It’s IMPOSSIBLE to play this guitar part

one of the coolest riffs one of the most iconic rips ever of all time yeah it doesn't sound that complicated but then you try and play it go ahead and try to play it no I'm not gonna embarrass myself on live TV welcome back to dead wax okay this is very exciting we have Mason soups with us this is Mason Stoops an amazing session guitarist who's played with artists like Jackson Brown Marcus Mumford James Taylor Katy Perry so many more we're gonna listen to one of his favorite bands Dire Straits Money for Nothing here we go let's Dive Right In take a listen absolutely refrigerators [Music] all right there's a lot to break down there's a lot to talk about here the thing that just sticks out to me the coolest [ __ ] thing about the whole song is we're in we're in this G minor kind of thing the whole time that guitar is there and then that chorus [Music] and then you're back here but no yeah one two three four and then back to G minor six major yeah [Music] when you go four five six major and then that extra couple bars it sounds like the like the way that he's using that six Majors it sounds like we're about to modulate but then we don't no yeah we don't we go right back to that G minor thing but the way he also if you listen to the vocal e yeah [Music] he he literally like raises it up with a swooping kind of thing which is exactly what it feels like it's a lifting kind of motion there okay so that's sting yeah Sting happened to be in the studio correct me if I'm wrong YouTube but I think the story goes this thing was working in a studio when in a different room while they were working on this song and yeah you know some conversations happen it's like why don't you hop in and work on this so it might have been a little more official than that it might have been way less more official than that but either way it's like it's kind of the glue of the song I mean amongst many elements but having especially at that time I mean we're talking 80s like having steak Yeah Yeah plus I love how Sting's voice contrasts with Knopfler like yeah entirely opposites entirely opposite yeah all right so the story is Knopfler was I believe he was at a bar and he was at a hardware store and he's overhearing these two guys there's the TV on in the bar and they're watching it's on MTV and they're watching a band playing it's like we could do that what are we doing like we could we could put on makeup we could play guitars like you know here we are installing refrigerators and stuff and he just started writing down their whole conversation he wrote down everything they said and then he made a song out of that I love that he's talking about refrigerators and microwaves and color TVs color TVs yeah it's such a cool contrast to I mean like lyrically and in the recording it's like what what Universe are we in what era are we in if there was like a board meeting of songwriters or labels and they were pitching like all right what is everyone what are some of my song ideas to really make a lot of money and so we could write another one about heartbreak that's good okay maybe heartbreak uh maybe one about uh being being lonely that's good and then one guy that was like let's write one about installing microwaves and televisions and color TVs that one yeah let's choose that one get that guy out of here can we talk about this epic introduction for a second yeah [Music] unnecessary they didn't need to hit us that hard with an intro like that because it's such a contrast to the mood in the rest of the song you think we're gonna be in like you know race mode with with the whole Blade Runner team yeah and where you know where it's going to be Tron and like you know and instead this like funky electric guitar thing comes in with bluesy electric guitar but like for a while we're in tronland perfect segue into talking about this guitar part okay can we talk about first the tone yeah what is happening I mean Knopfler is known for iconic Strat tones exactly what is happening with this tone this song is so important in knopfler's career because he had Dire Straits first album was I believe 1979 right and if you go back to it it's a strat it's the cleanest Strat Tone ever recorded it's like and they wrote hits with strap tones and then you fast forward to the 80s and everything is high Distortion High Gain guitars and there's like he almost got made fun of her there not being a place for Dire Straits you know it's like we're past that clean guitar stuff now like move out of the way yeah and instead of moving out of the way he writes what became maybe the biggest selling hit of the entire decade with a Les Paul into a fixed wall it was a Les Paul junior went to a fixed wall into a marshall like the exact opposite of his rig and still managed to blow everybody else out of the water a fixed walk yeah it's just a wah turned on but just left in one position wow yeah that's so cool into a marshall into America so Les Paul Jr fixed wall into Marshall turned all the way up probably I mean how else do you turn them you know what else do you do with them is such a cool sound and the other really fascinating thing about it's an incredibly hard riff wait that's this sound with this riff can we hear that riff [Music] one of the coolest riffs one of the most iconic riffs ever of all time yeah and what's so cool about it is it's got the simple and complicated thing like listening to it it kind of sounds it doesn't sound that complicated but then you try and play it go ahead and try to play it no I'm not gonna embarrass myself on live TV you try and play it all right I can show you guys here how you get a different guitar yeah because I'm tuned down a whole step on this and this is in standard tuning here play my guitar so what's fascinating about this guitar it's like this guitar part shouldn't exist noffler took what's essentially a banjo roll you know that kind of yeah [Music] all that kind of fast finger picking stuff he he used to do right especially when he was learning Bluegrass so if you start from the banjo-roll thing most guitar players can't do this this is you you're the perfect guy to have explaining this part because you play almost always with your hands yeah not flirt plays almost always with this I mean he's why I do I mean and you're you the tone that you get with your hands out of a guitar is some Secret Sauce that you cannot buy but also okay so check this out you're doing a back beat with your with this finger yep middle fingers doing the middle finger is doing BackBeat and you're kind of doing play just your thumb so your thumb is kind of playing four on the floor against this finger which is playing backwards okay now put put the rest of the part together so if you do it from the song [Music] [ __ ] that is so it's so cool you're getting all these like harmonics out of like where you're playing guitar when you do the fixed wah thing with the distortion on the amp it's just harmonics are just leaping off the guitar and you hear it in the recording you do yeah yeah it is a impossible to replicate part that it really is yeah it's and and just once again if you had a board boardroom meeting of like how are we gonna write a hit song and someone said what if we took a banjo rule slowed it down put it through a fixed wall yeah into a Marshall and sung about refrigerators and microwaves yeah how did that guy get back in the building oh and let's get Sting on it yeah that's just it shouldn't exist like this song shouldn't exist it shouldn't have been as huge of a hit as it was it was the first I think music video that MTV aired that was computer animated like there was a lot of Firsts it just it's crazy that this song exists was this your gateway into like what made you obsess with Knopfler anytime I hear this song I'm immediately transported back to being in the back seat of like my dad's truck he played it for you yeah I grew up on Dire Straits noffler and and it was from there my dad got into solo noffler which then got me into Solon offer which if you've listened to any of it is is truly the opposite of Dire Straits and the opposite of this it's a very different experience he's like taking it back seat to all of the the flashiness Mason what what about nopfler's playing influenced your playing like what what are the elements of Knopfler that we hear in you I mean for me like I said if you go back to the solo recording certain I'm not just his solo work it was a moment as a young sponge of a guitar player where it was just this extreme contrast to all the other guitar noise that was happening it was not flashy we played one no you know he would do this thing mm-hmm and I'm that's on the song Back to Tupelo that he does this riff and that it was something to where it's easy to to go fast it's because it's like the map is laid out in front of you but the mystery of making one no sound like it's a whole story is something that like even what you just did that device like the finger rake yeah is very unusual like I feel like normally you hear people do that like that's kind of like here you do it it's kind of like you know a mayorism or a hendrixism or a you know you'll hear people do that a lot but to do that like you just did it with your fingers yeah with the fingers it's more [Music] yeah I feel like it it shaped you in your right hand because yeah you do crazy [ __ ] with your right hand that most people can't do with a pick or with their hands and just your your attention to tone like knoppler is kind of a king of tone yeah he really is I mean it's something that he goes deep on and it kind of sent me on that path early on and just with more and more guitar teachers and instructors telling me you know you really should pick up a pick the more I just was like fu yeah doesn't use a pick I won't either and I'm still I'm still kind of a dick about it so yeah what do you I mean what about you what do you guys have to say about money for nothing I love how many disparate elements it brings into like it's such a cool collage it's such a cool moment in time I think if this was recorded 10 years earlier or 10 years later yeah it would be unrecognizable it's just it's it's such a cool you know record of this moment in time with these you know brilliant people in this room totally [Music] okay so what have you been listening to recently what's been on repeat for you this is a bit of a deep cut but the background singer of my favorite artist uh is is this uh woman named Juliana riolino and she just released a single that I cannot stop playing in my car and it's called Lone Ranger and it's just like a classic song [Music] [Applause] what do you got what you've been listening to uh this one Keith Jarrett tune I love Keith Jarrett but this song in particular has got to be one of my top I think it's called landscape for future Earth what's funny is one of my other favorite pianist is Mel down and when I hear this record I hear where meldau came from and then of course meldau added his own thing and it's incredible but I I heard meldau first and then I heard this and I was like suddenly Mel down made sense to me yeah it was this wonderful recording where it kind of you know I heard one of my heroes Heroes isn't music cool like that where you can trace you could just keep that going keep going it just keeps going and going you can hear like you little moments that developed into whole personalities and people what do you got first round okay someone told me this story recently that I'm going to butcher but Marvin Gaye um was getting divorced from his his wife and as part of the settlement or something he he made an album called here my dear about the whole thing his marriage and his divorce with his wife and it's like a lesser-known Marvin Gaye album there's a song on it called when did you stop loving me when did I stop loving you [Music] Mason would you sign while Simon the red diamond for us I can't believe that's [Music] thank you so much for doing this yeah man for for being here thank you guys for watching uh go check out Mark Knopfler go check out Mason Stoops and his Instagram is is pretty pretty burning um and enjoyable thanks man you're welcome let us know what we should listen to next and we'll see you next week [Music]

Channel: Dead Wax

Views: 564,618

Keywords: professional musicians react, jack conte, ryan lerman, jack conte ceo, ryan lerman guitar, reaction video, patreon ceo, ceo of patreon, patreon, reaction, react to, reactions, musicians react, music reaction, patreon jack conte, scary pockets, react, dead wax, mason stoops, mason stoops guitar, mark knopfler guitar rig, dire straits money for nothing, guitarist reacts, money for nothing guitar tone, sting dire straits money for nothing

Id: vWoXKiyrmqQ

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022