Progression Of A Live Musician

Ever wondered what it would be like being a famous musician, playing the same songs over and over again every night, wonder how exciting but dull it could be ?

I’m giving to give an example of how it can really inspire music and in some cases take it to a higher level.

I’m going to offer up the solo from John Mayers song “Belief” from the Continuum record. It’s a very simple but effective solo and one of my favourites.

If you don’t have this album, buy it now, but I digress.

Lets look at the album track first of all, here is the album solo

Belief – Album Solo

As you can here a lightly driven guitar for a short and simple solo, very nice very effective.

Now lets listen to it live, this was taken from the album launch gig.

album-launch-belief-solo

As you can here, it’s a slightly different sound, a little harder driven, the tempo is a little up and there are minor changes to it. It’s a great live sound and has a bit of feel to it.

Fast forward a year or so, and we are back to another live performance.

where-the-light-is-belief-solo

The sound has matured as has the live performance, the tempo is a little up again, and the driven sound much smoother, the solo is based around the original studio recording with a few tweaks, a little more than the album launch gig. As you can see he’s getting more comfortable playing it and is improving it and playing around with it more, to keep it fresh to the audience as well as to himself as a player.

Now we fast forward on another year or so, the songs been around for over two years now and it’s been played, lord knows how many times live.

becon-belief-solo

The tempo is again quicker than the album track, but there is a real intensive feel about this one, much more than the others, the sound is similar to the most recent gig, a smoother but harder driven sound, this time the solo is based on the concept of the album solo, but is much more advanced and free, it’s a much more technical and impressive solo (one of my favourite guitar solos to date).

All the times this has been played live, you’d think it would get tedious, but from what I’m hearing I can hear it progressing as a guitar solo, and a piece of music, plus I think it’s probably improving the player and expanding his range and ideas for future tracks.

I’d like to hope I’m right about this and playing the same song over and over does actually inspire you to do it better and better rather than sit there playing the same notes over and over.

thoughts ?

New Listenings – Broadening Horizons

I’m currently listening to some new artists at the moment, trying to broaden my own personal listening tastes and artists I listen to to broaden my playing style and technique.

While listening to Country Music TV’s Cross Roads  projects I’ve found Brad Paisley and Keith Urban. I’ve certainly been aware of them as guitarists for a long time, however I’ve never really listened to their songs. They are actually really good and very diverse in style as well as being very good guitarists with very different styles and techniques. Brad’s use of a B-Bender on his telecasters is very subtle and clever, and Keith’s right hand rhythmic technique is very impressive. While I won’t be playing B-Benders any time soon, the clever bends are something I may try to use in future.

I’ve also been listening to Aynsley Lister, a UK blues rock guitarist and song writer who writes some lovely melody lines with clever guitar progressions. He also does a superb cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Cross Town Traffic which I think I’ll rip off and add to my own set, it’s great.

Despite my new listening pleasures, I’ve got to keep myself in check listening to all this country based music, I need to make sure I don’t turn into a cowboy.

What Did Hendrix Mean To Me ?

This week a lot of musical press and sources are running sections on Jimi Hendrix. A lot are asking famous musicians and guitarists “What did Jimi mean to you”. Well, as someone who is not famous, but certainly a musician and guitarist I thought I’d ask myself the same question and journal it here.

Unlike most guitarist I found Hendrix very late, so he didn’t really mean that much to me, in fact I never got him at all. I thought his playing was dull, his songs mumbled and his tone “noise”. Now I’m prepared to be shot for admitting that, as to any guitarist that is blasphemy. As times gone by and I’ve matured both as a human and a guitarist I’ve really started to appreciate Hendrix (just like the Beatles). A lot of my earlier criticisms where harsh and ill founded.  Is his playing dull ? no, certainly not, it’s just not flash, which with time I’ve learnt to appreciate is much more of a skill than flash playing. His songs, are they good? yes they are. In my younger form, quality of recordings was a sign of how good a musician you where, this is wrong. This music was recorded a long time ago before the quality of kit that is available today was even dreamt about. If you cut the recordings some slack and pay attention to the songs, I’ve found that they are fantastic, well thought out sections of music with intelligent composition ranging from short simple songs, to complexly written pieces of music with equally complex arrangements. The lyrical content ranges from thought out statements to free form exploration. Some stand out more than others to me. Bold As Love, Spanish Castle Magic, Wait Until Tomorrow, Cross Town Traffic and Hey Joe stand out to me along with Purple Haze, Voodoo Child and Fire which are well know classics. I could go on.The one area I still feel the same about is Jimi’s guitar sound, I still don’t get the buzz that’s around it. I fully understand and enjoy (hell I use them) the pioneering effects Jimi created and used the Leslie/vibe sound, the Octavia, the aggressive fuzz but it’s just not a stand out tone for me, but then if you read my earlier posts Marshall driven sound has never been my amp lust, maybe part of that is down to the low quality of the recordings.

What did Hendrix mean to me? as a guitarist growing up, nothing, nothing at all, however he did help me find a lot of the base skills such as speed and phrasing that used to be a core part of my playing by not wanting to sound like him, now what does he mean for me? A lot. I now enjoy and feel inspired by his songs and his playing, he’s helped open me up to other players such a SRV who I always enjoyed as a player technically but never as a listening pleasure. A key area Jimi has effected me is helping me understand how to make a full sound with a small group. I’m currently playing in a Trio and when I’m playing and writing for the Trio I don’t just focus on the guitar parts, but how to work with the drum, bass and vocal parts to make the sound full and rich, for example how to make a wild drum section controlled and not stand out but fill out an empty sonic space. I’m pleased that I’ve found Jimi from a listening point of view and from a musicians point of view as now that I actually enjoy him I can appreciate him and that influence has helped make me a better player, songwriter and producer of music.