KIRK'S COLUMN

Dropped D slide rhythm

Hi again, fellow twanger.

This week's lesson takes another look at slide in dropped D. Slide guitar, as we well know, is traditionally played in open tunings. The reason, of course, is to allow chord tones to line up so the slide can play them all at once; the down side is that you must learn a whole new fretboard layout. I had enough trouble learning just one layout, so years ago I gave up on open tunings and started exploring standard tuning. It turns out to be just as rich an environment as open tunings. You may not be able to play chords that are 5 or 6 strings wide, but there are all kinds of 'chordlets' (a new term I coined) that, when strung together, make for a very interesting style of playing.

Go to http://planetalk.thatllteachyou.com

If you haven't already, check out last week's lesson at http://www.guitarforbeginners.com. It's the fingerpicking chorus section of Helplessly Hoping, so the whole song is there now, as I did the verse section the week before. It's a very basic picking pattern that you can use again and again. There are a couple of dozen other lessons there too.

This week's winner of the Pluck à Lorange CD (34 lessons, 24 mp3s) is Judi, from Florida. (I have a very scientific way of choosing winners from the guestbook entries: I call my gal Clancy into my office and she closes her eyes and points to list.)

If you'd like to be in the running, just drop me a line in my guestbook at http://www.thatllteachyou.com/cgi-bin/gfb_guestbook/guest_gfb.cgi

The Master Lesson I put together has generated some nice feedback. It's a dropped D slide version of Crossroads, and it comes on a CD. There are 5 crystal clear movies, all kinds of midi files and graphics, six pages of commentary ... 300 Mbs worth of learning. Check it out at http://planetalk.thatllteachyou.com/xroads/. It's not for beginners!

If you're interested in reading some of my articles, go to http://www.guitarticles.com where I have archived them all.

What else? If you have a slide/bottleneck/lap steel site, join the Slide Guitar Web Ring. You'll get a boost in traffic, guaranteed. Go to http://www.bottleneckguitar.com

Lastly, if you're one of the many who are still wondering what the trick is to having the whole fretboard at your disposal; to seeing it all as friendly, familiar territory; to being able to weave melody through any chord progression; to being able to quickly analyze any given musical moment; to seeing chords for what they really are ... then you need to read PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book. Here is an email I received yesterday from Dan in Pennsylvania:

"An instructor friend of mine was used to watching me play everything in first position or power chords. You should have seen the look on his face when I was suddenly playing variations all over the fretboard! Thanks Kirk! Your book is everything you say it is."

All the best, have fun with the lesson!

Kirk Lorange
http://www.kirklorange.com