Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is certainly a world class guitar player, but unlike some guitarists, he is best known for his ‘feel' rather than his technique. He uses open tunings a great deal, and especially open g. If you can master some of his style you too will be able to ‘play like Keith Richards'.
If you listen closely to any of the records he's played on, you'll often notice that his guitar work relies on ‘space' and classic timing. It's hard to say exactly how he produces those riffs with such exquisite results, but part of the secret is to leave gaps in the guitar playing – where nothing is heard. This is what I mean by ‘space'. Often the listener is expecting to hear Keith's guitar at a certain position in the song, but that doesn't mean that he'll play anything at that moment. Leaving gaps in there is one way to play like Keith Richards. A quick listen to Honky Tonk Women will reveal the ‘spaces' that he uses. He lets the drum and bass and vocals ‘push' the song along whilst he waits to play in the ‘sweet spots' of the song.
If you want to get an idea of exactly how this works, listen to your favourite song and then play along with the rhythm guitar part, but leave those ‘spaces' and listen to how it changes the feel of the song. Syncopation is part of the style. One of the definitions you will find for syncopation is "the displacement of the usual rhythmic accent away from a strong beat onto a weak beat". Well, that's a very useful thing to be able to do, but it takes a little practice. To really get the best out of a song you'll have to play it many different ways using syncopation to come up with something fresh and original. We're all very used to blistering guitar solos but we often miss the skill of the rhythm guitarist, working ‘behind the scenes', so to speak.
The purpose of this article is to give you some pointers on Keith's playing style - it won't turn you into the new Keith Richards. Let's start by tuning your guitar from standard tuning to open g tuning. Check the internet to see how to do this, it's not hard, or check my website www.stonesmusic.co.uk.
If you strum the guitar from the top (thickest string) down to the first (thinnest) string you have a g chord without fretting any notes – so you won't need your other hand at all. Check out Keith's playing on a live video of Honky Tonk Women and you'll see what I mean. He's playing the intro with only his right hand and not using his left hand in the intro at all! He's just picking at 3 strings, in this case 5th, 4th and 3rd strings which are g, d and g. If you mix in a little syncopation and cool timing you'll get the feel of it. www.stonesmusic.co.uk/HonkyTonk WomenTab.pdf
If you listen to a lot of Rolling Stones songs you'll hear the interplay between the standard tuned guitar (Ron Wood or Mick Taylor) and the open g tuned guitar (Keith). This is an important factor in the Rolling Stones sound. You'll hear this tuning in Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, Tumbling Dice, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Start Me Up and plenty more besides. When they play live the Rolling Stones often play You Can't Always Get What You Want in open g too, although it was recorded in open e tuning. The open tunings add an extra dimension to the songs. It's a bit like a recipe – and different flavourings to spice things up! If you play guitar in open tuning you'll find that it's easier to write a song as the unusual sounds can be very inspirational. Before long you'll be able to ‘play like Keith Richards' too!
Lastly, remem
ber the capo! Even in open tuning a capo on say, the 5th fret will lead to even more interesting chord variations and that will make things sound ‘sweet' too.
This will help you to play like Keith Richards too. Put the capo on the 5th fret to get the sound for You Can't Always Get What You Want, or put it on the 4th fret to get the sound for Tumbling Dice. If you'd like some more information visit www.stonesmusic.co.uk
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