Lesson of the week

        Written by:  Jeff Fiorentino

       Copyright © 2006 JFRocks   All rights reserved

The technique lessons featured on this page are designed to be for Electric guitar.  Most of the lessons covered here however will transfer to acoustic without any issue.  This lesson page will be updated as often as possible.  The other pages on JFRocks and JFRocks UNplugged keep me rather busy and I try to keep all technique lessons to CD ROM.  What this page will do a lot of the time is expand upon lessons covered on various CD ROMs.  If this is the case the Category below will state which CD ROM the lesson is expanding on.  I hope you enjoy these mini lessons as I call them and remember all lessons from the past are located on the Lesson Archives page.

*Remember Effect suggestions are my suggestions for the home player.  Usually suggestions are geared for a low budget.

Lesson Features
The song track	The Jam along track	The Video Guitar Lesson
N/A	N/A

Tabs & Lesson

 Original score by:  Jeff Fiorentino

  Transcription by:  Jeff Fiorentino

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Lesson notes

I was sifting through the requests that have come in over the last week trying to figure out what to do for this week's lesson update.  I ran a query for Chuck Berry, and saw 272 Requests came up for it.  Hmm, sounds good to me. 

Chuck is the man.  You often here Eddie VH complain all the time about being ripped off.  Man, Ed's got nothing on Chuck.  Chuck has been ripped off more than anyone in rock music history.  I don't know a single guitarists that doesn't do Chuck Berry riffs now and again. 

In this lesson we will take a quick look at some of the common double stops and riffing that the "Chuckster" might do. 

I had the great pleasure of seeing Chuck Berry live from the front row, back in 88 or 89 on the U Mass Amherst campus.  They had free concerts in the summer back then.  Lots of great acts would come and play, Yeah I know I go to a lot of free concerts.  It just works out that way, I like free stuff anyway.  LOL  From what bands are charging to go see them play these days it's probably better to wait until they're has beens or long retired and come to you local fair or college campus, so you too can see them for free as well. 

Yes, it'll be the V. H.., Rolling Stones, Metallica, 2025 world campus and state fair tour. 

Seriously though, Chuck Berry is really Rock guitar 101 and we actually cover this kind of stuff on the ROCK ON! CD ROM so this should be a great expansion lesson for that CD as well as parts of Beginners 101 and The Blues Explained. 

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Main Lesson

A basic fairly simple look at the style of the "Chuckster."

Every player has a take on the classic Johnny B.  I'm no different, but in this case here I'm going to break down for you some common riffing and double stops you can use to create these types of riffs.  As with everything I do, I strongly encourage individuality.  If you inject a little of yourself into the various styles of playing that you learn, you will in the end come across more genuine to your audience and also learn more about who you are as a player. 

Double Stop:  Two notes of a chord played together.  A chord technically must contain 3 notes.  This is not my rule it's the rule.  So usually these two note sections are called double stops. 

These can be slid anywhere on the fret board in most cases.  Position will dictate the key.

Simple ones, the basics

Key of Bb in this case, Bb is a common key for Chuck, it's the key I saw him play Johnny B. in live.  However, he has been known to play it in A, B, and also this riffing is done in, G, E, and D on occasion.  For the JFRocks lesson we are in B Flat.  A.K.A. Bb

Bb

E_6___________________________________________
B_6__6___8____________________________________
G____7___7__7_________________________________
D___________8___8_____________________________
A_______________8__8__10______________________
E__________________6__ 6_______________________

Eb in or around the 6th position

E____________6__________________________
B________8___8__________________________
G__8_____8______________________________
D__8__8_________5_______________________
A_____6_________6_______________________
E_______________________________________

Practice the above double stops using some of the techniques covered below.

Bend, slide and gliss.

It's all about the groove, the feel.

E_4--6_6_6__4--6_6_6_____________________________
B_4--6_6_6__4--6_6_6_____________________________
G_______________________________________________
D_______________________________________________
A_______________________________________________
E_______________________________________________

E_______________________________________________
B______6_______________ 6~__ 6___________________
G__8^1____8^1__and also__8^1~_8^1_________________
D_______________________________________________
A_______________________________________________
E_______________________________________________

E_6__8^1__8^1>>release_6_______6_______________________
B_6__8^1__8^1>>release_6_______6_______________________
G_____________________8^1__________________________
D__________________________________________________
A__________________________________________________
E__________________________________________________

The scale

This is a 10 tone semi chromatic scale that myself and a lot of guys that play this sort of music like to use.  Truth is you can just use a blues box if you want, but adding in the 5 extra notes is helpful.

You can also use a chromatic scale is was the case with Rock around the clock, but this scale for lesson purposes is probably easier to manage.  Remember the position will dictate the key.  We are in the 6th position so we're doing Chuck Berry riffing in the key of Bb.

Pitches in our key of Bb:  Bb, C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, G, G#, A

NOTE:  This scale's pitches are accurate, however, we may go out of sequence sometimes during riffing.  For example we may use the C on the 10th fret 4th string and or the A on the 10th fret 5th string for riffing portions.  This is fine, remember scales and keys are about the pitches that make them up, don't lock yourself into a scale pattern.  However, for lesson purposes here I have to give you something to sink your teeth into so that's why I gave you the scale pattern below.

E_________________________________________________6Bb_8C_9C#_______
B_______________________________________6F_8G_9G#__________________
G_____________________________6C#_7D_8Eb___________________________
D____________________6G#_7A_8Bb____________________________________
A___________6Eb_7E_8F______________________________________________
E_6Bb_8C_9C#_______________________________________________________

Alternate scale to mess with besides the basic pentatonic minor

This is mis-layed out chromatic scale.  What I mean is it's not laid out in chromatic or sequential order as you change from one string to the next. 

Pattern of the scale:  Bb, B, C, C#,  Eb, E, F, F#,  G#, A, Bb, B,  C#, D, Eb, E,  F, F#, G, G#,  Bb, B, C, C#

E_________________________________________6_7_8_9_________
B_________________________________6_7_8_9_________________
G_________________________6_7_8_9_________________________
D_________________6_7_8_9_________________________________
A_________6_7_8_9_________________________________________
E_6_7_8_9_________________________________________________

Now let's ROCK,

Let's put all this into play and put a groove to it. 

This is what is called a "Boogie woogie" groove.  We talk about this groove on the Blues Explained CD ROM quite a bit and how it relates to other grooves.  We are not going to get into that here.  Just know it has a shuffle feel and it's basically a Hot for Teacher sort of feel.  You could if you were a drummer play the Hot for teacher beat to this kind of music quite easily.  This is a feel and groove that bands like V. H.. have been using for years and years. 

Basic chord changes to apply this feel to are a simple 1, 4, 5 blues pattern, in this case in the key of Bb,

Bb, Eb, F or F7 may be used. 

JF Be Good:  key of Bb

This is my version of the Chuck style Johnny B. Riff.  Like I say every player has their way of doing it and to be honest, Chuck does it different every time he plays it.  I have a few different recording of Johnny B from Chuck and each time, he plays the intro a little different.  So below is a good down the middle take on it, from yours truly. 

We will embellish a bit on the video and of course expand on this lesson on the video, so enjoy and I encourage you to mess with this and tweak it and get some of your own riffs out of it.  It's a true classic form of guitar riffing.

Variation on the riff in the style of our good buddy VH

NOTE:  Vh probably would not be riffing in Bb, but we're in Bb so here we stay.

Transcribed for NO WHAMMY BAR NEEDED!  Little come in under the note technique for ya'll

*Not an actual VH anything, this is simply an embellishment and something Ed might do with Chuck's techniques.

E______6_6_6______6_6_6________________________________________________
B______6_6_6______6_6_6________________________________________________
G_8^1_________8^1_________8^1>release_8-6_6^3/4>release_6^1/4<bend 6^3/4~~___________
D______________________________________________________________________
A______________________________________________________________________
E______________________________________________________________________

I improvised the tapping on the video and gave you my counts below.  You can make these what ever you like.  You can do them each 3 times and shorten the whole thing or you can do them each 4 times or mix them and make them longer as I do.  Either way it's a good use of our scale and a chromatic pattern which as you can see from the scales we covered earlier is very important. 

E_____________________________________________________________________________
B_(11)-6-9_<do approx 7 times___(11)-5-8_<do approx 7 times__(11)-4-7_<do approx 4 times__
G_____________________________________________________________________________
D_____________________________________________________________________________
A_____________________________________________________________________________
E_____________________________________________________________________________

E__________________________________________________
B__________________________________________________
G_5^1_(8)-5^1>release_5-3~~______________________________
D__________________________________________________
A__________________________________________________
E__________________________________________________

For expansion on this VH style thing as I did in a very simple form on the intro jam to this lesson on the video.  Simply add in some of the double stops below and incorporate some of the notes from the 10 tone scale we covered earlier.

E_6_______6__________________________________1________
B___9^1~____9_8_6____________________________ 1________
G_________________8_7_6_____________________ 1__<Bb 9___
D_______________________8_7_6_______________ 0________
A_____________________________8_7_6_________ 1________
E___________________________________4^1~~~____________