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By listening to him I’ve learned how to make each note count for more, instead of piling on speed and “flair” to try and impress. Jones’s playing is an incredible example of what well-placed rhythm and timing can do for musical notes and for the guitar as an instrument. You can have the most beautiful arpeggios and arrangement of notes, but if you can’t keep time (and you’re not a one-man show) those notes aren’t going to be worth garbage. I’ve always believed that one of the most important aspects of playing guitar is being able to effectively keep time and play in a distinct rhythm.
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But the concept is fairly consistent, and after several years of listening to this music, it truly began to improve my rhythmic abilities on the guitar. Now of course not all of Tool’s songs are this simple in notation, and even “The Grudge” has its tonal complexities. The guitar in that song sounds great, but if you look at the tablature, it’s a lot of zeros–because Jones is frequently using the low open D, or “the sixth string.” Yet when you listen to the song, the rhythm is so well thought out and powerful, that you don’t really even notice you’re hearing the same note over and over again.
![tool aenima album tuning tool aenima album tuning](https://images.eil.com/large_image/TOOL_AENIMA-509700.jpg)
Take for example his work on “The Grudge” off Lateralus. Aside from the occasional venture into drop-B, Jones rarely deviates from the well-known D-A-D-G-B-E tuning, as nearly all of Tool’s tracks are played in it.įurthermore, the riffs that Jones comes up with are often deceptively simple in notation, yet extremely complex in terms of timing. My early exposure to Jones’s playing is largely responsible for my high comfort level with drop-D tuning. So for the last 12 or so years, I’ve been largely influenced and inspired by the guitar playing on those first three albums. Unfortunately, they’ve only released one album since 2001, which was 10000 Days dropping in 2006. Tool’s music is almost always complex and rhythmic, yet somehow, Jones’s guitar fits in perfectly with every track.Īfter being exposed to Lateralus, I went back and listened to Aenima and Undertow, both of which are fantastic albums. Instead his guitar playing is intensely rhythmic, fitting in seamlessly with the complex beats and bass lines that Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor are constantly laying down. If you listen to Tool’s albums, Jones isn’t particularly fast or even “technical” in the strictest sense of the word. To be honest, I don’t remember how old I was, maybe 15, all I know is that I became fascinated with Tool’s music and particularly Adam Jones’s guitar playing. I remember not being tremendously fond of what I heard on the radio or of what most of my friends listened to but at the same time, I didn’t know any better.Īt some point during the early years of fumbling through the basics of learning guitar, a couple of my skateboarding buddies (definitely can’t do that anymore) introduced me to three bands: Radiohead, the Smashing Pumpkins and Tool. When I first started playing guitar (north of 17 years ago now) I had no idea who to listen to.
Tool aenima album tuning series#
This twelfth installment of the Discover a Guitarist series is a guest post from Robert Kittleberger of Guitar Chalk.