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STUDY PROGRAM : HOTEL CALIFORNIA

Copyright © 2005 Mike Hayes - All rights reserved. www.guitarcoaching.com

Study program Hotel California



Front Cover : The “Pink Palace” was prominently featured on the cover of The Eagles “Hotel California” album. The photo was taken by photographers David Alexander and John Kosh, who sat in a cherry-picker about 60 feet above Sunset Boulevard to get the shot of the hotel at sunset from above the trees Located on Sunset Boulevard, at the north end of Rodeo Drive, the Beverly Hills Hotel is renowned the world over. Built in 1912 in the middle of lima bean fields, the "Pink Palace" (as the Hotel is affectionately known) was there even before there was a Beverly Hills. The city grew up around the Hotel. The Hotel's list of celebrity guests is extensive, including politicians, movie stars, and members of the royal family: John F. Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Spencer Tracy, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Aristotle Onassis, the Duke of Windsor...

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 3

The Eagles ................................................................................................................. 4

Those “Hotel California” chords ............................................................................... 5

The “Hotel California” chord progression ................................................................ 6

The “Hotel California” / “We Used To Know” connection ...................................... 8

Back Cycle progression ............................................................................................. 10

Guide Tones .............................................................................................................. 13

Performance Notes .................................................................................................... 17

Rhythm Charts ........................................................................................................... 19

Chord reference library ............................................................................................. 25



“Welcome To The Hotel California ..….” Arguably the Eagles' masterpiece and an essential item in the classic rock library, "Hotel California," released in 1976, spent "only" a single week at number one on the Billboard charts. Yet it went on to become one of the most enduring rock and roll songs of all time. Have you every wondered why certain songs become standards, while other songs disappear without a trace never to surface again? It’s an undisputable fact that songs with weak storylines and poorly constructed musical backgrounds don’t last, in our special in-depth study programs you will learn the magical ingredients that make songs like “Tears In Heaven’, ‘’Hotel California”, Stairway to Heaven’ etc ., as popular today as they were, the day they were written. There is a reason, that’s what this special study series is all about ……..the why? Originally the recording industry’s role was to ‘capture an event’ yet today in many ways the recording industry tries to ‘create an event’. Over the years with all the advancements in technology often a song (or movie) is created to showcase the latest technology. For example a movie may be produced that features amazing special effects, digital surround sound etc., however, no amount of technology can save a movie with a weak storyline, these movies are doomed to disappear forever. The same is true for songs, initially the public came to know and love a song through radio airplay (via the audio medium) in recent times the eye has replaced the ear as our musical antenna (how many times have you been seduced by a video clip to purchase a CD only to be disappointed when you listen to the album without the visual stimulus) don’t worry you are not on your own. Once you understand the underlying principles that are the ‘shaping forces of music’ you will play with more authority, your solos will be more memorable, and you will present a much more exciting, dynamic performance to your audience. ..... I hope you have as much fun playing ‘Hotel California’ as we did putting the program together .....



Hotel California The Song Written by the Eagles and released on their album Hotel California in December 1976. The band was formed in Los Angeles in 1971 and originally backed up Linda Ronstadt. They brought country and western and southern songs into the popular rock and roll mainstream, recording 8 albums before the band broke up in 1982. Don Henley reorganized the band 10 years later to record a 9th album Hell Freezes Over in 1992.Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 album of 1977 has equaled Michael Jackson's Thriller in U. S. sales (26 million) but Jackson still leads the all-time list with 51 million world-wide sales. The Band The band was formed by four Los Angeles-based musicians who had come to the West Coast from other parts of the U.S. Singer/bassist Randy Meisner (born in Scottsbluff, NE, on March 8, 1946) moved to L.A. in 1964 as part of a band originally called the Soul Survivors (not to be confused with the East Coast-based Soul Survivors, who scored a Top Five hit with "Expressway to Your Heart" in 1967) and later renamed the Poor. In 1968, he was a founding member of Poco, but left the band prior to the release of its debut album, joining the Stone Canyon Band, the backup group for Rick Nelson. Singer/guitarist/banjoist/mandolinist Bernie Leadon (born in Minneapolis, MN, on July 19, 1947) arrived in L.A. in 1967 as a member of Hearts and Flowers before joining Dillard and Clark and then the Flying Burrito Brothers. Singer/drummer Don Henley (born in Gilmer, TX, on July 22, 1947) moved to L.A. in June 1970 with his band Shiloh, which made one self-titled album for Amos Records before breaking up. Glenn Frey (born in Detroit, MI, on November 6, 1948) performed in his hometown and served as a backup musician to Bob Seger before moving to L.A. in the summer of 1968. He formed the duo Longbranch Pennywhistle with J.D. Souther, and they signed to Amos Records, which released their self-titled album in 1969. The Albums Albums, Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 and Hotel California, ranked among the ten best-selling albums ever, according to the certifications of the Record Industry Association of America. Though most of its members came from outside California, the group was closely identified with a country- and folk-tinged sound that initially found favor in and around Los Angeles in the late '60s, as played by such bands as the Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco, both of which contributed members to the Eagles. But the band also drew upon traditional rock & roll styles and, in their later work, helped define the broadly popular rock sound eventually referred to as classic rock. That helped the Eagles to achieve a perennial appeal among generations of music fans who continued to buy their records many years after they had split up, which inspired the reunion they mounted in the mid-'90s. The personnel on Hotel California are :

Joe Walsh vocals, guitar, keyboards

Don Felder vocals, guitar, slide guitar

Glenn Frey vocals, guitar, keyboards

Randy Meisner vocals, bass, guitarone

Don Henley vocals, drums, percussion



Hotel California Those 'Hotel California' chords : Originally written and recorded in E minor, the song was ultimately transposed to B-minor and re-recorded to accommodate the vocal melody delivered by Henley. Felder capoed his acoustic 12-string at the seventh fret, which enabled him to preserve the open chord shapes of his original guitar arrangement. The "High strung" timbre produced by the capo's placement, enhanced by processing the 12-string through a Leslie cabinet (refer page 27), ended up becoming part of the song's distinctive sound. Felder played all of the song's guitar tracks except for the landmark solo, for which Felder and Joe Walsh traded licks and harmonies. "Joe and I sat on two stools and worked the whole thing out," Felder recalls. Eagles singer/guitarist Don Henley picked the song out of a demo cassette containing eight or ten different ideas that Felder had put together. "Henley said, "I really love that one that sounds like a matador or something," Felder recalls. Don Henley and Glenn Frey collaborated on the song's memorable lyric. "Glenn had this idea," Felder remembers. "The fantasy of California. It's supposed to be a microcosm of the world. Glenn is great at conceptualizing. He'll say, 'I can see this guy driving in the desert at night and you can see the lights of L.A. way off in the horizon.' Henley gets the picture and goes from there. Key of B minor : It's no accident that Hotel California is in the Key of B minor, musicians write music in the key of B minor to depict emotions of ‘loneliness’ and ‘melancholy’. Why B minor? Professional musicians know that selecting an appropriate key plays a large part in ‘setting the musical scene” for a performance. Song of the most enduring and best loved music has been written in the key of B minor e.g., J.S Bach’s Mass In B Minor (in all probability Bach’s greatest single work), Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto De Aranjuez (1959) Chopin’s Sonata in B minor. Listen to AUDIO 1 and see if you can feel what Don Henley is referring to when he said that ‘matador’ sound. Also pay particular attention to the ‘harp-like’ quality of the key of B minor.

AUDIO 1



The ‘Hotel California’ chord progression: Grab your listener’s attention immediately or loose them forever! Every successful song must capture and hold the listener’s attention in under five seconds. Think about that for a moment, when you go to a music retailer to buy some recorded music, when you preview the tracks on an album you are considering if the song doesn't grab you in under five seconds (usually three seconds) you simply skip to the next track. Have a listen to “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones, using your watch to time the first two chords ......see how long it takes for them to get your attention, it’s hard to stop the track without wanting to hear more ……….and……….that’s the trick! I repeat : Grab your listener’s attention immediately! By the time you hear the second chord in Hotel California you know which song it is, every successful song has a musical fingerprint, a ‘number plate’ that immediately identifies the song to the listener. The listening public know what they like and like what they know! Our audience like things that are familiar, things they are comfortable with, when you hear a good, well constructed song if often seems like you have heard it before, it feels like you have always known this song , there’s a timelessness about them. Remember how Express Guitar Volume One focused on the Blues Progression, and Volume Two explores the Doo Wop Progression these progressions (along with a small number of others) form the backbone of popular music. Let’s take a closer look at the Hotel California chord progression, have we heard it before? Of course you have hundred of times! Now, a great many of you are probably thinking, no I haven’t …..The Eagles were the first to create this amazing set of chords. Now, would be a good time to review your Express Guitar Volume Two manual page nine, where I discuss how “every sound you have ever heard has been recorded in your memory, your brain does this automatically the trick is to be able to recall this information and the way to do that is to have the conscious mind notice the information”. Now, what exactly does this mean? I am certain everyone has purchased a guitar (car, watch etc) only to realize everyone seems to have the very same guitar (or whatever) now, of course everybody didn’t suddenly race out and buy the new article, you simply became aware of the item! My job here is to start you thinking about where you have heard these sounds before…...let’s



The ‘Hotel California’ chord progression: Cast your mind back to Express Guitar Volume one, where you discovered Good Golly Miss Molly had the same chord progression as High Heel Sneakers, Hound Dog , Let’s Stick Together etc., again in Volume two, where we pointed out that Last Kiss shared the same basic chord progression as Return to Sender, Ti Amo and The Wonder Of You. Do you think the fact that these songs all share the same familiar chord progressions would be a factor in their success with the public? My guess is, it certainly didn’t hurt ‘em! Hotel California is based on what we call a “Back cycle progression” (see page ten for details) it is THE classical music progression. The Back Cycle progression is found in the music of Bach, Beethoven, Pachelbel etc it’s impossible to escape this chord progression ..... wedding’s, Christmas Carol’s, Country music, Jazz you name it the back cycle will be there. So what, I hear you say, I don’t play classical music, in fact I’m not even interested in classical music, fair enough, let’s say your main interest is Rock music. Back cycles are common in Rock & Roll. Some songs that come to mind are:

Gloria (Them)

Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)

You Wreck Me (Tom Petty)

Jumpin’Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)

Once you know what you are listening for you will be able to easily identify the chord progression.

Hotel California - ‘We Used to Know’ connection:

A good place to start our study of the back cycle progression is by comparing the chord progression of the 1969 Jethro Tull song “We Used To Know,” (from their album Stand up) with the chord progression from Hotel California..

The music for Hotel California may have been inspired by this tune, the chord progressions are nearly identical, and the bands toured together before The Eagles recorded their classic.

Study the examples on the pages eight to twelve carefully, listen to the AUDIO examples many times and note their similarities and differences, it will be time well spent.



Notice how in “We Used To Know” the chords change at the rate of two beats per chord, the total length of the progression is four bars.

Whereas in Hotel California the chords move at the rate of four beats per chord and the progression takes eight bars to complete.

“We Used To Know” by Jethro Tull

“Hotel California” by the Eagles

AUDIO 2

AUDIO 3



To make it easy to compare these two chord progressions here is an eight bar elongated version of the “We Used To Know” chord progression.

Take your time to listen, analyze and absorb these progressions.

“We Used To Know” 8 bar elongated version

“Hotel California” by the Eagles

AUDIO 4

AUDIO 5



Back Cycle Progressions: In Express Guitar Volume two page twenty we introduced the Cycle of Fifths and discussed how the single-hand on our imaginary clock moves in an anti-clockwise direction. A Back cycle progression is a chord progression made up of a series of chords (usually two chord played in sequence) that move in a clockwise direction. Following is an analysis of the Back cycle progression for “We Used To Know”.

Bar 1

Bar 2



Back Cycle Progressions:

Bar 3

Bar 4



Here is the chord progression to “We Used To Know” again:

Can you see the back cycle movement? Remember the chord progression for Hotel California is the same except for the second last Bar (bar seven) when The Eagles substituted an “A” minor chord.

AUDIO 6



Guide Tones: We are about to study one of the best kept secrets of music ...............Guide Tones! Guide Tones are the musical ‘glue” that hold chord progressions together, they can also be excellent devices for creating memorable solos. The finest players of every instrument are aware of the importance of guide tones and make use of them constantly. Professional composers and songwriters use guide tones to “grab” their potential listeners attention In contrast most players don’t know they exist, a great many instructional texts cover a variety of important subjects, but you will have to look long and hard to find information on ‘guide tones’. They truly are a music secret. Our main focus at present is to learn how guide tones are used to create strong background lines for the lead guitar player. Listen to The Eagles studio version of Hotel California. At one minute and nineteen seconds, verse one, listen carefully to the electric lead guitar work underneath the vocals.

Guide Tone Line - One minute and nineteen seconds

AUDIO 7



Guide Tones What are Guide Tones? A guide tone line is a series of notes which, if properly constructed indicates, and most often predicts, the movement and resolution of a chord progression. A strong guide tone line, can be used as a skeleton upon which to build a solo. Your job is to play around and decorate the line. Every experienced player knows that certain scales will work over particular chords/chord progressions this does not mean that every note in the scale is equal. Some notes are stronger than others. In addition, each one of the notes in the chord wants to stay the same, or move up or down to the next chord in the progression. When you are able to resolve your improvised notes properly, your playing will dramatically improve, and guide tones will help you do it. A good guide tone line: 1. Moves at the rate of one note per chord. However, common tones between changes are sometimes desirable. 2. Moves by half or whole steps (one or two fret movement.) 3. Moves in a manner that is easy to remember. For example, it could move upward or downward for an entire phrase. 4. Usually emphasizes strong notes of the chord like the THIRD and SEVENTHS. 5. It generally avoids roots (note one) and fifths. Color notes like ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths can be used, but if they are used at the exclusion of thirds and sevenths, a weaker line results. Guide tone line tips: (a) Try to have your guide tone line move in semi-tones (one fret movement.) (b) Use common tones between chords (if possible) to create smooth chord movement. (c) Choose a direction (down/up) for your line.



Guide Tones Guide tone line workshop: Step 1. If your are using a capo to play a song the first step is to work what are the CONCERT PITCH chords (refer Express Guitar Vol 1 pages sixty to sixty five inclusive.) Step 2. Write out the chords with the chord spelling under each chord: G7 C7 D7 (G, B, D, F) (C, E, G, Bb) (D, F#, A,C) etc 3 7 3 7 3 7 Step 3. Select a starting note (usually the third or seventh of the first chord.) G7 (G, B, D, F) Step 4. Study the notes in the second chord to see if we can create (a) semi-tone line progression (one fret movement) or (b) look for a common tone that we can play or hold against both chords (a note that is present in BOTH chords.) Step 5. Decide the direction of the Guide Tone Line (UP or DOWN) and look for note in each chord that will help you create a logical alphabetical sequence (guide tone line.)

AUDIO 8

3 7



Guide Tones Guide tone line workshop: Here is an example of a guide tone line starting on the 3rd.

Did you notice that the examples above are based on the 12 bar blues in the key of “G”

Another example of a guide tone line this time starting on the seventh



Performance Notes Song form :

Intro (verse chords) X 2

Verse X 2

Chorus X 1

Verse X 2

Chorus X 1

Verse X 2

Guitar solo (s) over verse chords

Repeat & fade.

Did you notice the second line in the chorus is the same as the second line in the verse?



Performance Notes RHYTHM PATTERN

AUDIO 9

AUDIO 10

RHYTHM PATTERN Bar 56

AUDIO 11

Bars 20 & 36



AUDIO 13

AUDIO 12

Practice Track

Commentary



p

p 1

2

p

p

p

p 1

2

4

3

p

p

1

3

D2 Chord

Em Chord B7 Chord

A9 Chord

p 1



p

p

p 1

2

3

p 1

Am Chord

C Chord G Chord

p

p

p

1

3

2

p p

3 2

p

p

p

p 1

2

3

4

F#7 Chord



This is perhaps the best known of the Leslie models, introduced in 1964 it replaced the single speed 22H and became *the* cabinet for use with the Hammond B3 organ.

The basic idea was to have a physical ‘spinning’ speaker that could operate at variable speeds.

The Eagles processed their acoustic 12 string guitar through a Leslie Tone cabinet which enhanced the “harpsichord” quality of the 12 string guitar and contributed to their unique distinctive sound.

Guitarist’s can simulate this effect by using a chorus effect pedal.

The Leslie Tone cabinet

Model 22H

study program hotel california - guitar coaching · pdf filestudy program : hotel california...

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