists.
Comments
Comments are disabled for this post.