lead guitar - phrasing

[duane v]

Without a good vibrato, most solos would fall flat. Just my opinion.

 

I feel the same for the most part, but I really need to cool it on the vibrato with my playing.... Sometimes I use it as a crutch for when I don't hit the notes spot on

[charlie brown]

I feel the same for the most part, but I really need to cool it on the vibrato with my playing.... Sometimes I use it as a crutch for when I don't hit the notes spot on

 

You mean, it wasn't created, for that purpose??!

 

 

CB

[duane v]

You mean, it wasn't created, for that purpose??!

 

 

CB

 

lol..... Well I don't feel so bad now

[Valeriy]

I feel the same for the most part, but I really need to cool it on the vibrato with my playing.... Sometimes I use it as a crutch for when I don't hit the notes spot on

 

I read about Jeff Beck when he didn't hit the note he furiously kicked his guitar speaker cabinet .

 

Sooth to say, I think, all the guitarists during their playing are in reality in interval between the two modes that Andy has specified: “ they are trying to play in their head or out loud...” and “...you are not playing what your hearing in your head, you are hearing what you are playing with your fingers, i.e. your fingers are just going through the motions... Big difference.”

 

Obviously the first case, we (or some of us) are committed to this case for our progress and development when it is necessary to reproduce (to repeat) a melody (or may be a phrasing) from our heads. But in the second case, there can be undeliberate but great finds in playing.

 

Given as this was said here that the player have his innate nuances and that “to be true to your own style” (it is really necessary for own success in music), - therefore, perhaps, the player chooses to be closer to which of the said cases for him.

 

If it is true that I read about Jeff Beck then, as I would suppose, he is likely supporter of the second mode in playing. Though I don't exclude that tired to kick his cabinet he was forced to train also according to the first mode.

[Searcy]

"Do it again on the next verse, and people think you meant it." ~ Chet Atkins

[rct]

"Once is a mistake, twice is jazz."

 

Not sure who said that first. I know our jazz teacher said it to us a lot, mid 70's.

 

rct

[milod]

The Joe Pass thread has this fantastic jazz picker back in his flatpick days on a solidbody hitting notes at light speed. Still marvelous.

 

OTOH, I appreciate it although I can't imagine even coming close. But... it's stuff musicians and a small body of fans appreciate rather like classical guitar.

 

I think that's an entirely different audience than the average saloon gig. Rock concert? I dunno. It seems the beat is more important but then, ditto the average country concert.

 

Even back in the olden days it was said that when jazz stopped being something one might dance to, it died as a popular style. I agree.

 

So... that's something I think "we" need to consider if we're playing for money.

 

m

[snakespan]

I think that's why so many people love blues music. The beat is constant, the bass is constant - its all repetition in 12 bars, but what makes it different and interesting is the lead player's nuances from one repeated phrase to another to add flavour to the song, and then when it comes to the solo, they let rip with great melodic solos.

 

But for the most part, its all repeated sections, but the guitarist sings through his fingers, with every phrase different, no matter how similar. Human emotion through your fingers.

[zigzag]

Even back in the olden days it was said that when jazz stopped being something one might dance to, it died as a popular style. I agree.

 

So... that's something I think "we" need to consider if we're playing for money.

 

I remember the 1988 movie, "Bird" (great flick, btw), about Charlie Parker and how towards the end of his life, he is standing outside a concert hall listening to the sax player in a R&R band. After listening to a full movie of Bird's playing, '50s R&R sounds pretty tame and simple in comparison. Bird's disappointment at the popularity of the simple sounds is apparent as he struggled to gain popularity with his more complex and esoteric aesthetic.

[milod]

Ziggie...

 

Ain't seen the movie, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

I think that those whose playing/composition is over the heads of the general public will have to resign themselves to being a niche musician, like it or not.

 

I think that sez it. How many "classical" music nuts regularly listen to Bartok string quartets or...

 

m

[Searcy]

This is my favorite guitar play. As a kid I wasn't really sure why I liked him more than all the other shreader out there. Finally it hit me that his playing was all about melody. That was a big light bulb day.

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

First of all, the music is in the details. Melodic content, phrasing, dynamics, ornaments, development, and so on. These are the things that make music out of notes.

 

Plus you have to play to the audience you chose and for the genre of music you are playing.

 

I would not play country licks in a bebop song any more than I'd play bebop licks in a country song. But I might let either genre influence what I'm playing in either style. Hopefully with taste.

 

Charlie Bird's guitar playing in the great Getz/Bird album "Jazz Samba" is a nice example of this. While playing jazz runs a few times on the album he throws in a short country-influenced lick -- and makes it work.

 

If you are playing to the audience, play to the audience you have.

 

I love 'classical' music, mostly symphonic from the romantic era to the contemporary, and mostly the Eastern European to the Russian composers, although I also like much Spanish, French, etc. But I would never play that way to the pop audiences that I play for. It just wouldn't work. On the other hand, some of the tricks that classical composers use to develop themes in their symphonies can be very well used in an improvisational solo in a pop song.

 

In regard to art, I've heard the phrase "god is in the details" and also "the devil is in the details" and for me the details in music include phrasing, melodic content, dynamics, development, ornaments, and so on. BTW, ornaments include vibrato, note bending, mordents, trills, scoops, hammer-ons, staccato, legato, articulation, and so on.

 

Notes

[Daryl M]

I've always thought that one of the reasons for the success of the Eagles what that their guitar lines were as memorable as their lyrics. When I think of the opening to "Lyin Eyes" and "Life in the Fast Lane" and the guitar breaks in "Hotel California" and "I Can't Tell You Why", I can sing every note. They were masters of the melodic hook.

[This_Dying_Soul]

I know any solo I play is basically a melody I have in my head that kind of fits the chord structure that I'm playing. Simple can be effective, like in this jazzy blues backing track. The tendency in soloing for me is to cram notes and rush things so restraint is a good thing for me.

Here is a vid of what I'm talking about. It's been posted before. Please be kind to this guitar hack.

 

 

very tasteful and nice tone. I probably would have something similar but maybe with a bit of a dirtier tone. not super saturated, but on the verge where if I dug in hard the guitar screamed and if I gently plucked the strings it was nice and clean... maybe done some jazzy octave stuff too.

[This_Dying_Soul]

IMHO

There is soloing, then there is improvisation...How many memorable solos can you name? Probably too many to count, from Bill Hailey through today every great hit has a great solo in it that (no pun intended) hits a chord in most listeners. Reelin in the Years, Black Magic Woman, Layla, Sweet Melissa just to name few. Those solos may have been a improvisation at one time, but by the time the artist is in the studio that thread of a improvisational expression has become a well rehearsed solo...a polished gem, cut from raw ore, embellished and memorized so well the audience knows it as well as the artist who created it...

If solo is a raw gem, improvisation is mining... in hours of "jamming" or improv a artist may find a few "riff's" or solos they keep and polish and keep in a song..

It's style, dynamics and fine nuances such as vibrato, attack & phrasing that makes a solo artist stand out, speed can surely be a part of dynamics but is not a requirement..IMO speed is more impressive to other musicians then to listeners how may not play a instrument or have any music training.

 

 

When I was writing and performing I found I did things 3 ways... first, I improvised my solos and as cool ideas came along I began to repeat them the next time I played the solo. second, I eventuall had a fully formed solo I played the same every time based out of those cool ideas. Then after doing this for a while I began to improvise again on these solos, retaining key parts, expanding on some of the ideas in the composed solo, and even thinking up entirely new parts and then switching parts out for others until eventually I had multiple solos that I could play on any given night.

 

That third step where I begin imporovising within the framework of the worked out solo until I have multiple worked out solos is kinda fun as it challenged me to keep things familiar but change it up enough to keep having fun with it and people who saw us play frequently were never sure if I improvised or played something composed. Throw into this the fact that by this stage I was so comfortable with the song that I could improvise on it at will and nobody could really tell when I was improvising and when I wasn't except for the band.

[milod]

I dunno if melody is the only thing in a way...

 

I've been thinking about this a long time since the thread began. Say the words "lead guitar" for "rock" and automatically I think of Chuck Berry and the lead-in and solo in Johnny B. Goode and, frankly, very similar stuff in a lotta his tunes.

 

It isn't really melody from the lyric, but is kinda a commentary on it. Then I got to thinking about earlier rock guitar leads and some of the stuff since then as legions of pickers brought to the table what they had in talent and skill.

 

Frankly I think some end up working to showcase the skill and talent rather than enhancing a song.

 

Whether that latter is pleasing to the audience or not is perhaps up to debate and up to a given audience, but I've a hunch it will be seen roughly the same way as jazz was seen when it got more complex - and the audience shrank to a group that appreciated that sort of thing as opposed to a song they could whistle and dance to.

 

m

[Notes_Norton]

The more abstract the art form gets, the smaller the audience gets.

 

That's why swing band music was mainstream pop while bebop was a niche market.

 

That's why hook/melodic rock is mainstream music while shredding is a niche market.

 

That doesn't mean the art for a niche market is bad art. It just means you can't expect it to become mainstream.

 

Notes

[jaxson50]

The more abstract the art form gets, the smaller the audience gets.

 

That's why swing band music was mainstream pop while bebop was a niche market.

 

That's why hook/melodic rock is mainstream music while shredding is a niche market.

 

That doesn't mean the art for a niche market is bad art. It just means you can't expect it to become mainstream.

 

Notes

[milod]

Bob...

 

I think you nailed it on popular vs special niche.

 

Also, rereading through some of this I hit one that really caught my eye

 

Duane V: "Though I feel I have good phrasing, and I can come up with above average solos.... I have to fight my ego to stay within myself and the context of a song..."

 

I may be wrong, but I think when you get to a given level of functionality, it's easy to play at your limits rather than necessarily what you might in retrospect feel is far more musical within context of a song. It's a battle I think is too easy to lose against one's own ego.

 

m

[zigzag]

Mainstream pop is craft, which is not really art at all. That doesn't mean the performers are not artists. But that is another discussion for another thread.

[AlanH]

and we shouldn't confuse mainstream with popularity.....

 

I wouldn't regard AC/DC as mainstream yet they have made the second best selling album of all time after Thriller and it's had very little air play. A lot of people listen along to pop music on Radio or TV as something to have on in the background.

[milod]

Ziggie...

 

I'm not sure I agree with you on that.

 

I think mainstream pop is an art, but it's usually an art that involves a smooth mix and considered combination of sounds. In a sense it's also what one does in more "classical" styles where the mix is more important than what one of three to five artists are doing individually.

 

I'm reminded of the old days when there would be a lot of rehearsal, hollering, moving people, mikes and even bits of music, around and then ... one or two takes and it's there.

 

The art is getting parts to fit together as a whole that expresses the combined art of the musicians. Heck, Chuck Berry was "mainstream pop" and so have been the Beatles and lotsa other stuff ranging from jazz-like "The Christmas Song" to a thousand other stylistic variations that still had that "something" that would last in the mind of the overall general music audience.

 

Yeah, the craft is in the recording technique but even that might be considered part of the "art."

 

Of course, I'm considering "mainstream pop" over the past 55 years or so. Julie London's "cry me a river" was considered that, and yet with Kessel's minimalistic jazz guitar... I cannot consider it "not art."

 

I ain't really talking lady gaga or today's highly scripted vids, either. Then again I'm not sure that they're not art too - just art I don't care for much.

 

Frankly in a sense, I'd even consider Beethoven's Moonlight as "mainstream pop" 'cuz you could run it on almost any radio station other than a hardcore rock or country station simply as an "oldie." A huge audience recognizes the piece even if they're not into "classical." Ditto Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Jingle Bell Rock... etc. <grin>

 

m

[rct]

Mainstream pop is craft, which is not really art at all. That doesn't mean the performers are not artists. But that is another discussion for another thread.

 

 

I disagree. The mainstream pop artists are a neccesary evil. The songs themselves are sometimes complete masterpieces in 5 minutes or less. The people that write, arrange, record, play them, all artists in their own right. I don't care for anything on the radio that I haven't listened to in 20 years now, but when I do catch something great on the hits one sat or the teevee set, I'll iPod it and sure enough, the same high quality stuff. NashVegasTownVille has same dealio, pop country is hated by the hardcore, right? But man, some of that stuff is just beautiful work.

 

In short, I'd give my eyeteeth go work with some of those mainstream artists that are making that music. Them are some serious players doing serious work, they just happen to have some goof that doesn't mind makin a foola themselves out front.

 

rct

[rct]

My favorite example. Strings doing the original power chords, piano from heaven really well recorded, drummer is going to hurt someone, guitar player not much to do sure, but I'd stand there all day for half the money and play this. I wouldn't care about the gum snapping drive through kid out front, just hope her parents invest well for her. But the music? Man, put it in the headphones, it's some GREAT stuff!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek&feature=player_detailpage

 

rct

[rct]

Favorite NashVegas example. Man, they hated this guy and his stupid heart. But MAN, the two Swedes that wrote this one created some real beauty. Put it in the headphones, Nashvillio recording of perfection in instrumentation played by masters, all done at it's best. Poor Billy, his daughter prolly worth a hunnert times what he is!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12ikFL1QRY&feature=player_detailpage

 

rct