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The question that I would ask of any advancing guitarist is simple. "Can you play the melody of a song like Star Dust or Misty or My One and Only Love? Extemporaneously in any key I call?" Not hunt and pecking, but lyrically like you are singing? If the answer is "no", then you are not an "advanced" guitarist for sure, and likely not even a mediocre one yet.
If you check, I also suggested some valid things to be gained potentially from the exercise, including tone production and techniques for portamento and legato playing. No, I have not read that book. Don't hyperventilate over the word "absurd". I'm simply suggesting that this exercise has limited benefits. But, hey, if you want to spend a year trying to play There Will Never Be Another You on one string, have at it. But, it is a lot easier on a six string guitar. Not sure about the sitar....
Last edited by targuit; 06-17-2014 at 11:08 AM.
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06-12-2014 11:24 AM
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"Spring can really hang you up the most" in Ab
Originally Posted by targuit
The question that I would ask of any advancing guitarist is simple. "Can you play the melody of a song like Star Dust or Misty or My One and Only Love? Extemporaneously in any key I call?" Not hunt and pecking, but lyrically like you are singing? If the answer is "no", then you are not an "advanced" guitarist for sure, and likely not even a mediocre one yet.
If you check, I also suggested some valid things to be gained potentially from the exercise, including tone production and techniques for portamento and legato playing. No, I have not read that book. Don't hyperventilate over the word "absurd". I'm simply suggesting that this exercise has limited benefits. But, hey, if you want to spend a year trying to play There Will Never Be Another You on one string, have at it. But, it is a lot easier on a six string guitar. Not sure about the sitar....
I am getting tired of people questioning credentials, too. Tell you what. You name a standard, and I will put up an instructional YT video on the song in any key you like. I'm thinking of something along the lines of what my acquaintance, Rob Bourassa, put up the other day on Over the Rainbow. A Felicidade, Ain't Misbehavin', All Of Me, Angel Eyes, Autumn Leaves, All Blues, All the Things You Are....Waltz for Debby. Or if you can read notation, I would be happy to e-mail some transcriptions. But it won't be on one string. You'll have to use all six to play along.
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The exercise is improvising on one string, not playing a set melody.
Can't you just grab a guitar and hit record? A recording to simply illustrate an idea doesn't have to be a big production...a smart phone propped up against a coffee cup so it's angled halfway decent is fine.
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Jay, what I'm suggesting is, if you're trying to prove a point and you're tired of people "questioning your credentials", it isn't necessary to transcribe a whole tune new to you, write out an arrangement, set up a camera a microphones, etc. I didn't mean "grab a guitar right this second!"
Personally, I don't care about credentials as much, but when opinions are presented in such an unwavering, authoritative way, it's nice to know they're coming from a place that's informed in actions as well as words. That's why you're getting the pushback here.
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AS far as I'm concerned THE DEFINITIVE version of Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most, is and has always been, the one done by Betty Carter. Period, end of story. Continue.
Last edited by henryrobinett; 06-12-2014 at 01:28 PM.
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Betty Carter's version...
Which is in...wait for it...wait for it...Ab!Last edited by mr. beaumont; 06-12-2014 at 01:23 PM.
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Yes targuit - I don't think anyone has heard you play. So when you come off as very authoritarian it's natural to need to hear the person who is talking like an expert. Talk, unfortunately, is cheap in music. If I laid down and believed everyone who SAID they could play and were experts, I'd be in a very sorry place. I've been duped too many times in the past. Gigs I should never have taken, for example, by people who said they were the next Michael Brecker - for real. Yet were truly elementary. It's easy to say you can play. Anyone can do that. It's harder to actually play.
It's just that when you say ANYTHING with great confidence and authority, it's comforting to know who is speaking. Not credentials like, "I did this or that." Who cares about that? I can see where the one string thing can help. I don't subscribe to it myself, but I'm not prepared to say it's absurd.
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I think folks just want to hear you play. Not necessarily an instructional thing.
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I think one of thepurposes that Mick Goodrick is talking about, is that by playing an exercise,or improvising on one string can help you get out of predictable patterns. It’san exercise to stimulate creativity, break old habits. I studied with KarlBerger and he used to say if you are playing a solo and are going to play aline or lick that is predictable to anaudience, “don’t play it completely, leave some space at the end. The audience willhear it any way and it will be more effective.”
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Who asked for an instructional video?
I was joking because I think jckto picked Ab as a tough key on purpose, and here is this great version in Ab!
I thought you were just looking to post some kind of video of your playing to silence anybody questioning your credentials, not make a teaching vid.
As for the one string thing, I used it again to navigate some ideas over Dolphin Dance, a pretry tricky tune. I went through improvising on the third string, second, and first seperately and now I'm working on fleshing ideas out with harmony. It's been helpful...got me out of some situations where my brain was having troubles shifting gears and visualizing the right scales/arpeggios.
I am a little ways off on a video for it though!
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Well it is a good exercise. I just played the melody of that song in Ab and then in C. Not reading it. Not chord melody, just the melody. Good exercise. The song's range is huge, so either key you run out of string, no matter what octave you do it in. But I'd never PLAY it for real that way. Forcing you to think intervals in a different way is a good exercise.
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I thought I read years ago Jim Hall would mute 4 or 5 strings for a week or so to see what he could come up with... and not just play rote patterns and positions. Basically the same logic as Goodrick.....
"Hall’s avoidance of clichés is so intense, that he developed a practice regimen for himself and his students that decimates creative comfort zones.......
“I will take the guitar, tune it randomly, and say, ‘Make something out of this—whatever the notes are. Take the material and develop it,’” he explains. “Or, I’ll have someone play ‘All the Things You Are’ using solely a three-note motif. I even made one of my students—someone who had formidable technique—play on just one string.”
Jim Hall | GuitarPlayer
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has this been posted yet? sorry if it has
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That was friggin' cool.
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That's from a guitar lesson that's and hour 30 minutes long and is all available on youtube. I was actually watching it for the second time yesterday, it's a great video. Anyone know what effects John is using?
And because that's all kind of off topic, I think playing on one string is a good exercise that some beginners never try because they learn "boxes". I also like the point that Mick Goodrick makes in that this is how the guitar evolved, one string at a time. At first, there was the unitar, and it just puts you in a different frame of mind, as John says.
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Many advanced players review "beginner" exercises throughout their entire lives. For example, Kenny Werner writes of working on playing one note with one finger when he was already a professional musician.
Dismissing an exercise as "only" suitable for beginners seems misguided.
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Sublime. I've always loved Irene Kral's version, also in Ab! Great vocal and Alan Broadbent's telepathic piano accompaniment is phenomenal throughout that whole album (Where is Love): Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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Nice!
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I was checking out that link and stumbled on the version above. The vocals, piano, and drums were in high school when they recorded it. The bass player is their 74 year old teacher, Marshal Hawkins.
Singer is now at New England Conservatory. Pianist is starting at USC in the Fall. I think the drummer, a Russian kid, is going to attend Berklee.
Check it out.
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I started a thread on this topic a while back that included some of the same discussion, including the Abercrombie clip. This thread has covered all of that and more.
I fully embrace my beginner-hood after many years of playing (but just a few working on jazz). I have spent a good number of hours doing some systematic work on 1 or 2 strings at a time and have found it useful. I have had it in my practice routine on and off. I have used it for many of the things mentioned-ear training, shifting, phrasing, left/right coordination, etc. I think it has helped me with being oriented to where notes are in some areas of the neck that used to feel more foreign to me.
The last couple years I've been working on changing some habits and this stuff has definitely been part of the mix. Like the OP, I came to jazz from traditional blues, which is great in some ways, limiting in others.
Matt
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That Abercrombie clip is great. You can hear how the technique lends itself to being very melodic, moving up and down the string, you cant help getting into some motivic development. The other cool thing that i dont think is discussed so much with this technique is how it seems to free up the time feel. You can hear that he is aware of the time, but again the technique seems to make it easier to get into phrasing over the barline. Its refreshing, rather than having to always here people that are locked into that constant stream of 8th notes feel.
cheers
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The funny thing about jazz is that we do exercises to develop habits, and then we do exercises to break habits. Sometimes we need to push farther into the new, and other times we need to dig deeper into the familiar.
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So we're not going to hear you play?
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Wait targuit - I thought the whole point was to hear you PLAY! I don't know who asked for a transcription. I mean that's cool and all. But just go over the song some and hit the record button and post.
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Yeah, I agree with this, and with Jeff (Mr. Beaumont.) Targuit, you have talked a lot about how good you are, how you learn pieces so easily, in half no time, and yet you seem to have incredible difficulty working a webcam... It's not complicated. You've seen at least a hundred videos posted here by members, playing in their living rooms, studies, what have you. Not professional lighting or sound, but no one cares. People just want a sense of how you actually play. In large measure because you seem so unwilling to provide one..... Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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