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jpfeifer
September 4th, 2007, 03:59 PM
A few days ago I got a call from my friend to drop by his house and add a guitar track onto a song he had been working on. I'm always up for doing some recording, so I agreed and thought it would be fun.

One thing that has remains true for me is that I always learn something new whenever I do recording projects.

For this song they asked me to provide lead fills behind the singer and then move into a full solo at the end of the song. I took several passes at the song with 3 other people sitting right next to me in the recording room, watching my every move. Pretty soon I was getting suggestions from all sides of the room from each person on what they wanted to hear in the solo. This becomes a tough job to please everyone, but sooner or later they were happy with my tracks ... however I walked away with some things that I wanted to work on.

After reviewing all of the comments that were coming at me during that afternoon session, the one thing that kept coming back was the people wanted me to play less and make more concise musical statements. In other words, they wanted me to be more lyrical in my solo and not ramble on. I didn't even realize that I was doing that, but when you're under the microscope of a recording session, everything gets noticed, (yikes)!

So after that, I decided that I needed to come up with a way to practice playing more lyrically and make this part of my practicing. So, I came up with a sort of game to help me concentrate on this approach, to keep reminding myself to make musical statements in my solos. If you're like me, you spend more time practicing your favorite licks, and scales, etc, but not very much time practicing playing less, making your notes count as ideas!

Here are the things that I've been doing to help practice in this approach:
- grab your favorite backing tracks. Blues tracks work well because of the structure of the changes, making it easier to repeat ideas, etc.
- start out your solo by playing some kind of short musical idea, keeping it kind of simple (say 1-2 bars long if possible)
- pause after your first musical statement
- now, repeat that same musical idea over the next chord change by either playing the exact same idea or changing a few notes to fit the chord that you're playing over (assuming that the chords have changed from when you made your first statement). You can even try playing your same idea up or down an octave. Think of this as an answer to your first statement.
- Now, repeat your first musical statement again, and change one thing, such as the last note.
- Next, introduce a new musical statement and keep trying to thread the ideas together in this way where you introduce an idea, then you answer it by trying to repeat it in some way on the next change, etc.

This excercise forces you to listen to yourself. It also forces you to think more like a conversation (stream of musical statements) rather than just spewing a long stream of notes.

What I'm finding is that it helps you to focus your solo more and it even helps to break you out of the same tired licks.

Hope this is helpful to anyone trying to come up with a way to practice phrasing.

-- Jim

sunvalleylaw
September 4th, 2007, 04:08 PM
Jim, thanks for that great post. I am trying to work on that right now, and was using basic blues as a vehicle. Very timely.

Robert
September 4th, 2007, 04:10 PM
Thanks Jim, great tips!

Read the latest GP magazine interview with Gary Moore. They asked him about phrasing. He tells the story about when he recorded with Albert King. On his way out of the studio, Albert turned around and said something very close to this: "Gary, play ever OTHER lick".

Moore said he learned so much from this statement from Albert. He has learned to leave space in his solos since then.

That is true - space is so important!

M29
September 4th, 2007, 06:24 PM
Thanks Jim, I needed that!. Like Robert said with Gary Moore in the GP mag, that is what I am working on. I just can't seem to get a good blues going and that is exactly what I need to do is stop playing so much. I guess when you are fairly new like me you don't have much for phrasing and it needs to be developed.

Thanks again Jim. You hit the nail right on the head.

M29

jpfeifer
September 4th, 2007, 06:56 PM
Thanks guys. I'm glad this was a useful topic. It's something that I need to work on too.

One guy that always amazed me was David Gilmour (spelling?) in Pink Floyd. He never played fast runs or anything flashy. But, what he played made complete sense. The thing that he had going for him was good phrasing. His leads were sing-able because he was thinking more like a singer and less like a guitar player.

-- Jim

Spudman
October 19th, 2007, 11:41 AM
Here is a really great lesson on phrasing by Scott Henderson.

CKhSzbhn_oo

Robert
October 19th, 2007, 11:47 AM
This video by Scott I got on VHS. It's one of the best videos you can buy. It's been re-released on DVD. Get it guys. I think it's the best instructional video I have ever seen.

jpfeifer
October 19th, 2007, 01:23 PM
Thanks for the tip. I've got to get this. Scott Henderson plays his butt off!
I really like his tips on phrasing. He get's the point across.

-- Jim

Robert
October 19th, 2007, 01:46 PM
I didn't watch this clip. Is he talking about "Ed is having sex with his girlfriend"? That is hilarious.

Spudman
October 19th, 2007, 02:01 PM
I didn't watch this clip. Is he talking about "Ed is having sex with his girlfriend"? That is hilarious.

Ya. And then he has more sex. And then even more sex.:rotflmao:

Guitar Gal
October 19th, 2007, 03:31 PM
Interesting video teaching clip :DR

Perhaps my playing will improve if I visualize Ed having sex with his girlfriend??? :rotflmao:

GG