Look at all those guitarists not playing in Deep Purple giving the guy playing guitar in Deep Purple for 20 years shit for not playing Deep Purple songs "correctly".
+Alex May Ritchie used to vary this himself because being asperger he would get fed up and make a variation on the main arrangement. Just look as some videos of him playing it and you will see. I think that if Ian Gillan had realised that Ritchie was a Sheldon they might have got on better !!
Stupidities! Blackmore is definitely not an Asperger!.... He far from beeing any stereotyped person. He is fantastically skilled as a guitarist - but he has also a lot of other interests such as the ocults, medieval time, football, castles etc. And he has absolutely no problem within the field of fantasy and playfulness, which is highly connected by persons with Asperger! And as a guitarist he is very much complete - he is known and famous for being highly emotional, soulful, filled with spontanity and he is at the same time using an advanced technic.
Also makes sense why it sounds like there's a lower harmonic. Playing a fourth, say fret 3 on the D and G string, is technically the same is you playing the fifth (power chord) from the first fret of the A string, the root is just up an octave. Cool way to make things sound lower than they are.
@@DaveWestGuitar Sorry Blackmore never will be enought faster for that TN and never have a good arpeggio skills (sad but true) and he will never play tumeni notes, because he sucks
You can hear it's played in fourths!! I figured that out while playing along with the Made In Japan live album when it came out in the 70s!! My fav purple album of all time...!! What a guitar sound...what a band...!!!
I'm impressed how many experts are in the comments again :) who explain why steve morse is a shitty guitar player. wow! these people really know their shit and must be very educated in guitar stuff. glad these people cared to explain, i used to think Steve was one of the most talented guitarist on this planet with outstanding alternate picking skills but who am i to think that i know something... among all these experts. :/
Those people are crazy if they say Steve can't play. Steve also said that some of Ritchie's Stuff is hard to grasp. A lot of time Blackmore was interpreting Classical in his head. Ritchie has always changed parts of songs live. I have heard about 10 different live Versions of Mistreated and they are all different. Ritchie said he would try and hide his tricks.
I have a serious question: Do you guys get laid a lot from playng the guitar? I lift weights and tan and I just started playing the guitar and I still never get ANY. This is frustrating. What the hell am I doing wrong?
TruthSurge X it is not a root. Major 3rd and 5th. Not a 5th power chord. Ritchie recorded this song playing with fingers. Bottom G played with thumb. WTF is a lower 5th. WTF is a middle 5th. Surely you meant a perfect
Richie himself said it should be played in fourths , it's actually part of Beethovens Fifth played in reverse - Source Ritchie Blackmoore in a tv documentary .
The low frequency that Steve is talking about, came from Richie actually playing 5th and 6th string on 10th fret(then 4th and 5th on 8th fret and s.f.) He often did that on concerts. It gave an even darker sound than the original sequence, that starts from 4th and 5th string on 5th fret. That's the secret) Tell it to Steve)))
Other than the original studio version, the absolute best version of the song is the live version from the 1972 Made in Japan album. Nothing has ever touched that version, not even Ritchie ever since then. The deep and heavy and slow start complete with the bum riff where he start/stops again is incredible. And pretty sure that version used barre chords and not 4ths, Richie played it both ways over the years, but that '72 live version has never been topped.
True! That whole Live Album has never been beat. Made In Japan is just heads above the great live Albums of the Early Seventies. Yes all those Live Albums are spacial but the Crown Jewel is Made In Japan.
Thanks Steve! I was playing it right and I have seen it played wrong several different ways. Got the solo down 2. I play a hot rod Tele so the tone is good also.
Oh sure the first song i learned on the guitar was taught to me wrong. Great teacher! >:( Actually I use smoke on the water to see if my d and g are in tune.
"Many ways to play it" maybe but then there's Ritchie's way. Up in 8th position using 6th and 5th strings for first chord to get that deep, bass overtone Steve refers to. Enough vids of Lord Blackmore playing it this way.
Steve nailed it. I watched Ritchie in an interview many many years ago telling the viewers to pluck the notes in that riff exactly like Steve played it.
BlackCrowNavajo exactly which isn't like this. He plays it up at the 8th position starting on the 6th string. Plenty of 70"s vids showing Ritchie playing it that way.
+TRICK-OR TREAT DUH , in case you didn't know Steve Morse was playing guitar probably before you were a gleam in your dads eye so I think he has the ability to figure it out , not only that , last time I checked Steve Morse has been playing in Deep Purple for a while now .
(ZAPPA'S STUDIO IS ON FIRE!) Anyway, I was going to say, I played by ear from age 7 in the 1970s... and I always played it as fourths. Most of my students from years ago thought it was 1-5 power chord. Based on the natural harmonics, it's fourths. That's what my ears heard. Much meatier than basic 1-5 power chords.
Ritchie is an unique player. I have seen videos of him playin' Smoke's main riff over the low E and A strings. And with a pick. So, needless to say, he used to play it "properly" however he wanted to.
I hate that song. Can't stand it. Never liked it. Hate Child In Time, too. Always skip those two when I spin the CD. Now that comes from the guy who absolutely digs 70's DP.
Steve is right it is in 4ths, plucked not picked, but that low noise he is talking about is because Blackmore starts it (playing D and G) on the low E and A strings at the 10th fret, then moves over to the A and D strings to play the F and Bb notes at the 8th fret etc. Lots of guys don't know that, but I am shocked Steve doesn't. I saw Ritchie do it live when I was a kid, but I am sure there must be live video of him playing it like that on RU-vid somewhere.
There is! The Hofstra university video shows this pretty clearly! And you are correct, that is how that "low" sound is acheived! Ritchie playing the riff correctly is also featured in the newly found Budokan footage from 1972!
One other thing a lot of people miss, is to pay attention to the way Ritchie cuts off the notes. He brings his plucking fingers down quite hard on the strings to mute them, you hear a definite "click" of his fingers hitting the strings. The timing is precise, he kills the notes dead in sync with the snare drum. If you're doing it right, you can mentally hear a backbeat happening from the "clicks" before the actual snare drum comes in.
Obviously the second way is the right way. Rttchie Blackmore was no beginner. He didn't have to play it the way beginners do. :-) Thanks Steve, you're the man!
awesome...I found out I play that exactly like Steve. I use my pinky and ring finger too- just like him. at least I can play something like him. lol RU-vid is awesome. I wish I would have had this just starting out. Kids/young guitar players don't know how lucky they are to have all these resources to learn.
+JONATHON SEAGULL i know how lucky we are back when i was in junior high, just around 8 years ago, iit is still hard to learn guitar without taking class, i have to pay for expensive class that only taught me very little now you can just need youtube to learn instrument
+JONATHON SEAGULL In the bad old days of working out stuff from records guitarists would jealously guard what they knew as they took a long time to figure stuff out and would not show anybody in case they picked it up in minutes !!
Ever see Richie play it close-up ? I have. Multiple times. The "right" way is exactly as Steve Morse is showing here. The low "G" is an organ pedal tone - Richie plays 4ths in the intro. After that - it's whatever he felt like playing and it varied from night to night. Period. I've even seen him play it an octave up. But not the intro. That is played exactly as shown here, except Richie does not pick the last GC- he slides down to it.
Brings it all back, Saw this awesome fellow playing in Birmingham UK quite a while ago Still got the white Ernie Ball pick from the night. Smoke on any way you like I could listen to you for ever Cheers Steve.
ive played it with 4ths and finger style, but i do that with a lot of power chord type riffs. the attack is different, the timing of the notes is in sync as he points out. i think i picked up this style from all the times i pick up a guitar and dont have a plectrum within reach.
I remember reading an interview where Ritchie Blackmore said he wrote Man On The Silver Mountain riff by accidentally playing Smoke On The Water wrong. So it kinda figures that this is the right way to do it 😊
I definitely play it as fours (if nothing else so that you don't have to move around the hand, but it also sounds more accurate), but I also play it with a steady rhythm on the right hand and not just down strokes, so the first three are down, next three are up and with a down at the end, etc. I am usually pretty adamant about using a stready rhythm (when possible) rather than stopping and starting the motion, because it just feels more natural and groovy when you get used to it.
I taught myself to play it this way by pure coincidence when i was 12 years old. My high school friend argued it was wrong and said the way Jack Black plays it, in reference, in School of Rock is the right way. He's not my friend anymore.
Steve actually plays it differently than Ritchie played it at first - concentrating (but yes - picking with his fingers) on the D, A & G strings - two strings at a time. Later on, Ritchie started using his thumb some on the 6th string G note (ala Burn, etc.). Quite honestly - Ritchie got into the habit of being out of tune a lot (thanks to a Strat with no locking nuts), so you hear him play a lot of one line riffs, or two string chords. Anybody else would have. Hendrix didn't care - and that's why a lot of his live stuff sounded kind of bad. NOT knocking Steve, though. He is possibly the greatest overall guitarist that has ever lived. I love Ritchie's playing as well, but Ritchie wouldn't stand a chance in hell of playing a lot of Dregs songs...
Yall gotta remember on recent concerts of Deep Purple, Steve travels with them...he started playing with them in 1994. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and his wanting to take the time to show future generations of guitarists a base starting point. Everyone has their own unique sound..but I give him alot of credit.
I love Steve Morse but DP with him on the guitar ain't my cup of tea. I love his Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse Band albums and his solo projects. Those are phenomenal and their importance to progressive genre cannot be overstated. But after Ritchie left DP the second time, I lost interest in the band. Tried to listen their stuff with Steve but it simply is not DP I am fond of. The sound complexion changed with him playing. He's got his unique style that disturbes the vibe that was there with Ritchie. Even T. Bolin short stint with DP didn't do anything for me. Ritchie's Strat sounded so unique and exceptional in that band that it is practically impossible to match it, especially when Steve's main guitar is Music Man. Different hook up, different pedals, different playing technique and you get a complete change of sound of the entire band. Also, Ritchie was always the main architect of most of the music DP played. So everything that band evolved around his style of playing and feeling the stuff. Steve is no slouch - he is fantastic musician, no doubt, but just because I love his own music, doesn't mean I automatically adore the DP part of his carrier. But I am glad to see DP members loving him being in the band. Ritchie was the band but he was the destroyer of it at the same time - at least from what I know from reading about them.
Wow! I'm surprised he would take the time to do this! Very cool and I would agree with him. Steve is unbelievable to watch live when you're 15ft away. He makes you want to take up golf because your numb after that...Nobody folds their arms at a Dixie Dregs show. 'Arm Folders' - you KNOW who you are! :-)
Only TWO strings ! That's how Ritchie played not only SOtW but Burn, Kill the King, Long Live Rock n'Roll, All Night Long, Knocking at your Back Door, Man on the Silver Mountain, etc. The thing that makes SOtW riff so mind bending is the total flatness of it. No base string, no reverb, no echo, no voicing, .. But in the example above, Steve M. does add some vibrato to it, that's his thing. The other thing is that most guitar players nowadays use strings way too thin to have the necessary body for two string riffs. Hence the need for more distortion, effects, vibrato, etc. The other
Very close try but no banana. Blackmore played it by fourths from 10th position with low E-string and A-string. That's the key of the mystical sonic/sound lowness Morse explained - for the wrong reasons. Great guitar player tho, but dosen't know shit from Shinola, when it comes to SOTW riff. 🤣🤣
What the hell!!! He did NOT write that song. DID HE "MusicRadar?" Does poor, poor little Stevie need some kind of attention and affirmation by showing that he can play something he did NOT write??? A REAL slam and a disservice to Ritchie Blackmore, for sure.
I searched about this because of a short of Ritchie Blackmore in an interview talking about using fourths and the riff being derived from Beethoven's 5th played backwards. /shorts/AlSB7PCU2tM
Um, I've been playing guitar for over 30 years and literally never once have I saw someone playing this with barr chords. Most people play the open-stringed 4ths moving up on the same strings playing only those two strings, and some play it like he shows as "the correct way." It's literally the reason it's considered the easiest most beginner riff on electric guitar. I have no idea where he's getting the barr chord thing, because even a simple barr chord is hard for someone who's just learning guitar. Hence why the two note 4ths riff is very popular to teach first time players.
Unkind. I Love Blackmore well more than anybody more than you, I point you to the Made in Japan complete and apparently BLACKMORE CANT PLAY IT EITHER. I would have preferred Yngwie take that spot except that it isnt my band
brilliant and do wrll presented.... I'll be playing this track at a jam in Bordeaux and the lead will be on accordingly And for part of the song I'm going to play lead riff on bass. focals will be a motley crew of French speakers so interpretation is the name of the game 🎸🎸🎸
Really...he is playing it wrong all the time... There is only one propper way of playing that riff and that is when sir Ritchie plays it. Ever noticed when he was in the band, band plays well, new hit songs were made...what exactly did Morse do? It's Ritchies band...just like Rainbow either he is in it or the band doesn't sound right. Long live the man in black!
Anyone know the full song/chords?... Key of Gm, verse chords are: Gm muted 5th, F Chorus: C, Ab, Bb/4th alternating to Gm/4th then to to F/4 in Gm tonic minor scale
Clive Bindley - Relax man. Actually Blackmore smashed quite a few real Fender Strats at one time. His 70's assistant guitar tech has a box of them laying round as spare parts. And no, they're not the knock-offs. No big deal.
Sorry, but this is preposterous. I loooove Morse as a guitarist, and loooove his work with Purple. But really? 51 years later, and the method of playing this song correctly is still having to be explained? But good on him for being a sport about it, and actually doing this video.
Funny, but I always just assumed that it was an open A string and the second position open barred A chord moved up and down on the second third and fourth strings with the A string underneath all the time ( but what would I know) I've never seen anyone do it that way, and although it may not be authentic, it sounds really good to me; I suppose being original is both a blessing and a curse.
i think i'd ask ritchi blackmore how to play that.....and we all know that he played the 4th up on the low E string, using steves "method"..... Steve seems a nice and capable bloke....but Ritchie is the man.... ;-)
Morse, one of my heroes. You are right. The down stroke bar chord is all wrong. Now your interpretation of the classic Richie chicken pluck sounds like the real deal. Your vibrato is more than Rich used on the song. Could it be that He just used his classic upstroke on the low end of the chords. Sounds right to me. But as we all know, to keep playing it the same way makes it a stale child. No one likes to leave one of there own a lost piece.
The Dregs, Kansas and Steve Morse Band all Remarkable! the only guitarist after Blackmore is Tommy Bolin! When I saw Purple perform some 3-4 years ago it was so very sad!
People keep describing it as played in fourths but that's not really what's happening. He's really playing it in fifths, just inverted. The melody starts on G, as stated by the organ when it comes in.
lets say this ,ritchie is the only person who can play it right,first of all he wrote SOTW ,secondly he plays the riff different then anybody else,,,not to mention that steve morse is a bad guitar player,,no one can replace ritchie blackmore,thats a fact...peace
Ha, I always use D & G only 2nd fret 5th fret 7th fret 8th fret. Thy not to let the A string ring over or you'll piss off the Bass player by giving it away. Lol
People make fun of this song but it's about the most emotionally intense simple composition in music history. It's right there with the opening of Beethoven's 5th in terms of being universally recognizable. Hearing it played right is powerful stuff.
Yep. Fourths sounds more right to me. Our western ears will add the lower root note subliminally, which makes fourths very useful rather than the straight bass root and fifth.
