I love recording studio shenanigans. And one of my favorite tricks is recording backwards.

This technique has a rich tradition—the Beatles made liberal use of it, Led Zeppelin was demonized for allegedly exploiting it, and, in my opinion, we are all better for it.

Here is my list of Great Backwards Moments In Rock.

1. “Are You Experienced?” by Jimi Hendrix

This song is a cornucopia of backwards recordings. The intro (listen to the original and reversed versions) features a backwards recording of Jimi strumming strings while muting them with his fretting hand. Throughout the song, backwards recordings of the cymbals and snare drum ebb and flow, enhancing the psychadelic lyrics. And the whole guitar solo is backwards (listen to the original and reversed versions). Groooovy!

2. “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin

Growing up, I heard rumors of rock songs that, if you played them backwards, would reveal satanic messages. In the 1980′s, Christian groups accused prominent rock bands of using this technique (called backmasking) to corrupt their fans.

When I was 11, I tried unlocking hidden messages on Kool and the Gang’s Celebration (my first record), and only succeeded in tweaking my record player’s needle. But now with digital recording software, there’s no need to bend needles or scratch vinyl. A couple mouse-clicks are all you need to unlock the Dark Lord’s missives.

So what does Beelzebub have to say? Well, apparently when Satan fell from grace, he sustained a serious head injury. “Stairway to Heaven,” the most notorious of the satanist-recruiting-classic-rock-songs, is a typical example of infernal incoherence.

The passage in question (listen) goes,

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the may queen. Yes there are two paths you can go by; but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.

And here’s the supposed satanic verse when you listen to it backwards (listen):

Here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give those with him 666. There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.

So Satan’s sweet? And sad? And he has a little path that makes us sad? This doesn’t sound like the Lord of the Flies, it sounds like Judy Garland wandering wistfully down the yellow-brick road.

Granted, the toolshed part is a bit creepy, but I thought these subliminal messages were supposed to hypnotize vulnerable teenagers into joining the Devil’s ranks. A story of torture in a toolshed is hardly effective recruiting material. Where are the earthly pleasures I was promised? I’m so confused.

3. “Empty Spaces” by Pink Floyd

Now here’s a real backmasked message, found in this ominous track from Pink Floyd’s masterpiece, The Wall. (Listen to the original, and reversed versions).

I found this information on Wikipedia:

Directly before the lyrical section, there is a hidden message. It is isolated on the left channel of the song. When heard normally, it appears to be nonsense. If played backwards, the following can be heard:

-Hello, Luka [hunters]… Congratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont…
-Roger! Carolyne’s on the phone!
-Okay.

It is believed that this backward message is a comical reference to former lead singer/guitarist Syd Barrett. The very beginning, which is hard to hear, is disputed: Roger Waters congratulates either a girl named Luka, or ‘hunters’ (i.e. people who deliberately look for backward messages hidden in songs) for finding this message, and jokes that she (or they) can send her (or their) answer to Syd (the ‘Old Pink’), who lives somewhere in a funny farm (a term to describe a Psychiatric hospital) in Chalfont. Before he can tell the exact location, however, he gets interrupted by someone (engineer James Guthrie) in the background who says Carolyn (Waters’ wife) is on the phone.

4. “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon

The musicianship on Paul Simon’s Graceland album is incredible, and some of my favorite performances are the bass grooves of Bakithi Kumalo. The second half of his explosive bass solo on “You Can Call Me Al” is a backwards-recording of the first half (listen).

5. “You Shook Me” by Led Zeppelin

What can I say? I’m a Zeppelin fanatic. This track features reverse-echo, a technique where reverb is applied to a track, but isolated on a separate track so that the track contains only the reverb, not the parent sound. Then the track is reversed, and mixed back in with the parent track (and the rest of the song) so that the reverb precedes the parent sound. The result is this fantastic foreshadowing of sound, as you’ll hear in the call-and-response between Robert Plant (on vocals) and Jimmy Page (on guitar) (listen).

Here’s Jimmy Page’s account of how the recording happened:

During one session [with The Yardbirds], we were recording “Ten Little Indians”, which was an extremely silly song that featured a truly awful brass arrangement. In fact, the whole track sounded terrible. In a desperate attempt to salvage it, I hit upon an idea. I said, “Look, turn the tape over and employ the echo for the brass on a spare track. Then turn it back over and we’ll get the echo preceding the signal.” The result was very interesting — it made the track sound like it was going backwards.

Later, when we recorded “You Shook Me”, I told the engineer, Glyn Johns, that I wanted to use backwards echo on the end. He said, “Jimmy, it can’t be done”. I said “Yes, it can. I’ve already done it.” Then he began arguing, so I said, “Look, I’m the producer. I’m going to tell you what to do, and just do it.” So he grudgingly did everything I told him to, and when we were finished he started refusing to push the fader up so I could hear the result. Finally, I had to scream, “Push the bloody fader up!” And lo and behold, the effect worked perfectly.

So those are my five favorite backwards-recordings. What are yours?

My student Gary Paine leads singalongs at the Phinney Community Center on the first Sunday of the month.
They’re low-key, with lots of great folk and kid’s songs, and brownies afterwards—perfect for families. Lyrics are provided. Check it out!

Details:
Gary takes the summer and Christmas off.
First Sunday of the month at 3:30 in Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Oct, Nov.
Phinney Neighborhood Association, 67th and Phinney, Seattle

More info at Gary’s site.

I thought all you folks who read my blog would enjoy checking out a lesson on blues turnarounds I taught my Blues Workshop students today. Included are mp3′s of each turnaround—just click “Listen.”

Turnarounds, typically played during the last two measures of a blues progression, give the cycle an emphatic ending, and signal that they you’re about to head back to the beginning of the progression again (hence the name). A well-executed turnaround really makes you sound like you know what you’re doing. Drill them into your muscle memory until you can do it in your sleep (as you can see, I’ve been playing the blues in my sleep quite a bit lately).

Though I’ve written these in the keys of A and E, most of these turnarounds are moveable. To move them to a different key, identify your locator note. This note should match the note your key is named after. So if you’re playing in the key of G, and your locator note is on the first string, you’ll play that note on the first string, 3rd fret (which is a G note). Now shift the rest of the pattern to fit that new position.

Key of A

1. First part is moveable. The note on the 1st string at the beginning of the 2nd measure is your locator note.
Listen

2. First part is moveable. Note on 1st string is your locator note.
Listen

3. Moveable. First note is your locator note.
Listen

4. First part is moveable–just make your first note the root note of your I chord. Note on second beat of 1st measure, 4th fret is locator note.
Listen

5. Moveable–just change the chords to fit your key (chord in first measure is a I chord, and chord in second measure is a V chord). Note on 1st string, 5th fret is locator note.
Listen

Key of E

1. Easy to move if you change chords to fit the new key. Locator note is a whole step (2 frets) higher than the 2nd string note.
Listen

2. Not moveable.
Listen

Today I’m going to expose what I consider the most pervasive and insidious bit of misinformation plaguing modern society. No, it’s not that Columbus didn’t discover America. It doesn’t have anything to do with racism, the environment, or politics.

It’s about thumb placement. That’s right folks, Thumb, with a capitol T, that rhymes with C, that stands for CONSPIRACY!

Open Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1, a popular starter book for acoustic and electric guitar players, to page 4, and you’ll read:

Place the thumb in back of the neck roughly opposite the 2nd finger. Avoid gripping the neck like a baseball bat with the palm touching the back of the neck.

Now consider these photos of Eric Clapton and BB King:

Eric and BB are two of my most promising students, but it can be SO frustrating sometimes. Look at those thumbs! I keep referring them back to Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1, but they never seem to learn.

Seriously, it’s not just Hal Leonard that teaches students to keep the thumb behind the neck–all classical guitar instruction books, and many folk/rock books teach this. With a few exceptions, classical guitar is best played with the thumb behind the neck, so I have no problem with Andres Segovia and Co. But in the world of acoustic and electric guitars, these books are out of touch with reality. Don’t their authors see live music? Maybe they’re too busy answering emails from confused and frustrated readers.

The truth is, sometimes you put your thumb behind the neck, and sometimes you use the “baseball bat” grip. Here are some guidelines for thumb placement:

Thumb Behind Neck

How to

Put your thumb on the back of the neck at the fattest part, roughly behind the fret where the second finger is.

When to

• Playing most classical music – Having the thumb behind the neck enables you to really arch your fingers, which is necessary when playing on classical guitars, which have higher action than acoustics and electrics. Also, usually you’re fingerpicking, so there’s no need to use the thumb for muting the 6th string (explained below).
• Playing barre chords – These require a lot of pressure, so you want the thumb and fingers to act like a clamp.
• Spreading your fingers – It’s impossible to spread them otherwise. Check out Eddie, his thumb squarely behind the neck, his fingers spanning five frets:

(Incidentally, Mr. Van Halen’s expression should not be confused with the “Blues Face” on Mr. King and Mr. Clapton above. Mr. Van Halen is exhibiting a similar expression known as the “I should never have switched hairdressers” face.)

Baseball Bat Grip

How to

Cradle the neck in the skin between the thumb and forefinger or in the entire palm of your hand, depending on what you’re playing

When to

• When you need to mute the 6th string with your thumb – Many open chords (most variations of A, C, and D’s, for example) sound best if you don’t play the 6th string. Often, guitar instruction books recommend that you avoid the 6th string when you strum these chords, which is almost impossible and usually ends up sounding wimpy anyway. How are you going to windmill if you’re trying to miss one of the strings?
• When you’re bending strings – You get better leverage.
• When you don’t need your thumb somewhere else – The baseball grip is simply more comfortable because you don’t have to bend your wrist as much.
• When you’re using your guitar as a baseball bat—The baseball bat grip is firmer than the thumb-behind-neck grip, and as every guitar player knows, if you throw your guitar, intentionally or unintentionally, you’re “out.”

Sincerely,

Arthur Fonzerelli
Chairman
Department of Thumb Placement Correction

What’s the use of practicing guitar if you’re headed toward burnout? Whenever you’re working on something–a song, as skill, and exercise–you should be listening to your gut, asking yourself if what you’re doing is inspiring you.

I mention this because in yesterday’s post How To Practice, I listed some principles for practicing that some of you might consider a bit anal (as the psychotherapists put it). We guitarists are generally more laid-back than your average, say, oboe player. We like to break the rules, make weird noises, and occasionally smash our instruments for thousands of screaming fans. (Maybe oboe players would smash their instruments too if it didn’t look so silly, I don’t know.)

So whenever I teach a finger exercise or use the metronome with my students, I tell them that they shouldn’t use it if it’s making them reach for the lighter fluid (you young folks may not be aware of the famous story of Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire). The most important thing you can do to get better at the guitar is to practice a lot, so whatever you’re doing needs to keep you motivated.

For example, I learned the principles in How to Practice when my guitar teacher Jay taught me a highly structured practice routine that was too rigid for my tastes. It involved using an egg timer and practicing in 5-minute intervals, counting correct repetitions, and starting over when a mistake is made. It was cool to try out, but eventually the egg timer got on my nerves. That’s when I knew that I needed to adapt the technique to match my personality. Now I still try to avoid mistakes, but there’s no egg timer, and no counting. I repeat a passage until I think I’ve got it. And I’m loving it the whole time.

One of my hopes for this notebook is to collect lesson ideas. Here is my first entry along that line.

When you practice a difficult piece of music, do you repeat the whole thing again and again, stumbling the whole way through, until the music eventually surfaces from under the mess of wrong notes, halting rhythm, and curses? That’s how I used to practice.

I started playing guitar when I was in the seventh grade, learning mostly from my friends Justin, a Jimmy Buffet fanatic, and Matt, a hair band shredder. While it was a varied education, one thing I didn’t learn was how to practice. I would attempt long passages of music—like Jimi Hendrix’s Castles Made of Sand—at top speed, again and again. I thought that was how everyone did it. The approach went something like this: make 50 mistakes on my first try, 48 on my second, 47 on my third, and in another decade, I’ll be able to play the whole thing with no mistakes! Now how the heck do I sing along?

The process was so slow and frustrating, I’m surprised I stuck with it at all. And I never did get Castles down.

Over the years, I got rid of a lot of those bad habits, but things really came together for me during lessons with Jay Roberts a few years ago. Here are the principles I distilled from those lessons:

• We Repeat Musical Phrases to Build Muscle Memory Muscle memory is a mental record of repeated movements that enable us to move with no thought. When Hendrix sings “Castles Made of Sand” while playing all those gorgeous embellishments on his guitar, he’s not thinking much about his playing—his fingers just remember what they’ve played before. Most of his thought is probably going to singing, making those embellishments sound expressive, and impressing that cute girl in the front row.
• Muscles Remember Mistakes The process of building muscle memory is simple: The body moves, and the mind records the movement. It records with no judgment, like a security camera filming a bank lobby or a stenographer typing testimony in a courtroom. So when you perform mistakes, your muscle memory records those movements just as it records correct movements. When you mess up, you might think, “Shoot, that’s the fifth time I hit that wrong note!” but your muscle memory is diligently recording the incorrect movement all the same.
• Avoid Mistakes by Simplifying and Slowing Down When I was practicing “Castles Made of Sand,” I’d try a big musical phrase, and play it as fast as I could. Of course, it sounded like the cat was playing the guitar, and I was digging myself into a hole because my muscle memory was recording all those mistakes. What I should have done was simplify the music by just choosing a couple notes to work on at a time. Once I had those down, I could either try a few different notes, or add a few notes to the notes I’d already learned. Also, I should have slowed down enough to make correct playing easy. This is actually really hard to do—I’m constantly telling my students to slow down. It’s not just impatience, it’s that people don’t realize how slow slow is. Slow is however slow you need to go to play without mistakes. For beginners learning a lick, this could mean one note every three or five seconds. As Jay put it, “The slower you go, the faster you’ll get there.”
• Simplifying Also Means Isolating the Skill You’re Learning Say you’re learning to strum a new song that has a new strum pattern and new chords. Your job is to build muscle memory both with your left hand (fretting the new chords) and your right arm (strumming the new pattern). The problem is, until you build muscle memory, you have to exert all your focus on the skill you’re learning, making sure you don’t make mistakes. So how do you focus on fretting those new chord shapes while making sure you strum correctly? You can’t. So instead, you practice the two skills separately. Fret the new chords and just strum once to make sure they sound good. Repeat. Then practice the strum pattern while fretting just one chord. Repeat. Once you have both skills in your muscle memory, you can practice them together.
• Repeat Until You’ve Really Got It Jay said that it takes between 20 and 80 correct repetitions of a musical phrase—with no mistakes—to build muscle memory. If you make a mistake, simplify or slow down, and then start counting from one again. Whether it takes 20 or 80 depends on your natural aptitude. Eddie Van Halen is probably one of those 20-reps guys. I am closer to being in the 80 club, and proud of it. Go 80′s!
• Learning Strum Patterns Is A Little Different I’ve found that you don’t have to be quite so militant about avoiding mistakes when you’re learning new rhythms, like a new strum pattern. While simplifying and slowing down is helpful, learning rhythms also involves the mysterious process of “getting into the groove.” It demands that you loosen up, stop worrying about sounding bad, and try to feel the music. So don’t worry as much about mistakes. Once you get the strum pattern down, you’ll have plenty of time to obliterate the mistakes from your muscle memory as you strum that pattern over and over and over and over.

I hope this revolutionizes the way you practice. It’s made my own practice so much more enjoyable and productive. Let me know if you’ve found it helpful, have any other tips, or if you’re interested in guitar lessons in Seattle.