allen hinds MASTERCLASS Up And Over
For the fifth instalment in our Allen Hinds series of masterclasses, Jon Bishop transcribes Allen’s improvised Les Paul solo over a modern sounding, rock-style backing track entitled Up And Over.
Allen is your guide to soloing over a rock backing track with guidance on how to infuse your playing with emotion.
Sometimes the emotion is more important than the execution Allen Hinds
The difficulty goes up yet another notch this month with a tricky, instrumental rock-style backing track to navigate as we continue our six-part video masterclass series with LA session guitarist Allen Hinds. Each month, he solos over a backing track by Jason Sidwell, which is transcribed and analysed from a technique and music theory point of view. This then facilitates the learning of approaches to broaden your vocabulary and musicianship. The backing track and chord chart are, of course, included for you to work from in addition to a full transcription of Allen’s performance from the video.
In part five we look at Jason Sidwell’s rockorientated track entitled Up And Over. Allen’s glorious Gibson Les Paul Goldtop is the perfect choice for achieving a thick distortion and chorus tone. The backing track contains a tricky riff in the intro and outro that’s worth memorising. There are also some rhythmic hits that are worth playing in unison with the track. After a couple of slow practises, these elements will feel more natural. After the introduction, the repeating chords of Amadd9, Cmaj7, Dm7 imply A Natural minor sound (A-B-C-D-E-F-G). For this section
EbAllen mostly uses the A Blues scale (A-C-D- E-G). His approach is to fit in as many licks as possible, with more importance put on the feeling as opposed to the execution.
For the first bar of the chorus (Fmaj7 to Em7) you can stay in the key of A natural
Ebmaj7 minor and for the second bar ( to Dm7) you can move down a tone to G natural
Bb- Eb- Dbmaj7 minor (G-A- C-D- F). For the
Bbmaj7 Db Bb and chords the Lydian and Lydian can be used respectively. Allen reminds us that it is always good practise to dissect a track and work out what’s going on, but the key thing is to use your ear and make it feel good.
The middle section moves to E minor and Allen plays some Clapton-style phrases based around E minor Pentatonic (E-G-A-B-D). Allen
explains that for the 7/4 section (riff in 7/4, drums in 4/4) the main rhythmic subdivision of choice is 16th
notes; again resolving these phrases using the ear is the key. Allen plays over the bar line in this odd-time section and explains that you can get away with not stressing the start of every 7/4 bar. Overall, Allen’s main references here are Eddie Van Halen and Jeff Beck (some cool things could come from using the wang bar also, but clearly the Les Paul doesn’t facilitate this).
Hopefully, there will be a new technique, lick or phrase here for you to perfect. When you find one, use it in the future, especially if the semi-quaver or sextuplet feel is what’s required. Once you have mastered some of the concepts, try them out in your own solo over the backing track, but first, go over the chord chart and, as Allen reminds us, use your musical ear.
Thanks to Dave Clayton for filming Allen Hinds.
NEXT MONTH Allen gets out his 59 Strat for a blues-rock style number called Bada Bling