THE BEATLES' 35 Greatest Guitar Techniques!

what's up everybody it's Mike here from the art of guitar I'm really excited about today we're gonna be doing the Beatles guitar techniques the greatest Beatles guitar techniques I haven't counted how many there are but I think there's over 30 in this list so I'm excited about it because I don't think the Beatles get as much credit this films funny saying that about the Beatles but for their guitar techniques I think a lot of its their songwriting you know how they change the whole world back then in only a few years if you really look at how long the Beatles were around for it's probably not as long as you as you think and it's pretty amazing that they made that big of a difference in music and the world just in that short amount of time real quick this one has so many techniques that I'm not gonna spend very much time at all going in deep like I always say you can go to the website the art of guitar calm for all the details on everything but today is all about showing the techniques for the most part I'll teach a little bit but I really want to get through all of them today and it's pretty late right now it's like 2:00 in the morning so I want to make sure I get everything done before the Sun comes up one thing the Beatles weren't afraid to do was use strange ideas for solos so sometimes they would just follow the vocal lines sometimes they would do like a simple scale sometimes they would just do craziness but for this particular solo they basically just played a melody line on the little strings which not a lot of bands do a lot of people think soloing and they think up high you know higher notes but in this example they use a really cool melody line on the first on the fattest two strings so the sixth string in the fifth string for the most part [Music] and with the magic of post-production hopefully added a guitar to that so the Beatles weren't afraid to use jazzy record sometimes and they would throw the minute really interesting places that you wouldn't quite expect for example at the end of one of their songs they go like this so quite a few of their songs they lend a song and not a typical courts not just a major or minor chord sometimes we'll do a major seven sometimes a 13 chord but that's just one example here's another one [Music] so in that they had some minor chords and then there was a G 13 love that sound now remember on the website we teach about all these extensions and how to add them to your triads to make bigger chords and then at the end there's a C but all of a sudden there's a c7 a dominant seven really that's the sound of the Beatles in my opinion the dominant seven chord all right if you ever get a Beatles music book like a tab book or a you know transcriptions of any kind you'll notice that on the acoustic guitar there's a lot of g6 chords in there and you might go what's wiser a g6 chord thrown in all the time between chords what I realized is that the way John Lennon plays a lot of the times is he'll play a chord and then instead of just switching instantly to the next chord let's say C to D he'll throw in a bunch of open strings so he'll do something like this do you hear the kind of a bundle of open strings so that's actually a g6 chord if you just hit those open so whenever you see that in a tab book remember that that's the gentleman and tenancy so in the next few examples you're gonna hear this actually for a lot of examples you're gonna hear that sort of thing but I'm not gonna mention it just realize that that's what John did quite a bit whenever you played rhythm okay so in this tune we've got triplet strumming and this could be a little bit tricky for people because we're not used to going like this it's kind of tough to do that especially when you're changing chords as you're doing it so I'm gonna do a slower version of it just to show you the transitions going on and realize that John was a really good chord Smith if you will he was able to play the chords on the higher strings and he didn't always have to play full chord shapes like sometimes we want to do because we're used to him so for example f-sharp minor to be major to emajor like this kind of interesting add your pinky c-sharp minor' move it up change the shape a little bit you have a major back to f-sharp minor d-major by adding the middle finger and then finally a b7 by adding your pinky back home - yes sir now this is where that g6 would come into play cuz John would go like this [Applause] there's the open G second [Music] some of them he wouldn't need the g6 because he could go instantly into the next chord but if there's a big jump you would hear that and from here you don't need it because you just add the middle finger and here you don't need it because you got just have to add the pinkie in the back home so that's for all my lovin if you know that song you'll know that that's the feel of it go ahead and try to get those changes in and realize if you don't know what's going on for these chord shapes it's because you might not know your Caged system chords very well but something we like to teach a lot as well all right one time I had to play with Beatles tribute and this is the solo I had to nail I was kind of nervous because I'm wasn't used to playing these type of solos and what it is it's double stopped soloing that George does in this particular one it's very interesting for example it's stuff like this so it kind of walks up like a bass line which we're gonna cover later once you have the chord shape it's not all about just playing arpeggios you actually have to play two notes at a time with a string in between a lot of the times they end up with this that's sound cool so if you add that it really decorates the sound and you can call it a solo because it's a solo break but you don't have to do a lot of moving with a hand if you're gonna keep a chord shape and just play the two notes with the right hand just like that now don't get me wrong there is gonna be some moving around because this double stop idea can take you around the neck a little bit just keep in mind that this is just a lot of theory to this right now that we're not going to explain but just watch how it decorates the the solo section okay so cuz I'm really glad I joined the country band for a while because that's when I got better at Travis picking that helps so much with these Beatles solos there was a lot of Spanish influence especially in the early Beatles stuff and if you listen to George's solo until there was you it's actually very Spanish sounding and just love the feel of it it's kind of exotic and they're using some diminished climbs there's a lot of cool things happening so check it out [Music] so it's really cool when a band has a defining chord sound for a song and it's kind of cool when this song starts it starts off with one big chord and you just know what song it is off that one core because it's so definitive there's one tip of rotating lick that I really like playing and the beetles do this in this song and it goes like this I think of it as a circular 3 motion [Music] like that you probably heard that a few Beatles tunes but here's the context if that's used in and by the way bands like Skynyrd and Zeppelin use this too so it's kind of a cool thing that you can use in a lot of different situations a [Music] great way to add some drama to your chords instead of just going like this [Music] do what John likes to do and give it a little double hit right beforehand so it ends up sounding like this [Music] it's a pretty simple technique once you get that flick of the wrist down but it adds a lot to your chords so something that would seem kind of laid-back can also be very dramatic to practice that I like to mute the strings and just just give it some hits like that get used to that double hit in the beginning the Beatles were not afraid to break a few rules here and there now when it comes to just standard chord theory when you start learning you might think that this is against the rules and you're not supposed to use them but that's exactly why you should use them eventually because it's fun to break the rules it creates things that are a little bit more interesting to listen to a little bit off the beaten path here's kind of a simple idea take a major chord that's in your song and just make it a minor chord every once in a while it kind of changes things up a bit so let's say if we started here and all of a sudden we went to a minor version so here's an example in the song called I'll be back which is one of my favorite Beatles tunes [Music] isn't that cool when I go around the big circle we go back to major but then when they start to sing they go to the minor it's a very interesting sound by the way this happens in nowhere man as well so you're an E goes to be to a to eat f-sharp minor to a minor the south [Music] a lot of people think you can't do that like if you use an a major and a song they think you have to use it for the whole thing but go ahead and do what the Beatles did break the rules once in a while so here's another example of some that might trip you up a little bit you might think it's against the rules to do this works great in a Beals tune so we're gonna take a 1 chord which is D [Music] and then our two chords actually going to be e major so that's kind of a Beatles sound major one chord major two chord and we go to the forecourt [Music] back to the one chord so it's kind of strange usually in songs the one chords of major and the two chords a minor this is what it should sound like if you followed major chord theory right off the bat [Music] but the Beatles make that two chord a major it's kind of their sound and you get something very interesting [Music] to me it always sounds like it wants to come full circle when you hit that two cord wants to come back home but in a different way than you're used to so you may have been familiar with that last tune 80s a week well the beginning there's a really interesting thing happening chords basically being played as triads but the open e strings ringing out over all of it so check this out this would be a D over an e string then we're going to move the Triad up so it's e over an e string so that makes sense then we move it up to the G so now G with the e ringing at the top and then back home to the D so it colors the Triads in a really great way it's a great intro for a son here's a lick that I believe George had trouble with in the studio I can see why if you don't have the right way to pick this it could be kind of brutal to play but it goes like this [Music] now I'm sort of doing the Travis picking country version I don't think that's what he does maybe he does that you could also alternate pick it [Music] that's kind of difficult because going that fast across the strings can be a little bit difficult for some people you could do all downstrokes I don't like that way because you have to get back to the beginning and then just start strumming down and the last option that I can think of is do an upstroke for the first one and down stroke for the rest of them that one might seem the weirdest but I'm finding that that works pretty well whenever you have to go across multiple strings in a sweeping motion something you don't hear a lot of songs are quarter note triplets so if you're counting one two three triplet could be one that sounds kind of tribal but the Beatles utilize this in a really great way just in the beginning intro or Peggy oh that they do doesn't catch the beat in a great way instead of going like this which would be more of a straight way to play it they're going since Paul McCartney was such a big driving force in the Beatles I realized a lot of his bass lines are utilized in the guitar part as well so you might hear the bass and guitar mimicking each other for some parts for rhythms and here's a great way to do that if you're indie for example let's take the first three notes of the major scale reach up to the five remember the intervals are very important we teach them on the website if you don't know what I'm talking about go there check them out okay so we have this rode notes second third fifth and then you just put it in a great rhythm that's a fun way to dress up a chord let's say for just going like this throw this in but the way they use it in this song they actually move to different chords so they start off at D and then go to G C it's the same shape so it's kind of easy Michelle has to be one of their most musical guitar songs that I can think of and there's a part where they go to a diminished chord and there's a really great slide that happens now if you don't know this about diminished chords if you take a diminished chord you could bring it up a minor third you could think of it as moving up three frets one two three and you'll end up with the same chord just a different combination of these notes so it's like a different inversion of these notes you could move it up again you just keep going if you want to but the way they use it in michelle's they go like this [Music] not exactly but that's the concept same with diminished lakes so if you ever do any kind of like Yngwie Malmsteen type stuff where you're doing some sort of say I just moved it up three frets and it worked you just keep going and sounds pretty awesome alright the famous Dorian solo in the taxman song where I believe Paul plays the solo could be wrong but I believe that's true now listen how using a mode in a solo can actually change the whole sound so it's not just a typical minor or a major sound [Music] it's one of the most erratic solos I've ever heard and if you listen to the song it just kind of jumps out does its thing and then goes away comes back later but so the D string is sort of acting like a pedal tone but as you're playing around with it you could hear that dorian sound come out remember Dorian's a minor with a raised sixth so it'll sound like this by the way so when I slide down [Music] I'm Jude Orion sound right there one of my favorite trippy Beatles tunes Tomorrow Never Knows has this backwards guitar song the whole song sounds like it's kind of backwards and all over the place but the guitar part in particular is really interesting to me they use this backwards guitar effect and a few songs but in this one it's really effective in my opinion and to do it what I'm using is just a line six delay pedal with a reverse function in it but it's fun to mess around and see what sounds good in Reverse and what doesn't so I actually took it and flipped it around in Pro Tools and listened to it and I'll show you kind of what they were doing so forward it was kind of licks like this it was sort of pentatonic based like uh and they did a lot of stops like that so it's kind of funny kind of sounded reverse just forward but then when you reverse it it goes like this [Music] as you know when things are backwards it sounds subliminal or something kind of like if I said this machine irva see it works alright get out your light if you're playing acoustic one thing that John does really effectively I believe John did this when he starts a song I'm only sleeping there's a great backwards rake that he does with E minor chord and that's where you take your pick and let's just put it on the high string and we're just gonna rake it backwards we're gonna hold the chord with the left hand watch the right hand every time I do that if if it's a new student they always think that's the coolest sound it's sort of that Spanish thing once again with a minor chord so great way to start a song especially for gonna go right into strumming afterwards [Music] okay there's a specific Beatles finger-picking pattern that you should learn so what we'll do is we'll start off with a D chord by the way I did drop D tuning that's where you take your E string and bring it down to D so do that before you get started now the general rule for finger picking that I like to follow is my thumb takes care of the big three strings and then my index finger will take care of the third string middle will take care of the second ring will take care of the first so you're gonna see me doing that quite a bit with this so the pattern goes like this the thumb will play the fifth string while the ring finger plays the first string [Music] just like that then we fill in the middle a little bit watch what happens [Music] so I went thumb and ring finger then I went to the middle two strings and I went thumb index finger so if you put it together you get that now what we do is we take our thumb and we play the sixth string by itself and then our middle finger will play the second string so I know it's getting a little confusing because now the thumbs are moving around a lot but watch what happens if you go really slow now on top of what I taught you to do the thumb actually comes back at the end hits and hits the fourth string very important for it to do that that way it has this really great walking sequence that it has to do I'm gonna play it almost full-speed just watch the thumb the whole time once you can't your thumb to do that it's like having a bass player playing with you it's great and once again going back to that Spanish idea they'll even use it for an entire intro [Music] there's something really great about the way the Beatles did descending chords and when I say that sometimes I mean they'll keep the same core but there's gonna be something about it that's descending and a good example of that is the chords in while my guitar gently weeps so if you're familiar with that you know you start with a minor but then there's a G underneath that there's one of the descending parts right there and that wasn't a half stuff that was a whole step dissension there and then the middle finger comes up leaves its post and creates this D they call it a d9 over F sharp I call it the Radiohead chord I just know it from Karma please and then f is the final chord of that part we have a minor we add the G as the base note F sharp is the base now and then in just an F chord I actually like to use my thumb for that version of it the Jimi Hendrix that way you're going from this to that it's not that big of a difference and then you can go right back home today a minor the song something also has that vibe where you're in C major then you release the index finger creating a c-major seven it's walking down then a C dominant seven you have the pinky on the b-flat so really the Hyatt the high notes go like this that's the sound it's doing so here's what we have there's the B there's the b-flat and then when they do go to the a they end up with the F chord again seems to be their go-to chord for the end of those dissensions so I believe it was Eric Clapton that played this solo in well my guitar gently weeps and he does this really great weeping sound with a guitar and a lot of us just rocking out in a minor but you get this nice if you ever tried to make your guitar cry before you can use a wah pedal that helps to but the way Clapton's doing it in this song is you're bending the note and then you're vibrato in it if I can use that term and as you're doing the vibrato you're releasing the bend so it sounds like a weeping like a crying type thing what I want you to do is mess with different levels of that so try to keep doing vibrato even if you're up here and down here so keep it going all right let's slow it down a little bit you the Beatles were not afraid of dissonance and in helter skelter you can really hear that right off the bat this is pretty heavy for the time it goes like this [Music] here's a great concept follow the vocal with the guitar and play it like you would a lead part mix for a great blues line and then John sings over the top about to match it I don't know who matched who but either way it turned out to be a great line especially when there's the harmony [Music] then I was cutting my ear that little and on the recording he decides to hit the high harmony with his voice which blew my mind all right of course we have to talk about Blackbird and the two things I love about Blackbird are these columns spread thirds their third intervals but they're not right next to each other like this they're spread out across the fretboard so you get this sound sort of a chili-pepper sound if you're familiar with our lesson that I did on John Frusciante that's in there but what Paul does is he adds the open G so that becomes what's called a pedal tone so we're in G actually but if you keep hitting the g string in between each one of these you get a very interesting sound [Music] one of my favorite Beatles songs to play one time I had to play it at a wedding for about 20 minutes straight a song a lot of guitar players like to play as here comes the Sun and I really like how he takes basic chord shapes Capo's it by the way at the 7th fret and really dresses them up so instead of just hitting a chord [Music] there's a lot of this going on [Music] you know the melody comes out in that too so it shows that whatever chord you're playing the melody is hiding in there just a few little move sometimes is all it takes so for songs like a day in the life or help you'll notice that the rhythm of the acoustic guitar is interesting because it's not just this you know it's not full strums the entire time what they're really good at doing is utilizing each chord and breaking it in half kind of like a piano player can play both hands low and high well with the chords you can also do the same thing you just have to strum the low strings and the high strings separately so you get this back and forth kind of balanced rhythm sound if you go like this [Music] I'm like when you're a kid you hear those people singing kids songs usually the rhythm is like that and what that does is it allows the guitar to sound like it has a bass player actually playing with you helps a lot low high low high switch around the chord [Music] so that's a good idea whenever you're doing your cords let's say you're doing GC @ 9d [Music] well maybe try going like this [Music] you should really get to know all of your shapes are on the guitar that way you can play up high know your notes as well and instead of doing full chords all the time you can just do little triads now it's a lot of fun when you're just basically trying to do a second guitar part so for example instead of doing an entire chord you could also do something like this it's kind of like what John was doing when he was doing the fast triplet strums like we talked about early on but we're breaking it up into an arpeggio pattern this time this can be gold in the studio when you just need that one more part to go over the top of what's already happening George Harrison really got into slide guitar and it's a great technique to add I had never really dedicated myself to it but in the last five years I've really grown to love slide guitar and so in the beginning of free as a bird I was really excited to hear and play this part it's real simple but it's really effective [Music] always makes me sad cuz I think of the video and John Lennon doing the demo and how he's not here or George anymore and it's kind of emotional when I play that there are some really cool hammer-on riffs that the Beatles do and one of them goes like this [Music] and I love those hammer ons because it gives it sort of a riding bouncy kind of feel you also hear that in paperback writer [Music] one of my favorite all-time Beatles riffs as well as this one if you listen to come together the guitar is doing a subtle thing but it's a hammer-on trick again [Music] and the base of course is doing the iconic one of those not so uncommon moments when the base is doing something cooler than the guitar in the Beatles song if you've seen our Jimi Hendrix video you'll remember that idea of taking two notes and hammering on on one of the strings but not the other so you get this really great sound out of it and you can think of it as this your root note is e in this case we're moving up and we're gonna play the second interval in the fifth interval at the same time but we're not gonna play that second for very long because we're gonna hammer onto that third interval while holding the fifth interval so it's a little bit tricky so you have to skip over that fourth string in order to not interfere with the fifth interval well if you use that idea and move it around you get this great sound that they use and don't let me down one of my favorite Beatles riffs of all time is basically just outlining a dominant chord remember I said before that that's the sound of the Beatles so if you take a d7 and a c7 and you dress it up a little bit you get this [Music] Cathy and I went to g7 so it's D 7 C 7 g7 all dominant chords and they just mess around with a little bit make it more interesting and that's the sound you get but keep in mind it's just dressing a dominant seventh chord before I knew that I didn't realize it so I was thinking the riff was way harder than it was I mean it is hard to stretch and everything but if you just keep in mind the basic idea underneath it all it makes way more sense kind of like when you play DayTripper this riff for that time you notice if you think of an e7 chord it's outlying that to the major third so that song is just all dominant chords even the b7 that was a tough one that was gonna move around a lot for that pentatonic is a big scale for the Beatles and they use it blatantly sometimes in a good way so for example in the let it be so [Music] I'll see major pentatonic but used in a very creative way but you could see it's very boxy very pentatonic hello that's light at the end that's just so crazy but that's another example of just straight pentatonic licks also and get back I love that a little bit of that country sound that seemed to creep up once in a while on the Beatles and a great way to base an entire song off of one chord say if you take D capo at the second fret and you just add to it watch what they do [Music] that's what I would call a pedal tone cord because the D is underneath all that it's kind of like a bake pipe or something where there's just this droning D and over-the-top is one of the most classic riffs of all time utilizing one chord okay everybody that was a lot of techniques I know we just blew through them but I wanted to showcase them for you thanks for watching we have a lot of artists series coming up still a lot of lessons challenge solos practice the lungs all that good stuff we're putting up at the main website so check out our main website for all that stuff but YouTube will keep giving you some fun stuff now and again so once again thanks for watching like I said the Beatles were a huge influence on my life one of the biggest if you looked around my room you just see Beatles stuff everywhere so I guess that's it we'll talk to you soon and see it the next lesson okay

Channel: The-Art-of-Guitar

Views: 2,190,830

Rating: 4.8475161 out of 5

Keywords: ultimate black belt guitar, guitar, lessons, theory, beginners, advance, lesson, electric, acoustic, the beatles, the art of guitar, the beetles, beatels, paul mccartney, john lennon, ringo starr, george harrison, slide guitar, let it be, 35 greatest techniques, the artist series, how to play

Id: gjqUUafzBg4

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Four_Minute_Mile]

He starts playing at 01:25

I understand this will be for the minority here but I hope you do enjoy it. I thought that it was a really well put together & researched video.