We looked at the practices of Pete Thorn last time. When learning a favorite piece of music, as well as the value of challenging oneself to play a new style, we learned.
It is time to get right back into it.
I was moved and inspired by the subtle creativity of Patrick Hay when I first heard him play on Matt Singer’s The Drought. Patrick has recorded and toured with a Brooklyn band, and he is now teaching guitar online.
Patrick says to take a lick you already know and learn it in many different ways, even if the results are unconventional.
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He said, “This opens up your knowledge of the fretboard, and will also help your phrasing because it makes you play things in register you wouldn’t normally play them.”
He was an ex. 6 shows how you can do this with a simple phrase. Specific moments in the video are referred to as time codes.
The last bar is fun because of Patrick’s outside-the-box thinking. He recommends fingerings for the tricky spots.
Oscar Bautista is a versatile player. He is a session and Broadway guitarist.
Oscar told me that he works on his timing, timing, timing and timing by recording himself, and he recommends this for everyone.
It was for ex. You can sit in the pit band for a Broadway show if you want. Would you be able to confidently play the phrase correctly and in time, knowing your guitar might be front and center for this part of the show?
The guitarist is responsible for sculpting guitar tones for each part he or she plays. Oscar uses the same method to critique his choices.
The music was used in Ex. He went with a feeling. Do you have a choice?
Oscar shows that listening to your own playing can help you improve quicker.
We met after a show at New York City’s Rockwood Music Hall in the mid-2000s.
Mark has performed as a sideman and in his own bands for a long time. He spends a lot of his time working on composition and recording projects, which draw upon a wide range of instruments and sounds.
Mark says to hone your ability to play what you hear by learning the concept of “hear, sing, play”.
The one in Ex should be the first one to be chosen. 8b. You can record yourself singing as you play the guitar. If you want to make those melodies come alive, you have to add bends, slides, vibrato, etc. This is the same type of attention to detail that Pete Thorn mentions.
You can see ex. One way to approach playing the sample melody is by playing it on the guitar. Try to come up with your own.
This doesn’t feel the same as practicing to play scales or learning a guitar solo. It’s possible to practice making your playing more musical.
It will give you time to find your own voice. It’s time to give it a try!
Molly Miller has toured with artists such as the Black Eyed Peas and was a recording artist. She is the chair of the guitar department at Los Angeles College of Music.
For Molly, a great way to improve her improvisational skills is to focus on how each single-note voice moves from the beginning to the end of a song.
She says that you’re creating a melody, whether you’re comping or soloing
Molly focuses on the top voice for our purposes because of the importance of melody. The guitar player takes a simple progression. The first thing to do is keep the same melody note on top of each of the four notes. 9b
She suggests moving the melody up as a way to explore other variations. There is a 9c
Molly shows how by taking the same approach, you can improve your improvisational skills. 9d
This is a fun way to think about something. Remember what Molly said about melody, melody, melody.
Jeff Berner spent over a decade as guitarist in the English band Psychic TV and has done everything from hosting recording clinics to designing preset for eventide effects.
He is a producer in Brooklyn, New York.
Jeff said he would try to learn vocal lines from records. If you hone in on all of those attributes, you will learn a lot.
Pete Thorn and Mark Marshall both told us that when you focus on the small things, you can actually work on the big things. The opening bars of the melody were recorded by Jeff. There are 10
The most noticeable thing in both the tab and audio is the fact that Jeff uses just a few subtle uses of slide and vibrato.
I asked him about the choice and he said there was merit in trying to make it simpler. I wanted Bill Frisell to play it.
I turned to the guitarist for Whitesnake and Trans-Siberian Orchestra. When he played on my first album, I was lucky to have met him.
When I wanted to end this lesson with some fun, outside-the-box rock guitar madness, I knew that he would not be disappointed.
He shows how we can use our imagination to take something common and make it exciting.
It was in ex. One of the guitarist’s legato licks is shown. He combined the two adjacent positions of the traditionally two-notes-per-string Am pentatonic scale into one that is expanded out to three notes per string.
In Ex. He goes off the rails and extends it to four notes with a tapping that uses two fingers of his picking hand.
Some of you may be thinking, “This isn’t my thing.” I would encourage you to take a leap of faith and have fun with it. Bess Rogers and Gilber Gilmore both dared themselves to play something new.
I’m really glad I’ve learned everything that I have learned. Don’t stay closed-minded and focus on music. It makes learning things easier by improving your hands and ears.
You have to be productive every day.
It is the same for everyone.
Thank you.
Let us know if you have a question about this lesson. If you’d like to reach out to Jeff, you can do so on his website or on his social media accounts.