Days of Wine and Roses

[AllanAllen]

Nice, good to hear you playing and improving Allen. Nice rhythm playing which as I’m sure you know is 90% of the gig.

For the soloing stuff I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with the tone for that kind of music, but if you are striking the strings quite hard with volume low the sound dies on the vine faster. On the other hand the percussive quality can be nice.

When you started playing some high register chords it was really effective and I wonder if you couldn’t work towards integrating the single note stuff and the chords more? Think of the chords as a source of single note arpeggiations


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I've been working through this book to do that very suggestion.

Early Jazz Guitar Chord Soloing: Master the Chordal Soloing Techniques of 1920s & 30s Swing Guitar Legends: Kamihigashi, Yuji, Lewis, Luke: 9798333100092: Amazon.com: Books

I was using an amp at this gig, but the recorder was on my music stand basically pointed at my guitar, so I think it picked up more acoustic sound than anything else. Tomorrow I'm going to put the recorder on the bass players stand hopefully to get more bass in the mix. I don't want to put it front and center because the drums and trumpet are already loud enough.

[pamosmusic]

I've been working through this book to do that very suggestion.

Early Jazz Guitar Chord Soloing: Master the Chordal Soloing Techniques of 1920s & 30s Swing Guitar Legends: Kamihigashi, Yuji, Lewis, Luke: 9798333100092: Amazon.com: Books

I was using an amp at this gig, but the recorder was on my music stand basically pointed at my guitar, so I think it picked up more acoustic sound than anything else. Tomorrow I'm going to put the recorder on the bass players stand hopefully to get more bass in the mix. I don't want to put it front and center because the drums and trumpet are already loud enough.

Oooo I've seen you post clips of this. I assume it gets a good review?

It looks cool, for sure.

[AllanAllen]

The book is super cool.

I can write out pages and pages of inversions and learn them in isolation, but it is REALLY nice to have a 4 bar example provided that sounds good. I only did that one clip because it's a new book and like, does the guy want me posting all his stuff on my instagram?

It's very fun to work on too, although, most everything is fun to work on now that I have a better foundation in both playing and reading.

[rpjazzguitar]

Just some thoughts on getting a fat tone.

Humbuckers make it easier, although I've heard it from single coils at times.

This points out a flaw in this entire post. Whatever I suggest, there's a great player who got great tone some other way.

Some guitars are more plinky than others. It's the first thing I check when I try out a guitar. My Comins GCS-1 is not plinky. My American Std. Stratocaster is plinky in the upper register. Gary Brawer played it and blessed it, as is. "Plays the way a Strat should play" he said.

There's a point on the tone control where some of the plink/fizz goes away -- this is not max treble. That is, some fizz or plink is there and you can choose to amplify it or not.

Archtops have an attack/decay characteristic that may sound thinner, but then there's Wes.

I don't think minor changes in string gauge are all that influential, but a 9 is probably going to sound thinner than a 13, on average. Of course, not everything is average and some players sound thick with a light E string.

Some picks sound plinkier than others. I use a Golden Gate Mandolin pick, which seems to have a softer sound than most.

If you pick too hard, it can create plink. Changing this in your playing can be challenging. You do fine at home, but then you get excited on the bandstand and revert, or, at least, I do. Keeping the volume of the amp up may help you keep the picking intensity under control because you won't have to pick harder to play loud enough. I play with my foot on a volume pedal at all times partly for that reason, but most people seem to do okay without one. Warren Nunes recommended practicing with the amp turned up for this reason, I think.

And then there's the room. In some rooms I can enjoy my dry tone (which actually has a good bit of reverb), but in other rooms it sounds thin and I end up going to my wet or wetter tones (different levels of harmonizer on zero plus reverb). The wetter tone sounds thickest to me, at the risk of having people tell me that the tone is too wet.

And, then there's processed tone in other ways. It can thicken the tone, but you have to like the sound you get. Drive, boost, chorus, delay, flanging, harmonizer, playing in stereo etc etc.

[pamosmusic]

The book is super cool.

I can write out pages and pages of inversions and learn them in isolation, but it is REALLY nice to have a 4 bar example provided that sounds good. I only did that one clip because it's a new book and like, does the guy want me posting all his stuff on my instagram?

It's very fun to work on too, although, most everything is fun to work on now that I have a better foundation in both playing and reading.

I mean … I just bought it, so probably he doesn’t mind