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GuitarPlayer.com >> This Month >> Jimmy Page - Guitar Heroes A-z
Jimmy Page - Guitar Heroes A-Z
| October, 2007
James Patrick Page is one clever bastard. Think what you will about the third member of the Yardbirds trinity’s alleged appropriations of O.P.M. (you figure it out) during his reign with the legendary Led Zeppelin, but the wizardly guitarist—gifted with a keen producer’s ear—has always had plenty of tricks of his own. For instance, Page cultivated a deep relationship with alternate tunings and used them to create lush, otherwise unobtainable musical textures on such epic Zep songs as “Kashmir” (DADGAD), and “The Rain Song” (D, G, C, G, C, D, low to high).
The deceptively simple and easy-to-play combination of simple and complex droning chord voicings that Page concocted for “The Rain Song” are presented without rhythmic reference in Ex.1, but after listening to the recording you should have little trouble piecing together the puzzle. (Tip: Try it on a 12-string.) In another stroke of brilliance, Page was probably the first guy to come up with the forehead-smackingly simple solution for playing whammy-style glissandi on a stop-tail Les Paul by hammering-on and pulling-off notes while bending and releasing the string behind the nut with his pick hand. Examples 2 and 3 illustrate this technique, which has since become one of rock’s most enduring Spinal Tap moves.
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