No Whammy No Whammy

[Niels]

Voice from the engine room for the theory nerds – the rest of you: please skip 😀

I had serious problems with the C#m chord in the backing track.
It works fine where Tony plays it, but in the higher frets it sounds very weird – not accidental – just ugly.

I realized from the Fretboard Wizard that in a major scale the seventh chord is a vii dim, not a vii, so the chord used should have been a C# dim (no b5) instead of a C#m (no 5).
It is the difference between the 5 and the b5 that causes the problem higher up the fretboard.

I then remembered that Tony often uses a V7 instead of the vii dim, so I imagined an A7 every time Tony wrote the C#m – and it sounded nice – I think 🙂

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by  Niels.

[Bill_Brown]

That was “Really Truly” nice @Niels 🤩👏👏👏🤩 What a wonderful sound from that Ax👍😱👍 You created a very nice melody and stayed totally within the bounds of the scales presented in the lesson.😎Great call on the substitution also, and thanks for sharing your thought process🤔👍👍

[Niels]

Thank you @Bill_Brown for your kind words.

Glad you liked the voice from the engine room 🙂
I was a bit in doubt whether to mention it or not, but the substitution was a great improvement for me.

[Loraine]

Really nice improv @Niels . Loved the melodic sound of this, and it seemed like you were having a good time with it.

[Niels]

Thank you @Loraine

I really had fun with this one – even if it was not a real improvisation.
It was more a study in how to match the scale double stops with the chord progression (but the noodling in the midddle was improvised) 😀

[Jonathandavid]

That was really nice, Niels. Your solos are always super professional, with great rhythm and good melodies. That’s a cool guitar – is that the silent one you’ve mentioned before, but played through an amp so we can here it?

[Niels]

Thank you for stopping by, @jonathandavid

The guitar is a Yamaha SLG200S TBK, originally bought to practice scales on while watching TV with my wife.
But because it is really easy to record with (no fussing around with microphones and no background noise), I use it a lot for improv and lesson videos.

I can record it directly through my audio interface, and it sounds nice, but I love to play with my toys, so this time I ran it through my Hx Stomp multi-effect pedal, using the standard preset VintageGD with the following blocks turned on:

• Tube compression
• Marshall JTM45 amp
• Room reverb

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by  Niels.

[Jonathandavid]

Looks like a great set up! Thanks for sharing!

[Fly]

This was really good Niels your Coldplay comment made me laugh too

[Niels]

Thank you, @Fly
I am glad someone caught on 😀

[Dan D#]

Very nicely done @Niels

[Niels]

Thanks, @Dan D# 🙂