Piano On The Guitar
by Greg Danielak
All of you who know the Police know that Andy is also an accomplished piano player. The knowledge of piano can be transferred onto guitar, actually, since music is music. If you look for chord voicings in a piano book, you are more likley to come up with something more original than a book that was written just for guitar, since piano notes are "easier" to play than guitar notes. I mean "easier" because on the piano, you can just touch the key and you don't have the problem of synchronization (picking and fingering notes at the same time.) Therefore, chords will have more intervals, be more stretched and "out there" on a piano (but let's see them try to bend a string!)
With that in mind, let's look at "Does Everyone Stare", a nice little ditty from "Regatta De Blanc." You really should play this song with your fingers, unless you are really good at cancelling out at least 4 strings at once while playing with a pick! Use your thumb to hit the bass notes and your index, middle and ring fingers to hit the rest of the notes. This tune is extremley difficult to play on the guitar, because of all the posistion shifting, stretching and moving around. But once you master it, it's good to know that you could probably play any chord progression with ease and confidence. That's reason enough to practice it!
Here's the main riff. It looks easy at first, but soon you discover this is hard. There are tricks for playing this easier, though . .
Try barring the first three chords with your first finger. For example, the very first chord, a Cm, would have your first finger all across the third fret while fingering the rest of the notes. This would make the move from that to the Dm7 much easier.
When you get to the Dm7, leave the barre at the 5th fret, and you only have the F note on the B string to worry about.
The next chord, a Cm7/Eb requires some practice to get right. This involves what I call the "fake" barre- that is, barring a fret that isn't the main part of the chord. Here's what I mean- barre the 4rth fret, with your index finger. The only note that will count in this barre is this one, on the B string. The root of the chord is the 6th fret of the A string, but that's being taken care of by your ring finger. Use your middle finger to get the C on the G string, and your pinky to get the A# on the high E string. You do this fake barre because it's easier to just leave the barre than change your fingering alltogether and switch back to a barre after a beat- again, too much energy being wasted for no reason.
Next is a huge jump up to a jazzy F power chord. It gets pretty easy after that, except remember to finger the last chord, an Fadd9, correctly by making a barre across the 8th fret with your index, and making sure the top G note on the B string is heard.
The next part is less difficult, since the chords are all spread over two beats instead of one like last time. Notice the slight changes each finger has to make between each chord, and plan some "smart chording" to learn this easier. By that I mean somethine like this: The first two chords in the last measure, an Fsus4 and an Fsus4/C, can be easier if you finger all the notes in them at the same time, but play each as seperate chords. I mean, there isn't that much difference in them anyway except one note, the C on the D string, so you might as well finger that note along with the F at the low E-string when you play the first chord, and then just stay in place for one beat and play the C with the same notes - all without moving at all!
The last measure repeats once, by the way.
This part, the chorus during Sting's singing part, is a little difficult. It requires a quick switch to a Bb at the end of each measure. The best way to play this part is to finger the F on the B string with your index, and then barre the bottom four strings of the 8th fret with both your pinky and ring finger. The pinky should get the G, D and A strings and the ring should get the E string. Like before, you won't have to do any radical switches for two chords that have different bass notes. For the Ebadd9, the index should barre the entire 6th fret so you also can play the Bb with ease.
I hope learning this song can expand your ideas on what can be played on the guitar.
Copyright 1979 Stewart Copeland Published by Magnetic Publishing Ltd. (PRS) Represented by Reggatta Music Ltd., Administered by Irving Music, Inc. (BMI) in the U.S. and Canada International Copyright Secured
All Rights Reserved
Lesson By Greg Danielak - 2000
