Guitar Gear

I have a friend who played ice hockey as a kid in Canada, and years ago, as we were sharing stories about hockey (I used to coach), I mentioned that one of the toughest habits to ingrain into players was using two hands. My friend laughed at that and said, “You know how I learned? My coach taped my hands to my stick.” That convention has changed over the years, as the predominant philosophy now is that the stick should always be on the ice to provide a passing target.

But thinking about “two hands on the stick” got me thinking about playing guitar. Pick out a random guitar instruction video on YouTube. Chances are that the focus of that video will be how to place the fingers of your fretting hand on the fretboard. Some might mention the picking pattern you should use or the direction of your picking motion.

No doubt that stuff is useful. But what I’ve found sorely lacking in so much guitar instruction is right-hand technique. It’s almost as if the right is treated as an afterthought. But let’s not forget that while the left hand forms the notes and chords, it’s the right hand that gives those notes and chords a voice! It is also the right hand that provides the rhythm and just as importantly projects the style of music being played.

I’ve encountered so many players, young and old alike who can just burn up the fretboard. But ask them to switch styles from what they’re comfortable playing and it’s often a disaster. In the early days of my old worship band, I had a young guitar player who was into thrash and speed metal, and that kid had speed like you wouldn’t believe. But in the beginning, all he could play was metal. He was great at it. It took me months to teach him right-hand technique to be able to play different styles of music. For instance, we worked on a claw-hammer variant that I picked up from Michael Hedges for rhythmic fingerstyle playing and worked on various palm and finger muting things to add space.

But in the beginning, all he could play was metal. He was great at it. It took me months to teach him right-hand technique to be able to play different styles of music. For instance, we worked on a claw-hammer variant that I picked up from Michael Hedges for rhythmic fingerstyle playing and worked on various palm and finger muting things to add space. All the while, I would constantly have him feel the rhythm of the song and try to align his rhythm on the guitar with the pulse of the music.

Apart from that little aside, the challenge with and beauty of playing worship music (at least with my old band) is that we played all sorts of styles from hard rock to funk and even jazz-tinged music. I used to tell my guitar players, “A G is a G is a G, no matter what style of music you’re playing. But a G played as a power chord for a rock song is going to be significantly different than a G played in a blues song. Same chord, different style.” It’s what you do with the right hand that makes all the difference in the world.

I’ve probably shared all I need to share on this subject, so I’ll just part with these words: IT TAKES TWO HANDS TO PLAY GUITAR.

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In my younger days, I studied martial arts; specifically, formal Japanese styles such as Shotokan, Gojo Ryu, and Aikido. I went the furthest with Shotokan. But it was my experience with Aikido that probably had the most profound effect on my approach to combat. That was primarily because of my mentor, life coach, and Aikido instructor Dan Retuta of the Crestone Healing Arts Center in Crestone, Colorado.

Admittedly, I never went very far in Aikido; in fact, I more or less just dabbled. But Dan has been a lifelong friend whom I have known for almost five decades, and he has been the wise older brother that I didn’t have. But more than just Aikido, the most important thing I learned from Dan was what I’ll simply call the “warrior way.” It is a way of thinking and acting – living, to put it simply – according to how a warrior would live. And no, it’s not at all about fighting. It’s about honor, courage, discipline, integrity and decisiveness, and belying its name, it’s also about inner peace and stillness.

In one of our numerous conversations, Dan said something to me that has stuck with me since, and something that I have passed on to others whom I mentor and that is: “One of the reasons we repeat a movement or technique over and over again is to have it etched into our entire being, to make it become part of our essential being. That way, when we’re finally faced with a real-life situation, we won’t think about applying a particular technique; we’ll just do what is appropriate for the situation without any thought. In a way, our martial art is revealed in the moment. That is satori, where thought and action are one.”

Sound familiar? In music, we practice techniques over and over again so that when it finally comes time to perform we just execute the technique. Without thinking. A simple way of looking at satori is what many would call being in the zone.

For example, when I was taking piano lessons long ago, my teacher taught me how to play scales. There’s a specific technique for playing scales up and down the keyboard. I practiced that technique for hours at a time to learn all my scales in every key. I did it because my teacher told me to do it, but I didn’t really understand why until she had me learn a more complicated piece that required that I apply the technique. In one section, there was a phrase that had an ascending scale of sixteen eight notes. As I read it, I just climbed the scale, applying the technique I had practiced – without thinking about the technique. After I did that phrase I stopped and said to her, “NOW I get why I practiced all those scales!” She just smiled.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I recently joined another band. As the new member, I was reluctant to let it all hang out because I didn’t want to offend anyone. But as I’ve become more comfortable with the other band members, I’ve started to be myself; not that I was trying to be someone else in the past, but I was treading a lot more carefully. That changed with my last gig.

When it came time for me to do my first solo, in that instant, I forgot about holding back, and just went for it. I don’t remember what I actually did, but I remember thinking to myself after I finished, Did I actually just play that? 🙂 One of the things I did was a quick sweep pick over a couple of triads; something that I’ve practiced in the past, but never applied. I did it without thinking about it and I realized I did it because it just fit with what I was playing and with the song. I smiled knowing that what I just had was a moment of satori. Such a cool thing!

It is difficult to show exactly how to achieve that state. It’s not as if you can do it willfully; not at all like Okay, now I’m going to get in the zone. But you can prepare yourself first by simply practicing and mastering techniques. Moreover, what I encourage a lot of people to do is simply play against a backing track. But instead of practicing patterns, and thinking about what you’re playing. Just go for it. Don’t care about technique. Play what you’re feeling. It might sound like shit. But don’t care. Feel yourself conjoining and commingling with the music. The more you can separate your conscious, analytical mind, the easier it will be to drop into the zone.

As a Star Wars aficionado, I love the life lessons contained in the movies, especially those that revolve around the Force. As Obi-Wan said in Star Wars: A New Hope: Let go your conscious self and act on instinct. Here’s a clip to close this out:

When it comes to playing music, no wiser words have been said…

ROCK ON!

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One of my mentors in guitar and music was an elderly African American man named Patrick who used to come and listen to me play at my restaurant gig. I would go talk to him during breaks or right before I’d go on; or sometimes, on days off, I’d see him at the bar and we’d have long chats about music and gear.

Patrick was a guy in his 70’s who’d seen it all musically. He was jazz player ‘who did a lot of session and tour work with the likes of Miles Davis, the Marsalis brothers, and many other big names. If you saw the movie, “That Thing You Do,” Patrick reminded me of the character Del Paxton. He was a font of musical knowledge and though he never taught me any technique, our conversations had a profound effect on how I approached the guitar and frankly, how I approached playing music in general.

One of our conversations centered around rhythm and expressiveness when doing a lead. “Rhythm is everything; especially with playing guitar, which is a rhythm instrument. But even doing leads, you got to be in the pocket with the rhythm.”

After he said that I looked at him a little quizzically. I inherently knew what he was talking about, but I was curious to find out what he really meant, so he continued, “You gotta be able to feel and anticipate pulse of the song. Most musicians don’t get that. I’ve played with some of the best musicians in the world, but the best of the best have rhythm when they play. They can feel the rhythm of the song and create a rhythm in their solos that fit the song. Some dudes, they know all the scales and modes, but they sound like shit because they just throw a bunch of notes together to say, ‘See how fast I can play?'”

Playing the devil’s advocate, I challenged him and said, “But some might say that in the rock and roll world, part of playing a solo is to show your chops. What you say might be applicable to jazz, but I’m not so sure about rock.” I did say that with a little smirk, so he knew that I didn’t believe that.

Patrick just chuckled, knowing I was bullshitting him and said, “Listen, man, Miles Davis could do more with one note than a lotta guys would do with a hundred. And it don’t matter the style of music. If you’re playing the wrong rhythm no one’s gonna like what you’re playing.”

“But is just a single note rhythmic?” I asked.

“Damn right, if it fits in with the song. It could be four whole notes tied together for four bars! I know you get that. You’re just trying to piss me off,” he retorted.

I laughed and said that I did get it. We conversed about a lot of other stuff after that, but he managed to circle back to the original topic saying, “That whole rhythm thing when you’re soloing… The best players are economical. They play just enough notes to get their point across. It could be a bunch of 64th notes at times. But what they play fits in with the rhythm of the song.”

That conversation is one of those vivid memories that has been forever etched into my memory because it actually made me feel good about my solos. I only know a few tricks and I’m definitely not a speed demon on the fretboard. But that conversation made me aware that what was truly important was being vigilant about playing within the context of the rhythm of a song.

Melody, of course, is extremely important. But melody without a sense of rhythm or played against the rhythm – at least to me – doesn’t sound all that good.

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I had a gig with my classic rock cover band yesterday. On a whim, I decided to use my big board so I could use my Vox Big Bad Wah. I got this a few years ago and hadn’t really used it all that much, even though I love playing with a wah. But with my songwriting taking yet another turn to a highly reggae-influenced flavor, I’ve started taking stock of the effects that I use, and wah is certainly an important component.

But moreover, as with all my gig configurations, I put the effects on my board based on how I’m feeling, and yesterday, as I was configuring my board, I thought, Hmmm… I really feel like using a wah today.  That meant using my big board because I prefer having all my pedals on a single unit, sharing the same power source. It’s an efficiency thing… 🙂

The picture above shows my board configuration for yesterday’s gig. I daresay that that will probably be my configuration going forward. I know… so simple. Just an overdrive, fed into a wah, then out to modulation effects and into my amp. Simple. I used to have 10 to 12 pedals on the board. In fact, the bottom half of the board sported three to four overdrive and distortion pedals. But the Soul Food – and to a lesser extent – my Timmy give me all I need for pedal-based grit. Admittedly, I’ll probably add the Timmy in there next to the Soul Food. But I love that Soul Food pedal so much, I could do with it alone.

Now with respect to my gig and using the wah pedal, in the middle of our first set I was thinking to myself, Why haven’t I been using this the entire time?!! I don’t know if it was fear, or maybe it was because I was so new to being just a lead guitarist. Who knows? I’m not going to spend much time in analysis. But what I do know is that I absolutely LOVE using a wah pedal. I didn’t use it for every song, of course, but I’d switch in an out of it a lot.

My favorite use of it was when we covered the Beatles’ “Come Together.” We have our female singer do this so we raise the key to Em. But I wanted to uglify it a bit, and since the focus is on the bass for that, I played an Em+9 and frequently added a 6th to that. I also added the wah to add a bit of a sinister twist.

When it came time for my lead, whereas I’d normally do that lead riff, I decided to dispense with it altogether, closed my eyes and let my fingers do the talking. With the wah providing that emphasis when I’d bend notes upon the fret board. I was having so much fun with the lead that I think the rest of the band just let me wail until I was done. I really don’t know how long I jammed. I just know that it was longer than normal, and when I finished I had a shit-eating grin on my face. Using the wah then was just an inspirational experience.

Frankly, I don’t even know how good I sounded. For all I know, I sounded like total shit. But I was just played with loose abandon, letting whatever was inside me come out through my fingers. But I think I did a good job because the audience were hooting afterward, and the lady who put on the event just looked at me and said, “Wow…”

The point to all this is that there have been times in my playing career where I find something – in this case, my wah pedal – where something just clicks. It’s strange, it’s new, and perhaps a bit weird feeling. But rather than run from it, I dive head first and immerse myself in the experience, wanting to discover where it takes me. That was yesterday. Now my wah-wah-wah isn’t because I’m crying. It’s a wail of pure inspiration!

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No lead-in. Just watch…

What technique! Those descending scales reminded me of a clean version of Yngwie Malmsteen. The dude shredded those scales! And NO distortion!

All I know is that I’m determined to be playing proficiently past 80. Les Paul played up until he died at 95, and his right elbow was locked into place!

Simple AMAZING!

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“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

~ Jack London

I was watching a documentary on the great Raiders quarterback, Ken “Snake” Stabler. In one segment, the narrator mentioned that Stabler was well-read, and an avid reader of Jack London. And during that section, the narrator mentioned one of my favorite Jack London quotes, which I listed above.

That’s such a powerful statement because the implication is that we aren’t here in this life to just “be,” but to act. To put ourselves on the line every day and live, and live life in such a way that we can fulfill what my Native American brothers in the past have said: “It’s a good day to die.” To me, that quote can be summed up in three words: “Go for it!”

I’ve taken that approach with playing guitar. As of the past few years, I’ve been getting into reggae. I can honestly say that while I haven’t morphed my music entirely to reggae, the influence is definitely there. I’ve struggled in making the transition. I love all sorts of music, and my writing contains influences from the many musical styles I both write and play.

But lately, at least for me as an artist, I’ve realized that reggae isn’t so much a sound or even music with a set pattern. There certainly is a foundation of that there; however, what I’ve come to realize is that reggae for me is simply the expression of good vibes. Sure, it can be political and even express disdain for the system, but the underlying root is to give people that sense of “irie.” I may be reading it completely wrong. But this is my personal interpretation.

Circling back to that Jack London quote, right or wrong interpretation, I’m just going for it. I’m not letting myself focus on whether or not my music fits in with the genre. What I’m after is a feeling, a “vibe.” And to be completely honest, I’m not really worried about being discovered and making it big. The best I can do is create music, and if people like what they hear, then that pleases me. After all, our purpose is to live and not exist.

In any case, here’s my latest song called “Let It Ride.”

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