Skronk Guitar, Dougie-Style

Skronk Guitar, Dougie-Style

"From the very beginning when I used to hear those solos on those old records I used to say: now here is an instrument that is capable of spewing forth true obscenity, you know? If ever there's an obscene noise to be made on an instrument, it's going to come out of a guitar. On a saxophone you can play sleaze. On a bass you can play balls. But on a guitar you can be truly obscene ... Let's be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blasphemous device on the face of the earth. That's why I like it .... The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that's my idea of a good time."
Frank Zappa

The highlight of each gig for me has become, oddly enough, Roadhouse Blues, which is standard bullshit bar-band fare (I think every band I've been in has done it) but at the end of the night, when everything is hanging out, I like to get ugly with six strings.

I always start off with the same unison-bend stuff Krieger does on the original, then into some standard aggressive blues/rock shit.

But I'm trying to push the envelope harmonically, and I'm having some fun recently. I'm not anywhere near in the league of my heroes Frank Zappa and Robert Fripp, but I tend to at least think of them when I start getting dissonant with my bad self.

If you play guitar, you know the basic riff already or can figure it out in nanoseconds. Just think E. For days.

Here's a couple ideas for you:

Beat the shit out of this chord for a couple hours on top of that riff:

-16-
-15-
-15-
-14-
----
----

Then, when you're sick of that and ready to move on, slide that shape up to:

-20--
-19--
-19--
-18--
-----
-----

and beat off on that a for a few bars.

The idea here is to make all the cats in the neighborhood run away, and make your singer look at you like "You sick fuck..."

I like open strings, because they make me appear faster than I actually am. You know, the same reason most of us like them.

Work with this on your B string:

-0-1-3-4-6-8-11-12--

Do a lot of hammers and pulls, use that open B a lot. You'll notice I left the E off on the 5th fret - you know the TONIC. The thing you're SUPPOSED to play sometimes. Fuck that, it's the bass player's job.

But by playing off the fret on either side of it, you're now using the major seventh and the minor second, and that's always fun to do on top of what is supposedly the blues. You'll notice I also skipped over the fourth - the A on the 10th fret. There's a reason for that. If you're fucking about up there between the G and the Bb but leaving that A note out altogether, it's another nice little way of creating more tension. The minor-third interval between the G and Bb has a nice amount of space to it. In fact, do a lot of that - licks spanning three frets instead of two. Or just one fret. Going from small intervals to wide ones a lot without resorting to standard pentatonic shit (and hey, that's fun too) is a good way to add some aural habanero sauce to your skronk-gumbo.

-0-1-0--1-4--4-8--8-8-11- 8-11-12--

That sounds rather raga-esque to me when done right. Lots o' legato. I tried to work in hammers and pulls above that line, but tblog's propensity to fuck with all my guitar tab attempts makde it impossible to read correctly. Basically, hammer, pull, or slide all of this shit.


Here's an idea that starts off normal enough, with sixths, then you can make it evil. Slide into each note on the D string going up.



------------------------- ----
----3----5-----7-----8--- 10--
------------------------- ----
-4-----5----7------9---9- ----
------------------------- ----
------------------------- ----


When you've got to the top of that, keep that 9 and 10 down on the D and B strings, but start adding shit in, making it into slabs of chordal grind while the bass player says "Jesus creeping shit, how long are you going to make me stay on this damn riff?" By the way, I can NOT overstress the importance of not being polite about these chords. This is a fucking bullshit rock riff you're playing on top of, not Giant Steps. Play this shit like I do - like you have better ideas than you do chops, your wrists are hurting, and you might just fall off the stage at any given moment but if you stop playing your head will explode.

-0--10--10--12--12-14-15- -
-10-10--11--11--11-11-11- -
-0--9---9---9---12-12-12- -
-9--9---9---9---11-11-11- -
------------------------- ---
------------------------- ---


Do not get in a hurry. The above seven chords are meant to be a buildup, and can take quite a few bars to evolve. This is about TENSION. Do this shit right, and you'll create more tension than a fat guy in a long coat hitting on a girl half his age in a convenience store while buying beer.

Obviously, you can take the first two chords I talked about at the beginning of this and tack them onto the above seven, making the buildup go on a while more, and making the band tired of backing up your twisted ass. 

This is how I make up for poor picking technique and an erratic left hand. Even if this comes out sloppy, you deliver it with the right attitude, and it's gonna be some nasty, nasty shit that people are gonna NOTICE.

And let's face it, being noticed and getting your ego stroked is pretty much what we're all up there for anyway, right?

Enjoy, fuckers!
Dougie