Strings, Sun & Psychedelia: 5 Musical Lessons from the Summer of Love

It’s difficult to talk about sixties music at all without bringing up Jimi Hendrix. A sonic architect in his own right, and front man of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hendrix redefined what it meant to play the electric guitar. The group’s debut album Are You Experienced? was released in 1967 and is a master class in using effects pedals and tape manipulation to create otherworldly soundscapes.

His use of effects is most pronounced in the largely instrumental track ‘Third Stone from The Sun’. The introduction features a slowed down conversation between himself and the producer that immediately gives the track its off-kilter, transcendental quality.

The guitar tones are rinsed in his signature blend of fuzz and octave pedal, and his use of the whammy bar is less about bending notes and more about carving out alien sounds and interesting textures. This, combined with the inclusion of noise samples, including sounds of motorbikes and trains, allows the track to stand out as an exploration of sound. There’s something encouraging about such a popular artist being quite so experimental.

Even in his more traditional blues informed playing, Hendrix was innovating. He was playing his guitar upside down to accommodate his left-handedness, using his thumb to play root notes on the low string, and blending melodic lines with rhythm playing in an immediately identifiable manner.

This innovatory approach was no less evident in his live shows. Hendrix was well known for playing the guitar with his teeth (though many attest this was largely a showmanship trick and the sound itself is produced entirely by the fretting hand) manipulating feedback from his amplifier, and even playing behind his head.

There are so many details in Hendrix’s technique that demonstrate an intense spirit of creativity that we can all learn from. Hendrix’s approach to the guitar was highly personal, and his use of effects feels exploratory and unencumbered by expectation. You don’t have to learn to precisely imitate Hendrix’s technique to draw a message from his legacy. Hendrix teaches us as much about having the bravery to carve your own path with your instrument as he does about great blues playing.

Why not try finding new sounds with equipment you already have, or from the guitar itself. Tap in to your inner Hendrix and experiment with how you manipulate sound, play the guitar backward or upsides down, make sounds that are bizarre and subversive, experiment, and turn your idea of music on their head.

Jefferson Airplane are a band who’s career was, in many ways, defined by The Summer of Love in San Fransisco. The group’s Surrealistic Pillow album was released in 1967 and features some of their biggest songs including ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Rabbit’. From it’s dreamy vocals and weaving acoustic folks textures to it’s moments of high energy rock, Surrealistic Pillow is the epitome of the Summer of Love sound.

The eternally psychedelic ‘White Rabbit’ is a track that expertly demonstrates the power of modal melodies in it’s iconic guitar introduction.

The intro solo oozes with psychedelic intrigue, it’s almost menacing, set against the backdrop of the marching snare rolls influenced by Ravel’s ‘Bolero’. This innate sense of mystery is due in large part to use of the Phrygian mode.

The Phrygian mode is best thought of as a particular kind of minor scale and is known for its distinctively dark and ‘exotic’ sound, often reminiscent of many traditionally Spanish or Middle Eastern tonalities. It is constructed by taking a traditional natural minor scale and lowering the second degree. It is this semitone movement from the flattened second degree that helps to create a feeling of tension and drama.

When it comes to songwriting, if you ever find yourself struggling to quite build the atmosphere you are looking for with the familiar minor or major scale, why not try a modal approach? Whether it’s utilising the Phrygian mode to build the drama, or tapping into the Lydian mode to make a song feel more uplifting, taking some time to familiarise yourself with the particular character of each mode will help to build your emotive musical toolkit.

There are endless musical lessons to be learned from The Beatles, particularly where song writing is concerned. For this particular lesson however, I want to draw your attention to their 1967 release, “All You Need Is Love’. Opening with the French national anthem ‘La Marseillaise’, no doubt as a gesture to its associated values of liberty, equality, and fraternity, ‘All You Need Is Love’ is the Beatles contribution to the spirit of peace, love, and unity in late sixties counter culture.

Despite being one of their perhaps less overtly psychedelic offerings, it is quite unconventional in it’s use of odd time signatures. Composed primarily by John Lennon, the song serves as a worthwhile reminder that odd time signatures shouldn’t be reserved only for prog metal riffs - or even psychedelia for that matter. Rather, they can be used to give a more unique character to any song.

You can view the verse of ‘All You Need Is Love’ as alternating between bars of 4/4 and 3/4, however the phrasing of the top line melody and lead vocal create a distinctly 7/4 feel. This stands out as a particularly unconventional decision for a song that feels so twee and optimistic. 7/4 has an irregular feel and so is more commonly employed to create a sense of unease or urgency.

Not only is the meter irregular, but it changes several times throughout the song. The third and seventh phrases of each eight phrase verse section introduce an extra beat and become 8/4, the chorus is then in 4/4, with the exception of the final 6/4 chorus phrase which leads us neatly back into the 7/4 verse.

This continually shifting pulse creates a unique approach to organic phrasing and is a testament to what can be achieved by making the least obvious musical decisions that you can and seeing what happens. Next time you sit down to write a riff, why not play with shifting time signatures and less conventional metres? Or perhaps throw on a backing track in something other than the ever familiar 4/4 and and challenge yourself to carve out melodic phrases over the top.

Ravi Shankar is widely renowned as the master of the sitar and was one of the most prominent figures within the Hindustani tradition of Indian classical music. During the sixties, as a result of Shankar’s extensive touring and his connection to George Harrison, whom he tutored in sitar playing, the sounds of India began audibly seeping into popular music of the West. So much so that it’s difficult to listen to any playlist of late sixties music without encountering the sound of a sitar, or at least an imitation of it, somewhere.

In 1965, George Harrison became the first western musician to play the sitar on a pop record and by The Summer of Love, his tutor Ravi Shankar was performing to an enamoured audience of thousands at The Monterey Pop Festival - securing a more global stage for Indian classical musicians.

Ravi Shankar’s connection to George Harrison was unlikely in many ways. The two musician’s socioeconomic backgrounds differed greatly with Shankar being the highly educated son of a wealthy Bengali family and Harrison hailing from more humble beginnings in working class Liverpool. Shankar’s prowess as a trained, technical instrumentalist also stood in contrast to Harrison’s informal, self taught journey with the guitar.

And of course, their culture backgrounds were remarkably different. Yet the creative connection between the two musicians was exceedingly fruitful. George Harrison’s humility as a musician despite his fame and his openness to new ideas were met by Ravi Shankar’s willingness to teach with patience, culminating in a mutual respect that resulted in the best kind of musical exchange.

Musicians from other traditions should always be approached such a respect, and George Harrison’s work demonstrates that there is no replacement for learning directly from native practitioners of any given classical tradition.

Ravi Shankar’s influential legacy also demonstrates how a willingness to teach and perform for new global audiences can create musical magic. Exploring global sounds and learning about other traditions is an enriching and essential part of any musician or music fans journey - why not challenge yourself to listen to a folk tradition you’ve never heard before?

Remember that connecting with live audiences is one of the most important parts of being a musician, and that it is not just what you are playing but how you are playing it that will create a complete artistic statement. The Summer of Love still stands out as a period in which musicians were pushing the boundaries of performance and The Who are one of the groups that helped completely redefine the rock and roll show during this time.

Formed in London in 1964, The Who had their debut show in the USA at The Monterey Pop Festival, 1967. Their set ultimately went down as a definitive moment in live rock history when Pete Townshend performed his guitar smashing stunt in front of the new American audience. The carnage was reinforced by Keith Moon kicking his bass drum out from under him against a back drop of pyrotechnic smoke bombs whilst technical crew scrambled to hold on to precious microphones and prevent them from meeting the same fate.

The Who had been honing this signature style of destruction for some time. Initiated by an earlier audience reaction to Townshend accidentally breaking his guitar on a low ceiling and deciding to finish the job himself, this act of instrument demolition became an intentional part of the show. The chaotic performance elements of The Who were subversive, an animalistic display of energy and frustration that seemed to perfectly encompass the sixties idea of the ‘freak out’. Whilst The Who certainly weren’t the only ones to destroy a guitar that night at Monterey Pop (Jimi Hendrix went one further and set his on fire) they are largely regarded as the pioneers of wrecking stuff on stage.

Few of us have the budget or desire to mangle guitars each night to make a performance memorable. However, the lesson we can drawn from The Who’s antics is that pushing boundaries with performance can take a band from the status of well liked to iconic. Wether it’s in the way you dress, move, or interact with an audience and fellow musicians, put as much passion into your on stage performances as you do your playing if you want to make an impact that lasts.