JOHN McLAUGHLIN - STYLE GUITAR LESSON!

[00:00:01][music] >> Okay, before we get started here, I just wanted to mention that I have quite a few lessons online targeting specific compositions by John McLaughlin during the Mahavishnu period. Meeting of the Spirits, Lila's Dance, Birds of Fire, etc. So be sure to check those out if you haven't already.

[00:00:35]But the idea behind this lesson is to take a closer look and focus more intently on some of the time signatures that he liked to work with during that period. As well as the rhythmic cycles, the cross picking technique employed employing a lot of that stuff off.

[00:00:52]And so all of these exercises that I'm going to be offering up, they're they're really musical. They're nice chords, they're modal bass chords, and you can actually string a lot of these together and make quite a nice exercise or etude for yourself if you'd like, okay?

[00:01:09]So I think one of the easiest time signatures for most people to wrap their heads around outside of 4/4 is 3/4 or 6/8, 12/8, however you want to look at it. That's a pretty common feel I think for a lot of people. So the first exercise is going to start with that, okay? And this is an example of how John would use 12/8 chord cycle and break it up into different rhythmic phrases. So in this case we're doing two fives and two eighth notes. 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2.

[00:01:50]Okay? So here we go with the first exercise.

[00:01:56]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Okay, so as you can see with that particular chord cycle, we're just using a couple of chords and we're playing in groups of fives, okay? And that's separated by two eighth notes giving us that 12/8 cycle time signature.

[00:02:30]1 2 3 4 5 [music and singing] 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 [music and singing] 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 >> [music] [music] >> Okay, so it's a 12/8 chord cycle again broken into two sets of fives and connected together with two eighth notes giving it a 12/8 time signature.

[00:03:06]The picking on this is down down >> [music] >> up down up.

[00:03:14]That's very common and you'll find that in a lot of McLaughlin's chord cycles from this period in time and we'll get into more in just a second. So you want down down up down up [music] down down up down up down up.

[00:03:29]Straight alternate stroke for that and then right into the next chord, same picking. Down down [music] up down up etc. >> [music] [music] [singing] [music] [music] >> Great thing to practice and that will inform many of the exercises that follow and will also set you up nicely if you get into the actual compositions, okay?

[00:04:13]All right, here we go.

[00:04:15]All right, now believe it or not, I'm going to jump right into 18 eight, uh which is uh the time signature that he used on Birds of Fire. I'm just going to use the same two chords, but this is actually a logical extension of what we just did.

[00:04:28]So, he's got three sets of five out the gate and then you've got three eighth notes, okay? Giving you a time signature of 18 eight. That is his preferable way of seeing it. That's the way he put it in his book. And so, that's what we're going to adhere to here, okay? So, we're playing 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3.

[00:04:51]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> So, as you can see, the picking is exactly the same. Down down up [music] down up down down up down up down down up down up and then using alternate picking for the three eighth notes.

[00:05:26]>> [music] >> And you're ending on a down stroke with that, so you're going to be starting with a down stroke again on the second chord.

[00:05:34]>> [music] [music] >> And that's exactly uh the rhythmic cycle and uh time signature that you'll find in Birds of Fire, okay? Uh and this is a great one to practice. And in fact, as I was saying earlier, you can put these together. So, you could play the 12/8 one that we just did and combine it with this 18/8 one as well.

[00:06:08]>> [music] [music] >> I think you get the idea on that. That's a great practice uh in itself, okay?

[00:06:29]Uh so, here we go on to the next exercise.

[00:06:33]Okay, a logical move from here uh might be to just move into uh 10/8, which gives you that constant cycle of fives.

[00:06:41]Um and we're just combining uh a few more chords this time using that five cycle, so to speak, and then uh a set of five eighth notes at the end played individually, okay? Here we go.

[00:06:55]>> [music and singing] [music and singing] [music] >> So, again, the uh picking is exactly the same, down down up down up.

[00:07:20]>> [music] [music] >> But, we've got some nice string skipping going on there as well, which I think is really nice. Uh again, a great practice tool and really informs you as to a lot of the things that he did.

[00:07:39]>> [music] >> And of course the five eighth notes at the end are all alternate picked.

[00:07:51]So the next place we want to go is into a full-blown cycle of 28, okay? And this is not unusual for McLaughlin at all.

[00:07:59]But he would often break this up. I'm thinking of Lila's Dance for instance.

[00:08:04]So what we're going to do here is we're going to have two sets of five, one set of three, one single eighth note connecting it together and then three sets of eighth notes again. So we're going to go 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 1 2 3, giving us a cycle of 28 before it repeats. So this can be a little bit tricky to play, but definitely worth the effort, okay? So let me do it real slow before we pick it up.

[00:08:35]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> That's pretty cool and definitely a bit of a challenge to play, but that's a common thing in this period of composing for McLaughlin. So I think that's a great exercise as well. And again, you'll find that type of thing very much in Lila's Dance and so on.

[00:09:35]Okay, so let's break things up a little bit, okay? Uh let's get into 7/8.

[00:09:40]And this is exactly the type of thing uh you can call it 7/4, however you want to look at it. Uh but this is what you'll find like in Trilogy for instance um from the Between Nothingness and Eternity album. Uh this is a little bit uh stranger to play. Uh we're breaking away from uh the down down up down up pattern to do this.

[00:10:00]Uh for this exercise, I'm using eight eighth notes followed by a set of three eighth notes and another set of three eighth notes.

[00:10:09]So, that's kind of interesting because uh there's different ways to count seven, but what we're doing with this exercise is we're essentially going 1 2 3 [music and singing] 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 1 2 3.

[00:10:23]>> [music] >> So, that's pretty cool and the picking on this is uh a bit different. So, we're going down down up up >> [music] >> down up up down and then down down [music] up down down up.

[00:10:39]Okay?

[00:10:49]>> [music] [music] [singing] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> That could be pretty challenging to play um and uh but of course very cool and very McLaughlin.

[00:11:32]So, we're moving into uh uh 13 8 now, okay? So, things are getting a a little bit more intricate, a little bit more involved.

[00:11:40]Um this uh mixes up the picking a lot more.

[00:11:44]It also mixes up your brain >> [laughter] >> a lot more.

[00:11:47]Uh but essentially uh again, it's 13 8, okay? So, that's a that's a lot of eighth notes. Um but what I'm doing is uh a phrase of four eighth notes, four eighth notes, five eighth notes, then three eighth notes, three eighth notes, three eighth notes, and four eighth notes, okay? So, that's a long cycle. And uh it's a little bit more involved to play picking-wise as well.

[00:12:14]Uh so, let me take you through that really slowly. So, it's down, down, down, up, down, down, [music and singing] down, up, down, down, down, up, up.

[00:12:32]>> [music] >> And that's followed by down, down, up patterns.

[00:12:41]>> [music] >> Down, down, up, down.

[00:12:49]>> [music] >> Or down, down, up, up, if you like.

[00:12:52]Either way is fine.

[00:12:56]As long as you can catch it when it comes back around, right?

[00:12:59]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music and singing] >> So, that one's pretty tricky to play, Uh but it sounds great and it's a it's great practice for any serious guitar student.

[00:13:35]>> [music] [music] >> Now, this next one is in 9/8 and I've included this because I think it's a nice addition to the collection here and I use this myself in my own warm-ups on a daily basis.

[00:14:03]We're playing simply a set of nine eighth notes, okay? 1 2 3 4 5 6 [music] 7 8 9.

[00:14:12]1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9, [music and singing] okay? And I'm not forming these as chords.

[00:14:21]I'm playing them as individual notes, so you really want to separate them out and actually play them in an anti-chord way.

[00:14:31]>> [music] [music] >> You get the idea. Really separate the notes out, okay? And we're moving basically between a B minor 7th combined with an F sharp minor 7th shape to a G major 7th basically combined with a B minor. You don't have to look at it that way or technically. The important thing is to be able to play and play them accurately. So, the picking on this is a little bit different as well. It's down down up down [music] up up up down up bringing you back to a down stroke as you make your way across it.

[00:15:14]So, again, it's down down >> [music] >> up down up up up down up.

[00:15:22]>> [music] [music] >> Great cross picking exercise. So, uh here's the whole thing for you.

[00:15:35]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> That's a real challenging one as well.

[00:16:00]Very nice thing to uh add to your practice regimen, especially if you're working on uh cross picking, okay?

[00:16:07]Uh last but not least here is the ever elusive 11 4.

[00:16:12]It's a great time signature.

[00:16:15]So, what we have here is a set of eight eighth notes followed by another set of eight eighth notes, and then followed by a set of six eighth notes, giving us 11 4 time, okay?

[00:16:29]Uh so, let me do this one really slow first, and then we'll just kind of turn it up from there.

[00:16:35]>> [music] [music] [music] >> So, the picking on this one is down, down, down, down followed by up, up, up, up.

[00:17:00]>> [music] >> Exact same thing for the next sequence.

[00:17:05]>> [music] >> Then down, down >> [music] >> down, down down, up.

[00:17:16]>> [music] >> And that's the picking pattern for this uh elusive time signature.

[00:17:26]>> [music] [music] >> So there you go. Uh I hope you've enjoyed taking a little bit closer look, a more detailed look at uh some of the picking patterns and time cycles and phrasing and stuff that Jan used with the uh Mahavishnu Orchestra. And uh again, I've got some lessons online pertaining to his specific compositions.

[00:18:06]If you haven't seen those, you might want to check them out. And uh again, you can put a lot of this stuff together, anything that has similar type harmonic continuity, if you will, to it.

[00:18:17]Uh you can combine these together in numerous ways and uh even come up with a kind of a practice etude, if you will, uh that you can work with on these kinds of things. So anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the lesson and uh hope to see you soon.

[00:18:34]>> [music]