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Eric galeS?


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I have been listening to a lot of Eric gales lately. His fast runs sound sorta pentatonic but unique and I cannot figure what he is doing. He also has the coolest chord voicings I have ever heard. I love how he does the chord...run to the next chord, chords...runs to the next chord. Can anyone offer me any advice regarding his style and how I could incorporate some of it in to my playing?
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Love Eric Gales!

 

Listen, and borrow what you like. There's a lot of Funk mixed in with Eric Gales' Blues. Check out Jimi Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, Derek Trucks, Snooks Eaglin. When you play, do everything in relation to the underlying beat and tempo, so that the fills and licks and chords you play are dancing with and against and bouncing off of the beat/tempo in time. Nod your head and tap your foot and base your playing off that like you're aggressively playing a pinball machine, dancing, or... otherwise interacting with a "partner", shall we say. Listen to horn section and organ and other classic-keyboard parts, absorb their feels and vibes. Find chord fragments of cool chords like 9ths, 7ths, m7ths, 6ths, etc. that use two or three strings while still conveying the essence of that given chord, and use them like little horn-section or keyboard "stabs". Be able to sound mean when clean and sweet when distorted.

 

Try the following (there's improvised "tab" below, beyond the initial text); the sliding 6ths and 3rds in particular should be of use to you:

 

"String Skipping" isn't just for lead-work; it's great for chords 'n' "rhythm playing", too. I'll go over some string-skipping two-note "chords"- intervals, to be more accurate- that imply harmony if you stick to notes within the given key, thus dictating whether some suggest either Major or minor tonalities..

 

Muting and damping with either hand is important here; if you're a beginner or even intermediate player it can seem hard at first, but in time becomes second-nature to the point that you will literally hardly ever think about it, it'll just autopilot for you! Seriously!

 

And if you work up some pick-and-finger or pick-less fingerstyle technique to pluck the two strings, you've got yet another way to play 'em; choose from a number of approaches to find what best suits the given piece of music.

 

Wes Montgomery burned through serious runs of octaves picking with his thumb, mostly in downstrokes; he usually did this working his thumb and fingers in an almost pinching, crab-claw motion, with his fingers resting on the guitar's top. He created his own bold new sound playing runs of octaves with that picking technique that everyone's copying to this day, and in the process wore a heart-shaped hole in his favorite guitar where his picking-hand's index and middle finger-tips rubbed against the top (later covered with a little heart-shaped pearl plate). (See below for some octave fingerings.)

 

That's just one example of technique and approach giving a particular sound and feel; try that, try plucking them simultaneously with fingers and/or nails, try down and/or upstrokes with a pick, try pick-and-fingers... one way will be best for one sound, and another way for yet another sound, etc....

 

 

And so, as well as octaves like-

 

 --------------------             --------3--5--7--10-   -----------------8--             --3--5--------------   --------5--7--9-----             --------------------   --5--7-----------5--    and      --------5--7--9--12-   --------3--5--7-----             --5--7--------------   --3--5--------------             --------------------

- you can play other sliding 'chord fragment' intervals that skip a string or two to imply (ENFORCE!) harmony, some of which will need to shift one note up or down by a half-step to fit the given key as you motorvate up and down the fretboard with 'em.

 

For example:

 

Sliding 6ths (which can imply the 5th and 3rd of a chord, or simply be a melodic-line on top, harmonized by the note underneath)

 

 ----------4------- -4--5--8-----4---- ----------4------- -5--6--8-----5---- ------------------ ------------------

 

 

 

Take a run of "double-stop" 3rds, harmonized accordingly in both minor and Major flavors, ending with a 4th / root-5th-root "power chord"-

 

 -13--12--10---------------------------------------------- -15--13--11---13--11--10--------------------------------- --------------14--12--10---12--10---9---5--3--2---2-2-2-- ---------------------------14--12--10---7--5--3---2-2-2-- ----------------------------------------------------0-0-- ---------------------------------------------------------

- but then drop the lower-note of each double-stop down one octave, skipping two strings in between-

 

 -13--12--10---------------------------------------------- --------------13--11--10--------------------------------- ---------------------------12--10---9---5--3--2---2-2-2-- -12--10---8---------------------------------------2-2-2-- --------------12--10---8------------------------------0-- ---------------------------12--10---8---5--3--1-----0-0--

- and you've got sliding 10ths- both m10ths and Maj10ths- which are an interval of an octave plus a m3 or Maj3 from the low-note to the high-note.

 

These sliding two-note grips sound great either briskly strummed with a down-stroke so that the muted strings "click" rhythmically in between the sounded notes, or plucked with thumb and finger or pick-and-fingers in a syncopated rhythm (like "b'DAT b'dat b'dat, b'DAT b'dat b'dat", and so on), and really jump out and kick with a fat but toothy heavy distortion, maybe with some flanger or phaser action; think early Van Halen rhythm-guitar tone on steroids; try the neck-pickup, too. They absolutely KILL with a Foxrox Octron or Octavia-style octave-fuzz going into a cranked Marshally distortion!

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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Caeven makes a good point when he mentions Hendrix as a reference.

In Come On (Part 1), Electric Ladyland, it is well worth anyone checking out from bar 37 of the solo (the fourth run through a 12 bar pattern)for an excellent example of using intervals (chord fragments).

 

The chord structure of a 12 bar pattern in E is voiced by the most minimalistic pattern perhaps possible.

 

E7 is voiced by a Gsharp and D played at string 4, fret 6 and string 3, fret 7.

 

A7 is voiced by G and Csharp played at string 4, fret 5 and

string 3 fret 6.

 

B7 is voiced by A and Dsharp played at string 4, fret 7 and

string 3 fret 8.

 

Minimum movement, but still sounds like a 12 bar blues.

 

This leaves the remaining fingers with the opportunity to play a "solo" on strings 1 and 2, which Jimi appears to do with ease.

 

Cheers

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In Come On (Part 1), Electric Ladyland, it is well worth anyone checking out from bar 37 of the solo (the fourth run through a 12 bar pattern)for an excellent example of using intervals (chord fragments).

 

The chord structure of a 12 bar pattern in E is voiced by the most minimalistic pattern perhaps possible.

 

E7 is voiced by a Gsharp and D played at string 4, fret 6 and string 3, fret 7.

 

A7 is voiced by G and Csharp played at string 4, fret 5 and

string 3 fret 6.

 

B7 is voiced by A and Dsharp played at string 4, fret 7 and

string 3 fret 8.

 

Minimum movement, but still sounds like a 12 bar blues.

 

This leaves the remaining fingers with the opportunity to play a "solo" on strings 1 and 2, which Jimi appears to do with ease.

 

Cheers

 

Nice! :cool:

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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Thanks Caeven,

But I was very impressed by the thought and dedication in your first post. (Mine was an easy afterthought)

 

You are spot on with how intervals can be used.

 

Without going into theory, and hopefully not going OT, I would like to point out a little experiment that can be done with a guitar tuner.

 

1) Play the note of C. Guitar tuner reads C.

 

2) Play the notes C with E above it, (interval)and the tuner will read C. Ditto with C and G.

 

3) Play the notes E and G and the tuner will read C. (as long as both are played at equal volume, keyboards are excellent for this experiment.)

 

Long story short, when we play two notes simultaneously a third note appears, a fundamental or root note, even though we haven't actually played it.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

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Thanks! But to be fair, the bit starting with "String skipping" and on is something I'd posted a long time ago, copy-and-pasted here as I thought some of it might helpfully apply. Not so much to lifting bits of Eric Gales' playing outright, but to getting the spirit, swing and feel of greasy, bouncy Funk-infused Bluesiness that he so often goes to town with- so that Justreleased09 might sound like Justreleased09's very own self influenced and informed by Mr. Gales, rather than just copping some of his licks. (NOT implying that ANYONES posts here push the latter! :cool: )

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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WOW. Both for Eric's music (thanks for the YT clip) and for your detailed reply Caev. Why have I never heard of this lad?!? Off to Google....not only is he a fellow lefty but is like Albert King, guitar is strung righty.
I was born at night but I wasn't born last night...
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He made a big splash in the 1990s, but then sort of dropped off the radar as tastes changed towards indie rockers. He's been busy, but he hasn't been high profile.

 

Part of this, IMHO, is also down to da bidness of da bidness. His CDs were always hard to find in the racks.

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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I just downloaded his "Story Of My Life", it was a coin flip as there are 6 or so of his recordings on itunes. I'll listen to it on the drive home and give y'all my impressions later.

Cheers.

 

:cool:

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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Wow. One might say that Eric has a whole bunch of that, whaddaya callit, oh yeah TALENT and applies it to his music quite well! Seems to like using that wahr-wahr pedal to great effect too. Once again proof that this is the best forum going, never fails.
I was born at night but I wasn't born last night...
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:cool: Hey, speak o' tha Devil at the Cross Roads...

 

Eric Gales channeling Hendrix on behalf of Dunlop, demoing their four new limited-edition 'Jimi Hendrix 70th Anniversary Tribute Series' pedals:

 

________ [video:youtube]

 

________ [video:youtube]

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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:cool: Hey, speak o' tha Devil at the Cross Roads...

 

Eric Gales channeling Hendrix on behalf of Dunlop, demoing their four new limited-edition 'Jimi Hendrix 70th Anniversary Tribute Series' pedals:

 

________ [video:youtube]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah!

 

________ [video:youtube]

 

 

Yeah!!

 

 

Guitar Speak Podcast

www.guitarspeakpodcast.libsyn.com

https://www.facebook.com/guitarspeakpodcast

www.itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/guitar-speak-podcast

 

 

 

 

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I first heard Eric Gales's song "Paralyzed back around 1989, I really liked it, in a way it reminded me of Jon Butcher. AFAIK, he'd disappeared from the scene, until a friend drop this cut on me a few years ago:

 

 

I'm glad to hear he's still out there playing.

 

 

"Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.'-Hamlet

 

Guitar solos last 30 seconds, the bass line lasts for the whole song.

 

 

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  • 7 years later...

FYI -

 

LaDonna posted today that both her and Eric have Covid. She is too weak to drive him to the hospital. EMS took Eric to the hospital for what is expected to be a long stay in the hospital. LaDonna is home but can"t speak so she won"t.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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