In this video
This Monday stream was about Northern Soul for the upcoming Open Mic Sunday theme at the end of January. I started by explaining what separates Northern Soul from Motown - it's fast, emotionally intense American soul music that was curated by British DJs for all-night dancing in places like Wigan Casino. The key is that four-to-the-floor backbeat and high BPM that keeps dance floors packed.
I worked out David Holmes' "I Heard Wonders" by ear to demonstrate intervals - recognizing it used fifth intervals (power chords) and that blues riff pattern. This led into discussing how important it is to know your intervals for working songs out by ear.
For specific Northern Soul songs, I covered "Do I Love You? Indeed I Do" by Frank Wilson - perhaps the most iconic Northern Soul record. The guitar part is really tight, muted Steve Cropper-style strumming, mostly just two chords. I demonstrated how to play it acoustically even though there's barely any guitar on the original.
"Tainted Love" by Gloria Jones (the original, not Soft Cell) is in C# minor - not guitar-friendly keys because they're written for brass. I showed power chord approaches since bar chords get tiring. "Do You Love Me" is a proper dance floor filler in F that you could play capo third fret as D-G-A.
I covered Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" which needs capo fourth fret, Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" using triad shapes, and finished with Dobie Grey's "Out on the Floor" demonstrating how to add embellishments to a one-chord vamp using G major pentatonic rather than just strumming the whole time.