Harmony Guitar… there are a ton of bands that use this technique to create their sound, but here at Guitar Coach, Wishone Ash, The Allman Brothers and of course, Thin Lizzy are our favourites.
Thin Lizzy Rosalee
Unless you play regularly with other guitarists, whether it be in a band or around a camp fire, it is unlikely you will ever have the opportunity to play twin harmony lead guitar with someone else.
If you execute it correctly, the sound of 2 guitars playing in unison and in harmony is a sound to behold.
Thin Lizzy Rosalee Introduction
Thin Lizzy Rosalee Part 1
Thin Lizzy Rosalee Part 2
Andy has decided to show you the very simple, yet effective twin solo harmony guitar from the live version of Thin Lizzy Rosalee from their Live and Dangerous album, which is showered with fantastic harmony guitar solos.
The solo in the video is in the key of D major and thirds are used to create the harmony notes. Right, I know we don’t “do” much theory here at GC but we think you will find this interesting!!!!
First of all, the notes the guitar need to play to create effective and melodic-sounding solos is dependent on the key and it is not only thirds that are used; however for the purposes of this video, alluded to above, it is thirds we will be using.
So what is a third?
As we are using the D major scale the starting point is to know the notes of the scale…which are
D – E – F# – G – A – B – C#.
If you take D as the 1st note the third will be the F#. If you play E, this then becomes the first note and the third becomes G and so on. Matching the firsts and thirds therefore looks like this:
D – E – F# – G – A – B – C#.
F# – G – A – B – C# – D – E
The solo notes look like this
Guitar 1 – D – C# – B – A – F# – E
Guitar 2 – F# – E – D – C# – A – G
Have a go at both guitar parts and jam along to the backing tracks, in harmony with either guitar. If you have not done this before, you will absolutely love it.
