Can anyone give me a quick little into to SKA playing. Ie the nifty little chords you here being up stroked in a lot of No Doubt, Sublime, etc.? Or anyone have a good ska link?
yeah, lots of muting and upstrokes. Also play on the back beat.
1-2-3-4
you play chords on the 2 & 4 and mute strum on the 1 & 3
There is some sublime DVD I saw a while ago that shows Brad playing all that stuff, you might want to check it out. Also listen to a lot of marley and such.
I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.
- Jimi Hendrix
i went to what was supposed to be a ska show las night.. which are pretty big around here... and it was completely awful. if your going to play ska )or anything for that matter) at least tune your guitar.
ok now that thats over.. ska is very easy once you get to know the chords yo uwanna play. its a very jazzy style of playing and is good for technique... just follow the guidelines given previously.
Ska has a lot in common with punk. It's all in the rhythm as described above, and actual chords are not nearly so important. Typically, play the rhythm in a sparse, chopped or stabbing manner on the upbeat. One can play either upstrokes or downstrokes -- both are done to slightly different effect, BUT always on the the UPbeat. Usually a clean, Fender-like clean tone with a bit of reverb and/or slap echo is the ska cliche. Mid to later ska tones added crunch (Bosstones) and/or chorus (Police).
Sublime is good, but recommend these: The Specials, The Beat (known as The English Beat only in the US), The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones, The Police. Also usually cited are The Selector -- I'm less familiar with them. Search the term "Two Tone" and variants.
-=tension & release=-
