Chords for Allen Hinds on Tone

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Bm] _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Bm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
[B] _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ The [B] endless quest for good tone on guitar.
_ _ You know, guitar can sound, you can have a 59 Stratocaster or less follow it and play
it through the [Ab] wrong pedals, through the wrong amp and the wrong _ _ [B] _ hands. _ _
[B] And it can sound horrible.
And there I kind of said it, in the wrong hands.
Because my point of this video is that I think the beginning _ _ _ place to look for good tone
is in your hands. _ _ _ _
_ Yeah, I mean we've all, you know, through the years, I'm guilty as anybody is like,
you know, if somebody else was getting a good tone with a certain pedal, I had to have that pedal.
We used to make fun of that and call it the career maker pedal.
_ _ The career maker.
Anyway, _ but _ _ for instance, I remember I _ saw an article in Guitar Player, _ I saw on the
cover that [E] Stuart Smith was going to be featured and I was thinking, oh [B] man, this guy gets
a great tone.
Because I heard him play with Joni Mitchell and I heard him with Sean Colvin, he got such
a great tone.
And I _ [Ab] was in the process at those days of [B] sitting with a friend of mine in Pasadena
and going through every combination of cables and length of cables and door gel cables and
speakers, different wattages and different makes and cabinets and pedal boards and I
was, we were driving ourselves crazy trying to get the best tone.
And so when I saw his name on Guitar Player magazine, I had to buy the issue and I looked
in there and he pretty much said that he uses, you know, a couple guitars and a couple amps
and that's pretty much it.
And that's when I realized a little light bulb went off.
I said, you know, I'm going to go back to basics and just start with that.
A guitar that works for me and a great amp.
And that's, I think everybody needs to do a little soul searching at some point and
learn how to really bring as much music out of the _ simple raw, just guitar with a [A] little
reverb on it _ _ and make music with that and [Gb] get tone as opposed to going to look for the
amp or the pedal first.
[E] _ _ I mean, I _ gravitate towards guitars that have been played a [B] lot, not necessarily vintage,
although I have some nice vintage [E] guitars.
_ I find that the pieces [Bb] that have been played a lot are the ones that seem to [A] sound better to me.
_ _ I usually start with my treble pickup for me and if [E] I can get a pleasing tone out of
that, _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ they're usually in the ballpark.
_ _ _ _ I think having a strong left hand for all the legato stuff that I do helps with my _ touch
because _ the window when you use [A] legato stuff is a little bit [E] wider.
I think you can get this crescendo and decrescendo effect by just_ _
_ _ [B] _ [Gb] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ You know, also I grew up in the South and [B] _ _ _ _ although my early _ influences were mostly Jeff
Beck and he played a lot with his fingers too, I heard a lot of _ what guitar can do without
a lot of effects on it.
A lot of pedal steel players, a lot of slide guitar players were pretty much just playing
straight through an amp, [Ab] maybe with a little reverb.
_ _ [B] So I didn't start off by [E] hearing a lot of effects on guitar.
[B] I mean, I love Jimi Hendrix, but the best thing about Hendrix was the sound that he
would use [Gb] when he could just use the [E] front pickup on a Strad.
[D] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ [Gb] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ [Dbm] _ _ _ _
So yeah, [Ab] you got to start there.
Find a great [E] clean sound.
It [Bb] doesn't have to be an expensive guitar.
The action, setting [Ab] up the action, which I have a lot of videos on that, is super important.
_ I like [B] my necks almost perfectly straight because the tension feels better to me that way.
But then it's a constant [G] maintenance, _ _ keeping it kind of fine-tuned.
[B] _ Because the neck tends to move with different climates and [G] it can move just enough that
if things start [C] buzzing.
So I'm kind of constantly tweaking the truss rod and the [B] action on my guitars.
But that's okay.
It's [F] part of the _ [G] _ [B] love maintenance [F] thing you do when you [G] have an old guitar. _ _ _
And [D] then it's like _ finding the right [G] voicings.
I mean, a lot of times my voicings are nothing special, but I tend to pick certain strings
using just _ kind of a Joe Pass, Jeff Beck, _ _ where I'm picking just like the _ E, the D
string and the B string.
_ _ _ [E] _
[C] _ _ [G] _ _ _ And you can come up with _ [Gb] more nuanced _ _ _ chords.
[B] I believe that sometimes if you leave out a lot, don't put every bit of DNA [Bb] information
in a chord.
It leaves _ more to the harmonic series and more to the listener's imagination, kind of.
If you [D] hear like _ a_
_ [E] _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ sometimes it sounds prettier than [G] doing every chord [B] that's available
in the diatonic series for that progression. _ _ _ _ _
So I guess it all comes down to one-on-one, your relationship with your guitar, and just
really [D] tweaking and [G] caressing and [Am] finding _ _ [G] _
_ _ [D] music with the [B] instrument.
Not just hammering out a bunch of [Bb] stuff that you're copying off YouTube.
[Ab] _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _ [Em] _
Simpler the better.
_ [B] So looking for the best tone out of your guitar, start simple.
Start with a nice instrument.
Doesn't have to be expensive.
Set it up nicely, find a nice amp and just adjust the tone to roll off the high end so
it's not too trebly.
[G] And just_ _ _ _
_ _ [D] Touch it.
It's an instrument.
It's not [G] a hammer. _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ _ [B] _ _ _
[Dbm] _ _ _ [B] _ _ [E] _ _ _
[D] _ _ [Dbm] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [Gb] _
[G] _ _ [A] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _