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I got a trumpet for Christmas, well, a pocket trumpet, but still a trumpet. I played in college before, for a year or so, and then gave up because it was too hard to play high notes.
This time though, I enjoy it much more, and it comes easy for some reason, maybe a better quality instrument helps...
Anyway, those who know, you are supposed to built your chops on practicing the long tones. Meaning, blow a note as long as possible, and make it sound nice and steady, and in one breath. What I concur, you can make that note last forever, and you are in full control. That results in, when you play even a simple melody, you can make it sound beautiful as is, or to say, CAPTIVATE yourself and the audience with very simple stuff even if it's super slow, but you got the tone right.
When it comes to guitar, and I'm only talking single note playing with no effects, you can play a simple melody, and... ok, well, so what! It just doesn't have the same impact. Play some fast shit and all of sudden it catches people's attention!
So my point you can get away playing fewer notes on guitar sometimes, but in general, I think you are naturally gravitating toward speed because it's a sure way to make an IMPRESSION and compensate for... something! The guitar as single note instrument just doesn't have the same power as horns. So while we might admire Miles Davis approach for example, it would never translate to guitar!
Mind you, applying effects can and did change the situation, but in general I think it's still true. Being able to play fast on the guitar is a sort of making it up for lack of natural sustain of notes.
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01-20-2017 04:36 PM
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This is why I think everybody should spend some time with a nylon string guitar.
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This is IMO less true of electric guitar than acoustic.
Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Electric guitar has more sustain, is more hornlike.
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Even with an solid-body guitar, true legato is still impossible. The way strings and brass make music is very different, and they really can't be compared. So if you can't play legato, you have to play more notes to fill the time. I suppose one could use an ebow, but I've never liked the sound, and they're not popular for several reasons.
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Well that's what Charlie Christian was trying to transcend. Did a pretty good job of it too. Originally Posted by sgosnell
Grant Green too - bit of dirt!
Jim Mullen gets close as well. Very hornlike approach.
There are some players for who a blues tone and a jazz tone aren't that different.
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Also playing really great time gets you out of the speed trap.
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I had to delete my earlier post. This topic is so subjective that I have problem putting my thoughts into words.
The only slower guitar songs that I like have not only a nice leading guitar line but also very nice comping that captures what I like to hear.
Somebody just playing a guitar along at 72 bpm 1/4 notes is going to have trouble catching my attention for long.
Finally, the notes on that guitar better "lift off the fretboard" through some good effects settings. I don't care for a note that is to dry and does not ring in some manner.Last edited by AlsoRan; 01-21-2017 at 10:14 AM. Reason: change of heart
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In regards to playing saxophone long tones I was taught a good way to it. To introduce timing practice into it by playing each note for 4 bars at for example 60 bpm but play it with dynamics. Start pianissimo and evenly in correct timing increase the dynamic level to forte after 2 bars. Then for the last 2 bars bring the level back down to pianissimo. Then go up a 4th or 5th or chromatically or whatever. I would think that this would be good for any horn.
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It all depends on the music you're trying to make, but that said, I'd contribute the following.
The guitar can do very well played slowly, but not everyone gets a tone that will support that.
I think Wes and Jim Hall could do it, partly based on note choice, but also with great tone. Those are clean-tone players.
Maybe add Mark Knopfler to that group. Plays clean and the tone sings.
Carlos Santana's use of the Boogie overdrive sound gave the guitar an intensity with sustain. Plenty of other players using signal processing have created a sound that, for me, equals horn players.
These players are not known for playing fast (although Wes and Jim certainly did at times).
When I hear a fast player I can feel the excitement and I'm certainly prone to being impressed, but I rarely want to hear the track again. I tend to prefer players who play fewer notes - with articulation. For me that's true for most instruments.
Could a guitarist get in the legato area that Miles mined? Well, not with an archtop and a polytone. But, with the various signal processing, string-exciters and so forth that are available now, I think somebody could find a way. In fact, there are some things that Santana did that are reminiscent.
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Albert King?!
That guy measured out notes like they were gold coins from his own pocket. And nobody phrases like he does...always "speaks" perfect blues phrases.
Granted jazz lines, are different.
And I think chasing horn players for speed on guitar is a fool's errand: It just doesn't work...the same lines that any good trumpet player can rip off are a struggle on guitar.
I think that's what Wes M. figured out with his very slidey, chord-based lead playing....to me he's almost like an organ player. The organ can't match piano in speed or execution, so it has to play differently. Or Barney Kessel who said don't play lead and rhythm, play lead with rhythm.Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-21-2017 at 08:46 AM.
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there are many guitar players that use "speed" as ONE ingredient in their playing mixed in with others that create their style..today many young players are fascinated with speed..the faster the better..to the extent that it is the only way they know how to play..some bypass chords all together in the attempt to learn "metal" solos and songs..
while jazz has many well known players that can set the frets on fire..the art of playing melodically and with some tasty licks will win over long lines of scale oriented passages..though when players incorporate speed with taste it is nice to hear..Pat Martino can do this with ease..
the "art" of speed is necessary for some..and if it is one color in their style fine..if its the only color..there may be some critics to highlight that point.
as much as I like "fusion" and its inherent speed..I would put it on hold to hear Albert King play "cold feet" .. with three or four notes he says far more than 32 bars of high tech speed..
Todays varied music world may require speed as one way to play..as one tool of many it should be part of our abilities as musicians..
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You hit on something that I really agree with about fusion and its speed. I do start to tire much more quickly compared to Albert King. I can listen to his Blues Power solo over and over. Originally Posted by wolflen
His intensity is palpable. Part of it is the aggression of popping the strings here and there. I love when Blues players hit you with that string pop to get their point across in their solos.
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I agree with the problem; unlike breath instruments that naturally hold focus upon ongoing creation throughout the duration of a note, a picked note on the guitar can instantly feel like "mission accomplished" and divert one's mind toward planning execution of the next one.
There are some subtle techniques that overcome this. The best way I know to promote the emergence of these techniques is to change the mental image of how the longer slower notes are "laid onto" the stream of music - imagine the notes being laid onto the music "back-end first".
Instead of thinking "this note starts right here" try thinking "this note ends over there"...
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The idea guitarists need to use distortion to somehow play a melody with feeling is ridiculous. Comes from the "pick everything with no vibrato" bebop mentality...except when you listen to the guitar players who could actually play bop like a horn, like Raney, they didn't pick everything.
People need to slow down and learn how to play a damn melody. The guitar gives up nothing to a horn. Listen to some Segovia!
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Well, I don't know if this is what Mr. Beaumont is getting at in terms of the nylon string, but in my experience I'm playing the nylon more and more. You can get a really beautiful sound while playing slowly. (Good news for me!)
Each note depends a lot on how you touch it; phrasing matters much more than on a steel string. Even silence (while overtones from previous note echo) can be cool.
That said, there's a lot of truth in what the OP says in a professional sense. You would want to play something occasionally that lets the audience know "That's cool, I couldn't play that."
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Listen to Jim Hall, is what I'm saying
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As for playing slow, listen to Wes' "Old Folks". So much calmness. So much beauty.
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lot of truth in this. The various possibilities for signal processing open the range of expression. I suppose this is what the Stern, Scofield, Frisell, to some extend Metheny generation was going for w the distortion, chorus, etc. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
He may not be a dyed in the wool jazz player but the expressive range Larry Carlton gets is inspiring.
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Slow notes sing more if you put some subtle vibrato on them.
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Albert King, I have read, used very light strings and bent them several half steps. (Can't recall the limit but it may have been a fourth or fifth!). So, he was not just playing slowly, but he was adding a lot of articulation.
BB King also "spoke" his notes in a way that connected emotionally with his audience. That great vibrato, the high stinging punches and so forth.
Santana has always struck me as a player who got his notes to speak in a complex way which allowed him to sound great playing very few notes.
There's a traditional jazz guitar style which strikes me as similar in a way to piano. Notes are percussive, die quickly, and are not often subject to vibrato or pitch change or other articulation. Some of the greats did it that way. To give a name, I'll suggest Warren Nunes. His attack was like a jackhammer. And, his major influence was George Shearing.
But, there are other traditional jazz guys who played clean tones who somehow got the notes to speak in a compelling way. Wes is foremost among them in my mind. What a sound! I also love Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell's sounds.
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Peter Bernstein does this... Originally Posted by grahambop
A restrained player, of course, even with a very clean tone:
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Howard Roberts to me had great touch. He can play lush chord melody stuff, but also stinging, really rhythmically articulated lines, that are almost like Bird. Almost never loses the groove. And he can change up the rhythmic sense, in the wink of an eye...just like Dizzy.
Also his mechanics were great. He said one time that a lot of guitar players have this "thwack" thing going on with their playing, where their picking hand and left hand is not quite coordinated properly.
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Funny thing...So while we might admire Miles Davis approach for example, it would never translate to guitar!
Miles many times mentioned that he plays trumpet as a guitar... and had guitar phrasing.
Of course it does not make his trumpet a guitar))) But still it suddenly came to me when you mentioned Miles in a context...
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Tried out a wah pedal yesterday - a different 'voice' helped me take my time.
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Once a guitar/lute maker told me that when he makes an instrument he does not think of sustain, he thinks about the decay.. he said: we actually have to deal with dying sounds... this concept changes the whole approach actully.
With early instruments it was especially important and they used open strings a lot, 'campanillas' effect - playing passages in arpeggio style using open strings - to make it sound like bells (especially with re-entrant tuinings)...
The idea of this luthier is to achieve good decay of sounds on the instrument (balanced first of all).. rather than good sustain
I think some modern players also play like this - the first man I would think of is Bill Frisell - he is all about listening how the sounds fade away even when he plays in relatively fast tempos...
And here we come also to another point... I believe it's not sustain what rally matters but control over sound when it sounds...
Church organ can have 'endless' sustain but no control after the key is pressed.
Bow instruments are the most flexible.. with good bow technique they also have endless sustain and almost limitless control over the sound till the very end.
Horns are more limited in that sense.
But with percuassive and plucked instruments we have no control as well as with organ. So organists has to deal with eversound, and we have to work with decays... to arrange decays - in a sense..
Electrics give more possibilities both in sustain and sound control... lots of equipment tat allows even to make it sound organ-like or after all you can use volume control after all...
that's why I thin real electrics is another story... like in archtectrure whne they began to use steel and concrete it makes no sense to compare it with earlier architecture - where they uses stone and woods for centuries - because the materiel created absolutely new realtions and artistic language.
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