Head Up High (A Section)
Added 2022-09-12 23:59:32 +0000 UTCThis week let's do a fun single note spanky part!
I'm often trying to pay homage to cool things when writing a guitar part, and this one was inspired by David William's guitar playing on early MJ records. Don't Stop Til You Get Enough is a good example of this single note style.
The other big inspo for this song is Overture off of George Duke's incredible album Guardians of the Light.
The part itself is basically the same thing twice, but the second time the rhythm is just a little different. Subtle rhythmic variations like these are the kind of thing that makes people want to shake their booty around (or so I think at least!)
If you've been on the guitar lesson scene, learning from wherever you're learning, you've probably come across this standard A minor scale shape at some point:
--------------------------------------5-7-8--
------------------------------5-6-8----------
----------------------4-5-7------------------
-----------------5-7-------------------------
---------5-7-8-------------------------------
-5-7-8---------------------------------------
That's pretty much how this part was written. Sometimes it really is that easy, you just take a scale shape you know and shuffle the notes around until you hear something cool!
The rhythm here is everything, as well as the picking. If a note happens on a downbeat or an upbeat, it's on a downstroke. If it's in between either of these, it's on an upstroke. Like this:
1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
d u d u d u d u d u d u d u d u
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As always, TAB is attached and drop any questions down below. Have fun!
