Why Chords Sound Bad With Distortion (And What To Play Instead) [With Mark Turko]

Heat. Hello internet. Nice to see you. We had uh some audio problem that's why we're a couple of minutes late but we are here and we are ready to go. So if you are watching us say hi in the chat comments. Tell us where you're watching us from. We always want to know where uh you guys are watching us from. Okay. Because we are streaming all over the world of course. So today we're going to talk about what chord sounds good with distortion and how and why and how to make the whole thing work. Essentially if you have an electric guitar and you play chords with too many notes, you know that distortion doesn't really work great. So maybe you have to use less gain to make it work. But we want to play a bit a lot of gain usually. No, I What's the point of distortion? So are there ways to make those chords sound good that it's not just power chord? And so we're going to work around this concept and see what we can do. And today to help me, in fact, he's going to do most of the work actually. Today with us, we have an friend of mine who's an expert in this kind of thing. Guys, please welcome Mark Turko. — Hi Tomas. Mark, how are you? I'm good and I hope you are too. So now Mark get us started on this. So what's the problem? Why it exist? What's the solution? And then we go and see the details. — Sure. No problem. So the problem is that when we add distortion to the sound of the guitar, certain intervals don't sound pleasing. So, we're typically their intervals when they're close enough together to the root note that may sound better with a clean signal, but with a distorted signal, it exasperates the unpleasantness. So, let's just say if we were going to work with uh, you know, a flat five or a sharp four, which I'll get into in great detail. If we have those two notes really close to each other as far as pitch goes, — they aren't harmonically really pleasing to each other when they're that close together. Now, we do have certain pitches that when they're really close to each other, they sound good. They sound harmonious. They sound great with distortion. And of course, we use them all the time. But when we're talking about these other pitches close to the root note, there lies the problem. So, a lot of times what happens is if we're going to be playing chords, we can actually take those same types of intervals and just raise them one octave and they sound a lot better and then we start getting more color in our chords.

But it's when we start having those two notes that are really close to each other — that lies the problem right there. So, even with an acoustic guitar, which I'll be playing today because I had some technical difficulties. Um, so I couldn't I'm not going to be able to give all my examples on electric guitar, but even with acoustic guitar, you could see how some of these intervals actually kind of rub with each other. And so when we add distortion, it just makes it a hot mess. — Indeed. So um we have report that you are a bit quiet in the in the audio. So can you come get closer to the microphone? — Sure. Hold on a second. Let me see what I got here. Maybe I can boost that a little bit. — Oh wow. Yes, that's much better. — Is that better — for me? For me it is. — Then probably it's good for everyone else too. — Okay guys, I know what I hear. If you hear something different in the stream, let us know in the comments so I we can adjust. But this sounds to me sounds much louder and much better. Okay, Mark, let's go. Let's show us the thing. — Okay, cool. So, let's just first start with if I'm going to we're going to use everything today just based off of an A note as far as a root note goes, just because it's the first letter of the alphabet, kind of falls in the middle of your fretboard. it shows up in the view of the camera. So that's the note we're going to use today as sort of like our home base. Um so if I were just to play my A note right here. So you know our A minor scale ABCD E F G. We'll start with that particular scale because we'll keep it nice and easy. Um, so if I were to use the A as my root note, everybody knows that if we play the fifth, which is the E note, two frets higher on the A string, these two notes work really, really great together with acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mild distortion, heavy distortion. And then, of course, we could always add on the D string the A note. So now we're playing two A notes and an E note. So, we have our basic power chord here. So, we all know that works really well. We've done it a million times. But if we were to take the fifth of the scale or that E note and we were to lower it one fret and we play the root note also, we have this very harsh sound. Now with distortion, some may say it sounds great, — but to other ears it's like that's not any good. — Yeah. — So that's a matter of something that's subjective. But at the same time too, we can agree to say that it doesn't sound as though it's in harmony with the root note. whether you prefer that or not. But what we could do, even if we weren't just gonna sit on those two notes, what we could do is we could use this as a tool to get to someplace else. So, if I were to be playing my root and my fifth, and then I lower it down one fret, but then I were to actually play the fourth of the A note, which is a D. So, I would have both fingers on the same fret on my E and A string. Now all of a sudden we're passing through that and we're using that dissonance to resolve back to something that sounds more appealing because a root and a fourth and fifth are very harmonious and they work well together acoustic or electric. So for example now I can also ascend up into something else or I could descend back down to that. So that does get used a lot in rock music very frequently and a lot of times we just pass right through it and with all the distortion in the world it sounds awesome. Now that could be used on any pair of strings you want using the same fingers I did other than your B& G string. You could do it everywhere on every pair

except strings two and three. So if I wanted just to use the same shapes even though the notes are different. So that's just sort of like a little kind of hack where we could take something that doesn't sound doesn't have a lot of really pleasing harmony to it and we could use it as a tool in playing the guitar with overdrive and distortion. — Yes. Essentially the idea is rather than play playing it by itself where it sounds kind of meh we play it in context and in that context that's the dissonant thing. — Good good. Can you show that's one chord. Uh my guess is that a lot of people then have problem doing this in a chord progression because they're thinking okay what if I'm in the key of a minor where do I put that? uh where does it sound good? What do I do in practice when I don't have just one chord? Okay. So, if we were to take a look at those two notes that are that we're using those just those two notes. And depending upon which way the pitch is going to be going to the next chord, whether it be up or down, can usually dictate a pretty safe thing as to where we want to go. So, if I'm on an A chord, A power chord, and I'm going up to a B or even a C, if I were to, I may not necessarily want to play that next one there because it sounds like to me like the pitch is going lower, but my next chord is going to be going higher. So, what you could do is you can move your fingers. Let's just say we're going up the fretboard this way. And say I was going to be going to a B power chord. So, instead of playing the root and fifth there, I would actually play the root and the flat five in the next location. And then I would move it up one fret higher to finally make it be a B power chord. So for example that way I still have that same feeling of pitches rising even though I have the dissonance in there and then it finally resolves on my target or the or or the B. The — the same works descending also. So if I were to start with my A here and I'm going to a G power chord, then I would just play my regular A power chord. You can't go wrong with those. They're always going to work. Always. work all the time. — And so essentially the key here is that you are moving the top the note on the top string one fret at a time. — Correct. — Correct. Absolutely. — Nice. — Mhm. So which would lead us to if we still used the fifth as our home base, the top note that you were talking about — in these two examples, we were taking that note and we were lowering it one fret or one semmit tone. We can also take that same note and we can raise it as well and we can augment that fifth. — Okay? or make it a minor 6, whichever way you want to look at it. — So, if I were to take the same idea where I have my root and my fifth, and instead of going lower one fret, I actually raised it one fret. So, I'll just use my pinky and go up. So, here's my root and fifth, my A and E. There's an A and an F. Now, that's another dissonant sound, but it sounds very different. It doesn't sound as dark and evil like Black Sabbath, but it isn't really a really two notes that really play super nice

together. To me, that makes me feel anxious. To someone else it might make them feel something different. But I feel anxiousness when I hear those when I hear that root in minor 6 or augmented five. When I hear that together I get a very anxious kind of feeling. I don't have a doomy kind of feeling like I do — on the flat five. But the same concept that I had said when we were going to be using or the same principle I should say and concept when we're using uh the other way the first way is if I'm going to be raising this one fret and ascending up the fretboard to a higher pitch. — Well, guess what? I could actually just move my root note one fret. Now I'm playing a root and a five. And then I can go higher with the top note and then move my fret, my first finger again, my root note up. So I kind of spider my way up to my B. Now, you may not like the way that chromatic sound is going up because it's a very chromatic kind of sound. But it is a way in which you can do it. And we can also do the same thing going the other way as well. I could start with as well. So, those are just some ideas of how you can use that dissonance in being able to either ascend up into your next — chord, which is sort of like a target chord, — or descend back down. — Very easy. And now, the whole time I'm only been using two fingers. — Yep. That's that's the beauty of it. Now what if what if we were applying this to um to an existing chord progression. So let's say we are playing a cover or something. Okay. — And so you have just you have a chord progression that exists already. I don't know something uh A minor FG that the super standard — um chord progression. Uh can we use something this concept or something similar on something because I mean if we are composing a thing we can always do whatever we want. — Yes. — What if you're playing a cover? What if you're in a cover band? Can we use this concept somehow? — Yeah, we can. We can um it depends upon where you want to play your chord and how you're going to play your chord. So, you may have to adapt whatever type of chord that you might be playing to something that's going to make it easier for us to maybe add an additional finger or something like that. So, if you're stuck and you're playing, you know, a little three note triad up here, well, — it might be hard to switch your fingers really quick or something like that. But, let's just use that as an example. Okay. So, if I was going to be playing an A minor chord right here between the eighth and the 10th fret, and I'm just playing a three string triad. Okay. So, the thickest note that I'm playing is my E note. So, there would be the one note right here that I want to raise. So now the interesting thing is that when we take this full triad and I raise that up, it actually becomes a different chord. — The tonal center becomes different. Okay. So it sounds more like an F chord now instead of just having the uh my root and uh my fifth and have it being augmented. So if I didn't play the full triad Oh, I'm sorry. Wrong fret. It helps kind of get away from that F sound if I wanted to. But the reason that is because my five is no longer the higher of the two notes. It's the lower of the two notes, but it's still going to work if you're going to use it as a transition going into another chord. It'll still sound okay. As long as you're not playing in the same frequency as the bass player, you can get away with going to that.

Okay. Now, — you said the chord progression was a minor F. — Yep. — Okay. So, let's let's go back to my example. So, let's have it be so that my root note is my lowest note of um of whatever chord I'm going to be playing. Okay. So, if I were to take my little three note triad here, there's my A, C, and the E. If I need to take my E and I move this up, but if I don't play my C note, I'm going to get that dissonance. So, it's almost as if I'm playing my F major triad on strings one, two, and three, but I'm going to mute my C note, so all I hear is my A and my E. Now, I could actually just take that whole same idea, and if I have my regular A minor chord here, and I just move my first finger to the first fret, and I mute that C note, there's that dissonance sound that we have going on. So, if we simply just take the chord that we're playing and we make sure that we don't play the third of the chord and we just play roots and fifths and we augment one of those E that's in that chord, that's how you're going to be able to get that dissonant sound by omitting one of the notes because we still really need to make it sound dissonant, but when we add the other note in, we're just basically making another chord. That's all that we're doing. — Mhm. — So, fretboard knowledge is really important at that point, knowing what your fingers are doing, where they are, which note needs to be raised up only one fret in the chord. But if you do have that fretboard knowledge, it's actually very easy to do. — Very good. We could do it on any a any chord shape you want wherever you want all over the fretboard. If you know where the fifth of the chord is and you can get a finger to either move that finger or get an additional finger that's not being used to play the note that you want to, you're automatically always going to get that sound. — Okay. Great. What's next? — Okay. So what's next is I know that you had said in the past what is the most dissonant interval that there is in music? What two notes create the most dissonance? — And you said the flatted two. — Yes. — Yes, it is. — Okay. So, it's the flatted two. So, it's two notes that are adjacent to each other. So, how do you make that sound more appealing or pleasing? It's very easy. All we need to do is just go up an octave or two. Nobody said that we always had to play these notes on adjacent strings or they needed to be within close proximity to each other. The further we get away from the root, the better it's going to sound. — Yes. — So, that is one of the biggest tricks to making these things sound as good as they possibly can. So, where I started off was just having notes that were close to each other, not one octave away. and having these landing two note sounds kind of anchor us back into not having dissonance. But it's very easy to do. Okay, so before we get into the flatted second, just think about nine chords, right? — Okay, — nine chord is one of my favorite sounding chords ever. I love the way nine chords sound, but the reason why I like them so much is because I like the fact that we can have that two in there and it's just so far away from the root note that it actually sounds really good to my ear. Okay. So, one thing that we don't necessarily have to do is always play these things right next to each other.

And we could still play two notes if we wanted to, but we of course we're going to have to start skipping strings at that point. — Okay. — So, let's just take my root. There's my A. There's my A again. And if I were just to lower this one, just one fret, there's my major 7. Sounds pretty good. Not bad. But then if I were to take an octave of that one and I played these two notes, that sounds fantastic. So this to me kind of rubbing. That's one octave away. But if I raise that major 7th up a whole another octave to me that sounds very appealing to my ear. And you can just have a root and a major 7th and that's all that you have and it actually sounds really great. So I got a quick question for you Tomaso. — Go for it. — Okay. So in your course because I know you do a lot of playing, things uh theater work, — uh hired gigs, things like that. In your travels of doing that kind of work, — do you find that you need to play sometimes very sparse things and just put in the coloration because there's so much other instrumentation going on that it you don't need to fill up that much sonic space. — Pretty much always it doesn't matter how few instruments you have. Pretty much always you have to consider that. Um the real problem of playing live is the sound quality. People are so used today to listen to everything through their headphones, the in ear the and they don't realize I mean even musicians who don't have uh live playing experience don't realize how muddy things when you are when you play on stage. So the less notes you play, again, not so much in number and quantity and speed, but the less notes you play at the same time, okay, the better it is because you cut better through the mix. You don't stomp on other musicians frequency range, okay, on their notes and the whole band sounds clearer essentially. So I mean you can't always have the perfect venues with the perfect sound technician with the perfect microphones especially when you work in theater because the sound technicians are great but they have to spend most of their time working with the actors having the microphone in the right place and all the things that I said at the band is an afterthought every single time. Again rightly so because we are easier. Okay. So at the end of the day when you play rhythm guitar in those situations but again and again this will work for bands too okay uh for normal bands and normal stages etc is either power chords or high chords like I don't know wait that's too much distortion already you think you're playing stuff like that. So, corn are up I here. And then you typically, you know, you can um you can always um play the usual double stop, etc. And then that goes really well because it's just a couple of notes. So, again, play the chords here. But if you play power chord or if you play with distortion, it's two notes every single time and you have to make it as flavorful as you can but with the least amount of notes. M — so yes essentially and one thing I do very often again following pretty much the same thing you are doing actually it's um rather than playing the root chord play the first inversion so if I'm playing a minor yes a minor is a c e rather I'm playing the a and the e is a power chord I'm playing the c and the a bass player Here he's playing the E. I'm

playing the C and the A. So with me playing this and the bass player playing this, we get a full triad essentially. Or actually, no really because I'm playing the third. But the point is I could play the second inversion too, meaning play the E and the C. So now we have a full triad. Okay. So, but essentially I'm playing two notes out of the chord and rather than playing the root and the fifth, I'm typically playing the third with either the root or the fifth. So, if I'm playing something like a minor and the next chord is F, I can go down to F. Typical sound. But I can also simply raise the E to the F. And now I have the second inversion. And now rather than going to the G here. I go to the can go to the G in second inversion here. B and G. So as opposed to Okay. So tricks. Okay. It depends how it sounds with the man. — I agree. And and and so you have to work with the instrumentation that you're surrounded with also. And so, you know, you just don't go on autopilot and just play the version you like. You need to play the version that sounds best with the ensemble. — Yes. Always. Sometime sometimes the obvious thing is that we think it sounds best. Then don't try to be clever and just play the obvious thing. That's the thing. — Correct. — Okay. So, again, we we're always thinking — I mean, I was assuming that, but you're right. We should say it. The goal is not having you sound good. The goal is to make the show sound good. Okay. So, sometimes Yeah. You have to subordinate what you do to the show. So, so if the clever thing doesn't work in that moment for the song in that don't do it. — Yeah. — Simple as that. — Exactly. So, when you're doing this kind of stuff, and I think it's really cool stuff to do, especially um you know, like for example, the string skipping thing that I was talking about, sometimes you have to go at least an octave, maybe two octaves higher. — Okay. I don't think that's a very utilized approach to the an underutilized approach to playing rhythm guitar that you don't have to be pounding away on chords the whole time. We could I mean I could just play my here's my A and I could go all the way up to my high E string and play my B and just play those two notes. — Yep. That is how we use these odd sounding things to make them sound more appealing because the further away from the root, the nicer it sounds. So now we're getting away from what we originally talking about on an adjacent strings. But this is something that I wanted to touch on too because root anything doesn't have to be close by. It could be the nine. third 11. It could be the 13. It could be the whatever. As far as your fingers could spread. I mean, if you want, we could — we could tap our finger if we wanted to way up here on the fretboard. — And it's just playing two notes can actually have a big impact. And this opens up, — I guess it makes your color palette for rhythm guitar much, much bigger. You go from white, black, and gray to every color under the sun. And you could just do it with two notes. And that's the cool. And that leads me to your flatted, too. — Yep. — Now, that is still a hard listen. — Yep. — But it's a lot more appealing than being only one octave away. Now, I don't think I would sit there and hang on that for a long periods of time unless I'm uh you know doing some avantguard theater presentation and I'm really trying to create something. You know what I mean? — Yep. So, but the point of it is that it's these are things that we can do and we don't have to be strumming playing let's just say chords in the sense of where we need a full root, third, fifth and add a seventh and

it has to be four unique notes and play them all at the same time. That is not necessarily what we have to. I mean, if you were to really take a look at some chord shapes or ways that guitar players play things, a lot of times they'll be playing what they'll identify as a seven or a nine or something with an 11, but they're leaving other notes out that are technically supposed to be in the chord because either they don't have fingers or that particular note isn't jing with the most important note of the chord. For some reason, your fingers can only get to where they can get to the nearest note, and they just totally leave it out of the chord. So, if you were to write it all out, find an exact notes where your fingers need to be on the fretboard. It's like, "Hey, wait a minute. I thought there was supposed to be four unique notes in this chord. There's only three. " Well, either your fingers couldn't reach or the note that was left out didn't sound good because the more important notes are there. And the thing is that if you have a bass player or a piano player in your ensemble or band, the root is the least important note. So that's the first one that needs to be left out because that's the thing you were saying. People are like, "What can I reach? I'm playing the root. What can I reach? " And I mean that's a that's legit. Okay. But then we start having problems of extension, muting the string, etc. Okay. Don't play the root. Play the fifth instead. — Yes. Okay. I can play ninth. So together you get this. You're playing just this, which is an E power chord, but the bass player is playing the A. too. Okay, that's an idea. Or again, go up to the minor third or the fourth. Okay. Or the seventh. The omitting the low root gives you a lot more space in the distortion. So now you can play much more complex chords. Okay. Um a few comments saying this too that okay but some some players play very complex chords. Yes that may be true but they don't play all the notes of those chord. First of all they have very little distortion like I have right now. But that's the thing they don't play the full chord and maybe they all the all those notes again I have next to no distortion right now. So that can still work. But rather than they still leave the root to the bass. Okay. And even just taking away the root frees up a lot of space because it's the lowest note in the chord and the lowest note typically occupies more space in the distortion space. Maybe they leave out the third two. Maybe they typically leave out the fifth. So typically they just play the tensions if there are tensions to play or they choose specifically two notes that are in tension between them because that's there too. Okay. Not that you cannot play the minor second that's a very specific sound. I mean notice with I have very little distortion. So not I can play this. That's a D major 7 9 with a sharp 11. I have all the possible tensions here. And notice how dissonant the minor second sound. Imagine this with some actual serious distortion. It's just too much. Okay. If I put some serious I mean you can like this, but for how long? You cannot make a whole song out of it. And again, the chord I played before now sounds this way, which is much. Okay, fine. Instead, I haven't playing that. The bass plays the D, and you instead choose a few of those um tensions. For instance, you can play C sharp and G sharp which are a fifth apart and they give you the major 7 and the sharp 11. So with the bass player playing this and you play this, you still have some nice distortion going on. And again, you can play this lower if you want. Okay, but it's a complex chord overall. So

what we are saying is that you don't have to sacrifice complexity. interesting chords. You just have to be smart about it and not just take the jazz chord that you learn in a book and just play the whole thing with distortion. Jazz chords were studied to be played with clean sound. The cleaner the better. Um if you guys notice, I mean there is a problem of timber here. If you guys notice when people play jazz cord, most jazz players have a very warm sound, — okay? They use guitars with that have a very warm sound. They use semi acoustic guitar with humbucker pickups. Sometimes they roll off the tone, too. This sound has been cuped. It has no highs, okay? It has no sparkle. It's all warmth. That's the sound they like. I'm not criticizing it. This is not a judgment of value. It's that's what they do. They like the warm sound. Why? Because if you have a warm sound, it can come in more distortion and it sounds good. — Problem is I don't like this more the warm sound. Okay. I like to have a lot of highs in my sound. You can hear this. I like the sparkle whether I have I'm on the one pick up or the other. I like the sparkle. I like the highs. I like this kind of cuts through the mix. Yeah, that's my preference on tone. So again, some people are like, "You sound so harsh. " Okay, good. You don't like this, you like something else. And it's great. I just like this. But in this situation, I have to be smart about the notes I choose. Okay? And again, if you use a lot of distortion, if you play classic rock, metal, etc., and you play with a lot of distortion, then you have to be smart, too. That's what we're saying, right? — Yes. So to like for example to to take what you're saying. So if you like the band K, if you like heavy metal, they actually use dissonance in a very effective way and they'll use it sparingly, but they'll use it and it's very jarring, but then they'll go into something more melodic and then they'll come back to something very dissonant and then go away. So that's actually a very uh popular commercial heavy band that actually knows how to use it really effectively. They're using it almost as a tool in their songwriting than more than something that they're going to be trying to incorporate in a melodic sense. So they really use it as uh as a hammer. It hits you over the head. It's it's very disruptive sounding. and then they go into some more melodic stuff and then so they'll kind of use it like in that way. Um, so if you do like a lot of really heavy music, you could hear it a lot, but you need to pay attention how do they use it and when do they use it? You just can't use it all the time. Now, back to what the tones that you were like, you know, you like the sparkle, things like that. So, it may be playing really heavy music, but having a little bit of edge on it, you know, not super clean sounding. Um, but or let's say super clean up to having, you know, some mild overdrive on it. All you have to do is listen to the whole genre of music that happened in the 80s of all the British and European bands that came and got popular in the United States. uh you know um that you used what you were talking about because they were only playing really part of the chords, not the full version of the chord that they used in a book. You know, you're talking about Duran Duran, The Police, all these other European and British bands that broke out in the pop scene here in the United States. I mean, they were masters at only playing the important notes of the chord. Did I mention the police? — You mentioned the police, but you can mention them again. — I'll Exactly. Because they're not using the full versions of the chords that you found in a chord book. They're just playing the important notes of the chord that's going to make it really, really sound that way. because there's other instrumentation whether it be keyboards or playing along with the bass player. That whole genre of music that happened during that time. They were they knew exactly what they were doing when they were going to be writing those songs and recording them and they were very specific on the notes that they chose. There was lots of chords where notes were left out and that was done very intentionally. So, whichever

way you wanted to look at it, um, you know, whether it's really heavy music or, you know, even clean up to a mild distortion, um, it's used very specifically when you're using these strange sounding intervals that don't really sound good in, like you were saying, the full version of the chord that you actually see in a book or something like that. So, — uh, yeah. Yeah, — that's a good genre to get into. If you like to have uh more color in your sound, you I think you really need to start leaving notes out of your chords and paying attention to the instrumentation that's going on without you because it'll it'll make a big difference. Also too though, one thing that does make a big difference, which I know you can attest to for sure, is um let's just say that we were going to be playing something like um on adjacent strings. Say I was going to just be playing a like a major third. Here's my C. Here's my E. If for some reason I needed to play that or wanted to with or without distortion, if you were actually to play those same two notes on your A and D string, it sounds very different, especially with distortion. There's a lot more clarity in those two notes than those two notes. And it has to do with the thickness of the strings. So you're going to get a much cleaner sounding major third that are right next to each other on adjacent strings if you can play whatever pitch you need to play but on the thinnest possible strings. — It's not as woofy. There's more clarity to it. So paying attention to what notes you're playing is important. But also, if you could play whatever pitches you need to play on the thinnest strings possible, there'll be a lot more clarity in what you're playing. Also, you sometimes you can't. I mean, you you're limited to, — you know, a specific pitch that you need to play. I get it. But if you do have the option, go for the thinner strings. — Yes. Higher. It's higher is thinner, not only in strings, but also in sounds. So, it fits better. It always fits better. — Yes. — Yeah. It's um it's it's part of a general pattern that um if you go higher in pitch, the dissonance feels less dissonant. So you can take very dissonant intervals. I mean the if you take a minor second down here. Ouch. Okay. But if you take the minor second up high here, now I'm playing an A and then um and a G sharp up high here. It's still dissonant, but it's not as like this. It's still dissent. It's The other thing is the volume. If you play it louder, it's more dissonant. If you play quieter, it's less dissonant. But that's um more dangerous dial to turn because you don't want me to mess with dynamics. If you want loud, you want loud. And if you want quiet, you want quiet. Yep. And oh yeah, there's a there's actually a pretty good comment here. Um that when I play with scoop mints, I have to be extremely careful not to sound like mud. And this is again I'm not saying Johan, I'm not saying this is your specific problem, but I've noticed that a lot of people do their sound in their studios with the guitar only. And so the thing that sounds good when you are in your studio with your guitar only is to scoop the mids like raise the highs, raise the low, cut the mids. Oh, now I have a nice metal sound. Amazing. And the moment you take this sound and you play live or even you record it, — it's not as good. Why? Because now you have the drums and the bass at least. Okay? And the and the singing. And somehow you are cutting the mids which were your frequencies. Okay? Because the bass and the kick drum are going to cover all the bass frequencies. The high hats and the singer are going to rob you of the highs and the window way you pass through you cut it on your guitar. So what happens is that when you hear those nice metal sounds that it sounds so good if you isolate the guitar it doesn't sound good at all. The guitar by itself sounds pretty thin and nasal because they

actually cut the bass and cut the highs. Not much but they do and they boost the mids and but when you play it by yourself it sounds horrible. Agreed. When you play it in the context of the mix, it sounds great. Okay. Sound technicians love me because I know this. So when I go into a live situation, that's what I do. And they're always like, "Wow, your guitar fits so well. I don't have to do anything. " Yeah, I know. It's um it's a little stupid trick. And again, in the in the soundtrack, people are going like, "Uh, are you sure you want to go with the sound? " Yeah. Trust me. And the moment the band starts, it's like, "Wow, that sound clear. It sounds powerful. The singer doesn't have to strain to sing. It just works. " So precisely because I don't sound like mud. Okay. So not notice what am I am saying. First of all, I'm not saying Johan is doing that. Okay? Because I met Johan and he's actually a pretty good tone. Okay? Last time I heard him. Okay? Um, and the other thing is, um, when you play by your I not saying you should do this when you play by yourself. When you play by yourself, by all means, cut, scoop the mints, raise the highs and low, have fun with your guitar, make a sound you like. I'm not say, it's just that when you go and play live that you are at a much higher volume because this changes things, too. Consider cutting your highs and lows to fit in the mix. even if it doesn't feel good at the moment. Okay? Just consider doing it and hear how it sounds in the mix. I'm not making a moral point that you are a better guitar player if you don't scoop the music. I'm just saying do this when you are in the mix. Okay? It's a very practical thing. It's very pragmatic. Okay? Professionals are pragmatic on those things. — Yeah. You're supposed to mix. So if you're recording, you're supposed to mix your guitar tone in the mix. You're supposed to get That's how you're going to get the best sound. So, you're playing back, you adjust your drums, you adjust your bass, your guitar is approximately where you want it to be. You like the sounds of those things in isolation. And then, while you're listening to the song and your guitar tracks already recorded, then you should be starting to tweak the sound of your guitar so it sounds best while the other instruments are playing. So, grab a parametric EQ, shave off some low end, cut off some top end, start playing with some mid-range frequencies. I will tell you this, anywhere between 500 and 1K is really going to make you sound good. Now, — yes, — the range in between that is to taste. So, some people like hot sauce and some people like it hotter than others and some people don't like it as hot, but we still like some kind of hot sauce whether it be mild or wild. That's 500 to 1k. That's really going to make you poke right out and sound amazing. — Exactly. So, si since we are here and we give frequencies. Okay. You guys want to write this down? Maybe anybody. Okay. So what Mark just said is between 500 htz and 1 kohz those are your frequencies. Perfectly correct. In fact you can go even a little bit higher than that but just a little bit. Uh and again lots of people cut it because in isolation it makes your guitar sound kind of plasticky. Okay. But again in isolation when in the mix it sounds great. Um instead what most people do is raise the bass. If the base was really base, meaning it was around 100 hertz, it would be great, but most but a lot of the bass that you raise then it's between 250 and 400 hertz — and that's the mud zone. Okay, those frequencies are never good. I know I'm going to be a fundamentalist here. Those frequencies are never good. If you can cut, if you have an EQ pedal on your guitar and you can cut between 250 and 400, you just sweep through those frequencies, you find the mud frequency and you cut it. — Yeah. — You always sound better. better. — Yeah. — And then the other problem is on much higher instead around 3 to 4 kohz which is the chainsaw frequency which you want to cut that one a little bit for two reason. one because it's exactly the frequency at which you understand the voice. So if you are on that frequency, the singer is training. It's just pushing and trying to enunciate as possible as much as possible because they cannot be heard. But second, your guitar is really fizzy if you have that. Now when you cut it, it feels like you just underpower. you took off the edge of

your guitar, which can feel a bit unsettling, especially if you like high frequencies like me. But again, don't cut it much and it will sound much better in the mix. Okay? So again, it's kind of doing the opposite than what most people are doing because we are thinking in the context of the band. Okay? Um, see, there's this thing is that we made playing guitar much easier. Okay, we have all the digital amps and you can have a great sound in the volume of your room and we have all those we had all the backing tracks and the virtual band and create the thing on demand and all of this is fantastic because we can play guitar on a budget. We don't have to have the uh 200 watt Marshall in your room crank it up at 10 to get a good sound. It's fantastic and again it cost a fraction. Everybody can have a good sound. Exactly. Exactly. You sound spending very little and then you can have the experience of playing with a backing track with good musician in in your bedroom and that's fantastic. The problem is that very few less and less people have the experience of playing with an actual acoustic drummer on stage and hear how much those high hats cover your guitar sound. And it doesn't matter how much you push the highs, the high hats are going to win every single time. So, might as well cut them. When once the high hats come in, whether your highs are this or that, you barely hear the difference. Okay. It's crazy. Okay. So, right. — Oh, — yeah. the second the drummer starts all the nuance is gone. — It's gone. — That I mean it's gone. — Yeah. And also — Go ahead. And and that's what it is. I mean you can do anything about that. That's the sound you like. You don't even realize it was there, but that's the sound you like. — It crushes it. It's just totally if you like those frequencies in your guitar tone, get used to not hearing them because — like you said, the symbols will always win. — win and you're not going to hear that in your guitar tone anymore. So, it's it's just a fact of life. That's all there is to it. — Yeah. It's terrible, but it's true. It's it's true. when you have to work around it. — Yes. Now, you have something for us, Mark. So, let me put this on the — Yes, I do. — There we go. — All right. So, this is the beginners's guide to adding lead guitar elements to your rhythm playing. So, if you've ever listened to music and sometimes you hear a few notes in between chord changes, few single kind of notes in between your chord changes, um, and you wondered, you know, what is that? How do you do that? How do they know what notes to play? I want to do that, too, but I don't even know where to begin. This is a stepbystep guide just like it says. It's for beginners. Um, so if you have no clue what that is, how to do it yourself, download this. It's totally free and it'll give you step-by-step instructions of exact notes to play, audio examples that will replicate those exact notes so you know that you're doing it right. And it'll get you started on how you could start playing notes in between your chord changes, too. totally free. All you got to go is to rhythm guitarlessons. netpro or pro and you too can be playing notes in between your chord changes easier than you thought and you find the link in the description. And also I have something for you guys. I have this guide on the 18 tips to make your pentatonic solo sound professional. Since you are going to be if you're taking a Mark's ebook, you're going to be add lead elements to your rhythm playing. So this ebook here gives you some more lead element you can play over chord course. Those are 18 very simple tips and those are the basic building block of leaks. Whenever rather than learning leaks that you can never use in your own solo, you should learn how to build your own leaks. And those are the building blocks. You learn two or three of those tips. You don't have to learn all of them. just learn two or three of these and you're going to have you're going to create your own licks like

spontaneously. It's actually crazy how this happens because it's so simple once you get the idea. It's so simple. So just get these and you'll see how easy and simple it is. Okay? So get that. It's free. Get both ebooks. You can get my ebook and Mark's ebook. And tonight they're going to have some good material to work with that will make you actually a better player. Okay? And it is completely for free. Okay? Just do it — for free. We we're giving it away. It's question our sanity if you want, but we giving it away. You want to get that so that you can get better. Okay, Mark. Thank you for coming today. That was good. There's lots of good material in this session. I recommend you guys watch it again. It's all simple stuff. It's all simple stuff, but nobody says a guitar has playing guitar has to be complicated. Okay, so — yes, — it's all simple stuff. And again, if you want the links, the links are in the description. Okay, so it's just go in the description and you're going to find them. Okay, guys, thank you very much for coming here today. Um, if you have any questions, you can write me or you can write Mark. Just go on his website and click on the about or the contact and you can write him. Not a problem. Or you can write in the comment later because this video is available later too. So you can always ask stuff. Thank you very much for coming and until next time guys. Enjoy. Heat. Oh.