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Standard tuning for the 4-string tenor guitar is in fifths (from the bottom) C G D A, like a tenor banjo. John tunes his guitar a step lower, Bb F C G. Either way, this tuning results in chords that are really open, with the notes spread farther apart than on a standard guitar. John really likes this open sound. He also says it is really easy to play melodies in octaves with this tuning. In fact, I don't think I've heard him play a single-note melody line - he always seems to use octaves.
John uses an incredible variety of harmonies using only four strings. Interestingly, he doesn't seem to do much chord substitution in a bebop sense - that is he doesn't use many harmonies that are distant from the key. He sticks pretty closely to the tune's original chord progression.
What he seems to do is treat a chord type as a color and then use many different shades of that color. In other words, he may play a major chord as a triad, or use the 6th, 9th, major 7 or any combination. A dominant 7th chord may be played as a 7th, 9th, 13th, with or without altered 5ths and 9ths. In "Exactly Like You" he uses just about every chord I can think of - triads, 7th chords, augmented, diminished, flat 5, 9, flat 9, 13, 13 flat 9, and the list goes on! And he does it by ear, putting his fingers where they need to be to get the sounds he hears in his head.
And if that's not enough, he swings like a fiend! There's no dead air in his playing, just a driving rhythm that never lets up for a moment. He has a great sound and is really fun to listen to.
But John doesn't get any gigs! Even though he's a legend among tenor guitarists (and wannabes like me), nobody else has ever heard of him. Will somebody please hire this guy, for crissakes!!
A few years ago I got interested in the ukulele and tenor guitar. Looking around the internet, I discovered this great tenor guitar player named John Lawlor. I like this guy's playing so much I not only went to the Tenor Guitar Gathering in Astoria to hear him, I actually paid $30 to attend a workshop to get some insight into his playing.
Everyone at the workshop wanted to know about the harmonies that John plays. He is an ear player, and doesn't really know how to explain what he does. So I thought I'd try transcribing one of his tunes and see what I could figure out.
You can watch the video here:
You can download the transcription here:
The zip file contains an mp3 of the song, and pdf's of the 2 transcriptions. The original transcription is in Bb and the other is in C with fretboards so you can try it out without re-tuning your guitar. Notation was kind of awkward, due to the range of the tenor guitar. I ended up writing it as a two-stave piano score in concert pitch. It's readable, but kind of cluttered with all the fretboards and chord names. And some of my chord labeling is kind of arbitrary. But it's all there and seems to work.
