One of the greatest jazz guitarist of all time is Wes Montgomery. He played guitar with his thumb and made popular the octave slide where he would simply add an octave to fatten up the sound. If you ever read Wes Montgomerys bio it says he developed this technique to keep the noise down not to awake his family or neighbors. So his octave technique was basically developed by accident so they say. Wes was noted to study Charlie Christian, John Coltrane to name a few. I personally liked his blues playing its some pretty amazing stuff. Check out Wes Coast Blues by Wes when you get the chance you will be glad you did. Below is some examples of Wes Montgomery playing technique. Take note of the fat tone you get by playing with your thumb!
EX. 1
Heres a basic melody played
without the octave.
E||-----------------------|-----------||
B||-----------------------|--8--------||
G||--5---7-5---7-9--------|-----------||
D||-----------------------|-----------||
A||-----------------------|-----------||
E||-----------------------|-----------||
EX.2
Here's the same melody
played Wes style.
He would simply add
an octave to the original
note to give it a dark fat sound.
Make sure you play this
with your thumb not your pick.
E||-----------------------|-------||
B||-----------------------|--8----||
G||--5---7-5---7-9--------|-------||
D||-----------------------|--5----||
A||--3---5-3---5-7--------|-------||
E||-----------------------|-------||
Try to incorporate this into
your own guitar playing
and see what you can come
up with!
Once again have fun
Brian Calloway