Are we playing House of the Rising Sun WRONG?!
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Watch some videos of Eric Burdon and the Animals playing their hit House of the Rising Sun and notice the picking direction of the guitarist, Hilton Valentine. He's doing something that none of us do! His pick direction is different than how all of us play it!
There are different ways of dealing with alternate picking depending on each situation, but in this case, it was quite shocking to see the pattern he uses. Learn how to play these arpeggios in an efficient manner, and then learn how to create a melodic guitar solo over these amazing chord changes.
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Not a keyboard player, but Alan Price’s ‘solo’ on the Hammond organ is the highlight of the song for me.
It is a good one for sure.
Vox continental-------------------------- not a Hammond---------
Yeah, it’s a Vox. Such a great solo.
@@crazypainter56 well, he did say he wasn't an fxxxxxg keyboard player...
I believe he now owns the rights to the song after it entered public domain
Funny thing... I'm terrible at playing guitar, but I try. When I attempted to learn this song, I naturally picked it the way you said Mr. Valentine does. I never thought about it and no one told me to do it that way, it just felt natural to me.
It worked for him, so if it works for you, I think that's just fine :)
That's the way I naturally played it too.
Me to it must be a self taught thing
Interesting, I was never taught how to play it, I just leaned it from ear & I too play it the same as almost everyone does, but I do find it hard to keep going through the entire song, so I switch to strumming the chords part the way through, which adds to building the intensity of the song as it progresses and to my ear it adds some more variety & interest to the song as well. :)
I think that means you have a good ear. 🎸
Hylton Valentine is from my home area in the North East of England. I once jammed with him in a pub in a blues band - long after he left the Animals. In the early days we were all self taught and he was known to play a new lick but would turn his back to you when he played it so you couldn't see how he did it. :) He does play an exceptionally good solo on the Animals track For Miss Caulker. This is from a promotional movie of current British rock hits which went on general release. None of it was live. You are dead right about relaxing your wrist that's the only way to play All My Lovin' by the Beatles.
Very cool story! Thanks for sharing that here. That's amazing you played at a pub with him once. I have heard about other guitar players turning their backs on stage. Eddie Van Halen used to do that in the early years of his career too.
Excellent point and he was turning his back for a different reason than I was ... Mine was Bad technique ...
@@davidcarpenter5274 So you were the Stu Sutcliffe of your band. :)
Loud and obnoxious ,,,
Is what I do best ...
Perfect for the mic check ...
If you can fix my sound ,,,
you've got a perfect mix ...
Strange you should mention All My Lovein' The guitar solo is short but very catchy. I have my own approximation which might fool a fool. I'll bet there's a tutorial for that too on here somewhere.
He actually plays all 6 strings in that E chord. It varies the rhythm pattern a bit, but it's there. That rhythm pattern pops up in the Am chord sometimes by doubling the E string picking. The E7 is in the organ :)
I noticed this too!
Yup. I noticed that when I first started playing guitar. This teacher is clueless
Hilton was a sweet man. I was even Myspace pals with him a decade back and bought a CD from him online. I'd sent way too much money in the form of a 20 dollar bill, but I told him to keep the change. He sent me the album with a guitar pick he signed. RIP, Hilton 🌌
Great story! I've heard some wonderful stories about him from doing this video. Thanks for sharing 😀
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver You're very welcome. That CD is still at my grandmother's house- it was my most prized possession as a teenager.
I also bought an Animals CD from Hilton online, which he signed for me with a silver marker. Silver on black looks very cool. The cd sits prominently in my CD collection and I feel very fortunate to own it. Now that Hilton has passed away, he won't be able to do so for anybody down here on Earth. He was such an interesting guy. I absolutely adore The Animals.
@@MsPulpGirl Same. I discovered them as a teenager and spent hours on rainy weekends listening to their Best Of album. I'm hoping to get Hilton's CD back after a fallout with the family. I hope they didn't toss it. :/
@@maurine2524 I hope you get it back and I wish for you and your family the best. 🙂
For me, it was always easier to play like he plays, even though I never watched him play. But I never got guitar classes too, so I never was forced to play in a certain way just because "it's easier" or "it's the way to do"
I saw the Animals at BB Kings in NYC a long time ago. I am grateful for your recognition of Alan Price and hope everyone remembers "Oh Lucky Man" My mother went to Julliard in the late 1930's. She taught my brother and I to read music but only one of us ever mastered it. It wasn't me
Cool! Would have been great to see them live
I'm guessing you are referring to the surreal and brilliant Lindsay Anderson film 'O Lucky Man!' that starred Malcolm McDowell and that Alan Price also appeared in and wrote the music for. There is not surprisingly a song on the soundtrack written by Price also called 'O Lucky Man!'.
The music in 'O Lucky Man!' is performed by the musicians appearing within the story in a format often called a 'Greek chorus' and not as background music, unseen, or as the main focus of the film, as in a musical.
I think the film is a bit overlooked because it is quite long and it contains a few scenes that are probably now considered unacceptable (particularly Arthur Lowe using blackface for his role as Dr. Munda).
One thing I found out when trying to pick it the way the original guitarist does it, is that I ALSO don't play it the first way that you showed! I realized that the way I play it, I down-pick on the 3rd to last note, I only up-pick the last two notes in the chord. Very interesting differences! Then again I just learned it by ear from looking at the chord sheets, so It's cool to see how every individual finds their own most comfortable way to play!
Yeah, I think with this song in particular there are a few good ways to play it. As long as it sounds good and is somewhat efficient, I think go for it.
William Leavitt taught that style of picking arpeggios in some of his picking exercises in his Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 1-3. The series is a Berklee College of Music standard for every guitar student. The idea is to use Downstrokes when picking in the direction of higher strings which uses the weight of the arm falling, but alternate when picking towards lower strings because sweep style picking upwards towards lower strings is less efficient as you have to pull the arm against its own weight.
Interesting, I have played through those books, though a long time ago.
Yea, what a memory those books without tabs and hours spent to figure out the notes!
@@Cyberglad haha yeah I've been there 😅
And of course, if it is written...
One should be careful not to put too much stock into these kinds of arguments. It is self-evidently true that sweeping upward is less efficient than sweeping downwards, but it is also self-evidently true that alterating picking direction at the same time that the overall trajectory is upwards is less efficiently than continuously moving in the direction that the notes are moving. Either way, the hand must ultimately get back to the top, and moving in a continuously upward direction is a more direct way to do it than going out of your way on every second note. The shortest possible distance between two points is a straight line. The energy saved by allowing the weight of the arm to reinforce every second note is offset by having to reverse direction and avoid that string, then move twice as far to hit the next string. It is also unquestionably slower. Of course, where efficiency is concerned, any pick-based solution is less efficient than using ones fingers, where one does not even need to move the hand or the arm (large body structures), but only the (small) fingers, which can be set to their own strings (I don't necessarily mean to say that this is better, only that it is more efficient - this is not necessarily the same thing).
I stumbled onto this after seeing Brian May talking about the same song, and I must say that I agree more with his interpretation of how the 'one string too few' is solved for the D and F. I don't actually hear the high note twice in the pattern for the D and F, but rather that he plays the bass note twice, also giving you a full four-note pattern.
Me too... doubling the bass note sounds more natural. As a finger picker, i also play the third string two times often (like 4-3-2-3-1-2-3)
@@DouglasB42 Yeah, I play it finger picking style myself as well, and then it's probably even more obvious that the 'double bass' approach is the way to go.
That upstroke open G string on beat 6 functions as a passing tone between the chord changes. It is not heard as a "mistake" because it is played on a weak beat immediately preceding a new chord on beat 1 (a strong beat). This device is used a lot in strumming technique and gives the music a more lifelike organic feel. It is like drawing breath before a new phrase or segment.
It is a great sounding technique. I think we all do it to some degree. I made s video about it some time ago ua-cam.com/video/sZAQvSuNQdQ/v-deo.html
You sir, are a great teacher! I was with you all the way through this lesson. Thanks!!
Glad to hear it! Thanks for watching!
I taught myself this song from reading tab, and this is how I pick it. It helps with pacing and dynamics in that part, and when I played it that way it sounded more like the recording. I also often pick the base string of each arpeggio on the way back up and let it ring as I come back down again. I've been playing barre F all these years... I'll have to try cowboy F.
Makes sense definitely more than one way to play it 😀
I think he alternate picked it because it just sounds better. Without it it sounds almost like some excercise. With it gives the riff more interesting sound and life. Those 3 notes are better articulated and stand out much better in the riff.
Interesting thought. Not sure it's that different in sound, but there is a subtle difference here.
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver When I was learning Holy Wars solo by Marty Friedman I sweep picked it all at first and it did not sound right. Then I alternate picked the descending part of the arpeggio and that was it. He did the same thing as Hilton Valentine here. These little details often make difference in our perception. You def have more control over the tone when with alternate picking and the notes feel more separated.
@@kkarx As a violin player, I was thinking "up bow" - "down bow" and how that affects the sound. Up pick, down pick, up pick creates a tad more separation and attack on the notes. A subtle but noticeable slight emphasis on on beat 5.
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver alternate picking helps add a bit of a swing feel which sounds better to me. but I tend to fingerpick it these days anyway to give it my own twist
@@chrisc9755 yeah fingerpicking works too 😀
I've been stuck always trying to use downstrokes for everything, and I never could get the number of notes for the chord to line up quite well with the melody.
So thank you very much for this reminder that I'm still stumbling over the SIMPLEST problems!
Cool glad it helped!
Wow, that's exactly how I play it ! Going down, sure it seems easier to do down, down etc. But up, reverting to alternate picking like on leads seems more natural.
That's cool, if it works for you, go for it.
Props for that solo... Was on point and really followed the vocal lines.
Thank you!!
Yeah man ! , love that solo ! :)))))))))))
It really followed the solo in my opinion
I picked up guitar 6 years ago, and I am now in my 50’s. I came across your channel and you Blue are outstanding. You are now the second UA-camr I will use regularly and thanks for that.
Now I must teach you something, LOL, and Yes you are teaching it wrong which I am surprised you or nobody picked up on this. I learned this song naturally with the alternate picking, for one, it was easier. And 2, picking with all ups sounds off, its Alternate picking
with a little aggression that makes this sound sooo good! Just my opinion from a newbie.
Thanks from the Kootenays!
Thank you! Welcome to the channel. Lots more lessons on here and more coming in the New Year
Hilton was a great musician, and nobody looked cooler doing it. He would respond to emails and answer questions when he was still with us - this would have been a great question. Interesting video - well done.
That's cool! I didn't know that about him.
@@GuitarLessonsVancouverI play it the way valentine does. I didn't even think about it until I saw this video. It feels natural to me ( perhaps the only reason to do anything)
@@toddapplegate3988 That's cool. It certainly worked well for him too :)
@@toddapplegate3988 It's natural for me also. When I watched this video I paid attention on how I'm playing. And was Valentine's style.
I went to same school as Hilton. he was 2 years older than me. he taught me 3 chords before I got my 1st guitar. he was only kid in the area with a guitar, but if he trusted you, he would help you to learn using his guitar. Sadly lost touch after leaving school and he was playing in a local band called the Wildcats,c.1960
Seen loads of lessons on House Of The Rising Sun over the years, most of them are wrong. This is by far the most accurate to how Hilton Valentine originally played the tune. Absolutely brilliant tutorial with excellent analysis.
Thank you!!
That Gretch sounds great
Thanks I love that guitar. Made in Japan Power Jet.
My first time watching one of your videos. Good lesson. House of the Rising Sun is a song I could never play because of the arpeggios. I never could get them right or be consistent in the picking pattern. Your video helped a lot. I will be watching more of your stuff. Thanks.
Glad to hear it helped thanks! Lots more coming to this channel and our Patreon 😎
That was cool. Absolutely one of my favorite songs. You're a great teacher. I don't even play guitar, but that was super interesting to watch!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
First time I came across your channel. This was an amazing tutorial! You are a very awesome instructor! I love the way you captivate the listener and make it very interesting! Loved the solo, by the way! Keep up the great work!
Thank you! Lots more on the channel and our Patreon group www.patreon.com/guitarlessonsvancouver 😀
Great lesson. I learned that song in either 1964 or 1965 and I’ve always played it just as he plays it. It’s different but if you learned it that way and have played it that as long as I have it’s not that difficult. By the way I enjoy your lessons.
Cool! yeah if you are used to playing it that way, no reason to change now. It worked for Hilton Valentine I'm sure it can work for you :) Thanks for watching!
The first video image of The Animals wasn't from a TV show, it was from a movie/documentary called GO GO MANIA or POPGEAR depending on the US or UK release. It is currently available on blu ray from Kino Lorber (either direct from them but also through other retailers as well). A lot of popular UK and US groups are featured in it, and as I recall from watching it on TCM the producers relied on pre- recorded music, which seems odd to me as all the groups had to perform for the film anyways.
Cool thanks that's good to know!
It was shot on 35mm color film. Now, this was a movie production which means one camera and multiple takes. So the sound will be a playback for each take. It could not be done live with one camera. @@GuitarLessonsVancouver
I love your soloing on this song. Sounds perfect.
Thank you! You can get the tabs for that solo on our Patreon group www.patreon.com/guitarlessonsvancouver
Reminds me of what The Ventures did with the song
@@garysutherland8327 Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that. I'll have a listen to that version again. Been a while
Another one like that is "Help!" where George has the riff on the 5th, 4th, 3rd,and 2nd strings. It is supposed to go down on the 5th, up on the 4th, down on the 3rd up on the 2nd. I believe he does it "right" in the movie. Many other times he just goes down, or hits the 5th string and then makes the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd a chord.
Cool good example. I'll take a closer look at it. Been a while since I've played that song.
I could not live without it. Cheers!
Thanks for watching 🎸
I like how you so clearly articulate a musical conundrum, I wouldn't have the patience. But repeating the F# note on the e string during the D chord isn't what Hilton does on the record...perhaps that's not what you're putting forward (?) but still...if you slow it down in audacity there's no repeating on F sharp. I think there's a slight speed up on that D chord too, or it's played with more attack, whatever, the ear doesn't notice the missing 5th note in the arpeggio. Underrated guitarist is/was Hilton.
I guess us old guys are just tricky to follow on guitar hey :). I have been playing it the way he does since I first learned it. Probably 1970 something. A lot of us from that era of playing play folk or cowboy chords. I personally still favour a G chord that most people can't pick what it is by simply looking at it. :). Good video, and glad you finally do it right!.
Thanks! That's interesting to hear you play it the same way he did. Whatever works in this case I say.
This is pretty cool and very educational.
Thank you!!
Ever since I was a little kid I loved and was mesmerized by this version of the song.
Valentine probably plays it like that because he naturally slants his pick downward. Basically the position you have your hand in when going up the arpeggio in the first half of the pattern. And he's uncomfortable slanting upward, so he just alternate picks. He also probably was thinking in an alternate picking mindset, but the sixteenths where to fast, so he swept those, and alternate picked everything else
That's a good point. That could be. Thanks for watching
I think it may be that he wasn't thinking of it as all an arpeggio. Try to think of it as; pick the root note, slow down strum then three arpeggiated notes. Now the alternate picking helps tie into the rhythm. I know it's in 6/8 but I find myself counting it as five with a long beat one...
That makes sense. That's a good way to think of it.
Really great class on this amazing song! thanks a bunch!
Thank you! Lots more lessons like this on the channel and our Patreon group www.patreon.com/guitarlessonsvancouver
Bryan May has an instructional on this piece as played by Valentine and he emphasizes the difference and explains why he did this as a guitar player.
I learn the pick pattern from my dad who does it like Valentin. They are several blues and only country songs where you have to do this and its an older technique that most people don't practice any more. T This is the forearm rest to keep the pick at the right spot for sound and why he keeps the neck more vertical; this also is at his reach limit he wants and why he keeps the pick between strings. This can allow you to play the pattern with less arm movements and you can play longer without fatigue. Most people now days play with the neck too far down for this technique to work well and makes it much more difficult.
Interesting. For sure we all tend to play neck horizontal these days.
Interesting stuff. Of course I went off to listen to the original to check the quick G between chords which was there. Then I noticed that on the E chords he is fact playing all 6 strings! After he picks the root low E he plays the A and D strings in double time before the G and B strings. So AD-G-B not D-G-B as you suggest in the video. Have a listen. Thanks for an informative, well-presented video.
Could be he is sort up strumming through the E chord to get through all six. Thanks for posting, I'll have a listen 😎
It's A Harmonic Minor.
The great thing is because it is such a broad song regarding notes , you can play every note , an A Blues/Major/ with bent notes and Minor Scale slides everywhere !
In a way yeah, though A Harmonic Minor or does not have a D major chord, but your point taken there are so many ways to stretch the harmony of a song. Thanks for watching and commenting 😀
it's his basic personal rhythmic expression and how he worked it out. Bravo.
Probably. There are many ways to play a song well.
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver Totally and that's what I'm saying and you did say that in the video - he didn't have the internets in 1963 either ... LOL - we all are aware of efficiency now but teacher to teacher back in the day was another component - (different shapes and approaches being passed on).. - cheers friend good clear video on the topic. Eric Burdon ditched his band quite frequently - I wonder if Valentine was the guitarist on Don't Bring Me Down with that killer fuzz line
Me, watching the video having learned this song by ears using different chord patterns and never using a pick: HAVE I BEEN PLAYING THIS SONG WRONG?
That's ok. Fingerstyle still sounds good for the song 😀
Well, what you have to always remember...he wrote the piece and he can play it the way he meant for it to be played. All and I do mean "All" others playing it are copying what he is doing. If it comes out sounding the same then all is good. But if it changes the sound or even the timing it throws it off and becomes a feeble attempt to follow the master. Because that's what he is because he wrote it to be played that way.
that solo came out so cool, damn
Thank you!!
I have always had trouble playing this song, and I was around when it first came out
Thank you
Thanks for watching! Glad I could help :)
First song I learned on guitar, my uncle taught it to me when I was about 12. Made me a big Animals fan, especially Eric Burdon.I was taught the right way and always did. I can see how ppl play it wrong. Never saw the real Animals but have seen Eric do this as an encore more times then I can remember.
Nice! Thanks for commenting 🙂
😊
Occasionally YT's recommendations get it right.
I get this video and you get a new subscriber.
Cool thanks! Welcome aboard!
In fact it was NOT from a TV show (WHO had color in 1964?) but rather a documentary feature film on the British Invasion groups of that year called "Go-Go Mania".I saw it in a theater when it opened, complete with narrator who introduced the groups one by one.
The footage at 0:57 however, resplendent in contemporary B&W, WAS from a TV show, probably from the U.K.
What Hilton is doing is called alternate-picking, something now widely taught guitar players interested in speed, with one famous outlier who preferred not to use it being Chuck Berry. I taught this opening to myself by first watching Hilton doing it IN PERSON recently, at not one but TWO "HippieFest" events, the first at Cypress Gardens, FL in 2007 which turned out to be Hilton's debut, after what seemed a lifetime, of his re-joining Eric Burdon onstage. I was VERY privileged to be able to dispel all the misinformation on this riff from the SOURCE. ...R.I.P., Hilton. May we jam once again in the hereafter.
Cool, must have been great to see them live!
I've played this song since aboui 1968 and at 74 I play it on an accoustic guitar with 3 string cross picking and I was un aware that I played like the recording , you're stuff is pretty cool thanks
Thanks for watching! Lots more coming :)
My guitar teacher "taught" me how to pick a bunch of songs. Later watching videos and in one case meeting the guitarist, I found he was just wrong, pushing his own bias and limited understandings. "Metal is all downstrokes" nope.
Oh well. Some metal players do play all downstream, but not all of them. And certainly in other genres alternate picking.
8:12 no, he was not thinking when he played like that. He didn't go like "you know what? I think I'll play with alternate picking because it will help me blah blah blah", he just played and the technique was natural for him
Probably right.
I always played picked like this: down down down down, down up up.
I picked down on the high E and then switched for the B string on the way up...
It feels like it's more efficient like this I think.
That makes a lot of sense too. I like that method. Very similar to what I do.
I can't be the only person that immediately thought of the Nirvana Unplugged version of The Man Who Sold the World when you played that G# multiple times in a row.
Haha cool 😎 that's a great track.
Good stuff as always
Much appreciated
I don’t think of a song in terms of being in a major or minor key, but in terms of the tonic note only.
It’s in A, but has a minor tonality due to the flat third.
You can borrow from the parallel major or minor scales. In this song the IV and V are both from the A major scale.
The V7 is crucial for the cadence.
Once past the first verse, our man Hilton frequently plays an F7 (I'm fairly sure) before descending to the E/E7 at the end of line 2 of the verses, giving a feeling of even greater urgency to get going on line 3, keyboard and drummer also powering in to make that point.
I checked the comments just to see if anyone else had noticed that. I have been playing it that way since I sat down to learn it for a band in 1989.
This is brilliant - thanks - but it also got me going back to the video again and looking even more carefully. Look at Hilton's left hand!
For the last note of each arpeggio, just before he changes to the next chord, he lifts his hand completely off the fret-board - this makes the last note, in every case an open G. So for example, the Am arpeggio is A-E.A.C-E-C-G and not A-E.A.C-E-C-A. It looks, and sounds like he does this every time, on every chord - always an open G at the end. You can see and hear this very clearly if you play the video at 0.5 speed.
This might seem strange, but it actually gives a little more time to move to the next chord, and it makes the changes smoother.
If you combine that left hand lifting with the picking pattern described here - you can get much closer to the original.
(just noticed a similar comment below.)
You're right he does that to make the switches easier. It happens to sound cool too 😎
Diatonic substitution explains the Emaj, modal interchange explains the Dmaj.
Another great lesson! All of your points are understood easily, I think. Real happy to have found your channel recently.
Awesome, thank you! Lots more coming
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver Your Welcome!
Thank you GLV. Regards from Blighty :).
Thank you too!
This is a really good video. There’s a lot of great stuff in addition to the picking technique. Thanks!
Thank you! Lots more on this channel 👍
I hope nobody's losing sleep over this.
Haha, night after night.
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver Listen to this cover by Billy Strange: I bought this album in '1964' when I was 11. This is before I ever heard the Animals cover it. I think you'll like this version: ua-cam.com/video/sgcO4kgknwg/v-deo.html
P.S. - I Still have this album! You'll want to put on some headphones.
He did it that way because that's how it felt right for him....everyone has their own style...color outside of the lines to find yours.
I agree as long as it's relatively efficient. He sure sounded good playing it his way
Great video, I find the alternate picking in the upper 3 notes easier then sweeping. I could never accurately figure that out so thanks for sleuthing it out from the original videos> Great job!
Cool thank for watching
Amazing teaching
Thank you!
I don't play, so maybe that gives me a different perspective. But it definitely looks to me like a timing thing. I can see myself doing the same thing just to get the notes to follow the pattern I want.
Clicked the video because I consider this song sacred. I've seen 3.7 billion covers of it and every one has failed. Theirs may not have been the original, but the way they did it perfectly captured the essence of the lyrics.
I agree it's the best version and people who say otherwise are just trying to be contrarian
It's always fun to hear someone say "Oh yeah, this part is really hard, and you have to do it over and over" and I'm here thinking "He only knew the one riff, so they just told him to play it until the song is over.."
on the organ they play an E7 and skipping that string effectively makes the E an E7 as well
I was lucky enough to see The Animals play this in Southampton England on the very day they'd recorded it in the small hours in London. Never to be forgotten! I hadn't been playing guitar long, and what most impressed me was that Hilton Valentine could play it all the way through with hardly any cockups! I didn't notice the picking pattern particularly, but I'm pretty sure he played the E chord on all six strings and just kinda skated over the extra string, or played the bottom string twice.
Wow very cool! What a great experience that must have been!
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver It was! Chuck Berry was top of the bill, but the Animals were an utter revelation. There was something a bit menacing about them, especially Eric Burdon, who was about five feet tall, with terrible acne, and he really worked hard. Someone said he was like an “apoplectic beetroot on a pogo-stick” 😄 Alas, once they were famous, they didn’t last long. Internal dissent and boozing got the better of them, which was a great pity, because at that time they were at least as good as the Stones, and their stage act was much more intense. Mind you, no one ever screamed at Chas Chandler 😳
That sounds right! Other vids don't
Thanks for watching 😎
The guitar riff was stolen by the Animals from a band that they saw in London which featured Tony Arnold (now a famous producer) on guitar. He claims that he didn't know what he was doing... he just made up the chords and the riff as a way of getting through the number live on stage. The Animals apparently called in on the gig (very likely, as they come from 300 miles 'up north') ...and the next thing you know they came up with the hit single!
Hello. I am not a guitar player, and never have been. I actually have no musical talent at all. I just saw a screen shot for this video in the right-hand panel, and since I liked the song, I decided to see what you had to say. All I can say is that you come across as an accomplished teacher. If I were about 50 years younger and wanted to learn guitar, I might actually have a chance. If other of your videos are like this, then you have a gift not only of playing, but of teaching. Keep doing what you are doing; I subscribed just to support you. even though I know almost nothing about music.
Thanks for the great feedback. I really appreciate that 😀
Vancouver, like a rainy Seattle...
Was in Vancouver for a week... Somehow it rained for two weeks.
Haha yeah it's like that. Summer is great here but the rest is rain rain rain.
I think Hilton Valentine's picking pattern is strange, but I also think your pattern is strange. I think its interesting I've never seen anyone play it the way you do, up-picking the last 3 notes. I've only seen it played up-picking the last 2 notes. I think it follows your idea of always picking towards the next place you are going, but maximizes the efficiency, as you don't have to move the pick down past the 5th note without playing it and then pick upward, which is two picking motions. It also makes accenting the 5th easier. Cool video, keep them coming!
Cool, thanks. Yeah there are certainly a few good ways to do it :)
If this is what you have been teaching your students, then you should know you have always been playing the song wrong as far as the number of notes in the E chord is concerned as well. If you listen (and watch) The Animals video very closely, you will discover that the guitarist DOES include the low B note in his E chord pattern. If you count in tempo 1, 2, and, 3, and, 4, 5, 6, on the E chord, you will find he clearly plays the B note, and that it falls on beat 2. You can still play all the notes with down strokes but now you just have one more to add. This fits well with the pattern the organ is playing throughout the song. Give the tune another listen! 😀
Thank you.
Thanks for watching 👍
Wow, I have been playing it right all along.
That's ok lots of ways to play it and sound good.
solo sounds kind of like a Clint Eastwood Spoooghetti Western!
Yeah it does! I think it's that melody in minor.
I suspect the guitar motif on House of the Rising Sun is just a mixture of the rake technique, popular in the 50s and 60s and alternate picking. The rake is traditionally used on faster arpeggiated passages.
Makes sense. Thanks for watching and commenting 😀
For true authenticity you should lift every chord a bit early and play an op G string between every chord change, even when that G is not in the chord you’re coming from.
True he does the "lift off" between chords to make the switches more smooth.
In term of efficiency of movements, you right; but there is a tecnicque teached in some (old?) school that it helps you keep and track the tempo with you wrist movements.
So if you use this technique and you want respect its principles, the movements of your wrist are bound to the score.
Example
Imagine this
4/4 Semim Semim Semim Semim
∩ (V) ∩ (V) ∩ (V) ∩
4/4 Croma Croma 1/4pause Semim Semim
∩ V (∩)(V) ∩ (V) ∩ (V)
NOTE: within () should be written dashed. It means you make the movement, but you skip the string.
Thanks for the comment. It is interesting that a few others had mentioned that there were even some old guitar books that taught this way of picking an arpeggio like this. Could be that's where he got it. Either way, it sounds good and that's what counts.
Your a good teacher
Thank you!!
Didn't realise it but in the 60 or so years I've been playing it I've done it like Valentine did it.
That's the way I learned it too, playing with my brothers record. Great tune!!!
LedHed Pb 207.20 🎶 🎸 🎹
That's cool!
If it worked for him, why not. Enjoy
The Animals version, although it brought the song to a wider audience, is a sanitised version of the original, of which, as you say there are many version. I used the version from Blind Boy Grump aka Bob Dylan from an age ago, which is much earthier, both musically and lyrically, acknowledging the the Rising Sun was a brothel, which exploited poor girls, not poor boys.
After watching this I had to grab my guitar and see how I've playing this for umpteen years. I hit the root with a downstroke, then sort of strum the next chordal notes (sweeping across each note but not quite picking each note). This is because that's how it sounds to me. On the way up I upstroke, upstroke, downstroke. This is not something I ever thought about. Now I know how I play it. Oh, and I do anchor my pinky on the bridge.
If you really want to play it like the Animals arrangement, at the end of the song, as they're playing the last few bars, they just alternate between A minor to D minor until Alan Price's end chord ( which I believe is an A minor 9th ).
when i play this song i play it exactly the way that Hilton plays it. by me always playing the song for years. i eventually ended up playing the right hand the same way
If it worked for him... :)
@@GuitarLessonsVancouver yeah, it was quite tricky but it got easier with practice
I rarely use a plectrum for rhythm guitar, but for this song Hilton's technique is what would come naturally to me too. This keeps the up/down flow of the hand consistent, making it far easier to sustain the timing of the arpeggio throughout the song. Playing all 3 as upstrokes entails either just running the plectrum up them and losing the distinction between them (as with the preceeding 3 notes played as a single downstroke), or doubling the timing of the hand stroke to get back in place for the next upstroke if you want to keep them seperate. The first loses the 'feel' of the arpeggio, the second (which I think most people are doing) makes it very difficult to keep the timing accurate for prolonged periods - not least because the wrist works that bit harder and inevitably tightens while doing it.
Having said all that, the 'best' solution is probably what feels most natural to each of us individually.
Lots of people here agree. If it worked for him, why not?
lots of guys play this without learning the repeat “round” after the verse.
this has always been one of my favorite tunes and i don''t tire of hearing or playing it. another good hard rock version of it is by the band 'frigid pink'. thnx for the info.
Cool, thanks. Yeah I love that Frijid Pink version too. Thanks for watching!
Having learned this song without a teacher (I just searched which were the chords and listened) I played the last three notes with the alternate picking. It's just obvious, they're very important to the goove ans the right hand (in my case left because I'm lefty) is the rhythm hand.
Loved this video! I have always loved the song House of the Rising Sun, even the Bob Dylan version. In fact, it's my understanding that the Animals version was what inspired Bob Dylan to electrify his music in the first place. The Animals version made him realize that folk songs can be converted into rock songs after the Animals turned the song he put on his first album into a rock classic. Have you ever heard the Venture version, played by Gerry McGee, of House of the Rising Sun?
I have! That's interesting about inspiring Dylan to play electric. I didn't know that. Thanks!
This all make sense, but I always thought the correct way to play House of the Rising Sun was the way that Frigid Pink played it.
That's a great version too for sure!
I doesn’t really matter, as long as the right sound comes out, that’s what counts.
I always play that ending part down, up, down, instead och up, down, up
That probably works too. As long as it's fairly efficient 😀
I hit the chord root note then rake off the G string through the high E (GBE), down stroke on the high E returning and up stroke on the B and G on the way back. It's not difficult to play it this way, keeps every chord pattern the same and it sounds very much like the way it's played in the song. The up-stroke retuning on the high E never sounded right to my ear.
off topic, but 6/8 is my fav time signature to write in bc you can very easily do a lot of interesting things like a 3/2 feel etc
Yeah 6/8 is great!
Also check out the lesson from Brian May for this tune, for some, who thinks plays it right, he will tell a small secret!!!)))
Yes we are and so are the Animals . Frigid Pink has the definition version !
That is a good version too 👍
Glad to have stumbled upon this vid... House of the Rising Sun was one of the first songs I learnt, apparently I have been playing it very wrong... for 25 years. haha. Gonna take some doing to undo that, but as soon as I heard the correct picking pattern it made sense that that is the way. I've taken a deep dive on many songs, finding faults in tabs, just not this simple masterpiece. Thanks for that.
If you're playing a different picking pattern but the correct notes and rhythm, it might not matter. Certainly there are multiple ways to play it, so long as it sounds good 😎