The little things
A lot of players work on the "big ticket items" of lead playing, Learning to alternate pick, learning scales, etc. How much time do you figure you work on those items versus some of the "little things" like the tone of your guitar, bending in tune and how your vibrato sounds?
When I thought about this, I realized that many players, myself included tend to overlook these nuances that end up making a huge difference in the way we sound. Think about this... How many notes would it take to identify Edward Van Halen's playing? How about David Gilmour or Buckethead? Umm... Well, scratch that last one perhaps.
Anyway, the whole point is that these skills are often overlooked and they play a huge part in how your music sounds.
Any thoughts or comments?
Abandon concern for hitting the right note.
Then, hit the right note.
Silence is the field of creative musical intelligence that dwells in the space between the notes, and holds them in place.
Distrust anyone who wants to teach you something.
Aaah, there's a Fripp fan in the house! :-)
Some great quotes, man. Totally appropriate to this thread. I'll be pondering these for a while today...
I was listening to Larry Carlton describe a line he was doing in a blues shuffle -- and he said something like, "Hear that G? It's completely in sync with the high hat. If you push that note, it won't groove. If you hit it behind the high hat, the groove is gone."
As they say in comedy, timing is, uh, timing is, ummm
timing is
errr
ahhh
everything.
Yeah, it's really true. Us guitar players tend to rush like crazy. We've all got to learn to chill out a bit and
L I S T E N more.