Did Dire Straits Create the Coolest Riff Ever? Yep

streaming did it what's up everyone this is going to be fun today so people always accuse me of not talking about Dire Straits or Mark Knopfler except for the fact that on my biggest video that I've ever had on this channel and I have not only talked about Mark Knopfler but um but I've played uh his songs and had them in numerous videos including my biggest well second biggest video of all time which is my top 20 Greatest solos of all time video and one of the songs that I had which I'm going to talk about today was in that uh but this actually comes back to an interesting story I don't have anything in the chat is there anyone in the chat Billy um you don't see anyone okay so there's people okay people started to come in the chat here the answer is yes to your title [Laughter] Dire Straits has some of the best guitar riffs ever there's there's a couple there's a couple uh um of the the most ridiculously great dire straight guitar riffs ever that are that are Mark knopfler's and as Aaron said kanofla he tried to pronounce it uh in German Aaron is German he's he's on here today he's attempting to get me says that they pronounce the k in German uh before we get started today I'm allowed my one ad here uh which I actually will do a couple times but we have brought back the biato bundle the ultimate bundle for 99 bucks and if you go to my website rickbeauto.com you will see everything on there it's right here oh that looks sweet Aaron actually just redid this redid it and it really looks good it's a uh 77 savings right this is the beata book interactive and if you go on there it shows you what's in everything to be able to book interactive is a 500 page Theory textbook that I wrote 20 years ago that has hundreds of audio examples dozens of video lectures and um and 500 pages of textbook instruction it's really for all instruments but it's made to go along with these live streams really and go along with videos on my channel as well right but I I initially that's what I had said uh but then I added all these um I added all these lectures in it and everything so that you wouldn't be tied to my channel like that my ear training course has 80 videos hundreds of interactive training modules on my beginner guitar course has as for complete beginners uh 28 videos download p uh downloadable PDFs to practice with off screen and then there's my quick lessons Pro guitar course which is a bit more advanced interesting thing uh I have a story to tell but I had Chuck Rainey in this week bass player Chuck rainian Legend 82 years old played on so many great records he played with Quincy Jones he played with King Curtis he played with Aretha Franklin he played on so many records but he's on five Steely Dan records okay and Chuck told me he didn't touch a base until he was 21. now Wes Montgomery didn't play guitar until he was 19. But Chuck is on all these famous records over the like 1500 records 1800 records and never touched a base until he was 21. never touched we started on guitar when he was 20 or so then he picked up a Bass and then he became this amazing uh amazing bass player thank you Jacob your training course has been incredible yeah I appreciate it okay here's my Dire Straits story I've told this before on the channel but I have a visual to go with this and some people Aaron says this sounds like a made-up story Okay so uh Wendy uh no I want to close this thing here uh uh boom when the first Dire Straits record came out which was in 1978 1978 was a very big year Dire Straits first record the police's first record Van Halen's first record and a bunch of other stuff the car's first record ah ridiculous right incredible um so um Dire Straits so so um Sultans of Swing was a huge song on the radio and uh and I just love the guitar solo the guitar work and it's unbelievable and the Riff the main riff I mean the two Money for Nothing is one of the greatest ribs ever recorded but the but uh [Music] the main guitar riff of that of of Sultans of Swing is unbelievable but I'm going to talk about some of the solo work in it and how this relates to this story okay so this I'm going to show a little picture here this is the lift bridge in Fairport New York where I grew up okay this is a boat the colonial Bell going under it this is probably from a couple years ago or so but this gray structure here right here this gray structure this building is the lift bridge operator the guy that or woman that is up there that raises the bridge um to let the boats go under some boats can go under but a lot of the boats the bridge needs to be raised and all traffic is stopped and um but you never would see the person in the lift bridge so one day I'm walking down the street down Main Street in Fairport and I hear this guitar and I hear Sultans of Swing but it's somebody that's playing the guitar solo of it perfectly on a strat I can hear it and I'm kind of nervous right I'm like wait a second is there some lift bridge dude that's amazing guitar player he's just shredding it okay I didn't know it was a he so I get up the nerve to go up to two flights of stairs up to this thing this is like you don't go up to the lift bridge person and interrupt them there wasn't a bug going through at the time so I climb up there and I see this guy and I was like hey I knock on the door and he says hey what's up I startled him and so he says um uh he says um his name was was Johnny right and he was um and he was probably in his mid-20s or so so I was what would I have been in 78 I was in 10th Grade so I was 16. and he's playing guitar and he was just killing it and uh and I said you know that you know that the Sultans of Swing solo he's like oh yeah I was just working on it he goes I you know and he then he played some amazing Blues Licks and everything and I said um I said I play guitar and stuff and and uh and I said um I told him we started talking about stuff and he says that he he wants to learn jazz and I said you know I just learned Donna Lee this Charlie Parker tune he says oh my god well I'll teach you the Dire Straits thing if you'll teach the teach me the Donna Lee so I taught him Donna Lee the Donnelly Melody and then he started teaching me the The Sultans of Swing not just the main not just all the fast licks yeah not just those I'm gonna try and hold it up I'm playing with my fingers let me take this picture down here so you can see this is really awkward to play guitar [Music] okay so um so he started telling me about some of the theory that goes along with this but I want to play the tune and I want to talk about some of the licks that are in it that to me were were really kind of game changers [Music] okay so right there these are these subtle licks that kind of go by and you don't even think about what they are but when it goes on the a chord there he goes [Music] now I had never seen people do that uh and Frampton Comes Alive they have that and certain like Jeff Beck would do looks like this but this is 1978 right and I'm sorry that I'm not playing it on my strap but my strap buzzes too much I have my white Strat right there right under my Mick Jagger picture their painting when I was when he when when he showed me that because he's like these are really the um these are really the licks that uh that you want to look at okay so it's not just the fast Lexus these kind of riffs and then now all this stuff is in my Beatle book and I do a lot of this in my quick lessons Pro and I have this in my ear training course right all these kind of licks but this is a he told me about playing the changes so this guy the lift bridge guy was telling me about how Mark Knopfler makes the changes and making the changes thank you Dan making the changes is playing the notes over the particular chord you're on and it involves certain types of arpeggios this thing though I love the sound of this because this is in Strawberry Fields Forever [Music] George Harrison plays a lick like that I'm I'm screwing it up a little bit I want to get demonetized from I just got demonetized and I said okay so what is that he goes well it has a sus4 in it that's a that's an ad form that's a really great sound over an a major chord an offer let's let's know him play it's very subtle he's playing it with his fingers listen again [Music] you hear the word Jazz right there [Music] they got the mixer didn't quite get the right he was riding the guitar thing this is a mixing I wouldn't say mistake it's kind of a mistake he doesn't start riding the solo lick up until the lick has started he should have gotten the first part louder but that leg [Music] Eric Johnson uh people like that um uh John McLaughlin will play looks like that [Music] um it's a lot of great players will play those David Gilmore will use that so I love love that but let me let me move on competition [Music] and um and these things so the so Johnny the the lift bridge guy started telling me about learning your your arpeggios on three strings right you got F major C major B flat major these are all these are all over the song these inner string arpeggios foreign [Music] those that was game changing right because I thought wow that's how these guys play over right [Music] so right there I'm playing D Minor arpeggio [Music] then I go up to the fifth I'm thinking of this B flat major then [Music] it's he had nine there [Music] I did a c had four there [Music] and then the a right [Music] this changed my life it changed my guitar playing we didn't change my guitar play I only been playing for two years at the time but it showed me kind of A New Path for how people thought differently about soloing Jimmy Page did stuff like this Jeff Beck did stuff like this Brian May did things like this in their solos like Jimmy Page does this really in Stairway to Heaven when he's playing uh the the lick uh in um uh in stairway he go in this one part where he goes um let me think here um um uh let's see I'm trying to oh God how's the stairway solo go um [Music] um right there when the chord progressions go a minor G major to F major Jimmy Page he's goes and I thought why does he play that note there it sounds great why doesn't he play oh well because that's the now that no can sound good but he plays the root of that chord there then he plays um um [Music] then so he goes [Music] he constantly is using that that no F in there he's adding it to that a minor pentatonic scale wherever he needs to do it to make the sound of the chord that's being played underneath it in his ear hears that because Jimmy Page was a session player that played on records all the time so he knew how to outline chords and Mark Knopfler is a master of that right how about the homes they blowing that sound now I can figure these things out but this guy explained why you really need to use this stuff and it's funny because I taught him Donna Lee [Music] let's see [Music] uh I haven't played it in Forever that's a Charlie Parker so [Music] thank you tons of chords in this song right and that uh guitar the the melody that the trumpet plays and the saxophone miles and and a Parker play on it is very sophisticated over the chord changes use a lot of chromaticism and stuff like that so this guy told me he was like just like Charlie Parker and miles are doing Mark Knopfler is doing the same thing by using notes of the chord which are arpeggios and I was like oh so he said you should really practice these arpeggios listen [Music] let me go to the solo here [Music] he's going he goes on the a major chord he's going he goes that sharp five because [Music] he's playing the the arpeggio the outlines that uh altered uh five chord there because we're in the key of A minor in uh D Minor so the a he's using harmonic minor Mark Knopfler is there but he would you know [Music] and he's playing with his finger uh you can't see the Sam I'm playing with my fingers um and then [Music] oh [Music] another c chord he's going once again that c add four it's the same thing you did on the a chord right here he's going [Music] flat seven this is [Music] so this guy this guy Johnny told me to work on those I actually then started working on those things [Music] also those sound amazing right you're playing over a C major chord [Music] and I started working in [Music] I started working at indoor into licks like that right these arpeggios and things like that Mitch you're playing way more interesting when you're actually outlining the chord changes which he keeps doing here [Music] it's so classy right hold on [Music] that here [Music] you know [Music] um all Blues um uh basic Blues Licks and by the way in my biato book I have all all these licks are in there all these kind of basic licks that you need to do along with everything else and the theory behind improvising over chord progressions right how they work together how the key of D Minor one chord flat seven chord flat six major five major and and what is the theory behind these what scales do these come from and then my ear training course teaches you how to hear these things right how do you even hear these licks that that move between this you know [Music] I love the sound of that go to rickpiator.com right now bookmark it I have a sale 99 bucks that's the best deal you'll ever have this is the biggest savings I've ever done on my channel all four of my courses for 99 bucks okay that's a 77 percent savings um Mason Caldwell says Rick is 99 bucks for each or 99 for all because it would be insane I want to learn to play by ear Mason it is all of them for 99 bucks I'm just saying most people sell their courses for like 150 bucks most people on YouTube which is fine that's the full price of of um you know of my um I don't know if any of my courses are 150 bucks they're usually about 100 bucks or so I want people to be able to afford this stuff but this is all of all four of my courses everything I sell for 99 bucks right this is the time to buy it sales going on for the weekend um so let's listen on here because this is uh um licks like that right this is what my ear training course teaches you that's a really unusual uh that's a very weird super cool lick that noffler plays that's pretty much a fingers a lick that you would play with your fingers I think with your right hand it that feels like a right hand finger playing lick so I'm playing all that with finger picking [Music] uh he's playing basically his arpeggio D Minor B flat and then right there [Music] so on the C7 chord there or the C chord [Music] so the so those lines like that this is what what really developed my ear beyond anything this kind of learning this the solos like this solo and solos that were out of the ordinary like Brian May learning his uh solos that followed the chord changes like in Bohemian Rhapsody that have diminished arpeggios and have notes that aren't just in the blues scale or people like BB King that would go from major blue scales to minor blues scales and he would combine him and he would use the the flat seven or guys like Larry Carlton that would do you know that uh oh my god um if I have a G7 chord using that that flat seven [Music] flat the 13. [Music] um right learning those kind of notes that that you don't necessarily um [Music] that you wouldn't necessarily hear or that's really Larry Carlton played looks like that but that's kind of like BB King licks right [Music] okay listening on now these are just arpeggios [Music] that's D minor [Music] this is how I learned the guitar neck was just taking these arpeggios instead of taking a lick like this B flat major that's just a B flat major Triad B flat d f the theory behind that root third fifth [Music] a major chord [Music] and then he goes C major [Music] it's hard to play at an angle like this with the guitar neck straight up but [Music] that's a C major chord right there just C major [Music] see add four C add four with a flat seven [Music] C9 arpeggio [Music] I have all these arpeggios are in my biato book every one of them every arpeggio you can think of all the fingerings to everything they're all written out if you play piano and you want to learn these arpeggios and everything I have all the notes written out what they are how to use them how to go between different ones you know and then understanding the theory why Jimmy Page plays those F Naturals in Stairway to Heaven because he's a session guy and he knows those are the right notes to play over those chords and it sounds more like he's actually what we call making the changes and that was a term that I first heard in high school you're not making the changes man I was like what what does that mean making the what is making the changes mean that means playing the right notes over the chords Chet Atkins made the changes somebody says I miss Chet Atkins um a big influence of Mark Knopfler was Hank Marvin okay um and a lot of these guys and and uh uh guys like Jeff Beck okay Jeff Beck really was kind of a fusion player right so um uh the Brilliance of Jeff Beck wasn't just his Melody playing but he would play these really sophisticated licks that were um that went beyond Rock and went into fusion and that uh there there's some Jeff Beck licks that that I that are just um that really opened my ears that um that opened my ears to this kind of stuff right um to hearing what different combinations of intervals that I hadn't really heard before uh but this is making the changes when he's playing these licks like this D Minor d flat C just play in the arpeggios [Music] so those little arpeggio things this one song has so many uh things once you learn these once you learn these arpeggios [Music] so I would learn those things and I would learn an extra note right I would learn [Music] sounds like Eric Johnson when people hear that stuff those are just arpeggios right um Jeff Beck played arpeggios like that too um [Music] and sometimes you put you start adding these different notes in there [Music] that major 7 there on the B flat chord [Music] I just love those things but that [Music] thank you add the nine I just added the ninth on these things hard to play on this whoops [Music] foreign [Music] those are really interesting sounds I love the sounds of those right Those ads [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so uh so this tune this particular tune in meeting this guy on the bridge just happened to walk by while he was practicing and he was playing these Sultans of Swing solo and I didn't know any of them that played it and there was no YouTube there were no books or anything the song had just come out and he was able to figure this stuff out and uh and he was the one that made me say okay you can play Blues like since I was still playing Hey Joe and I was playing things like that and the things I mean I was able to learn uh you know I played uh what is it Kid Charlemagne back then but I didn't really know what Larry was doing you know I didn't really know what the theory was thank you Adrian what the theory was behind that behind that but uh uh when I this when I started to learn the theory behind it like what is that thank you uh Moscow ritzy best best Marx guitar solo playing around a track called in the gallery uh please play the original audio track I've never heard such a groovy nice guitar in my life uh um uh uh I'm not sure I can play that right now if I can play it on here I know I can play Sultans of Swing because uh um because I've played it on my video that didn't get taken down so I'm always hesitant people ask me why I play certain things and why I don't play certain things I don't play stuff that I don't know will get uh will get blocked or not so I'm not you know that's why I try not to stray away from things on here that will take the video down after I'm after I'm done making it that's that's kind of a kind of an important thing here so uh so the thing about all this is that you have to have a good ear you need to be able to understand what the relationships are you got to be able to hear the difference between this and this there's only one note different there's a d f and there's B flat d f and c e g and even when you're hearing Stairway to Heaven uh hearing that no F there and knowing that's the right note you know [Music] right there that that he adds those F's in there it just makes the solo it makes it just sound not pedestrian it makes it sound so interesting and it's making the changes once again making the changes is um making the changes is playing the right notes over the chord that you're on at the time if you're going that chord I'm on there is B flat major and you want to be able to to make the sound of that chord and know where those arpeggio notes are will make you a uh come out of the minor the D minor pentatonic scale wow I just used something from Stairway to Heaven um [Music] love those sounds there so if you want to learn all the theory behind this if you want to learn how to hear this stuff by ear or if you don't play guitar at all or play piano or play anything go to my rickbeato.com you can get my ear training course you can get my biato book interactive you can get my beginner guitar course you can get my quick lessons Pro course it's really more of an advanced or mid to Advanced guitar course it's hours and hours and hours of instructions I mean frankly the the ear training course you can do for years it starts lit dead beginning um dead beginners like how to match pitch and then gets really complex you know 15 chapters into it and everything but there are hundreds of modules that will train your ear to hear all this stuff so you can figure these things out on your own the whole idea of a teacher is to be able to teach the student how to learn on their own so the teacher's not needed and really what you need teachers for is to evaluate your playing so I always say you need to get a teacher you should always have a private teacher um so they can listen to your playing and evaluate do you have good time are you do you have a good Groove are your bends in tune uh are you playing the changes are you playing your arpeggio fingerings right are you playing your scale fingerings right or on your saxophone or your trumpet or your trombone whatever you're doing your violin um you need a a teacher to evaluate your playing and it's best to be to do it in person okay all right you guys are the best have a great weekend this has been really fun I love Dire Straits love Mark Knopfler I hope to interview him one day I've reached out to him before you guys are the best uh we'll make it happen one of these days I'll see you later take care

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 2,061,333

Keywords: Beato Ear Training, Beato Book, Rick Beato, music education, pop music, Music theory, ear training, guitar theory, rick beato music theory, Rick Beato Music, Rock Music, music, rock, classic rock, 70s, 80s, More Than a Feeling, Amanda, rock band, guitar, synthesizer, hit songs, classic hits, iconic, legendary, rock anthem, rock classic, hit song, dire straits, mark knopfler, Sultans of Swing, dire straits sultans of swing, sultans of swing guitar lesson, British Rock

Id: fIzSGFK364A

Length: 37min 7sec (2227 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023