In Praise of the Blues

  My musical journey thus far, like most musicians, has had it's ups and downs. It has been filled with moments of achievement, failure, exploration, and monotony. Through, all of this, my perception of music has changed quite a bit over the years. And just like my feelings about Pop Music with only three chords has changed, so have my feelings about the Blues.

 Unbeknownst to me for many years, I actually began my musical experience in Blues based Rock and Roll. I say unbeknownst because I really had no idea how much the Blues has influenced my playing. And now as I analyze Classic Rock Bands such has Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd as well as many forms of Jazz, it's easy to see this. But at some point, the idea of playing and practicing the Blues seemed boring to me. Perhaps it just seemed too familar or just not as exotic as the Jazz I was studying. Whatever the reasons were, I'm glad to say that I've come full circle and love playing the Blue regardless of the setting (ie. Traditional Blues, Jazz, Rock, etc). And, here's why:

• Improvisation- While a standard Blues may only include three chords and 12 measures such as in a Blues in C (ie. C7 F7 C7 / F7 / C7 / G7 F7 C7 G7),  a more sophisticated Jazz version might involve many more (ie. C7     F7     C7     /     F7     F# dim7     C7     Em7A7     D7     G7    C7 Eb7    Dm7 G7). So you can rock out with your pentatonic scales or practice with making the changes with arpeggios, melodic minor, and the dimished scale.

• Musicality-  When learning to hear musical form, you'd be hard pressed to find something more useful than the 12 Bar Blues. When it comes to Pop, Rock, Country, and Jazz, the 12 Bar Blues shows up more often than not and is simply a must for any serious Student. 

• Connection- We've all heard the phrase, "Music is the Universal Language",  right? Well, it's true. And for Blues music, it's especially true. Given the popularity of Blues based music throughout the world, it's no wonder that musicians everwhere often know how to play a 12 Bar Blues. In fact, I've been in situations where I couldn't even speak to the people I was playing with due to language barriers, but when we started playing the Blues, everyone knew what to do and we could communicate through the music. Very powerful indeed.

  Hopefully that gives you some reasons to seriously consider studying the Blues. Even though it appears to only have three chords and twelve measures, there's A LOT you can do with it. And you may find like me that it's really not so simple after all. What it is however, is a beautiful, powerful, style of music that transcends musical genres, language, and even geograhic boundaries. Without Blues, Rock and Roll, Jazz, and many other forms of music may never even have developed. So what are you waiting for? Let's get to it!


Tune in next week for the next installment of Have Guitar Will Travel.

Virtuoso Technique: It's your consciousness!

In my experience, each musical item, as it were, from a symphonic soloist part, to song to a single note, has a working speed. That speed can be as slow as slow motion to any speed above that.

The big defeat that awaits so many students, when unsupervised by an experienced master, is that they do not work at their working speed because of impatience, in most cases. They work usually way too fast or too slowly due to pseudo-perfectionism. That means that, when practicing too fast, they are practicing their glitches/chronic mistakes very, very well, and it shows! And, some stay too long at one speed with a given musical item, when they have already mastered it.

For the slow-fixated person, it is necessary to remind them to define their goal: Are we practicing to play music or are we using the guitar to indulge in a pseudo-perfectionistic mania? Staying stuck at one speed when it has been mastered and the goal attained, is not perfectionism…it is not music making either since the musical goal is to play that part faster.

Perfectionism means work until you get it right and then practice something else that needs to be worked on. Not “kind of right”, put perfectly clear and expressive as it should be, and then do it flawlessly and easily every time you play, like a musician is supposed to do! Otherwise how can we expect to enjoy our music if it is horribly disfigured by us?

So the working speed is very useful because you can tell after a bit that “it is time to play a little faster” at the new working speed…because now you actually can do it easily and perfectly!

Where most fail is that they move to a speed that is a bit too fast for the time being, where they cannot practice easily and perfectly, and so they acquire those glitches and handicaps instead of a wonderful technique! :)

Playing the guitar…very well…requires a very expanded form of consciousness. Such an expanded consciousness is present in all of us, but not often cultivated. Only those of us born with that destiny will spontaneously listen to our inner-master. So in that light it is easy to understand why most of us fall into technical inadequacy and seem unable to get out of that state. We need to expand our consciousness to the basic level of an artist’s consciousness. That means transforming ourselves into something we (mistakenly) think we are not: An artist!

But if we stop, put the smart phone down, put the iPad down, and think for just one moment: If music is an art and artists play guitar..How am I going to play guitar without becoming an artist? or realizing the artist inside myself?..without expanding my mind like an artist? without changing radically the way I experience life, reality, and all human experience?

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Using a Metronome

  During the first couple of years of my playing Jazz Guitar, I  adopted a rather smug attitude towards various kinds of popular music. I felt that in comparison to Jazz with it's extended chords, exotic scales, and complex rhythms, Pop Music seemed.......well, simple. "Why should I bother with songs that only have three chords in in them - what can I learn from that?",  I would often say. For a number of years that was my view and I rarely partook in anything musically other than Jazz or Classic Rock.

  However, one day while in college, I heard another Guitar Player playing a pop tune while I waited for our class to begin. He sounded great and the worst part of it was......HE WAS ONLY PLAYING THREE CHORDS! What was going on here? Analytically, I knew he was only strumming the chords G, C, and D, but I still couldn't account for how or why he was able to make it all sound so good. What was going on here?

  What I began to realize shortly after this experience, is how important timing is. A person with a good sense of timing and feel can almost make anything sound good. This isn't to say that you should play the right notes, but without a good sense of timing, it's very hard to make anything sound very good. And, if you're timing isn't good, you can forget about being able to play with anyone else. Not good.

  What I found was playing with a Metronome or drum machine, was the best way to practice my timing. Playing along with recordings is great too, but it can still allow you to "hide out" in the music, whereas when playing with a metronome, you're much more exposed and have to deal with the time more directly. Ok great - but how do I use a Metronome?

  What I do with my Students, is first have them be able to just play on beat. I'll set the Metronome to around 50-60 beats per minute and have them play Quarter Notes (one note for every click of the metronome).The idea here is not to be able to play fast, it's to be able to play WITH the beat (or simulateously with the beat). And be able to do it for a long period of time. This is the key to playing in time ; you have to be consistent.

  The next thing I usually have people do is work with Eighth Notes, Triplets, and Sixteenth Notes - all at the same initial tempo of 50-60 BPM. This step usually takes longer as the notes seem faster and more is required musically to evenly play the rhythms over each beat. However, these are really the most common, core rhythms used in most music and are more fun! In fact, you can really spend a long time working on these three rhythms and not feel stale.

  Hopefully this sheds some light onto what a metronome is and how important it is to use. In fact, I always remind my Students that the little green quartz metronome in my room is mine and I'm just using it for our class. My point is not to be stingy ; I want them to realize that I too use this thing and it's important to me! I think if you start to use a metronome you'll begin to feel the same way after a short while. Have fun!

Tune in next week for the next installement of Have Guitar Will Travel.

 

What is I-IV-V ?

  If you've played Guitar for more than a few months, you'll have inevitably heard of the phrase, I-IV-V (1-4-5). Visit any music store, online forum, or Music School, and you'll be hard pressed to NOT hear about it. As for myself, snippets of conversations like, "It's just one, four, five, MAN!!", uttered by some grizzled old bass player still roll around in my head from decades ago. So what's all the fuss about? What is I-IV-V?

  Without going into alot of detail about how chords are constructed (see music theory/harmony), let's quickly look at the C Major Scale. The C Major Scale is made up of the notes: C D E F G A B C. It is arguably the most important scale in Western Music, at least from a theory standpoint. And, it's the source of many of the important chords that are used in music. Basically, each note of the scale yields a different chord ; we have seven notes and therefore seven different chords emerge. From the C Major Scale, the following basic chords appear:

• I.   C
• ii.  Dmi
• iii. Emi
• IV. F
• V.  G
• vi.  Ami
• vii. B dim

  Now, if you notice, each chord has a roman numeral next to it, one through seven. Starting to see something emerge? Well, I-IV-V is simply the 1st, 4th, and 5th chords associated with any major scale. In the key of C Major, I-IV-V is the chords C, F, and G. Sound familiar yet? It should!  If I had a dollar for every song made up of C, F,  and G, I'd be a millionaire many times over!! Additionally, the reason these three chords are so commonly used is that they're the strongest and most stable chords in any key. And, they fit into every genre of music, from Jazz, to Classical, to Punk Rock. In fact, the only three chords in most Blues Songs is I-IV-V.

  Not only are the I-IV-V chords ubiquitous, as I hinted at above, they're recycleable. For example, if you learn how to play a Blues in G (G, C, and D), there are a lot of Blues tunes that use those very same chords. You could learn I-IV-V in a handful of keys and be able to sit in on a Blues Jam without even knowing the specific songs. You can think of them as Chord Templates. And, as I mentioned earlier, many genres of music use I-IV-V. If you know I-IV-V in the key of D (D, G, and A), you can play songs like Margaritaville, Southern Cross, and Back in Black (the chorus section). Nice huh?

  So, the moral of this story here is this: YOU GOTTA KNOW I-IV-V! And more specifically, I-IV-V in all twelve keys. You will literally cut the learning curve in half when you get these chord patterns nailed down. Not to mention you'll be on your way to being a great rhythm Guitar Player. And next time someone shouts at you, "Come on, it's just I-IV-V, MAN!!", you'll be in the know! Welcome to the inner circle!

  Tune in for the next installment of Have Guitar Will Travel.

Dealing With Frustration

 Let's face it, if you've played Guitar for any amount of time (or any other instrument for that matter) you'll have inevitably felt the pangs of frustration over your playing. Whether it's a part of a song you're trying to nail or some new, difficult technique, it can be very frustrating. As for myself, I'd like to say that this has never happened to me, but I'd really lying through my teeth! And unfortunately, I don't see this frustration ever completely going away any time soon. However, over the years I have been given some great advice and have found some ways to deal with these various frustrations about my playing, at least to a manageable level. Here are three tips that I think can help.

One thing to realize is that being frustrated about your playing can be a blessing. WHAT?! That's right, if you're always content with your playing and you never feel any frustration, you're probably never going to get very good! Think about it. Without the desire to improve, how would you improve? Getting better at Guitar doesn't happen by magic, you have to deliberately work at it. So while being in the throes of frustration and anxiety over your Guitar playing, try to remind yourself that this all comes from your desire to improve. And if channeled properly, will help you succeed in doing just that.

Another thing that has helped me feel better about all of this is the fact that many famous musicians often feel frustrated themselves. Sure while there are many grand, seemingly invincible master players out there in the world of music, the reality of it is that most musicians wish they were better than they are. I remember watching an interview of Jazz Piano legend Bill Evans where he discussed, "the problem" of Jazz. As he elaborated on this, he basically talked about the enormity of playing Jazz music and how musicians often didn't grasp how difficult it really was. Evans was also quoted as once being terrified of Jazz and improvisation, feeling that he'd never learn how to do it. Additionally, Jazz Fusion guitarist Mike Stern has said the same thing in interviews. Now no one, would ever accuse either of these guys as being bad at what they do yet they've clearly been frustrated over their playing at times.

Lastly, I think the thing that has helped me the most deal with being frustrated over my playing, is trusting in the process and loving the Guitar. If you have a holistic approach to playing / studying, meaning that you work on technique, ear training, transcription, sight reading, etc, you really will get better. You'll have a system of checks and balances with all of the various approaches cross pollinating one another. And of course anything that you love doing is much more palatable, even during the tough times.

So, when you're bummed out about your playing, remember, 1) it can be a good thing, 2) you're not alone - everyone feels that way and, 3) if you work smart and love what you're doing, you will get better!


Stay tuned for the next installment of Have Guitar Will Travel.