Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

beggar_guitar

beggar_guitar

New member
May seem like an odd mix, but I am really digging these 3 guitarists. I've always loved SRV, but John Mayer has been a recent passion of mine as well. Frusciante may be the odd-ball of this mix. I may be the only one to think it but I hear similarites between all 3.

My question would be on playing styles. Other than going out and just learning their songs what scale shapes/patterns would be good to learn? I know the pentatonic, anything else? Also what kind of chord shapes? 7's, 9's, diminished?? Tips for making and remembering and differentiating the shapes... etc etc.

Peace,
Al
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

The big thing those three have in common are picking style. You want a "loose" right hand that just barely skirts the realm of sloppiness. It takes a lot of practice to get it right.

For scales, major and minor pentatonic are a must. Work on your 7th and dim barre chord shapes as well.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

Sounds good. Anything else?

John Mayer is my favorite out of the 3 mentioned. I just love his style. Like you said Very loose almost sloppy. Gonna go get a copy of his new John Mayer Trio come payday.
I respect SRV as much as the day is long. I watch his Austin City Limits performance almost religiously. I really dig his tone and style. I just started getting into Frusciante.
I always like the Chili Peppers single's but finally bought an album of theirs. Stadium Arcadium is Awesome.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

John Mayer- his playing involves a lot of triads with hammer ons and pull offfs for each chord he is laying. The whole rhytehm/lead at the same time thing.

SRV- mainly minor pentatonic. He does play a minor pentatonic scale form but with a lot of major thirds thrown in and other notes.

The main thing is learn the notes on the neck, learn the difeent triad forms, learn major scale forms and triads derived from those major scale forms.

Combine all three, and youve got it, but it isnt easy.

I dont know much about the other chap.

I think a lot of Mayers lead work is SRV inspired while his rhytem is mainly Hendrix.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

For SRV (I didn't study the other guys style well enough)... learn to mix double stops with hammer ons and pull offs. It's something he got from Jimi (who got it from Curtis mayfield... who got it from...)

You should work a lot on double stops for SRV- from hitting two notes and then sliding down to playing octaves to Chuck Berry stuff.

Ummm... and timing... Stevie Ray gets a great effect by starting a solo or taking it up to the next level by doing it in the right timing... listen to how he opens his solo on Tightrope or the first version of Mary had a little lamb...
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

There is nothing sloppy in SRVs playing. Mayer is clearly imitating SRV, who in turn was a huge Hendrix fan.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

There was just a big article on Frusciante in Guitar World recently. He's been actually learning to play outside the 16 note "grid" as he calls it, leaning the notes in and out of the rhythm to create a more fluid, vocal sound. He went back to studying Hendrix for the first time since he was a kid, and found that Hendrix seemed to follow the same approach.
He was inspired to try this "arrythmic" approach by rap artists, of all things. :smack: I like it better coming out of his guitar then Jay-Z's mouth.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

yeti said:
There was just a big article on Frusciante in Guitar World recently. He's been actually learning to play outside the 16 note "grid" as he calls it, leaning the notes in and out of the rhythm to create a more fluid, vocal sound. He went back to studying Hendrix for the first time since he was a kid, and found that Hendrix seemed to follow the same approach.
He was inspired to try this "arrythmic" approach by rap artists, of all things. :smack: I like it better coming out of his guitar then Jay-Z's mouth.
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Excellent article. Read it more than once now while on the can. He's quite the oddball, but a hell of a musician.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

So far, nearly everyone has misunderstood my comment re. SRV/Mayer/JF picking technique. I don't really know how to explain it better than I have ... sorry.

chopstherocker said:
Playing almost sloppy like is hard? Hmm, the loose pick feel can very naturally for me.
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You're very lucky. Some people have great difficulty getting it right. It's easy to be sloppy, and fairly easy to be precise, but getting into that groove that lies between the two is much more difficult. That's why very few people who try to cop the SRV style actually succeed IMO.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

SRV uses alternate picking and sometimes just his elbow to get some of that hard, agressive picking attack the wrist can not supply by itself. That's atleast how I have leanred to play similar to SRV in terms of sound.
 
Re: Question on Tone & Style (SRV, John Mayer, John Frusciante)

Well...just to add my 2 cents.

All three players use a Stratocaster and are huge Hendrix fans.

Hendrix was a fabulous rhythm player...even when he was playing leads.

Get that right hand grooving, use lot of two and three string triad shapes like thirds, fifths and fourths, adding some jazzy bluesy shapes like playing the diminished seveth and third together.

Did I forget to say you gotta keep the groove going all the time?

I think that's the secret. :27:
 
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