Wally Davis
From:
Belleville, Illinois, USA
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Posted 7 Aug 2010 10:45 pm |
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Pretty cool to find this out. But not really all that surprising. Steve for sure is one of the best.
August 2010 - Steve's answers to your questionsShare. Thursday at 7:50am
Northman Millar
What inspired you to incorporate the chromatic scale in your riffs?
A: If you break it down, it's not that I added the chromatic scale, but just some
passing notes. Most scales are 7 notes out of a possible 12 in our tonal system. A
diminished scale use 8 notes, a pentatonic 5, but most are 7. So if you include
some of the other notes (of the 12 possible tones), you get pretty close to the
chromatic scale. For me, hearing some of the more sophisticated players, such as
Buddy Emmons, jazz players, swing/blues style players....they all used some passing
notes in their playing and it just seemed more interesting to me. One of the key
things for me is keeping the main scale notes in the same part of the beat that
they would normally be, and adding a few passing notes in between, on the weak
parts of the beat. That fools your ear into thinking that everything in very tonal,
but sounds more interesting.
Jason Tortorici
Steve, what non-guitarists do you listen to and draw inspiration and ideas from?
A: I just mentioned Buddy Emmons, for including flat5, flat9's and big jumps
including the natural 6th and 9th. I loved the way it sounded, and it became part
of my musical memory, although the licks themselves don't necessarily easily
transfer, the tonality is inspiring. Also Charlie Parker because he used passing
notes, or leading chromatic tones in a way that always made sense to me. His
playing was melodic, but very interesting and clever. |
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