Mark Knopfler Showing his magic on an acoustic guitar

I think I did my learning to be very beginning it was on my electric guitar learning to use a pic important thing with a pic is that it's it's it's really the biggest amplifier that there is I've got one somewhere um so just a piece of plastic like that and you hold it you try and hold it in a comfortable way I learned to the first chords of E minor and of course the natural thing is to go down and you have to learn to go up to get some speed because as much faster than fingers actually a pick is louder and faster in it and it makes for a better recording noise is he able to go up and down to alternate so when you're playing it's not all down down like down down down down it's so it's up and down all the time but it didn't take me long before you know I was learning to to finger papers are just backing friends big sister and she wanted to sing in folk clubs and stuff so and had a little pal who was one Everly brother and I was the other one do you remember your finger picking moment the moment when you thought yeah this is for me it begins really with yellow just you can either use three fingers or two I think I started using three but the tricky bit you the tricky bit was getting was making that big step leap forward into the claw hammer style where the thumb is playing four beats to the bar and not like one sometimes you'll just get somebody whose finger styling but they're only doing a sort of a singing nun kind of a deal where you've got a one thumb and and then that this but what you've got to try to do is to get the thing going one two three four right there and then you once you once you get used to that pattern for instance on a C chord where the the root note is on the fifth string there you know you try and get something going the words and then to get the fingers - kind of yeah the cord just sits there that's not doing anything we know that okay now you got a battle to get that to sound right anyway not you know sounding like dampen all out of the strings and so forth you just get to be have to practice the chords so that they sing but then getting this good in this thing was a breakthrough point definitely for me because once the fingers start finding a way around suddenly instead of oh it's just it's something get a rhythm to it you know and you can Lenny then you learn to pick out choose with the lick then it going on you I've suppose I began with a with a basic folk pick and then you know as a sort of gone into the country blues players and more of my teens you know the blind Blake's and biodynamic tales and so on and so forth you start to play more of it like a piano style with a thumb and so it's still based around that you know that so you get you know so you kind of start to play like a little bit of a ragtime you know and then it in da the summer stroke plain nose like it's like piano licks and then and then I just sort of started develop playing rhythms where the my fingers are coming down onto the they're breaking the rules if you like coming down onto the lower strings and the thumbs coming up onto the top strings and this is a guitar teachers nightmare because I'm not really doing it the way it's supposed to be done and so no one taught you not really uh I started with a basic little chord book and I think it was a shadows guitar tutor book that I don't even know whether it had much to do with them I'm not sure but it talking about making it being the pick going up and down it had a couple of little chord diagrams little fingers then you had to work out well this is your first finger in the city second and that's the first string in this is a second and story my life knows it starts somewhere and end up somewhere else and how long did it take you it was painstaking well yeah I think it is it yeah it's falling asleep playing and wanting to do it you've got to really want to want to do do it I have to really want to be able to play

Channel: chanchoconhipo

Views: 13,028,242

Keywords: Mark, Knopfler, guitar, acoustic, dire, straits, blues, rock, folck, interview

Id: i_7feGF9TA8

Length: 6min 35sec (395 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 10 2008

Reddit Comments

[u/ElectricMoose]

Mark Knopfler was what got me into guitar back in the day, but oh man did that video escalate quickly.

[u/Pointyboot]

I don't know who the best guitarist in the world is but I know Knopler keeps him up at night.

[u/Rhomboid]

Obligatory

[u/Kanuck88]

Such a underated guitarist,Dire Sraits are a fantastic band and have tons of great songs other than Money For Nothing and The Sultans Of Swing. Their album Brothers In Arms is probally one of the best albums ever made.

[u/[deleted]]

That was a really good video! Knopfler has such a unique technique, it's something I really admire and try to emulate but unfortunately I'm terrible at playing the guitar... :(

[u/monkey_zen]

The guy really makes a guitar sing. Be sure to check out the video of him and Chet Atkins doing a medley.

[u/[deleted]]

Now I know why my dad always used to listen to him

[u/myringotomy]

You can see an example of this technique here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wTVLIZaxMk