The Lone Guitarist

The Rules of Jazz (are not as complex as you might think)

Willem — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:43:41 +0000

Photo: buddhasit

Jazz is complex. If musical styles were subjects in school, then Jazz would be Mathematics.

Do you think this is so? Many readers probably share this view. Jazz is usually considered an advanced style, something that you learn after you’ve successfully progressed through and mastered some of the `lesser’ styles of music.

However, lately, I’ve come to realise that this believe might be wrong, or is, at the very least, misleading. Jazz isn’t inherently complex; it’s just that people tend to make it that way.

It’s simple, but it ain’t easy!

Recently, I have been brushing up on my Jazz playing ability and theory. At some point, something `clicked’, I reached another level in my understanding of the style. Jazz isn’t as complex as I might have made it out to be; it isn’t easy, but like any other musical style, it is based upon some simple ideas and concepts.

I’d like to share my findings with you, in the hope that it might help you understand the structure of Jazz a bit better. If these concepts are obvious to you then more power to you!

Concept #1: Not all chords are created equally

Jazz uses so many esoteric chords: 13th chords, 11add4 chords, diminished 7th chords, et cetera. It can be hard to learn how to play them, and even harder to determine which one you should use, and when.

I used to be convinced that you couldn’t play Jazz properly unless every chord played was a complex one — the more esoteric the better. I used to believe that simply playing a seventh chord, or — heaven forbid — a plain-old major chord would not be `real Jazz’, whatever that meant! I was making things a lot more complex for myself this way, by creating this mental expectation of what Jazz should be.

The realisation is that not all chords are created equal. In essence, there are only a couple of fundamental chords (barring diminished variations): minor, major and seventh chords. The latter can be split into dominant 7th, minor 7th and major 7th chords. These are the basic chords upon which most (if not all) Jazz songs are built.

You could make do with just the fundamental chords in most scenarios. The other, more complex chords are all extensions to the basic chords. But you should remember that they are additions, garnish, if you will. The real flavour comes from the basic, fundamental chords.

Concept #2: The ii-V-I is everywhere

My Jazz piano teacher used to tell me this all the time — the `ii-V-I’ progression shows up everywhere in Jazz. I used to just take his word for it, but in reality I had trouble spotting it in songs.

That is, until I really started listening to the bass. It is important that you learn to recognise what a ii-V-I sounds like, in terms of the chord roots. Take some time to familiarise yourself with the three chord roots played in succession. Once you know this, and you listen to a song, you should be able to spot a ii-V-I progression when it is played.

The ii-V-I can pop up in the strangest places. For example, the `I’ might not be the actual key or tonal centre that you may expect. For example, say you’re playing a V-I cadence. We could make the V a I of a ii-V-I, turning the V-I cadence into a vi-II-V-I.

You can also piece ii-V-I’s together. For example, you can play the following progression: iii-VI-ii-V-I. Note how the first three chords, iii-Vi-ii, make up a ii-V-I by itself. This progression was made famous as being a part of Gershwin’s Rhythm Changes.

Concept #3: Chromaticism is a driving force

The chromatic scale is used a lot in Jazz, and perhaps most importantly in Jazz harmony — chords and stuff.

You can use chromaticism to smoothly transition between two chords or between chords in a progression. We do this by approaching a key note (or notes) in the next chord chromatically from the current chord.

The simplest, most common example of this is the V-I cadence. The major third in the V is a semitone (chromatically) away from the root of the I. This is what creates that tension/resolution. Chromaticism is also a big reason why the Dim7 substitution for the V-I cadence works so well (see my post “Cool Jazz Trick: Spicing Up the V-I Cadence”).

When we piece chords together, ideally we want them to blend together nicely, the transition needs to be smooth. This is where those esoteric chords come in handy. For example, you precede a Dmaj7 by playing an A7#5, where you would normally have played an A7. The augmented fifth in the first chord is a semitone away from the major third in the next.

Another very often used chromatic trick is the tritone substitution for the ii-V-I, where we substitute it for a ii-II♭-I. The chord roots go down chromatically and there is chromaticism going on between the sevenths and thirds, too. For example, play the following ii-II♭-I progression: Em7 – E♭7 – Dmaj7. Can’t get any smoother than that!

And that’s it folks!

I can’t stress the importance of these three concepts in understanding Jazz music. They certainly made things a lot simpler in my mind. Jazz isn’t as esoteric as people might think; it’s good to remember to Keep It Simple!

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What happens when Tommy Emmanuel does Cambridge?

Willem — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:56:47 +0000

Photo: Riru

Things have been moving a little slowly with this blog in the past week. I have been very busy in the real world and, unfortunately, writing about guitar playing has had to take a back seat. Don’t all run away now though; I am working on some new content that should be up very soon, so stay tuned!

In other news, it turns out that one of my guitar heroes, Tommy Emmanuel, will be performing in my home town, and I have got tickets to go and see him! The concert is tomorrow — I can’t wait and am very excited to finally see him in the flesh. It would be even better if I got to jam with him backstage, as that’s what seems to happen a lot before a concert (see here)…!

As a little warm up, here’s a great rendition of “Amazing Grace” by the master himself. I hope you enjoy it, and if you’ve seen it already, it doesn’t hurt to watch it again!

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Guitar Gems, Insights, Tips and Lessons — Volume 3

Willem — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:35:25 +0000

Photo: ohhector

Besides writing blog posts, I enjoy reading posts from other people’s guitar blogs, or guitar-related articles from other sources on the internet. I usually read for inspiration, entertainment, or to educate myself about some aspect of guitar playing.

Reading about playing the guitar, or writing about playing the guitar keeps you connected. It can sometimes be hard to motivate yourself to practice, or even just to play the guitar in the absence of an external trigger. I know that this is true for myself, too!

How To Captivate Your Audience: Expression

Willem — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:43:24 +0000

Photo: Anne Helmond

Back in early 2001, I moved from my native country of The Netherlands to England. The reason I moved was because I had accepted a job there, which I was very excited about. I ended up living in a shared house with three other housemates. This turned out to have a grave effect on my job performance.

I ended up spending nearly every evening in the local pub with my housemates. This was at a time when pubs in England closed at 11pm at night. Luckily for us, we were friends with the landlord who allowed us to hang around after closing time. And hanging around meant more beer for everyone, and for me it usually meant playing some tunes on the guitar. They loved it.

I played covers and my own tunes. I played a lot of tunes back then — I didn’t spend much time practising. I composed a lot of songs, too. The songs I wrote meant a lot to me; I could pour my heart and soul into singing and performing them in front of others.

One night, we were up to our usual late-night antics when one of my housemates (who was probably my biggest fan) remarked,

“I really like the covers you play. But when you play your own songs, it’s different, it sounds even better, you really come to life”.

The alcohol in my system probably prevented me from fully comprehending what that meant, but some time later (and I mean, a couple of months) it was perfectly clear. I was able to express myself completely playing my own songs; my own songs meant a lot more to me than the covers did.

I just didn’t `feel’ the covers I played as profoundly as I did my own songs.

How To Captivate your Audience

This brings me to the subject of expression. Ultimately, music allows you to express yourself on a personal level, so that other people can connect to you.

If you want people to enjoy listening to you, you must make sure that you can fully express yourself through the songs you play. Playing a song that doesn’t really mean that much to you, is like trying to have a conversation with someone where you are reading from a script. It’s hollow; it has no substance.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you should compose your own songs and stay away from covers. No, not at all, although it is in general easier to express yourself it the song is your own. I am saying that if you want to truly captivate your audience, you should pick songs that, when you perform them, touch you right in your soul — makes you glow from inside. When you play a cover, you should make it your own; whether that means that you alter it, or maybe not at all.

If you don’t feel it, don’t play it.

Expression is the end, technique is the means

Expression is the end of technique and the beginning of music. You can’t fully express yourself if you don’t have the skills — being able to let your fingers do the playing and hear the song and melody in your head. You can’t work on your expression until you’ve got the song down cold.

Next time you pick a song to play, choose one that makes you really feel it inside when you play it. Practise it until your fingers are able to play it automatically, and then pour your heart and soul into bringing it to life!

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Mastering Improvisation — How To Use Modes

Willem — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 12:37:22 +0000

Photo: Alexandre Cardoso

If you have been reading this blog for long enough, you will know that I am a strong proponent of keeping things simple when it comes to improvisation. And with `keeping things simple’ I mean limiting the scales that you use for soloing to just the minor and major pentatonic scale, initially, and then view more complex scales and modes as adding notes to the basic pentatonic scales. (See my post “The Secrets to Mastering Improvisation: Connecting to the Fretboard”)

But, in your quest to mastering the guitar, you will one day want to learn more about scales and modes.

What’s the difference between a scale and a mode?

The most fundamental question you can ask is, “what’s the difference between a scale and a mode?”

Let’s start off with defining what a scale means. Take a note, any note. Call this your root note. Now take the note that is an octave above the root note. Now select any number of notes that lie between the root and the octave: it could be one note, it could be two, three, etc. Play these notes in order, from lowest to highest, starting at the root, and ending an octave above. This sequence of notes is called a scale.

As an example, let’s take our root to be an E. Let’s play it on the high E string. The note that is an octave above is the E that is played on the 12th fret. Now, I am going to select the notes G (3rd fret), A (5th fret), B (7th fret) and D (10th fret). There are 5 notes in total excluding the top E. So, my scale consists of the notes: E, G, A, B and D — which happens to be the E minor pentatonic scale.

Once you’ve played these 5 notes, you end up at the E that is an octave higher. You can now continue playing the scale again, higher up the neck. It’s exactly the same scale, because it consists of exactly the same notes, just played an octave higher.

So what about modes?

Now, let’s play this scale again, but instead of starting at the root, let’s start at the second note, or G in our example. We play the notes in sequence, and end at the G an octave above: we play G, A, B, D, E, G.

Note how we used exactly the same notes as our initial scale, with the only difference being that we started at a different note than the root, E. We have played a mode of the scale.

We could construct a different mode of the scale by starting on a different note, say A, or B, etc. So, in our example, there are 5 different modes (one for each of the notes in the scale) of E minor pentatonic, if we treat the original scale as a mode of itself.

What are modes useful for?

Now comes the interesting bit. Notice how a mode is itself just a sequence of notes starting at some note and ending at the note an octave above. So, we can treat a mode as a scale itself. If we do this, we shouldn’t really be calling it a mode anymore, but a scale.

You might have heard of modes being called Locrian, Mixolydian, and other esoteric sounding names. There are seven of these, and they are the modes of the major scale (in C, this would be: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C). They are probably the most well-known of the modes, and people have given them names because of this. Collectively, they are called the diatonic modes.

Now, these modes can be seen as scales in their own right, as I’ve just described. So, what are they useful for?

Well, the diatonic modes have several uses. One of them is that you can use certain modes over certain chords, to improvise.

Another use, which I find a bit more intuitive is that each mode has a certain feel to it. The Ionian mode, for example, sounds happy. The Lydian mode has a harmonious, but maybe slightly mysterious feel to it. In other words, you can change the mood and feel of your solo, by selecting an appropriate mode.

Example from a master

To really drive home my point, here’s a video of a guitar master, explaining how he uses modes to add a certain feel and mood to a melody. I hope it gets you excited about how you can use modes to enrich your lead playing.

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How Not To Lose Your Audience: The Importance of Articulation

Willem — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:43:15 +0000

Photo: ashley.adcox

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who habitually slurs their words, skips over syllables, or is otherwise hard to follow because of their lack of articulation? Did you find it took quite a bit of effort to try and understand this person? Was it an enjoyable experience? It very likely wasn’t!

It’s the same story with some guitar players. Their playing can be very good, but there’s something missing — their playing is sloppy. They are not articulating properly.

The anecdote

A couple of years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a local acoustic night. The venue was a small and intimate basement underneath an equally cosy pub/restaurant. The music was good, and it was generally an entertaining night.

There was one performer that stood out to me. It was a woman in her 40′s who sang her own tunes as well as some covers, and accompanied her singing with playing the guitar. There was something missing with her playing, and it wasn’t until about halfway through her set that I realised what it was:

She didn’t fret her notes properly!

Her picking hand timing wasn’t in sync with her fretting hand; she picked a note before her finger had fully fretted it, creating a percussion-like effect. It wasn’t pleasant to listen to. My girlfriend noticed it too, and she doesn’t play the guitar, so this sloppiness was actually ruining the performance.

As a guitarist you should remember the importance of proper articulation. Without out, you will lose your audience, or at the very least you are doing your playing a great disservice. Music should flow, it should capture your audience, not make them work for it!

There are a couple of things that you should keep in mind here.

1. Synchronise your picking hand and your fretting hand

When you pick a note, make sure it’s properly fretted first. This may sound obvious, but it isn’t always easy to do. It’s easy to get caught out when you’re playing a fast passage, particularly one that requires alternate picking.

You can practise this by doing alternated picking drills. Here’s a simple exercise: Start on the lower E string, alternate pick the first, second, third and fourth fret in turn (in tab: E –1-2-3-4–). Repeat this on the A string, the D string, etc. Once you’ve reached the high E string, go down and pick the fourth, third, second and first fret (in tab: –4-3-2-1–), until you reach the lower E string.

Remember to tap your foot, start slow, and increase the speed only once you can play it at a slower speed, without making mistakes and without thinking about it.

2. Make a point to sound out passing notes

The essence of articulation is sounding out every note. Some people refer to this as playing clean. Playing clean should be high on your list.

In particular, really make a point to sound out notes that are hammered-on or pulled-off. These are the notes that will easily get missed or come out way too soft, especially when you play something fast.

As an exercise, you can try the one above, but instead of alternate picking, you hammer-on all the notes on the way up (towards the high E string), and pull-off all the notes on the way down. Try to sound out each and every note, and only speed up once you can play it perfectly and without thinking about it (letting your fingers do the playing) at a slower speed.

Articulation is a corner stone of guitar mastery

Along with staying in rhythm, and dynamics, articulation is one of the corner stones of guitar mastery and together they will keep the audience glued to their seats, salivating for more. There is one other corner stone: expression. I will talk about that in the near future!

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How Should You Keep Your Wrist: Straight Or Bent? (link)

Willem — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:49:28 +0000

I have written a guest post on wrist position for the excellent blog, Not Playing Guitar.

There seems to be some confusion about the wrist position of your fretting hand, and in this post I try to explain that a straight wrist is best.

The link is here: How Should You Keep Your Wrist: Straight Or Bent?.

(The image is courtesy of nothing to hide)

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Guitar Gems, Tips, Lessons and Insights: Volume 2

Willem — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:24:44 +0000

Photo: Sapo Essay

Even when I read about a topic that I already know something about, I tend to read it anyway as it usually gives me a fresh perspective. Approaching things from more than one angle really deepens your understanding and it makes it easier to connect with other parts of your guitar playing knowledge.

Two Exercises that Teach You Dynamic Control

Willem — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:05:09 +0000

Photo: nothing to hide

A huge aspect of guitar mastery is the proper use of dynamics. Dynamics can add a great deal to your ability to move the audience, sometimes literally: play something soft and gentle to draw people in, or play something loud and brash to get people jumping up and down in excitement.

The essence of creating and playing music is to ellicit an emotional response from the listener. As a musician and performer this should be the first thing on your mind when you play in front of a crowd. You want to be able to move your audience with your music, and dynamics plays a huge part in this.

I talked about dynamics before in my post “Adding Depth To Your Playing: Dynamics”. It is a good exercise to watch and listen to the two videos in that post, and then imagine what they would sound like if everything was played at the same volume.

Proper use of dynamics — choosing which part of a song to play at which volume — is a matter of artistic taste and insight, but the mechanics of it falls into the realm of guitar technique. It requires some practice to be able to play something at different volumes. The emphasis, however, lies on some practice; it really does not take much time to master the mechanics, but the effect it has on your music can be many times greater.

Here are two exercises that you can incorporate into your regular practice (or playing) routine that help you master dynamic control.

Exercise #1: The fade-out

Pick up your guitar, and play something: a song or part of a song. Start off playing it at the volume you would usually play it. Now, while you are playing, gradually soften the volume, as if you are listening to the end of a song that gradually fades out. Make sure that you keep in time as you get softer. It is all to easy to change the tempo as you fade out. Resist this temptation. Tap your foot or use a metronome if you need to.

Make a point to relax your fingers, hands and wrists as much as possible throughout this exercise. Proper control is a side effect of relaxation.

Keep on fading out, until you can barely hear the notes. By this point you should barely be strumming the strings, in fact the sound of your fingers moving across the frets, or your pick (or fingers) of your picking hand touching the strings should be louder than the notes actually played.

Can you do this?

Exercise #2: Three different volumes

Again, pick a song or part of a song and play it. Start off playing it at normal volume. Do this for a couple of bars, then play it at a soft, brittle volume for the next few bars. Then play it at a LOUD VOLUME for the next few bars. Rinse and repeat.

Again, make a point to relax your hands, fingers, and wrists. Read my post “Building Finger Speed: Relaxation” if you are having trouble with this.

As with Exercise #1, try to stay in rhythm, don’t slow down or speed up as you play at different volumes.

Pick or no pick?

You will notice that it is easier to incorporate dynamics when you don’t use a pick. Try and master these exercises both with a pick as well as without.

Also, it is generally harder to play softly when you are strumming chords as opposed to playing a melody, or a chord melody. On the other hand, it is easier to play loud while strumming. Again, choose songs for these exercises that force you to learn both.

And that’s it. The beauty of these exercises is that you can easily incorporate them into your existing routine (or lack thereof). Once you have gained dynamic control, it’s up to you to choose the appropriate volume to play at when.

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Guitar Practice: Breaking It Down and the Continuity Rule

Willem — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 15:18:48 +0000

Photo: Rachel Johnson

What is the most important thing to do when you learn to play something new? The answer is, you break it down into small pieces that you practise individually. That way you can spend a lot of concentrated and focused effort on a small part, which — because it is so small — allows you to repeat it many times in a short amount of time.

Not all pieces are of the same difficulty, or take the same amount of time to master. Some pieces will be more difficult to you than others. In fact, there’s probably only one or two pieces (or perhaps just two or three notes) that you really have trouble with.

You should spend a proportionally larger amount of time on these few difficult pieces. Again, because you chose small pieces, you can repeat each one over and over within a short amount of time.

Once you can play each piece perfectly and at the right tempo, you string all of them together, and the job’s done.

Or is it?

Pieces don’t just hang together — unless you use some glue

The problem with practising pieces separately is that, once you get to play the entire thing, you can experience difficulty transitioning from one piece to the next. Because you practised each part in isolation, going from one to the next can produce a slight pause, a hesitation — or in the worst case — you get lost and don’t know which part to play next. There is no continuity, your mind doesn’t yet see the whole picture.

Here is something that I learnt from my piano teacher years ago, which really helps getting this continuity going in your head. Instead of practising each piece in isolation, construct each piece so that it overlaps slightly with the next. This means you play each piece in isolation, like you would normally, but instead of ending it where it should, you add the first (couple of) note of the next piece, every time.

Here’s an overly simplified example. Say you are practising a phrase that goes C, D, E, D, E, F. You decide to cut it up into two parts, and practise each separately: the first part being C, D, E; and the second part being D, E, F. Now, when you practise the first part, you always play, C, D, E, D (not just C, D, E) — you have included the first note of the second part. Then you practise the second part, and because in this example this is the final part, you just practise it as D, E, F.

After you’re done practising each piece separately and you are satisfied that you can play each perfectly without thinking about it, you play the whole phrase. Notice how there is a sense of continuity in your mind, each piece flows smoothly and easily into the next.

This is something called the continuity rule, and it really helps you smoothly transition between isolated parts. It’s a neat little thing to incorporate into your existing practice routine that doesn’t require a lot of thought, but pays off greatly.

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The Lone Guitarist

The Rules of Jazz (are not as complex as you might think)

It’s simple, but it ain’t easy!

Concept #1: Not all chords are created equally

Concept #2: The ii-V-I is everywhere

Concept #3: Chromaticism is a driving force

And that’s it folks!

What happens when Tommy Emmanuel does Cambridge?

Guitar Gems, Insights, Tips and Lessons — Volume 3

Recommended reading this week

How To Captivate Your Audience: Expression

How To Captivate your Audience

Expression is the end, technique is the means

Mastering Improvisation — How To Use Modes

What’s the difference between a scale and a mode?

So what about modes?

What are modes useful for?

Example from a master

How Not To Lose Your Audience: The Importance of Articulation

The anecdote

1. Synchronise your picking hand and your fretting hand

2. Make a point to sound out passing notes

Articulation is a corner stone of guitar mastery

How Should You Keep Your Wrist: Straight Or Bent? (link)

Guitar Gems, Tips, Lessons and Insights: Volume 2

Recommended reading this week

Two Exercises that Teach You Dynamic Control

Exercise #1: The fade-out

Exercise #2: Three different volumes

Pick or no pick?

Guitar Practice: Breaking It Down and the Continuity Rule

Pieces don’t just hang together — unless you use some glue