Beginners help with Octaves?

[Bransonf]

Hey Guys,

Im not even sure if octaves is the right term for this lol. But I had a question, And I was hoping that someone could help me out. Ive been going over tabs and trying to understand how this works. Lots of bands I like (No use for a name, The Ataris, nofx) all do this. They will have 2 guitarist and they will play some thing like this.

Guitar 1:
e|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-----------------4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4----------------------------|
D|7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5------------|
A|5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5------------|
E|----------------3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-----------------3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3------------|

while guitar 2 plays over the top with this:

e|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|7-7-7-14-14-14-12-11-7-7-7-14-14-14-12-16-14-12-11-9-7-7-7-7---------------|
D|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|5-5-5-12-12-12-10--9-5-5-5-12-12-12-10-14-12-10--9-7-5-5-5-5---------------|
E|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|


I know this is guitar theory, and Ive never learned that or taken guitar lessons. So I was hoping someone could tell me how musicians know that playing:

14
x
12

goes well with

5
5
3

Can someone explain it, or provide me a link that would show me a concept of how to figure it out.

Sorry if this made no sense, and I sound dumb. Just want to get better at the guitar as I love playing it so much.

Thanks Guys,

Branson

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Beginners help with Octaves?

That's a big old kettle of fish. Simplest way I can think of is that notes that sound good when played together are all different octaves of a 3 to 5 note basic chord. If the basic chord sounds good when played, practically any combination of octaves in any order will around good when played around each other. There are also notes that are not necessarily part of that basic chord that can be shortly used to ramp into one of the basic notes or octaves thereof to spice up the mix.
Savvy, chum? Its all really exciting stuff actually. When you figure out how to craft solos from scales and chords, then you can learn to BREAK them creatively as well.
I would honest to god suggest getting a piano or keyboard. For nothing else but to work out theory on a very easy platform, then transcribing it to guitar.

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[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Beginners help with Octaves?

It's all playing within a scale still. Guitar 2 seems to just be using using split bass octaves and carrying a melody over a standard barre chord riff. So the reason they go well together is because they are notes within the same scale, so there is no real dissonance. The bottom one is playing within a D major scale but coupled with octaves. The first one has 3 Barre chords, D G and B. All of those notes exist within the D major scale so everything sounds appropriate. Nothing to be ashamed of dude, I barely get it. In fact someone is probably gonna correct what I just typed because even though I only said like 4 sentences chances are I was wrong in there.
This pic might help


If you look at the fretboard and the frets of this scale, you'll see that all of the ones you posted fall on a green dot (with the exception of the ones that go beyond the 12th fret, but they still do land on the scale as notes! Just not shown on this picture. They are green when you translate them to lower frets with higher strings). That's not a coincidence. And that is why the sound works. You can actually experiment and learn to improvise within this scale. If you know what scale the part song is and want to play something different that works like a little melody or solo or something, you can use this as a guide to know where to and where not to put your fingers. It can also help if you're looking for another chord to add to the chorus of your song, like if your song is in D major, you can pick another chord that fit's within D major and it should come out sounding appropriate.