Here we are with a guitar lesson half about Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones; and the other half divided in to semi-brief segments on Buddy Guy, Billy Gibbons, Django Reinhardt, Ritchie Blackmore, etc. See complete list below.
Andy is playing a Fender Stratocaster and tells us that Keith is usually in open G tuning but we will be shown how to do it in standard tuning as well as open G. Andy's rig has a guitar tone set up which gets him a big fat sound but he doesn't share the settings with us.
Also Andy's right hand is claw finger articulating. Since he is not using a pick he is eschewing a plectrum. There are some uncomfortable left hand chord voicings with awkward but do-able stretches to master in order to sound convincing using these must know guitar moves. The right hand is finger plucking the strings. The thumb providing a pedal tone beat. From standard tuning we switch to Open G tuning 8 minutes through part one and we have 19:18 minutes to go for the Keith Richards segment.
Andy switches over to a Fender Telecaster and starts to show us the magic of open tunings. Often Keith would unstring his low E string and only strum the remaining 5 strings. Open G also sounds different. Playing it well is going to take some getting used to and a love of his songs, so distinctive is Keith's style. This is great! Just about any fledgling guitarist could learn from this lesson and not be overwhelmed. Tumbling Dice is next. And parts of other Stones songs pop up too. This presentation is tied to lessons in one of the Guitar World monthly Publications. We later put a capo on the 4th fret and we get a really nice sound too! Then for about four minutes we tune to open D: D A D F♯ A D and learn more of Keith's chord moves.
Keith Richards and Page One | Page Two | Page Three | Page Four
“If I knew I had to play this song the rest of my life I probably woulda wrote something else….” ― Joe Walsh (“Rocky Mountain Way”)