It is so easy to look at teaching as a doorway for the student. My teaching philosophy is aimed at teaching my students using the music they like and enjoy. I have found that most often this gives better results because of a higher motivation. Sure the price is extra homework for the teacher but that can also be a blessing.
My students have a wide range of musical tastes and any given day might make for playing and teaching finger picking or very basic tunes to heavy metal, technique dense tunes by Extreme, Dragon Force etc to smooth jazzy stuff. However since my students come from various ethnic backgrounds I am introduced to some great music from countries other than New Zealand, Australia, America and the UK. I am especially joyful about the Asian contributions such as the videos below which are the results of this weeks schedule.
Asian Pop and Rock
A Chinese song, that’s all I know.
And from Korea, I am especially enchanted with Younha
But at the same time I got to learn about Gojira a French band
and with another student we are working on this very cool Miles Davis tune called So What:
to follow that up in the next hour with Dragon Force
And this is just a very narrow cross selection of what passes by my desk.
THANK YOU ALL STUDENTS FOR PROVIDING ME WITH ALL THE MUSIC YOU WANT TO PLAY AND I SUBSEQUENTLY GET TO PLAY AS WELL.
It is linked too facebook, twitter, has a newsletter and all in all very feature rich. Thriugh virtual strings you can learn more about the performer you are watching, get tabs, buy songs on i-tunes, learn more and buy their amp models and guitars and even upcoming concert tickets all from and through the site.
Recently I have been following several discussions on what is commonly referred to as shredding, not in the least because one of my good friends called me a shredder even though we were playing jazz. The questions central in several of these discussions was: is shredding a waste of time or not?
Shredding?
It is good to keep in mind that guitar shredding is not understood in the same way by everyone: some associate shredding with simply playing very fast and others reserve the term for fast playing in a metal context.
I will go for the broader term, if only because that covers a broader spectrum and gives this post and others to follow on the subject matter more room to maneuver in. So for the sake of this post and hopefully subsequent discussion, I will understand shredding as playing fast to extremely fast runs regardless of the style of music.
I will add the following qualification though and that is that I see shredding as not just playing any fast series of notes but a meaningful series. Some will regard this as playing in key, I will just keep it as a meaningful series of notes. I listen to people like Michael Brecker or David Liebman both amazing saxophone players and they sometimes play outside, for the guitarist one could think of people like Frank Gambale, Mike Stern or Scott Henderson.
In the rock genre people like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert spring to mind, in blues you could think of Stevie Ray Vaughn or Joe Bonamassa, gypsy jazz players like Stochelo Rosenberg for the acoustic guitar or what to think of John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Larry Coryell or in the more traditional styles of jazz guitar, people like George Benson, Joe Pass, Pat Martino.
I think we can conveniently say that whatever style of music, there will be those that express themselves with fast played runs and some that use lesser notes to convey their message, and than there is at all times a category of people that think they can impress and entertain by fast for the sake of fast and use shredding as a means to get recognition. I also guess that that type of recognition swiftly fades: what would you like to hear after a concert? “Wow you are fast and technical” or “wow your music really touched me”. When shredding is done for the sake of fast, it will become boring without a doubt, just as slow for the sake of slow becomes stale at some point as well.
Shredding is a waste of time proponents
I cannot help but feeling that those who think that shredding is a waste of time are those that are not able to when asked for it, and in all fairness some circumstances require a bit more notes than others.
It seems to make no sense to equalize fast playing with soulless and senseless. here’s one such response:
To paraphrase Shakespeare; “It is a sound made by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” What about melody, rhythm, sensitivity, feeling and interplay and empathy between musicians? But I know these are boring old fart qualities for all you young whippersnappers. These days it’s all about speed, volume and excess. Can’t use it myself. As Lowell George (but you won’t know who I’m talking about any more than I’ll know who Dimebag Darrell is (I do, but that doesn’t mean to say I advocate it)) said – it’s not what you play, it’s what you leave out.
While there may be some obvious truth in all this, there is also the matter of expression. I compare it to people: speak to a Frenchman or a Spaniard and you’ll notice (despote all these wonderful language lessons) that it is very hard to keep up with the speed. In fact when I returned to the Netherlands for a short intermission, even though Dutch is my first language, I found it hard to keep up as I am now used to the slightly slower pace of Kiwi English.
I guess so it is to some extent with to shred or not to shred. It is in part a matter of personal taste as to whether or not to use fast playing as part of how you want to express yourself. I personally do not see anything wrong with playing fast at times and it would be shortsighted to dismiss it all together. Yet most often the people that do just that are those that cannot do it even if they wanted it.
Shredding is not a waste of time
I see myself in this category but with a very distinct but. I separate shredding as part of my practice regimen from how I express myself, as that may differ widely from occasion to occasion.
In my practice regime shredding in all styles of music plays an important part. Not because I see fast as an ultimate goal but because being able to do fast enhances my technique and moreover have found that practicing shredding has had considerable impact on how I am now able to execute music also on a slower pace. If your technical boundaries are further away it makes it so much easier to execute those other passages with greater confidence and accuracy, being able to make every note you play count.
Using theoretical knowledge I have found that some of the harmonically dull arpeggio studies, scalar runs and pentatonic stuff gets a completely new life when applied in a different less obvious context. It is great if you hear certain faster lines in your head and you are actually able to execute them while improvising, and this applies for my rock playing, my jazz playing and at times even when I am playing in church.
When done with taste there is nothing wrong with playing fast, blisteringly fast even, but it is not the be all and end all. At the same time shredding and the practice thereof has helped me improve overall and if you want to keep growing as a guitar player I would not rule out anything new. I remember well how I could fall back on tapping techniques where I could not keep up otherwise in a gypsy jazz setting, how I found very similar licks in both my gypsy jazz study material and my heavy metal lead guitar materials. It is really amazing to see what happens to blistering fast pentatonic riffs when applied in a jazz context or when you play those longer and shorter arpeggio riffs over a jazz standard or in a modal jazz piece using chord substitution theory. Most off all it has substantially contributed to my accuracy especially in an improvised setting.
In fact I think I will make August the shredding month.
Some examples of what I consider tasteful shredding
Personally, nothing beats getting a copy of the Total Guitar or Guitar Techniques and subsequently placing myself in a chair in the sun in the garden or cuddling up on the couch with a cup of coffee. At the same time there is a wealth of magazines available online for free. Here are five of my favorites.
One of my old guitar magazines of choice, has a substantial site for the guitar player with lessons, articles, interviews, gear reviews and more. A definite recommend. Go and visit here >>>
A comprehensive guitar magazine with everything you may expect from a modern guitar magazine. Gear reviews, lessons, and more. Go visit the magazine here >>>
A free subscription to the digital version of the magazine is available, including the option to search back issues. A big recommend.
Guitar Interactive is the world’s first fully interactive digital magazine for guitarists the world over – and it’s completely free! Drawing on the resources of Licklibrary – the internationally renowned music teaching resource – GI brings together expert players to analyse the styles and techniques of the world’s best guitarists, which you can see and hear in the hours of video that are in every issue.
An amazing new magazine and a very definite recommendation with a free subscription available here >>>. What appealed especially is the way in which the magazine actually reads like a magazine but on screen.
One of my favorite magazines to pick up in the shop and read. It comes with a free CD/DVD with further instructions, lessons and play along tracks. Go see the magazine here >>>.
Guitar Techniques
It is through this magazine that I keep myself growing. Monthly lessons that push the beginner as well as the advanced players. Great magazine that comes with a CD/DVD with further information, lessons and sound samples. My favorite.
It is impossible I guess to be complete, else Id spend more time browsing and reading that playing. So I limited myself to five of my favorites here. What are some of your favorite music magazines and why? I look forward to hearing about your recommendations.
It is official now, Renaissance Man Music has its own facebook page. I will keep on posting here and will use that page as a place where you can leave questions or better yet answers where all matter music can be discussed. I suggest you go down there and add it to your favorites or at least bookmark the page.
What an amazing talk this was. It gave me a completely different angle on studying music, playing music and listening to music. The full text is available as interactive transcript as well.
Why you should listen to her: Evelyn Glennie‘s music challenges the listener to ask where music comes from: Is it more than simply a translation from score to instrument to audience? How can a musician who has almost no hearing play with such sensitivity and compassion?
The Grammy-winning percussionist and composer became almost completely deaf by the age of 12, but her hearing loss brought her a deeper understanding of and connection to the music she loves. She’s the subject of the documentary Touch the Sound, which explores this unconventional and intriguing approach to percussion.
Along with her vibrant solo career, Glennie has collaborated with musicians ranging from classical orchestras to Björk. Her career has taken her to hundreds of concert stages around the world, and she’s recorded a dozen albums, winning a Grammy for her recording of Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and another for her 2002 collaboration with Bela Fleck.
Her passion for music and musical literacy brought her to establish, in collaboration with fellow musicians Julian Lloyd Weber and Sir James Galway, the Music Education Consortium, which successfully lobbied for an investment of 332 million pounds in music education and musical resources in Britain.
“Evelyn Glennie is simply a phenomenon of a performer.” New York Times
Being a worship musician in a small group (just guitar and vocals or piano, guitar and vocals) is a challenging but very honorable role. If you are advanced on your instrument things may be slightly easier but what if you have but limited knowledge of and/or skills on your instrument. You may well be sort of like a beginner but, the music ministry/worship singers need you badly, not tomorrow, yesterday.
There’s a lot you can learn about music but for now there are some key skills that take priority.
If there is one thing you will need to focus on as quickly as possible, it is being proficient inn playing chords and being able to play a clear rhythm. Getting these two right will help your church community to sing out their praises with confidence.
If you are the worship leader, make sure you know your songs by heart. I firmly believe that it is better t0 have a smaller repertoire that you completely believe than forcing yourself to come up with new songs week in week out that you do not actually master yet.
As far as chords go: in small settings you want to look for ways to be able to play rich sounding chords. I believe that that boils down, at least for a guitar to not so much all the flash chords with lots of additions in which you need all your fingers and your thumb even. Less is more most often and I personally think that open string chords work great to create rhythm, atmosphere and enough body.
I can hear you think now: but my psalter hymnal says the song is in the key of F, or let’s say Db. There are two options: either transpose the song or consider the use of a capo. Another option is to play a song with an alternate tuning. As an example, I have found that the song Everlasting God works great if you use a C tuning (CGCGCE) and transpose it to that key. There is a lot of richness in the C tuning already with the extra low. Also keep in mind when playing in an alternate tuning that many of the best worship songs are based on either I IV V type of progressions or I II IV V VI progression which are easily transferred to alternate tunings.
Bill Evans, the famous jazz piano player had a relatively small repertoire. But he was able to play the songs he did do with such an amazing wide range of variety that it seemed fresh every time he played it.
Now I do not expect anyone to go for that aim of trying to make the same song sound like a new one every week. What I am trying to say here is that there is value in going deep on a song so you have a range of options, perhaps from small and modest to an all out version of the same song, and internalized to such an extend that you can take the people somewhere: you can actually lead them , and the other way around where you have the option of being lead by your church. You lead and are being led: you are there to lead but serve at the same time and is it not the most beautiful thing? It reminded me of a saying of Gandhi:
“I must go now: I am their leader therefore I must follow them.”
What this all comes down to is being able to play with dynamics: from loud to quiet but also from big sounding chords to small and fragile. The dynamics come from the rhythm, the harmony and in the last place the volume at which you bang out the harmonies.
What I have learned in the is that there is considerable merit in learning to play a song really banging out loud and really quiet and everything in between but… WITHOUT LOOSING INTENSITY. Try it out for yourself, does the song you are playing carry the same intensity when you play it really soft? Practice those dynamics. Practice songs in different dynamics without touching your amp, and when you use a DI learn to play your songs so softly that the DI is wondering what happened to the signal up to a point where it wants to throw up because of all that is coming through. There again, besides technique, rhythm and chord forms are your best ally.
I practice even the simplest songs (technically) in different dynamics, trying out alternative harmonies, different grooves. Good songs to try this out with are for instance:
Depending on the instrumentation available in your worship team (if any at besides piano or guitar) you will find that some songs work better than others. In leading song choice is very important in relation to the service as such, but I am talking here about, knowing what the limitations of your team are. Make sure that you choose songs that are suitable for your team (if a team at all). Sometimes you may want to rearrange a song in order to make it suitable.
Songs that stand or fall with specific riffs, breaks or otherwise may have impossible to perform on your own sections, no matter how much you like the songs may well be found as not working. In choosing songs, do not just let your taste be the only guidance or the fact that songs are currently in the praise charts. Find songs that are relevant for the service and that can be played convincingly in a small setting. Otherwise look at how the songs may be made suitable for a smaller setting.
Set yourself up to become a guitar hero in two weeks.
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