"Oh no! All my Best Friends are Metalheads!"

Hey, I’m back again with the next installment of my blog. I’m still sick and my voice is still failing me so again I will not be able to do a tutorial style video. For this next blog however, let’s jump from the electronic music scene to some raw ska. Ska is a genre of music that came about from a fusion of punk and reggae elements. It embraces the fast tempo aggression that has made punk so appealing to young rebellious teenagers and the offbeat swing feel that characterizes reggae. Combining the two, you have loud in your face choruses and the verses tend to follow the off-beat style of reggae. Another key component of ska is the addition of instruments that you would not normally hear in a punk band. These are mainly brass and horn instruments and the impact they have on the music is substantial. They add another layer of melodies that tend to follow the vocal melodies or complement them. This allows the guitar to focus on the rhythm of the song rather than the melodies so the song does not sound as ‘empty’. The last distinguishing factor of ska is the bass. The bass lines always tend to be a catchy sounding ‘run’ of notes. By this I mean the bass does not just follow the guitar progression like in a majority of punk songs but instead sometimes follows a melody of its own. My personal description of basslines in ska is that it tends to make you feel like you are walking up and down a set of stairs.

The song I have picked is “All my Best Friends are Metalheads” by Less Than Jake. It is off their “Hello Rockview” album. The song is known for its catchy guitar intro that is repeated twice more throughout the song. The song is in the key of E. It is put together by different segments which are intro, verse, chorus, verse, etc..   The trick in getting that ska sound in the verses is that you really need to put the emphasis on the higher strings of the guitar rather than the lower strings. Also the strumming pattern has to be chopped up in order to give it that off-beat feel. The easiest way in my opinion of doing this is by using barre-chords. Barre-chords give a more full sound compared to power chords. To achieve the off-beat feel, you have to mute the strings when strumming down. This is done by either covering all the strings lightly with your left hand or by lightly resting the palm of your right hand along the strings as you strum down. You then strum up by letting the chord sound out but attempt to only strike the top four strings of the guitar but sharply so the sound really pops out. This is the technique I use and it’s essentially all to do with rhythm. Once you feel comfortable with the pattern it’s pretty simple. The chord progression for the verses is E, A, B and then switches to A, E, B. The progression for the chorus is also E, A, B with a short slide before the A. Hopefully this helps for whomever is interested in understanding how to learn to play a ska song. My friend has left his bass at my place for the last while so perhaps I’ll show how horrible I am at it in a coming video.