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Got it Charles: You're the man!
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04-21-2016 11:55 PM
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Benson has that fire in spades, Joe pass (which in solo guitar can get you in trouble) too. BK lets it rip in places, lots of guys really.
Originally Posted by gggomez
one guy I never see talked about, Eddie lockjaw Davis. Everything he plays drips the blues!!!
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I was listening to Eddy Nunn earlier this week the original Blue Note guitarist, man he had attitude and Bird's guitarist.
Thanks I will look up Davis.
Today Rotem Sivan has fire. Live Kreisberg and Bernstein have fire, maybe it is modern recording techniques but it seems alot of the dynamics are lost all that gating and fancy stuff.Last edited by gggomez; 04-22-2016 at 12:37 AM.
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Oh yeah Davis is like Jimmy Forrest on steroids.
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Wow, the demo and exercise video show you to be an especially sharp picker my man! (Tell me though Charles, you haven't sold your soul to Satan himself have you?) I watched the exercise video twice and I really liked your economy picking "turnaround." It's much the same as what Frank Gambale teaches though so far as I know he doesn't teach or play with alternate picking, so I'll run a needle through your video again and try to absorb that end of it. One tech. I plan to implement right away is the slurring; great way to blend staccato and legato by cheating straight picking. I may have told you someone else earlier but if you want to know what my picking looks like, well, it doesn't look like any one player, I use my arm, my wrist and thumb and forefinger depending on what i'm playing, which is something like what Al DiMeola recommends in his Picking book. When he plays an acoustic he picks from the wrist but I think he relaxes a little more when he plays electric. I'm studying jazz blues and blues right now, but I don't think the blues and terrific picking are mutually exclusive; as long as you can suit the tune with your technique. Will write more to you later--don't worry, it won't be dull...
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If I may humbly add a quote beside Miles: "When I'm making music there are no rules, no excuses and no note or sound is off limits."
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Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
No soul selling here my brother!!! Really all I did was study the mechanics of picking. There are so many people who do it differently who are all great, I looked for what they had in common.
The "secret" is very focused practice to directly address the roadblocks you run into in the real world. Once you get these "solutions" into you subconscious, you can do them without thinking about it.
Worth noting is once you reach a certain level of comfort/speed dealing with outside picking (this involves developing a solid foundation in alternate picking), I advise moving on to the alternate solutions. The great part about that exercise is you can use the same exact thing to work your economy picking (which is also very important, as well as misunderstood. Economy picking is simply crossing strings while maintaining the same pick direction with a single stroke. It has nothing to do with shredding, it's simply a picking mechanism. In fact, I economy pick more playing bebop heads/sax lines than anything else).
Be sure to notice the difference between the economy picking, and what I call pick/slur (I'm sure I'm not the first person to discover this technique, but I've not seen it taught anywhere). I prefer it because, you can absolutely hit light speed with the technique, and it avoids the "machine gun" sound you get with other techniques. Again, it works with the same exercise. The icing on the cake, if you're a 7 position, 3nps guy, it is the exact picking mechanics for playing all the positions as one continuous stream of 16th notes. Great for endurance and learning the fretboard inside out.
The bottom line, is in the real world, it's better to be decent at all the techniques, rather than be a "master" of one. For instance, in the first two phrases of the Anthropology head, I alternate pick, slur, and economy pick... So, for my students, I always start with alternate picking even string changes, then address outside picking, then move to economy picking, and finally the pick slur technique. I start this process on day 1, it only takes two minutes of lesson time, and provides an excellent warm up.
I really appreciate the kind words, best wishes.
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The sax equivalent to guitar picking is tongueing the reed. To tongue or not to tongue, shapes phrases. Also, breath control. Ironically, "circular" breathing came about as a techique to imitate the long breathless lines of a guitarist. Or maybe a showboating pianist.
As the horn is the closest thing to the human voice, a horn would phrase the way a singer does.
One could learn to pick, hammer-on or pull-off the way a saxophonist would choose to tongue or not to tongue. Shape one's phrases breathing like a saxophonist.
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Charles, the kind words are my pleasure! I keep my friends close and my enemies at bay--I am ruthless against those I oppose (if indeed I have to oppose any?) but kind, gracious and magnanimous to my friends and loved ones. I suppose you could call me a charming artist---i write poetry and my gift is for language but I seldom touch the book or the page because my greater love is music. esp. jazz. And though I love the players and music I think that jazz blues may be more of my theater. You can shred in virtually any genre, including jazz blues and the blues: We went to Charlotte I think to see Susan T., Buddy Guy and big B.B. King and Buddy walked off stage and all around through the crowd "tearing it up!" I gotta get to work Bocephus, so I'll catch up with you tomorrow---Goodnight...Roscoe
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I know a little about this, but so I don't have to guess the rest, I'm asking the question above--
As far as jazz goes I'm working on Autumn Leaves and when i start improvising over it I don't
want to be thinking this scale or that arpeggio, rather I want to let my ears guide my fingers to
play melodic lines that outline and color the chords...well hell, don't we all!
Okay let me change gears: all notes and intervals belong to some scale or other, right? But not all
players think scales. modes and arps--they think about key notes and intervals...? Do they
just "go by feel? by ear, by both perhaps? I want to know because as I've said many times I'm
playing jazz blues, though I'm not at all leaving bebop: instead I'm gonna split my time between
the back tracking of Autumn Leaves and Red House, I just want to learn to think and feel like a
blues player because then i will nail the I-IV-V's no trouble and handle the II-V-I's with surety. (I think)
Roscoe has got the blues but his playing is more science than art.
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Yes, its a great line and I have started to transcribe it. I'll post the notation when done so that people can play along with it but I have to head out now. Originally Posted by WillMbCdn5
One thing this song and a few Miles Davis songs have taught me is that they often play the pentatonic scale descending in their solos which is different from rock where they often play it ascending.
Anyhow I hope to finish the transcription this evening.
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I don't think there's enough time to think about anything much when you're actually improvising. The whole point is to do all the necessary work in the practice room beforehand, so that you know the tune and its structure inside out, and you can already 'hear' lots of possible melodic lines to play over it in your head, and you can instantly find them on the fingerboard. I guess while I'm playing I am vaguely aware of certain key points in the tune, or certain chord shapes, which I can use as a sort of guideline, but that's about all.
I suspect that most of the great jazz players do it by ear. And they have done an enormous amount of work to get to that point.
Charlie Parker supposedly said something along these lines, that you have to practise, practise, practise, enough so that when you get on stage, you forget all of that and can just play.
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You need to learn them so you're not thinking...can't think and hit at the same time, as Yogi Berra said.
Can't swing a golf club and think "Maintain extensor motion...now full shoulder rotation back....turn INTO right hip, keep loading...then initiate downswing...push off right side but maintain right hand leverage, and square up but finish left while continually turning torso and hip, and let's not forget to finish high and pretty at the end..."
Now swinging a golf club is EASY compared to real-time composition and execution in the moment (i.e.jazz)...pretty much most full swings in golf are the same and you know ahead of time what you want to do...still rotating and swinging a three-foot long implement to hit a target the size of a dime at over 100 mph is not simple...but still WAY easier than actually playing jazz.
"Wax on, wax off, Daniel-san"...as was said in The Karate Kid...need to learn and ingrain these movements, and eventually your body (really your central nervous system) will "know" them----this is NOT intellectual knowledge--it is ingrained movement and central nervous system conditioning. Once you get down simpler information (major scale and associated arpeggios), then can expand it to minors, altered dominants, and more "out" sounds...while you're doing this, you need to learn how a line works, and why it works, and then be able to do it...in real time. Let's not forget rhythm...just listen to a ton of stuff and let it sink in....you have a good brain and notice quite a lot, judging from your posts, so this will come...but LISTEN a lot.
Sorry, there is no shortcut....and thinking too much and talking about it too much is just time away from the task, and that much longer until you ever get to be decent, and then maybe good, and for some, they get really good. There are no true jazz prodigies----this is not classical music----where you become a windup doll, and then hit the "replay button".
I'm being blunt, but I think what I'm saying is accurate. Now go work on getting some stuff under your fingers. Might take a look at some of Achim Kohl's stuff on youtube...he shows some major scale and 2-5-1 phrasing...this will get you through a lot of Autumn Leaves.
I don't mean to be grim...but if you don't enjoy working at this....you'll never get to first base...so yes, listen to Autumn Leaves by Barney, and Miles---can you do the bass riff in the Miles version?...hint it's a minor 6 arpeggio a fourth beneath the first chord....never figured this out until yesterday....but little things begin to accumulate.Last edited by goldenwave77; 04-22-2016 at 09:57 AM.
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Hello,
I find the biggest advantage of light picking is that it allows you to use the full dynamic range of the guitar. In my opinion you need to master both hard and soft picking. A part of my routine is to play some phrases and to improvise using the full dynamic range of the guitar. The amp helps a lot... It even allows to approach the dynamic range of a piano, or to put some nice accents... Listen to Jim Hall, how he uses dynamic with a very light touch...
For me, the easiest way to play very fast is to have a light touch. This doesn't mean that you can't play the strings hard with a light touch...
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Have a try with the Dugain picks, especially the wood ones
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Agreed with the above. Do a whole lot of practice doing the "dirty work, the un-fun stuff". A few years worth of that, really that first "core" of 20-30 tunes. By then, you've gotten over many of hurdles you'll run into.
While I'm actually playing, I just try to play what I hear in my head.
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Hi,
For me the best way to emulate the sax on the guitar, is by carefully choosing your fingerings and also very carefully choosing your right hand attack and your sound...
For example you won't sound anything good by playing everything with alternte picking. Maybe you'll sound some kind of "psychorigid" lol ! (I dont know the word in english)
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If you think about it, there's something frightening about forgetting all that practice onstage--
On the other hand if you don't think about it and just do it you have no room for fear, at least that's
been my experience with things outside jazz guitar: my first two or three years of wrestling in school
I didn't know the moves very well so when the whistle blew I didn't have a good idea what to do because
I was overthinking, as some do over how to play over the changes. So freezing up, (i.e. choking on a tune,
I suppose you could say) and poor athletic ability insured that I got my butt whupped fair and square most
of my wrestling career. Perhaps this hasn't been the best analogy but I wanted to make clear as mud
how I know our good cousin Charlie Parker is right on when he says learn the changes so you can forget
them, so you can play them, perfectly, in your sleep. Just to add one thing: I know I started a big scale
debate some weeks ago I think, and I'm certain I lost the argument (if you care to look at it that way) whatever
it was, but consider this: suppose you do as Jeff suggested and learn all the relevant scales cold. Maybe
then you could forget the scales, or at least not overthink how to play them when you're soloing and here I have solo'd too long--
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I'll say it once more, with feeling. If you really want to learn how to sound like a sax player, how to phrase like one - you have to listen to mostly sax players, at least for a long time. Get the SOUND of the sax in your head, not some intellectual or idealized sense of how the guitar would be cool if. In that sense I'd listen to a lot of Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderly, Coltrane, Rollins, Michael Brecker. Those are my guys anyway. Less guitar players. They phrase like guitar players, every time.
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youns--love the name...actually a real word around here.
Heard of Jim Hall haven't heard Jim Hall...Yet.
Your picking routine beats the socks off of mine
so since I can't beat you I'm going to join you and
mix light picking with harder picking, but to be
honest I employ at least three types of picking,
just not organized in a routine--i tremolo pick
usually medium to hard, alternate (or as a former
guitar teacher of mine used to say "alternative"
pick, but I've never heard that anywhere else)
scales and arpeggios, all off this with my wrist
and arm, then I economy pick 3 note per string
scales with my thumb and forefinger and wrist.
youns, I don't know about you or anybody else
but if I try to get a full hard stroke economy
picking the way I do alternate picking I just
make a mess of it. Charles is trying to get
me to look at the mechanics of picking
which I had blown over, and I'm trying so,
so far so good...!
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Nothing wrong with knowing stuff cold. My son was a good HS and club soccer player and was on a team that competed in a national qualifying tmt. He had good moves, a "Maradona", etc. (named after the player who originated it), ....kind of like riffs in music. He said he learned from Pele's book that 100 repetitions-- just to begin knowing the footwork...500 he was getting it pretty well...about a 1000 until he knew it cold and could really "break some ankles" of the opposition, i.e. juking them and making them look silly as they swiped him and missed, in a game situation.
Scales are fine... BUT knowing how they work...how the voices move and resolutions, etc. are really more important...and just running scales up and down will not teach this this...also you need to learn how to phrase....learning every word in the dictionary is not going to make you a great writer...it gives you more "tools" so to speak, but in learning them, your time might be better spent on learning other stuff....tunes, rhythm, developing your ear, working on phrasing...that's what is important...if you know how each tone sounds against a chord or in a tonality, that will get you pretty far....don't have to spend 3 yrs. practicing 27 scales in 7 positions before you can begin making music, which calls all that other stuff into play.
Enough already...go to work on your playing, and report back.
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Apologies if this has already been stated
My experience with myself and my students has been that how hard you hold the pick has an almost direct correlation with dynamic.
So I hold the pick harder for a harder dynamic and lighter for a lighter dynamic.
Which dynamic I'm using depends on what dynamic I want to hear. The George Benson or Pat Martino thing is a different dynamic than say, Jim Hall or John Abercrombie
I don't think you necessarily have to play light or hard but that it's important to be aware of the sound you're producing.
Personally I think guitarists in earlier stages tend to overlook the importance of dynamics, often hitting each note with the same force, or accenting certain notes without any reason besides it feeling physically comfortable.
I think I agree with Vladan's point that ideally the musical conception comes first, then the technique comes second as a means to actualize the idea.
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Henry, what you say makes sense and it clarifies something I think many probably look overlook--
I'm going to listen to Coltrane (who I'm familiar with), Rollins and Cannonball who I am not--
Also working on a Jazz Blues ebook that I'm serious about: maybe I should finish it before
moving on to the sax players? What do you think? I'm also working on the backing tracks
to Autumn Leaves (recommended) and Red House (my pick). At any rate I'll still listen to
Coltrane which should be a good influence all around. Thanks for your time! Roscoe
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when I drove in to work today, my mind sort of wandered off and I really don't recall getting off the turnpike or going through the Eisenhower Interchange. It was like I got on the turnpike and then all of a sudden I was at my exit.
Not really the best example of how to drive, but I've driven for years and so my "auto pilot" kicked in and my subconscious managed to make all the changes and get me to work.
playing "Autumn Leaves" is very much like that for a lot of us because it is one of the first tunes a lot of people learn, and so I've played that one more than 30 years. Probably about as long as I've been driving, come to think of it
all the hours of scales and arpeggios, ii-Vs and whatnot...all of those mechanisms are in my subconscious so that when I think of a melodic idea, I hear the phrase in my head and my hand just plays it.
I think if you were to ask around, a lot of guys would say something similar when it comes to what am I thinking about when I'm playing a tune. The answer is "not much". I'm sort of quieting my mind and letting music happen and all the nitty-gritty details are being managed subconsciously without my being aware.
just like how I got off the turnpike this morning
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Liarspoker--thanks for the song with licks so tasty they're dripping with sauce--
Never heard any Kenny Burrell until now and I'm definitely gonna listen to him
some more since i think he can be a great influence on me as I study Jazz Blues.
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