(guitar music playing)
- Hello, Eugene Edwards here
with the Fender Holiday Technique of the week.
Today I'm gonna take some country guitar techniques
and apply them to a traditional holiday classic,
"Deck the Halls."
Side note, "Deck the Halls"
is an old Welsh winter carol,
going back about the 16th century.
The first time English lyrics show up are around 1862
by a musician named Thomas Oliphant.
The lyrics had a lot of references to booze.
In the December, 1877 issue
of the Pennsylvania School Journal,
the booze was removed,
and this is basically
the version that we know today.
The techniques that we'll be using today
will include string rakes
kinda,
(guitar raking)
that sort of thing.
Double stop bends, triple stop bends, pre bends.
A lot of pedal steel stuff
and some chromatic movement as well.
So let's get started.
We're gonna begin our melody
with a kind of a banjo move here
that I really, really like.
We're in the key of C
and we're gonna put our pinky
on the high E string 8th fret
(guitar playing)
to play our root note of C
and we're gonna
at the fifth fret,
with our index finger on the B string.
(guitar playing)
So
(guitar playing)
we've got that.
And then we're gonna
use our middle and ring fingers to move up chromatically.
That's one fret at a time
on the B string all the way up to the eighth fret
whilst hitting the high E string at the same time.
So we
(guitar playing)
So this emulates a banjo kind of thing
and you can apply it to anything,
really
to countrify any given chord.
You just gotta know what chord you're on,
find that root as your high note,
and then kinda walk up on that B string.
So that's how we start this?
(guitar playing)
And then we just play our single note melody.
(guitar playing)
And then I do a double-stop bend.
Now, this is going to emulate a pedal steel move
on the 7th fret of the G string
with my ring finger.
6th fret of the B string with my middle finger.
Then I'm gonna have them pre-bend
to kinda half step-ish.
Then I'm going to strike them
with my strum hand and we're gonna hear them bend down
(guitar playing)
like that.
(guitar playing)
Then it resolves in the 5th fret.
Both the G and the B strings.
(guitar playing)
Now, we can apply this to any melody.
The note is moving from the third degree
to the first degree.
in this case, E to C.
And you know
(guitar playing)
(man singing)
But we're gonna countrify it
and bend that G string
from the 7th fret almost to the 9th,
as a pre-bend.
(guitar playing)
And we have a little harmony note above that.
So that's a really cool country move.
For the last two la's,
we will do a chromatic double-stop slide
on strings G and B from frets four to five.
And so
(guitar playing)
Again, emulating a pedal steel
or just a slide guitar sort of move.
Another side note.
The original fa la la's
were sung to replace an instrumental flourish
in the Welsh originals,
most likely the harp.
So as guitar players, we're kinda taking a back.
I can see you back over here.
We will repeat the melody,
but this time we'll use a hammer on
for the very first note there,
as opposed to that little banjo walk-up.
In the hammer,
again, we're gonna use our pinky at the 8th fret
of the high E string.
(guitar playing)
We're gonna hammer on the B string from 6th fret to 8th fret
using our index finger and our ring finger.
Again striking both strings at the same time.
(guitar playing)
So this is just yet another way to kinda contrify a move
if the melody is on the 5th degree
of the chord, basically.
Instead of just hearing
(guitar playing)
you can hear
(guitar playing)
And then again, we'll do that.
(guitar playing)
The bridge, we start on a G chord
and this is where we're gonna use our string rakes.
We're gonna use our.
It's mostly kind of a palm muting,
string muting move.
And what we'll do is we'll use that F shape half bar
3rd fret for our G chord.
(guitar raking)
And we're just gonna rake
across the D and G strings
(guitar raking)
and mute them.
(guitar playing)
And we'll pronounce the B string.
(guitar playing)
And I'm doing a hybrid.
I hold my pick kind of in this,
this way.
That way I can
I can use these two fingers to plug,
to really pull up on the string,
if I really want to get a little
kinda spinky twingy thing.
But in this case I'd use the pick the whole time.
(guitar playing)
And then I'll do a
kind of a
(guitar playing)
double-stops again.
(guitar playing)
Then over the A major chord
at the fifth fret,
in that half bar F shape,
I'll do my string rakes again.
(guitar raking)
Then an A shape kinda triad
over the D chord at the fifth fret.
(guitar raking)
Another string rake.
But then I'm gonna pronounce my highest string.
(guitar playing)
And then a really cool double-stop pedal steel bend
sort of thing on strings G and high E have the
at the 6th fret using your ring finger and pinky
and have them pre-bend half a step.
(guitar playing)
So again, we already have them bent
before we strike them with our strum hands.
(guitar playing)
And what we wanna emulate is
(guitar playing)
but it's a little cooler when we have that pre-bend.
(guitar playing)
So that bridge put together is
(guitar playing)
Oh, sorry.
(guitar playing)
That's it.
Now we get back to our original melody.
The original,
the final verse.
And we'll wrap this up
with yet a different pedal steel bend.
(guitar playing)
So that
(guitar playing)
is another really common,
triple-stop bend we do on guitar to emulate the pedal steel.
So what we do is take our pinky and we place it across
the 8th fret of both the B and high E string.
(guitar playing)
And our ring finger is at the 7th fret on the G string.
(guitar playing)
And we're gonna do a full step bend on the G string
while also playing the B and E strings.
(guitar playing)
And again,
we can always do this
whenever our melody is approaching,
or just on the 3rd degree of any chord.
in this case we're on our C chord,
and we wanna hear the E natural note,
which would normally be played the 9th fret of the G string,
(guitar playing)
But we're gonna bend up to that guy
and then bend back out of him
and resolve at the 5th fret of our G string.
(guitar playing)
Which is our root note.
(guitar playing)
And then for the final little flourish,
8th fret, B and high E strings we do in this bend.
(guitar playing)
So this is
Again, B and E strings,
8th fret,
the high E string stay stationary
while we bend all the way up a full step on the B string
from fret eight,
kind of bending up to fret 10,
if you will.
(guitar playing)
Give a little bit of a
(music playing)
shake there.
And then play the rest of the melody.
But maintain the pinky on the 8th thread of the E string.
(guitar playing)
Then that triple-stop bend.
(guitar playing)
So that's how we use classic honky-tonk guitar techniques
to countrify a beloved holiday classic.
Try and use some of these techniques
to another holiday song of your choosing.
There is a holiday playlist on the Fender Play site.
And what's most important is to have fun with it.
Thanks for watching
and thanks to all the jolly elves at Fender
for letting me join in the holiday fun and frolic.
See on the next one.
(guitar playing)