Guitar Contests - Lessons Learned

[jpfeifer]

Hi Everyone,

Earlier this year I found out about GuitarCenter's annual GuitarMaggedon contest, and that the theme this year was going to be Blues. I decided to enter this contest since I am into the Blues. I made it to the round 2 store competition and finally lost out this week. Although I was very dissapointed, I did learn some valuable lessons in going through this process over the past few months. For those of you who have never heard about this competition, it is kind of like an American Idol style competition for Guitar Players. You perform a solo to a backing track on stage in front of 3 judges who grade you based on technique, style, originality, and stage presence. I wanted to write a post to outline some of the lessons learned in this process, good and bad.

The Good:
Entering a contest like this provides a great way to kick your butt into high gear, stretch youself musically, and force you to focus. Fear is a great motivator. My main goal of the competition was to concentrate on playing a solo that highlighted my own style as much as possible, and inject as much originality as I could muster. There's nothing like the tought of going up on stage alone in front of a room of judges to motivate you to wood shed and get your playing up a notch or two. I also worked heavily on my phrasing with a metronome and found out how useful it is to do that. I also used humor in coming up with some new licks, hoping that this would provide some things that would set me apart. (I made some blues licks using movie themes, etc. Note: the theme for the Simpson's works great over an altered dominant chord :-) This worked great in the first round of competition. I even made one of the judges laugh during my solo.

The Bad:
On the down side I learned that these contests are about more than just the music. The guy that won on the second round of competition beat out everyone else based on his stage antics more than anything else. Technically and musically he wasn't playing as well as some of the other guys in the competition but he was able to work the crowd by making all the right stage moves, guitar faces, etc.

Lessons learned:
My take away from this experience, although a little painful for me to accept, is that when performing live we have to understand that we are entertainers first. Where I had prepared for the contest by working on my chops and musical ideas the mostly, the winner probably focused on how he would connect with the audience in a visual way. Sometimes your audience isn't listening to all of your ideas as much as they are watching how you move and react as you play. (note: one of the judges in the second round was a non-musician, manager of a radio station, hence the emphasis on stage presence) I've always been less comfortable with haming it up onstage , and making guitar faces when I play since I'm concentrating so much on nailing a lick, getting the right tone, etc. I guess it pays to work on your stage presence in the same way that you work on your phrasing with a metronome, a lesson hard learned. One guy that I admire who was good at both aspects was the late great Stevie Ray Vaughn. He could play is butt off and he had some nice stage antics to go with it.

-- Jim

[Tone2TheBone]

Hmmm interesting write up. What are the grand prizes for the winners? What guitar did you use....amp...effects if any? Did you get to use your own equipment or were they "house" amps and guitars? How did you dress? Did you get any pics taken of you?

[jpfeifer]

tone2thebone,

The prizes are very nice for the upper levels (district level, regional level, national level) of the contest. (Les Pauls, 335s, etc) At the store level the prizes are pretty minimal but still pretty nice.

I used my Hamer Newport for my performing guitar. I had a lot of complements on the tone and visual appeal of that guitar. You have to use the amps that Guitar Center provides for the contest. I chose a Line6 Flextone III set to a Lead Plexi 100 setting. (decent amp)

-- Jim

[Tone2TheBone]

Wow the Newport through a "Plexi" thats a unique combination. How many other contestants were there and did you all play in sequence and did you all get to watch each other etc?

I guess people would be judged also on visual performance. I'm sure there are a lot of other guitar slingers dressed up and ready to play at these contests...it would be interesting to see and hear. What about the elimination, did you get to hear any other guitar players that didn't make the cut?

Oh also describe your tone to us. Clean? Semi clean?

[jpfeifer]

Hi tone2thebone,

Yes, the Newport through the Plexi model sounded really nice. I visited the GuitarCenter ahead of time to try out the different amps in the backline to find the one that I thought sounded the best with my guitar. They had a Crate (class A amp), a Marshall half stack, a Fender Deluxe 65 reissue, and the the Line 6. I liked the Line 6 because I could dial in an amp model that I liked and re-call it when I came back for the contest. The Newport sounded kind of 335-like through this amp model using my bridge pickup. The Newport is a great guitar for Blues.

The tone that I was going for was a sustaining lead tone without too much distortion. Kind of a Roben Ford or older Larry Carlton type of tone. The Newport seemed to respond pretty well to this with the Plexi model, although the model didn't sound like a plexi to me since it was playing through a 2x12 cabinet. But it seemed to work well for what I was doing. Some of the contestants brought their own distortion boxes to plug into the Deluxe, and most everyone else used the Marshall.

Yes, all the contestants were able to watch each other through the whole contest. There were 5 of us competing that night. We drew numbers from a hat to determine which order we would go in. I was 2nd in the group. No, I didn't get to hear all of the other guitar players that didn't make the cut other than the players who competed in the 1st round competition with me 2 weeks prior.

-- Jim

[Spudman***]

Hi Everyone,

Lessons learned:
My take away from this experience, although a little painful for me to accept, is that when performing live we have to understand that we are entertainers first. -- Jim

Um, I thought we were musicians first. Otherwise why would we even go on stage if we couldn't play? To act? (saying this with a sense of humor and smile) I do know what you are alluding to, but I think we should never forget that we started doing this for the music...and chicks... way before the showmanship thing even came up.
Most of the pros are not just making faces. What you see is a direct result of "just letting go." I've worked with many national artists and the thing that really struck me when they were making strange faces and movements is that they are "gone." By that I mean that the ego has disappeared and what is left is a pure music/musician experience. The results of which are facial grimaces and contortions.
On top of all this Jim I really admire your guts to go do this. I think competitions are one of the hardest things to do. Especially among guitarists.

Many kudos to you bud and congrats on your finish.

[Robert****]

Thanks for the report Jim. It was a great read. I know what you mean. I have seen the difference on the rare occasions when I've had a few many drinks - suddenly everyone thinks I'm really going for it... but I rarely go that far. Truth is that the kind of shows I've mostly played, making lots of noise and looking real cool and theatrical always seemed to go over much better than focused, good guitar playing that is less entertaining to watch. People mostly listen with their eyes, unless they are musicians themselves.

It would be fun to be in a contest like that - if there was one around here I'd go for it! Sounds like fun.

[jpfeifer]

Thanks.

Yes, Robert and Spudman, I would encourage you guys to do a contest like this sometime, you all would do very well I would expect. I think that the whole experience was a good one for me, even though I was kind of dissapointed at the last stage. To be put out in front and forced to do your thing is actually good. It really forced me to take a look at what I do and try to find something that I could call my own. I remember reading an article with Steve Vai where someone asked him how to develop a style. Steve Vai had a very good reply to this. He said that you should find out what you do naturally, and exaggerate it. I thought that this was a good piece of advice. He was essentially saying that you should take a look at your own style and find those things that you tend to do from your gut, then try to bring those elements out more. My own way to do this was to get some of my original tunes and find out which ones I had the most comments on from other people on my web site. Then I tried to collect those elements accent them in my solo. This was a good process to go through.

The whole stage presence thing was just part of what the judges were asked to grade you on. So even if you got up and played very well, you would loose points for not having something more visual to your performance. It's not something that I tend to do naturally unless I'm playing with a band. If I'm doing rock tunes then I usually have a lot of fun jumping around, etc, but when I'm trying to do a serious solo then I tend to concentrate on the playing aspect and less so on how I look.

Anyway, ... I thought that other people could learn from my experience if they decide to enter one of these competitions. I might enter again next year, but the theme of it could be different. This year the theme was Blues but next year the contest may have some other theme.

-- Jim

[Tone2TheBone]

Jim,

How about a link to your site?

[jpfeifer]

Hi tone2thebone,

Here is a link to some of the music I have posted. Thanks for asking. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/jim_pfeifer (just click on the music link)

The song "Pfat Cat Shuffle" was the style that I was going for during this Blues contest. I don't have a lot of music posted on my site right now but I'm working on more stuff.

-- Jim

[SuperSwede]

Wow the Newport through a "Plexi" thats a unique combination.

That is the thing I love about amp sims, you can mix and match. I love to play jazz stuff through the 80´s marshall setting! It sounds lovely with very low gain/volume through a 1X12 speaker!

[Katastrophe]

Great post... Ya know, I've always been more than a little afraid to enter some of the guitar contests in my area. Austin, it seems, has a gunslinger on every corner (or at least in every club), and some of these folks are so good it's just downright scary... If I find that they have one in the area, I just might enter. It would be cool to get up there and see how "rapidly approaching middle age crazy" does against the young guns...

[warren0728]

i don't think i am ready to compete but i have been thinking of checking out some local blues jams to see if i can get up the nerve to sign up!

ww

[Nelskie]

Jim - I have enjoyed your posts regarding your guitar contest experience. Your points about "theatrics" and "stage presence" are well-made. In the 80's, when Hair Metal was king, I saw an awful lot of guitar players integrate various over-the-top antics into their playing routines, with great success. While it was very entertaining at the time, these days it isn't quite as impressive to me as it used to be. Perhaps that's because I am listening and hearing things that I never used to hear in other guitarists' playing, as well as my own.

Another thing I'd found interesting was your choice of guitar to use for the contest - i.e. a Hamer Newport, running through a Marshall Plexi amp model. I bet that sounded nice. I immediately thought of you when I came across pg. 154 of this month's issue of Guitar Player (with Jeff Beck on the cover), which featured none other than a beautiful Hamer Newport, with a triple TV Jones Filter 'Tron pick-up setup. Very cool axe.

[tot_Ou_tard]

Hi tone2thebone,

Here is a link to some of the music I have posted. Thanks for asking. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/jim_pfeifer (just click on the music link)

The song "Pfat Cat Shuffle" was the style that I was going for during this Blues contest. I don't have a lot of music posted on my site right now but I'm working on more stuff.

-- Jim

Hi Jim, I love Jazz, but not so much the smooth style. I like Marc Ribot, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Charles Mingus, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, Django Reinhardt....For the lyrical stuff I tend to go with Paul Desmond when he was playing with Jim Hall or Chet Baker with Gerry Mulligan. BTW, Jim Hall is playing funky groove stuff these days a la Martin, Mediski, & Wood. Those guyz are killer musicians.

The smooth stuff I leave for certain times in the evening with my wife, nudge, nudge, wink, wink...That said, you play amazingly well. I am trying to learn some jazz as well as blues & rock & fingerstyle & ... In fact, I am thinking about a semihollow or hollowbody with splittable 'buckers in order to
have the jazz tonality available as well.

The trouble is I am too damned eclectic in my tastes.

[tot_Ou_tard]

That is the thing I love about amp sims, you can mix and match. I love to play jazz stuff through the 80´s marshall setting! It sounds lovely with very low gain/volume through a 1X12 speaker!

That's a cool idea SS.

[jpfeifer]

Hi Tot_Ou_tard,

I know what you mean. There is a lot of lame Smooth Jazz out there these days. It's getting to the point where I don't like listening to this format anymore because it sounds like the same musicians on nearly every song, and nobody seems to be doing anything exciting or original within this format.

Some of my own tunes turned out this way for better or worse, I admit. I'm not really a Jazz player in the pure sense. I like Blues and I'm a constant student of Jazz playing so I'm always trying to incorporate more of that stuff in my own playing.

I really like some of those artists you mentioned like DJango, Miles Davis, Jim Hall. I also like Wes Montgomery. I've always been a big Pat Metheny fan as well and we was influenced quite a bit by Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery.

Thanks, -- Jim

[tot_Ou_tard]

Hi Tot_Ou_tard,

I really like some of those artists you mentioned like DJango, Miles Davis, Jim Hall. I also like Wes Montgomery. I've always been a big Pat Metheny fan as well and we was influenced quite a bit by Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery.

Thanks, -- Jim

Pat Metheny is great. I really haven't heard Wes Montgomery, but I'll go right out & remedy that.

[r_a_smith3530]

Jpfeifer, I could relate to what you had to say regarding the "performance" aspect of your experience. Some years back, I used to play both on the street ("hustling change with a guitar" I called it), and also doing some coffee house gigs and jam nights at blues clubs.

One thing that I learned from those experiences was that if you were going to captivate your audience, then it was going to take more than just a great song well-played. Live music is both an aural AND visual experience, and you must captivate your audience with BOTH! Remember that they can talk and still hear you as background noise, but if you also catch them with the visual aspect, you have a far better chance of gaining their complete attention.

BTW, from my own experience, I've found that this equates to more funds in the "ducket bucket" at the end of a day/night!

EDIT:

As for Jazz, my preference lies with the fusion stuff that was coming out in the late 60's to later 70's. It was the stuff you heard Yvonne Daniels spinning at WSDM ("Smack Dab in the Middle of your FM Dial!"), stuff like Eddie Harris, Herbie Hancock, Return to Forever, and Weather Report. That stuff was so out there.

Check out "Is It In?" from Eddie Harris' album of the same name, or "Funkaroma," also from that album. Also listen to "Chameleon" or "Sly" from Hancock's "Headhunters" album. To me at least, that, and "Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant" off RtF's "Romantic Warrior" is what I think of when the word "jazz" is mentioned. Of course, being into bass, Mingus' groundbreaking 1959 effort "Mingus Ah Um!" is also out there for me.