JasonShadrick

When you see an artist who has complete control of their instrument, it is quite an inspiring thing.  Last Saturday, my wife and I headed to the Roaring Brook Nature Center to see Pete Huttlinger.

The concert took place in a room that was filled with various educational materials about the wildlife in the surrounding area.  The most interesting part was that the stage was positioned in front of some large aquariums that were covered, but full of snakes.

Pete, of course was completely on his game.  He played two sets full of amazing fingerstyle guitar with some vocal tunes mixed in.  The setlist (although not in order) included:

The Santa Rita Connection

I Wish

Superstition

Josie

Brown Bomber

The Water is Wide

Country Roads

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Lately

Several Celtic pieces

Fields of Gold

And several more that aren’t coming to mind.

It was an amazing experience and I HIGHLY recommend buying his CD’s and going to see him live.

Tonight I am going to see an amazing fingerstyle guitarist named Pete Huttlinger.  Before I go any further, watch this:

I first heard of Pete when he released his album “Naked Pop” on Steve Vai‘s Favored Nations label.  One of the most amazing displays of fingerstyle guitar I had ever heard.  A few years ago while in Nashville with NGW, I had the chance to have lunch with Pete and he is a great guy.  If he ever comes around your area, you have to go see him.

I will post more about the concert tomorrow.

Here is Grant’s Transcribed Solo

Grant Green is one of my biggest influences.  I first heard about him from my guitar teacher in college, who didn’t care for him too much.  I then was a casual listener until I became friends with Corey Christiansen.  Corey is the closest to a GG scholar that I have ever met.  He has literally written the book on Grant’s playing style.

This solo on “Cool Blues” was one I transcribed in college for a blues improvisation class.  It is a great example of Grant’s style in a medium blues setting.  I am a firm believer that nobody could touch Grant when it came to playing over a blues.

I also isolated some of Grant’s key phrases and wrote those out below

Grant Green Licks

Finally, one of my favorite (and only) videos of Grant.  Here is his playing with Kenny Burrell and Barney Kessell.  I love both Kenny and Barney’s playing, but on this tune neither one can touch Grant.

Grant Green Video

Is anyone else excited about this?

Heavy metal mock-rockers Spinal Tap have announced a concert tour to mark the 25th anniversary of the original movie.

The 1984 film detailed the career of a fictional spandex-clad rock band, and became a cult classic, riddled with ‘in-jokes’ parodying the excesses of the music industry – the egos, the groupies and the lifestyle.

Now the original cast members Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest are staging another rock cliché: the reunion tour.

Shearer says the reality of going on tour is just as ridiculous as portrayed in the movie.

"Even if you’ve just played guitar in your bedroom, you can kind of get that this is what it’s really like. It’s a little bit stupider than… no, it really isn’t – it’s every bit as stupid as it really is."

April 17 – Vancouver, BC @ Center for the Performing Arts
April 19 – Portland, OR @ Keller Auditorium
April 20 – Seattle @ Paramount Theatre
April 22 – Oakland, CA @ Paramount Theatre
April 23 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara County Bowl
April 26 – Los Angeles @ The Wiltern
April 27 – Phoenix, Ariz. @ Dodge Theatre
April 29 – Denver @ Paramount Theatre
May 1 – Houston, TX @ Jesse H, Jones Hall
May 2 – Dallas @ Nokia Theatre
May 4 – Jacksonville, FL @ Florida Theatre
May 5 – Miami @ The Fillmore
May 6 – Orlando, FL, @ Hard Rock Live
May 8 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Mahaffey Theatre
May 9 – Atlanta @ Fox Theatre
May 10 – Nashville @ Ryman Auditorium
May 12 – Baltimore @ Lyric Opera House
May 13 – Washington, D.C. @ Warner Theatre
May 14 – Philadelphia @ Keswick Theatre
May 17 – Columbus, Ohio @ Palace Theatre
May 19 – Cleveland, Ohio @ State Theatre
May 21 – Toronto @ Massey Hall
May 22 – Mashantucket, CT @ MGM Grand Theatre at Foxwoods
May 23 – Boston @ The Wilbur Theatre
May 24 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Music Box at The Borgata
May 26 – New York @ Beacon Theatre
May 27 – New York @ Beacon Theatre
May 29 – Detroit @ Fox Theatre
May 30 – Chicago @ Chicago Theatre
May 31 – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theatre

Rolling Stone has a great interview here. I am thinking a Stonehenge encore?

While I was in graduate school, I had to develop a method of learning all the tunes that were thrown at me at a daily basis.  In an earlier post, I outlined a method I learned from Jody Fisher on learning the chords to a tune.  In this post, I am focusing my attention now to the melodic side of working through the raw harmonic material found in many jazz tunes.

Remember, this is only one way to do this.  If anyone has other ideas, please share them in the comments.

1. Roots – It is essential that you learn the root movement of the tune you are working on.  This will aid in memory retention of the chords and ear training.  If you can internalize the sound of the roots of all the chords, the melody will make more sense.
2. Guide Tones – Guide tones are the essence of any chord progression.  There are usually two main versions of a guide tone line.  The first one begins on the 3rd of the chord and the second one begins on the 7th.  Learn to connect these notes in a variety of ways both melodically and rhythmically.  Voice Leading is an important aspect in the improvisations of the jazz masters.
3. Arpeggios from the Root – In this step we are branching out to cover all the notes in a given chord.  Essentially if you stick to these you won’t hit any wrong notes, but I find it more challenging to make interesting phrases from these.  Experiment with different rhythms and inversions with these arpeggios.
4. Guide Tone Arpeggios – Once you internalize a few different guide tone lines in addition to the arpeggios from the roots, you can begin to connect these in a melodic way.  This is the first step in gaining some facility over a particular progression.  I practiced this A LOT.
5. Construct a Bassline – This step is the first that requires some improvisation.  In college I would write out several of these over a tune and then mix and match them to find one I liked.  The whole idea here is to create a melody using only quarter notes that works with the harmony.
6. Continous Motion – I first heard about this exercise from a David Baker book.  The general idea is to play as slow as necessary in order to play continuous eighth notes over a progression. This exercise develops fluidity and helps you develop the sense of keeping your place in a progression.
7. Little Scale Exercise – David Berkman’s Book “The Jazz Musicians Guide to Creative Practicing” was a great help with this step.  Start on any note within the scale or arpeggio of the first chord and go up and down the span of a 5th by only chaning the qualities of the notes as needed.
8. 3579 Digital Exercise – This concept I worked on from a book by the saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi.  This is partial to the guide tone arpeggios we looked at earlier, but now involving extensions.  It works great over altered dominant chords.
9. Alternate Triads – For each chord, I chose another basic triad that would work harmonically and composed a line using only those notes.  It is a great way to breath new life into a progression that you feel stuck with.  You can also include upper structure triads as well.
10. Diatonic 4th Arpeggios – These will add a distinctly modern sound to your lines.  For guitarists and pianists, I would develop quartal voicings based on these lines.

As with any exercise, you want to mix up the approaches to keep the listener guessing.

I look forward to hearing your approaches.