How to play Count The Ways by The Last Dinner Party

Song Guides
Written By Michelle Nelson
 
Download the chart here
 

Count The Ways by The Last Dinner Party is ideal for developing electric guitarists. It’s a great example of how lead guitar can create interesting accompaniment work with pounding away on power chords for a whole song. The second track from their second album From The Pyre, Count The Ways is a great chart for electric players.

Riffs : the song is in the key of G overall but the key center does shift between E Minor, C and G Major. Its worthwhile doing some associated scale work in those keys.

Chords : The chords that create the background harmony for the verse, bridge and chorus are indicated above the TAB ; an accompanying player could play these while you perform the lead.

Pick or Fingers? What you hear, clearly throughout the recording is the sound of a plectrum on steel strings boosted by a valve-amp overdrive to fatten the tone. Fingerstyle on electric guitar will not create the style of the TLDP original.

Acoustic or Electric? Electric, definitely! Count The Ways is a retro version of classic English Rock ; a style that doesn’t work satisfactorily on acoustic guitars. Crank the amp!

TAB timing : the graphic representation of long note values is misleading in TAB. One-beat and two-beat notes are displayed with just a plain stem and appear to be the same. A stem with an added dot is either 1.5 beats or 3 beats ; the clue to longer values is there is more space before the next number. This is not ideal and highlights some of the issues about TAB. Use the recording to guide your understanding of the timing.

What are the curved lines for? The solo phrases of Count The Ways feature plenty of hammer-on and slide notes. Both are indicated by a ‘slur’ (curved line) connecting the affected TAB notes. The plain slurs indicate hammer-on, or pull-off notes. Those that include a slanted line leading to the second note indicate a slide. For more insight about how to control hammer-on, pull-off, sliding and bend notes, download a copy of Electric Guitar Solo Style 1

Relevant pages in Electric Guitar Solo Style 1 : to learn more about the scales and techniques used in Count The Ways see pages 7 - 10, 13, 18 - 20, 24. For an excellent course to general chord and rhythm styles check out the very helpful Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 and/or it’s Electric Guitar counterpart Modern Guitar Chord Styles Volume 2

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Michelle Nelson

Michelle Nelson is a professional guitarist, composer, and educator with decades of experience across classical and electric styles. A fully accredited VMTA teacher, she has performed in rock bands, classical ensembles, and plucked string orchestras, and currently composes for the Birrarung Trio and Concordia ensemble. Michelle specialises in Classical (Classical era to Modern), Rock, and Blues guitar, and draws inspiration from artists like Ritchie Blackmore, Jeff Beck, Wes Montgomery, and Mauro Giuliani.

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