Position Playing - Part II

Thursday, 07 December 2006 23:00

Update - playing from a single 'position' on the guitar. I continue to develop exercises spanning six frets as maintaining this position for any key. A couple approaches that work for me: modulate triads, digital shapes, and runs in minor and major thirds (again, from a single position. Both ideas work directly to alter a dominant but can be used for modal playing as well. For modal settings, alternate from the pentatonic pattern on the I with V or the II. Both will be heard as extensions on the I chord. The point - learn to play any key from a single position and not to 'move with the chord center'. This builds one's ability to hear the intervals instead of 'playing the patterns.

Accompaniment Software

Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:00

I wish PG music would stop running specials on their Band-in-a-Box at Christmas. I never have much money left! The recent updates allow for use of sampled sounds instead of the prior soft-synth. The ForteDxi sampler sounds a lot better, though it does cost another $40 to activate (there is a free 30 day trial.

Jamstix Virtual Drummer - I have been trying to improve drum sounds and came across a VST plug-in from Razoon that I highly recommend. From their site - "Rayzoon's ground-breaking virtual drummer VSTi runs synchronized with your sequencer and jams with your MIDI play (or even audio-in signal) using its innovative free jam mode where rhythms are created on-the-fly. It also offers jamming based on an extensive rhythm library as well as creating professional drum tracks complete with intro, fills and ending with its easy-to-use built-in arranger". The program was s cinch to get up and running - documentation is very good and the company has been very helpful via eamil. This product uses sampled drum sounds and actually generates variation in the drum patterns. Additionally, the program interacts with either analog volume from your instrument or midi signals. The program will run as a stand-alone program, the trick is to scale the input signal sensitivity to your instrument. I got some usable drums sounds in pretty short order. The brush-set is most useful for jazz, the rest of the sounds are more rock oriented (and a hoot to play along with!).

A Setup for Rock Sound

Saturday, 12 March 2005 23:00

I found a rock/country voice for my strat - I got an Epiphone Galaxy 10 and a Vision Route 66 stomp box. The amp is just two tubes - a 12AT7 feeding a 6L6 with a single-ended output. This design is unique to smaller amps (Fender Champ and others) and is charactoristic in that there is no distortion cancellation as is found in more powerful push-pull output stage designs. The resulting harmonics are a strong octave above the fundamental, tending to soften the sound out. I can dial in the amount of distoriton using the master volume. The sound by itself, coming from a Celestian 10" is a little thin, but with a mike on it the sound is huge with plenty of bottom end. The Route 66 is icing - giving added compression (for sustain) and a tube overdrive to bring up the energy level (sounds like SRV). The amp design downsides are with volume and background hiss. It is possible to parallel the output and double the power from 10 to upt to 20Watts (THD bi-valve design, lower-cost options are some interesting kits from Weber VST and Angela) . The hiss is the downside of no noise cancellation in the output stage - though this can be reduced with better power supply filtering and perhaps a DC filement supply. Regardless, this is the best rock sound I've had and yet still offering a bit of flexibility for a cleaner sound when desired. PS - the Epiphone does need a little modification - swap the 12AX7 for a 12AT7 (less output so the 6L6 distortion is more pronounced) and use JJ Tesla tubes. I also liked the 6V6 sound (less power) and plan to try out some Tung-Sol tubes in the future.

Position Playing

Thursday, 03 February 2005 23:00

I am a position player. By that, I mean I reference most of my single note lines from chords and positions. This technique is good and bad: Good - I can find a "lick" around any chord, Bad - I have to find a chord (and sometimes look at the neck) to play a lick! Position playing is a distinct disadvantage for very fast parts that modulate and for sight-reading. I have been working on breaking this habit with a trick I learned from Jack Grassel. OK, I am still learning...OK, OK, OK...habits are hard to break! The concept is to play in one position but to span six frets so that one can span 3-1/2 octave of chromatic notes without moving one's hand. Checkout Jack's link above. For me, starting from Giant Steps is almost too much (but it does get the point across). I started to learn this technique by repeating patterns chromatically, first with scales, then storter quartals (patterns of four notes, try 1,2,3,5 for a major and 1, b3,4,5 for a minor, see Cory Christiansen for more info). Diminished paterns/scales and whole note scales are good exercise as well. I am now practicing modulating song melodies while maintaining a single position. For some reason, this exercise has also helped me translate octave jumps and other intervals more quickly. I wonder - did this approach come from Tal Farlow? Jack played briefly with Tal, who (I think) used his big hands (and a shorter scale guitar) to grab chromatic notes on adjacent strings. Tal was so musical - he had overcome the technical difficulties associated with playing what he heard.....I got to get there.

Anyway, I have been working on this technique now for 3 years. It's difficult to break old habits but I think my reading of incidentals has gotten better (try the song "Twisted") and I am more accurate on the bandstand picking out melodies to new songs. Thanks Jack!