Ennio Morricone and spaghetti western

Rayza1983

Anybody any advice for creating that spaghetti western sound? What scale should I use and progressions etc

octatonic

Triads, pentatonics.
I IV V7.

Danny1969

Natural minor scale will work well, I like Dm myself 

octatonic

Danny1969 said:

Natural minor scale will work well, I like Dm myself 

The saddest of all keys.

bbill335

Short scale (jag, mustang), heavy strings and attack, a spitty and treble-heavy fuzz like a fuzzrite.

steamabacus

Dig in really hard with plenty of reverb. I seem to remember reading that the session guitarist (probably on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?) was quite taken aback on how hard Morricone insisted he play to get the effect he was after.

Guitarse

Just a clean strat and some reverb. 

EricTheWeary

steamabacus said:

Dig in really hard with plenty of reverb. I seem to remember reading that the session guitarist (probably on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?) was quite taken aback on how hard Morricone insisted he play to get the effect he was after.

( The late) Italian jazz guitarist Pino Rucher apparently, massive CV/ discography of stuff I've ( mostly) never heard of. 

Rayza1983

Thanks guys some good info

viz

The overriding (  ) thing about most spaghetti western music is that it's in a minor key but has a strong major subdominant. Also a major (flat) mediant and a major (flat) 7 chord. I.e. - i, III, IV and VII. Note the dominant chord is quite rare, so the temptation to use a major 7th is completely avoided.

That major IV chord is critical and its major 3rd is heavily emphasised. The major 3rd on a IV chord implies a major 6th on a minor i chord, therefore it's Dorian through and through. 

Try the following:

e minor
A major
e minor
e minor

e minor
A major
e minor
e minor

G major
A major
e minor
e minor

G major
D major
e minor
e minor. 

A suitable strumming rhythm would be boom-chucka, boom-chucka (I'm not up on strumming rhythm notation). 

That's the chords. With the melody, what gives it that rather mournful wistful lonely quality is the sparseness to the tunes. The tunes are not rich or luxurious. You can achieve that on the melody (not the harmony) by under-emphasising the 3rd on each chord, apart from on the IV chord. So within your e Dorian noodlin', over the e chord emphasise E and B frequently; over the A chord play the important C# frequently; over the G, emphasise G and D; and over the D play D, A and F#. The other notes in e Dorian can all be used judiciously throughout, but more sparingly.

To demonstrate how suitable Dorian is to spaghetti music, just imagine the cowboys sitting round the fire with the guitar, singing Scarborough Fair or Hooray and up she rises, and see how appropriate those chords seem! Very folky. 


On occasion you find a major piece, which very often has the trademark progression I, IV, I, bVII, V.

for example,

A major
D major
A major
G major, E major. 

This is classic A mixolydian. In Mixolydian it's that flat 7 note and chord that are important; normally a flattened 7th is used in a minor key, so in a major key it's very distinctive. And the bVII chord followed by a V chord (with its major 3rd) gives a very unique sound because of the G of the bVII versus the G# of the V. For soloing in A Mixolydian you can use the concept above of overemphasising the 1sts and 5ths of each chord. The 3rds to bring out are over the I chord (the C#) and over the bVII chord (the B ). 

ICBM

A long time ago I had a 1960s Italian 'Gem' amp which was a transistor preamp/valve power amp hybrid, with reverb and tremolo. If you simply turned all the knobs up full, and played almost any guitar through it on the bridge pickup with a hard pick, it gave exactly that sound. Sadly it was really all it did well - at more sensible settings it just sounded bland and dull, so much as I love Morricone, I eventually sold it.

Funkfingers

+1 for the Fender Jaguar. Big strings. No damping between the bridge and string anchor. Let those weird metallic overtones ring. Amp tremolo or vibrato. Lashings of valve-driven reverb. The Fender floating vibrato system (Jazzmaster/Jaguar) applies the right sort of wobble. Don't skimp on the cheesiness.

bingefeller

Learn to play White Wedding by Billy Idol:




Steve Stevens says he was heavily influenced by old Westerns when he wrote the opening riff.

AlexC

This is great fun to learn and will put you on the right path.

DulcetJones

Tremolo works well along with all the reverb etc., already mentioned, but not all time.

Rayza1983

viz said:

The overriding (  ) thing about most spaghetti western music is that it's in a minor key but has a strong major subdominant. Also a major (flat) mediant and a major (flat) 7 chord. I.e. - i, III, IV and VII. Note the dominant chord is quite rare, so the temptation to use a major 7th is completely avoided.

That major IV chord is critical and its major 3rd is heavily emphasised. The major 3rd on a IV chord implies a major 6th on a minor i chord, therefore it's Dorian through and through. 

Try the following:

e minor
A major
e minor
e minor

e minor
A major
e minor
e minor

G major
A major
e minor
e minor

G major
D major
e minor
e minor. 

A suitable strumming rhythm would be boom-chucka, boom-chucka (I'm not up on strumming rhythm notation). 

That's the chords. With the melody, what gives it that rather mournful wistful lonely quality is the sparseness to the tunes. The tunes are not rich or luxurious. You can achieve that on the melody (not the harmony) by under-emphasising the 3rd on each chord, apart from on the IV chord. So within your e Dorian noodlin', over the e chord emphasise E and B frequently; over the A chord play the important C# frequently; over the G, emphasise G and D; and over the D play D, A and F#. The other notes in e Dorian can all be used judiciously throughout, but more sparingly.

To demonstrate how suitable Dorian is to spaghetti music, just imagine the cowboys sitting round the fire with the guitar, singing Scarborough Fair or Hooray and up she rises, and see how appropriate those chords seem! Very folky. 


On occasion you find a major piece, which very often has the trademark progression I, IV, I, bVII, V.

for example,

A major
D major
A major
G major, E major. 

This is classic A mixolydian. In Mixolydian it's that flat 7 note and chord that are important; normally a flattened 7th is used in a minor key, so in a major key it's very distinctive. And the bVII chord followed by a V chord (with its major 3rd) gives a very unique sound because of the G of the bVII versus the G# of the V. For soloing in A Mixolydian you can use the concept above of overemphasising the 1sts and 5ths of each chord. The 3rds to bring out are over the I chord (the C#) and over the bVII chord (the B ). 

Only just seen this, quality stuff massive thanks

KDS

Amazing, I'm looking forward to trying this out myself

Rayza1983

KDS said:

Amazing, I'm looking forward to trying this out myself

It's great stuff

viz

Rayza1983 said:

viz said:

The overriding (  ) thing about most spaghetti western music is that it's in a minor key but has a strong major subdominant. Also a major (flat) mediant and a major (flat) 7 chord. I.e. - i, III, IV and VII. Note the dominant chord is quite rare, so the temptation to use a major 7th is completely avoided.

That major IV chord is critical and its major 3rd is heavily emphasised. The major 3rd on a IV chord implies a major 6th on a minor i chord, therefore it's Dorian through and through. 

Try the following:

e minor
A major
e minor
e minor

e minor
A major
e minor
e minor

G major
A major
e minor
e minor

G major
D major
e minor
e minor. 

A suitable strumming rhythm would be boom-chucka, boom-chucka (I'm not up on strumming rhythm notation). 

That's the chords. With the melody, what gives it that rather mournful wistful lonely quality is the sparseness to the tunes. The tunes are not rich or luxurious. You can achieve that on the melody (not the harmony) by under-emphasising the 3rd on each chord, apart from on the IV chord. So within your e Dorian noodlin', over the e chord emphasise E and B frequently; over the A chord play the important C# frequently; over the G, emphasise G and D; and over the D play D, A and F#. The other notes in e Dorian can all be used judiciously throughout, but more sparingly.

To demonstrate how suitable Dorian is to spaghetti music, just imagine the cowboys sitting round the fire with the guitar, singing Scarborough Fair or Hooray and up she rises, and see how appropriate those chords seem! Very folky. 


On occasion you find a major piece, which very often has the trademark progression I, IV, I, bVII, V.

for example,

A major
D major
A major
G major, E major. 

This is classic A mixolydian. In Mixolydian it's that flat 7 note and chord that are important; normally a flattened 7th is used in a minor key, so in a major key it's very distinctive. And the bVII chord followed by a V chord (with its major 3rd) gives a very unique sound because of the G of the bVII versus the G# of the V. For soloing in A Mixolydian you can use the concept above of overemphasising the 1sts and 5ths of each chord. The 3rds to bring out are over the I chord (the C#) and over the bVII chord (the B ). 

Only just seen this, quality stuff massive thanks

No problem! Cheers

Adji

I remember I studied some of this stuff at uni and IIRC one of the things he did all the time was interplay between minor and dorian. He'd write a lot of melodic parts that omitted the 6th and every now and again he'd drop it in there, usually sharpened to make it dorian.

ToneControl

have a listen to the band "Wagon train" too
I saw them live, and bought the CD - very enjoyable