Billy Gibbon's secret lazy power chords will change your life

hi guys coming up billy gibbons sneaky lazy power chords that may change your life oh [Music] hi guys welcome to the classic guitar rock channel i'm jeremy and i haven't done a lesson in a while and i wanted to to get this lesson up today i've seen zz top several times one of my favorite bands billy gibbons one of my favorite guitar players one of the things you'll notice about billy gibbons two things really he has a super light touch okay uh and a very efficient one could say lazy style he barely moves right either hand he uses the minimum of motion in both his picking hand and his fretting hand i want to talk about his fretting hand mostly today but if you watch him play live you will be amazed at how little his hand moves yet he's able to play songs right part of that is his use of lazy chords lazy shapes he doesn't play the full shape right uh and he's able to just um you know play all the chords he needs to in a song without moving very much right and so i want to try a little exercise i want you to pick a spot on the guitar neck and we'll just we'll just focus on power chords to begin with right power chords fifth chords right just the the first and the fifth of a of a chord if you want to add the octave [Music] you could do that right i'm assuming you know your power chords but let's let's stay right there at the third fret and let's just look at how many power chords we can play okay we got the g we got the c we can come up here based on the uh fourth string i got an f i got this little guy that's a b flat that's not a very common shape but that's a power chord shape you could use so i've got those four chords that i could play but here's where it gets interesting there's these little double stop shapes and what do i mean by double stops well there where instead of playing the root with our index finger right we just play for instance on a g instead of playing that i could just play the fifth and fourth string [Music] that's still a fifth chord my roots on the bottom just a different inversion let's see what i'm doing there [Music] that's still a fifth chord so now if i'm approaching it from that double stop standpoint where i'm playing the the the two upper notes of a fifth chord i can now add so there's a g chord there here's an f chord there i can do it here too that would be a c chord b flat chord so just there is four chords [Music] double stops right [Music] those are chords right uh sharp dress man good example [Music] so he's doing that those are fifth chords all right but there's another little way that he spices up chords so let's let's think of an f okay i could play an f here fifth chord power chord i could play these two notes right or how about if i did this i'm playing these two chords and i have this guy which is actually a c chord but that's the fifth of an f chord right then i get this little inversion see how it sounds a little different than this see the difference and that right there a very common thing that you'll hear billy do for instance okay let's look at uh give me all your 11. okay [Music] okay look how little my hands moving i'm playing three chords there okay there's an f there's a b flat or yeah let's see f b flat c i'm just barring right there see how i'm doing that i'm barring that if i play the third and fourth strings that gives me my b flat okay if i put my pinky there at the fifth fret fourth string now it's a c if i drop my pinky down to the fourth string that's an f see that okay so very economic he or economical right i mean he's playing that whole song basically the whole verse without moving he's moving the movement is this okay so billy gibbons uses a lot of those little double stop things [Music] that's just part of his playing right you know he's not the only one that does it right but using just those little two note shapes allows you to first of all play your chords a lot faster but play them without even moving around the neck much okay now if you add your caged chords your knowledge of the cage system that gives you even more chords to play in one spot so let's go back to the third fret remember i could play a g power chord c power chord f power chord uh b flat power chord all in that fret what if i do this little shape i call it the rolling stone shape or the ace freely shape all i'm doing is adding this [Music] that's part of this d sharp uh caged cord based on the c pattern if you don't know caged yet check out my lesson on the cage system but that gives you another [Music] that's a d sharp i can add that's no longer a power chord because that's actually a major chord but you know come back a fret there's a d come up a fret there's an e right so i'm adding more and more chords just in the space of a couple frets you can realistically play every chord in about a three you know three position range you can play every chord right so my challenge for you is to learn all those patterns to where you're not having to look all over the neck makes it a lot easier especially if you sing right if you're able to comfortably reach those different grips without sliding 10 frets up and down the neck here's another thing open chords so let me give you an example billy gibbons [Music] so uh jesus just left chicago okay all i'm this is a g chord right g chord i'm playing the g with my ring finger on the third fret i'm deadening the fifth string [Music] so it's like a g over c all i'm doing is putting down those strings from my c shape right [Music] and then you go up to the c this one's a little trickier but the same thing i'm not even playing the high e not even worrying about the high e now on the c now i'm going to drop my middle finger to the f and then put down my pinky right below my uh c note so on the third string or fourth string third fret that gives me my f shape so see how i do the c [Music] back to the g but again very economical so he does it even on on open type chords billy gibbons is worth studying guys not just for his lead stuff his lead stuff's phenomenal his tone is phenomenal but the way he uses chords in just these little chunks you add volume you add gain and these little two note chunks become massive okay so that's your homework assignment find a spot on your guitar milk out as many chords as you can without moving your hand and think about the lazy technique of billy gibbons hope that helps thanks so much for watching check out our podcast and we'll see you on the next classic guitar rock thanks bye

Channel: Classic Guitar Rock

Views: 659,680

Keywords: billy gibbons, zz top, zz top guitar lesson, classic rock, classic rock guitar lesson, guitar lesson, classic guitar rock, gimme all your lovin guitar lesson, jeremy lunnen, classic rock podcast, podcast

Id: 3oy1GXQtc8A

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021