Guitar
Finding our voices as musicians is one of the greatest challenges we face. Its easy to find ourselves slavishly regurgitating the work of others in an incoherent jumble of stock licks we lifted off records, or letting our muscle memory run the show. We may be playing stuff that fits but doesn't quite inspire.
Back in the mid-nineties I was part of a blues quartet, doing most of the fronting and playing guitar, with harmonica, bass and drums rounding out the band. I had been really working hard to broaden my knowledge of the music and become a deeper, more fluid player, but I was having a really hard time phrasing things in an elegant, musical fashion. At some point, almost all of my solos went off the rails, lost in indecision, or worse, by some accident of rote, scalar finger-memory, with the results sounding dilettantish and incomplete.
One night we were booked at a particularly dire venue -sterile, pastel and patronized by folks who'd rather we were somewhere else- when I decided to try scatting out all my solos as I played them. I reasoned that if my ideas were formulated in the freer melodic recesses of my brain (as opposed to the mathematical realm of the fretboard), it should result in a more musical statement. So I sang out every idea I wanted to play as I played it (off the mic).
And wow... I improved my playing drastically in that one simple step. It was as if I had had two years of practice since the gig a week before. What an amazing feeling of freedom I experienced that night in front of the bored punters; I'd finally freed myself of worrying about the instrument more than the music and turned the licks into melodies.
Like many neophyte players, I'd made the mistake of becoming overly interested in the guitar and it's practitioners, falling in love with the lore, and obsessing over gear. That stuff is all fun and games, and some of it is important, but people the world over have made jaw-dropping music for eons without access to fancy instruments, record collections or glossy magazines. What's important is playing with heart and soul, playing with ears more than hands, playing the melodies that exist deep within us.
As soon as I started scatting out my solos, I saw improvement in several areas:
- I started using the vocal melody as a basis for my improvisations a lot more.
- My sense of relative pitch improved.
- I employed "breath" pauses between phrases more often.
- I caught myself rushing/dragging more readily.
- I employed longer lines, drawing ideas out over many more bars.
- I ran out of ideas much less often.
- I structured my solos much more effectively.
- Phrasing, phrasing, phrasing.
Without a doubt, scatting my improvisations resulted in the most accelerated period of learning in my career. Certainly, the most instant gratification. Potential downsides? Well, I have to admit watching video of my mouth pronouncing every lick I play can be a bit excruciating. And sometimes I wear out my voice soloing, hollering away all my breath and stamina off microphone. Oh yeah, stay away from your mic when you're not singing, 'cause all kinds of ungodly mumbles, shrieks, gasps and moans will likely be emanating from your pie-hole as you're wailing away on your instrument -you're in good company: Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett and Freddie King are all noted mumble-scatters, famous for their inadvertent vocalizations.
- A Little Heads-up For Jammers
You guys play nice or you're going to separate rooms... Whilst visiting a jam session as the special guest of a friend of mine last night, I noticed a couple of the greener jammers causing some common faux-pas. As a long time jam host...
- An Interesting Rant On The State Of The Union
A friend of my wife's passed on this article which is a pretty canny summary of the state of things for us working muso types. The comments section is equally enlightening. Check it out here: http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/02/why-music-venues-are-totally-lost-an-open-letter-from-a-professional-musician/...
- Toss A Wrench In The Works
Taking up lap-steel was both edifying and terrifying. Perfect! In every player's life there are times of creative plateaux: boring, insipid, frustrating periods of limited growth and discovery, usually accompanied by crippling self doubt. You've...
- Native Tongues
Uh, oh. Time for some philosophical mumbo jumbo One of the great challenges of being a musician is worrying less about how you'd like to sound, and concentrating on how you do sound. We spend years as intense listeners, trying...
- Look Ma, No Hands!
Just gotta' photoshop out the guitar... Some years ago, I was in a touring band that ranged all over Canada and the mid-western states for three months at a go, twice a year. We did some long drives...I'm talking eighteen, twenty hours...
Guitar
Scat Your Way to Freedom!
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| "Skippidy-zee-baa-bebop-a-diddily..." |
Back in the mid-nineties I was part of a blues quartet, doing most of the fronting and playing guitar, with harmonica, bass and drums rounding out the band. I had been really working hard to broaden my knowledge of the music and become a deeper, more fluid player, but I was having a really hard time phrasing things in an elegant, musical fashion. At some point, almost all of my solos went off the rails, lost in indecision, or worse, by some accident of rote, scalar finger-memory, with the results sounding dilettantish and incomplete.
One night we were booked at a particularly dire venue -sterile, pastel and patronized by folks who'd rather we were somewhere else- when I decided to try scatting out all my solos as I played them. I reasoned that if my ideas were formulated in the freer melodic recesses of my brain (as opposed to the mathematical realm of the fretboard), it should result in a more musical statement. So I sang out every idea I wanted to play as I played it (off the mic).
And wow... I improved my playing drastically in that one simple step. It was as if I had had two years of practice since the gig a week before. What an amazing feeling of freedom I experienced that night in front of the bored punters; I'd finally freed myself of worrying about the instrument more than the music and turned the licks into melodies.
Like many neophyte players, I'd made the mistake of becoming overly interested in the guitar and it's practitioners, falling in love with the lore, and obsessing over gear. That stuff is all fun and games, and some of it is important, but people the world over have made jaw-dropping music for eons without access to fancy instruments, record collections or glossy magazines. What's important is playing with heart and soul, playing with ears more than hands, playing the melodies that exist deep within us.
As soon as I started scatting out my solos, I saw improvement in several areas:
- I started using the vocal melody as a basis for my improvisations a lot more.
- My sense of relative pitch improved.
- I employed "breath" pauses between phrases more often.
- I caught myself rushing/dragging more readily.
- I employed longer lines, drawing ideas out over many more bars.
- I ran out of ideas much less often.
- I structured my solos much more effectively.
- Phrasing, phrasing, phrasing.
Without a doubt, scatting my improvisations resulted in the most accelerated period of learning in my career. Certainly, the most instant gratification. Potential downsides? Well, I have to admit watching video of my mouth pronouncing every lick I play can be a bit excruciating. And sometimes I wear out my voice soloing, hollering away all my breath and stamina off microphone. Oh yeah, stay away from your mic when you're not singing, 'cause all kinds of ungodly mumbles, shrieks, gasps and moans will likely be emanating from your pie-hole as you're wailing away on your instrument -you're in good company: Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett and Freddie King are all noted mumble-scatters, famous for their inadvertent vocalizations.
- A Little Heads-up For Jammers
You guys play nice or you're going to separate rooms... Whilst visiting a jam session as the special guest of a friend of mine last night, I noticed a couple of the greener jammers causing some common faux-pas. As a long time jam host...
- An Interesting Rant On The State Of The Union
A friend of my wife's passed on this article which is a pretty canny summary of the state of things for us working muso types. The comments section is equally enlightening. Check it out here: http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/02/why-music-venues-are-totally-lost-an-open-letter-from-a-professional-musician/...
- Toss A Wrench In The Works
Taking up lap-steel was both edifying and terrifying. Perfect! In every player's life there are times of creative plateaux: boring, insipid, frustrating periods of limited growth and discovery, usually accompanied by crippling self doubt. You've...
- Native Tongues
Uh, oh. Time for some philosophical mumbo jumbo One of the great challenges of being a musician is worrying less about how you'd like to sound, and concentrating on how you do sound. We spend years as intense listeners, trying...
- Look Ma, No Hands!
Just gotta' photoshop out the guitar... Some years ago, I was in a touring band that ranged all over Canada and the mid-western states for three months at a go, twice a year. We did some long drives...I'm talking eighteen, twenty hours...