Put your 1st finger on one of any of your lower three strings G, D, A. Now place your 4th (or 3rd in the higher frets) an octave up on the next highest string 5 frets up and you have at your disposal a powerful chordal or melodic trick.

Melodically, you can "mirror" anything you do with your 1st finger moving it up and down the fretboard making it your melody note and the next string higher and octave higher. It lends an energy, boosting the fundamental sound of the lower string.

It can also yield a powerful and pure percussive sound for textural chord variety as well, moving in and out of standard three and four-note chord voicing.

This is standard vocabulary from any good R & B rhythm guitarist, but also commonly used by mandolinists John Reischman and Sam Bush.

Posted by Ted at May 13, 2006 6:12 AM