World Rock Guitar

African music brings a joyous feeling. I can remember hearing Ali Farka Toure (an African guitarist) for the first time and being blown away at the simplicity and deep feel that came out of his guitar; the way he made his guitar speak really grabbed my attention and hooked me on this music.

Chord progressions are not generally complicated in African music, and most often the melodies are taken from the pentatonic and major scales. In this example, we'll be using a first and second position G major scale. Using open strings is really helpful when playing or writing these melodies as they add to the overall organic feeling of the music. This upbeat style of African music is referred to as "Soukous."

Setting up a rhythmic structure is really important to set the pace and feel of any piece. In this performance you'll notice we set the structure by heavily palm muting the chord progression to give it an almost percussive sound. Our backing track contains only 3 chords, which are G major, C major, and D major. Palm mute hard on these chords and arpeggiate them rather than strum to make them sound percussive. Play the lower octave melody first and then the same melody an octave up.

Simplicity is key here. Playing triads is easy and really adds to the overall rhythmic vibe in a tune like this. Evoking a Kalimba style effect with the heavy palm muting really creates an African percussive sound. Combining this with open strings in G major and trills in the melody give it a really authentic feel. Little nuances are really what make these melodies work.

In "African Rain 2" we'll revisit our traditional African track but now with more of a rock twist. We're staying in the key of G and even keeping the same melody. Go ahead and add your own improvisation after you play the melody, keep it cool and keep it happy sounding by staying in G relative minor (E minor pentatonic), not forgetting about the rapid slides and trills from the traditional tracks.

Keeping in line with our traditional track, let's play the lower octave melody and then play the higher octave melody. This time I'm bending more notes instead of sliding to give it more of a rock edge. Make sure to focus a lot on vibrato when soloing, using pentatonics to give it the rock edge we're looking for.

African music is all about emotion; it's always heart felt. The intro melody on this track tells a story, so when crafting your own make sure to keep that in mind.

The sound of an African guitar has a lot to do with the quality of guitars imported to Africa, which often arrive with high action and can be difficult to play (hence the abrupt pull-offs and trills). We'll revisit the melody with octaves this time as a nod to the original melody but now with chords.