Guitar Gear

As a performer, I’ve always viewed myself as a singer who played guitar or piano to provide accompaniment for my voice. My voice has gotten me lots of gigs from my longtime, local solo act to singing in an international choir and even some narration. And I’ve been performing with my voice since I was a young boy – almost 50 years now.

About 20 years ago, I kind of came to an impasse with singing. I was starting to sing a lot more musical theater and even some select opera pieces. And though I could kind of fake it, I knew that I was straining my vocal chords. I’d get done singing an aria or big theatrical piece and my voice would be hoarse!

I have to admit that it scared me a bit. So I asked a close friend of mine if she knew of anyone local to me that was a voice coach/teacher that specialized in operatic and musical theater styles and she directed me to a close friend of hers named Kay.

One of the first things I established with Kay was that I actually wasn’t interested in being an opera or Broadway singer. What I wanted to learn was to sing correctly so I could sing the occasional opera piece with the proper mechanical technique. Kay was a little perplexed by my request because all of her students had aspirations to be opera or Broadway singers.

I explained to her that to me at least, learning how to sing opera would bring me back to the source of all singing technique; especially with respect to breathing and projecting. I figured if I could effectively sing an opera tune, I could sing anything. Long story short, I took about half a dozen classes from Kay – we treated our sessions like a master class – and I learned valuable lessons in vocal mechanics. As a result, I could literally do 6-hour gigs (with breaks, of course) and still have more in the tank to sing.

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So you might be wondering: What does this have to do with guitar?

I spent all that time above talking about how I’m a singer first. That remains true to this day, but as you know from this blog, I have a passion for playing guitar. And in the last 20 years, I’ve taken on more and more lead guitar duties. I never sought to do this. I kind of fell into it.

But lately, I’ve been feeling as if I’m just playing a variation of the same thing for all my solos, and it’s frustrating. So I’ve decided to go back to the source and take some lessons; specifically, take jazz guitar lessons, and not just any kind of jazz, but a study of old jazz standards.

I realize that a lot of that is going to be a review of chord theory, which is actually pretty exciting to me. But more important than that, I want to learn chord comping and instead of just playing note scales, actually play chord scales. It requires a bit different way of thinking, but that appeals to me because long ago when I was taking piano lessons, rather than teach me standard scale theory, my teacher focused on chord theory.

The teacher whom I am hoping still gives lessons is Carol Kaye. She’s a legendary bassist, but she’s also an accomplished guitarist. Ms. Kaye has a resume of touring and session work that most people can only dream of. Most notably, she was the sole female member of the famed “Wrecking Crew,” responsible for creating HUGE hits of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. (And by the way, that whole “Wrecking Crew” name, according to Carol Kaye, was made up by Hal Blaine) The bass line for the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, well, that was all her. Freakin’ amazing!

What inspired me to seek her out was this video of an interview she gave in 2013 (it’s over an hour long, but SO worth it):

The way she talked about her approach to music completely jibed with what I’ve been aspiring to achieve for years. I’m hoping she will accept me as a student!