So I have finally found the rhythm section I’ve been searching for all my life (I had posted some clips back in October and everyone here had pretty nice things to say, thanks by the way!). They actually want to play Chicago and West Coast blues, they know the music, they listen to it, and I don’t have to convince them to play that stuff. We have two great buddies of mine on guitar, but neither guitarist is a particularly strong soloist. That’s actually why I wanted to have two guitars, in order to not have the song sound empty while one guitar is soloing.
My problem is that sometimes the two guitars clash and sometimes don’t work well together.
Some songs sound amazing, but other just are not clicking. On the swinging songs, for example ‘Lollipop Mama’ by William Clarke, one of the guitars will play fills around the vocals (which is great) and the other guitar “chops” the chord, but it sounds too ‘straight ahead’, for lack of a better description… I think it is maybe that he is not swinging while the rest of the band is. What got me thinking that is that our flat-tire shuffle songs sound great with this "chop" style of rhythm playing. But the swinging songs are a mishmosh.
Other times they will each play a rhythm part and they get out of sync with each other (I think), which makes it noisy.
I have sort of evolved into the bandleader and so I feel like if I don’t guide them towards a solution, it will just go on forever like this and we’ll never get to be more than just 'okay'. Both have busy lives, day jobs and families, so I want to come to them with ideas for arrangements/solutions rather than ask them to do a lot of homework or thinking about it outside of rehearsal.
They are both awesome guys and will listen to anything I tell them; they both want this band to sound great and we are all good friends. We all know something is slightly ‘off’, but I just don’t know how to communicate a solution to them in guitar terms. Can any of you advise me on how to help them arrange more defined parts for each of them so they don’t step on each other?
Off-forum I would be happy to send an mp3 of what I am talking about. I don’t know that I’m even describing our problems all that accurately.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you can give!
While it's not 2 guitars, listen to Average White Band or The Meters for insight. Everyone is playing a simple individual part, but when put together, it fits like hand in glove.
Another thing to be aware of is "chordal crowding", or when the two guitars are playing in the same register. Try to separate them - one lower and the other higher.
Also, there is the Alex Schultz style of blues guitar (early Rod Piazza). He very rarely played full chords, but instead chose two or three notes of the chord to play, as well as weaving simple lines.
Each guitar, when playing alone, should have their own solid groove. Maybe start by having one play to a basic groove. When he establishes his sonic area, have the second guitar try out different ideas to find one that meshes. ---------- The Iceman
When I play guitar with another guitar player and we are backing a harp player--I tend to be the guy who backs off---1] definately don't play the same chords, especially in the same position on the neck-while other person is doing MAIN STRUM, I do either a SLOW appregio of a chord on the one beat of a measure-or
2] I figure out a tag--- 'a tag is an easy short lick usually on the one ' the song "low rider' has a tag that everyone knows--the bass usually does it--just an example
Iceman explains it better
Also 1 person do sliding 6th chords https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dt5DehDshk
I'm a guitarist and do gigs as both the sole guitarist and with others a lot. Playing well with others is tough. Both players need to listen, give space and stay out of each other's way. Different chord voices in different registers helps. If both of your guys are playing block, full bar chords...but will be ugly and ponderous. Get em to listen to blues rhythm players--guys that comp well behind other soloists (whether they are the only guitar player or not). I got a lot out of some of the the other great instrumentalists like organ player Jimmy Smith and others. Great chord voicings and comping behind other players. Here are some things I've learned:
Stay the hell away from full bar chords
Learn chord inversions that leave out the root on the low end (that's a messy area sound wise)
Learn a ton a partial chords, double stops, etc. to add up top in higher registers. Listen to funk players. That's most of what they do.
Listen to each other, the bass and the kick drum...stop playing if it gets messy...Give space, etc. etc.
Good rhythm players are worth their weight in gold...it's tougher than most people think.
I've done gigs with two guitars and the only real way it works is if BOTH guitar players are really good rhythm players and guitarists who are can ALWAYS find counter rhythm parts that compliment and work. Too many people tend to concentrate on the soloing aspect and far too little on the rhythm and the groove, which is one of the main things that separates how pros work and how jam hacks work.
In a very simplified example, pay attention to a number of Jimmy Reed recordings because often there are at least two, sometimes three guitar players, each playing a different, but complimentary rhythm part.
If your guitar players are getting out of sync, you have time and rhythm problems with the guitar players and if a guitar player has lousy time, you can count on them being horrible at rhythm. Far too often, like I've said, too many people pay far too much attention to the solos first and too little on everything else.
Below is Jimmy Reed's classic, Bright Lights Big City. There are three guitars here, each playing a different rhythm part, one is playing the "march part," one is playing up picked chords on the upbeats and another plays a part with sus4 in it.
To notice these things, you HAVE to listen with, as an old pro taught me many years ago, with "bigger ears," meaning paying VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO EACH AND EVERY LITTLE DETAIL, no matter how small you may think it is.
On William Clarke's cover of Roy Brown's Lollipop Mama, what one of the guitars has to be playing would be much like what a piano player is playing, basically a flat tire groove where the guitar player plays chords on the upbeats, and the chords have to be hit using upstrokes ONLY and if you're dealing with a guitar player who has a rock background, playing chords that way is totally foreign to a rock guitar player because you damned near never hear that happening because in rock, everything is on the down beat, and all the chords are played using downstrokes.
For jump and swing stuff, using 6th chords makes a groove swing more than 7th chords do.
Another thing to remember, if you want your band to sound bluesy as well as swinging, EVERYONE on the bandstand HAS to be playing behind the beat and NEVER ahead of it because once they start playing ahead of the beat, both the swing and blusieness of a groove is flushed down the toilet in a heart beat.
Flashy solos can be great, BUT if the rhythm and time is a mess, none of the flash means a damned thing and I've seen quite a few bands that got crowds going nuts not because they had great solos, but everything GROOVED and if you musicians on your bandstand who have lousy time and are unable to play rhythm, even the finest solos being played will sound laughable when that's what you've got behind you. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by barbequebob on Feb 23, 2016 10:22 AM
I don't know how much this applies to guitars, but I know in vocal arrangements there are certain things to avoid. Some involve things like parallel fifths and such and get sort of esoteric, but the one I think I'd watch for on guitar is too much crossing of parts.
The human ear is not great at following parts that sound similar (say two voices or two of the same instrument) so our brains take short cuts. With vocals, that means we if one voice starts higher we sort of assume that the highest voice is always that voice, so if say your tenor and your alto parts cross, people get confused. You may notice guitar solos often play up higher than the rest of the music. I think that maybe partially to avoid crossing, particularly on the solos.
You also, if you can want to sort them out by range a little just so they aren't drowning each other out. For a while we had a guy playing uke with us for a while. Just because of the practice schedule we usually would bring him in after we had the rough arrangement of the song down. Unfortunately, he and I had similar tricks for how we composed our parts and he'd come in in the same register as me and we'd be all over each other's parts. I'd have to completely change what I was doing on harp to give him space when he had his uke out. (Usually that meant switching to a low tuned harp.)
I don't suppose one of them wants to learn bass? That's a great way to keep the parts from crossing or getting in each other's way.
There are lots of fun things you can do with two guitars. Call and response works well, particularly if you can get one to play in one octave and the other to answer in a different one.
The best advice you might find though might be on a guitar forum.
@Cliffy -- if you can email an mp3 for me, I can better hear what you're trying to describe, but it still sounds more like what I've been describing.
@nacoran -- I think you may be assuming that there are two guitars and no bass, which would be more like the way Little Walter did when he was on the road, rather than carrying a bass player. I've seen many a blues band with two guitars and bass and a few more. Some examples of a two guitar set up in blues I remember seeing were Bobby Blue Bland when he had Wayne Bennett and Mel Brown on guitars and Muddy Waters, and the first time I saw him, he had Bob Margolin and Hollywood Fats on guitars, so I've seen how well it does work when you've guitar players who are both great lead players as well as great rhythm players, which is often times far different than the way most rock bands tend to be. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Yeah, I was assuming two guitars and no bass. In our band I was fine with our rhythm guitar and bass. Even the lead guitar was fine but sometimes he'd switch to guitalele which put him square in the same range as me.
The trick, regardless of the instruments, I think, is to make sure you aren't stepping on each other. That can mean getting out of each other's range or doubling. If you've got two great players they can play closer together. They'll be able to hear each other and play off each other.
Here are three versions of Lollipop Mama. The first one is the original version originally recorded by its writer, Roy Brown:
Below is the Wynonie Harris cover:
Below is William Clarke's cover:
On William Clarke's cover, listen to what the piano player is doing here. What's happening is that he's playing chords on the upbeat and this is what one of the other guitar players should be playing. In all of the three versions, everyone plays BEHIND the bet and so not only is it bluesy, it jumps and swings like mad and the minute you get on top or ahead of it, the whole thing is flushed down the toilet.
Note: for the bass, the bass in each case is a stand up bass and the bass player NEVER plays even 8th notes, which would be the way a rock bass player would do it.
Below is another Roy Brown tune, but here we have Roy Brown doing Boogie Woogie Blues being backed by the Hollywood Fats Band in 1978, and here again, the piano player here, Fred Kaplan shows here what the 2nd guitarist should be doing. The band lineup is Hollywood Fats on guitar, Fred Kaplan on piano, Larry Taylor on stand up bass and Richard Innes on drums.
Below is a video of William Clarke live with two guitars, including doing Lollipop Mama:
---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by barbequebob on Feb 24, 2016 12:42 PM
Had dinner with my friend tonight. He plays bass and guitar. He suggested that if they are amped and they both have their mid range set high it can make the mix muddled. He also said it was useful to play different inversions of the chords and in different registers.
Cliffy, you have gotten a lot of good suggestions here; I play guitar in addition to harp and they are all things I would've said if I had seen this post earlier. The main thing I get from your OP is that these guys aren't listening - not to the recordings of the cover songs you're doing nor each other. A guitarist from New Zealand posted a video a while back about how not to play full barre chords when backing up a harp player that would probably help your guys out; he also posted some videos of him backing some good harp players. I don't remember his name, and I can't even imagine what to type into the search box to find those posts.
Last Edited by bluzmn on Feb 25, 2016 3:07 AM
Actually, I was able to imagine what to type in the search box - "how to play guitar behind a harp player" (just in case I screw up copying and pasting the address of the post). His name is Darren Watson. http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/5471460.htm
@eebadeeb -- Behind the beat does NOT mean your time is horrible. Put it this way, when you hear the click of a metronome, it ALWAYS clicks right on the beat or as it's often called, on top of the beat or sometimes in the middle of the beat. Behind the beat means you hit split seconds later than that, but at the very same place each and every time. Ahead of the beat is the exact opposite of that. There are many different delineations of just how far ahead or behind the beat. If you want to learn this stuff, the first thing you have to do is something most harp players often refuse to do, and that's work on getting your time together and many harp players time is, to be polite about it, absolutely god awful.
When you first learn about time, you're first gonna learn to play right on top of the beat, and then later, you will learn how to play and listen for behind as well as ahead of the beat. Will this be quick and easy?? Not in a million years, but I GUARANTEE YOU that it will help make you a much better musician overall and it's definitely worth learning about.
The video bluzmn is talking about from Darren Watson shows all the things being played by THE master guitar player for backing harmonica, Robert Jr. Lockwood and everything he was doing on the Little Walter instrumental, Shake Dancer. I actually learned how to play those things many years ago on my own, so I clearly know when a guitar player knows his stuff or he's trying to BS me in a hurry. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by barbequebob on Feb 25, 2016 11:32 AM
