in this post i tell my own story, and finish with a recommendation for anyone who doesn't know how to play the intro to "start me up" on their guitar.

as a lifelong stones fan (well, since i was 9, when some girls came out), for years i'd read and heard about how keith richards played guitar. i read how recognizable and striking his riffs were on one hand, and on the other hand i would hear how what he was playing was actually quite simple and easy.

i found this hard to understand and reconcile. was he a genius or a simpleton who got lucky?

one year i took a sabbatical from work and one of the things i learned to do in my time off was to play guitar. i play badly but i learned how to play.

one of the first things i tried to do was to learn how to play start me up. it had to be easy, right? after all, anyone who listens to it can feel how simple the guitar is. i figured i'd start there and then after years of study maybe i could learn some of their other songs...

in doing so, as every guitar player knows, i learned about open tuning, and i learned about the unique keith richards chord shape, the fingering he uses in open tuning to create the two chords (well one, and a modified version of it) that open start me up - the dum-DA-DA.

it was amazing to see how simple this was to do and play - yes, even i could with just days/weeks of experience playing guitar could do it.

of course, as every guitar player also knows, i had basically also learned how to play the signature riffs of street fighting man, honky tonk women, brown sugar, happy etc. etc.

it was simple. and yet so magical. it was everything i'd read people say about keith and his guitar playing. and yet after decades, i was able to feel and see what it was.

i also learned, of course, that as easy as it is to finger the chords to those songs, it was impossible for me to produce anything that sounded quite like the guitars in those songs - the rhythms, the subtle variations, the attack, etc... this leads to a whole other topic, but i learned what was hard about guitar playing stones style (the feel), and what was easy (playing the right notes)

this is where i am going with all of this:

if you don't, you should learn how to play guitar well enough to play these chords and see how the magic is made. it is so simple to learn how to create the keith richards/rolling stones basic chord structures on a guitar, it seems that anyone who is a fan on this board owes it to themselves to do this. even if you've never picked up a guitar and never played an instrument. it's my feeling that you'll understand the stones, their sound, and their lead rhythm guitarist much better than any number of hours of reading about it could ever do.

and, damn, it feels good to be able to pick up a guitar and play "dum-Da Da" or "da-dum...dum-dum-da-da-da" or 'dum... da-da da-da dum-dum da-da-da-da" etc. :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-05-31 02:51 by Turner68.

Hmmm. Yeah the Stones sound is so much more than Keith's guitar though. Even if you get his most subtle nuances down, recreating the wobble and feel of the Stones is still pretty elusive. Glad you found some magic in learning Keith's fairly simple open chord, hammer on the fourth chord approach. I think I first figured it out from Loe Kottke and Duane Allman in songs like Little Martha.

When I'm playing solo guitar, I like to go back to the masters and try to recreate some of the amazingly simple but highly emotional and effective parts which work well as solo pieces. Take this one for example, it's not all that difficult to play but when done right it is pretty amazing. Turn it UP of course.

I can just imagine Ry playing something similar to an open mouthed Keith way back when.





peace

Nice post Turner68, and good advice about trying it for a new level of Keith appreciation.

God, I remember playing loudly along to Sticky Fingers and Exile, in my bedroom at 16, sneakily drinking wine before stumbling into sixth form on the last day of school.

So simple, but so great, that chord pattern



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-05-31 03:09 by peoplewitheyes.

Great clip. Yes I see.

I did not mean that this was all there is to the stones sound or even that it's the "key". I just meant that for a relative musical novice like myself and maybe a few others on here, learning it is a real revelation, a door opener. If it sounded like I meant more than that, it wasn't my intention.

Great observations. There's a great feeling of elation that comes with playing these immortal riffs.
The one thing that stands out most in Keiths playing (to me) is his intuitive syncopatic approach.
Playing behind the beat then jumping in front of it. Cutting it off unexpectedly.
Stuff that can never quite be imitated, stuff that is never quite the same.

Yes indeed Turner68 didn't mean to insinuate anything really or take away from your delightful post.

peace

Billy Idol in his memoir said he played a lot with the Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones (who I think is a great rock rhythm guitarist). Idol said that no matter what guitar or amp Jones used, the Jones sound came out. Idol said, "It must be in his fingers." I think Keith's like that.

P.S. I only recently got around to tuning my guitar to open-G and playing Start Me Up. And it's not as easy to play as I expected because Keith slides up and down the neck playing multiple chords in the background a lot more than I realized.

So much of guitar playing is in the right hand. The left hand stuff is pretty much cookbook, fingers on the right frets stuff, imo....the real magic tricks and the key to stylish playing and emulating others players nuances is in the strumming/picking hand.

peace

Quote
Title5Take1
Billy Idol in his memoir said he played a lot with the Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones (who I think is a great rock rhythm guitarist). Idol said that no matter what guitar or amp Jones used, the Jones sound came out. Idol said, "It must be in his fingers." I think Keith's like that.

P.S. I only recently got around to tuning my guitar to open-G and playing Start Me Up. And it's not as easy to play as I expected because Keith slides up and down the neck playing multiple chords in the background a lot more than I realized.

I played a gig with Steve Jones in the 80's. The settings on his Marshall were on five across the board. He never touched them. He had no FX pedals. Just his Les Paul.

Quote
Naturalust
So much of guitar playing is in the right hand. The left hand stuff is pretty much cookbook, fingers on the right frets stuff, imo....the real magic tricks and the key to stylish playing and emulating others players nuances is in the strumming/picking hand.

peace

It's fifty/fifty basically. If you want to play Keith's "start me up" (the studio-version), you have to dig his left hand muting as well, otherwise it will sound like shite.