The hardest thing for me is simply remembering the order of the chords. When it's off, the order of the chords can be most noticable, let me tell you what. Probably best anyway, those ARE copyrighted songs.

This guy isn't playing it the way I do.

In my opinion, Angus and Malcolm play the key of G, or in other words, the cowboy chord version of E minor blues/rock. Angus has said some things about adding a 6th in his solos, if I recall. That's major sounding, like a major third. He was probably talking about the 6th major chords too. The guitar solos, much in same way a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd is done...will be Pentatonic Major, usually resolving on the chord progression's root. In the case of Skynyrd though, the chord progression key almost certainly won't be the same as the guitar solo key, but it's all relative, so it doesn't matter.

I think I read once, Allen Collins or Steve Gaines got laughed at by "master guitarist" 60's hippie cliche Mike Bloomfield, because he was soloing in the wrong key.

It's not actually WRONG per se, if the rest of the band knows what's going on. Rush did the same thing with the song "Working Man". It's sorta the same technique. I think the solo is a major pentatonic...but the chords are in a minor progression. It doesn't really change into an entirely different 'outside' key though.

So AC/DC has this very "open" chord riff sound to me, y'know? That's because the key of G gets tuned on the guitar a little bit differently...than say...something maybe with a D or B chord progression in mind. Usually those songs tend to be a little more A chord to E chord sounding, or whatever. It's really an opinion. There's a certain point, at least with me...where you can tend to start tuning your guitar towards certain strings...while the others sound worse on certain open chords. The "digital" purists would say that's impossible with an 'even tempered' tuning system and their electronic tuners, but a guitar player raised on an acoustic like me...develops an ear for this 'intonated' tuning. Try flattening your G string just a little bit, then maybe you'll see what I mean. That's another method actually.

If you tune the guitar, so the G and C chords sound their best...then you tend to lose the other more popular chords, like maybe even the E5 chord itself...at least up to an extent (but hopefully not).

D chord seems to be affected a little on the top most string with the de-tuned G string technique by the way, so tune to a happy middle-of-the-road experience.

So anyway, play the open two strings on the 4th D and the 3rd G. In essence, that's the same as a G chord. It has to be done with the G string slightly de-tuned.

Now that's the AC/DC 'roadhouse blues' double-stop chord I use, instead of the bar chord, that the guy in the video from the link up above is using. It's a quicker way to change the chords too. Not sure how Malcolm does it, but it sounds better to me, because I slightly de-tune the G string for intonation like I said. I learned this from an interview with Eddie Vanhalen. Apparently, it's something the Beatles did as well. You have to carefully tailor the chords in the song though, because you've lost temperment for certain other notes (sorta like musica diablo during the Dark Ages -->B flat).

Coupled with a zinc alloy in the brass Badass bridge of a Gretsch strung with .056 strings (ouch)...it pretty much sounds dead on. Probably even better with Malcom's EL-34 amp, since the mid-range compression really comes out. Never with digital or solid state amps though. (That's heresy.)

Really...Angus is the lead player...so his tone is superficial, up until he wails on the solo. Eddie Vanhalen just said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he doesn't really consider himself a lead player.

I'm a little like Eddie in my desire for tone too, I think. I'm not on the same planet as The Maestro, but I might be somewhere near the same part of the galaxy, at least with my ear. I sorta prefer my own way these days. I never really could do a good 'cover' song right. In fact, I don't really recall ever saying I was that good on guitar to begin with. Beats me, if any innocent bystanders were ever entertained.

I know my neighbors hate me.

The way I'm attacked for an old time rock style, that's incongruent to alternative, rap, pop, black metal, or electronica styles...you would think I was Jewish during the time of Rome or something. Funny thing, because I sorta like to listen to some of that...I just don't play it. Call it an open-mind or something...like being liberally tolerant.

But not a follower of "dissonance"...and homosexualiy, feminism, satanism ect ect....

I figured...it would probably be better to write riffs as fast as possible, since I figured I'd be ripped off by The Man anyway. That's why I more or less, do the 12 bar blues thing for the most part. (If I ever get around to cutting some licks to MP3 files for you guys.)

Get it?

I was used to my privacy being sold out, decades before anybody ever heard of FISA courts in Washington DC.

Anyhoo, that ain't your problem, Nocaster...

I prefer the multiple pre-stage gain of a hard-driven 6L6 sound in his Peavey design as well, myself.

I've listened to internet samples, and I think I understand why. It's darker and less brassy sounding, than say...a metal nut on a Floyd Rose guitar into a JCM800 or something. They say it's 'round' sounding...I really don't know. They are a more sturdy tube to begin with. Not as loud pound for pound, but different enough I guess, that I still prefer it, say for instance...apparently...in the same way as Eddie does. (His new amp from Fender uses 6L6's.) Certain new speed metal bands, they like the modern Peavey 6505 models. They don't sound ANYTHING like classic Vanhalen!

Actually my developed sound today, is really a Seymour Duncan stompbox in a pre-amp fx loop along with 6550 power tubes, to tell you the truth. That Duncan unit uses higher voltage on the plates, than most stompboxes. I think he got the idea from Zachary Vex, but don't quote me on that. I've got other amps, both in mind (and spirit), but I don't think most of them will ever leave the house.

A thousand years have come and gone, But Time has passed me by, Stars stopped in the sky, Frozen in the everlasting view. (song "Xanadu" by Rush)
Edited 11 times by Emrys Wledig Jun 20 08 11:57 AM.