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Another guitar question.

gardenkiller

gardenkiller

OK actually two.
First, how do you vibrato on an open string?
Second, how many frets should I be able to cover with my fingers? One tab I have calls for 4-6-8 all as one chord. Umm no freakin way. Is this possible?


Ok it was 3 questions, but ya know......
 
1) Whammy bar... or find another place to play the same note.

2) Depends on how big your hands are.

3) Can't help you.
 
Vibrato with your wammy bar or you can do the dangorous neck hand bend (talk about tempting it to break IMO).

Umm, I'd have to see the tab to interpriate the second question.
 
4-6-8 is doable if you have the hands for it. Most pro players don't bother and keep it simple. Try the 5th fret for the vibrato unless you are doing open B, then do the 4th on that string. Sounds like a piano player wrote the tab...usually the case with off the wall junk.
Cheers TB.
 
4-6-8
... sounds like frets, if so 4 to 8 is only a span of 5 frets.
There are lots of ways to play the same chord. So if you are having difficulty playing it as 4-6-8 find a different way to play it.... and in the meantime practice the stretch. It'll get easier with time.
 
I just started playing the guitar as well, and when I started I could't stretch 4-8 without significant effort. One of the things I do when I'm sitting down and not doing anything active is stretch my fingers using my right hand, and I started seeing some improvement in a little under 2 weeks.

If the 4-6-8 are not the EAD strings, you could go further down the neck on lower strings where the frets are closer together so you don't have to strech as far.
 
violin players 'vibrate' up and down on the strings, while others bend strings back and forth:
Ike,Buddy,Bloomfield,Garcia,Kaukonnen,Cippolina,Hendrix,Trower all did both at the same time in many cases, but it all started with Ike ( long befo jimmy, sorry). Not to be confused with the Dick Dale and Nokie Edwards (Ventures) "vibrato" or "whammy" style. All fingers. (even though they had whammies (bigsby), they could all do it with just their fingers. (Duane Allman was also good at this, and he and Dickie Betts could both imitate slide guitar with their fingers as well)
This was before effects, the "crybaby" wha-wha was still a tone-knob-with-a-pedal made by Thomas Organ Company in Sepulveda, CA.
Fender 'reverb' was only 3 years old!!!
 
califlanches said:
violin players 'vibrate' up and down on the strings, while others bend strings back and forth:
Ike,Buddy,Bloomfield,Garcia,Kaukonnen,Cippolina,Hendrix,Trower all did both at the same time in many cases, but it all started with Ike ( long befo jimmy, sorry). Not to be confused with the Dick Dale and Nokie Edwards (Ventures) "vibrato" or "whammy" style. All fingers. (even though they had whammies (bigsby), they could all do it with just their fingers. (Duane Allman was also good at this, and he and Dickie Betts could both imitate slide guitar with their fingers as well)
This was before effects, the "crybaby" wha-wha was still a tone-knob-with-a-pedal made by Thomas Organ Company in Sepulveda, CA.
Fender 'reverb' was only 3 years old!!!
Click to expand...

I was going to mention this. The only thing you can do to approximate vibrato is to bend the strings back and forth while you hold the note. It takes practice, and it's not easy. You might want to buy a crybaby or something. Depending on the sound you're going for. I wouldn't put a whammy on an acoustic...

And for the 4-6-8 stretch, you have 2 options:

1. Practice - if your hands are big enough, it'll be comfortable eventually.

2. Transpose. We'll assume the 4-6-8 is on the E, A and D strings. That means you're playing G#, D# and A#. You could try 4-6-x-3. It'll sound a bit different, but they're the same notes. That would be a little uncomfortable, too though. But maybe not so much of a stretch. Or just hit the 4-6, it won't sound as "full," but that's a power chord for you...

Someone correct me if I did that wrong - I'm no musician...
 
Slide players were the first to utilize the vibrato all the way back to early Son House and Robert Johnson to name a few. I reckon that non slide players adapted that technique by bending the string up and down by varying degrees to achieve the same effect which was different from the classical style of vibrato rolling the finger back and forth. One of the main reasons I play a V is that I can get a fatter vibrato i.e. wider bending spectrum. Even on acoustic, it shouldn't be a problem to get a nice vibrato. Just need to put in the time to do it right. Learn the rules and techniques to do them....then forget 'em.
Cheers, TB.
 
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