Before I decided to retune one of my 8 string necks to what I believe are the essential strings in the tuning (leaving off the top and bottom string), I adapted one of Tom’s performances for the C13 tuning. The performance is of the Earl Hines classic, “Rosetta”–you may have heard Fats Waller’s version of this, among the many others (Tom’s version is heard on How The West Was Swung, Vol. 4: Pterodactyl Ptales). The C13 tuning I used is the very same tuning used by Junior Brown and many others, and it is spelled from high to low: G E C A G E C Bb.

A few notes about this adaptation: Tom played this on his E13 tuning (G# F# E C# B G# F# E D E) and played the song in the key of B. I’ve adapted it for C13 and have transposed it to the key of C for the following reason: there is a lovely descending chord pattern played by Tom in the third A section with an inverted pedal point (a pedal point that occurs on a voice other than the bass). Tom uses his 2nd string F# as a pedal–in raising the key up to C, I’ve utilized the open first string, G. It’s all great fun and it’s about using resourcefulness to make great steel guitar music.

The bridge contains a few tricky parts that require some quick bar movement–Tom’s use of adjacent strings tuned a whole step apart help to keep it fluid. We’ll have to work a little harder here. I’m referring specifically to bars 19 and 21.

Here is a simple recording of the A-A-B-A sections in the Tommy Morrell style:

This clip was hastily recorded just to give you an idea of what the arrangement sounds like. Apologies for the not-so-clean treatment of the descending chords–I didn’t play it exactly as written.

Also, note: The duration of the first chord in bars 2 and 10 should a dotted half-note, not a dotted quarter and rest–you want the B7 chord to ring underneath the B that follows.

Now, have a listen to the great Fats Waller singing the tune:

Speedy West – Guitar Spectacular (1962, Capitol Records)

I don’t remember what year it was when Guitar Player Magazine inserted the flexi-disk of Stratosphere Boogie in one of their issues, but I can tell you it knocked me out! I remember walking into Matt Umanov’s on Bleecker St., where he had a small rack of LPs, including several by Speedy and Jimmy, both together and solo. I ended up buying 4 LPs (they were on the Stetson label and I still have them). From the first few times I listened to Guitar Spectacular, I knew there was something magical about it. Everything just seemed so right–the mood of the recording, the musicianship. There was nothing about the recording that seemed at all contrived or forced and all the music was original music. With musicians as great as legendary New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer, Billy Strange and Roy Lanham on guitar, Red Wooten on bass, and Billy Liebert on accordion and piano, it’s got to be good! Most surprisingly, it was Speedy’s ballads, such as Afternoon of a Swan, Slow and Easy, Rippling Waters, and Lazy Summer Evening, that became my instant favorites. Yes, there were some fireworks and hot playing (and a little bit of cornball, as well), but the ballads were some of the most beautiful steel guitar compositions I’d ever heard. Yes, they were steel guitar compositions, as opposed to popular songs played instrumentally. This means that all the nuances were conceived by the steel guitar.

Falling somewhere in between Surf music and Western Swing, with traces of Hawaiian and Rock and Roll, Guitar Spectacular strongly evokes a different era. You get to hear several sides to Speedy’s playing. From all accounts, Speedy played a Fender 1000 on this recording and the sound is gorgeous–crystalline and warm. Read this little bit from All Music Guide: “…it suffered due to a manufacturers glitch that saw side one repeated on both sides of the album. Despite a re-pressing, the damage had already been done, as record stores demanded their money back. The music contained within the “fully realized” version of Spectacular was more than worthy of its moniker, as West sounds more comfortable here than on any session in his career. ”

This one is highly recommended and I hope it has the same impact on you that it did me.

Tom Morrell and the Time-Warp Tophands – How the West Was Swung, Vol. 4: Pterodactyl Ptales

I can’t say enough about this recording: from the opening chorus of Rosetta you know you’re in for a treat. The musicianship on this CD is superb; as far as the guitar playing of Clint Strong goes, I’ll go out on a limb and say it is some of the finest guitar playing on any Western Swing recording I’ve ever heard. The perfect balance of Jazz and Swing–not too heady, but just enough. And Tom is in top form–his ideas are so fluid and his tone is clear but with just enough edge to give an air of excitement to his playing. Tom’s Jazz ideas are among the purest I’ve heard from any steel player.

The personnel is: Benny Garcia, Bobby Boatright, Johnny Case, Tommy Perkins, Clint Strong, Howard McRae, and, of course, Tommy Morrell.

Some of the stand-outs are Moo-Indigo (Mood Indigo), featuring a blazing solo by Strong, Rosetta (Tom swings his tail off), I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, with a great intro and Tom just tearing it up. There really are no weak moments on the record and all of the players turn in strong performances.

Joaquin Murphey – Hawaii Forever (1972, Burdge & Co., LTD)

There is so little known about this cassette-only release from 1972 by Burdge & Co. that the music has to speak for itself, and it does for me loud and clear. The musicians are unknown, although the playing is very good and swinging. It reminds me a bit of the sound of Doug McGinnis’s Mule Kick recordings.

I first received a copy of this from a friend and became mesmerized by the melodies and playing, all of which sound familiar to me, but not quite. This is all original music, all strangely named with Hawaiian words (Pupule Ka Moa, Mai Kai Omole, Iny Kakou) and it doesn’t sound Hawaiian at all. But the music is lush and beautiful.

Most everyone is familiar with Joaquin’s style of playing from his days with Spade Cooley and Tex Williams, but here he is playing in a chordal style, much different than previously heard. I have to believe he is playing a pedal steel hear, as some of the beautiful chords he hits are a dead giveaway. But there is not the usual pedal mashing going on. The playing is extremely melodic, lush, gentle, and the tone of the instrument is very clean with a single coil sound. At times, the reverb is a little distracting, but not enough to ruin the experience. There are some tunes with strong single note playing (Aole Pilikia, Hawaii Manawa Pu’a), but for me, the highlight is Joaquin’s chord melody style. Just listening to this has given me many of my own ideas and inspired me to pursue this kind of playing more seriously.

Here is an example of Joaquin’s chordal playing on Hawaii Hana Hou:
Hawaii Hana Hou – Joaquin Murphey

There are several different moods on the recording but, admittedly, there can be a sense of sameness on some of the ballads. Still, all in all, this recording should be heard.

The only place where the recording is available is here, in digital format: http://b0blee.bandcamp.com/album/hawaii-forever
or here, in physical CD form:
http://kunaki.com/MSales.asp?PublisherId=127339. Both stores are owned by Bobby Lee, owner of the Steel Guitar Forum.

So, just how in the world do players achieve such beautiful expression in their playing? There are so many elements that contribute to this, but let’s take a minute to listen to some of the masters doing it and see if we can get specific about how they do it:

Here are 2 songs each by Dick McIntire and Jerry Byrd:

If you listen to the first 2 cuts by Dick McIntire, Luana and South Sea Moon, you will get a pretty good picture of Dick’s style of playing. He played in C#min7 tuning and the related F#9 tuning almost exclusively; his playing was not complex, but the first thing you will notice is the beauty of his tone and his wonderful touch. Dick used a very consistent vibrato–not very wide, but fast–and he used glissandi, or slides, very selectively. Another thing that Dick did extremely well was a yodel type sound, where he hits the lower note dead on and then quickly plays a higher note another string, effectively cutting off the lower note at just the right moment. You can hear this as part of the melody in South Sea Moon beginning at 3:21. You can hear another great example where he glisses up to the higher note at the beginning of the bridge at 3:36.

Another feature that is prominent in Dick’s ballad playing is his use of the volume swell. Dick played a Rickenbacher Frypan (long scale) and used his pinky to turn the volume knob in order to emulate the attack of a violin. I think Dick was the best at this that I’ve ever heard.

Jerry Byrd will forever be known as the “Master of Touch and Tone” and for good reason. You can hear right off the bat that Jerry’s style is more sophisticated harmonically and more nuanced, but Dick McIntire was a big influence on Jerry.

Let’s start with Jerry’s vibrato: you can hear Jerry’s vibrato is quite a bit slower and more subdued than Dick’s. I also hear Jerry using glissando quite a bit more, but he is playing in a chordal style, so that helps him to avoid sounding choppy. Jerry is also using a volume pedal, more for lengthening notes than cutting the attack of the notes, though.

Another interesting technique is Jerry’s picking at 6:03: he is playing across the strings, two at a time, in a harp-like manner, delaying the attack of the second note. Very nice effect. One of the things that always struck me about Jerry’s playing, and in the beginning confused me, was how changed up the harmonies in his lines so that they were never predictable. Jerry would change the lower harmony right in the middle of the melody just so subtly, but enough to really make my ears stand up. How he was able to do that and still have such an even tone is a mystery for the ages.

To further illustrate Jerry’s bar mastery, I’ like to draw your attention to this recording of The Waltz You Saved for Me, recorded with Ferlin Husky–Jerry’s solo begins at 1:38:

Jerry plays a descending line at 1:49 which ends with a beautiful resolution from the I7 chord to the IV chord. The best part about it for me is the way the slant takes shape–it almost reminds me of a bird landing, with its wings spread (the upper note) and its feet slowly lowering to the ground (the 2 notes on the bottom being slanted). Strange analogy, I know, but that was the image I got from it.

I haven’t even touched on Jerry’s exquisite harmonics playing, but that is a subject for another post.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my technique to the point where I could play the types of runs I might play as a guitarist–not for the sake of impressing anyone, but just because it is how I approach music; however, while I may not have intended to, I have glossed over really delving into the deepest levels expression the instrument is capable of. This morning I listened to Buddy Charleton’s version of “The Waltz You Saved For Me” and it just so stunningly beautiful, and yet very simple. The touch and bar control are so important to achieving this level of beauty, but I also believe that we have to put our soul into it. Not sure that is easily explainable verbally. When I am in doubt about that, I listen to this (sorry, the quality is not great, but it was all I could find):

Gabby Pahinui’s playing here is sublime and is a reminder to me of what it was that really attracted me to the instrument in the first place.

So, while I will continue to move on in the direction that I have been, I think I will need to stop and smell the Yellow Roses a bit more frequently. Beauty is good!

Fast forward a year and I am in the public library looking at a hardcover guitar book that I believe was written by Barney Kessel or perhaps Howard Roberts. There were quite a few things that intrigued me in this book, such as how to build chords from scales, so I took it home and renewed it over and over again until they wouldn’t let me any longer. But I feel I really learned a good deal from this book, although it is hard for me to remember exactly what. It fed my hunger for musical knowledge for quite a while. I can remember sitting in class and harmonizing all of my scales and writing out all the chords I could think of on staff paper. Granted, I had no idea what these chords sounded like, but I knew how to build them. I even remember remarking to my uncle, who was also a musician, that no one ever plays those thousands of chords in the Mel Bay Chord Encyclopedia. He told me I was wrong and I believed him.

When I reached high school, I was lucky that Music Theory was offered as an elective. I don’t know if they still do that in schools nowadays, but for me it was something that I value very highly. 95% of the other kids in the class couldn’t have cared any less about Music Theory, but I was determined to learn from it. My teacher was an older man named Lew Curtis. I remember being impressed that he could play the arpeggios from Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” on the violin (the ones Eddie tapped out).

I don’t remember the name of the workbooks we used–I want to say Schaum, but that is just a wild shot in the dark. There were about 16 workbooks and they covered a lot of ground in terms of teaching you how to transpose, write four-part harmony, and many other really helpful tools. The best part about them was that you actually had to put the pencil to the paper to complete the work and learn. I very happily finished every exercise in all 16 or so volume in the course of my sophomore year in high school and I was all the better for it.

I know there are a lot of folks out there who are interested in learning about Music Theory but are either intimidated by it, don’t know where to start or just don’t get it. I can understand these feelings, but underneath there is a desire to learn. I believe you need to take advantage of the desire and try to learn as much about music as you possibly can–it will make you a better musician, I promise. A lot of folks have recommended books to help people learn, but I want to recommend a book that is very similar the ones I used to learn and it is very inexpensive. It is called “Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory: A Complete Self-Study Course for All Musicians“. You will learn everything from key signatures to note values to ending and repeat symbols and much more. If you have patience and time to learn, I can’t recommend this highly enough. There is no shame to learning the game, even if you can already play like a pro.

Over the past few parts, we’ve imposed the guidelines of using bars of rests to separate our phrases. Hopefully, this has really got you thinking about your phrases independently. It’s really important to give your phrases an opportunity to make their intentions known, and it’s even more effective when there is a cohesiveness to your ideas.

We will now remove the guideline of a mandatory bar (or two) of rests and begin to focus on connecting phrases together, more or less like a paragraph. We will need punctuation to separate our ideas, and this is where our rests will come into play.

Let’s talk about the different types of punctuation we use in everyday speech:

Commas are used to separate ideas or even elements or objects. Think about a serial comma: “She had a slice of pizza, a piece of cheesecake, and a cup of coffee.” The serial commas separated the 3 elements. If the comma was to be represented in music, it would be with a rest of a short duration, like an eighth note. Here is an example of how I might depict the previous sentence musically:

It might seem a little crazy to think that one might go to this extent in improvising and, yes, it is. This is just a demonstration of how a rest of a short duration functions in the same way a comma does–in this case, it’s a serial comma. Remember, it is all about communication–in music as it is in speech.

A period is a full stop, or the end of the matter. We would use a rest of duration of more than a quarter note to signify the end of the matter. “She had a slice of pizza, a piece of cheesecake, and a cup of coffee. She went home and slept like a baby.” The periods separate these two sentences–we use this to great effect in our musical phrasing:

Do you hear the difference between the effect of the comma and the period? Do you think you could put this this to work in your own playing? Good. I’d like you to come up with some examples of your own. Start the same way I did, as if you were having a conversation with your friend about what you did this morning. Write down a short paragraph of no more than 4 sentences and see if you can make the connection musically. Play the melody of your paragraph on your steel guitar. This is a very fun exercise, but it has very rewarding benefits. After you’ve played around with this concept for a while, you will remind yourself before you take a solo to make your ideas have the kind of clarity you strive for when you speak. I know you will begin to see the difference and others will, too.

Here is a wonderful example of a soloist (the wonderful Amos Garrett) using punctuation in his soloing . See if you can pick it out:

Do you remember a time when your playing resembled a run-on sentence, like there was no real end to what you were saying and things just rambled and made no sense and everyone was confused and no one understood what you were trying to say because your ideas were not clear and you had no control over what you were saying because you didn’t really know what you were trying to say? Phew. That was a mess, wasn’t it? Imagine that is me playing steel guitar–you’d be running for the nearest exit. Now, in jazz there are many examples of soloists who play long streams of notes which would go beyond what we are striving for here. Pat Martino, for example, plays very long lines and he plays chorus after chorus of it. I am a very big fan of his playing and certainly his concept of improvisation goes well beyond the scope of this series. For our intents and purposes, we need to keep it a little simpler than that. Unless your goal is to portray a hysterical situation or even hair-pulling insanity, you’re probably going to do your listeners a favor by organizing your ideas into coherent paragraphs.

The wonderful thing here is: we are discussing improvisational tools and we have really not even once talked about scales. There is a lot more to it than that.

Have fun experiment with this and remember: every little bit you pick up along the way helps. You have to practice and put it to use. There is no magic bullet.

Until next time….

Hello I,
Those are great and relevant questions and points you’ve brought up and I’ll do my best to address them.

The whole aim of the improvisation series is to de-mystify the process of improv. Most of the time when people teach improv, it usually goes like this: “OK, here is the scale you play here, now play something.” The most difficult elements are not even addressed and what usually results is a lot of aimless playing. By breaking down the structure of a simple form, like the blues form, and then imposing rules, such as 1 bar phrase, 1 bar silence, we have begun the process of exploring melodic development. It is entirely possible, and it is the ultimate goal, to be able to improvise a well-developed solo. We need to approach it step-by-step, though.

By utilizing the answer/question method in learning, we begin to understand the relevance of what we play in relation to what has come before. We are composing in the moment, so we want to be entirely focused on the melodies we are creating. One short phrase followed by another, etc. is a great way to ensure the content is unfolding moment by moment into a solo which really makes the entire piece of music better. That should be the goal: to make the song better by what we play, not to just fill up some space. We can base what we play off of the song’s melody–in fact, that is very much recommended, in any genre, not just Country or Pop. Often, great improvisers will have the original melody in the back of their minds while improvising. Using the bars of rest is a way of illustrating the importance of space in music. One of the things that beginning improvisers do is to play without using any space at all. Listen to any great solo and you will hear space, even if only for a few beats.

So, at some point we will be eradicated from the rigidity of the rules we are using. At that time, we should already have a good grasp on thematic, motivic and melodic development, but we will always have these things in the back of our minds to guide us and give us strategies on how to approach soloing on a tune.

Here is a solo I hummed and notated over the tune Right Or Wrong. It was done spontaneously, but section by section (I can’t type that fast). It doesn’t purport to be as good as anything, just a demonstration of how this concept can work. See if you can pinpoint where the questions and responses are, as well as the explanations (if you’ve gotten to Part 4 of the series).

Mike

We’ve looked at the concept of question and answer in previous parts and we’ve begun to introduce other elements to the equation. Now it’s time to expand on what we already have. Are you ready to have some fun? Good, because I am, too!

Our question and answer examples were very short and didn’t leave a lot of room for expression, but they served the purpose of making you aware of the kind of dialog that is possible in improvisation. It was very much like a questionnaire–a simple question, a simple response. Suppose for a moment that someone was being interviewed by someone and these were the questions and responses:

Q: “How do you like your job?”
A: “I’m pretty happy with it.”

Pretty direct and to the point and not at all interesting. We know very little about the interviewee from his response to the question other than he is “pretty happy” with his job.

Suppose now that this was the way the interview went:

Q: “How do you like your job?”
A: “I’m pretty happy with it. There are times that I wish I would have chosen another career.“

Q: “What makes you say that?”
A: “Well, I don’t make enough money. If I lived alone, it would be fine, but I have a family to support.”

You can see how much more information was exchanged and how the interviewee was able to open up. We know a lot more about the interviewee. In a real conversation or interview, when someone asks a question, there is not only a response, but usually an explanation. The explanation, or statement, is usually more detailed and longer than the answer itself. Can you see how this ties in to music and improvisation? We all carry on similar types of conversations everyday, proving that we all have the ability to string thoughts together in a coherent fashion. What we need to do in order to make this work musically is to learn to create these thoughts, or phrases, with musical notes. By starting with small phrases, like we have been doing, we are giving ourselves a better opportunity to build something that makes sense. The rigidity of the guideline of using one bar phrases has kept us focused. We are going to continue to use the question/response formula, but now we are going to expand each phrase to 2 bars, followed by 2 bars of rest, until we finally conclude with 4 bars of explanation. This is how it will look:

Bars 1 and 2: Question
Bars 3 and 4: Rest
Bars 5 and 6: Answer
Bars 7 and 8: Rest
Bars 9 through 12: Explanation

Our explanation will be 4 bars long. How exactly do we go about using musical phrases to depict a more detailed explanation of our response? In this particular case of playing on the 12 bar Blues form, our explanation will occur over bars 9 through 12, which is when the chords move from the V to the I. This is the perfect place for our explanation. Usually, in the last 2 bars of the form there is what is called a “turnaround,” which signifies the end of one idea and the beginning of another–we are not yet using turnaround changes, so we will stay on the I chord. Within these 4 bars, there are several things we can do to lend a sense of completeness to the ideas. Note that when we are explaining something to someone, we tend to use more words and sometimes we speak a bit more passionately or intensely. We can use pitch to help us convey this sense of passion–just as when we speak passionately, we may speak with higher pitches. Also, to simulate using more detail, we will use more notes (musical details). Have a listen to the example below and see if it gets that point across for you:

Notice a few of the things I did here–in the first bar, I delayed the beginning of the phrase. This is the opposite of the pick-up that I talked about in the Part 3. We’ll call it a delay. This can also really add the swing of a line. Much of the time, Jazz improvisers will stay away from starting a phrase on the first downbeat. I also used pick-ups in bars 4 and 8. Another thing I did was to use rests (space) and different note values to break up the monotony of the eighth notes. You’ll even notice an eighth note triplet–think of this triplet as a 3 syllable word. Take the phrase “thinking about”–the syllables “thin-king a-…” would be a triplet, followed by an eighth note, “…bout”. Does that make sense to you?

So, the phrases I’ve used are a little more interesting in an effort to tell more of a story. You can, of course, look at the words which I included underneath the melody. It may seem crazy to some of you to even think in terms of equating a melodic line with an actual verbal line that not actually sung as lyrics but, once you try it and get used to the process, it really helps you in becoming a more articulate improviser. Your band mates may think you’re crazy and, of course, being that you’re a steel player, it’s a given! Very often, I’m improvising words as I play–the words may not amount to anything even coherent, but it is the act of doing it in the first place that lends a sense of lyricism to the things I play (on a very good day, I might add–and there are plenty that are the other kind, too). Again, it is not necessary for you to create this verbal dialog, but you may find that it helps. Another thing it helps your improvisations do is: breathe. The one thing that horn players and vocalists have in common is that they take breaths. Very often, guitarists and pianists don’t take musical breaths enough. There are individual players, such as Pat Martino, who play long streams of notes without breathing and sound fantastic doing so. But for the improviser who doesn’t have quite as much to say and lacks the ability to do so clearly, it’s not so wonderful for the listener. Keep this is mind. Although steel guitar is not necessarily an instrument conducive to playing long streams of notes, we still want our playing to breathe.

I’d like you to take a listen to this 12 bar Blues by Sonny Rollins, one of the great lyrical improvisers, called Blue 7. After Sonny plays the head over the first 12 bars (of course, after the bass intro), listen to the choruses he plays and see if you can observe any of the things we’ve talked about.

A truly great record by Sonny Rollins:

Hope you have fun with this–after all, that’s what it’s all about.

Go to Part 5

All who have purchased the eBook or the printed book are invited to contact me for the upgrade. You can also click on the Bebop Lap Steel link above. It is, however, password protected, so if you don’t remember the password, feel free to contact me.

Thank you again to all for making this book such a success.

The price of the book will remain at $14.95 for a limited time, after which is will increase to $16.95.

As you’ve seen, we’ve been working on using short one bar phrases separated by a bar of silence, and have even used the concept of question/response. It is exciting when you recognize the effectiveness of this approach–suddenly, it is as if a little mystery has been demystified. The problem is, when you measure the musical merit of the lines that we’ve played on their own, they fall short. They are boring and predictable. We don’t have to wait any longer to begin introducing new elements to make things a little more musical.

I’d like to introduce a new element: the pick-up. The pick-up is simply going to shift the beginning of our melodic line into the measure preceding it. Doing this will make a significant difference in the way our lines sound, giving them a much more polished and swinging sound.

A pick-up can be any number of notes, or even a tied-note which crosses over the bar line, but for our purposes, we will try to stick with a pick-up of 1 1/2 beats, or three 8th notes. Am I confusing you? Let me explain: if we count our measures as 1 an 2 an 3 an 4 an, our phrase will begin on the “an” following 3, or the up beat of 3. So, our pick-up will be “an 4 an”.

Take a look at and listen to this variation of our Simple Blues:

Again, it is not the most exciting piece of music, but in order to keep consistent with the development of a particular theme, I’ve simply modified the previous example.

So, now we have a pick-up played for each of our phrases and, in turn, no longer have one measure of rest. It is a bit busier now than before, but it doesn’t need to be–we can also shorten our phrases. You should experiment as much as possible with doing this.

Since I’ve introduced the pick-up, now is a good time to introduce a related and deeper concept called “anticipation“. An anticipation is a harmonic device which we use to create tension within our pick-up. What an anticipation does is introduce the next chord change before the current chord change is finished which, depending on how extreme we get with it, can really add excitement and tension to the line. The anticipation works particularly well in the transition from the I chord to the V7 chord (in this case, G7). If you take a look at the chords C7 and G7, the significant difference is that the G7 has a B natural, whereas the C7 has a Bb. We could use this to our advantage to add a sense of forward motion to our line, playing the change before it even happens. Listen to the example:

In this example, I introduced the notes B, A and Ab as pick-up notes to the G7. The notes B and Ab clash a bit with C7 (they are the 3rd and b9 of G7), creating a slight amount of tension. It is very subtle (and, admittedly, not very musical), but in future discussions I hope to demonstrate how effective it can be.

Here is a great example of “anticipation” in this solo by Oscar Aleman–at 1:23 you can hear Oscar anticipate the I chord coming from the V7 chord.

It may not be completely clear to you what is going on, but you will hear that something has happened–that ‘something’ was an anticipation.

If you are working with these concepts and exercises, I’d love to hear from you. It lets me know that I am presenting the material clearly and that someone actually cares.

Hopefully, next installment I will focus on how to make this more steel guitar-related. Up to this point, it has been important to keep the concept general and not confuse it with any of the steel guitar matter that can drive us all crazy!

Go to http://www.mikeneer.com/lapsteelin/?p=1364 Continue reading →]]> Hopefully, you’ve had some time to spend with the exercise presented in Part 1. If you have, then hopefully you will never play and listen to music in the same way. It’s just a small step on a journey of many, many steps, but it is a step in the right direction.

In this segment, I’d like to expand upon the concept presented in Part 1 by introducing another element–the repeated answer. In Part 1, we asked a question, paused, and then answered the question, pausing again afterward. The answers to the questions could range from being somewhat related to the question on a melodic level, or they could be random, as long as they met the criteria for a response–the descending final note of the phrase. This time, we are going to use the same response to every question. Ask yourself these questions and responses aloud:

Can I get you something to eat? No, thank you.
Would you like something to drink? No, thank you.
Is there anything I can do for you? No, thank you.

Now, imagine that each of those questions is a different melodic phrase–they can vary wildly, if you like. Imagine them being responded to with a simple 3 word answer: “No, thank you.” Another really effective way of implementing this, and a technique I’ve used myself, is to actually say little phrases verbally while you are improvising. It sounds strange, but again, it really gets you thinking more about your phrasing. For instance, I might say, “Are you thinking about me, baby?” The significance of this is that rhythmically I’ve introduced something other than just 8th notes, and it was done in a very natural manner: “think-ing a-bout” would give me an 8th note triplet and an 8th note. Do you follow?

This is a very complex subject called “prosody” that became very clear to me after reading the wonderful book by Pedro De Alcantara entitled, “Integrated Practice: Coordination, Rhythm & Sound.” This is one of the most fascinating and well-written books on the subject of music that I have ever read–let’s just say, it helped changed the way I look at some things in music. Prosody is the study of rhythm in the written and spoken language, particularly poetry. The significance of this is not only the rhythm, but the emphasis on syllables or “stresses“, otherwise known as the “meter“. (Do you remember iamb and trochee, etc., from your English classes?) I know this seems a little far out there to bring into a conversation about simple improvisation, but it definitely is something to think about and may be one of the unspoken elements we hear in great improvisation.

This brings to mind the great Eddie Harris, one of my favorite musicians, and the brilliant way he utilized this very same approach. You can hear it on some of his funkier tracks, like “Listen Here”, where he repeats a phrase in the lower range followed by playing in the upper range. Check out Listen Here (the repeating phrase begins at about 1:45):

Can you hear how incredibly effective that is? The mere presence of that 3 note phrase really keeps him keyed in to the tune and the groove and he plays some really beautiful stuff off of it. That little phrase locks him in solid. That is a legendary cut, if you’ve never heard it before.

Here is an example I put together quickly, very similar to the one used in Part 1, but I’ve made the changes necessary to stick with the theme of the repeated answer.

Click on the arrow to listen to MIDI file.

Spend some time with this and make some recordings of yourself doing it. It doesn’t matter which tuning you play in or which instrument you are playing on–the effects will be the same. You will notice the change in your playing. This is very effective for many styles of music other than Jazz–it sounds great in Rock and Blues, as well.

Go to Part 3

Improvisation is simultaneously one of the easiest and one of the most difficult things musicians do. One of the most daunting aspects of improvisation is the fact that there are endless possibilities–where does one even begin to improvise? By imposing a rigid set of guidelines, we can begin to put the process to work and eliminate all the confusion about where to start. As we conquer each phase of development, we can begin to remove the guidelines, because at that point we will have gained a familiarity with structure.

Regardless of the style of music we play, the one common element is melody. I’m not suggesting that the same melodic content would work across the board in all styles–it is important that we understand what is appropriate for the music we are playing and how tolerant that style is. Obviously, if we try to impose a lot of Jazz vocabulary on a style such as Country, we may find that the music does not tolerate it. However, we may explore those possibilities through personal practice and find that there are boundaries we can expand, if even slightly.

The more we think about melody, the more we find ourselves paying deeper attention to the content of the melody–the direction of the phrases, the duration of the notes, the rhythms, the repeated motifs, the dynamics, etc. Deep listening really is the most effective way of absorbing and learning to play music. I mean this not only with listening to the music of others but, more importantly, listening to our own inner voice and translating that to our instrument. This is something that any one of us can sit down right now and do. We may end up playing things that sound familiar, maybe even fragments of melodies we’ve heard before, but with more and more practice and development, we can create fresh, new, exciting melodic content which lives and develops in the moment. We are all unique and we will all come up with something different, even despite our best efforts to play something that sounds like our heroes. This is really our opportunity to focus on what it is that makes each of us unique.

I’d like to talk for a moment about guidelines and how they will help us directly. When we are improvising, we are faced with many decisions, from note choices to rhythms to length of phrases, etc., and this can really be a bit overwhelming for a beginning improviser. You may even find that the more information you learn with regard to harmony, the more confusing it can be. We have to find a way to harness all of the information we have and not let it be a distraction to what we are trying to accomplish, which is improvising a melody. Rather than using everything we know when we improvise, it becomes more about forgetting what we know and just making music. This is why it is so important for us to be able to listen internally. Our mind dictates the melody to us–it is our ears’ responsibility to guide our hands into playing that melody. Before every action is a thought–what we play should be a response to our thoughts. For more on the role of the brain and central nervous system in the performance and learning of music, I’d highly recommend the book, “The Art of Piano Playing” by George Kochevitsky. It can be a bit of a dry read at times, but it is fascinating and really lays out his argument in a very scientific and fact-based manner. The first chapter on the introduction of the piano to a world of harpsichordists and the difficulties they encountered in physically playing the instrument is really wonderful and enlightening.

Let’s start off with some very simple guidelines: we are going to limit the duration of our phrases and separate them with silence. Silence is a very important element of improvisation and of music in general. We will start off using phrases of 1 bar in length, followed by 1 bar of silence. This will give the impression that we are creating a dialog. We can use a question and response approach to keep our phrases related to each other and we will use a strict rhythmic pattern that we will not deviate from. So, how in the world do we create a question with a melodic line? It’s very simple: ask yourself a question aloud–”Would you like some tea?” Notice how the last word, tea, rises in pitch? This is exactly how we do it with music; the last note of the phrase is an ascending note. Now, respond to the question aloud: “No, not at this moment.” Hear how the pitch of the last word descends? That is how we respond to the question–using a descending note at the end of the phrase. This kind of structure will be beneficial to us in the long run, so don’t succumb to the urge to depart from it. We are also going to use the simple 12-Bar Blues form for this, as the structure of it is one that is familiar to everyone.

So, according to the guidelines set forth above, our improvisation on a 12-bar Blues form would look like this:

Bar 1: question–end phrase with ascending note
Bar 2: silence
Bar 3: response–end phrase with descending note
Bar 4: silence
Bar 5: question–end phrase with ascending note
Bar 6: silence
Bar 7: response–end phrase with descending note
Bar 8: silence
Bar 9: question–end phrase with ascending note
Bar 10: silence
Bar 11: response–end phrase with descending note
Bar 12: silence

To keep the melodic content simple, I suggest just using a simple pentatonic scale: In this case, lets play Blues in C Major using the C minor pentatonic scale to generate our melodic content: C Eb F G Bb

If this seems a little confusing to you, just think about it for a moment by trying to imagine a Blues progression in your mind. As you listen to the progression, imagine that you are playing, following the guidelines listed above. You can even try singing short phrases, making sure to ask a question, respond, and then take the time to reflect (silence). You can make your responses to the question more relevant by using the same phrase in each, only making the phrase end in accordance with our guidelines.

The following example demonstrates a simple question/response pattern over a simple 12 Bar Blues. Again, just to clarify, the examples presented in these exercises are just to demonstrate the concepts–you should be playing your own melodies, listening intently to make sure they fit within the guidelines and that they are as musical as possible. Attention to these details will make a big difference in your overall development as an improviser.

Now, if after hearing this you say, “No, thanks, I’d rather not play like that,” I’d completely understand. But think about it–did you hear the structure and did this quick little example effectively communicate the idea of question/response? That is all the matters here. We want to get you inside of the music as you are playing and following the guidelines in order to be able to better organize your ideas in a more communicative way. There will be many more examples and expansions and contractions of the guidelines further down the road, but for now, try to take the opportunity to add this kind of structured improvisation to your practice routine. Remember: You are not creating art; you are merely trying to communicate simple ideas, so don’t get hung up on what you are playing. Just be sure to follow the guidelines.

If you have the ability to record yourself, please do so. If you use Band In A Box, set up a simple 12 Bar Blues progression in any key you choose. Most of all, have fun! Where there’s fun, there’s guaranteed to be results.

All for now.

Go to Part 2

It is a difficult arrangement to play and requires a lot of palm blocking, as you will no doubt find out. You will also notice that there is a behind the bar string pull in which the note is pulled up 1/2 step and held, then released when changing bar position. It is very easy with some practice and a tough ring finger.

This is what it sounds like. You may note there is a discrepancy between what is written and what I played in the 32nd bar. What is written is correct with regard to Monk’s melody. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I made the slight change (basically a half step difference), but nonetheless, I have corrected it.

Listen to Monk play it:

The other day, Andy Volk sent me an email with his arrangement of A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, a beautiful song from 1940 composed by Jack Strachey and Manning Sherwin with lyrics by Eric Maschwitz.

It is a wonderful song that has been recorded many times by myriad artists, from Nat Cole to Frank Sinatra to Manhattan Transfer to my favorite instrumental version by jazz organist Sam Yahel. Andy provided a version for C6 that was chock full of slants and moves that were a little tough for me; I couldn’t make all the chords flow easily from one to the next and on some slants intonation was an issue (something to be wary of, particularly on a ballad). He thought it would be interesting to see how I might approach it, for better or worse, and I agreed with him that it’s cool blog fodder.

I spent about 1/2 hour with the tune and got it together quickly, trying to keep it simple, but making sure the chord qualities were represented. It took about an hour to notate and tab it, as I was able to copy and paste some sections, keeping it all relatively simple. I hope to find the time to give it a real chord solo treatment where the playing develops and unfolds with each new chorus.

The first pass through this tune I tried to stick true to the melody in arranging it. I made a few changes to the harmony, but rather insignificant ones (although it would have been nice if I hipped the rhythm guitarist to them ). One favorite of mine is substituting a dominant chord in place of a minor 7 chord in a turnaround. My melody F7 clashes with my rhythm guitar Fm7, but we could fix that in subsequent versions. Sometimes you just have to know when to ignore a chord, such as the Dmi7b5. In that case I went straight to the G7 chord. You have to remember this is not a true solo arrangement, as there is accompaniment. It is a little tough to be Joe Pass on a 6 string lap steel.

Here is my arrangement; simple but effective, I think. Here is a ( very) rough mp3 of it (I really didn’t have time to nail it). Also, I played very loosely with the melody, not following the written chart’s rhythm precisely (played on my Electar Model M with a Rick Aiello Potbelly pickup):
A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

I will try to further elaborate on the process and I will publish some more in a bit, but right now it is time for my run, so I’ve got to bolt. I’ll check back in a while. Let me know your thoughts on this one, don’t be shy.

Before I begin reharmonizing and rearranging the first draft of “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square”, I thought I would take a moment to outline some of the strategies I will consider.

The first area of reharmonization, and probably the most common one, is the Tritone Substitution. The tritone substitution most commonly occurs with dominant 7th chords. When looking for a chord’s tritone sub, we look for the note that is a b5 (3 whole steps) above the root of our chord (i.e., for C, go up 3 whole steps to find F#). F#7 is a tritone substitute for C7 and works beautifully when moving to the next chord F (chromatic bass movement).

The next thing to consider is Chord Qualities. The “quality” of a chord is whether it is major, minor, diminished, dominant, augmented, half-diminished. We can explore changing the quality of a chord, keeping the root the same (i.e., Gmaj becomes Gmin, etc.). This can really have a great impact on the mood of a tune. Lennie Tristano did an arrangement of “Pennies From Heaven” in a minor key and called it “Pennies From Minor.” Retaining the melody notes is still an important factor to consider, though.

We can also insert chords that have a specific harmonic function to create resolution. This is called Functional Harmony. An example of this would be if your piece of music had several static bars of a chord–we could easily insert a V7 chord in the same measure as our original (one measure of C becomes G7 C), or maybe even a turnaround to cycle right back to our original chord, which adds a nice sense of bass movement and harmony. We could also include tritone substitution (one measure of C becomes Db7 C (we subbed Db7 for G7)). We can change our minor function chords, such as the ii7, iii7 or vi7 chords to dominants, the way I did in the case of the F7 chord. This is very much what Charlie Parker did when he reharmonized the blues. Instead of 4 bars of F, then to Bb, he would use F Em7b5 A7 Dm7 Dbm7 Cm7 F7 then Bb. That’s an example of functional harmony.

We can also consider altering our chords so that the extensions, or color tones, create a sense of color and tension, and we can begin to use inner voice movement. Alterations can really add a lot to a piece, and done effectively can really make a part come alive and seem to jump out.

Pedal points are another tool that are often used in creating interesting bridges, for example. A bass note becomes constant while the harmonies on top of it shift. Some of the most effective ways of using a pedal point are to keep the chords on top as simple triads (major triads can be very effective here).

These are just some of the tools I will contemplate using in reharmonizing. It is possible to go overboard and really ruin an arrangement by trying to do too much; however, it is best to learn what going overboard means by doing it. Sometimes you have to know when to say when–if you’ve gone too far, hopefully your ears will hear it. The goal is to begin using these tools to bring about a certain mood. No one can tell you what that mood should be, but making sure you get that point across should be the biggest priority.

Hopefully, I’ll find the time to have another chorus ready in a few days.
___________________________________
Part 3

Continuing on with “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square”, I worked up another verse with some mild reharmonizations and some stylistic devices, such as behind the bar string pulls which can be very effective, especially when you’re looking for a melody note that doesn’t exist in your particular chord shape.

I’ve highlighted the chords with string pulls in yellow. The easiest way to do these would be to use your ring finger, as your middle finger is busy keeping the bar steady. Some of the bends are on the upper frets which makes the physical act of doing the pull a bit easier, due to the reduced amount of tension as you move further away from the nut. Also, note that I’ve included the new chord names in the space between the tab and the notation. Compare this to the original lead sheet posted in Part 1. All of the chords bascially fit into one of the categories mentioned in Part 2. I used tritone substitution (particularly in bar 3 (A7) and bar 9 (E7b9) and I also used functional substitutions (D7, F7) as well as non-functional substitutions (BMaj7 and DbMaj9)–ultimately, the goal is to make it sound good and I think this certainly qualifies, no matter what you call it.

Below the score you will find a few notes on my choices in the reharmonization.

In bar 3, I chose A7 as a tritone sub for Eb7 (actually the lead sheet calls for a Bb-7 to Eb7) because it makes a nice chromatic bass movement to Ab, the following chord.
Bar 4, I subbed D7 for Dmi7b5 (functional substitution) for no other reason that it was available and that there is a inner voice movement as it moves to G7 then finally to Cmi. That is the kind of thing I strive for.
Bar 5, I subbed Db9 for Ab-6–they are very close in structure, but I really like the string pull to the 9th there.
In bar 7 I utilized non-functional harmony and found nice chords which contained my melody notes and had a desirable bass movement, moving up in whole steps back to our tonic.
In bar 8, another functional substitution as I subbed G7 for Eb and created a III-VI-II-V back to Eb. In bar 9 I subbed the E7b9 for the Bb7 or V7 chord and again introduced chromatic bass movement.

I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am. I will continue to post reharmonization as the inspiration strikes and as time allows; however, please keep in mind that I have a very short attention span and my mind is already onto other selections.

Peace.

This show was recorded by someone with 2 video cameras, but the audio on both videos is distorted, so I apologize for the less than stellar sound.

I don’t really gig much anymore, as I have chosen to spend more time advancing my music studies and pursuing other musical interests, so I feel happy to at least have had the chance to take a crack at this with a band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kyH-VSsFuw

Tom Morrell told the story of a time when he had some time off between gigs in California. Tom was looking to buy a pair of shoes, so he stopped to ask where he might buy a pair. He walked into a shop owned by a little Asian woman and asked her. She pointed to her right and yelled, “Fulawka!” Confused, Tom replied, “Huh?” Again, she just pointed and said, “Fulawka!” He walked out the door and looked to his right, and down the street a block away was a Foot Locker.

This song is called “Phoolawka“.

Thanks to Kyle Aaron for the story.

Tom Morrell and the Time Warp Tophands, with Craig Chambers, live from the 12th Annual Legends of Western Swing Festival, featuring Tom Morrell – steel guitar, Craig Chambers, Leon Chambers and Rich O’Brien – guitars, Bobby Boatright – fiddle, Curley Hollingsworth – keys, Greg Hardy – drums, Mark Abbott – bass, and Snuffy Emore, mandolin.

More Tom Morrell

What the heck–here’s another: the great tune, “Farewell Blues”

Happy New Year!
Mike

That has not stopped me from wanting to play like a pedal steel player at times; there are times when nothing but a pedal steel sound will do. When I say pedal steel sound, it goes a lot deeper than just the usual sound of A and B pedal mashing or the knee levers; it’s almost a state of mind in addition to the obvious physical nature. Even the tone is markedly different, so I tend to find ways to achieve a different tone by using my right hand a little differently than I might in a non-pedal setting, even though I am playing non-pedal. Picking closer to the bridge, picking more cleanly and fluidly, employing a lot of blocking, and utilizing the bar to emulate pedal movement, either by slanting chords or doing very quick moves to mimic the sound of a quick push and release of a pedal. I tend to think of Ralph Mooney as an example of the quick push/release sound. I’ve spent quite a bit of time transcribing and absorbing some of my favorite pedal steel tunes and adapting them for non-pedal. It has made a big difference for me.

Ralph Mooney and Mike at the TSGA 2010

One of the conundrums of trying to adapt non-pedal steel for pedal sounds is that it is extremely difficult to get some of the classic sounds without making some kind of sacrifice. When you hear the sound of the A and B pedals raising their respective strings (generally to turn an E chord into an A chord), you may notice that there is a note that stays constant while the notes below it change. This is perhaps the most difficult attribute to sacrifice, since it is an integral part of the sound. I will give an example: if you are tuned to an E tuning with your top 3 strings tuned E B G# (high to low), the A & B pedals would raise B to C# and G# to A. If we were doing this by slanting, we could achieve the 2 changes, but we would end up with either an F# or a G on string 1 (depending on the position of the bar, i.e., using the nose or not). Definitely not what we want, although in the case of the B and C pedals, it’s perfect (B pedal raises the G# to A and C pedal raises the B to C# and the E to F#). I’ve thought long and hard on this and had come up with a few solutions in the past. Let me elaborate:

My first attempt at this was to formulate a tuning which reversed the order of the strings at the top, so that string 1 was a B (usually the 2nd string) and string 2 was a G# (usually string 3), while string 3 was my E string. I have to say, this worked pretty well, as I could either slant to make the change or even do a behind the bar pull (the string gauges had to be meticulously worked out to ensure a perfect pull every time, but depending on where on the neck I was playing, this could present it’s own set of problems because of the varying tension). The real downside was that, apart from achieving that most basic of moves which every beginner pedal player overuses, I had sacrificed the ability to play anything else on an out of whack tuning. I don’t remember entirely what the other strings were tuned to, but I believe strings 4, 5 and 6 gave me half of an A6 tuning (B G# E C# A F#, high to low). It was far too much to get accustomed to with very little in the way of reward.

My second attempt was to just use a straight E tuning with strings 1, 2 and 3 tuned E B G#. What I did was use string pulls behind the bar–strings 2 and 3 to be precise–and I worked out string gauges to accommodate this. It worked nicely, although there is always the danger of not getting the pull precisely in tune like the pedals would. I still use this on occasion, but not as much since I have managed another way.

The third and most successful attempt, by far, has been a new tuning I formulated about 2 days before a recent recording session. I was playing on a Country recording that really had a 50s/60s sound and all I could hear in my head was some Lloyd Green and Tom Brumley-type sounds. I figured out that the only way for me to really get the A/B pedal sound was to actually put the whole triad on top. So, for an E tuning with a high G#, the A/B pedals would render high A E and C# from G# E and B. I knew that I could make this work, but only if my right hand was coordinated enough to grab the triads quickly and cleanly. I worked hard on it for the 2 days prior and, while I would have liked more time to become comfortable on the tuning like I subsequently have become, it worked on the session.

The tuning is spelled, from high to low:

(high)A (.011)
E (.014)
C# (.017)
(high) G# (.011)
E (.014)
D (.018)
B (.022)
G# (.026w)

This is still evolving–in fact, since the time I wrote this article 2 days ago, this has already undergone changes. I have just gotten enough confidence to use the D in the 6th string position and it really gives me some other wonderful options. Again, it is of the utmost importance that I play carefully with the right hand, so with enough practice (which I’ll admit, I don’t really have enough time for) it should come together. Palm blocking is extremely important in the triad playing, but pick blocking is what I use mostly for the single note stuff, unless I am looking for a more staccato sound.

It is not incredibly exciting to look at, but after having played it quite a bit, I can really get some interesting things happening on the first 3 strings, as well as being able to move through the inversions pretty easily. Also, I really love the tone. I play this tuning on the 3rd neck of my Fender Custom T-8. I have found that on the 3 or 4 gigs I’ve used the guitar on since, I spend a lot of time on that neck. I’m not sure what to call the tuning, as I’d rather give it a name rather than a spelling-based name. If you can think of anything interesting let me know….

With regard to playing this tuning and in this style, I find myself using the volume pedal for ballads only and straight picking with no volume pedal on the up-tempo numbers. I incorporate a bit more staccato-type picking with tight blocking, just because I love the way it sounds. Listen to some 60s era Lloyd Green and you’ll hear what inspires me, whether on his own recordings or with Johnny Paycheck or Charley Pride.

I would like to post up some samples of this tuning and I will as time allows. Until then, have fun playing and always keep an open mind. Yes, it is good and beneficial to focus and stay regimented, but at some point you may need to use your creativity. Just look at how inventive and creative Jerry Byrd was with his arrangements–much of the things he’d done hadn’t been done before or since. Necessity is the mother of invention, and with non-pedal steel guitar you may find yourself in that position. It’s important to note that pedal steel playing has evolved significantly and the harmonic choices available today are staggering, but for those classic sounds a little can go a long way. The less thinking we have to do, the more we can concentrate on our feel and expression. These things should never be overlooked.

All the best for a great holiday season.
Mike

This is a pretty straightforward example of what the block chord style is all about–just about all of the melody notes have chords underneath them. To my ears, it is an extremely pleasing sound and a great way to get inside the inner workings of harmony. Once you are inside, you can explore reharmonization–that is really where a lot of the fun is. It is very liberating to take a tune to places that you really want it to go harmonically, as long as you keep the melody intact. On this particular arrangement, I didn’t do any reharmonizations but it is challenging to play, nonetheless. This arrangement is for a 6 string steel tuned to C6/A7, my favorite tuning.

One of the difficult aspects of playing in this style is trying to make it all sound smooth. You end up picking a lot of the chords, but it is nice to find places where you can slide from one chord to the next or even slant into it. Another note: I very often use 4 fingers in my right hand to play this style, sometimes with just a thumb pick and bare fingers, which is the way I played it on the recording included herein.

The first time I tried recording this, I had a different arrangement, but as I played through it, I made changes that made it more practical to play. Some of these changes made it easier to play, but took away some of the really cool chords–that’s OK, I think it’s more important to be able to play a piece nicely than to just dazzle with harmonic prowess. After about 4 takes I could feel this starting to come together, so my advice is to take your time with it and learn the arrangement in little 2 or 4 bar segments at a time. I hope you enjoy this one.

BTW, I try as often as possible to comp the chords on a lap steel rather than using a guitar, as I am trying to get to a place where I am completely comfortable with doing this. So, what you hear on this recording is the chord melody played over the bass and drums from an Aebersold play-along volume (Volume 78) and the chord comping was added later. I tried to stay out of the way of the lead instrument, but as you hear, it can get tricky.

It’s important to note that in measure 21 I used a string pull to get a B7 with a b9 in the melody following the F#mi7b5.

Have a listen here:
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Don is a very interesting and down-to-earth man, and he’s the kind of musician you have to ply in order to get him to speak of his achievements, which are many. The Henrys have been featured performers in numerous festivals around the world and also appeared on the BBC several times. Don also performed with Mary Margaret O’Hara on “Night Music,” which was one of the finest music programs to appear on network TV in the US, and they have released 5 CDs, as well as 1 compilation. Don has also appeared on recordings with Mary Margaret O’Hara, Sylvia Tyson, Holy Modal Rounders, Vance Gilbert and others, as well as having released a solo recording, Atlas Travel. Don is a member of Three Metre Day, which has just released its first recording, Coasting Notes, featuring singer/songwriter/musician Michelle Willis, violinist Hugh Marsh, as well as Don’s considerable playing and writing, to very favorable reviews.

Three Metre Day is currently embarking on a mini-West Coast tour (November 1-6) in support of their new release and, for those lucky enough to live in the Bay area, Don will be conducting a seminar at Gryphon Strings in Palo Alto on Nov. 5 from 2-5pm (click for more info). You can listen to a live broadcast of Three Metre Day on November 5 at 10am (PST) on West Coast Live.

Mike Neer: I listen to your music quite a bit and I hear so many different sounds in your music—it’s almost like a musical geography lesson. It seems like you’ve managed to incorporate sounds from around the world without being too traditional about it. How much do these sounds factor into your writing?

Don Rooke: Well, there’s no conscious World music attempt, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t feel qualified to do that. For me it’s more textures and tone. As far as the writing is concerned, one of the main things that I try to achieve is to be non-idiomatic. If it goes in a direction that’s obvious, then I don’t love it. After the song has taken shape, then I try to get some textures happening. For instance, one of the effects I use—and it’s the cheapest effect in the world—is to take a piece of foam and put it under the strings. This gives it sort of a kalimba sound–or even use it with a ring modulator and it gives a texture that’s pretty hard to define. It’s kind of primitive sounding.

MN: I just get the feeling that your music is very free-spirited and nomadic—it’s very centered and grounded, but yet it wanders and paints different landscapes.

DR: One of the benefits of living where I live, where there’s really no history of slide playing, like Texas or Tennessee or California, there’s really no idiom that is natural to me as a slide player; it’s more just standing on the outside, just picking things that I like and trying to blend them to come up with a mix that’s a little bit different. I think that’s a bit of an advantage in terms of finding your own voice.

MN: Well, you may have touched on the sole advantage of growing up in New Jersey. [laughs] I think we can relate in that respect. I hear things in your music that really hit me because I’m open to them without any expectations. It almost reminds me of how I feel when I listen to Ry Cooder, who was very influential for me. I hear a tune like Maria Elena, and it just has an earthiness to it—a Latin feel, but not completely. I was wondering if you were influenced by the same things.

DR: Oh, for sure. I recorded that song on Joyous Porous (The Henrys, 2002). I did it in 3/4. It was one of those things—I based it on Don Gibson’s version, his arrangement. I had the usual palette, with the pump organ, but I did something that I kind of got into and did a few times, which is to record things and then start stripping it down. I remember Dave Piltch (bassist) getting that record and saying, “It’s the first record I played on where there’s less on the record than when I played on it!”
It’s really fun to arrange by taking things away, where suddenly there’s a duo where there was a quintet. And a solo doesn’t have to be 12 bars; somebody else takes over part of the way through. I find that to be fun and fascinating, too.

MN: Let me ask you about your composing: Are a lot of your ideas generated by playing the instrument or do you write them on guitar?

DR: I wish I had a good answer to that. Sometimes it’s chord changes and I write a melody to it. I try to avoid writing what you might call “lick driven” songs. I really want to have melodies rather than have a lick and base a song on it. That’s what works for me. So sometimes I write chords and then sing or hum a melody over it—find some way around the vocabulary of the instrument. You know, you’re doing things that you don’t naturally fall into because you’re a slide player.

MN: When you think of your instrument, do you think of it in terms of being a dobro, or a steel guitar or a slide guitar—as if it makes any difference—but you mentioned “lick driven” tunes, and I know exactly what you mean, as so much of the repertoire for each of the respective instruments is lick driven. I’m wondering how you see the instrument….

DR: Over the years, probably my main ax has been the Kona, and I see that as more of a primitive thing. I’ve got it tuned just like my dobro is tuned, but the sound of it—maybe the little less sustain or the more natural woody thing, whatever it is—I think it dictates a different style of playing which is different from dobro or steel guitar. I use them all and I love them all—metal-bodied National, all these things—and I love pulling all these things out and finding a place for them. But my centerpiece is probably the Kona, even though I decided not too long ago that it was too quiet to be a stage instrument; plus, it’s uncommon enough and rare enough that you have to be careful with things like that. So, I look at that instrument a little bit different, as a slightly more delicate thing. I probably look for melodies and chords on it more and just play more simply on it.

Don Rooke and his 1920s Kona

MN: I love playing those. I have a friend with a Kona and I find the range of tones I can get out of the instrument to be much wider than most other instruments (acoustic) that I’ve played–I think maybe it’s a bit more….

DR: Touch responsive. You know, Cooder, he said–talking about acoustic versus electric—“the acoustic has a lot more information.” The tonal qualities are so much more complex, including noises that you may not necessarily want to hear, such as scratching. Those are available on the electric, but there does seem to be a bit more info, like he said.

MN: Yeah, that’s a really good way of putting it. I tend to embrace all those extraneous sounds. I’ve never been hung up on the idea of having a bar that would eliminate the sound of sliding on a string. If I didn’t want to hear that, then maybe I shouldn’t be playing the instrument.

DR: Sometimes it’s nice to turn it on its end and scrape it down the string, too.

MN: Exactly. You like to play around with sounds and get a lot of extra texture, but I can just hear you alone sitting down and playing the songs without hearing all the other instruments…

DR: Knocking and wheezing… [laughs]

MN: But that’s what makes your compositions so strong. With all the other elements stripped away, there is still the song. I think what is unique is that no one else has written for and recorded the instrument in the way that you have. It is interesting that a lot of the younger Bluegrass musicians are starting to embrace that compositional element in their music, such as the Punch Brothers.

DR: Well, it’s not lap style, but David Tronzo is pretty ridiculous, too. I love watching that guy play. He’s been up here (Toronto) and we opened for him once. We played OK and then he came on with a trio and I felt like I’d just been in a boxing match–not that it had anything to do with me—but he had that whole New York intensity. This was before he moved to Boston to teach.

MN: I enjoy him very much, too. The one time I saw him play was with John Zorn and he had a really in-your-face style. I was really struck by what he doing.

DR: I mean, talk about a voice…between him and Derek Trucks, I could feast on 2 those styles for years.

MN: They’re tapping into a whole other range of expression.

DR: There’s also the steel being using in ambient ways, too—long note kind of stuff, with reverbs—it’s nice to have that kind of opportunity, which I don’t get very often, but every once in a while I play on a soundtrack or do that kind of thing.

MN: I don’t get many opportunities to do that, either, although that was what I did when I first started playing the instrument. I wasn’t looking to play any kind of traditional music, and I’m still not, but it’s part of the process for me. I was always into what Daniel Lanois was doing and I was trying to figure out a way to get there.

DR: He just had a concert up here yesterday, not too far from Toronto, with Emmylou and Ray LaMontagne and a few other people.

MN: I take it you didn’t go….

DR: Your correct [laughs]. Actually, there was nobody in the house yesterday and I went downstairs and turned my amp louder than I normally can and worked on my sound and played along with some drum loops and had a blast. I played for hours, which I rarely do. My practicing regimen is nonexistent.

MN: So when you do play, you’re trying to create music every time you touch your instrument?

DR: I have a few things that I practice; one of the things that I do, probably for 5 or 10 years now, I’ve practiced acoustically on a lap steel that I’ve screwed down black cardboard over the fret markers. It occurred to me—it must have been 10 years ago—that I was too visually oriented for pitch and it didn’t make any sense. So, I covered the frets and, as you can imagine, it was pretty abysmal. But I’ve done it for so many years now, and I still don’t have the guts to do it onstage, to just look away and play, but I can do it here. I think what it’s given me is the ability to correct a note without thinking about it—I’ll just go up or down without thinking about it.

But as far as practicing, lately I’ve been practicing with a metronome set really slow, because my job in Three Metre Day really is rhythm playing, which is uncommon on slide guitar, for one thing, and I’m glad that I don’t use fingerpicks because I can use the tops of my fingernails to simulate strumming. I wouldn’t call myself a great timekeeper, so I started practicing with a metronome incredibly slowly. I set it around 18 or 20. The advantage I’ve learned is that it’s up to you to fill in the gaps, whereas if you set it fast it’s kind of doing all the work and you’re just playing along with it. If you cut that into 4 or 5, then you have to try and arrive at the same time as the next beat, which seems about an hour away. I’m glad I discovered that because it seems to have made a difference.

MN: I think it’s great to get into the groove element of playing the lap steel. It’s one of the things I enjoy doing the most. I love playing backup and coming up with little rhythmic figures. I think the instrument is very capable of being expressive in that respect.

DR: Yeah and kind of funky because you can bend the notes not perfectly—you know when you’re playing an E7 chord on guitar and you hammer on with your first finger on the G string to G#. Well, if you do that by bending the steel, say you’re in C at the 8th fret and you just twist it up to simulate that—it’s kind of funkier because you get all that in-between stuff.

MN: In some ways you can really get away with a lot on steel.

DR: Yeah, and if the player’s relaxed and good then it just sounds even better. Personally, I love hearing those notes that aren’t right on.

MN: Yeah, I really enjoy those elements in your playing, as well. It’s great compositions, but also great playing and the two go hand-in-hand perfectly.

What got you into playing the hollow neck guitars?

DR: You know, what actually made me have to have a Weissenborn or a Kona was David Lindley’s solo on “To Know Him Is To Love Him” on the Trio record (Parton, Ronstadt, Harris).

MN: No kidding, that’s fantastic. You get the feeling that the instrument had never sounded better than it did on the record, such a beautiful recording.

DR: I just listened to that over and over and said, “I’ve got to get that!” Then I was talking to a friend of mine who knew a guitar dealer in upstate NY and he had something. So, I took this Martin 000-28 down there, a nice guitar from the early 80s, and I didn’t know what he had, and I was sitting there waiting and I was hoping it was a deep-bodied Kona, and it was. No strings on it, and it was all dusty. When I went home, my wife thought I was out of my mind. This was way before Weissenborns had become a thing.

MN: Which tuning are you using on the Kona?

DR: The same one that I always use, which is a dobro tuning with an A on the 6th string, one octave higher. That’s another story: that was because I was listening to Pontiac (Lyle Lovett) and there was this dobro solo and I’m thinking, “God, how does he do that?” and I’m trying all these things, slants and this and that. It was a thing going up in 2nds—alternating strings, whipping up the neck. I couldn’t do it, so I thought, “What is expendable on my instrument?” [laughs] And I said, “I play with a bass player, I can get rid of the bass string, I don’t want to mess with the configuration.” So, I just tried putting that higher A on the bottom and I got into it and it gave me another interval. It opened a lot of doors—just fretting that string, I could play a Gmin if I fretted the Bb at the 1st fret. Eventually over the years I found a ton of things.

The punch line of the story is that I found out it was Paul Franklin who played that solo and he played a Peda-bro. [laughs] I didn’t even know it existed, but it changed my whole approach.

Listen to The Henrys – Avenues Of Forgiveness

Click on the image below for the tablature/notation:

Click here for full tablature in pdf

MN: That’s great! And thinking about it, you can even get some of the more nebulous chords, like sus2 chords.

What kind of bar do you use?

DR: Stevens—hung in with the Stevens.

MN: It’s not a rounded tip or anything like that?

DR: No, just the old traditional Stevens, although, I like the old ones with the patent on them, the new one by Dunlop, I think 925, is kind of nice–I like it better than the new Stevens. I just like the coating on the old ones, I think it’s better.

MN: So most of your writing is done in this tuning?

DR: Yeah. I have a thin Weissenborn-style distributed by Madonna and I have that in C tuning. There’s a video of the tune VF61 with The Henrys on YouTube with that guitar.

MN: It’s funny, the G tuning is probably the most common tuning in existence for slide and yet, by retuning that one string, you’ve turned it inside out and given it a new face, even though you still have all of the other stuff available.

DR: It’s kind of flexible that way. The other thing, in retrospect, this kind of dumb epiphany I had—being a guitar player—the strings 2, 3 and 4 are the same as 2, 3 and 4 on guitar, so what it meant was that visualizing all those b5s and all those things, I could easily go to those 3 strings and know what I was doing.

MN: Did you study music?

DR: No, not at all.

MN: But you’ve been exposed to probably an immense amount of music from classical on down, I’m sure….

DR: Well, the classical was forced because, in my house, I was the youngest and the others had to take lessons—for some reason I didn’t want to and didn’t have to. But my sister played constantly and my brother played a bit, so I heard a lot. My parents put up with a fair bit—I used to put on “Live At The Fillmore” (Allman Brothers) at dinnertime pretty loud and I’d sit there and listen to Duane. [laughs]

MN: Well, the youngest can always get away with stuff like that. Did you listen to a lot of Jazz, particularly the composers, like Monk or Wayne Shorter?

DR: I wouldn’t pretend to know what was going on there. I listen to less Jazz than I used to, but like you, I like to listen to Monk and stuff like that. I actually listened to more rootsy music, generally, and growing up, slide-wise, it was Duane and Cooder and Lindley and Kottke.

MN: I can hear all of those influences in your music, but in the big picture it sounds like Don Rooke. Some players are never able to get beyond that and develop their own voice.

DR: Well, you know what that really is: it’s a testament to how I failed to be able to sound like any one of those guys.

MN: Which is the way you want it to be. I can really relate—I’ve gone my moments where as a guitar player I tried to copy people, like Allan Holdsworth. I would get one little thing, though, and just give up on the rest, and I’d be happy with that. For hungry musicians, give us a little breadcrumb and we can make a feast out of it.

DR: My attempt at that was probably Lenny Breau, who was based in Toronto and a local hero and spectacular player. There were things he did, like playing the melody with his 1st and 4th fingers (his left hand) and comping with his 2nd and 3rd.

MN: The thing about Lenny is that the more choruses he took on a tune, the deeper and deeper he got, like peeling layers off like an onion, the further away he could take the tune. He was so brilliant.

DR: One thing that I love about him is that he grew up playing Country in his parent’s band and he’s one of the few guys who I love to hear playing, for instance, Hank Williams’ songs with extended chords. They don’t sound like “Oh, here comes a jazz chord,” they sound beautiful. I have a tape of him from a TV show where he plays “Red River Valley” and there’s nothing about it that you’d think he shouldn’t be playing those chords. He’s using that extended vocabulary and it all makes perfect sense in a Country context.

MN: I admire your work ethic–you’re prolific. I know the kind of work that goes into making those records, to an extent, and you really get it done.

Don with Michelle Willis

DR: Well, I spend my time at home composing and recording music. Definitely on Is This Tomorrow?, it was fun, but I worked too hard on that. [laughs] That was a big project that took years. And this one (Coasting Notes), the three of us worked hard for a year and a half.

MN: I was listening to Joyous Porous (The Henrys) and I could hear the level of detail that went into the production in terms of the rhythms and arrangements, but what struck me was how patient you are in your playing—you never try to say too much, but what you do say counts.

DR: I find it more difficult to do live; it’s easier in the studio. It takes a lot a confidence to do that live—sometimes you feel like you’ve got to keep the thing going, and I end up saying, “Why did I play so much?” I’ve got a friend who’s a trumpet player, he’s on Joyous Porous, he’s so comfortable with tacet it’s unbelievable. He could just stand there and play very little and be happy and I find that so difficult to do. It is an odd discipline trying to play less.

MN: Well, I think if you’re really in touch and trying to improvise melody or maybe doing a call and response type of thing it’s a different kind of thing. But I feel like I can hear you adding little colors here and there to the painting.

DR: That’s a nice notion.

MN: On the Joyous Porous record, what is that interesting sound on Walk West (‘Til Your Hat Floats)?

DR: That’s a piece foam under the strings. Depending on where I set the foam under the strings, I can get different harmonics—I think I had it somewhere around the 15th fret.

MN: Was the ring modulator added after the fact?

DR: I used to do that kind of thing with an Electro-Harmonix—no, I think I would have printed that.

MN: When you do go in to make a Henrys record, do you have an overall kind of sound or vibe in mind?

DR: The first few records we did, everyone was in the studio at once for a few days, but after that it became more like a science experiment and then I’ve tried to get away from that. Is This Tomorrow? was like that. It’s like I was constantly playing with it. The new one we did with Three Metre Day was all of us playing together, or as much as we could, depending on the track.

MN: Was the whole group involved in every aspect of the record, in the mixing?

DR: We hired an engineer outside of Toronto to mix it, but, yeah, all three of us were involved. It was nice to spread it around.

MN: Usually with a Henrys record it sort of ends up in your hands?

DR: Right.

MN: That’s tough. I always have a difficult time removing myself from what I’m working to become objective.

DR: Oh, I know. Sometimes I put the CD on in the car in a self-deluded attempt to decide whether it’s a good record or not. “I’m just gonna check this out to see if it’s any good.” Impossible.

MN: Me, too. There’s a fine line between crap and incredible and I can never decide where I stand. [laughs]

I experimented a lot with playing this head and came up with at least 2 ways of playing everything; however, the version that I’ve included here proved to be the most comfortable and musical for me, so that is what I am posting. You may find some passages difficult and want to seek out other ways to play them; that is totally cool and encouraged, because we are not all the same.

Hope you enjoy playing this. I really believe there is a lot of potential out there still for this instrument and I’m hoping someone comes along with the ability and desire to take this instrument where it has never gone before.

Spain for C6/A7 (head only)