I'am figuring out the gyyyo parts Taylor played.(I am using a LP custom 1973)and a boogie.)
I found out that using 0.9 sounds too thin to get a fat slide sound(Love in vain)
On the other hand, when I play the bendings he does on sftd (he makes huges bendigs on the second fret), they are rather uncomfortable with 0.10,even with the strings close to the neck .

Does any guitarplayer on this site know something about Taylor according to his guitar strings,tension,etc, especially on gyyyo?

I recall from Taylor's 1980 Guitar Player interview that he preferred .010-.046 gauge strings. I found I was able to play the parts comfortably with those. Good luck with figuring out the Taylor bits on GYYYO. I learned to play guitar by copying ever lick on the album 30 years ago!

Well thanks Chris,you must be a hell of a guitarplayer.
I have to quote MT parts gyyo literally,so one must be able to play the guitar in advance.

Are you doing this for a Stones tribute band Amsterdamned or just for your own gratification? As for my guitar playing, it's serviceable. I can play the bits from GYYYO (and others) but I would not go so far to say that I play them as well as the master!

I,ve been asked for indeed.

I'am a guitarplayer for 30 years now,and studied for it.
I've copied and analyzed Al diMeola and mc Laughlin solos, played all kinds of music(Stones also), but this Taylor,whom I thought I understand an can copy some of his licks, is killing me.He is truly an original.But I'am not giving up yet..Luctor et Submergo.

I appreciate your introspection as a guitarplayer Chris!!

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Amsterdamned
I,ve been asked for indeed.

I'am a guitarplayer for 30 years now,and studied for it.
I've copied and analyzed Al diMeola and mc Laughlin solos, played all kinds of music(Stones also), but this Taylor,whom I thought I understand an can copy some of his licks, is killing me.He is truly an original.But I'am not giving up yet..Luctor et Submergo.

I appreciate your introspection as a guitarplayer Chris!!

I too my friend having been playing over 35 years. keep up the good work and good words. Now if we can keep Mathijs from being a self centered egomaniac we can tell the truth. i still laugh at his take of Martin guitars. I don't think he ever played one.

Sometimes Taylor is more difficult than Al...

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More Hot Rocks

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Amsterdamned
I,ve been asked for indeed.

I'am a guitarplayer for 30 years now,and studied for it.
I've copied and analyzed Al diMeola and mc Laughlin solos, played all kinds of music(Stones also), but this Taylor,whom I thought I understand an can copy some of his licks, is killing me.He is truly an original.But I'am not giving up yet..Luctor et Submergo.

I appreciate your introspection as a guitarplayer Chris!!

I too my friend having been playing over 35 years. keep up the good work and good words. Now if we can keep Mathijs from being a self centered egomaniac we can tell the truth. i still laugh at his take of Martin guitars. I don't think he ever played one.

What do I have to do with this thread?

But since you ask me: I have played Taylor's Les Paul and (Erwin's) Telecaster, and both were strung with a standard .46 - .010 set. However, from '67 to the mid '70's he used .42 - .09. You can hear this on Ya-Ya's and all boots, and he did state to us that he use to play "lighter years ago".

Mathijs

Ypu cannot hear the guage of a string. I don't care what you say. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top uses a .008 for his first string and always gets asked :about his thick sounding and fat tone". If someone said that Stevie Ray used standard tens then everone would beleive it. To much BS. To many people making things up just to impress.

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More Hot Rocks
Ypu cannot hear the guage of a string. I don't care what you say. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top uses a .008 for his first string and always gets asked :about his thick sounding and fat tone". If someone said that Stevie Ray used standard tens then everone would beleive it. To much BS. To many people making things up just to impress.

As Amsterdammned points out: you can hear by the bending that Taylor uses 9's and not 10's. Those wide, swift bends can only be done on 8's or 9's (unless you have really, really big hands like Hendrix). Further, from '69 to '73 Taylor has a fairly flat, dry "honk" tone, it sounds a bit like cardboard (if you know what I mean...) and I can get this tone by playing with 9's and dropping the volume on my LP close to 2 or 3. With 10's I can't get this sound, it always remains too fat and full.

Mathijs

I have to disagree with you. If Taylor say he used 12's when he never did you would beleive him. I'm bet you are going to try and get the last word in. I'll start my stop watch.

To my ears at least string gauge does have an effect on tone. It's hard to imagine players like SRV and Pete Townsend getting the sound they do with light gauge strings. (Both use .012 sets if I recall) Granted, it's very hard for me to tell the difference between a .009 and a .010 set but a lighter gauge than .010 would make some of the bends Taylor gets on SFTD s bit easier!

As to the sound he gets on 'Love In Vain', he was using the Bigsby Les Paul he obtained from Keith two years before. For the rest of the songs he would have used his '63(?) SG. As far as I know, these are the only two guitars he used during the '69 tour.



Amsterdamned, if you have a Windows Media Player you can slow down the recording to half speed and still maintain the pitch by accessing the Play drop down at the top left of the app and selecting Play Speed to Slow. I have found this very useful in figuring out some challenging passages. At anyrate, given that you have been at it for 30 years I have every confidence that you will nail it and if possible I'd love to hear the results! Play on man!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-02 04:18 by ChrisM.

SRV started with - incredibly - a 14 gauge E string (tuned to E-flat like Hendrix). When he got sober and could feel what he was doing to himself, he moved down to a 12 E. If you can't hear the tonal difference between 14 gauge SRV and 12 gauge SRV, I can't help you. To me the difference in tone between his first records and "In Step" is almost an argument against sobriety!

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From4tilLate
SRV started with - incredibly - a 14 gauge E string

.014! Good God Almighty! Not even my D-28 is strung that heavy (.013s) Phew!

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ChrisM
To my ears at least string gauge does have an effect on tone. It's hard to imagine players like SRV and Pete Townsend getting the sound they do with light gauge strings. (Both use .012 sets if I recall) Granted, it's very hard for me to tell the difference between a .009 and a .010 set but a lighter gauge than .010 would make some of the bends Taylor gets on SFTD s bit easier!

As to the sound he gets on 'Love In Vain', he was using the Bigsby Les Paul he obtained from Keith two years before. For the rest of the songs he would have used his '63(?) SG. As far as I know, these are the only two guitars he used during the '69 tour.







Amsterdamned, if you have a Windows Media Player you can slow down the recording to half speed and still maintain the pitch by accessing the Play drop down at the top left of the app and selecting Play Speed to Slow. I have found this very useful in figuring out some challenging passages. At anyrate, given that you have been at it for 30 years I have every confidence that you will nail it and if possible I'd love to hear the results! Play on man!

Hello Chris:


The difficult part of playing MT to me is mostly the fingering type, and his
timing and tone...that's what makes Taylor what he is.To hear the notes is not realy the problem..
By the time things are worked out I let you know.

Thanks for your advice and pep..

Cheers!

I have to agree that Taylor sounds like he's using light strings on his SG on GYYYO considering the amount of bending he does, especially the SFTD solo.

He manages to get the fat slide tone in LIV though by using the the 3rd, 4th and 5th strings high up between the 15th to 19th frets - he would get this tone even with light strings. Not sure what the string guage was on the Les Paul but it wouldn't matter as he's not fretting it as such. Keith used this guitar on HTW with minimal bending during his solo part.

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ChrisM

.014! Good God Almighty! Not even my D-28 is strung that heavy (.013s) Phew!

Stevie is reputed to have used 17s on his high E string at one point. He mostly used 13s but at times went down to 11s. Remember he did tune down a half step so that would have helped a little bit.

MT uses exclusively (from memory) minor and major pentatonic on GYYYO. It is actually pretty simple but very effective the way he blends the two patterns. He also uses Memphis scales (or at least that's what I call them). You can hear these on SFTD, JJF, HTW, etc. I guess he picked this up from Steve Cropper (Soul Man).

terraplane - that's right..a mix of minor and major pentatonic, or blues and country scales.

What you refer to as being Memphis scales - I've never heard it being called this before. These harmonising two-string parts (1st and 3rd strings) going up and down the neck - I've often wondered where this come from. MT certainly plays this a lot; also Keith on YCAGWYW (studio version); Ronnie does all the time; Hendrix also; and countless other quitarists.

I've heard several old blues piano recordings where these notes are being played - my view is that a guitarist, perhaps in the 40s or 50s, transposed this to guitar... this then dissapated through much blues, soul and country music until it was widely used and imitated. (A recent pop example was the guitar solo in the 80s cover of With A Little Help From My Friends by Wet Wet Wet).

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ChrisM
Are you doing this for a Stones tribute band Amsterdamned or just for your own gratification? As for my guitar playing, it's serviceable. I can play the bits from GYYYO (and others) but I would not go so far to say that I play them as well as the master!

Wow Chris,took me quite some time to check your self-irony,haha

Copying the solo's of Taylor is not such a big problem, but inventing them while playing -that's where the real talent is. I can play along with about every 1972 YCAGWYW Taylor solo, but I've played the song more than a hundred times live on stage and it never got close to the fluidity, structure and build of a real Taylor solo.

Mathijs

To copy exact is impossible indeed.
And Taylor never plays the same twice,even his own copies are different.

But it's easy for him to play like he does, like it's easy for you to play like you do. Conclusion then is to develop your own style. Nothing wrong with borrowing other people's ideas though, which you can then develop in your own way.

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WeLoveYou
But it's easy for him to play like he does, like it's easy for you to play like you do. Conclusion then is to develop your own style. Nothing wrong with borrowing other people's ideas though, which you can then develop in your own way.

Asolutely right,a Stones tribute band is fun for me in the first place,
but as good as possible.

Both valid points Mathijs and WeLoveYou. You can copy licks but not the spontaneity behind them. That is the factor 'X' which differentiates the copy from the original and the average from the great. But by learning from the greats, ones own style eventually comes through. I learned guitar by coping Taylor's, Keith's and others licks but do I sound like them? No!

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WeLoveYou
He manages to get the fat slide tone in LIV though by using the the 3rd, 4th and 5th strings high up between the 15th to 19th frets - he would get this tone even with light strings. Not sure what the string guage was on the Les Paul but it wouldn't matter as he's not fretting it as such. Keith used this guitar on HTW with minimal bending during his solo part.

On the featurette on Shine A Light, you can see Wood playing Taylor's Shine A Light solo notes in that place on the fretboard.