-
Today's musings...when is too much too much?
-
06-22-2024 04:56 PM
-
^ I think you're gettin the hang of it and it's sounding pretty darn good with that amount of movement.
-
Yeah, like he said. It sounds good solo. I would play less with a bass and even less with drums and a horn on top. Dennis Chang did a video and he talks about musicians being too interactive. Like a horn goes bop bop bop and the drummer copies it too.
Originally Posted by Bobby Timmons
He makes the point better than I do. I don’t have a teachers vocabulary. He’s also talking about old styles. Not modern stuff.
-
Booo Originally Posted by AllanAllen
-
I don't think I'd call playing busy rhythm trying to be interactive...if anything, it's trying to lead too much which is kind of the opposite of the desired effect...
But yes, the situation matters.
Chang's stuff has little to do with the style I'm pursuing. European string band rhythm guitar is a completely different animal...those guys sometimes have 3 guitar players playing the same chords!
-
Yeah, it’s a different style, but I took his point to play a role in the group. Sometimes that role is providing rhythm, sometimes it’s implying chords, sometimes it’s lush chords. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I know if I could play arrangements like your video on my deck I’d be happy. I can almost do it and I’m happy.
-
Role in group is definitely the key.
I think you could be doing what I'm doing in today's vid in less than a month honestly.
-
Hey Jeff!
I really dig how you sound! And those are some pretty neat movements, but I think I'm more in the less is more camp. It's still cool to have stuff like that ready, but it starts feeling too busy to my ears. Might be cool playing with a Bass only though.
Personally I'd say the playing in that Clip sort of serves as an etude.
I wanna make a point, that I don't feel like there's a right or wrong to this. Part of my opinion might actually be related to the fact that as guitarist I really grew up in Big Bands, and only later started playing in smaller groups. But I know how frustrated I get with pianists that take up too much space, so I tend to comp sparsely.
In the end anything that sounds cool works though. I sometimes like to mix in some manouche stuff if it feels appropriate. There are tunes where I think Bar-Chords feel like the right thing to do.
-
Found A Clip of mellotone from two years ago by the way:
-
Yeah, I definitely feel the busier playing is kind of a "sounds good at home, try it to see all available options," kind of thing, but maybe not something I'd really do in a real playing situation.
-
Little post of a street gig today with Sousa and Trumpet. Decided to go acoustic, with thinnish pick.
Recording made a few meters away from the guitar. Not too bad. No idea if the audience could hear it haha. But I had fun. I like playing this way. You have to give it bit of welly.
Stream Acoustic Street Gig by Christianm77 | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
When I play with this type of line up I find myself naturally playing chord forms on the D G and B strings for cut through. Quite different to playing with string bass and clarinet, say. Guitar is a Loar LH600.
-
Really nice Christian!
-
Thanks Allen.
Also Denis Chang’s been on this kick about avoiding m7 in rhythm guitar playing for anything pre bop - for example Honeysuckle Rose, the guitar just plays C7 for a whole four bars; or you could play a Gm6 shell.
I’ve been working a bit on this and I think it sounds more stylistic for that era
You can decorate the C7 as well… like C7 Do7 C/E Do7 etc, or it sounds good to me to play G- G-b6 G-6 G-b6 so long as you avoid the F
According to him this is more a guitar thing than piano which is interesting
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
Put me in the more is more camp.
I think less than two chords per measure is boring. I love to hear Harmony's, inversions, substitutions I think it sounds great. I don't think it gets in the way of the piano or the bass at all. I use everything that I like to hear as a reference and then I watch with the guitar player and he's definitely not just getting out of anybody's way he's adding a lot of texture and harmony. I think it sounds great especially in a small group I can see how that might not be true with the big band though.
-
I like clusters of detail when the other players aren’t doing anything. It was fun today because there was only trumpet so i could play more interactively and get my Eddie Lang on.
But if you play with a three piece improvising frontline, there isn’t so much space (sometimes on a vocal chorus.)
As for big band stuff, it’s all in the arrangement.
Context is everything. As always, listen.
Here’s my chorus of Mellow tone while I’m in the mood. No video today… audio only
Stream In a Mellow Tone by Christianm77 | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
I’ve used a couple of devices I used to death, walk ups and walk downs, chromatic moves to VI and liberal use of augmented triads and + chords which I hear as being part of the style. No m7 chords here as well; purposefully.
This is the sort of thing I’d play with a small swing band.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
Sounds great...I love the augmented sounds, and totally agree, definitely part of the lexicon.
Re: m7 chords, was definitely told to not use them when I was hanging with the "gypsy jazz" crowd-- with one exception-- in a duo they were ok to keep things moving.
Freddie definitely plays 7ths on minor chords, but it's the one note thing-- it's not really a m7 chord.
-
What are your augmented grips? 643 string set grips. What notes do you grab?
I’ve been playing 137 shells when they come up on a big band chart. I agree it’s part of the sound, and I like it, but changing stock grips like 4x23xx put the aug5th in the root which isn’t what I want to do.
In a small group I’ll play the 876xxx (C+) shape or x54333 (some kind of D+7) shape for more color on a V.
-
For Ab7+ Originally Posted by AllanAllen
4 x 4 5 5 x
x 3 2 1 x x
Ive drifted away from the shells thing for this old school pre bop stuff. The shell voicing thing is not really how most people played rhythm back in the 30s. They weren’t super into the voice leading and it tended to be based around the grips. Sometimes I even use open positions, cowboy voicings and stuff for slow bluesy tunes. You hear it.
So when I play that style I’m usually quite inconsistent in the number of notes in the chords and the voicing types. I use
4 6 6 5 4 x
For instance for an Ab chord. I don’t add the sixths and things in always. In fact as time goes on I tend to play plain triadic chords more and more.
This is more like the slightly raw style of the 30s guitarists like Al Casey, (to my ears.) early Freddie Green, Tedd Bunn, the original Hot Club rhythm guitarists*, Charlie Christian etc etc.
Jonathan Stout credits the three note style more to George Van Eps whose student Allan Reuss played with Benny Goodman and iirc gave Freddie some lessons. Van Eps was self consciously pianistic in his approach. But of course as we know Freddie didn’t stick to these voicings either though perhaps they were helpful for developing his one note style.
Denis Chang describes Freddie as having an unsual style as a rhythm player… I think this is more true of the 1950s stuff, his playing in the late 30s is more like what others were doing. The Savory collection recordings of Basie give an insight imo.
(Btw the hot club also play that dotted quarter rhythm as well as a decoration.)
* who were playing American style music of the era as Chang points out.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
I see I’m trying to hard at the wrong thing again. Figures Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
Today's musings: playing the second string
-
Well, it depends on the style. Nothing wrong m with working on strict voice leading. I did a lot of that! Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
Well, let me explain what I'm working on. With this big band stuff I'm trying to see a symbol and immediately grab the chord. Instead of grabbing what I know and hitting the middle strings, I've been relearning shapes to fit the 643 string set. I mean, I should also work on organizing the chords, but I think I can grab something easy/familiar in the meantime. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
I couldn't open the link, but what you describe sounds a bit like an approximation of a Banjo-approach, which totally makes sense in a setting like that. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I could open your link for mellotone, and that sounded great!
I totally do that too with smaller groups. Still feel like that's a different flavour, and I wouldn't necessarily play that kind of thing in a Big Band Setting. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Paul
-
Giving 'All of me' a whirl:
Reply With Quote
Waterloo WLAT uk sale £2500
Today, 02:01 PM in For Sale