Play Guitar Like Chris Whitley!

... with the help of Hiroshi Suda's lessons

I’m delighted to announce that Hiroshi Suda - whom I dubbed “The CW Whisperer” - has agreed to provide lessons, demos, and other guides to help you play guitar like Chris Whitley. Hiroshi has been studying Whitley’s guitar techniques and deciphering Whitley’s tuning oddities for almost - at least? - two decades. The result of his autodidactic endeavors is that no one does Whitley better than Hiroshi.

Hiroshi has been sharing his demos on his

rustradio

YouTube channel for many years. Now he’s open to your requests. Can’t get your head and fingers around “Alchemical Affair”? Don’t know how to play that riff in XYZ song? Ask Hiroshi!

In his usual modest way, Hiroshi has asked that I caution you: He might not be able to fulfill every request; maybe some of Whitley’s tricks of his trade are beyond even Hiroshi’s mastery. But, knowing Hiroshi as I do, I don’t doubt that if you challenge him, he will likely obsess on answering that challenge. Probably not immediately, but eventually, he’ll untangle the knot.

Please use the comments to submit a question or to request a demo. Hiroshi will post on the ATCW Substack as time allows - He has a job and a family and also frequently plays open-mic gigs in which he covers CW (and Joe Henry, another favorite musician who uses alternate tunings) at music clubs in his hometown, Osaka, Japan. So he’s offering his knowledge because that’s the kind of generous person he is - that, and his devotion to keeping Chris Whitley’s music alive by sharing it every chance he gets.

To illustrate the kinds of posts you can expect in this intermittent series, here’s Hiroshi’s demo of “Fireroad (For Two)” preceded by my brief back story about how Hiroshi began his journey to mastering this song.

---

Back Story

Four years ago, Jessie Lee Montague posted to the ATCW group asking if anyone knew the tuning used on “Fireroad (For Two).” Jessie is a recording artist (Jake and under her own name ) and has sung backing vocals on some Chris Whitley album tracks, e.g., on Terra Incognita. She wanted to cover the song, but couldn’t decipher the tuning. As it turned out, “Fireroad” had stumped even The CW Whisperer. So, as outlandish as it seems if you know that I don’t speak music or guitar, Know-Nothing-ME! provided the answer. Well, at least a clue to where the answer was hiding in plain sight ….

Chris’ brother, Dan Whitley, had posted to the group some time earlier a photo of two pages from Chris’ lyrics book to the group, as shown below.

Notice the circled numbers/A# at the top right of the left-hand page? I noticed them too! So do I get an “A#” for noticing such things … even if I don’t understand what they mean? As it turns out, Hiroshi had been trying to discern the tuning for 15 years; but once he knew it, he quickly mastered the song. Within 10 days, he had posted a demo and chord diagram, much to many guitarists’ delight. And, for not-a-guitarist people like me, I was enthralled to hear the guitar part so clearly and to imagine hearing Chris play it at a gig.

A few insights from Hiroshi:

• Both “Fireroad” and “City of Women” use unique tunings that aren’t employed in any other CW compositions: Fireroad’s A# D# A# D G A# and City of Women’s B E B D# G# B. So, even after composing music for over two decades, Chris was still experimenting and devising new sounds.

• Hiroshi recommends using a 14-fret guitar, which makes it easier to play Chord #5.

• Overall, he loves the sequence of harmonics with the beautiful Major 7th tuning - which reminds him of Jaco Pastorius, but having a more beautiful melody due to the advantage of an open tuning - and the amazing rhythm pattern, a sort of drum rudiments, paradiddle, created by the open 1st string.

Fireroad Demo

Tuning and Chord Diagram

Tuning: A# D# A# D G A#

Cipher: A#57453

---

Hiroshi’s Chord Diagram

---

Again, please post your questions and requests in the comments here. Thanks!