- Avoid people who don't show up on time.
Ted Neeley's bus driver on Jesus Christ Superstar used to say "Early is on time and on time is late". Unless you are Axl Rose, nobody is going to sit in The Tranzac for 45 minutes waiting for your band of unknown people playing music they've never heard. - Avoid drunks like the goddamn plague. This one probably explains itself. People that drink heavily at every gig and treat it like a party are going nowhere and you don't need your name associated with theirs. - When you show up to sub for a gig or a rehearsal, dress appropriately. Look professional. Don't show up to the gig in a red wife beater with hair that hasn't been washed in a week and don't send anyone you know to sub for you that would do that. Get a suit, nice shirt and a few ties, which leads to the next point. - Learn how to tie a double windsor knot. - Watch your mouth. Everything you say can and will be used against you. Musicians are a tightly knit group and trashing people or other groups in front of a band of five people is almost the same as yelling it into a bullhorn at Yonge/Dundas Square. Word travels quick. Freedom of speech may save you from government persecution but it does nothing to stop individual people from hating on you. I once mentioned that I really don't care for The Beatles and I think they were one of the first "boy bands" to a bunch of musicians and you would've thought I just denied the Holocaust! - Play with older musicians whenever possible. They have great stories and damn good advice. TWICE (2009 and 2010) I was taken into secondary inspection at Pearson Airport before getting my P2 Visa stamp to work in the United States. Border guards are assholes and will treat you like shit even if you give them no reason. A Sax player named James Warburton told me that whenever he crosses the border he dresses as well as possible and has no problem. Considering I was wearing a Hendrix shirt, had an unkempt beard and long hair I was probably asking for it. - Prepare to be poor. In the last ten years I have taught thousands of lessons, traveled the U.S and Canada playing in some of the most prestigious theatres to thousands of people, had bar tabs in the hundreds of dollars, seen the beaches of Hawaii with a guitar strapped across my back and had articles published in magazines, but couldn't afford a box of Kraft Dinner a couple weeks ago. It happens. You know what else happens? Getting boatloads of money for playing guitar. It's ups and downs that make life interesting. -Play with older musicians whenever possible. I can't stress this enough. If some opportunity came up with a band and your guitarist buddy who is your age (and just as hungry) heard about it first, do you think he'll tell you? Fat chance. At some point the greed and need of young players trumps helping others. Older players are more seasoned and probably busy in their own right. They have no problem helping out a young player trying to make it. It's very rare that a young player helps another young player. Take a look at some of the bands in the city, ever notice how a lot of them are the same people? There's a reason for that, and here it is. -Nobody gives a shit how good of a player you are. They would just as soon hire their friend to play in a band then hire Eric Johnson. This is a little like the high school popularity contest. It never really ends. - Happiness can make you lazy. I struggled harder to get work and make a living when I was new to the city, didn't know anyone and was miserable. Good times. No seriously. I got more accomplished. - Don't date someone that can't hold down a job, doesn't support you one hundred percent or is a musician. That last one is open to debate but it directly relates to the first point. You're going to go through periods where you don't make money. It happens, deal with it. If you are in a relationship with someone who doesn't have your back you are fucked. You'll get kicked to the curb in those bad times. - Carry extra strings, side cutters and a string winder with you. Twice I've been at someones else's gig and they popped a string on their only guitar, and once I lent my guitar to them while I changed their string for them. Oddly enough, I have only broken two strings at gigs in the last ten years. Once in Picton at a bar and during the opening night show of Cats. <-- That one sucked. I had to read an 8va part without a high E string, plus I was nervous. Luckily, I used to practice this. - Practice "disadvantage exercises". If you break a string on your guitar, leave it off and pick up some music to read through or practice songs your band plays without that string. What if you were about to go into "Sweet Child of Mine" at some packed bar in Oshawa at 1:30 am and you didn't have a high E string? Do you think the dance floor will understand your predicament? The last couple times I broke a string, nobody noticed until the end of the set or act. - Get a copy of "How To Win Friends And Influence People". Read it. Read it again. - Save money for retirement. Get a copy of "The Wealthy Barber". Read it three times. Open an RRSP or a TFSA depending on which one works best for you. This could be the most important tip in this article and should be studied as meticulously as possible. Read books, ask older people like those guys you should be gigging with whenever you can. - For the guys, think with your brain not your dick. Don't follow your penis around like a divining rod. Paying child support to a woman you can't stand who is raising your kid to hate you can't be fun. I'm not in this boat, but I know some who are. - Be able to authentically reproduce any genre and tone associated with it. As much as we strive to have our own sound and be unique, being able to mimic other players is an ability that can make you useful in studio and teaching settings. - Learn how to defend yourself. A few months of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai can make you ready for just about any drunk asshole who wants to prove his manliness at 3 am in Belleville. -Drugs, drugs, drugs. Which are good? Which are bad? When I was a kid I was shocked to find out who was smoking weed, as I got older I was more shocked by finding out who DIDN'T. Whatever, it doesn't work for me. I can tell you this much, you may think you sound awesome when you're baked, that you're tapping into this other dimension of creativity but ninety percent of the time you sound like shit to the sober people in the room. Put down the bong, pick up a book instead. -True expression starts on the inside and works its way out. Not the other way around. Dressing like you are in a Rockabilly band doesn't make you a good rockabilly musician. -Never underestimate the power of music. We live in an age where you can hear whatever you want whenever you want for pretty much no cost. It can, and it has cheapened music in a way. Fortunately the ones hit hardest by the changing "paradigm" (remember when that was the hot buzzword of the year?) were the ones that deserved it. Shitty, formulaic products have been pumped out of studios in New York, L.A and Nashville for decades just to make money with little regard of the musical content. It can make one cynical and jaded pretty fast. But there are moments where you hear something that catches your attention. Not just for the length of a single but the whole fucking album. There are moments when you go to a venue and a guitarist plays things that sound like absolute magic. These moments are few and far between, but they are the ones that matter. Let's look at the next extension of pentatonic, combing the second position from the previous lesson with a third position. It's a little easier to stretch out in this area of the fretboard since the frets are closer together as well. Examples 1 and 2 show the two positions as they are normally played and Example 3 is the three note per string combination of the two positions. Example 4 is a descending four note sequence using both positions. Use alternate picking on this one. It's much easier to perform a pattern like this using a three note per string scale on guitar than the standard two note per string scale. The fourths can make the fingers trip over themselves sometimes, stretching out to a higher position alleviates some of the awkwardness. Example 5 is the same pattern in ascending form. Example 6 is a legato three note per string scale with some string skipping. Real easy to fly through this one, but not so easy to keep everything rhythmically smooth. USE A METRONOME! Example 7 combines all three positions of Pentatonic covered so far by using left hand tapping for the upper position. Again. timing is key. Start with the metronome slow and gradually work up the tempo.
Breaking out of the box one position at a time. Example 1 is the old pentatonic scale position we all know and love, example 2 is it's next door neighbour. When we put them both together we get example 3, a three note per string pentatonic pattern. It's interesting the way certain notes repeat themselves. A little unpredictability. Next are a few licks to use this extended scale with various forms of right hand picking. Example 4 uses a descending pentatonic with sweep picking. Performed quickly is sounds very much like an Eric Johnson lick, just a lot easier to execute. Example 5 is the same idea only ascending. Example 6 is a seven note sequence that sounds great over 7/4 or a 4/4 time signature. When played in 4 the accents end up in strange places throwing the ear off a little bit. This one can be alternate picked or economy picked, whatever seems easier. Try this with the metronome and count to four while playing the pattern. Example 7 is the same odd note sequence in an ascending pattern. Example 8 and 9 (on the PDF) use hybrid picking and a more angular, intervallic approach. This one sounds pretty modern as far as pentatonics go, almost like an Allan Holdsworth lick. Both ascending and descending versions of this pattern use the right hand forward and reverse roll patterns covered in Crosstraining for Guitarists Part 2 http://jeremyrouse.weebly.com/1/post/2012/09/crosstraining-for-guitarists-part-2-banjo-rolls.html
This lick is from Toronto guitarist and session ace Giordan Postorino. It's a clever use of intervals to spell out the half whole diminshed scale, starting with two major thirds into two perfect fourths. Too good not to share.
To be played fingerstyle. The feedback sound at the end is an analog delay going into oscillation. Just adjust the repeats knob to maximum until it starts feeding back and lower the level to compensate for how loud it gets. Happy Halloween! Basics, basics, basics. I was jamming with Mike Eckert today (a pedal steel and dobro player) and we were going over the basic right hand technique of the rolls I had talked about in part 2 of the Crosstraining lessons. For a player to get a feel for the syncopation of repeating a three note phrase over common or cut time it's necessary to repeat the basic pattern until it's 1. become muscle memory 2. the ear can track where the one is at all times. The second part is the hardest. Set the metronome to 80 or slower, and play Ex.1 non stop. After a while it's going to be hard to figure out where the "One" is in 4/4 time. Feel which right hand digit is playing the downbeat, even accent that note if it helps. Trying to silently count to four to yourself while doing this at the same time can help find some balance in a lopsided sounding pattern. Repeat the same process for Ex.2. I find my right hand and forearm tense up on this one and it might be because I have a tendency to bend my hand back toward my forearm, but so does Canadas greatest tele picker Steve Piticco! Nuff said. Ex.3 combines the forward and reverse rolls. Once you feel comfortable with the first two examples give this one a try with the metronome. Ex.4 is the same forward roll with one small change, a technique called "double thumb". Use two downstrokes in a row followed by the middle finger sounding the highest string. It takes a little getting used to but after a while it feels a little more comfortable than using the m and a fingers together. It worked for Danny Gatton and it's still working for Johnny Hiland.
This lesson is about adding some chromaticism to your scalar lines using the 8 note bebop scale. It's basically a Mixolydian scale with a major 7th added as a passing tone. By adding this note the chord tones line up nicer rhythmically when played as 8ths. Play the first two examples to get your ears and fingers around the scale. There are two different positions of the scale shown, both in C to facilitate the devices we will be using a little later.
This lick is straight out of David Bakers How to Play Bebop Vol.1, a great book to pick up if you want to incorporate some of the classic jazz vocabulary into your own playing. Descend from the root of the bop scale in whatever key you want (all these examples are on C for clarity) jump up a third, down a fourth and down a second. Ted Quinlan, head of he guitar department at Humber College in Toronto called this the "Thank you David Baker" lick. The next example show the David Baker lick descending in two octaves. See the symmetry in the shape? This is an easy one to splice right in to your improvisations, it starts on the root of the chord and starts on beat one. No need to get a run at it. The next two examples are an ascending bebop scale with the Baker lick thrown in using both the positions of the bebop scale from the beginning of the lesson. David Baker had another device he called "Deflection", where you pick a tone (he used the fifth) and bounce around adding extension to the line. It makes more sense if you play it. Get it? Here is deflection from the root followed by deflection from the fifth. A great way to extend and add some colourful stuff. I saved the best for last. A combination of the "Thank you David Baker" along with deflection from the fifth using the bebop scale. Try to splice this in to your own soloing. How about using deflection on a Pentatonic scale? Or adding passing tones to other modes to hear the effect a single extra pitch can change the rhythmic sound of the scale. How to Play Bebop Volume 1, David Baker Jazz Line from Inside Improvisation, Jerry Bergonzi |