Chords for Kingvegas demonstrates the Warr Guitar Part 1

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_ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Abm] _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [B] _ _
[Bbm] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ [Db] _ _
_ [Bbm] Hey, how are you doing?
This is Keeney [B] Vegas, aka John Keeney.
_ And today [A] I'm going to show
you about the [Gbm] War Guitar.
[B] _ This thing I [Bbm] play, 12 [E] strings, you can see the tuning machines
right here, 13, [B] _ _ [A] 12.
[G] 12 strings, [Db] _ 5 bass strings, [Em] _ 7 [Eb] guitar [C] strings.
Okay, [Db] now we're going to
get into [Em] exactly what's going on [G] with this thing, [Db] and I'm working on being [E] brief [Eb] for
you to [C]
check it out.
[Db] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Abm] _
First [Gb] of all, on the War Guitar, we have a [E] bass and a treble side,
or a bass and a [Eb] guitar side.
_ On my particular War Guitar, I have 5 [A] bass strings, and I have
7 [Eb] guitar strings.
[B] The 5 bass strings are on [Bb] the top, as you [B] can see right here, [N] _ and the
7 guitar strings are on the bottom, as you can [F] see here.
Now, [B] _ _ by looking at the [A]
larger
video of me playing, you can see that my left hand is playing notes, which are the bass
notes, and my right hand is playing [Ab] notes, which are the guitar notes.
Now [G] I do kind
of switch back [E] and forth, but that's sort of the thing that [F] I do.
There are other _ tapping
instruments [Bb] where the [G] strings are switched, and people will actually play the bass notes.
On the bottom, on this [D] side, and the guitar notes on the top up [Ab] here, so that they don't
[A] have to cross their hands _ when they are playing.
Some find that easier.
_ I kind of prefer this,
maybe because I started [B] off that way, but I've written a lot of [Ab] tunes, and a lot of
my repertoire [B] kind of revolves around having, in my case, fist tuning [A] going up here on the
bass side, and force tuning going down _ on the guitar.
_ _ _ So anyway, _ _ here's some particulars
about my instrument, and then we'll go into some particular playing techniques and kind
of how this thing works.
[Bbm] _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _
[Gbm] Okay, now some [Gb] more particulars about the way this war guitar
works here.
I'll back up a little bit. _ _ _
This is the headstock, right here.
You can see
all the [Ab]
string going on here.
[Gb] Big ones up here, little ones down here.
_ Now, check out
the body.
_ Now, what we have here, _ four Bartolini pickups.
Two for each position.
So there are
two bass and two guitar.
I also have a MIDI [A] pickup, you see right here [B] on the guitar side.
So you can, I use [G] a guitar [Gb] synthesizer to trigger six [A] of the guitar strings.
[Gb] I have
volumes up here, [Db] so volume, [Gb] volume, tone, tone, _ and I also happen to put a coil splitter
switch on the guitar side that I use on [G] occasion, and [Gb] pickup selectors for each side.
Okay,
[B] the _ input, and you see down here, _ [G] the MIDI [Bb] pickup stuff, and you see I'm missing some
knobs [Gb] because they've fallen off and I just can't replace them.
So anyway, that is the
electronics part.
I happen to have a, _ you see this, _ I have a bolt-on. _ _
_ Most of these
are a neck-through.
_ I like the bolt-on.
I like the sound, I like the feel, it's a little
lighter, and I [A] don't know, I was just kind of interested, I really like it that way.
_ _ [Fm] Not exactly [B] the custom [E] instrument standard.
Most people like [G] to have that _ [F] neck-through
kind of thing where it's all one [Fm] piece that's glued [B] together, but I [Bb] prefer to have a bolt [A]-on.
Okay, so [Gb] now you've seen what this thing looks like.
You see all the [A] frets, [Ab] _
_ [B] lots of [E] frets
there, _ there's one [G] more of them, [Gb] okay, and you'll see [A] right here, [Eb] there's some, that's
[Ab] actually what you put under glasses and plates in your [Gb] cabinets, that is for [Ab] muting the strings
so the other strings [Gb] don't ring out, okay?
[Ab] So now we'll go to [Gb] demonstrating some of the
techniques. _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ Okay, now for some particulars of the techniques on this thing.
_ Bass strings
up, and this is my left hand.
You'll see that _
_ [Bb] my first finger on my left hand is playing
a note and you just tap them.
I use all four of my fingers and I usually [N] tap kind of right
behind the fret, _ _ having a little bit more sensitivity to where my finger is compared
to the fret, almost as if I was playing a fretless bass.
I find that you can really
kind of get a little feel for the _ articulations of each note when you're closer to the fret,
and sometimes even right on it.
I use a four finger technique, which is very common, _ _ _ and
[Bb] I'll also play chords with my left hand.
So I can either play _ _ _ a triad, I can play a sixth,
I can play an interval basically with my left hand to make it thicker.
_ _ The string gauges,
since it's tuned in fifths, the string gauges get smaller faster and the chord shapes I
will use with my left hand are different than you would see on a guitar or a bass. _ _ _ _ _
Okay, secondarily we've got the right hand. _ _
Right hand, _ and as you can see, same kind
of deal.
I'm playing on the guitar strings, _ _ _ _ _ _ okay, _ _ _ _ _ and _ _ using _
[Db] a four finger technique with
my right hand as [Bb] well. _
_ _ _ _ Okay, all tuned in fourths.
I can use chords, I can use all four
of my fingers, I can even use my thumb if I want to.
So I [Em] sometimes use my thumb to
be a part of a chord, I use my thumb up here on the bass side to add some chord tones,
and you'll see some demonstrations of that in the video.
When they work together, as
you can see, _ _ [Bb] let me get something closer here, _ _ okay, _ _ you can see how the hands are crossed.
My right hand is crossing over the course of strings, you would play with the left and
so forth with my left.
Some people find that having the uncrossed, putting the hands like
here, so these would be bass notes still, but down here, guitar notes appear easier
for them.
Personally, I'm just used to this position, and I prefer it.
Okay, so that's
basically what you're doing with your fingers.
On the guitar side, a lot of the patterns
you might learn on an electric bass [Gm]
fit in this fourth tuning, so kind of box patterns
for blues, and if you're used to playing basic guitar patterns _ _ on a bass, or like _ even a
guitar, and taking into account that you don't have a major third tuning in this tuning
that I'm using, and most tappers that I've known do not put a major third interval there,
it's always symmetrical, _ your patterns can repeat all up and down the neck.
You have
to learn with me, [Bb] with this typical _ older tapping tuning that _ _ Emmett Chapman used with
the Chapman stick, I have fists up here, and the patterns are truly symmetrical on both
sides, but they're inverted.
So if I play a third interval here on the bass side, it's
actually going to be _ the opposite registers that it would be if you're used to playing
a third interval here.
Okay, so it would be a third here, it would be something else up
here.
_ [Gb] So you have to get used to the motion is the same, but _ the [Gm] _ _ notes are inverted. _
Okay, [Abm] so here's an example of something that I can do.
The first piece that I played in
[Bb] the beginning of this _ _ demonstration_ _ _ _