John T


Anyway trimph, that thing about the recorder; one thing I like to do is try to come up with ideas on instruments I can't really play. They might not end up going onto a track on those instruments, but it's a really good way of breaking out of habits.

I'm originally a guitar player but have been trying to take up more and more keys. The stuff you write on keys is SO DARN DIFFERENT to the stuff you write on guitar. Great way to break out of habits. I might then go back and play it on guitar (which I may even like the sound of better) and realise I would have NEVER come up with the part without the piano.


Funny thing is, I'm starting to do a bit of research into theory and it makes a lot of sense on piano, lots more than guitar! But some people can only think of it in terms of guitar. Just goes to show how simply changing an instrument can change everything. Hell, play around with some open tunings on guitar gives you some amazingly interesting new ideas. And there are endless tunings you can play with!

mattplaysguitar


Well said, Danny.

And WOO! I'm a class act! Haha
P.S. your next post is 3000! An arbitrary round number invented by humans. A purely meaningless pattern yet in our society and the way we are taught it seems like a 'special' number. Sounds like I'm about to make a brilliant analogy related to the topic at hand, but I'm not.


:D

Matt: Hahaha so my 3000th goes out to you my brutha from anutha mutha who will always be a class act! :)
 
John: Same for me....I love to learn as well and look forward to some of the things people post up just to try. In a field like this, you learn something new everyday. I'd not want to be the master of it because then it would lose its lustre, ya know? :)
 
-Danny

John T


Anyway trimph, that thing about the recorder; one thing I like to do is try to come up with ideas on instruments I can't really play. They might not end up going onto a track on those instruments, but it's a really good way of breaking out of habits.

 I'll keep that idea in mind..I've a few things around here that I really do not play all that well...like an oboe...that still takes a lot of lung power for me....

I've actually taken this recorder out to things like a trainyard to record engines idling ...then try to copy the sound with me drums...

I'm kind of weird that way...

Me and a regular collaborator spent an hour a while ago recording us hitting glasses with different amounts of water in with a pen. We never used the actual recording, but we did write a really good synth riff based on it.

Another thing I like to do is when coming up with solos, don't start by trying to play something, but get a basis for it my humming something. Then work out how to play that and start embellishing it.

Good ideas there... 


Now I'm attempting to finish a dingdang modular synth that I started...oh...3 years ago?  What was I thinking....

John T


Another thing I like to do is when coming up with solos, don't start by trying to play something, but get a basis for it my humming something. Then work out how to play that and start embellishing it.

Priceless info there John, and what I do as well. Prime example of that....
 
I had a student that was going for a contest for something on Youtube. He was worried more about what modes and scales to use over expressing how the backing track that was presented made him feel. The people judging the competition were looking for a solo that had some feel and a bit of technique in it. When he was done tracking his part, I asked him if he felt it was something that expressed feel or at least HIS version of what "feel" was.
 
So he says "ok Danny, I'm not quite happy with what I've played. What would you play over this if you were going for the competition and how would you go about it?"
 
So I listened to the backing track and began to hum/sing over it and came up with a few melodies. From there, I tried to tell a little story with it while using the feel aspect but also wanted to include a few little technical surprises for some high and low points. After I hummed and sang some of my parts, I had to show him how I'd abstract those ideas out of my head. So I showed him and kept on humming the passages until I could find the notes on the guitar. Of course I didn't hum the more technical/fast passages...lol...but the melodic parts all started as voicings in my head that I had to get out to show him what I was talking about.
 
The end result was a one take solo over this backing track that was provided: http://soundcloud.com/majichands/dannyfeel-wav
 
I didn't enter my version in the contest as I had no desire to do so and unfortunately, when my student heard what I had played, he didn't enter his either. I never meant for that to happen and it bothered me for a few days, but the good part of it was, he learned when to fire the gun and when to allow a melody with some vibrato to do the talking as well. He's actually a good feel player but like many of us guitar players when we're younger, we don't enjoy the mood/feel vibrato aspect until we play for 10 years or so.
 
Melody is the key. If we took away the faster stuff I played in this, that melody (to me) still has a very catchy/moody vibe to it as well as some of the other parts of it. This to me is why it's so important to hum solo sections before we actually start to play anything. 9 times out of 10, we'll sing differently than we play and come up with melodies that may not happen by just playing alone....and that's a good thing in my opinion. :) It also forces us to stay out of that box so many of us fall into...myself included. It's too easy to play a blues scale in every solo. LOL! It's funny, I never sing in a pentatonic scale....so I try not to always play in one. So I'm totally with you on this as it's how I do all my solo stuff these days.
 
-Danny

Yeah, it's interesting how much it breaks you out of wandering up and down scales; for example, you do far more wide intervals when you're going by ear rather than your fingers.

John T


Yeah, it's interesting how much it breaks you out of wandering up and down scales; for example, you do far more wide intervals when you're going by ear rather than your fingers.

+1. I can't do fast solos or 'shredding' anyway, so for a guitar break (on a vocal song) I usually take a little snippet of the melody so the solo starts off sounding familar, then develop that melody and take it in another direction. This pulls me away from the muscle memory stuff and into something more interesting.