Ack, sorry, only got a couple more posts to do and then I’m done with the book, but I spent the day doing Dropquest. Distractions, distractions.
And, I found this, which is WAY more useful. Fantastic talk. Watch it!
The answers to everything are in the experiences you have playing with, and for, people. And on records. So:
Get better at listening.
Get more experiences.
But, the THING is how you address the issues that arise from the above experiences. What do you do about it? How do you approach it? Why do it?
There are several examples of people transcribing voices and then orchestrating that somehow. Steve Vai did it with Frank Zappa on The Dangerous Kitchen, Hermeto Pascoal did it a few times, here’s a video of him in action, Henry Hey did Helpsong and more.
You could extend the idea to transcribing whatever is going on around you. Record a day by the ocean, a horse, a snooker match, a comedy sketch. Record some sound you really love, record a situation you hate.
Hit record wherever you are, and then take an interesting bit of that, transcribe it, then do something with it. Play it on the guitar, or set it to a groove, harmonise it, and so on. It’s up to you how you choose to listen, how you select what’s interesting, how you orchestrate it.
Ocean, horse, snooker, comedy. Yeah, that sort of sums up my day.
Try this when you’re starting out. You probably shouldn’t do it after a certain time. You’ll know when to stop.
Imagine, when you next have a gig, stepping into someone else’s shoes. Be them for the next forty minutes.
Choose well.
Try this: Improvise, but have it so that at no point are you not fretting a note. It could be any finger, but there must always be contact with the string.
Next, try it so that there is always some space between every note. It can be any length of space, but it must always be there.
Why?
It’s an exercise designed to increase your awareness of note length. Specifically, I use it when I feel a student is unaware that they might be, for example, not playing any long notes, or just letting notes die off.
You could apply it to any of the things that we all do but don’t pay enough attention to; like vibrato, for instance. Apply the exercise to that: Play, but vibrate all the notes, or play, but use no vibrato.
It’s all about control.