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 […]
On the Making movies tour in 1981, Mark Knopfler played a Rickenbacker guitar on Portobello Belle. To my knowledge only one single picture exists with this guitar which is the one below. Since I have this picture at a rather high resolution, I also put in an enlarged version with just that guitar. I would be lying if I said I am an expert on Rickenbacker guitars, so feel free […]
Here is an original drawing from Schecter Guitar Research showing the wiring layout of a vintage Schecter Stratocaster pickguard with those F500T pick-ups. I found it in an old German book about guitar electronics from the 80ies, and it seems to be pretty rare so I want to share it with you. It is the same layout that should originally have been in all of Mark Knopfler’s Schecter Strats. An […]
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 […]
In 1980 Mark Knopfler bought some Schecter guitars (probably 4 Strats and a Telecaster) at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York. These were two red Strats (see my article about these here), one blue Strat, a black Telecaster, and a wonderful sunburst Strat. The last was the guitar that was played on the song Tunnel of Love on the Making Movies album. It seems he liked especially this one very […]
This time I will start with some very basic stuff: major and minor chords. Every guitar beginner soon learns that there is e.g. an A major chord, and an A minor chord. Obviously they are similar, they just differ in one single note (in case of the first position chords, in the example it is either the 2nd (A) or 1st (Am) fret on the b string). You need to […]
Today the Orange Squeezer compressor by Dan Armstrong is an almost legendardy guitar effect. An essential portion of this fame is probably due to the fact that it is often named as an ingredient for the early Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits sound. Ironically this goes back to my old Dire Straits Guitar Page which was the first site in the web to mention the Orange Squeezer as part of […]
Here comes an article not really related to guitar but possibly interesting for everyone who likes to listen to music. The term “loudness war” is something you might have come across when talking or reading about modern music productions. There is even a Wikipedia article on this matter. I will explain in short what exactly is meant with it, and I will give some listening samples from Knopfler / Dire […]
The last poll about what you would like to read here is still running (so vote if you haven’t yet), but it seems to be clear that many readers want to read about licks (or rather want to see something as video I guess). So here a quick reaction (to be honest, I started to work on this video anyway 😉 ) This post is about a typical Mark Knopfler […]
I set up a poll about your wishes for future articles, it can be found under pages (so that it will be up for some time) or directly here (up to 4 possible answers). If you have further suggestions, please use the comment function on that page (click here) instead of the one under this article. Thanks.