The following is a lesson on Double Stops with a bespoke Double Stop Etude, TAB and downloadable backing track.

Double Stops are two notes played at together at the same time, usually on adjacent strings. They’re also known as dyads. A double stop is a chord (technically) but often doesn’t contain enough notes to satisfy the naming criteria of tertian harmony. For example an E major chord needs an E, G# and B so a double stop wouldn’t contain enough notes to definitively describe an E chord. Most often 2 of the 3 notes will be played to imply the chord of the moment such as G# & B being played over an E chord thus representing the 3rd & 5th.

Double Stops are ubiquitous amongst guitar players but some seminal exponents of the double stop are Curtis Mayfield (Talking About My Baby) Jimi Hendrix (Wind Cries Mary) Chuck Berry (Johnny B. Goode) John Mayer (Slow Dancing in a Burning Room) John Frusciante (Under the Bridge) amongst many others.

So how do we employ double stops? There are a few ways.

Firstly we can add pentatonic notes to the chord that we’re playing over. For example if we’re playing the 5th and Root of an E major chord we could hammer on the 6th from the 5th.

If we were playing the the 3rd and the 5th of an E major we could hammer the 3rd on from the 2nd/9th.

If we were playing the Root and 3rd of an E major we could hammer on the 2nd/9th from the Root.

See below.

A great ‘hack’ for applying Double Stops to minor chords is to use their relative majors. For example if we apply the above ideas to a C#m chord (the relative minor of E) then we get the b7 & b3 of C#m with the root hammered on, the 5th & b7 of C#m with the 5th being hammered onto from the 4th/11th and the b3rd & 5th with the 4th/11th being hammered on. In short, these ideas are valid as both major and (relative minor) ideas as they represent chord tones and pentatonic scale tones of both.

In the following etude there are 2 minor chords F#m and G#m. Over the F#m I use A major double stop ideas and over the G#m I use B major double stop ideas.

Another way to use double stops is to use the entire major pentatonic scale whilst remaining aware of your chord tones to resolve on. See below - I’ve written out positions 5 & 1 and accented the chord tones.

If you learn these for all 5 shapes of the major pentatonic scale (see my CAGED System Book) then you can apply E major pentatonic over E & C#m, A major pentatonic over A & F#m and B major pentatonic over B & G#m.

One last approach that the lesson will cover is to use more of the entire diatonic scale. I like to omit the 4th when I do this as it can often get you into trouble harmonically speaking. John Mayer used this approach in Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.

The first bar above resolves to E and the second bar resolves to C#m - you should always be aware of how to resolve your ideas. They both contain every note of the diatonic scale (E major/C# Natural Minor) aside from the 4th/b6th - A the avoid note in both scales.

Now that these concepts have been explained you can see them at work below in the Double Stop Etude that I wrote for this lesson.

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