Thanks! As I said earlier this is a work in progress. I’ll end up reredording the whle thing. Right now most of the leads are harmonized. It is going to end up with one guitar hard right and one hard left. They will do some runs together and some in harmony. I am not sure yet exactly how it is going to work, I’ll wait until I get it all recorded then figure it out when I mix it. FTR, the guitars are dry except I tweaked one track because there was an odd low end resonance that only went away if I pulled out some lower freqs.
I was trying different positions on the neck to see which chord forms sounded most Stones-like to me. It helps that they often have more than one guitar part to choose from.
I am somewhat challenged when keeping to a tempo, and also helps to imagine Charlie Watts pounding a backbeat into my head.
I was practicing yesterday to keep the fingers going in sub-zero weather. (Dang it has been cold here the last couple of days.) I played:
Three of a Perfect Pair (King Crimson)–I finger-pick it since my flat-picking chops won’t cut it. Not suck-friendly!
Every Little Thing–the Ra version. Fun!
Leave It (Yes)–we’re doing an acoustic version
Dov’e L’Amore (Cher)–Paula insisted. It’s fun to fake some Flamenco chops (of which I don’t actually have any)
Then I put on some other stuff and just soloed over the changes: Heaven (Los Lonely Boys), Runaway (Bonnie Raitt), Hey Joe (Buckwheat Zydeco), Seven Bridges Road (Eagles), No Time (Robin Trower), Don’t Take Me Alive (Steely Dan).
Oh, yeah, and I started working on The Key to Her Ferrari (Thomas Dolby). There’s a great tune!
Here’s the trick to Brown Sugar - Keef plays a 5-string guitar (lowest string - the 6th string low E - is removed and the 5th and 1st strings are altered). Since I don’t have enought guitars or a roadie to swap guit’s during a gig, I do what I call a Cheater’s G:
first, de-tune the A string (2nd lowest) down a full step to G - basically just pick the 3rd string open G and detune the 5th string down until they are an octave apart.
Now, play with your thumb over the top of the neck to mute the low E string, and have your fingers curled up around the neck so the fleshy part of your index finger at the base is muting the high E string - you are now effectively playing a 4 string guitar, tuned to G.
Go to the 12th fret and barre those middle four strings with your index finger (taking care to keep the fleshy part of the base of your finger muting the high E)
for the opening chord riff, put your middle finger on the second string, 13th fret and your ring finger on the 4th string, 14th fret. Hit that once with those fingers in place and once with them up and just your index. At that point you should be hearing full-on Keef. Oh, have your pickup selector in the neck position - key.
Once you hit those two downstrokes, drop your index down to the 5th fret and play index barred only, index barred only, then hammer-on your middle on 2nd string/6th fret and middle on 4th string/7th fret (same chord form as up at the 12th). Do you hear the end of the starting riff?
Do that combo - 12th riff down to 5th riff - 4 times
When the song shifts to the main song riff - go to the 8th fret, then down to the 5th, then 1st, then 3rd, then back to the 5th. At each spot, you are alternating between just index and the same middle/ring hammer-on I have already described. Yes, Keef is playing two simple alternating chord forms up and down the neck - that’s it. Listen to the track and you get get a feel for how to hammer-on the middle/ring chord at each position. Definitely strum - not just down strokes for this riff.
Let me know if this helps - and if you want info on the chords under the verses…
