Guitar Gear

Had my weekly church gig this evening, and as I don’t put constraints on my band-mates, sometimes there are only a couple of us to play instruments, and in rare cases, it’s just me on guitar or piano with our singers. Today, it was just our bassist, Derek, and me. Knowing this before going to rehearsal, I just packed my trusty Yamaha APX900 acoustic electric to plug into one of my church’s Genz-Benz Shenandoah acoustic amps. No effects, just plug into the amp, use some onboard reverb, and play. But you know what? For all the years I’ve been playing this gig, it had to be one of the best sets we ever had.

Derek and I gig a lot outside of church. He’s in a couple of bands, and I do a lot of solo work, lots of musical and vocal accompaniment, and occasionally work with other groups and have done lots of stints in musical theatre orchestras. So we’re used to playing within the context of a group and performing in public. But more importantly, our experience has taught us to listen to the other musicians, and fill in the gaps where needed.

With just the two of us today, at least from my perspective, I really had to be aware of what I was playing. Normally, I’m the lead guitarist, and usually just fill in with some “strategic” leads while the other guitarists hold down the rhythm. But today, I had to do all the rhythm guitar. But I took a bit different of an approach today.

I didn’t want to just play chord progressions and sing over them – that would be too easy. 🙂 Instead, I’d set a groove on guitar or piano which Derek would then catch, and then we’d fill in each other’s gaps. Me with some well-placed chord melodies, and Derek with some killer slaps, stabs and runs. The net result was that all the music tonight – even the slow stuff – just flowed gorgeously. And we just played off each other the entire service! It was uncanny!

I don’t think we could’ve done that if the whole band was there; and I’m not saying I don’t like the whole band being there at all. But it’s just that in times of attrition, you have to step it up, and make up for the stuff you might be missing. You can use the lack of instrumentation to your advantage.

The trick to being able to “fill the gaps” is to listen to what’s going on; listen to what your partner’s playing. Yeah, people say that all the time. But when you only have a couple of instruments, you really have to think on your feet. And you have to mentally approach the “lack” of instruments not as something missing, but rather as an opportunity to be more expansive in your playing.

For instance, tonight we did a funk-blues inspired tune that I wrote called, “Praise the Lord My Soul.” It starts out with a funky G7-C9 vamp to set the tone and theme. Normally, we do it kind of smooth when the whole band is together. But tonight, I added a bit of an edge to the rhythm by executing a heavy downbeat with syncopated mutes, and some quick double-stops, and also added some chord melodies in between phrases. Derek picked up on this, and started doing this supa-mac-daddy funk slap that I turn picked up on, and then added even more embellishments of my own. The singers then caught the groove and started really getting into the tune. That groove also affected how I sang as well. I sing the lead on this, and I did it with a LOT more grit than I’ve ever sung it. At the end of the song, Derek and the singers and I just looked at each other with conspiratorial grins. We knew we nailed it. Hell! Even the old folks in the congregation were nodding their heads in time. 🙂

At the end of the service, Derek said it best, “Sometimes, less is more.” I just replied, “Tonight definitely rocked! I love it when we can play off each other like that.” Derek just nodded and smiled.