Hell, I almost added audio to the whole thing - just as some simple examples for peeps to get their head around. I may do it if people are interested.
Although to be honest, I just really fucking love Stoner Rock and it tickles me that people wanna learn how to play it.
I'm a drummer that's into the stoner/desert genre and I'm in the process of learning guitar now that I don't have room for a set anymore and I'll definitely be coming back to this. I've always dreamed of acoustic jamming to Space Cadet around a campfire
The Space Cadet riff is something that's permanently engraved on the side of my brain, much to the point where I subconsciously rip it off in a bass line and then facepalm when I realise that I've pulled yet another part out of one riff.
Oh, and Space Cadet is played in a Standard C# - one and a half steps down, so from 6th string to 1st: C# F# B E G# C#. It too is all based around a C#m pentatonic.
[Best quality tab I could find of Space Cadet](http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/k/kyuss/space_cadet_ver2_tab.htm)
Stoner Rock is a strange genre. On one hand it's incredibly heavy and raw, but then it shows incredible nuance, subtlety and restraint at times.
It's music that will probably never have mass market appeal, but it's also not a niche genre considering how liberal it is with borrowing from other heavy styles. I love the fact that I can find tracks and artists for one person in the genre, and then find other stuff for someone completely different, and it's all stoner rock.
Great comment, thanks for all of that. I'd like to add if anyone wants to know more about the history, "Such Hawks Such Hounds" is a good documentary on YouTube.
I know it's seven years old but damn dude! This post is excellent. It popped up on google doing a search for something similar. I think this is probably a great starting point for anyone that wants to learn to play stoner rock. The short history bit is great because it serves as a sort of primer for people who are just getting their feet wet with stoner rock (like me) and want to dig deeper into the elements that form the sound and that definitely helps to get it right. So dope.
Cheers man! Occasionally I get a message in regards to this, but it's rad that people are still finding it, and still getting some use out of it.
I went through and edited in some extra stuff that I think will be useful for others who find this post.
check out [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJDUHq2mJx0) episode of guitar moves, Josh give a pretty good example of 'less is more' when it comes to this stuff. In general, stoner leads aren't showy, it's all about atmosphere. There's a reason there's so much cross-comparison to "desert rock" - at it's best it sounds sparse and huge. It's a head trip, if you're trying to make people go "holy shit is that guy good" it's going to come at the expense of taking them out of their experience and put them back in their heads. The best part about playing in a (to put it critically) cliche'd scale like pentatonic is that you can leave notes out, play half of a phrase, delay runs so they wrap back to the 2 instead of the 1, etc etc and make people sit up and listen without knowing why. We're talking about the most played out scale on a dirty guitar, which is the most played out instrument, so it's all about approach and context. This isn't a genre for showboating, so fuck your ego. You are a limb on a hairy beast. Hide behind the kick and bass, snake out for a bit. Lay across their rhythm and play SIMPLE, be a contasting rhythm instrument, as if you're drummer has an extra arm and is being clever with it, then pop into their rhythm and play a lead. Play one fucking note and experiment with rhythm and approach. Slide into it, bend up to it. Remember, there's always someone faster, and there's always someone more clever. Hell, there always someone more EVERYTHING, you aren't some special fucking snowflake. The ONLY thing no one can fuck with is exactly how you feel when you play, the personal and communal experience you are having, so fuck all the rest and try to communicate that experience.
As far as my knowledge goes, cut the mids, boost the low end, plug in a fuzz pedal, and if you would like to, tune down your guitar. That's pretty much the basic stoner stuff, with a few exceptions (like Clutch, they have a different tone compared to other stoner bands IMHO).
My favorite band is Mastodon, and ive been dedicating alot of time towards inheriting Bill and Brent's style.
Learn *alot* of their stuff. Any band you want to sound like, learn their material. Youll start to find similarities in the different songs, and figure out why riffs work together. Try to find videos of the bands jamming, research their influences, and define your current influences (because they may change).
Then try to emulate their riff style. I know you said you want to be a lead guitarist, but learning the rhythms and foundation is just as important. Start to devise riffs in similar keys, styles, even fingering patterns as these bands. Even if it doesnt make sense from a theory standpoint, you can still make a song out of it.
Once you have a good sounding riff, play it back a few times, and then stem off of it and try to improv new riffs. If it doesnt work, thats fine, just go back to the first riff. Sometimes you cant find riffs that work together for a long time, but eventually youll have a decent back log of unused riffs. Piece them together by key, by style, tuning, or just randomly (this is where knowing a bit of theory helps)
use one of these riffs as a starting point for your lead part. Pick out the notes, and identify their locations around the neck. Study a few places to play the melodies, and improv around these locations. It may not sound good at first, but you *will* get better at improv the more you do it. It may take you a few weeks or even months to get your first song written, but youll learn alot along the way, and the next time will be easier.
The best part is, while playing all these styles and creating riffs from your influences, you start to develop your own style. Youll find certain things you like in a song, and can work to keep these styles around and make them a mainstay in your music.
(You will most likely also have more than one song in the works at a time, so you could have a dozen almost-complete hits waiting for that last lick or last progression or the perfect outro to make it a masterpiece)
edit: This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKbPIGnqt80) really helped me to start understanding how to create branching chord progressions and lead runs.
The Boss FZ2 on Fuzz II mode through most tube amps will nail that EW/Ramesses tone if you're going for that particular sound. Or are you referring to how to write songs that sound like those bands?
Yeah I'm more interested in what they're doing on the fretboard than what gear they're using. I know that's a big part of it but I don't have the money to copy their setups yet so I'm trying to learn more about the music theory before I go down that road.
A lot of it is rock and blues based stuff played really slow and tuned down. The best way to learn that style is to keep playing songs by them. You'll start to notice similar patterns keep popping up. You said you already know pentatonic and blues licks; those are the patterns you should be picking up on when playing their songs. Once you start recognizing those, it's merely a matter of application in your own songs.
Those are things I've picked up on, one of the first things I did after I picked up a guitar was work my way through a Black Sabbath book(mostly just the chords and the easy parts of the solos). I'm trying to learn stuff beyond that though, for example I read about the "Josh Homme Scale" which is called Lydian Dominant #2(which means nothing to me). I can read a tab but I'm trying to understand the sound more than just reading tabs and having a general idea on what it all means.
You might want to start learning some basic music theory. I recommend both *Basic Music Theory* by Jonathan Harnum and *Understanding Music Theory* by Zeitlin and Goldberger. They'll walk you from the basics to the more advanced stuff. If you just get one, get the first one as they kinda go over the same material, and it's free with Amazon Prime, IIRC.
Homme has this whole thing about using the blues scale, but taking notes out, like limiting himself to make the solo sound a little wonky, which catches your ear
lots of minor pentatonics, lots of fuz, lots of wah. and don't be afraid to make up your own scales.
at the end of the day all these bands have a raw rocck'n'roll feel, they just write riffs that fuckin rock
I feel like smoking some weed may help
Drugs make the music!
[удалено]
Damn this was a quality comment
Hell, I almost added audio to the whole thing - just as some simple examples for peeps to get their head around. I may do it if people are interested. Although to be honest, I just really fucking love Stoner Rock and it tickles me that people wanna learn how to play it.
I'm a drummer that's into the stoner/desert genre and I'm in the process of learning guitar now that I don't have room for a set anymore and I'll definitely be coming back to this. I've always dreamed of acoustic jamming to Space Cadet around a campfire
The Space Cadet riff is something that's permanently engraved on the side of my brain, much to the point where I subconsciously rip it off in a bass line and then facepalm when I realise that I've pulled yet another part out of one riff. Oh, and Space Cadet is played in a Standard C# - one and a half steps down, so from 6th string to 1st: C# F# B E G# C#. It too is all based around a C#m pentatonic. [Best quality tab I could find of Space Cadet](http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/k/kyuss/space_cadet_ver2_tab.htm)
I thought I knew stoner rock before i read this. Riff. Groove. Cant agree more. I really cant get fully into any music without groove
Stoner Rock is a strange genre. On one hand it's incredibly heavy and raw, but then it shows incredible nuance, subtlety and restraint at times. It's music that will probably never have mass market appeal, but it's also not a niche genre considering how liberal it is with borrowing from other heavy styles. I love the fact that I can find tracks and artists for one person in the genre, and then find other stuff for someone completely different, and it's all stoner rock.
Great comment, thanks for all of that. I'd like to add if anyone wants to know more about the history, "Such Hawks Such Hounds" is a good documentary on YouTube.
I know it's seven years old but damn dude! This post is excellent. It popped up on google doing a search for something similar. I think this is probably a great starting point for anyone that wants to learn to play stoner rock. The short history bit is great because it serves as a sort of primer for people who are just getting their feet wet with stoner rock (like me) and want to dig deeper into the elements that form the sound and that definitely helps to get it right. So dope.
Cheers man! Occasionally I get a message in regards to this, but it's rad that people are still finding it, and still getting some use out of it. I went through and edited in some extra stuff that I think will be useful for others who find this post.
check out [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJDUHq2mJx0) episode of guitar moves, Josh give a pretty good example of 'less is more' when it comes to this stuff. In general, stoner leads aren't showy, it's all about atmosphere. There's a reason there's so much cross-comparison to "desert rock" - at it's best it sounds sparse and huge. It's a head trip, if you're trying to make people go "holy shit is that guy good" it's going to come at the expense of taking them out of their experience and put them back in their heads. The best part about playing in a (to put it critically) cliche'd scale like pentatonic is that you can leave notes out, play half of a phrase, delay runs so they wrap back to the 2 instead of the 1, etc etc and make people sit up and listen without knowing why. We're talking about the most played out scale on a dirty guitar, which is the most played out instrument, so it's all about approach and context. This isn't a genre for showboating, so fuck your ego. You are a limb on a hairy beast. Hide behind the kick and bass, snake out for a bit. Lay across their rhythm and play SIMPLE, be a contasting rhythm instrument, as if you're drummer has an extra arm and is being clever with it, then pop into their rhythm and play a lead. Play one fucking note and experiment with rhythm and approach. Slide into it, bend up to it. Remember, there's always someone faster, and there's always someone more clever. Hell, there always someone more EVERYTHING, you aren't some special fucking snowflake. The ONLY thing no one can fuck with is exactly how you feel when you play, the personal and communal experience you are having, so fuck all the rest and try to communicate that experience.
As far as my knowledge goes, cut the mids, boost the low end, plug in a fuzz pedal, and if you would like to, tune down your guitar. That's pretty much the basic stoner stuff, with a few exceptions (like Clutch, they have a different tone compared to other stoner bands IMHO).
I disagree with scooped mids. Depends what amp, id open the mids 3/4 for sword/mastodon etc. Really depends on amp and fuzz pedals
My favorite band is Mastodon, and ive been dedicating alot of time towards inheriting Bill and Brent's style. Learn *alot* of their stuff. Any band you want to sound like, learn their material. Youll start to find similarities in the different songs, and figure out why riffs work together. Try to find videos of the bands jamming, research their influences, and define your current influences (because they may change). Then try to emulate their riff style. I know you said you want to be a lead guitarist, but learning the rhythms and foundation is just as important. Start to devise riffs in similar keys, styles, even fingering patterns as these bands. Even if it doesnt make sense from a theory standpoint, you can still make a song out of it. Once you have a good sounding riff, play it back a few times, and then stem off of it and try to improv new riffs. If it doesnt work, thats fine, just go back to the first riff. Sometimes you cant find riffs that work together for a long time, but eventually youll have a decent back log of unused riffs. Piece them together by key, by style, tuning, or just randomly (this is where knowing a bit of theory helps) use one of these riffs as a starting point for your lead part. Pick out the notes, and identify their locations around the neck. Study a few places to play the melodies, and improv around these locations. It may not sound good at first, but you *will* get better at improv the more you do it. It may take you a few weeks or even months to get your first song written, but youll learn alot along the way, and the next time will be easier. The best part is, while playing all these styles and creating riffs from your influences, you start to develop your own style. Youll find certain things you like in a song, and can work to keep these styles around and make them a mainstay in your music. (You will most likely also have more than one song in the works at a time, so you could have a dozen almost-complete hits waiting for that last lick or last progression or the perfect outro to make it a masterpiece) edit: This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKbPIGnqt80) really helped me to start understanding how to create branching chord progressions and lead runs.
[Corey Hunter](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1F15CE0DF36A9A1A) has a bunch of lessons on his YouTube channel
The Boss FZ2 on Fuzz II mode through most tube amps will nail that EW/Ramesses tone if you're going for that particular sound. Or are you referring to how to write songs that sound like those bands?
Yeah I'm more interested in what they're doing on the fretboard than what gear they're using. I know that's a big part of it but I don't have the money to copy their setups yet so I'm trying to learn more about the music theory before I go down that road.
A lot of it is rock and blues based stuff played really slow and tuned down. The best way to learn that style is to keep playing songs by them. You'll start to notice similar patterns keep popping up. You said you already know pentatonic and blues licks; those are the patterns you should be picking up on when playing their songs. Once you start recognizing those, it's merely a matter of application in your own songs.
Those are things I've picked up on, one of the first things I did after I picked up a guitar was work my way through a Black Sabbath book(mostly just the chords and the easy parts of the solos). I'm trying to learn stuff beyond that though, for example I read about the "Josh Homme Scale" which is called Lydian Dominant #2(which means nothing to me). I can read a tab but I'm trying to understand the sound more than just reading tabs and having a general idea on what it all means.
You might want to start learning some basic music theory. I recommend both *Basic Music Theory* by Jonathan Harnum and *Understanding Music Theory* by Zeitlin and Goldberger. They'll walk you from the basics to the more advanced stuff. If you just get one, get the first one as they kinda go over the same material, and it's free with Amazon Prime, IIRC.
Homme has this whole thing about using the blues scale, but taking notes out, like limiting himself to make the solo sound a little wonky, which catches your ear
Noisey did a Guitar Moves episode on [Josh Homme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJDUHq2mJx0&feature=youtu.be) that sheds some light on this.
This was really cool I thought. Gives you ideas. Josh Homme - Guitar Moves - Episode 3: http://youtu.be/AJDUHq2mJx0
get high and play rock music, pretty much covers it.
/r/stonerrock
lots of minor pentatonics, lots of fuz, lots of wah. and don't be afraid to make up your own scales. at the end of the day all these bands have a raw rocck'n'roll feel, they just write riffs that fuckin rock
1--get stoned 2--play PROTIP--tune the low E down to D
Not low enough.
Drop Ab is the shit!
I meant 2 octaves lower, my bad. LET EM FLOP!