Nile Rodgers Guitar Style

In this lesson, we are checking out three guitar licks in the style of the funk legend, Nile Rodgers. Nile Rodgers is perhaps the most prolific guitarist and producer in funk history. He has worked with Chic, Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, David Bowie and recently topped the charts with Daft Punk. He has an instantly recognisable style of playing. It combines rhythmic precision and accuracy, and a groove that always packs out a dance floor. Today we are looking at his use of barre chords, triads and open strings. Get these new ideas down and remember whoever says, “Rhythm playing is boring, ” isn’t doing it right!

Nile Rodger’s often favours minor and major 7th chords in his playing. In this example we start of by using some hammer-ons and additions to F#m7 and C#m7. In bars three and four, we use major 7th chords and some subtle slides to add a funky sound. Remember with all these examples today it is all about the groove. Make sure you are bang in time and practice with a metronome and a funk style backing track or drum track.

Open strings are often neglected. They make a really cool and interesting variation when creating a new sounding riff. This riff uses palm muting, alternate picking in the key of G minor. The main reason a riff like this is so catchy are the rests in between the notes. Often it is the space you allow between each phrase that makes a normal riff sound very memorable.

Nile Rodgers: 'disco Takes Dedication'

Nile Rodgers’ command of chords is so wide and varied. In this example, there is a combination of big barre chords and mini triads. The combination of the two allows more freedom than always restricting yourself to one or the other.

For classic Nile Rodgers style guitar licks, I recommend buying the album “The Very Best Of Chic.” My favourite track on that album being “Le Freak.”

Hi guys, Simon here once again for Fundamental Changes. Today we’re looking at the unbelievable talent of Nile Rodgers. Let’s go and check out a few of his licks next.

Nile Rodgers: How To Make It In The Music Business (tv Series 2017)

We’re getting pretty funky here already with Example 1. We start off up around F sharp minor 7, which is the 9

Fret with your A minor bar chord without the little finger. We’re then hammering in those 2 notes there, adding in the little finger in the 12

I believe open strings are a really neglected part of all guitar styles, but especially funk and rhythm making bits. This lick here today is around G minor. We’ve got the 5, 3, and open on the D or the 4

Yesterday, I Had The Honour Of Holding Nile Rodgers Legendary Hitmaker Stratocaster, One Of A Few Almost Mythical Guitars In The World.

What makes this lick really, really cool is the little rests between each of the notes here. It’s not so much the notes themselves, it’s the little gaps remembering that space is really, really important in building your own riffs. Let’s go and have a look at Example 3.

A cool way to blend and mix your new rhythm-playing styles is to have big bar chord shapes, but then have triads as well, or 3-note chords, as I’ve talked about a lot in the past.

This example is around E minor, or E minor 7 at the start here. We go through a little B minor 3-note triad with this root note. 3 B flat minor into A minor, then we’ve got some cool – a little 3 shaped G into a little G shaped C, and then back to your E minor first bit all the way through. Then we’ve got a Dsus2 chord there which is your A minor without your middle finger.

Musician Nile Rodgers Offers His Guitars For Sale At Christie's

This is quite a little fun example. Again, consistency with the right hand is really crucial. I really hope you’ve enjoyed these, and I’ll see you next time for more videos in this style.

Hi everyone, thanks for watching these licks in the style of Nile Rodgers. I really hope you’ve got something from it. Please go on over and check out Joseph’s website Fundamental Changes.

Have a look at his books on Amazon, and come and have a look at my YouTube, SDPguitarfor more free guitar videos. See you next time.Nile Rodgers is one of those people you’d just like to thank: for Chic and Sister Sledge; for combining uptown style with downtown rhythms; for swooning strings and relentless ‘chucking’ guitar patterns; for ‘High Society, ’ ‘My Forbidden Lover’ and ‘Get Lucky’; for the renaissance of Diana Ross; for the pause in ‘I Want Your Love’; for the chassis to ‘Rapper’s Delight’; for getting ‘lost in music, caught in a trap, no turning back’; for sheer rapture on the dance floor; for the ‘Good Times.’

How To Get Nile Rodgers Sound?

Rodgers’ excellent autobiography ‘Le Freak’ is a rollercoaster ride of joy and pain, of triumph over adversity; a story told with wisdom, warmth and good humour. He grew up amongst bohemians and drug users in New York and LA. He suffered insomnia and chronic asthma. His early life involved encounters with Thelonius Monk, Timothy Leary and assorted Black Panthers; with Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix and Sesame Street. Eventually he met Bernard Edwards, formed Chic, and together they created the blueprint for sophisticated modern dance music. He went on to confer his distinctive production dazzle on the likes of David Bowie, Duran Duran and Madonna. This is a life fully lived.

Rodgers’ natural musical gift was first expressed through the clarinet he was taught at school. At 15 he convinced his mother and stepfather to buy him a guitar. He set about learning his new instrument from his clarinet etudes and a Beatles songbook. But, however hard he tried, he couldn’t coax anything approaching a proper melody from the guitar. How frustrating! One day his stepfather came across him practising and took the instrument in his hands:

‘Sir Edmond Hillary, reaching the summit of Mount Everest, must have felt something similar to what I felt at that moment. This was more blissful than anything I’d ever experienced. I played the next chord and it sounded like the right chord in the progression. I started the song again. With utter confidence I sang, ‘I read the news today, oh boy, ’ then strummed an E minor and dropped to the seventh, ‘About a lucky man who made the grade.’ There are no words to accurately describe what this felt like.’

Fender And Nile Rodgers Recreate 'the Hitmaker' Stratocaster Guitar

In a completely different context, Nile Rodgers’ out-of-tune guitar made me wonder about the commercial world. How often does a business have the right strings, on the right instrument, being plucked in exactly the right way, without producing any meaningful music? How often is a business ill at ease with itself, out of tune, with no sense of where the problem lies?

We may think of leaders nowadays as people who hire and fire, replace and reconfigure. But the truest test of good leaders is their ability to realise the potential of the talent already at their disposal. Can they allocate roles and responsibilities, tasks and objectives in such a way as to create a genuine sense of collective purpose? Can they galvanise disparate skills and personalities into a supportive, happy team? Can they motivate them, direct them, inspire them to play in tune, to sing in harmony?

Great leaders set the rhythm of a business, get it dancing in step, as one. I’ve witnessed this kind of leadership. It’s a rare instinctive thing, a wonder to behold. It requires humility and empathy; charisma and vision, in equal measure. It requires a positive engagement with people, life and circumstances.

Fender Nile Rodgers Hitmaker Stratocaster 2022, Olympic White

These are qualities that I’m sure Rodgers himself has in abundance. At the start of his book, he quotes an old saying:

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