In the last article we introduced a lick that you can use right away to add a "swamp" flavor to some of your country rock or southern rock songs. Today we want to really dig a little deeper into to the "swamp". We're going to do this by tuning the guitar down to a "drop D" tuning.
You can easily do this by ear, without the aid of a digital tuner, by using the open 4th string (D) as a reference point.
Simply play the 4th string, and simultaneously play your 6th string and lower the 6th string tuner until the tone of the 6th string matches the tone of your 4th string. Now your 6th string has been lowered from E to D.
Now form a D chord and play all six strings of the guitar. Hear the difference? You're now in a "drop D" tuning and one step closer to being waist deep in the bog of the swamp!
Let's take a look at the variation we can now do on the lick we learned in the previous article:
E--------------------------------------------------2----
B--------------------------------------------------3----
G--------------------------------------------------2----
D----------------0-----3p----0--------------------0----
A------0---3h--------------------------------------0----
D------------------------------------3b----0-------0----
1. Start the lick by playing the open 5th string (A), then do a hammer-on to the note on the 3rd fret of the 5th string (C).
2. Then play the open 4th string (D).
3. Next, play the note on the 3rd fret of the 4th string (F), and do a pull off to the open 4th string (D).
4. Then reach down to the note on the 3rd fret of the 6th string (which is now an F because we tuned down), and do a slight (1/4) bend on that note followed by the note on the open 6th string (D).
5. Finally, form a normal D chord and play all six strings to resolve the lick.
Note: As with the first variation of this lick that we did earlier, the easiest way to play this is to keep your hand in a rough D chord formation by planting your 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string (like when you form a D chord) - and play all the notes of the lick with only the 2nd finger.
This way you can always land back on a D chord smoothly.
As always, I would encourage you to experiment with this lick a little and come up with some different variations that you can incorporate into your playing today.
Enjoy!
