我的結他雜記: 3-9 arpeggios

I am reading this book "Why Jazz Happened?" which analyzed how historical (nonmusical) events affected the development of new styles of jazz. One chapter is about bebop and it said the usage of the 9th is a characteristic of this style. And I have learned long time ago that playing the minor arp (or dorian mode) on top of a major chord works (like Emin7 over Cmaj7 because the 7th (D) of Emin7 is the 9th of Cmaj7. Or Dmin7 over Cmaj7 because it starts on the 9th) Check out the explanations and examples on Jamie Holroyd's post. 

Fretless bass

For a long time I can't imagine I would ever play a fretless string instrument in my life. I mean, playing in tune seems impossible for me. But then I picked up violin and realized the possibility is there for sure. Still, fretless bass has that mystique, especially in the hands of masters like Jaco. I have no idea who first played fretless until I read this. The author thinks bass players should consider getting a fretless as a 2nd bass. Well, if I were to get my 2nd bass, I'd probably go for a 5-stringer.

Contrasting opinions about the industry

I have always enjoyed reading guitar magazines, even before the days I play much! The "Big Two" here in US are Guitar Player and Guitar World (there are also Acoustic Guitar and Guitar Aficionado. And for a while I enjoyed Guitar One a lot, before it folded) GP is in general higher regarded with a broader spectrum while GW is more trendy with more focus on rock/metal/younger generation. GP vs GW is one recurring topic (they are actually owned by the same company NewBay Media since 2012 :P) Still, they maintained their own distinct identities and it's interesting to see how to differ on the same topic regarding the industry (published on the same day!):
GP's 99 Problems of the Recording Industry
vs
GW's 10 Reasons why today's Music Industry doesn't suck

One could argue they are not actually talking about the same thing: Music industry covers more than recording industry and includes music publisher, instruments, education and so on (the former actually mentioned the high tuitions of Berklee/Julliard) but both of them mentioned the impact of technology (download/streaming, DIY recordings, social media) I guess it's hard for a musician to become your good old rock stars who made a ton of money after releasing a hit record but on the other hand those with creative spirits will be heard these days as there are more channels or space to perform and promote.

Here is the irony: musicians don't get paid much by streaming services like Pandora and Spotify. At the same time, these companies are not making much either and their business models are being questioned (Spotify lost $78 million in 2012. Rhapsody had to cut staff last year.) I guess it takes a company as powerful as Google to be able to make money off music. In fact, it's troubling to see that Google is planning to shut out artists on indie label that didn't sign with Google from streaming their music videos on YouTube.

Finally, here is a local article about artists not being able to afford living in the bay area because of the "well-paid techies." The author doesn't seem to think a mid-level Python programmer is worthy of his 120k annual salary (Well, not me as I don't do much Python at work.) 

我的結他雜記: Acoustic Archtop

I came across this old Guitar Player magazine article from 2010 dedicated to this topic. I do own a Godin 5th Avenue acoustic archtop and was happy to learn more about the history and characteristics of this type of guitar. Also found an article about how to adjust the floating bridge on an archtop. Should be useful when I need to do so some day :)

我的結他雜記: effect pedal

我玩結他主要以Acoustic爵士為主，也玩Flamenco及古典，Rock則是偶一為之，所以對effect認識甚淺，用也是以distortion居多，不像老友玩chorus, flanger, delay玩到出神入化；當然，一個pedal價錢不是便宜，但原來自製也不算太困難，尤其是對讀過EE的朋友而言，Premier Guitar雜誌刊登了一個詳盡的指南，大家不妨參考參考。

另外，Guitar Player雜誌介紹五個multi-effect pedal，當中Vox的StompLab只賣$90樓下，值得慳儉的玩家留意。

NYDM/CADM Annual

What a cryptic title! Well, that's what I found when I was looking for a metal show to attend and celebrate my b-day. It's a 4-day festival and the most famous band is the death metal legend Possessed. I was unable to go that day though so I went the first day on which Short Fuse was the headliner (with Boudica, Bombs Overhead, etc, as openers.) To be honest, I have not heard of any of these bands before. I found some YouTube videos before going and was impressed. And I was even more impressed after hearing them live at Oakland Metro. The show featured a good variety of styles: grindcore, death metal, black metal. Also, there were interesting bass/guitar/keyboard work as well as female vocal. And I picked up a free EP "In Nomine Umbra" by black metal band IV Never More. Again, much better than expected and showed awesome song writing skills. I'm more happy listening to them than the more well-known yet commercialized bands out there.

我的結他雜記: Easy acoustic guitar love songs

I strongly believe any male guitarist should have an acoustic love song in his repertoire. Guitar World compiled a list of Top 10. Just pick one and start playing!

Groups for adult classical musicians

Hate to say this but I have not played classical for a while. One big reason is that it's more fun to play with others (for jazz at least I have iReal Pro to play with, or myself recorded) but I had a hard time finding like-minded people. We are quite familiar with the local orchestras for kids but not so for people like me. Then I came across this article on Strings: Get Out of the Practice Room, which is about many organizations (like ACMP) for adult amateur classical musicians. And it mentioned the Really Terrible String Orchestra in East Bay. I will definitely give it a try in the future.

我的結他雜記: Martin Taylor/Julian Lage on improv and chord voicing

My mailbox has so many unread emails that I barely have time to catch up. I did subscribe to many music related newsletters. For example, I got emails from Artist Works, the online school where Martin Taylor teaches (Jimmy Bruno used to teach there) Mr. Taylor posted a free lesson demonstrating how to practice and use chord tones in improvisation over a common ii-V-I chord progression:
Coincidentally, from the Facebook page of Stanford Jazz Workshop (which I recently attended), there's a link to a video in which Martin Taylor and Julian Lage discussed chord voicing:


Speaking of Lage, his music keeps growing on me: I saw him performed with the Seasons Guitar Quartet and as a duo at Stanford Jazz last year. Lage and pianist Fred Hersch released a very impressive duet album: Free Flying. And things really came full circle when I listened to another link from SJW's FB page: a NPR interview of Fred Hersch!

我的結他雜記: Blues scale licks to learn

This is a sort-of followup to my previous posts about improv and learning blues-based tunes. I am recommending yet another useful post from jazz instructor Jamie Holroyd: Blues Scale Licks Guitar Study

我的結他雜記: Jazz tunes to learn

This is one learning experience I really would like to share with everyone starting to learn jazz improvisation out there. I remember the first tune I tried to learn was "All the things you are." I love this tune and almost every version of it by every jazz great. I knew it's one of the must-know tune for jazz musician so I figured why not learn it as my first tune? Well, with many key changes, it's certainly not the easiest tune to improvise on. The first chord-melody arrangement I learned was "Autumn Leaves." Again, it's a must-know. Still, it has its fair shares of key changes when it comes to improvisation. From Jimmy Bruno and Robert Conti's lessons, it seemed to me that Satin Doll should be the first tune to learn because of its simplicity. Now I changed my mind after my first "Guided jam" session at Stanford Jazz Workshop. The first tune we improv on was a F blues (12 bars) on which one could use just 1 scale (the blue scale or 2 if you're more adventurous) In fact, now I remember the instructor started us with the same concept at a viola workshop I attended years ago.

Other tunes played at the first jam session included:

• Sidewinder (Lee Morgan)
• Mr. PC (John Coltrane)
• Blue Bossa (Kenny Dorham)
• Freddie Freeloader (Miles Davis) 

All could be improvised on using 1 or 2 scales (C blues and Db major in the case of Blue Bossa)

And I have to recommend reading yet another insightful post from jazz instructor Jamie Holroyd. His Top 10 has a few common tunes with Stanford's list.

Video lessons on jazz licks and chords

Came across a few good video teaching jazz last week via FB and email newsletter.

First, my favorite guitarist Alex Skolnick from Testament taught a few jazz licks over various chords (ii-V, I, Valt) I play his Valt (altered dominant 7th) lick in my solo all the time :P

Then I watched this video by online jazz teacher Jamie Holroyd teaching how to jazz up the chord progression of the Oasis big hit "Wonderwall"

Kansas City Lightning

It was around X'mas 2013 and I wanted to know what were the best recommended books from 2013. Found this list but it was all novels. Then I went on Amazon and it recommended this book by Stanley Crouch about Charlie Parker's days in KC. I downloaded the intro and eventually borrowed the book from the library for two months. (It's ~330 pages and not exactly a page turner so it took me a long time to finish :P I did read 130 pages in 5 days right before the due date) To be honest, I am kinda biased against the author's work because he has a tendency to relate everything to race, e.g. what happened to whom because he was African American or not. And it affected how he favored some jazz musicians/music over others. With that in mind, I still find it valuable to know what happened in USA during the 1st half of the 20th century in the social context of African American. It did explain the origins of some elements of jazz, and the social background from which jazz was emerged: a politically corrupted city allowed entertainment venues to thrive, which in turns allowed musicians to prosper (and honed their craft via experimentation with others.) There were tons of dramas in Charlie Parker's life too: drug addiction, how he met his first wife (whose family subleased from the Parker's) and how they separated, his move to Chicago and New York and back. My timing of reading this book couldn't be better since I am also studying Parker's improvisation lines.

BTW, I read some reviews recommended that audiobook was ideal for it. In fact, I think Hollywood could make a good movie out of it (starring Bruno Mars as Charlie Parker? I don't think Crouch would approve :P)

Superstar Quartet, the Strat Pack

After a busy week of recording our jazz trio, my life is back to normal, i.e., more listening to others than ourselves. I was free on Friday night so the first choice was a good jazz concert and I heard on the radio that legendary vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and saxophonist David Sanborn were performing together (along with organist Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Billy Hart) at SFJAZZ. Small problem though: I have not been able to purchase tickets on SFJAZZ's official website (had the same problem when Paquito D'Rivera played there last time) The error message was ambiguous: something like tickets were for members only or soldout. Unlike last time though, the box office opens on Friday so I called and bought (according to the ticket office guy) the last ticket available. It was expensive but I went with my impulse and it turned out to be good seat: first row of the 2nd closest section in the middle! And of course the sound was unique: I am familiar with each musician from different sub-genre: Bobby Hutcherson from modern jazz, David Sanborn from smooth jazz/R&B, and Joey D from soul jazz. Most importantly, they sounded great together! I'd say the sound was more fusion-oriented but that's certainly my cup of tea. A couple of funny things from the concerts: 1) they were billed as the 'Superstar quartet' What an unimaginative name for such a creative group! 2) when Joey D introduced the tune they just performed, called "You" and said he wrote it for Hutcherson. The latter acted surprised and delighted. What was funnier was next: one guy from the audience asked about the previous tune, this time Sanborn responded 'coz it's written by him. Hutcherson asked whether it was also dedicated to him. Sanborn said no though :)

I was flipping channel on cable on Sunday night and the Palladium channel was showing a program called Strat Pack. I was curious and switched to it and saw the late Gary Moore covering Jimi Hendrix's tunes. As always, he's got the blues! I found out it's a concert with various musicians for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. Oh well, I'm not sure what singer/pianist Jamie Cullum has to do with the Strat. His band didn't even feature guitar! Next was the late Amy Winehouse. I had no idea she played too but she did play a red Strat (just like my buddy!) and accompanied herself on one tune. Not exactly great playing but as usual, she's got style! The other part of the concert that I liked was when David Gilmour played a few old Pink Floyd songs, including "Sorrow", which was my favorite Pink Floyd tunes during the 80s. It was one of the hardest rocking Pink Floyd tunes IMO. I didn't know a lot of fans like it too. To be honest, I was not impressed by the rest of the performers. They've got the guy from Bad Company and the Eagles. Even Brian May (but he's not known for playing the Strat!) This year is the 60th anniversary and hopefully they've got a stronger lineup to celebrate this. Maybe some of the guys mentioned on Fender's page!

我的結他雜記: Recording jazz guitar trio

Like any musician/bands, we recorded ourselves during rehearsals all the time, usually with a cellphone or better yet, a camera/camcorder with a decent mic. As we are preparing a demo of pieces we would like to perform, we decided to go slightly higher-end this time: recording with an amp sim/interface (KORG Pandora), a condenser mic (Samson Go mic) and a notebook PC (ASUS X200CA) I also brought a few USB cables, long extension cords for USB and headphone and a HK electrical outlet adapter for my US computer power supply.

The recording session took place at 310 Studio in the "legendary" Mong Kok 先施大厦. We were given the first room which was the best option for us since only one side is adjacent to another room so we kinda limited the amount of unwanted sound picked up by our mic. There was a mixer in the room connected to studio monitors. We ended up recorded our tunes like this:

1) Load the Audacity file on which a click track was generated and I pre-recorded the guitar part at home already.

For the bass, lower the volume of the click track. We plugged the bass into the Pandora and chose the 'B JAZZ' preset. Then connected the output of Pandora to the in-room mixer. Our bassist listened to the studio monitor and played his part. Set Audacity to use the Pandora as the input. 

For the drums, lower the volume of the guitar track. We used the USB extension cable and clipped the Samson Go mic up on one of the mic stand extended all the way up. Set Audacity to use it as the input and the computer as the output. Finally, plug the headphone with extension cable to the computer. Our drummer listened to the headphone and played. He could not take advantage of the studio monitor because the mic would have picked that audio up.

Using this approach, i.e., each instrument on its own track, we were able to easily balance the volume of each instrument (basically cutting the drums and pumping up the guitar) and made them all sound clearly. We even cheated a little bit by lining up the notes perfectly :P

2) Open a blank Audacity file. Place the Samson Go mic roughly equal distance to the drums, the guitar amp and the bass amp. I relied on the 'Midtown Jazz' preset of the Pandora so I connected the output of Pandora to the Line 6 amp. Chose the Clean channel. Adjusted bass, mid, treble to "neutral" and recorded all 3 of us playing together on one track. 

Using this approach, we lost the ability to balance the instruments. I wish the guitar sounded louder >:) On the other hand, the playing sounded much more cohesive since we were playing and listening to each other at the same time.

[Update] Found this article comparing the pros and cons written by a pro. The observations are similar. 

我的結他雜記: 6th chord

I have been looking into the art of jazz comping on guitar these days and saw that the 6th chord is commonly used for substitution (C6 for Cmaj7 for example) And this is a good article on Jamie Holroyd's site that explains what 6th chords are and how to play them.

我的結他雜記: Jimmy Bruno and Herb Ellis method

I have been a fan of Jimmy Bruno's teaching (as well as playing) for a long time. I have watched his old instructional video "No Nonsense Jazz Guitar" years ago. At first I couldn't understand most of what he said (and still don't) but I did pick up a couple major scale fingering from it (those are commonly taught and proved to be useful) I re-watched the video and joined his "old" online school towards the end of it a few years ago for a few months. This time I picked up all of his 5 major scale fingerings and the ii-V-I arpeggios extracted from them (m7b5 arp could be extracted indirectly) It took a long time to got them under my fingers for all 12 keys though. I also got a better understanding in making single-note solo only based on all "inside" note of a key center (or pitch collection in Jimmy's terminology) by mixing up scale and arpeggio runs. The "understanding" didn't translate into the ability to come up with those lines on the fly though. I submitted a ii-V-I improv video trying to apply the principle and the result didn't really sound like jazz. Jimmy suggested me to listen carefully to the ii-V-I video submitted by other students and his responses. Too bad that's when the "old" school closed the door. I think part of what he wanted me to do was to transcribe the lines that sounded good and analyze them. Jimmy wasn't actually secretive about his method. A lot of the value of his online school lies in his feedback to my playing as well as the other students'.

I also had some experiences with Herb Ellis' method via his "All the Shapes You Are" book, part of his series of 3 method books. This volume presented 7 shapes. They are major triads, minor triads, dominant 7th and dominant 9th chords. For the shapes with major triads, there are 2 corresponding scale fingerings: major scale and dominant scale (i.e., the mixolydian mode) Some shapes have 1 dominant scale or 1 minor scale (actually dorian mode rather than natural/harmonic/melodic minor) If I understand it correctly (described in my old post), to use this method, pick an applicable "scale" over the chord you encounter during improv (obviously, major chord uses major scale, minor chord uses minor scale and dominant chord uses dominant scale) The shapes help identifying chord tones which should be emphasized in the line (e.g. start or end a phrase, or finish the line, especially for resolution to I chord) The bulk of the book consists of many example lines that demonstrate how Herb's method is to be applied, which the author merely suggested to try playing a few times and move on. I made a mistake of not analyzing and memorizing those lines at that point of my study. I was too lazy and thought I should come up with my own lines anyway but I couldn't (partly because I wasn't familiar with the fingerings enough) so I gave up on the method. Another reason why I didn't study those example lines was they are based on a single chord covering multiple bars. Real tunes usually modulate quickly, with ii-V-I in 2 bars often. I just couldn't imagine myself switching from one scale to another every 2 beats. (Later on I found out a phrase that "works" on a ii chord could also be played over the V in the ii-V and vice versa. So I could have "switched" less frequently)

I definitely see similarities between both methods: in fact, the fingerings are very similar. You could even say all of Herb's major/minor/dominant fingering could be "merged" into Jimmy's 5 major fingerings (one or two needs very minor modifications like moving the 4th fingers to the 1st finger of next string. Jimmy doesn't like stretching over 4 frets on a single string in one position, for speed I guess) and all the chord tone shapes are subset of arpeggios extracted from Jimmy's fingerings (except the 9th in dominant 9th) 

I'd say Jimmy's fingering are easier to apply in a ii-V-I context because you don't need to recall 3 of Herb's fingering in the same position of the neck. Instead, just recall one of the 5 Jimmy's major scale fingering and the 3 arpeggios within it.

Both of them taught the use of approach notes (half step from above and below chord tones) for chromaticism.

I gotta admit I suffer from low JIQ (Jazz improvisation quotient) As my instructors would say, I didn't "speak" in the jazz language in my solo. To overcome this, I tried memorizing licks from various books by Joseph Alexander, Sid Jacob and Robert Conti. You could hear common phrases among all these licks and from actual solo played during performances or recordings. I am practicing playing these licks using Bruno's fingering (5 shapes)

Fingerstyle guitar master Stefan Grossman

禮拜日無節目，也是當天才知道，幸好家在bay area，不愁沒有音樂會，基本上我的策略是先看KCSM Jazz datebook，以及一些著名演出場地的網址，包括Yoshi's, Freight and Salvage, Davies Symphony Hall等等。首先看到Freight and Salvage有acoustic fingerstyle guitar表演，然後看到SFJAZZ有一場拉美爵士樂，有我欣賞的古巴單簧管色士風大師Paquito D'Rivera，可惜SFJAZZ售票網及電話皆不通。兩全其美的方法：是去前者，在路上聽後者的CD！相當慶幸沒有錯過一場非一般的音樂會。

Freight and Salvage這個場地本身已是非一般牟利娛樂場所，而是一個歷史悠久，靠捐款由義工協助運作，以傳統美國音樂為主的表演中心。傳統美國音樂除了我常聽的Blues及Jazz，也包括我興趣不大的Country及Bluegrass。不過演出宣傳網頁介紹Stefan Grossman彈fingerstyle guitar，從結他手角度也絕對值得支持。提起fingerstyle，我聽得較多的有Tommy Emmanuel, Martin Taylor, Adam Miller（去年他首次從澳洲來美國巡迴演出，可惜Bay area一站是在偏遠的Lafayette，包括我在內的捧場客寥寥無幾）網頁上的Stefan Grossman sample track風格頗有不同，卻是我非常欣賞但不常聽到的Acoustic blues。音樂會打頭炮就是一首令人聽出耳油的acoustic blues instrumental。接著他開始他獨有的「棟篤笑」式表演：邊說邊唱邊彈地介紹自己學及玩結他的軼事，歌曲的出處等等。雖然個人偏好instrumental music，也覺得他的方式很是過癮。他是一個成長於Brooklyn的猶太人，小時候想學結他，父母叫他去買點唱片，他在唱片店買來一張folk(Woody Guthrie)，一張acoustic blues唱片，決定走後者的路線，師從Reverend Gary Davis，學了一大堆廿世紀初至中的美國傳統歌曲，包括Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy等大師的作品。當晚表演也有原創，例如拿另一位acoustic blues 結他手開玩笑的Assassination of John Fahey，大概有三分二是instrumental，除了blues，也有一點pop/jazz；作為一個白人，唱blues的唱腔亦別具一格。還不忘宣傳他當晚有售的CD Blues for the Mann，該碟包括大部份作品的TAB(PDF)，大家可以跟著彈，中場break time大家都趕著買一張（包括我）！

我的結他雜記: KORG Pandora PX5D on a new PC

Deja vu: this is the 4th time I'm trying to get Pandora working as an audio interface (playback and recording) and for some reason I always have problem making it available as a recording device under Windows. There is a solution (thanks to this post) and I always forget. So I decided to copy it here so that I could look it up in the future (or help a fellow guitarist!)

1. Go to the control panel and open the sound settings 
2. In my setup I could see the PX5D as an option in the playback tab, but NOT on the recording tab. 
3. To solve this go to the recording tab, right click in the box and check "Show Disabled Devices". Now you should see the PX5D, but it is disabled 
4. Right click on the icon of the PX5D and select enabled 
5. Click OK and that is it.