Johnny Cash was attacked by an ostrich.
It was his own ostrich. In recalling the
incident, Johnny theorized that the ostrich
was angry over the loss of its mate, which
had died from a bout of cold weather—
several of the ostriches that Johnny was
keeping on his property were frozen as well.
Johnny also claims that he only survived the
attack because he happened to be wearing a
particularly large leather belt.
I feel so normal after hearing a story like
this. I have no ostriches on my property,
and my belt is not imposing in any way.
I’m sure that Johnny wasn’t trying
to be outrageous or showy by owning
ostriches. I’m guessing that he just wanted
to have some around, so he went out and
got them. Similarly, I’m not trying to be
outrageous or showy by using my pinky
to reach the notes in the example on the
following page. I just like these notes, so I
go out and look for them. Sometimes the
pinky is the first to arrive, so I let it grab a
note here and there. If you give your pinky
some exercise, it will serve you well. Just
keep it out of cold weather.
This month’s example is a simple blues
progression in A, with a few extra chords
thrown in. But for a rock ’n’ roll guitarist
like me, those extra chords such as D#dim7,
F#+, Bm9, and various altered E7 chords
can be as formidable as facing an ostrich
charge. My only defense is to practice and
listen, and practice and listen even more,
getting my fingers and ears around these
sounds. I like these sounds, so that’s why I
go through the trouble.
The solo pattern is built from two
notes going up, followed by two notes
going down. To simplify, just think: two
up, two down. Soloists often play a lot of
notes in one direction, so I like how this
phrase reverses so often. It keeps the ear
interested.
This is also a good workout for alternate
picking. I recommend starting with a
downstroke followed by an upstroke, and
just keeping that pattern going. For the left
hand, I’ve written out the details with tablature
to show you where you can find the
notes on the neck. Measure 10 is definitely
the craziest pinky-stretching and stringskipping
moment of the piece. There are
other possible fingerings for these notes, but
I think this is the easiest one to keep the
notes sounding clear.
Rhythmically, I want you to notice that
the “two notes up, two notes down” phrase
equals a total of four notes. When I see a
four-note phrase, my knee jerk reaction is
to play 16th-notes. But here, I decided to
do something different. I looped the phrase
a few times in order to get 12 notes. A
phrase of 12 breaks into groups of three just
as easily as it does into four, so now I have
the option of playing triplets. And that’s
what I did. The nice thing is that each
time the phrase loops, the notes fall across
the beat in unpredictable ways. I’ve heard
drummers refer to this technique as “four
over three,” and drummers are always good
people to learn from.
For the chords, I should mention that
the voicings that I’ve chosen often rely on
the thumb to play bass notes on the sixth
string. I once had a student who looked
at me indignantly, and said, “But isn’t
the thumb FORBIDDEN?” In response
to him—and to all those who avoid the
thumb—I would like to officially unforbid
it. I heartily encourage you to reach over
the top of the neck and hold down some
nice, big bass notes. Hendrix did it. Why
not give it a try?
And if you are out belt shopping, I’d go
with the big one.
Paul Gilbert purposefully began playing guitar
at age 9, formed the guitar-driven bands Racer
X and Mr. Big, and then accidentally had a No.
1 hit with an acoustic song called “To Be with
You.” Paul began teaching at GIT at the age of
18, has released countless albums and guitar
instructional DVDs, and will be remembered as
“the guy who got the drill stuck in his hair.” For
more information, visit
paulgilbert.com.