Re: My music
- From: "Roger E. Blumberg" <rblumberg@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 20:33:52 GMT
> From: Noah Roberts <nroberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
> Newsgroups: alt.guitar.beginner
> Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2005 14:37:36 -0700
> Subject: Re: My music
>
> Roger E. Blumberg wrote:
>>
>> There are pauses, room to breath (a good thing),
>
> I don't know about the rest of you, but that is one of the hard parts
> for me. Sometimes I feel like I should be playing something but nothing
> is comming to mind.
ya, I think we all know what you mean. The pauses are just as important as
the notes, yet we'd like the pauses to be deliberate and deliberately
placed. For those times when you're unintentionally pausing simply because
you're unsure where to go next, can't hear a next bit, here's a couple of
tricks I use in such cases:
- first, relax, be confident that more notes will come to you in a second or
two, and know that some dead air is usually ok (particularly if the last
phrase you played was well chosen and articulated)
- while I'm stalling (as it were), listening for the next phrase to add, I
usually default to adding in a second note, forming a diad (double-stop
interval) with the last note I played, or/and two more notes, the notes of
the appropriate triad-of-the-moment whose notes can be arpeggiated as safe
fill notes. That alone may lead me to, suggest, the next bit I was hoping
for, fill the gap and bridge between phrases, etc. Doing this, of course,
means that I'm very familiar with _the sounds_ of all my possible immediate
neighboring notes on near adjacent strings, no matter where I happen to be
at the moment, meaning I can usually confidently grab the note that would
form just the right double-stop at any given moment. Double stops are
harmonically and melodically _rich_, there's more to feed off of and milk,
relish, pedal, suggest the next possible bits. Similarly, I not only am
confident with being able to grab the right double stop, but the right triad
(to apreggiate) as well. The double-stop will in fact usually be _part_ of
that triad, one leads to the next, you come to immediately recognize the
shape (of the note pattern or voicing on the fretboard) and immediately
recognize common familiar patterns of music, meat and potatoes sequences,
melodic phrases, arpeggios, etc, that reoccur regularly in our music
(because the underlying chord progressions are so familiar and common).
Being able to grab those double-stops confidently is really not so much a
matter of studying theory as it a matter of _doing it_ for years, i.e.
consciously doing it all the time while playing so that it became second
nature, automatic. I don't think at all about theory or note names or
numbers, just _sounds_ I want, and in this case it means the two-part
_harmony_ I want or that would sound nice at any given moment (a double-stop
is a _harmonic interval_, a small "harmony" bit). And yes, this does relate
to _singing_, and singing a lot, improvising _harmomy_ behind the melody
line, by ear, as a matter of routine, your whole life through, starting as a
child before you even got your hands on a guitar. Singing harmony, to songs
on the radio, or in church. or synagogue, or school choir is one of the
secrets. Being a choir boy (or girl) first, or just simply singing always
along with the radio, is a common denominating thread you'll find in many
musician's and composer's early stories once you start looking for it.
Drumming your hands and feet is other secret. If your "training ground" was
to always be seeking the right harmony bit to add, and always be seeking the
right rhythmic bits to add, be able to improvise them _both_ as second
nature, well then you're way ahead of the game, you're "a natural".
- Another good stalling tactic I use, one that's often enough to lead me to
the next bit I want to play, is to slide up to the nearest _unison_ location
of the last note I played (on the next lowest pitched string, five frets
up). This is really just a different way of holding peddling or striking the
last note played a second time, yet adding some interest, sustain, and
expressive phrasing, and just landing in a new position on the fretboard
(five frets up) often suggests something new, some grab or phrase that
naturally follows well, something that would not so readily have been
suggested if I had stayed where I was originally. If the last note I played
had been fingered using my index finger, it's unison (on the next lowest
string) will probably be grabbed with my ring finger, so now I have both a
new position and a new fingering to work with. Often that's all it takes
(surprisingly) to get the juices flowing, hear a next bit.
- another trick to fill up some time, as well as hearing or suggesting next
bits or/and melodic bridges to the next possible bits, is to switch to an
inversion of whatever the triad-of-the-moment is. I find myself doing this
constantly (if I stop too analyze what I just did). Due to the way I play,
I'm almost always aware of the triad-of-the-moment (by ear) and am usually
either actually already fingering it (whether I'm actually playing only one
note of it, or one note of at a time, or not) or I can immediately do (grab
it) and from there I slide into a different inversion of it. Here's an
example of that; let's say the key is currently C Maj, and the song is
currently on the tonic triad C and about to go to F (is the IV of Key C).
Let's also say I was playing some lead and my index finger is playing the C
note on string 5 fret 3. I know, can visualize, the root position triad
constructed from that C note (i.e. the other two notes I'd have to add in or
grab). Even if I'm not fingering the entire root pos triad it's _implied_
already by the fact of my playing it's root (the C note on string 5 fret 3).
So I just slide up to a first inversion C Major triad (at x755xx ) and
arpeggiate those notes and wha-lah I'm melodically that much closer to the
upcoming F chord (which you could find nearby in root-pos triad form at
x875xx ). If you play the example I just gave you'll be able to hear the
forward melodic motion that happens, motion in the direction of the next
chord in that common progression, yet all I was really doing was killing
time or stalling or pedaling the C chord in an interesting way. A nice
smooth bit of melodic fill is automatically suggested between C and F.
I'm going to sent this now, without commenting on the other interesting
things you had to say in the rest of you reply (I'm rushed for time right
now)
later
Roger
.
- References:
- My music
- From: Noah Roberts
- Re: My music
- From: Roger E. Blumberg
- Re: My music
- From: Noah Roberts
- My music
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