Riffing On Riffing
The You In Your Guitar Playing
Are you self conscious about certain traits you possess? That nervous twitch you feel coming on when you're in a meeting or the way you bite the inside of your mouth when you concentrate. Do you feel like you have to restrain yourself when you'd like to jump up and down or yell obscenities? Would you like to let out a long primal scream or just close your eyes and be still? Do you feel like raging about the state of affairs in the world or maybe you just feel like finding that gentle, soothing place and let healing take place?
These are all very real feelings and emotions that we often have to repress or put on standby because of the situations and real world circumstances we find ourselves in that won't allow it.
Let me suggest that when you are playing guitar and creating music you are allowed to go to any of those places. You're encouraged to go to all those places and let it all out! Even if you're on the edge of a stage with 10,000 people watching, you're allowed to breakdown, get weird and come apart at the seams as long as it comes through the sound system loud and clear and without regret. Now let me warn you that this can be very dangerous. There is the temptation to never quit playing guitar or making music, and this can lead to quite antisocial behaviour but...that isn't my concern here. Obviously I'm too far gone.
What I want to get at is that when you are playing guitar, every physical, mental and spirtual idiosyncrasy you have is highly valued and is indispensible. That nervous twitch is a tremolo technique that some won't master in a lifetime. That stutter could be an incredible riff to a generation defining song. That deep spritual longing that tugs at you may find it's way through a somber melody right under your fingers. Let the anger of that damaged relationship out on your fretboard and pull at those strings until you feel a breakthrough emotionally and then release it with a cascade of notes desending the fretboard until you run out of frets and then collapse.
Perhaps you feel the need for restraint in your life. A tight three chord progression and a minimalist arrangement might be the hit prescription for you. These are just suggestions as ways for you to include more of your personality and traits into your playing and writing. What is often seen as a liability in everyday situations can be exactly what you want in your music.
Even if you never intend to play in front of an audience, you will never enjoy the full benefit and joy of playing guitar until you can play without restraint for yourself. Once you close that bedroom door it's just you and your instrument. It is an extension of you. Don't suppress anything. Try playing a simple one or two chord progression while you meditate or think about your day. Perhaps E minor to G with a nice mid tempo strum and then mix in some picking of the individual strings. Find some notes to bend and just explore while you let your mind go where it will. If you think about something tense let it come through the fingers with a wiggle or a hard hit with the pick hand. If you think of something painful, bend. Or perhaps you feel a gentle, feathery strum is more in order. It doesn't matter as long as it is you and you are learning about yourself and your relationship to the guitar.
The You In Your Guitar Playing
Are you self conscious about certain traits you possess? That nervous twitch you feel coming on when you're in a meeting or the way you bite the inside of your mouth when you concentrate. Do you feel like you have to restrain yourself when you'd like to jump up and down or yell obscenities? Would you like to let out a long primal scream or just close your eyes and be still? Do you feel like raging about the state of affairs in the world or maybe you just feel like finding that gentle, soothing place and let healing take place?
These are all very real feelings and emotions that we often have to repress or put on standby because of the situations and real world circumstances we find ourselves in that won't allow it.
Let me suggest that when you are playing guitar and creating music you are allowed to go to any of those places. You're encouraged to go to all those places and let it all out! Even if you're on the edge of a stage with 10,000 people watching, you're allowed to breakdown, get weird and come apart at the seams as long as it comes through the sound system loud and clear and without regret. Now let me warn you that this can be very dangerous. There is the temptation to never quit playing guitar or making music, and this can lead to quite antisocial behaviour but...that isn't my concern here. Obviously I'm too far gone.
What I want to get at is that when you are playing guitar, every physical, mental and spirtual idiosyncrasy you have is highly valued and is indispensible. That nervous twitch is a tremolo technique that some won't master in a lifetime. That stutter could be an incredible riff to a generation defining song. That deep spritual longing that tugs at you may find it's way through a somber melody right under your fingers. Let the anger of that damaged relationship out on your fretboard and pull at those strings until you feel a breakthrough emotionally and then release it with a cascade of notes desending the fretboard until you run out of frets and then collapse.
Perhaps you feel the need for restraint in your life. A tight three chord progression and a minimalist arrangement might be the hit prescription for you. These are just suggestions as ways for you to include more of your personality and traits into your playing and writing. What is often seen as a liability in everyday situations can be exactly what you want in your music.
Even if you never intend to play in front of an audience, you will never enjoy the full benefit and joy of playing guitar until you can play without restraint for yourself. Once you close that bedroom door it's just you and your instrument. It is an extension of you. Don't suppress anything. Try playing a simple one or two chord progression while you meditate or think about your day. Perhaps E minor to G with a nice mid tempo strum and then mix in some picking of the individual strings. Find some notes to bend and just explore while you let your mind go where it will. If you think about something tense let it come through the fingers with a wiggle or a hard hit with the pick hand. If you think of something painful, bend. Or perhaps you feel a gentle, feathery strum is more in order. It doesn't matter as long as it is you and you are learning about yourself and your relationship to the guitar.
Be A Unique Guitarist (Riff Tip Guest - Dave Cloud)
There are a lot of guitar players out there and if you're concerned with being heard you need to offer something original and unique. That usually starts with actually being somewhat good and being able to play something musical. As much as we love the rock and roll romance of "3 chords and the truth" we still want to hear those 3 chords sound really awesome, and there's not always that many people who can really do it. Now once you can play that thing, a little style and your own look will go a long way.
Great writers read great books and absorb them into their vocabulary and world view. The best athletes don't just casually watch, but study the games. Great artists learn from the masters and then retreat, take in the world around them, forget all they have learned, and then let it explode upon the canvas in their own way.
It's the same for the guitarist. You need to listen to all the greats and appreciate the different styles and the amazing technique of masterful players, and become familiar with the great guitar music of the world. The ones that really move you need to become a part of you, but at some point they need to move to the unconscious and inform your music at just the right times in your playing, not over take it. Every great writer, athlete, artist, politician, entertainer, preacher etc. finds their own original voice. A great guitarist will find his true sound, which consists of style, phrasing, technique and equipment when he knows what he wants to say or portray. The great guitarist knows his limitations and makes artistic decisions based on staying within those limitations, or stretching beyond and around them. Just don't be a copy-cat. Learn from everyone and everywhere you can, but roll with your own natural tendencies and tastes to find the real you.
This week I attempted to talk guitar improvisation in front of the camera at Bongo Java in Nashville with legendary underground rock icon Dave Cloud and talk he did. Next time I'll try to catch him with a guitar in his hands. What Dave lacks in technique he more than makes up for with uniqueness and creative shortcuts as he tries to explain in this short video clip.
Enjoy!
Watch Bob Jam On Guitar
Hey Riffing On Riffing Readers,
On this exciting day of Bob Dylan's new release Tempest I figured it was a good day to continue with part 2 of my little exploration of Bob Dylan's guitar playing.
Bob is always thought of as a great songwriter and that often over shadows the fact that he is such a great guitar player who has steadily improved and grown through the years. In his early days of playing with a band in the mid 60's through the 70's he was primarily a rhythm guitar player who always had a hot shot guitarist backing him up like Robbie Robertson, Michael Bloomfield, Mick Ronson or one of several other legendary players. But Bob was an excellent rhythm strummer and finger-picker right from the very beginning when he was a solo folk singer in Greenwich Village in the early 60's.
Sometime in the early eighties I noticed Bob started taking some lead guitar solos. By the middle of the decade he was clearly enjoying himself and when I saw him in 1991 he was playing lead guitar through the majority of the show. I really think that touring with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and his playing in The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison were huge influences on him and his apparent joy in jamming on electric lead guitar.
Check out these two classic songs from Bob. Be sure to watch them both all the way through and really watch Bob's but great guitar playing on them. Watch his tasty use of connected pentatonic scales. Bob really jams in the simple blues scale while his other guitarist plays further up the neck in another position on All Along The Watcher Tower, making this live version more in the Jimi Hendrix vein than in the original Bob acoustic version.
Then Bob plays some really sweet, slippery lead guitar and shared vocals with Bruce Springsteen on Forever Young.
Good stuff! Nice shirt Bob!
On this exciting day of Bob Dylan's new release Tempest I figured it was a good day to continue with part 2 of my little exploration of Bob Dylan's guitar playing.
Bob is always thought of as a great songwriter and that often over shadows the fact that he is such a great guitar player who has steadily improved and grown through the years. In his early days of playing with a band in the mid 60's through the 70's he was primarily a rhythm guitar player who always had a hot shot guitarist backing him up like Robbie Robertson, Michael Bloomfield, Mick Ronson or one of several other legendary players. But Bob was an excellent rhythm strummer and finger-picker right from the very beginning when he was a solo folk singer in Greenwich Village in the early 60's.
Sometime in the early eighties I noticed Bob started taking some lead guitar solos. By the middle of the decade he was clearly enjoying himself and when I saw him in 1991 he was playing lead guitar through the majority of the show. I really think that touring with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and his playing in The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison were huge influences on him and his apparent joy in jamming on electric lead guitar.
Check out these two classic songs from Bob. Be sure to watch them both all the way through and really watch Bob's but great guitar playing on them. Watch his tasty use of connected pentatonic scales. Bob really jams in the simple blues scale while his other guitarist plays further up the neck in another position on All Along The Watcher Tower, making this live version more in the Jimi Hendrix vein than in the original Bob acoustic version.
Then Bob plays some really sweet, slippery lead guitar and shared vocals with Bruce Springsteen on Forever Young.
Good stuff! Nice shirt Bob!
(No title)
Hey friends and fellow guitar riffers, take a listen to the first song released from the up coming brand new Bob Dylan album Tempest. The guitars sound really great. In the beginning you hear the faint swinging mix of gypsy acoustic with weaving electrics that sound like clarinets, along with plinky jazz piano for several bars before Bob kicks it off with that crunchy chord change and comes in like a train. The varied guitar tones sit in the mix and arrangement perfectly, as do the bass, drums and keys. Bob's band can mimic the sounds and feel of a big band, a Texas swing combo, a rockabilly band, country band, gypsy jazz, blue or anything else it wants to. Great guitar riffing takes us out as the train disappears into the distance promising more great jamming to come from Bob's Never Ending Tour crew. The guitar jam at the end makes you want to take your guitar out and jam along. Do it!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/08/27/160015988/song-premiere-bob-dylan-duquesne-whistle
The Joy Of Classic Riffage!
Today I had my iTunes DJ playing random tunes from my collection and these ten songs came on in a row. It seems to me to be the perfect playlist for a set of guitar lessons. If you live in the Nashville area and are looking for guitar lessons contact me. We'll explore these. Otherwise, check them out for yourself. Download the tracks from itunes or where ever you do that and then start listening and jamming. Mostly blues scales with everything from crazy interval jumping to controlled atmosphere and feedback to turn on your groove button.
1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower
2. The Shadows - Apache
3. Peter Green - Black Magic Woman
4. Abert King - Born Under A Bad Sign
" If it wasn't for bad love I wouldn't have no love at all."
5. Cream - Crossroads
6. Sonic Youth - Do You Believe In Rapture?
7. Led Zepplin - Heartbreaker (BBC Sessions - Live)
8. Freddie King - Hideaway
(get your go go boots on)
9. Deep Purple - Highway Star
10. The Black Keys - Gold On The Ceiling
Wow! What a great 10-song set list taking you through key componants of classic rock guitar! It was like sitting down and taking an audio stroll the pages of a handful of my Guitar Player magazines from over the years. Yeah, that's how I discovered most of this stuff. Through the pages of Guitar Player, Crawdaddy, Musician Magazine and others...that was my education as a kid with a guitar. Guitar Player was and is good at keeping us informed of who the heroes of our heroes are. The articles were a good guide as to what to buy when I had no idea where those sounds were coming from, along with a few good radio dj's back when there were some awesome FM album rock stations. Luckily today we have satellite radio to help us explore outside of the mainstream radio fare.
Along with sports I've always found the guitar and music to be the best promoters of diversity and open mindedness. Explore your guitar history kiddies and then keep it moving forward. You old rockers be sure to give the new stuff a chance. There's a lot of great riffage from the young ones out there. Don't stay stuck in one place. Your heroes didn't.
Don't Be Afraid To Dance
One of the most common things I tell students who want to start improvising on their guitar, is to not be afraid to let your fingers dance on the fretboard. Let your approach be like the dancer who has learned all the right steps and moves, and has worked on her technique, developed skill and precision, and now takes all that and expresses her emotion in a free form dance. And this dance from the heart touches you more than any previous interpretation performed.
If that example doesn't work for you try this... think of how much you've enjoyed taking care of your car. You tinker with it. Buy it nice accessories. Learn enough about it to repair and maintain it yourself. You change the brakes. Add dual exhaust. Buy more cars. Trade. Rebuild engines. Maybe even race. Now you decide to design and build one on the spot. From the ground up.
That's improvising... and it better not suck. Ha ha! I'm sorry. I don't mean to be too harsh.
But that is how it feels sometimes. The pressure can be intense. Whether it's in front of friends and family or other band mates, or your music teacher, improvising can be a daunting proposition. But once you understand it enough to realize you can't ever truly understand it all, and you just do it anyway, that's when you see how it feels and you just can't quit. You just can't quit! It's like getting drunk and dancing until you pass out (except safer and more fun!). You play it until you can't take it and pass the lick to the next guy and when you finally come to... it's back in your hands again!
Anyone can improvise in the same way that anyone can do their own dance. Of course there are different levels and different styles. But this is why we can all bounce together at a music festival or concert. The key is to start with what you know and naturally feel. If you know a couple guitar chords all you need to do is take those notes and play them by themselves individually, one at a time and mix them up in any order that pleases you in place of the rhythm strokes. Change the selection of notes when the chord changes. If you play a note that sounds "wrong" let it act as a bridge to slide into or bend into a note that sounds "right" or to what your ear is looking for anyway. Much the same way a dancer would turn a slight slip or unforeseen circumstance into a new move or expression of emotion you can turn a bad note into a way of getting to the good one. The only mistake that can really be made is the mistake of not believing in ones self. If you know where you are starting from you can find your way back.
There is more than one way to get across the park. You might not choose to take the walking trail or the bicycle path but you will get there. You might hike over some rough terrain but you will see some scenery and wildlife that not everyone else will see who take the common routes. Welcome to improvising and the occasional jam.
If you can stand up on your own two feet and bob your head up and down while you shuffle across the floor you have basic skills and are on your way to dancing. If you happen to know some chords, a couple scale patterns and can tap your foot, you've got the raw ingredients of an improvising monster on the guitar. If you're lacking in one of these areas there are countless avenues to obtaining the needed secret, sacred knowledge it takes to jam on the guitar in no time flat.
This is the mission of Riffing On Riffing.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any articles or podcasts!
Jerry O
Guitar Love
I was a very young boy when the woo of the guitar came calling. My ears and heart were pierced early by the myriad of guitar sounds that seemed to come from everywhere when I was a child. Ours was a musical household with the sound of jangling pop and rock guitars coming from the 45s my sister and her friends danced to, often suggested by Dick Clark on American Bandstand. In the kitchen mom's radio might be playing the country licks and tunes of Chet Atkins or Glen Campbell. Most attractive of all were those mysterious bands and guitarists that showed up on Ed Sullivan or later the Johnny Cash Show like The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Neil Young.
As I began to learn more about these artists it became more and more apparent that if it wasn't for the guitar a lot of these guys (and a few gals) were just normal people or maybe even abnormally shy and reserved without the guitar. It was the guitar and the ability to play it that gave them a way to express themselves and confidence to do it.
I had been around the piano and played the trumpet in band at school but having asthma kept me from really enjoying it. There was an older boy down the block who would sit out in the yard playing his guitar and he let me try it. He taught me two easy chords and I could immediately play. I had to have one.
The guitar was something you could take with you anywhere and hide away in a corner somewhere and practice un-disturbed until you were ready to pull it out and play for or with someone else. You could cradle a guitar in your arms and feel the contour of the wood and smell the music inside. You could create a song sitting on the bed or under the backyard tree. You begin to let your feelings and thoughts come through the notes and chords. The guitar becomes an aural diary.
Before I had any ambitions of being a pro I just wanted to be able to make music like the music that was touching me. When I started making music on my guitar it helped me bring a sense of consistent order and discipline both physically and mentally to my life.
Since becoming a full time guitar teacher in 1996 I've come to see just how special the guitar can become for so many different people from so many different backgrounds and circumstances.
Being a musician in Nashville you often run into driven guitarists who are trying to be the next big thing with big ambitions and $ dollar signs in their eyes, but as a guitar teacher I more often than not meet people whose relationship with music and the guitar is something much deeper. Most of these people would love guitars and play guitar regardless of their occupation. For most people, playing the guitar is an escape from the mundane parts of life. It's therapy, a healing and rejuvenating activity and often a social activity.
It's these people who keep my own motives for making music pure. The heart surgeon in Minneapolis who took guitar lessons to relieve stress and use a whole other part of his brain. The mentally handicapped student who seemed to find an inner calm and focus with the guitar and even wrote songs. The teenage goth girl who was a cutter and was imprisoned in her own home with an ankle bracelet when I met her and the guitar became a new friend and type of diary for her. The shy little boy who took a year to even get one chord right but was so determined and is now a star college student at the Berkeley School of Music in Boston. The Nashville realtor who loves the blues. The retired businessman who finally has time to pursue his love of music and guitar. The suburban housewife with grown kids who is finally doing something for herself that brings her satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.
I believe we were created to make music. If you stop and listen, we live in a musical world, and I don't just mean the actual commercial music you hear everywhere you turn on tv, the computer, the restaurant, the phone etc. I mean the sound of your own heartbeat. The rhythm of the rain. The sound of the birds in the morning and the train in the distance. The sound of kids playing. The freeway drone. The sound of a rushing river and a fierce wind. Life is a symphony of sound and the guitar is a wonderful part of it. Bring your guitar out into the yard and play along with whatever else you hear and see how nice it fits in. You don't have to worry about hitting all the notes perfect. The birds don't mind.
Guitar Geek Heaven
The whole reason I write this blog is because I am a guitar geek. There are different kinds of guitar geeks and I love them all but I'm not particularly a gear head. Don't get me wrong. I love guitars and great amps and pedals and accessories but once I'm set up and have my sound I don't need to read about every new piece of gear constantly. But I am a total geek when it comes to the guitar players I love, the guitars they use and the sounds they make. I never get tired of listening to guitar based music and I never tire of reading about guitarists and their adventures touring, recording and living with the guitar and the places it has taken them in life. That said, this past weekend was a guitar geek's heaven of a weekend here in Nashville on Saturday night and on national television on Sunday.
An old high school friend was in town last weekend and of course he wanted to go out and see some Nashville music. Our first choice was to try to score tickets for the Drive By Truckers show at The Cannery Ballroom but that was sold out. Our next choice was a benefit show for Brandi, one of the employees at Nashville club 3rd & Lindsley. The line-up of Nashville talent looked stellar, particularly the guitarists slotted to play. The afternoon and evening featured sets from artists like Lee Ann Womack, The Wooten Brothers, Josh Hoge, Bekka Bramlett, Johnny Neel, Kentucky Thunder and Gary Nicholson. But the highlight of the evening for me was when Ashley Cleveland and her husband the incredible guitarist Kenny Greenberg came out to play a gospel rockin' set that morphed into an A-list blues rock jam between Greenberg, Pat Buchanan, Tom Hemby, Brent Mason and eventually Rob McNelley, Jack Pearson and Bob Britt joined in too. These guys are the cream of the crop and it freaked my friend out that he was an arms distance from the stage. This happens to him every time he comes here. No matter what night of the week it is he just picks something out and it is almost always a great and unique experience. You can't do that in most towns and cities.
So we spent the next evening at home watching a Grammy Awards show that was a bit dampened in spirit by the death of superstar diva Whitney Houston. It's not my intention to review the Grammy show overall but after what I would call a relatively weak show, at the very end Paul McCartney came out with his stellar band of several years and played Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End from Abby Road and was joined by Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh, Dave Grohl, and his own guitar slingers Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray for a six-way killer guitar jam that raised the roof and the spirits of everyone watching. You knew you were watching a classic rock moment in the making. The coolest thing about it was that Paul was ripping it up on his Les Paul as good or better than any of them.
Check it out on YouTube.
But... I have to say, I'm not sure it was any better than our own local nashville guitar heros. Happy riffing guitar geek friends!