this intro is one of my favorites of all time, so simple, yet bad ass and almost haunting . love this playing style. I can't get into newer periphery like I used to. all new materials was also genius
Its funny that he talks about folk chords. I think a lot of why I love Marks playing is because he makes his "heavy" chords beautiful. Hes not just always chugging along on simple heavy sounds.
I love the way Mark 'works'. It's like he takes three lefts to make a right, and along the way he comes across different things than you'd get going right. If that makes any sense..
+Samuel Corbett but if you just took that right, you wouldnt have wasted so much time and effort for something thats not gonna be fun to come back to and listen to in 5 or 10 years from now.
+Christopher Rowe Without taking those lefts, you never would come across all these different ways to do things. What would you rather do? Do everything that same droll way that everybody does or have your own unique way that sets you apart? I'd always take the latter.
+Christopher Rowe Mile Zero has been out for like 4 years and its still one of my favorite songs, what you`ll find fun to listen in 5 to 10 years it`s really a matter of taste, it´s not about the complexity on the song or the lack of it.
I broke the two chords down for you guys, my analysis might be wrong but here is what I found First chord is a C7add9. or a C9. Its basically a normal C dominant 7th chord(C major with a dominant seventh) with an added ninth(second) same as in a sus2. The second chord is much weirder because neither of any of the notes as roots complete a full triad. If it is an Am chord as he sais, its an Am7add11(no5). Since the perfect fifth is usually not that strong in flavor, it can be left out. The added11 works well because of the dominant seventh which essentially stacks two perfect fourths on top of eachother. These two chords in combo work well because they are the tonic parallel of eachother (C major and A minor). According to stravinskys theories, switching between two tonics instead of Tonic, Sub-Dominant, Dominant. Helps you not to really feel like you are progressing and resolving a chord change, hence its almost like you are playing two variaties of the C chord. But due to the strong presence of the root(A), it does make a big difference in sound quality, especially because the lowest note is so much higher than in the previous chord which brightens up the progression. It basically makes it Dark versus bright. The addition of the perfect fourth also makes it much brighter and happier and more hopefull compared to a naked A minor chord. Because the C is played as a dominant chord with respect to the G as a root, the second chord functions almost as the root of the song because it also has a G in it which would make it a Gsus4add9 which is also that added tone chord. This makes it as though the first chord resolves into the second chord somewhat which increases the fact that it sounds 'hopefull' while landing on it but the highly dissonant character then helps it to be just unstable enough to want to move on back to the C. Maybe someone disagrees my analysis.
In order for it the be a dominant chord, the 7th has to be minor ( C to Bb is a minor 7th interval) there's is no Bb in the chord, it's a B natural (major 7th) and he throws in the D haha the 9th. It would be called Cmaj9. If you call it C9, it would imply that it a dominant chord, but it's not because there is no Bb.
Mrak, you're the shit. On top of being (in my opinion) the most interesting guitar player around, when you started this column I thought it was going to be like a one or two week thing, and you're still here throwing down wisdom. The community thanks you.
How is he doing that second chord without the pinky inadvertently muting the open 4th string (the 'D' string in standard tuning)? All those years avoiding using the thumb for all chords, now Mrak throws THIS shit at me!? *flips table*
Sure you can - it's just a combination of practice and the right neck shape. If you have large hands, you can do this on just about any neck - if they're smaller you simply need to compensate by going with a smaller neck.
Woah! That final 8th note thing you said and hearing it totally gave it an entirely new feel as if it heard a completely new riff for the first time. Really cool idea for songwriting and getting the creativity out there!
My hands are too small, I can't wrap my thumb around the neck and still reach the 12th fret. Granted I'm attempting it on a Gibson SG, but I still don't know if a thinner neck would do me much good. I actually cannot play half of Mark's chords lol
if he played blues he'd be very jimi hendrinx. not just because of the thumb, but because of how well he plays notes with chords. think of "wind cries mary" and "little wing"
That's a definite no, you don't use knuckles to mute strings, you always use the open side of the hand, (side of the) palm on strumming hand, back side of fingers on fretting hand
+joeyfranzferdinand I think the whole song was just written in 4/4 but Mark plays this riff in between the beats and then when the verse comes on, he jumps into the beats and it goes on and on like that. You can notice this by listening the metronome when he's playing... He starts playing in a half-beat between the 3rd and 4th beat
+Lui The Ourea - with that much distortion, it doesnt' really. Just my opinion. I've played a lot of pickups and when used with such saturation, the pickups have minimal effect. Pickup height, maybe. But not the type of pickups themselves. Give him a guitar with different humbuckers but using the same amp and I'll bet you he'll still get the desired effect by tweaking the amp settings.
Am i crazy or did he just call a D chord a C and a B chord a A? Maybe he's just one of those hard core technical players that say it like that because he's tuned down?
Love mrak but I wish he'd just stick to explaining how to play his material or inspiration behind it...his lack of musical theory knowledge isn't a big deal until he starts misrepresenting the term "voicing" as a generic replacement for various things like notes, chords, progressions...etc.
Yeah, Guitar World is kind of notorious for terrible guitar tones in their videos. They make the best products sound like shit. Kinda funny here though, since Mark is an Axe FX guy, all they would have had to do it load up a patch and go direct, and there you go, awesome tone. But nope, they managed to fuck it up again.
+Brian Larson I imagine they just have random 10W Modelling amps like Fender mark 1's and shit just lying around with 37 year old cables to plug into. They switch the dial to the "metal" channel and say "whelp here you go."
