Smooth 80's West Coast

by Guido Bungenstock

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  • Hi guys!

    It's time for the west coast sound of the 80's!

    I always loved this cool mixture of pop, jazz, fusion and rock of the mid 80's. Musicians who made this style popular were living legends like Larry Carlton, Jay Graydon, David Garfield, Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Lee Ritenour, Grover Washington Jr. etc. just to name a few. In this lesson we are going to focus on two different things here.

    Groovy 16ths single note rhythms
    Guitar player Paul Jackson Jr., who played on 1000's(!!!) of records is a true master of this cool technique. The trick here is to think more like a percussionist (shaker) or drummer( hi hats) to imitate a groovy rhythm instrument with just a few single notes and supporting the rest of the funky band. The most funky rhythms are based on 1 or 2 bar repeating pattern with some variations at the end of each pattern. Of course the dynamic is a really important thing here and also these dead notes and the palm muted notes create a groovy pattern. Some dead notes are subtle and played very soft but there still are there and very important! This technique is a really good exercises to improve your timing!

    Melodic guitar solo with some jazzy lines
    The guitar solo here is in the Style of Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour and has a rock tone but with some nice jazz lines because I used some jazz scales, like altered scale, mixolydian etc. There are some small modulation too and of course I had to change the scales too a bit. So this is another good example how different scales can be connected in a MELODIC sense!

    Then we have some small rocky guitar fills in the short interlude using the whammy bar and wide bending.

    So have fun with it!
    Cheers - Guido

    Song structure:

    A SECTION(Rhythm Part)
    Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B| Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B|
    Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B| Em7/9 | A/D G/C|
    Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B| Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B|
    Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B| Em7/9 | D/G A/B|

    B SECTION(Solo 1)
    Cmaj7 | Gadd9/B | Dm7/9/11 | G7/13/b9 |
    G/C | F7/9/#4 | Am7/b5 D7/#5 | F#m7/b5 B7#5#9 |

    INTERLUDE(Solo fills)
    Em7/9/11 | N.C. | % | % |
    N.C. | % | % | % |

    A SECTION(Rhythm Part)
    Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B| Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B|
    Em7/9 | Em7/9 A/B| Em7/9 | D/G A/B|
    E5|

    Final words
    I tried to transcribe as close as possible. Specially in the Guitar Pro 5 you'll find all this little extras!
    Don't forget: EVERY NOTE IS IMPORTANT! ;-)

    Technical specifications
    Guitar: Music Man Luke II
    Strings: D'Addario NYXL 09/42
    Amp: Peavey JSX Top with Marshall 2x12" V30
    Effects: T.c. electronic G-Major
    Sound-deflection system by DEEFLEXX

    Mics: Shure SM57
    Audio Interface: Focusrite Saffire PRO 24
    Recording SW: Logic 9, several plugins

    Standard tuning: E, A, D, G, B, E

    Tempo: 110 BPM

    Time signature: 4/4



















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