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 […]
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.
Imitating the sound of a freight train whistle seems to be an obligatory part of all blues players’ vocabulary. For this purpose Mark Knopfler often uses a particular chord, a chord that appears on songs like Eastbound Train or Gravy Train (live), but also on the The Bug. The chord in question is often called a 6/#9 chord (sometimes also denoted as 6/10). Remember, the numbers indicate the interval from […]
(At the end of this article you will find a matching video for all who prefer watching to reading) An acoustic guitar has normally heavier strings than an electric guitar because you want a loud and rich sound. With an electric guitar you don’t need that much volume because you can adjust the sound easily with the amp. Consequently playing the acoustic requires more strength and finger pressure, and some […]
Mark Knopfler has used a volume pedal almost since the very first beginning of his career. He does not only use it to adjust the overall level, but also for his characteristic volume swells that make a note fade in just like a violin. In short, he hits the note with the pedal all the way back to remove the attack, then presses it down to fade in the note. […]
A rather strange tuning that seems to be part of any Mark Knopfler concert these days is the high-G tuning. Mark Knopfler owns a beautiful sunburst Telecaster Custom – probably a ’67 that was originally played by his brother David with Dire Straits, more on this guitar in a future post. These days (not in the past) this guitar seems to be dedicated to the high-g tuning. So, what is […]
What do you think is the most important chord for the average guitar player? Well, presumably it is a rather simple, basic chord that is played often in all kind of tunes. So probably a ‘normal’ major chord, something like C or D. Even a beginner quickly learns that there are many ways to play even something simple as a C chord. The first version you learn is probably the […]
Today I messed around with an audio player plug-in for WordPress (the software used to create this blog). In some other post I wrote something about the Hamburg concert (Musikhalle, Hamburg, Germany, Oct. 28, 1978) and mentioned that I slowed it down to the original speed (the concert around in some fan hubs or on torrent trackers runs almost ridiculously fast), so I added the audio player with a sample […]