Further study of Wes's technique - Four on Six

[Christian Miller]

Here's a handout I'm preparing for a forthcoming video. This is based on further study of the 1965 European Tour broadcast tapes. One thing the British broadcast (introduced here by Ronnie Scott) has is a a close up of Wes's technique face on, and AMAZINGLY an over the shoulder shot focussing on Wes's thumb technique before panning over to his left hand. Camera man must have been a guitarist. What a thing to leave for guitar posterity.

In order to unpick Wes's technique I've been studying this footage closely. This is what I reckon for the head and then the first chorus of Wes's solo. Any obvious errors will be most gratefully corrected.

Note on the chords - Wes appears to finger full 4,5 and 6 string chords, but they don't sound muddy. I suspect he is lightly playing the bass strings but mostly focusing his strumming energy on the higher strings.

Note on technique - Wes appears to be using an approach very similar to Gypsy picking, and mostly three fingers for the left hand, as discussed elsewhere
- clearly the downstroke is a rest-stroke, and the upstroke is an escape stroke (free stroke)
- start each new string with a downstroke
- end a phrase with a downstroke
- a raking motion (ala 'sweep picking') is made when playing consecutive string towards the treble E (for instance, when playing an ascending arpeggio.)
- use upstrokes principally for the second note of 2 notes on a single string, especially but not limited to 2 nps fingerings.
- But he also uses plenty of judicious upbeat slurring to articulate more stepwise bebop lines. Which is not something GJ players tend to do.
- Wes uses his 2nd finger A LOT. He uses it as his principal sliding finger for mico-shifts within phrases.

Video here

[PMB]

I suspect that Wes set his guitar's tone knob quite open, i.e. with a lot of treble. The sound is warm because he used his thumb but the tone setting prevented excessive muddiness. Having said that, it sounds and looks to me as if Wes is simply muting with his thumb in bars 21-23 and really only sounding the highest four strings.

I haven't played through the lines but a close listen to bar 13 (check the footage where the same figure returns in the head out, 2:58) reveals a top 'D' pedal with one exception. Also, the bass plays Bb for the 1st beat:

[Bob_Ross]

In order to unpick Wes's technique I've been studying this footage closely.

I'm guessing you meant to write "unpack" ...but that is a very funny, and appropriate, typo!

[GuyBoden]

Good stuff.

[Christian Miller]

I suspect that Wes set his guitar's tone knob quite open, i.e. with a lot of treble. The sound is warm because he used his thumb but the tone setting prevented excessive muddiness. Having said that, it sounds and looks to me as if Wes is simply muting with his thumb in bars 21-23 and really only sounding the highest four strings.

I haven't played through the lines but a close listen to bar 13 (check the footage where the same figure returns in the head out, 2:58) reveals a top 'D' pedal with one exception. Also, the bass plays Bb for the 1st beat:

I was pretty certain he articulated the passing chord with an upstroke …. I will recheck


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[Aiq]

I always thought the title meant four fingers on six strings, live and learn.

[Christian Miller]

I always thought the title meant four fingers on six strings, live and learn.

Tbh I’m struggling to hear much 4 on 6 in terms of the rhythm? You may be correct!


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[mr. beaumont]

And I always thought it was because the guitar was playing a bass-like part at the beginning, the "four" on "six" strings.

Plus if it were fingers, it'd be "Three and sometimes four if I'm playing octaves on six."

[starjasmine]

- use upstrokes principally for the second note of 2 notes on a single string, especially but not limited to 2 nps fingerings.

Love that thumb cam. Thanks, guitarist-cameraman!
I was trying to find this exact spot the other day when I posted the Wes compilation to another thread and didn't have the patience! At about 0:56 you see the thumb do an upstroke. Eye opening - Wes using his thumbnail as a pick. Once you've seen it, a lot of other things about his playing fall into place. Wes' octave thumbing got a lot of attention, but there are many examples of amazing single-line soloing with the upstroke thumbing in the show that this came from.

[Christian Miller]

Love that thumb cam. Thanks, guitarist-cameraman!
I was trying to find this exact spot the other day when I posted the Wes compilation to another thread and didn't have the patience! At about 0:56 you see the thumb do an upstroke. Eye opening - Wes using his thumbnail as a pick. Once you've seen it, a lot of other things about his playing fall into place. Wes' octave thumbing got a lot of attention, but there are many examples of amazing single-line soloing with the upstroke thumbing in the show that this came from.

100%

Seeing the upstroke is actually mind blowing. It was always rumoured he did it, but not the easiest thing to spot. But here it is undeniable.


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[Cunamara]

It's just a casual flick, barely visible from in front but you can just see it in the over-the-shoulder shot. Almost looks like he's just resetting his thumb for another downstroke... but there's a note.

Nice analysis, Christian. An entire generation learned jazz guitar directly from copying Charlie Christian solos note-for-note (and moving on to other sources like horn players). Fewer, maybe, directly from Wes in part because his approach is just so identifiable and idiosyncratic. It's too easy to end up sounding like a Wes copy.

The logic of Wes's left hand fingering is pretty undeniable, getting the most music out with the most efficient movement. I've played "Full House" on and off for decades, ever since hearing the incandescent version on the "live at Tsubo" record... but until seeing this I have always fingered it "wrong." And he uses a rasguedo at the turnaround! Fingering it differently than Wes changes the phrasing and timbre and probably subtly the timing, too. These are my two favorite Wes tunes, so having both on this video was a treat.

Something about Wes's left hand and wrist is that he is mostly pronated, also seen in Peter Bernstein's technique- another three finger player. Jimmy Raney, by comparison, has a more neutral left wrist. Compare to 4 finger players like me whose hands and wrists are often supinated- necessary when the little finger is reaching across to the bass strings.

[starjasmine]

Nit: I don't hear an eighth followed by a quarter in the 2nd half of bar 13 (or in the head out at 2:58, or at 0:44) just a dotted quarter; i.e. no slur from G# just an A-7. I even cheated by slowing down the footage to 25%.

Even though we see the thumb do an upstroke on camera at 0:44 (bar 28) we don't hear it. At least, I don't.

[PMB]

It's there but with a slide from the eighth to quarter note (and most likely an upstroke on the eighth note as mentioned by Christian).

[starjasmine]

It's there but with a slide from the eighth to quarter note (and most likely an upstroke on the eighth note as mentioned by Christian).

Slow the footage down and listen with your ears, not your eyes :-) You won't hear it. I didn't hear it in all three places. I could see missing one, but all three? I don't think he's slurring from G#. If you didn't have that thumb cam telling you to hear an upstroke there, you wouldn't hear one.

[pauln]

Wes playing "Jingles"?

[PMB]

Slow the footage down and listen with your ears, not your eyes :-) You won't hear it. I didn't hear it in all three places. I could see missing one, but all three? I don't think he's slurring from G#. If you didn't have that thumb cam telling you to hear an upstroke there, you wouldn't hear one.

True, it's very ghosted but you can see Wes playing the slurred chord from G# to A at the same point in the head out. In such occasions, I'd probably put the chord in parentheses to show what was intended rather than heard.

[starjasmine]

I see that hand movement at 02:58 but I still don't hear *Wes* playing that. The drummer is doing a fill on the snare and ride in that rhythm, which makes it hard to separate what he's doing from what Wes is doing, but the guitar is not playing that "ghosted" chord. I see his hand slide into position but I don't actually hear those notes coming out of the guitar. I can hear it a bit better at 3:16 but that "ghost upstroke" is muted rather than actually allowed to ring out... when you slow that part down, the upstroke becomes indistinguishible from the snare. But you can definitely hear it at normal speed.

Anyway, no point in splitting hairs. We can agree to disagree :-) And I can see where you might want to simplify the chart for practical reasons. This was just something I thought that I noticed - maybe it's not so clearly noticeable...

[PMB]

You got me curious, starjasmine so I isolated and slowed down the first instance of that guitar passage and it's as I described and notated in post #2 (with the correct pitches as well according to Transcribe).

The only alteration I might make would be to remove the 6th string G#-A in the bass or at least put those pitches in parentheses as it's a slurred off-beat to on-beat upstroke.

[grahambop]

I’ve always heard that slurred ‘ghost’ chord, the tune has that rhythm built in at that point and it wouldn’t sound right if Wes didn’t play it. I always assumed he did it with an upstroke because it would be the easiest way to do it. (It’s really not that hard to do an upstroke with the thumb and make it work).

You can hear it more clearly on the Riverside studio version:

[starjasmine]

You got me curious, starjasmine so I isolated and slowed down the first instance of that guitar passage and it's as I described and notated in post #2 (with the correct pitches as well according to Transcribe).

The only alteration I might make would be to remove the 6th string G#-A in the bass or at least put those pitches in parentheses as it's a slurred off-beat to on-beat upstroke.

Nice. What did you use to isoloate it?

Edit: I hear Bbma7 G-7 Ab7#11 D7#9 in your stem. It's kinda weird in that you can hear the G root bend up to the Ab. Nowhere do I hear an A root in the isolated stem.

The Bbma7 is rootless in the guitar, i.e. Fma6, but the double bass plays the root in all the examples discussed so far.
I don't hear the b7 played in the Ab7#11 but this definitely functions as an altered dom. Nowhere do I hear an A root.

[PMB]

Nice. What did you use to isoloate it?
I hear the ghosted chord in this stem, but as A-, not G#-.

Lalal.ai is the application. There are different options for extraction and it allows previews. I've been transcribing both for my own education and professionally for over 30 years so my ears are well-trained for these kind of things but AI extractors are a great tool for final confirmation if there's any doubt. In this case, both the video and audio aren't high resolution and it can all get a bit a bit fuzzy at times...

As for the ghosted chord, it's definitely the G#-11. Listen for the strong 'D' at the top of the A-11 on beat 4. As I mentioned earlier, all the chords in the first bar have that upper 'D' pedal with the exception of the G#-11 so it makes sense that it would be slightly ghosted.

[Christian Miller]

You got me curious, starjasmine so I isolated and slowed down the first instance of that guitar passage and it's as I described and notated in post #2 (with the correct pitches as well according to Transcribe).

The only alteration I might make would be to remove the 6th string G#-A in the bass or at least put those pitches in parentheses as it's a slurred off-beat to on-beat upstroke.

Seems to be what I hearing here. Agreed re the amendment.

I think with Wes what you get is a lot to rhythm being played by the left hand.

What are your thoughts re the later chords? Wes appears to be fingering these as full shapes, but to me it sounded like they weren't being played fully. So I extended the logic to the other chords shapes that we can't see so well in the footage.

EDIT: yeah - I think he is playing bigger shapes there too. There's a wide shot. It might be possible to deduce what he's fretting a bit better. Tomorrow. Time for bed for me.

[starjasmine]

You can hear it more clearly on the studio version:

Except it sounds like some sort of Bb down to A- on the studio version.

[Christian Miller]

I see that hand movement at 02:58 but I still don't hear *Wes* playing that. The drummer is doing a fill on the snare and ride in that rhythm, which makes it hard to separate what he's doing from what Wes is doing, but the guitar is not playing that "ghosted" chord. I see his hand slide into position but I don't actually hear those notes coming out of the guitar. I can hear it a bit better at 3:16 but that "ghost upstroke" is muted rather than actually allowed to ring out... when you slow that part down, the upstroke becomes indistinguishible from the snare. But you can definitely hear it at normal speed.

Anyway, no point in splitting hairs. We can agree to disagree :-) And I can see where you might want to simplify the chart for practical reasons. This was just something I thought that I noticed - maybe it's not so clearly noticeable...

It's one of those 'am I taking crazy pills?' moments because now I don't think I can hear him articulate the G#-7 either. The intention is clearly there to play, and I think with the upstroke as well, from the way his hand behaves at 0:44. It's part of the composition to have a chord there, but he doesn't actually articulate it clearly.

That's proper Zen guitar playing that is - make everyone think you played it when you didn't. To be honest, this is something Wes does quite a bit.

Putting the chord in parentheses is probably a good compromise from what I assume was the intention and what actually got played.

[Christian Miller]

Except it sounds like some sort of Bb down to A- on the studio version.

YES! But then at 0:35 sounds more like G#-7 to A-7