Anatomy Of A Show

Flaming June is upon us, and as we dive into summer I've been privileged enough to kick things off with involvement in a show organised by a good friend of mine in support of the British Heart Foundation. This show was an extraordinary undertaking, and I'm very pleased that it went off so well. Although I was only involved in a supporting capacity, watching the sheer amount of work that went into organising it – everything from venue hire to instrument changes – got me thinking about the staggering variety of skills that are represented in a show like this, completely aside from the musical aspects of learning and performing the repertoire.

First off, deciding on and securing a venue, and setting a date. Even this basic element is riddled with complexity – the more people involved, the trickier it is to ensure everyone's availability and make sure the venue is at least relatively accessible for everyone. So the date has to be picked and settled on months in advance, and everyone involved needs to take this as a solid commitment. Ditto location – and with large amounts of equipment to be hauled around, parking and accessibility are considerations. It is astonishing how many venues decide they're going to book a band, and then fail to provide anywhere for them to park and expect them to lug everything up a single rickety fire escape. Not really a great option when you're dealing with 4x12” speaker cabs, 88 key digital pianos and so on.

Next – sound reinforcement. This is something that the audience usually takes for granted, but is a real art in itself. Speakers have to be sited properly so that the audience doesn't get left with frequency dead spots, and so everything is clear and audible. For a show involving 4-5 guitar players, keyboards, drums and bass as well as 3-4 different singers, there are a great many sounds to balance – careful EQ-ing has to take place to ensure the instruments don't tread on each others' toes. If the sound is badly mixed, by someone who doesn't understand how different frequency soundwaves behave, the result will be a deafening, muddied mush for the audience. Careful soundchecking and and able sound engineer is a must (and of course, must be available for the selected date and venue- more headache for the organiser). Thorough soundcheck for a show like this can take two hours – and let's not forget that the acoustic properties of the room will change hugely from being empty to full of audience. All this has to be compensate for during soundcheck.

Sound reinforcement doesn't just take place out front either. Good monitoring is essential for the musicians to be able to hear each other and play together. Different musicians will need different mixes and the same rules of EQ apply. Sometimes In Ear Monitoring (IEM) headset systems allow the musicians their own independent mix, but some find the lack of on-stage sound disconcerting and prefer the old style “wedges” - speakers blasting monitor feeds back onto the stage. Poor placing and control of the wedges will result in feedback loops and a very unpleasant experience for audiences and players alike.

Many shows also involve a strong visual element, and this has to be synchronised with the music. Video screens have to be placed, any props made ready, projection angles checked to ensure that there are no distracting shadows or blockages when the videos are projected. Musical and visual cues have to be set and agreed upon with both performers and engineers. The video part of this show was essential to the overall effect and very, very effective – well done to all involved!

Come the big day itself and everyone needs to know their entrance and exit cues, their routes on and off stage, and behind the scenes a bewildering array of guitars sit, tuned and set up for different songs. My friend Chris, the man behind this show, had the daunting task of not only performing in every song in the show with a variety of different instruments, but also acting as a master of ceremonies, keeping the audience's attention and interacting with them. So it's down to the faithful roadie to ensure the right guitar is brought out for the right song, tuned and with the wireless transmitter is plugged in to make sure there's no unpleasant “thump” amplified through 20,000 watts of PA! All small details, but all crucial to the overall effect.

All in all, last week's show represented the culmination of months of hard work behind the scenes by everyone involved – none more so than Chris, the organiser – and what was visible on stage represented really only the tip of the iceberg. So thank you to everyone who made it all happen, and never forget the guys behind the scenes without whom none of the fun stuff would be possible!

Open Strings Pt. 2

So, as promised in last month's post, some exercises to help overcome “open string blindness” and incorporate this incredibly simple yet powerful tool into your playing.

One of the real cornerstones of the guitar is it's reliance on movable shapes, be they chords, scales, arpeggios etc. By combining movable shapes with open strings, we can easily create very interesting harmonies. Let's start with a simple C chord – shifting the entire chord up by two frets results in a D chord(D – F#- A), but removing the barre and letting the E and G strings ring open we add a 2^nd and 4^th to the basic R-3-5 harmony. It's still essentially major but with an added depth and colour. By finding a basic R-3-5 pattern that these open E and G notes will harmonise with, it's very easy to transform basic rhythm parts into something really quite special.

For example, moving the C up 5 semitones would normally give us a straight F chord, but letting the E and G ring out now adds a 2^nd (the G) and a 7^th (the E) creating a major 9^th chord (R-3-5-7-9). Moving the chord shape up a tone to G, the G will now be doubling the root note and the E functioning as a 6^th, creating a major 6^th chord (R-3-5-6). The E shape is another good candidate – play an E-shape A barre chord at the 5^th fret, arch your fingers to let the E and B strings ring out and you get a gorgeous Aadd9 (R-3-5-9) as the B string functions as the 9^th, the open E doubling the 5^th. Experiment and see what you can find!

Moving to lead patterns, the obvious candidate for experimentation is E minor pentatonic – as the observant of you have probably already noted, the guitar is effectively tuned to E minor pentatonic (E, G, A, B, D = E minor pentatonic, E, A, D, G, B, E = open string notes). A simple exercise to get you started – sequence the old favourite box pattern 1 at the twelfth fret, but this time replace the twelfth fret notes with open strings. It takes a little effort to get the tone even, but the pay off is well worth it, the quirky octave-jumping effect is very ear-catching!

Open string pedal notes are also a great way of connecting arpeggios. The AC/DC classic “Thunderstruck” intro revolves around two arpeggios, B (B root, D# 3^rd, F# 5^th) and E minor (E root, G minor 3^rd and B 5^th). Both contain the B note and Angus Young uses this common tone to connect up the two arpeggios, producing a root position (Root,3^rd ,5^th) B and a second inversion (5^th, root, 3^rd) E minor. Look for other ways to develop this idea – for example, B is the 3^rd of a G chord or the minor 3^rd of a G# minor chord, try experimenting with these arpeggios, or moving them onto different strings.

This post has really just scratched the surface of what's possible with the use of open string notes and a little creativity. Open strings are one of the most unique and natural guitar sounds available, so don't shy away from using these simple but powerful ideas in your playing!

Open String Blindness - Pt. 1

Open String Blindness

That's lucky, it's still April... so, in between gorging on chocolate eggs, I've been reflecting a little on a malaise that seems to afflict many intermediate and advancing guitar players – open string blindness. When we begin our journey with the guitar, the first things we learn are all open string based – open chords, open position scale patterns and melodies, open string blues riffs – but as we begin to progress up the fretboard and master moveable chord and scale patterns, it's almost like we lose the ability to use open strings in our rhythm and lead playing. This is a great shame, as many of the all time classic rock riffs are built around open string patterns. Think of AC/DC's “Back In Black” or Stevie Ray Vaughan's “Scuttle Buttin'” as perfect examples of open string lead or rhythm playing that creates something truly thunderous.

So, what's the problem?

Primarily, it's a simple physical problem of hand synchronisation. As we begin to uncover the secrets of sequencing basic scales such as the minor pentatonic or blues scale, it becomes progressively easier to build speed with the metronome, and one of the main reasons is that both hands are doing something at the same time – both fret hand and picking hand are synchronised and moving to the same metronome pulse. When we start using legato techniques (hammer-ons and pull-offs), the fret hand's relationship to the pulse becomes even more important and so therefore does physically referencing the pulse with a movement.

When we add open strings into the mix, however, that synchronisation goes out of the window. Try a basic E minor pentatonic scale, in open position, sequenced in groups of three or four. Most intermediate players will find this much more challenging than a fretted box position – not only the issue of hand synchronisation, but the simple fact that the open strings lack the tension of their fretted counterparts makes it very easy for the pick hand to get “lost”. Add hammer-ons and pull-offs into the mix and things get even more confusing!

This is a shame, because open strings can impart a fantastic rootsy “twang” to your playing, and also the higher string tension and lower action down by the nut of the guitar make fast legato runs easy and clear – a couple of great examples of this are Steve Vai's “Jiboom” and Brad Paisley's “The Nervous Breakdown”.

The solution? The same as always – focused practice. Program these movements into your hands and have them learn to feel their way around the open strings instinctively.

The payoff can be very impressive – try mapping the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D) along the top E string. Hammering on from, or pulling off to the open E root from any of these notes straight away gives a completely different slant on this familiar scale. Next, try developing the idea – map out the notes along the B string and play them against the ringing open E. This is a great way of creating a fuller sound for solos, especially useful when playing in a trio.

Next time: Some exercises to start seamlessly incorporating open strings into your rhythm and lead playing. Chord voicings, scale/arpeggio ideas and more!

In the meantime, look at the licks and rhythm parts you currently play. Any time you're playing a fretted note that is the equivalent of an open string, try adjusting the part to incorporate the open note instead of the fretted one. This simple idea can freshen up your playing no end!

Training vs Teaching

Blimey, March already? At this rate I'm going to have to get everyone started on their Christmas compositions before long..

Now, in my last post I mentioned the aspect of training your fingers in the same way that an athlete trains their muscles, and I'd like to try and expand on that a little this month and talk about the difference as I see it between teaching and training.

Teaching is all about introducing the student to new concepts, and helping them to understand those concepts by connecting them to information the student already knows. Whether that be a new chord shape, or a theory idea or a scale pattern – teaching is all about imparting that information to the conscious, rational part of the brain, ensuring that the rationale behind the new idea is understood and makes sense.

Training, on the other hand, is all about finessing those movements via repetition and attention to form, until the student is able to call upon these responses instinctively. Using the same athletics parallel we looked at last month, this is similar to a training session in the gym – you may not necessarily learn any new exercises you didn't know before, but by repetition and attention to the detail of what you're doing, you're able to make incremental improvements simply by gradual progressive steps. For example, playing the same scale sequence, but 1-2 bpm quicker, or with a slightly more defined dynamic difference between piano and forte, or just playing the same notes with increased clarity as the pick and fret hands learn better how to mute out unwanted string noise.

Many psychologists view the brain on two levels – system 1, the rational conscious part of our brain that considers things logically and in depth, and system 2, which is the intuitive “subconscious” part of the mind. Both parts are necessary – can you imagine, for example, all the decisions that have to be taken in order to take a breath, or blink an eye? Without the intuitive system 2 which lets us “just do it”, we'd never be able to cope.

Teaching places the information we need in system 1. But without the training aspect, the understanding and the movements we need will never make it into the instinctive system 2 part which allows us to immediately call upon the licks, phrases, scale patterns that we need to improvise in the heat of the moment. Training groups these ideas together into system 2 which allows us to call on them much more quickly, without consciously thinking (often referred to as “muscle memory”).

There are many everyday examples of this duality in action – driving, for example. The processes all have to be learned painstakingly at first, but with experience and practice – training – they become grouped together in the instinctive realm of system 2. An example I use with my students – I have no idea how to to my shoelaces. I just tie them. If I stop to think about it – can't do it. For the first time in a good long while, one of my schools started requiring their peripatetic teachers to wear a tie. I haven't worn a tie in many, many years.. the movements were there, buried deep in system 2, but in order to access them I had to focus my conscious mind on something else completely and do it without thinking about it – effectively taking my own brain by surprise!

Of course, this makes it extremely important that at the first stages of training your fingers to accept new movements, chord shapes etc., you have to pay very close attention to training the right thing into your fingers. Otherwise all you practice is playing badly, and all you will get better at is playing badly. So 10-15 minutes spent focusing intently on your playing can have far greater impact than four hours splitting concentration between guitar and computer, guitar and TV, guitar and Xbox...   

Feel The Burn - A Need For Speed!

As some of you are aware, this year I'm studying for my LLCM diploma in teaching, and as part of the written element of the course, applicants are required to analyse the styles of three prominent electric guitarists. I've chosen Zakk Wylde amongst others, as he's long been a hero of mine due to his brutal, take-no-prisoners playing style – no fancy tapping or sweeping, no poncy exotic scales, just minor pentatonic, furious alternate picking and vibrato performed with the kind of ferocity that could choke a tiger.

Now Zakk's other big passion in life is weightlifting, and it occurs to me as I researched a little deeper that the the one can influence the other. Lifters take a variety of approaches to reach peak strength just as guitar players do to reach and improve peak speed and accuracy. Lifting coaches (yes, I've read up on this) talk about three types of strength – maximum strength, endurance strength and explosive strength, and we can relate this to speed when playing guitar (for convenience's sake, when I talk about speed, I include accuracy as a given – speed without accuracy is just noise, lots of wrong notes played fast is worth far less than one single right note played slowly).

So - Maximum strength for lifters = maximum speed for guitar players.

This can be developed by focusing on two separate paths. Explosive or burst speed and endurance speed. Let's use the spider exercise as a simple example. Suppose your maximum “safe” speed – i.e. with no wrong notes, no notes fluffed and hands perfectly synchronised – is sixteenth notes at 120bpm. If 120 bpm is the fastest you can do it, it will stay the fastest you can do it until you've learned to think and play more quickly. Sitting on 120bpm for multiple repetitions will build solid endurance technique, helping you to get better playing the exercise at that speed – no amount of repetition alone will help you get quicker. For that, we'll need to push the boundaries.

Play the exercise for thirty seconds or so continuously at your maximum safe speed. Then crank the tempo up by 5-10 bpm and just for a few repetitions play absolutely flat out, keeping the speedup even if you fluff some of the notes. This is explosive or burst speed.Then, before exhaustion or cramps set in, return the metronome, this time to 121bpm – just 1 bpm higher than your original safe endurance speed. Having trained your fingers briefly to push past their natural maximum, it's now easier to play at this new maximum speed.

This type of practicing builds speed very quickly – for example, play the same exercise every day for a week, and theoretically you will gain an extra 7bpm maximum speed. Within a month you could be looking at a gain of 30bpm! In practice, gains will likely be smaller as the faster you get, the more difficult it becomes to add speed (the law of diminishing returns), but it is a great way of significantly improving your maximum speed and accuracy. Practice using small scale fragments and patterns to begin with before branching out into longer ideas, and always remember to respect your fingers - “no pain, no gain” does NOT work with guitar playing!

New Year's Resolutions!

Right, it's been 2014 for a little while now, and as I've been quizzing all my students on their musical goals for the new year, I think it's only fair that I share some of my own. After all, if you're not willing to learn, you've got no business trying to teach... and I like to try and lead by example.

First resolution - FLCM (Fellow of the London College of Music). This is the highest level (Level 6 - Master's degree standard) issued by the Registry Of Guitar Tutors. As some of you know, I passed the Level 5 Licentiate exam last year, that one being Bachelor's degree standard. It took alot of work and alot of preparation, but the result was well worth it - so any of you guys going in for grades, know that I've been there too and I know exactly how you feel! I can certainly say that exam day last year was one of the most stressful and nerve-wracking I can remember.

So now I'm devoting half my practice time to the repertoire for this exam, and there are some real finger twisters here.. still, if it's difficult, that means you're learning something (See? I don't just use these phrases on my students... I'm just as tough on myself ;-) ). Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Yngwie, Satch, Megadeath, Paul Gilbert... 2014 is going to be LOUD.

Second resolution - technical development. I think we've all as guitar players been guilty of being unfocused in our playing, trying to go in a variety of directions all at once and getting nowhere. So what I've tried to do this year is get organised and separate technical development into a small group of four areas - pentatonic scales, diatonic seven-note scales, arpeggios and chord voicings. I'm spending a month on each area, changing key each week using the cycle of 5ths (for those unfamiliar with the idea, it means moving up a fifth each time, so for example from C to G, G to D, D to A and so on).

This approach has yielded some strong results - by focusing purely on one area, you are forced to "squeeze as much juice" from each idea as possible.

Pentatonics - octave micro-fingerings, allowing greater fluency across the fretboard horizontally and 3 octave sequenced runs diaginally across the neck

Diatonics - six note micro fingerings and sequenced patterns in 3s, 4s and 6s, also moving laterally in two string groups.

Arpeggios - Sweeping, tapping along single string, string skipping and string skip/tap combined (Nuno Bettencourt style)

Chord voicings - triads and dominant chords reduced down to triads superimposed onto each other - inversions and open voicings

I hope this gives you some idea about how best to organise your practice time for best results - here's to making real gains in 2014!

What Makes A Christmas Song?

Yes, it's been a while since the last post.. blame that peculiar entity, the real world. But we're back now, and as mentioned in the last post, the last couple of months have been all about writing songs for the festive season.

So, what makes a Christmas song work? What makes it Christmassy, and makes the listener get that lovely warm fuzzy feeling, the aural equivalent of a woolly jumper with a big reindeer embroidered on it... Well, over the last few weeks, I think I've gained a little insight into that question, and I'd like to share it.

First off, subject matter. Snow, Santa, reindeers, presents - all the usual. It's always a safe bet. That said, the greatest Christmas song of them all, "Fairytale Of New York" contains none of these lyrical themes whatsoever, so in this business it's never totally cut and dried...

Okay, so onto the musical elements. First off, rhythm. There are no real surprises here, basically 4/4 and to a lesser extent 3/4 rule the roost - only to be expected when these are songs meant for communal (read - drunken) singing and festivities. Look for a healthy smattering of swung rhythms (Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody) and compound time signatures - 6/8, 12/8 and occasionally 9/8 make appearances. There seems to be something about the swaying, cascading feel of triplets that brings out the Christmas in all of us.

Next up, harmony - as you would expect, mostly diatonic, and tending to be based around the I, IV, V and vi chords. Wham's Last Christmas revolves around a I-vi-ii-V chord sequence (the ii of the key being the relative monor of the IV), Fairytale of New York - key of D, revolves around D, A, Bm and G, The Darkness' Don't Let The Bells End largely A, E, F#m and D. One notable exception is Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" which manages to shoehorn a decidedly non-diatonic Bb into the end of the chorus... however, we can make sense of that by looking at the Bb chord tones: Bb (root, D (third) and F. The D provides a useful link, as it is the fifth of the home key of the song (G).

Key changes are also a popular feature for that subtle (or not-so-subtle) lift for a chorus. Again, The Darkness make use of this device as do Wizzard in their classic "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" to lift the chorus. An interesting example of a "phony" key change comes in "Do They KNow It's Christmas

Finally, melody. Thirds are a big component of any vocal melody, and leaps of thirds are especially common in choruses, once again for a lift and something inherently "singable". A classic move is centering on the third for a verse while moving to the fifth for the chorus and resolving to the root for a perfect cadence.

For all the cheesiness commonly associated with Christmas songs, many do bear study as the intent to create something inherently catchy, simple and singable is a quality that we can all try and apply to benefit our songwriting. So dust off "The Best Xmas Album IN The World.. Ever!" and get to work :-)