Keener Music

Here is a video I put together tonight to show a couple of ways of getting one of the riffs in Jerry Reed’s The Claw:

It’s probably best to view this on the YouTube site, which has a wider version of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI_-zvFngxk

As I note in the video, I learned how to play The Claw using only two fingers (index and middle) for this riff (although of course I used all three fingers for the main part of the tune). But, a few years after I learned it, I read that Chet admired Segovia’s techniques, so I bought a book by Segovia and saw in it that he said, emphatically, to always alternate fingers when picking a single string. That is Never Strike a String Twice With The Same Finger. So, with this Rule in my head, I changed how I played this riff in The Claw, so that I used the middle and ring fingers for most of the lick and used the index finger for a “kicker.”

From that point on, I became obsessed with right-hand fingering techniques (well, maybe not obsessed, but I sure put a high priority on not breaking The Segovia Rule). Then, about a year ago (close to 35 years after The Rule changed my picking), I noticed that Christopher Parkening said that it is fine to strike a string more than once with a finger, and that it is sometimes recommended (for example, for tone reasons). Then, I got to looking more closely at videos of Chet and Jerry and Tommy and Richard Smith and others, and noticed that they weren’t “annal” about Segovia’s Rule like I was. So, I decided to “play more sensibly,” and of course that’s a life-long learning goal for me anyway.

So that you can see for yourself how Chet and Jerry and Tommy got The Claw, here are a couple of YouTube videos for you to study:

Chet and Jerry playing The Claw

Tommy Jones playing The Claw

I hope you enjoy.

Again I’ve chosen a title that is based on a quote by Chet Atkins. I used to wonder what he meant by those words, “play the music, not the notes,” but I think I finally understand some of what he meant. (I suspect he meant multiple things with that one remark.)

I think the main thing he meant was that you should not let how a song’s notes are written out to limit you in how you bring the song alive. For example, if the tablature for one beat specifies a C note at the first position on the second string, that shouldn’t mean that you cannot add in a G note (open third) and a G note (third fret on the 6th string). It also doesn’t mean that you should not bring that C note to life by first striking an open second (a B) and then hammering in the C note. In short, the tablature shouldn’t keep you from bringing out a more full sound than the song’s author wrote.

If you watch a lot of Chet’s videos on YouTube, you will see that he often picked two strings together with his index and middle finger, whereas a lot of other guitarists would pick only with one finger. Chet never overdid this. To do it all the time would not sound right. He had a knack for just how many notes to put into each part of a song, how to bring them to life (hammering, sliding, or just standard), how crisply, and so on.

In fact, one of the things I loved (love) so much about Chet’s music is that he almost never overdid anything … his sound was always so clean, with just the right notes for every part of every tune. So many artists clutter tunes up trying to show off in a single tune every lick they ever mastered. Not Chet.

I have a little more to say on this in the following video, which is my only instructional video so far. (I may do more, but I really need better equipment to do it right.) In this video, I walk through how Tommy Jones played a certain lick in Will The Circle Be Unbroken. I then talk about how I modified that lick to use in a tune that I wrote. Tommy’s version is very uncluttered, using a single finger and thumb for the counterpoint being discussed, whereas mine uses a counterpoint with the thumb and TWO fingers. Mine is fine under many circumstances. But, Tommy’s counterpoint is not only cleaner, it’s easier to get.

One thing to keep in mind while you are playing is “illusion.” If you are playing a tune with a lot of full beats in it, then a counterpoint with the thumb and one finger is often going to sound (to your audience) more full than it really is … they will hear notes that aren’t really there (ones you might be tempted to add in and get with a second finger), simply because our brains are used to filling in patterns.

Anyway, a lot of words for a conceptually simple point. Your thoughts?

I just received a request from a YouTube viewer to post some Christmas music. My daughter-in-law has also been after me to do some Christmas music for the past couple of years.

I just don’t do Christmas music, or at least I haven’t done so for years. I like playing only what I want to play, rather than having it determined by the season or by request. If I were a professional artist, that would have to change. But, since I’m just me, I plan to stick with playing whatever is on my mind when I set down to play.

For Christmas, I just listen to artists that I especially enjoy. For the past 10 years, ever since my wife died, I have only listened to a couple of Christmas songs by the Carpenters and a couple by Chet Atkins.

This year I am adding a couple of artists that I’ll be listening to: Tommy Emmanuel (with John Knowles) and Craig Dobbins. There are of course lots of other fine artists, including Jerry Reed, Doyle Dykes, John McClellan, and many others, who have Christmas albums/CDs. At this time, though, I am sticking with a pretty limited group of artists. I really don’t listen to music very much: I have over 50 years of music stored in my head, and I typically just listen to it.

Anyway, I’m really not trying to be a Scrooge … I just do Christmas a little different than most people. Of course, if my wife were still alive, I imagine I would be picking Christmas music for her. But, as it is, I’ll continue to just listen for the foreseeable future.

Merry Christmas!

Bruce

The title of this post is one of my favorite Chet Atkins quotes.

Although we all like some consistency in our lives, we also especially like (pleasant) surprises. Chet knew that and masterfully wove surprises into many of his tunes.

Many guitarists never get this, and, while they may be technically superb on the guitar, they never really attract a following.

If your fan base is starting to shrink, maybe this is something to look into.

Also, implicit in Chet’s message is that a guitarist should never stop learning, and should never want to stop learning. He was always learning something new. And, if you look at the best fingerstyle pickers of today, like Richard Smith and Tommy Emmanuel, they are always learning something new, too.

I know from talking with Richard that he is always listening for he what he can learn, from a variety of different styles of music, and from a variety of instruments (he loves learning from piano music, for example). And, from what I have heard, Tommy Emmanuel keeps a copy of Ted Greene’s Chord Chemistry with him and works through it a little at a time while he’s on the road.

I’ll eventually have a post (or maybe a few posts) on recommended resources for learning. In the interim, I’ve placed a few key learning resource links at the top of the sidebar. I highly recommend these.

There are a lot of “clever” musicians … I even fancy myself as being a “sorta clever” guitar picker.

But True Genius is really, really rare. I’m talking about the kind of genius we have seen in Henry Mancini, Neil Sedaka, and Chet Atkins. Maybe we see folks like that every 25 to 50 years.

Then there is the really rare type of genius that we see maybe once in a hundred years, if that, like Lenny Breau. In that regard, I thought you would enjoy the following video and its related set of videos:

Incredible! Kinda the Richard Feynman of guitar.

Paul Yandell, CGP, passed away on November 21, 2011. He was one of my original guitar heroes (along with my Dad, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Reed) and has been a hero to me for close to 50 years.

Paul was not only one of the best guitar pickers on the planet, he was also a fine, fine man and a friend to many. He will be missed greatly.

I leave to it others to try to express in words what a loss this is to the guitar community … I simply do not have it within me to try to find the words, knowing full well that the words would fall short.

All I can offer up in memory of Paul are a few tunes. The first of them being the first tune I wrote for Paul in June of 2010:

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I learned how to play guitar when I was about 14. Perhaps one day I’ll talk more about my whole learning experience, but for now, I just want to point out how fortunate I was to have a guitar to console me during the times of depression that most teenagers go through.

And there were many times over the years when I would find myself down, and used my guitar as a way of helping me get out of the rut. The most significant time where the guitar helped me to go on was after my wife died in September 2001. Psychiatrists say that one becomes actually clinically depressed after losing a spouse and that the period of clinical depression can last years, with three years being perhaps “typical.” That was the case for me … I could function and continue to work, but for three years, I was really depressed, even when I laughed with friends and family.

My guitars saved me from insanity during that period.

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I have been blessed all of my life: a wonderful family, numerous great friends, knowing several truly exceptional people, having several talents, having a good income, and so on. One blessing I use a lot is my Godin Mulitac Nylon SA guitar autographed by none other than the legendary Buster B Jones. Below is a picture of Buster signing it:

My late Dad would have envied me of this, as he thought the world of Buster.

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