What's the meaning of the title of 'Four On Six'?

[JakeAcci]

Beautiful playing from Clapton, I've never heard him get so harmonically adventurous before. You could even say his playing there was "out"...I liked how sparse the band was, too.

[ESCC]

That's cruel, the Wes Interview video stopped at the best part!

[whatswisdom]

It's all fun til you go blind or grow hair on your palms...

[Reg]

I don't think there are many players that can afford to not use all their fingers... if they have a choice. It's not stupid to say some great players don't use their pinky...but I would say... One would be ignorant to believe you shouldn't use your pinky.
And if your going to let a simple vid with personal assumptions be the final truth... good luck. That interview was probable from his, Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club in London... Most of the time his MC act was for for comic relief... he could play, and Wes could very easily have been simply laughing with him.
Yea... Wes playing is always great, somehow I don't think the interview was for jazz enlightenment...Reg

[brwnhornet59]

Beautiful playing from Clapton, I've never heard him get so harmonically adventurous before. You could even say his playing there was "out"...I liked how sparse the band was, too.

+1 to that. Eric seems to be exploring some modal free jazz. Miles and Cecil would have been proud!! Tre Chic, very avant garde .

[bluewaterpig]

Reg, that kind of clicked for me when you said what you did about the 6/8. I think what it is is that Wes took a typical 6/8 rhythm and just wrote it in 4, it's not "superimposed" in the music like Ronnie Scott says. The result just sounds like a typical 4/4 rhythm. I like the 4 fingers on 6 strings idea much better.

Could be total BS, but Ronnie Scott has always been a pretty respected jazz authority. I would have to think that he discussed it with Wes before he just went ahead an said it on air, he respected Wes way too much to explain something about his song that could be incorrect.


As for the pinky thing, my teacher Richie Hart once played an interview for us in class in the Wes Montgomery lab at Berklee, and Wes said he couldn't do any of the slurs (hammer ons and pull offs) that he wanted to do in a line with his pinky, so it ended up limiting him.

[JakeAcci]

I've had a lot of friends interviewed in both video and text for various sources. they are often misquoted, or the final product has false information - even something as simple as getting the subject's age wrong!

Given the cut in the video, it wouldn't surprise me if the explanation was incorrect. Not that I care - just saying!

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[whatswisdom]

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Insert here:

[FatJeff]

Insert here:

What am I supposed to be inserting?

[JonnyPac]

Lmao!

[Reg]

Reg, that kind of clicked for me when you said what you did about the 6/8. I think what it is is that Wes took a typical 6/8 rhythm and just wrote it in 4, it's not "superimposed" in the music like Ronnie Scott says. The result just sounds like a typical 4/4 rhythm. I like the 4 fingers on 6 strings idea much better.

Could be total BS, but Ronnie Scott has always been a pretty respected jazz authority. I would have to think that he discussed it with Wes before he just went ahead an said it on air, he respected Wes way too much to explain something about his song that could be incorrect.


As for the pinky thing, my teacher Richie Hart once played an interview for us in class in the Wes Montgomery lab at Berklee, and Wes said he couldn't do any of the slurs (hammer ons and pull offs) that he wanted to do in a line with his pinky, so it ended up limiting him.

There are many ways to say the same thing. None of Wes's tune are that complicated... simply great, I dig them all and play Wes tunes when ever I can get away with. As I said that's a typical metric modulation, used at least once a night...
RS was a decent jazz player and when he had his Jazz club, part of his job was to entertain... as to discussing with Wes before hand... maybe, he was pretty witty and Wes was not much of an interview... Having fun doesn't doesn't always mean disrespect. Do you know where that interview was from...
I'm a Berklee Grad... 70's , Wes didn't have the greatest technique but his feel more than made up for it.
We should have a Wes thread with samples of his tunes played by all... I've posted a few, but would gladly post more...
Reg

[mr. beaumont]

Start that thread, Reg, I'll play along for sure.

[Socrates]

Look, you're all barking up the wrong tree.
This is how it happened:

Wes was in the studio noodling away in between takes, when the producer said "Hey Wes? what do you call that last tune?"

Wes, who was having trouble hearing because the drummer was tinkering with his hi-hats, thought the producer has said something like "Hey Wes? I'm off down to the store to buy some smokes, what kind shall I get you?"

Because of his inexplicable aversion to home-grown tobacco Wes replied "foreign cigs". And thus a legend was born.

That IS how it happened. Really.

[PlumHunter]

Hey, can we get it back to what "four on six" means? Often wondered myself..

Yes, please can we get an answer to this?

[PlumHunter]

Here's my source, at 0:48.

Ronnie Scott explains it, with Wes himself sitting right behind him. Good enough?

I'm sure your jazz guitar teacher is a great player, but he's wrong.


This is proof enough for everybody else who claims to know what it meant, and for all their guitar teachers telling them what it means too. I'm pretty sure Wes wouldn't have let him said that if it wasn't true.

Quote from the above YouTube video : "Involves common 4/4 rhythm superimposed against a rhythm of 6/8 = title '4 on 6' ". Now we can get on with our lives ....

[docbop]

I just heard the other days someone said Wes made the comment once it was from looking at his hand, four fingers on six string.

[christianm77]

[mr. beaumont]

I thought all the jazz Internet geniuses agreed, Wes couldn't read music...how would he know about superimposing a 6/8 figure on a 4/4 beat then? Huh?

[rfmando]

Let the mystery be.....

[grahambop]

It comes from the fact that Wes used to throw 4 pieces of meat into his guitar case every 6 days.

[ragman1]

Well, we probably should let the mystery be... but I'm a worrier. I worry at things till I get them! Now I'm not saying I'm right here - I could be trying to make the theory fit the facts - but...

If you write out the rhythm of the tune it looks like this:




Excluding rests, that's six 8ths to the bar in 4/4 time.

I was wondering, if it's 4 on 6, why the tune's not written in 6/8. But put it the other way round (which the OP did inadvertently) and you get the above pattern.

Anyway, that's my theory

[destinytot]

I just heard the other days someone said Wes made the comment once it was from looking at his hand, four fingers on six string.

Three on six.

[destinytot]

I thought all the jazz Internet geniuses agreed, Wes couldn't read music...how would he know about superimposing a 6/8 figure on a 4/4 beat then? Huh?

I think you're right - it's a different kind of 'knowing'. (I don't need to count the students in my teaching groups to know that someone is missing.)

[Jonah]

8ths un melody are clearly grouped in 3+3+2s to my ear...

I don't think Wes really cared about details, he just heard that the motive over first three 4ths in the bar goes like 6/8 (he probably did not care if it's 8ths or not... just heard the 6 (3+3) pulse ), and the 4th of the bar is a pickup for next 6...

da-da-da/da-da-da/- duh//da-da-da/da-da-da/

And that over 4 in the bass