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Jeff's Lesson Notes

"Hitchin' rides - A look at BOSTON part 1"

 

Boston ROCKs!!  I got their first album for Christmas in 1976 or 77, I can't recall which it was.  Man I loved that album.  This is complex rock and roll, this isn't easy stuff.  Although some of you may think it sounds easy because there isn't a lot of blazing speed to it.  What's going on here with this track is far more complex and complicated than just blazing through some scale or arpeggio. 

This music and style of playing requires precision.  If you hit a bad note while you're blazing through something like a speed demon, odds are nobody will pick it out.  If you hit a bad note in a track like this, it's right there for the world to hear. 

Speed is often used by young players to cover up the fact that they hit a lot of bad notes when they slow down.  LOL  Trust me, not only have I seen it countless times auditioning players out here for projects and such, but I used to use speed to cover up the fact I had no clue what I was doing when I was a teenager. 

You must understand that Boston isn't known for speed.  Boston is known for harmonized leads, awesome melodies, and a unique guitar sound which is very hard to reproduce without a Rockman.  Our track sound is close enough for rock and roll as they say. 

Anyway, for those that find stuff like this boring because it's not fast (of which even the VH stuff bores some of my visitors).  I encourage you to take another look.

What there is, is a great deal of theory involved with harmonizing the leads properly.  This seems to be from what I've seen in the clubs lately a lost art.  There's a lot of players that don't know how to use two guitars properly in a band.  This wasn't the case in the 80's when I was playing the clubs.  Back then the two guitar bands knew what they were doing because they learned from bands like Boston and other bands like them. 

The harmonized stuff I did on this track was not done with a harmonizer.  I played as two live guitars would at a concert.  The main theme riff actually couldn't be done with a harmonizer because the harmonizer has a set group of rules it follows.  Rules like, harmonize the 3rds in the key of (what ever).  While I am harmonizing the 3rds, in some cases I'm not.  This is because the riff that guitar 1 is doing actually overlaps what would be guitar 2 in perfect harmonized 3rd world.  I did this on purpose to help give a good lesson on two guitars harmonizing with each other. 

BOSTON definitely knows how to be a multi-guitar band.  This is a great band with great style, and they make for an excellent lesson. 

In this lesson we will look at some of the scales they use and the chords and riffing patterns.  We will also look at the sound, and look at melody and harmonizing 2 guitars in a way that goes beyond just one guitar doing a part in 1 octave the the 2nd guitar doing the same thing in another octave.  That has its place but that's not usually what's going on with Boston and bands like them.  In fact the guitar 1 part usually works well as a stand alone but the guitar 2 harmonized part sounds horrible by itself in a lot of cases.  We'll talk about this on the lesson video.

Enjoy the track and I hope the lesson is helpful to you in some way.
 

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Lesson

Primary Scales in use

E Major (Ionian):  E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#

E_________________________________________12______
B___________________________________12_14_________
G_________________________11_13_14________________
D________________11_13_14_________________________
A_______11_12_14__________________________________
E_12_14___________________________________________

E Mixolydian mode:  Major scale with a minor 7th:  E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D

E_________________________________________12______
B___________________________________12_14_________
G_________________________11_13_14________________
D________________11_12_14_________________________
A_______11_12_14__________________________________
E_12_14___________________________________________

Harmonizing 101

There are a couple ways to look at harmonizing leads.  The most common and easiest to give a website lesson on is just breaking apart chords and or double stops.  A chord is really just a harmonization of a group of notes.  If you are a singer and you're singing a 3 part harmony, odds are you're doing a chord.  One dude is singing the root, the other the 3rd and the other is singing the 5th. 

The most common harmonization for 2 guitars is to harmonize the 3rds.  This gives a sound we all know and love and it's pretty much what I did with this track.  The catch is I didn't use a harmonizer for it.  I simply found a riff based on a Boston riff that sounded good to me, then chimed in with my 2nd guitar part and harmonized either the 3rd or the 6th depending on what was going to fit with the chords that make up the riff. 

This is the easiest way to do this sort of thing because usually harmonized parts don't sound good as a stand alone.  This is complicated to explain and and I go into a graphic explanation on the Lead Guitar 101 CD ROM, so I'm not going to waste too much video here.  I will give you some tips though.  I'll explain the lesson tabs below on the video lesson. 

If this seems complicated to you, stop...  It's not...  I'm really simplifying it and giving you a very easy way to do this.  Don't over think it.  You can get far more complex with this sort of thing if you want to, but for rock and roll purposes there really isn't any need to.

Example

E_______________________________________________
B__5__7___9_11_9___7__9__7_5__5__4_5_4_5________
G__6__8___9_10_9___8__9__8_6__6__4_6_4_6________
D_______________________________________________
A_______________________________________________
E_______________________________________________

The same thing is tabbed below but Each line is color coded.

Guitar 1 could do the 3rd string notes in Black and Guitar 2 could do the 2nd string notes in Blue for example.

E____________________________________________________
B__5__7___9_11_9___7__9__7_5__5__4_5_4_5_< 3rds_______
G__6__8___9_10_9___8__9__8_6__6__4_6_4_6_< Root notes_
D____________________________________________________
A____________________________________________________
E____________________________________________________
 

What's given above is how I would arrange the riff if I were going to use a Harmonizer.  The harmonizer must conform to rules.  I would tell the harmonizer to harmonize in the key of E off of the 3rd.  I would then play the 3rd string notes and the harmonizer would create the 2nd string notes.
 

E_______________________________________________________
B_5__7___9_11_9___7__9__7_5__5__4_5_4_5_<<harmonizer ___
G_6__8___9_10_9___8__9__8_6__6__4_6_4_6_<<me___________
D_______________________________________________________
A_______________________________________________________
E_______________________________________________________
 

In the actual riff that I played for "Hitchin' Rides" you can't use a harmonizer.  This is because I mixed the 2nd and 3rd string parts to sound better as a stand alone riff.  As if I created the riff and then decided later I wanted to harmonize it.  Well my actual Guitar 1 main part or main riff doesn't conform to any rules that the harmonizer would understand.  You can't tell most harmonizers to harmonize the 3rds.. except for here and here and here.  lol

My actual guitar 1 main riff for "Hitchin' rides" (below) is again a mixture of the 3rd string notes and 2nd string notes from our harmonizer lesson above.  This is good on the Guitar lesson front because it will allow me to give you two lessons in 1. 

As I explain on the video, if this riff in Black below was your starting point.  To figure out the harmonized riff in Blue all you need to know is that the Riff below in Black is the 3rds or minor 3rds in some cases of the harmonized riff in Blue.  So through deduction you can figure out a good harmonized lead for it. 

In other words this riff below is made up of all of the 3rds or minor 3rds of the riff in Blue.
 

Guitar 1:  These are the 3rds

E_______________________________________________________________________
B_____________9G#_10A_9G#-10A-9G#______9G#________________________________
G__4---9E_11F#_____________________11F#_____11F#__________8D#_9E_8D#________
D____________________________________________11C#__11C#__________11C#____
A_______________________________________________________________________
E_______________________________________________________________________
 

By contrast my actual Guitar 2 Harmonized lead (below) is made up of all of the notes from the chord shapes that I didn't use to make my riff.  It sounds horrible as a stand alone, but when you mix it with my Guitar 1 part and play it at the same time, they sound just fine.  Complimentary harmonies don't always sound good by themselves.
 

Guitar 2:  These are the root notes

E________________________________________________________________
B_______________5E_7F#_5E-7F#-5E______5E_______________________5E___
G__2------6C#_8D#________________8D#_____8D#__9E__9E__4B_6C#_4B______
D________________________________________________________________
A________________________________________________________________
E________________________________________________________________

Another Example would be the opposite.  This is where your riff is the Root notes and you have the 2nd guitarist harmonize the 3rds.   It'll give the opposite effect to my riff, but a similar effect to what a harmonizer would produce.
 

Guitar 1:  Root notes

E______________________________________
B_____________9G#_10A__________________
G__4---9E_11F#__________________________
D_____________________________________
A_____________________________________
E_____________________________________

 

Guitar 2:  This time these are the 3rds

E_______________7B_9C#_________________
B___5---9G#__10A________________________
G_____________________________________
D_____________________________________
A_____________________________________
E_____________________________________

If you want to create a harmonized lead off the top of your head, you must know the following:

1.  Know your key signature (what notes make up the key you're in), in our key of E here, all notes must be, E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#. 

2.  Ask yourself if you want the harmonized riff that Guitar 2 will be doing to be the root, or do you want Guitar 2 doing the 3rds.

3.  If the answer is the root or lower than your riff (such as in our example song here) then you must look at your main riff as the 3rds and have Guitar 2 play the root notes.  If you want the harmonized riff to be the 3rds or higher than your riff, then you must look at your riff as all of the root notes and have Guitar 2 play all of the 3rds and or minor 3rds as the case may be.

4.  Don't over think all this.  Just look at the diagrams above, it's very straight forward.  Just remember the riff in BLACK TAB (Guitar 1) is the center of the universe.  It's either going to play the 3rds of what Guitar 2 is doing, OR, Guitar 2's part is going to be the 3rds of what Guitar 1 is doing in the BLACK TAB.  In our case example here the BLACK TAB  (Guitar 1) is the 3rds of what guitar 2 is playing in the Blue TAB.   

This could also be looked at another way but it's more complex and we're not going to get into that here.  There's no need to get into it and over complicate something that doesn't have to be.

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