Easy stuff for beginners, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

Mark Knopfler licks around the 7/9 chord

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 lick which is based on the notes of the 7/9 chord, the chord we are talking about is the following one (in this example a E7/9):

This chord is nothing special, special however is Mark Knopfler’s way to fret it, which is often like this:

The difference is the bass note, instead of an E (the root note) he plays the B on the low E string (the fifth note o fthe E major scale).

Now add the following notes which are played before the chord is played. First play the red notes, then the blue notes, then the chord (black notes). The left hand fingers remain the same on all those notes on the low E and D strings, if you want you can slide from one position into the next.

Watch the following video to see what kind of licks you can do with these notes (excerpts from The Bug / Eastbound Train, Mississippi Blues, Lions).

Easy stuff for beginners, Guitar in general, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Misc, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music, Vintage guitars

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Guitar in general, Vintage guitars

Guitar portrait: 1983 Squier JV Stratocaster, fiesta red

Some general info about Japanese vintage guitars from the early 80ies was subject in one of the last articles. This time I want to feature my fiesta red Squier Strat from the almost legendary JV series.

It was simply the overall quality of these guitars that left such a deep impact when they appeared on the scene in about 1982. These Squiers were copies of vintage Strats, to be precise, of a ’57 or ’62 Stratocaster. Other companies like Tokai or Greco had started to copy vintage Strat in detail at a really high quality shortly before, and the Squiers were Fender’s reaction to this trend: if we cannot stop the others, we can do the same ourselve, so the made a deal with the Fujigen Gakki company (who built Greco guitars). The very first guitars had a decal saying “Fender Stratocaster” with a small “Made in Japan” but this was soon changed to “Squier Stratocaster made by Squier”.

Generally, the term copy was redefined with these guitars because it is probably fair to say that their quality was better than of the normal American Fender Stratocaster of that time.

The featured guitar is from the second year of mass production, from the last months of the JV series. The name JV stands for Japanese vintage, it was the prefix of the serial number (this guitar is JV74356).

1983 Squier Stratocaster fiesta red

It is an export model which means it was built for mainly the European and American market. There were also domestic models for the Japanese market which were available in more different colours (candy apple red, california blue, or metallic pink) but these did not have US pick-ups like the export models. In fact the export guitars had the same pick-ups that Fender had introduced with their own vintage Stratocaster model that appeared about the same time.

This was a clever marketing idea because on the one hand it made people assume the sound quality was comparable to the much more expensive American guitars (which it was anyway), and on the other hand this was a logical explananation for this. I don’t think that the models with Japanese pick-ups sound noticably worse, but this way Fender had not to admit that their guitars did not really sound better than cheaper copies, they simply could argue this was because of their US pick-ups.

The beautiful light fiesta red (which does not really equal the original fiesta from the early 60ies, it has a tendency towards orange) was not available when the series was launched, it was introduced about 1983, together with black and white. Before there was only sunburst (2-tone for the ’57, 3-tone for the ’62).

This guitar is the ’57 model. The differences to the ’62 model are: one-piece maple neck (’62 has rosewood fingerboard) , white one-layer pickguard with 8 screws (’62: three-layers, 11 screws), no pocket shoulder in control cavity (this is for one of the additional screws of the ’62).

The body wood is probably  basswood (earlier models had ash elder). Basswood is not original Fender vintage style but has nevertheless good acoustic properties. The sound of this particular guitar is great, it has that slightly nasal twang but sounds very warm. It is very light but resonates well.

If you are interested in more detail info about these JV Squier guitars, the best source for it are the Squier JV Pages.

Mark Knopfler never owned one of these, however he played the same model as this one in a German TV show called Bananas in the 80ies when they filmed a clip of So Far Away.

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Vintage guitars

Japanese Vintage guitars – the situation in the late 70ies /early 80ies

When I started playing the guitar in 1979 (after hearing a certain Mark Knopfler playing Sultans of Swing) I wanted a Strat of course. At that time Fender made exactly one model – the “Stratocaster”, no Deluxe, Standard, Hot Rod, Super, Extra, and the like – only and simply the “Stratocaster”.
On the other hand you had Japanese copies by a zillion of manufacturers it seems. At that time nobody knew that there were actually only a few Japanese companies who produced them and that they were marketed under many different names here in Germany or in the rest of the world.

My first Strat was a 2nd-hand Fender Stratocaster from 1976 in sunburst with a black pickguard and white knobs. It was very heavy but looked pretty much like Mark Knopfler’s guitar – well, it was a real Strat – and differed only in details like the bigger headstock or the bigger Fender decal.

Prices for a new Fender were about 900 – 1200,- DM (would be 450 – 600 €), while the Japanese copies were about 175 – 350 €.

My first Japanese Strat was a Tokai: I was in a guitar shop and there was this fiesta red Strat (you never saw a red guitar because Fender had discontinued all red colours in the late 60ies !!), it even had a small headstock like an early 60ies Strat (this was a sensation, all Strats and all copies had the big head), and it was feather light, played and sounded really cool. Even the decal with the Tokai logo looked like a Fender script logo! It was the perfect 1:1 copy of a ’64 Strat. Fortunately this was shortly before Christmas so I got this guitar (which cost the equivalent of 420,- €) for Christmas. It became my number one Strat then and sounded much better than my Fender.

Soon after Fender reacted to these high-quality copies of vintage Strats in two different ways: a) they copied the ’57 and ’62 Strat themselves (the birth of the “Vintage Stratocaster” model) and b) they made a deal with the Fujigen Gakki company (who built e.g. Ibanez and Greco guitars) to produce a Japanese version of the vintage Strats for Fender. These were marketed under the name “Squier”.

Both appeared about the same time in the shops here in Germany. I remember that we all were surprised that the Japanese Squier guitars did not sound inferior to the US versions, in the contrary, in many cases I liked them better. The first Squiers were available in three-tone sunburst (’62 model with rosewood fingerboard) and two-tone sunburst (’57 model with maple neck), but a few months later they were available in white, black and fiesta red as well.

The fiesta red was too light and rather orange compared with the original, but it looked great! I bought a ’57 Squier Strat in fiesta red in 1983 which I will feature in one of the next articles.

Mark Knopfler himself also got one of these Japanese vintage copies: a blue Fernandes Strat which he used for some stuff around the time of Love over Gold. John Suhr said that this guitar was one of the best-sounding guitars Mark had.

Fender took legal actions against these copies and won, so about 1984 the period of ultra-close copying came to an end. In the last years prices for these guitars have gone up more and more, but with prices about 500 – 1000,- € they are still affordable. There are more and more websites dedicated to these Japanese vintage guitars, a sure sign that they are becoming cult guitars themselves. If you want a real 30ys old vintage guitar, look out for the Japanese Greco (“super real” series), Tokai (“springy sound”), Squier JV (JV for Japanes vintage, later Squiers came from Korea or other Asian countries), or Fernandes. I am sure it is not only a good investment but also a good chance to get a perfect sounding guitar.

Guitar in general, Misc

How to avoid RSI, carpal tunnel syndrome, wrist pain etc. when playing guitar extensively (part 1)

RSI – the nightmare of musicians, even a Mark Knopfler got RSI problems on a tour a few years ago.

RSI is a relatively new expression for a relatively new kind of health problem. RSI stands for ‘repetetive strain injury’, which means “any of a loose group of conditions resulting from overuse of a tool, such as a computer keyboard or musical instrument or other activity that requires repeated movements. It is a syndrome that affects muscles, tendons and nerves in the hands, arms and upper back.” (from Wikipedia)

Repeated movements are nothing really new, I guess a smith did repeated movements quite a lot when hammering on a piece of steel, even hundreds of years ago. I think the reason why a smith can do so without big trouble is that these movements require a lot of strength which comes from groups of rather big muscles. Muscles can be trained, and in a way they like it to work because this is what they were made for.

What however seems new to me are repeated movements that don’t require much force but a rather subtle control of small muscles. A good example might be clicking your computer mouse. Have you ever asked yourself how many clicks you might do when working or playing on the computer for some hours? Clicking once in a few seconds seems realistic to me, so let’s say there are maybe 6 clicks a minute, which means 360 per hour, or maybe about 1,500 when you spend some hours on a late night computer session (and we haven’t even talked about double-clicks yet).

And here exactly is the problem, going 1,500 steps is probably no problem for man, but our body is not designed to move one single finger a few thousand times within a short time.

What exactly happens to our body when overusing single muscles? Since muscles can only do one particular action, which is to contract (they cannot ‘push’, for these opposite movements we have a coresponding  antagonist muscle), overuse results in a contracted muscle state, in other words, the muscle does not relax to its full length after the job but remains slightly contracted – or cramped, a bit shorter than it was before. This contraction disturbs the balance of different muscles, and as our body is an ultra-complex system which means everything works together in some way, other parts of the body can become effected as a consequence, e.g. a contracted muscle causes a higher tension on the tendons, and this leads to a higher friction which results in a possible inflammation, and so on.

Nevertheless, there are people who work on the PC or play guitar all day without getting these problems, while others do.

And this is my message: there is hope – it is not an unavoidable problem, even if you decide to do nothing  but playing guitar all day long. I am convinced that the real problem is not the repetetive movement itself, but the way we use our body and our mind ( !! ) while doing these movements. More details and what this means exactly will be covered in one (or more) of the next article(s), also what to do for prevention or as a therapy to recover. Stay tuned.

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Vintage guitars

Detail pictures of 1936 National Style-0

One of Mark Knopfler’s most famous guitars is surely his National Style-O (read “style – oh”). This is the guitar on the cover of Brothers in Arms.

AFAIK he bought this guitar from his buddy Steve Phillips long before Dire Straits, it was his second National (the first was a Tricone from the late 20ies which he bought from an old man in Wales).

What makes a National unique is not only the metal body but the resonator – something like a mechanical loudspeaker so to say. The first National appeared in the 1920ies, at a time long before electric amplifiers were used for guitars. The resonator increases the volume of the guitar so that it was ideal for street musicians or everyone who had to compete with other instruments in a band. More general info on resonator guitars be found in the Wikipedia article.

In this post I want to present some detail photos of a National, a 1936 model that is very similar to Mark Knopfler’s – which seems to be probably from about 1937 to me.

This guitar sounds fantastic. I had a metal Dobro guitar which I bought in the late 80ies, thinking that all metal resonator guitars should sound pretty much identical (and there was only Dobro who produced them at that time). When I first heard this guitar however, I immediately decided to sell the Dobro because it sounded miles away from this one.

The body is brass (some other Nationals like the Duolians were steel), and the neck might be mahogany (not sure). The neck is extremely fat. It has a V-shape with such a depth that many capos (e.g. my favourite the Shubb capo) do not open wide enough to be used here.

The fingerboard is slightly curved what I prefer over the flat ones that were common a few years before.

But now enjoy the slide show with a lot of pictures. I will report about some other details of this guitar (including pictures of the interior) in a future article.

1936 National Style-O

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos, Effects, Mark Knopfler gear

What is this? – Unidentified guitar effect on early Dire Straits stage

This is going to be short article, rather a post meant to build up speculations: The following two pictures (from different shows, both live in early 1979) show something that seem to be an effect box that is still undidentified. I have almost finished an article about one possible explaination that is coming soon, but meanwhile it might be interesting to hear other people’s opinion, so simply use the comment function for suggestions or speculations.

click on picture to enlarge

Effects, Mark Knopfler gear

Mark Knopfler’s Morley Volume Pedal

After the other article about Knopfler’s Ernie Ball volume pedal, this time I want to feature the volume pedal he played before, which means during the Dire Straits days until the end of the Making Movies tour in 1981. The pedal I am talking about is the silver Morley Volume Pedal.

Morley made a whole range of effect foot pedals, including a very popular wha-wha or even models with built-in flanger or delay. All of these could be used as simple volume pedal as well. Knopfler’s model, simply called “VOL”, was just the ordinary volume pedal.

The unique thing about those Morleys was that they did not use a poti  but a photo resistor instead. The advantage: potis tend to make noise after some years of usage, the photo resistor will not, no matter how much you use or even misuse it (dusty or smoky stages, humidity etc.)

What sounds rather complicated was in reality an extremely simple circuit: a small bulb  – the one behind the red jewel light that is also used as power indicator – shines on a photo resistor (LCR) which lets the guitar signal pass as long as it receives light. When you roll back the pedal, a piece of black cloth is pushed between the bulb and the photo resistor which reduces the volume of the guitar accordingly. That’s all! Well, the simple ideas are often the best

The bulb (right) shines on the LCR (center), if this is not covered by the cloth

As the bulb needs electric power, the pedal is powered via mains line voltage, no external 9V adaptor like modern pedals! Since the power indicator bulb is part of the circuit, it means when it blows the pedal is dead. Fortunately replacing the bulb is simple and cheap.

The pedal way is extremely long. This means you can control the volume precisely, but you have to move your feet quite a lot. You get used to this, I have no problems with it. You can adjust how quickly or slowly the pedal reacts with a screw that changes the position of that black cloth. And you can adjust how easily the pedal moves with the two screws that hold the pedal. The whole thing is very stable, you can rest your foot with a lot of weight on it without problems.

One thing that is remarkable is that the pedal changes the sound, even when pushed down completely (full volume). This is due to the – compared with other guitar gear – extremely low input impedance which dampens the resonance peak of any passive guitar pick-up. It sweetens the sound of a Stratocaster pick-up. Without it that Dire Straits sound would definitely have been harsher.

Vintage Morley on stock in our shop !
Easy stuff for beginners, Guitar in general, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

The 6/#9 chord – Mark Knopfler’s Train Chord

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 the root note, so it is a chord with the 6th scale note added, and the sharp 9th note.

In C the 6th note is an A, the 9th is a D, but here we have a sharp nine, which is a half note higher, a D# (or Eb if you see it as 6/10 chord).

So our C 6/#9 would be (e.g.): C, E, G, A, D#

As a guitar player you probably want to leave out one or the other note (we only have 4 left-hand fingers), so we might get e.g. : C, G, A, D#

The following diagrams shows how to play these notes.

as tab:

or as chord chart:

Move the chord to the 14th fret position, and you will get the E 6/9+ (Eastbound Train) or – one octave lower – to the 2nd fret (The Bug)

In Gravy Train this chord appears as A 6/9+, which is at the 7th fret posiotion.

Here is a sound clips with the ‘train excerpt’ from the mentioned songs:

 

Keep on whistling 🙂