The 3 Elements of Authentic Rock n Roll (Keith Richards & Chuck Berry)

[00:00:04][music] [music] [music] That sound right there. I spent years and honestly a small fortune trying to get that trying to buy that sound. vintage amp, vintage guitars, all the pedals and equipment under the sun.

[00:00:30]And here's what I finally figured out.

[00:00:32]It's not really about the gear. That thing people say about the tone being in your fingers, it's something more specific even than that. And the cool thing is it's actually learnable.

[00:00:42]There's actually three things that make rock and roll sound like rock and roll.

[00:00:45]And that's the tonality, the feel, and the articulation. And we're going to go through all those things today. And if you get those right, you'll sound authentic through any amp, through any pedal, through any guitar. Right? So, let's break down the most archetypal rock and roll sound that there is, which is Chuck Berry, you know, Keith Richards, that sound, right? The archetypal rock and roll lick.

[00:01:10]So, first of all, you've got the basic tonality. And it's more than just scales. It's more than just chords. So, that's a big part of it, but it's it's really the way the chords and the scales and the notes fit together. It's an approach to music theory or to the notes, how you connect it all together.

[00:01:26]So, I'll show you that in a second. But the feel of the music is also really important. And every kind of music has its own approach to timing, right? It's not just the timing, but it's the way they use the timing, the accents and the groove and the feel, the amount of swing. Like, for example, with Texas Blues, there's a specific way.

[00:01:48]There's a specific way you'd play a swing. the Texas blues, which would be different from the way you play Chicago blues. And then the third thing is the actual sound itself, right? So, you know, even if you're playing the correct notes and you're playing the correct feel, that's a big part of it. But if you got the wrong sound, it's just going to be way off, right? So, the sound obviously comes from your tone. It comes from the gear to a certain extent. Comes from your guitars and your amps. I've done really extensive research into tone, specifically looking at the vintage tone, 50s,60s sounds, you know, bands like the Ventures and Chuck Barry, how they got their sound. And I chased that for years. And the thing that I discovered after trying every piece of gear under the sun is that, you know, it's really about how you use the particular gear you've got and how you articulate and project those notes. So, you know, if you take someone like Stevie Rayborn, he would sound like Stevie Rayborn through whatever equipment you put him through. Brian May sounds like Brian May whether he's playing through a Vox or a Fender. I've seen that myself. I've seen him playing through Fender amps. It sounded just like Brian May. So, rock and roll is a great place to start with this because there's this archetypal sound, right?

[00:02:46]There's this, you know, [music] There's all these licks that everyone uses and they're so amazing, so powerful, you know, and if you understand those licks, you can make it your own and you can take it and transform it into something else. But being able to play it authentically first is really important. So, you know, those archetypal licks come from Chuck Barry. But, you know, even before Chuck Barry, he was influenced by people like Louis Jordan and Louis Jordan's guitarist Carl Hogan. He was influenced by T-Bone Walker. But then, you know, it came to Keith Richards and and Chuck Barry was kind of like Keith Richard's mentor, you know, and he took that sound to a whole another level and he built a career around it, you know. So, you can hear him playing hear him playing this song. This is like a to force for rock and roll guitar playing is that is the Stones's version of Down the Road a piece. [music] That's that classic.

[00:03:37]Just look at the way he's strumming those strings.

[00:03:41]So, that song down the road a piece.

[00:03:42]It's a 1940s kind of jump style blue song. And then Chuck Barry does it in 1960 and then the Stones did it in 1964.

[00:03:49]So let's look at the tonality that's kind of going on there. So the tonality of rock and roll isn't major and it's not minor and it's actually not even modal either. It's derived from the sound of the boogie woogie beat, right?

[00:04:02]Which is this. [music] That's the sound of the boogie wiggy rolling baseline, right? and that contains the notes that are used in rock and roll. So this is essentially the underlying tonality of rock and roll and it comes essentially from a baseline. So if you play those notes an octave higher. So if you play those notes, right, you've got [music] rather than a scale, I'm going to think of it like a ladder of notes that are reflecting the sound of the chord, right? So, what you've got is you got the root note and then you got this minor to major minor third to major [music] little chromatic slide and then you're going to walk up from the fifth, the sixth to the flat 7. All right? So, that's the sound. [music] Now, if you take that up an octave, that's what Keith Richards is playing right there. Right? But he's essentially he's playing that minor to major triad chord. [music] That's a triad, right? sliding in from the minor or hammering in hammering on and instead of going up the walking baseline, [music] you can it's going down.

[00:05:12]So, it's the same tonality, right?

[00:05:14]You're just kind of using it in a different way. And what it really is is you're using the notes that surround a dominant seven chord, which is this sound [music] here.

[00:05:23]But there's a certain approach to it that is used in rock and roll. And there's certain ways you hit notes in different orders. It's a really important part of it. So, for example, in blues and rock, you'll do a slur into the major third. So, instead of hitting the major third straight on, you'll slur into it from the minor third. And it's always that way, going from the minor to the major, right? And it can be a slide or a hammer or a bend.

[00:05:53][music] But that's the sound, right? It's that moving third that moves around between the minor and major. And then there's an important relationship between the fourth and the third as well because the fourth actually has tension on it, right? So when you walk up, [music] that actually wants to resolve. It's like a suspension. So usually, you know, when you're playing, when you hit that note there, [music] it'll resolve back to the third.

[00:06:21]But what you're doing is you're basically encircling the sound of that major chord, that dominant seventh chord, with all the notes that fit around it. But what's really interesting about rock and roll is it's not in one key. It's actually a modulation between three different keys. And they're not even really keys. What it is is more like a modulation of that boogie woogie, that ladder of notes, right? So basically on the one chord [music] and then the four and the five, you know, and there's lots of variations on that. The simple variation on that is just the basic back and forth boogie [music] or the extended boogie or a million different variations in between adding in those other notes.

[00:07:10][music] And it's exactly the same when you're playing the melodine notes, right? So over the one chord, you're using this little ladder of notes [music] in different orders.

[00:07:26]And then over the four chord, you just slide it up, five chord.

[00:07:33]So those that fits perfectly over each chord. So that's a huge part of the tonality of rock and roll. Well, let me show you how to play it really authentically because you don't want to be like jumping around like this because the leading between the notes will get kind of very kind of blocky sounding.

[00:07:48]So, if you listen to the way Keith Richards is playing here. [music] [music] >> So, if you notice there, he's starting off, it's over the one chord. He's playing that little ladder of notes.

[00:08:09]But then when he goes to the four chord, [music] he's outlining that chord to reflect the notes that are in that chord. Now the way you do that is instead of doing this, you can play that in position right here. So just like this.

[00:08:30]Then for the five chord, [music] see how it outlines the chords there?

[00:08:36]It's the same notes.

[00:08:40][music] Now, if I kind of extend that a little bit just to kind of make it fall under the fingers, [music] you get that sound.

[00:08:54]And then for the five chord, [music] you know, so you get these cool sounds like that. It's always great to hang out with you guys. Um, and don't forget if you're enjoying this, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. But also, if you want to support us, me and Rob, we have a Spotify channel with all our music. There's hours and hours of instrumental guitar music, instrumental rock and roll, great piano music, swamp rock, surf guitar, no fancy stuff. Just basic barbaric beat of rock and roll. if that's what you're into, you can just put it on when you're doing the dishes or mowing the lawn, you know, and just it's all on there. Hours and hours of rock and roll, so you can just rock out.

[00:09:35]But anyway, we'll see you next time. And don't forget the most important thing, turn it up.

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