Welcome! (and short instructions for use)
Welcome to Guitare Soukous!
The goal of this website is to share my efforts to learn how to play and better understand what we call here soukous guitar, so what you can do here is primarily watch videos and read articles that hopefully will help you learning a little more about that.
Latest Video
Latest upload is a little demonstration on the use of the two note diatonic major scale (double stops) in a soukous line. I am not sure it is clear enough for a beginner to fully understand what is going on (or for anybody for that matter) but this is what i could do given the time available.
If you have questions or wish to see more of this just drop a line using the contact form.
I want to signal a mi-compose line from Sam Mangwana's "", played and slowed down by youtube user dinkotom. Check it out here.
Instructions For Beginners
I receive more requests for lessons or advices than I would have ever imagined so I might as well answer here and summarize the various answers I have been giving so far.
First, I am flattered by those requests.
Second, I am not exactly a music teacher, I am not giving guitar lessons in person or online and never did.
That's the short answer, if you don't need advices for beginners from an amateur guitarist you can stop reading here.
If you are interested, then click here.
Soukous Guitar Gear
Another post in response to several requests I received regarding what to use in order to get the "soukous guitar sound".
Again I have to say first that I don't have any special authority to give advices regarding soukous guitar other than my love for this music.
The first assumption that I would like to challenge is that there is one "soukous guitar sound".
There are in fact many, as the sound of the guitar in Congolese music evolved from the acoustic guitars of the very early rumba, to the fender guitar sound of the first music superstars all the way to the bell-like sound of the 80s and 90s and the bright ringing sound of these recent years.
Diatonic Major Scale - Demo 1
Trying to dig into the use of scales and intervals in soukous guitar I took a short line (from Diblo Dibala) and went all the way from there to the scales and intervals used. Here.
That particular line works for this example because it has a clear and simple melody hidden in the lower voice.
What I did was highlighting that simple melody and then use it as basis to practice the diatonic major scale of C in intervals of 3ds, 4ths, 6ths and 8ths. While Diblo's line uses all those intervals at once and some more, I tried to use them only one at a time.
Metronome
I am not going to make a "learn how to play guitar" video but I will try to highlight a few concepts that I believe will help some of those who want to learn to play the soukous guitar solos that I am transcribing and putting in my videos.
This Flamme Kapaya's rhythmic part provides a good opportunity to talk about one of the simplest and most effective tools you can use when you try to learn how to play: the metronome.
Instead of repeating concepts that you can easily find by searching "practice guitar metronome" I will just explain how I am using the metronome to bring up to speed this Kapaya's part after having all the notes and positions down and being able to sing it. The same method can be applied to all of the solos in my videos and if you go back and look at all my videos you can easily tell apart the ones that I prepared with a metronome from the ones where I didn't.
