arts week

overall, i was pretty happy with our class arts week performance. I thought everything went pretty well. The intro was good though a bit a chaotic but i guess that was to be expected considering how many instruments there were playing. Just the same, everyone did a good job for paying attention to cues from the conductor so it all worked out. It was too bad we didnt have more groups that had stuff they wanted to play i think there could have been alot more good music if that had been the case. Regardless, the john fox co. performance was definitely a neat idea though it was kinda rough cuz it seemed like there were technical issues and not everything worked out as they planned. Either way it was a neat experiment in improvisation. I was pretty pleased with my performance for the most part although my lead playing didnt really go anywhere, it was kind of random and didnt always go together. But at the same time i guess the class is improvising music not composing music so its acceptable. It was great having the drum and bass behind me to fill out that sound though, i think that was a huge improvement over just the two guitars. when it came time to break up into the groups for the last part i thought things went fairly well. There were definitely some difficult themes goin around and i think we could have done alot better if given a bit more time to plan out our playing. My group did alright considering the randomness of some of our topics. One of the improv sessions that stood out the most to me was the group that did "running of the bulls". I thought that was great and fit the theme perfectly. All in all i was happy with our performance the only thing that i think maybe would have made it better would have been if as a group we all did a big blues/rock jam in a common key. Just because its so easy to sound good in that format i think we really could have turned some heads. But then again that could just be the guitar player in me talking. Either way, great job everyone.

simple music

I notice that as a musician i have alter egos. More often than not I'm all about incorporating as much advanced technique into my guitar playing as I possibly can. But then i have days like today where I honestly think the secret to "good" music as i see it, is to just keep it simple. 3 chords can make great music if used wisely. I dont mean the same old 1-4-5 type blues/rock/folk chords really, just cuz that all tends to sound the same, but rather im just saying to keep it basic. I think there are two major factors that make the difference between simple music that is just boring and monotonous and great music that happens to be based around simple ideas; these are rhythm and dynamics. Rhythm has so much to do with making simple music sound much more interesting, for the simple reason that by playing with the rhythym throughout a song and slightly altering it, the structure of the same piece of music can sound entirely different. Dynamics works in a similar fashion, when a song builds to high point or a climax whether it be due to more distortion on a guitar part, a different rhythym section or a vocalist getting more intense, will always make for a more interesting song than if everything remains static throughout.

triads and other chords

One of my biggest goals lately has been trying to get away from always using the same old barre/power chords in my improv. Muscle memory is a funny thing; obviously if we didnt have this kind of ability it would be impossible to gain mastery over an instrument, but at the same time there is a negative side to muscle memory. It seems as though sometimes muscle memory hinders my ability to improvise simply because my hands want to do something "safe" that will sound good. That probably doesnt sound like too big of an issue but habits such as these tend to lead to music that all sounds basically the same when there are only a handful of chords in each key that will work together. So basically ive been trying to replace my usual chords with different three stringed voicings of the same triad. of course the musical value of these chords are equivalent so you get just about the same sound, however when using these three note chords i find its much easier to quickly alter the voicing by simply adding a finger. Doing this in the right places can instantly lead to minor, sus2, or sus4 chords which can add a ton of flavor to the usual major triad chord changes. Hendrix was a master of this technique and i think his ability to link triads together into these beautiful flowing waves of sound is one of the reasons he is seen as a virtuoso guitarist. To hear this ability in action all one really has to do is sit down with "axis: bold as love" and listen all the way through; "wait till tomorrow", "castles made of sand", the title track, and of course "Little Wing" all demonstrate a pallet of audible colors attained by simply using two and three note chord voicings.

first post

hmm where to begin considering weeks and weeks of good improv have gone by. I guess one of the most important lessons i've learned so far is that the key to good improvised music as a guitar player primarily is to focus on leaving space. With any instrument it is very easy to get carried away and over play your role as a part of the entire group. This is especially true with instruments such as guitar, vocals, or keyboards; too much playing can lead to hard listening. Its almost the same feeling as being talked at nonstop for a long period of time and desperatly wanting silence. I think a sign of being an accomplished musician is being aware of this and only having to use a few well placed notes to get your idea across.
An artist who demonstrates this kind of knowledge is someone like Carlos Santana. Santana manages to find a very simple idea that sounds great and he will play it a few times and modify the timing or rhythm. Once he gets these ideas figured out its usually just about linking them together in a seamless kind of manner. A great example of this is the instrumental "Samba Pa Ti". On the track, Santana tells a story through his guitar playing; it starts out very sad and throughout the course of the song changes to a much more upbeat theme.