gone BLANK!... Blank GONE!

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

I don't know if I am the only one, part of a very few or so many, who's mind tends to go blank immediately when sitting or standing behind our instrument.

I don't lack musical ideas, I can silently (in my head) or audibly hum to most any rhythm track -a good shower seems to be the most fertile setting- and convince myself that I've come up with "something" I -once dried up- will just waltz on down the music room and gloriously spread out there on the neck.

... but NOPE! I get BLANK as soon I strum that thing and have to somehow resume practicing what I was working on last night.

I have been thinking about posting about this and ask for opinions, suggestions and help for MONTHS now. Not that this has been going on only months, no, I have gone thru that for EVER. And it's bothered me, because I consider myself "musical"... I can come up with stuff, I just can't seem to lay it down because it's gone before I try.

This past week I changes one thing, and also started to re-apply some of my own medicine:

"Own medicine": I've written several times over the years, even decades on here that I feel that "learning a solo" or "tune" should first happen IN oneself. One should "hear" in oneself what one expects to come out of the amp before putting the fingers on the strings. I suggested humming, even singing.
I have come to the conclusion that "silently humming" (in ones head), does not qualify. It may be a first step but it must evolve to humming or singing audibly and in a non-sloppy fashion. And by non-sloppy, I don't mean voice and breathing technics, but of precise non-slurred intonation. Only this seem to bring about a mental "recording" which can with stand the test of trial of error... meaning that the first wrong note or fumbling or veering off course will delete or alter the memorize "idea", line, lick, solo or tune.

The other thing I changed, since when I practice something I will mostly listen to that tune, solo or progression and often in the key which it is typically in, when I come to the instrument I DON'T strum it. I caught myself doing that all the time! and in most cases it brings in a totally unrelated key center or chord to what I am trying to bring "to the table" which blurs it often to the point of being corrupted or completely lost.
I now sit on the guitar, DON'T touch it, SING my line and then first check that I am still in the right key picking the basic triad of the first chord. I may start to pick away from that, of continue to very basically comp thru the "idea" and then work on it.

I have been doing this procedure to the point of orthodoxy now for a few days and it's WORKED every time and helped fulfill the progress I was shooting for in record times.

I decided to post this anyways not to brag, but to invite for discussion.

... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________

Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"

A Little Mental Health Warning:

Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.

I say it humorously, but I mean it.

Larry Allen · From: Kapaa, Kauai,Hawaii

Interesting thread JD, this doesn’t apply to many but when I learn a song on steel, I play it on piano, guitar, trombone and steel. Then it’s also stuck in my head all night!! Shocked

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J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I think the pedal steel is the worst instrument for trying out new musical thoughts. Piano is best for chords and figuration, trombone or some such for melodies. These require no thought to play. Once an idea is knocked into shape then I can calculate how I might play it on the steel.

If the band ask me to learn a new song, I listen to it, chart it, note down the melody and only then think about what the PSG might do.
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Dale Rottacker · From: Walla Walla Washington, USA

I think that's a valid approach J.D. I've been like that, or similar to that from day ONE ... When I started playing in the 70's I was pretty sure I'd have all that Mooney/Brumley/MacDonald stuff learned in a week, maybe two. But while trying to learn what they were playing, the second I'd touch the strings I was toast. I've always lost what I heard in my head as soon as I touch the strings especially if the first note I play isn't the one I'm hearing in my head. All bets are off and recovery a major challenge.

I've sang in Choir's and Trio's and Quartets, and whistle to anything I hear on the radio, and finding harmony parts is something I've done fairly easily since I was 5 or 6 and the reason I use for not sticking to the melody as I should, cause in my head I'm hearing harmony. One thing or skill I've never nurtured is humming what I'm trying to play. Sad that ya wanna play something but have to actually be a musician to do it. Winking

As far as losing idea's or going blank, all I have to do is push the record button for that which is another longtime malady. Much of what I learn doesn't seem to come from knowledge, at least not knowledge I'm thinking my way through ... Most of the good stuff I find I find by hitting a wrong string or note and then a light goes on in my head, "hey I bet I could do this with that". The struggle IS real.
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Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

Just recently, while sitting at my steel, I thought of the Dierks Bentley song "Long Trip Alone", which Dierks released in '07, and I went to YouTube and found it. As I listened to the song, it turned out to be an acoustic version without steel, so I decided to add the steel parts myself-there's steel on the version of the song on the record, so with my polymer bar and picks in hand, I taught myself the steel parts to the song. A lot of times, if there's a song I hear without steel parts, I like to figure out how steel would sound in a song

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

That's my life. Our band plays nothing with original steel, so I have to invent it. Glad I embraced Uni12 early on Smile

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Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
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Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Sort of like forgetting what key the song is in halfway through the solo

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

When people ask me what I was on my mind when I played that solo, I usually tell them I was thinking that it didn’t turn out at all like I expected.

All seriousness aside, I’m not really sure what this thread is about - which I accept as a challenge 😎

If you have to sing something to get started with a practice session or a solo during performance, by all means have at it. I think most players that sing during their solos are doing it because they can, and they’re good at it, not because they are suffering from a lack of ideas of where to go next.

If what we’re discussing here is just drawing a blank because the brain is not firing on all cylinders at a given moment of the day, well who hasn’t had that. That’s when you know it’s time to listen to some music or open up a book or watch a video or practice some picking exercises, or go walk the dog.

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I have less and less idea what this thread is about the more it goes on, but it's very thought-provoking in a stream-of-consciousness kinda way Smile

_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
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J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Kind of like Jazz Cool

Mike Neer · From: NJ

It is pretty essential that in order to learn how to improvise in jazz, you have to learn the language, including rhythm, which is probably most important. But two things are important once you have learned the language: you can't learn to play jazz in a bubble and you have to listen to what's going on around you and be able to respond to it. This is usually where we get our cues about how to move forward in a solo. It's like a relay team handing off to one another. If you are the starter, the melody should be your guide to kicking off the solos

Playing jazz on steel guitar is very difficult because we tend to repeat ourselves and don't have the complete freedom that other instrumentalists have (unless we really focus on mastering the ability to play chromatically). Learning arpeggios and scales is not enough--the language of jazz is based on rhythm and how we approach our target notes using chromaticism and substitute harmony.

While I did study and play with quite a few excellent jazz musicians in my life, the process was very slow for me and didn't start to click until I could really inhabit the music. But even then, stylistically I was limited to specific types of jazz. I am not a huge bebop guy, though I understand it pretty well. Making the changes at fast tempos requires an extra gear that I don't really have...yet, or may never have. I tend to go for late 50s post-bop through the 80s New York sound (Steps Ahead, etc.).

My position is, I will never reach the level of playing that I will be remotely satisfied with, but I do enjoy the challenge of just making the most of the journey. The whole idea from the beginning was to make myself a more interesting rock and roller.
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Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I HIGHLY recommend the book Thinking In Jazz by Paul Berliner. It is one of the most insightful books ever written on jazz studies from a musician’s perspective, with many quotes and examples from a wide variety of musicians. It is a huge book at over 1000 pages, but also very engaging and informative.

https://amzn.to/3WCXAK1

Even with all the different styles under the umbrella of "jazz", there is still a common language. It's difficult to put a finger on it, but the licks that you mention don't only have to be melodic. Much of that language is rhythmic and I think the most important element. You can plug whatever harmonies or melodic content into that rhythmic element and it will still end up have the same effect. The more you play around with harmony, the more of a surprise element you can bring to the music.

One of my favorite periods of jazz is the much-maligned Creed Taylor or CTI Records era. So much great history in many of the recordings with all the great musicians and yet so hip for its time. "Take Five" by George Benson is one of my favorite tracks and it's Kenny Barron's piano solo that is the thing I keep coming back to. I have been transcribing it a little at a time over the past couple of weeks, and it's so hip in every way and yet kind not that hard to decipher. That is the kind of playing I have been working on with economy picking.

Take Five
(piano solo begins about 3:35 in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV3N-jisAoY
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J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

I ordered that book, Mike... haven't read one since BE's Bio!

Here's what I've done these days:

I downloaded a "plug-in" for my Mac which allows me to play a rhythm track video (I download them from youTUBE), while I screen-video-shoot it and sing, hum or whistle into a mike and got that all on the new video.
It's a game changer! No all the rambling under the shower isn't lost anymore.

I quickly took that to my office and started "laying down" tracks on the same progression again and again. Some one after the other, others an hour or so later. Then I listened.
I realized that I am singing/whistling in the "styel" of how I play ii-,V,I's and other devices... so I know, I know how to play them and it's "my" "language".

I've then taken all that to the music room and let my "own" solos play and then proceded to learn to play them, which was easy and thus successful, because it's not someone else's stuff I first have to memorize.
I also found that, just like with learning other people's solos, I "roam off" and new "stuff" happens. It's very fertile territory! Sometimes, just playing back a bar or two is enough to catch a motive and run with it for the rest of the day thru all the changes.

I don't think I have been so "productive" in a long time. Some mornings it's almost scary, unsure if I can ride that wave further and maybe top it.

I think the conscious recording one self singing/whistling to a track of a know piece by itself is better fertilizer than chicken manure! It's a great exercise and great pass-time! I've found myself deleting some of my earliest recordings (of 4days ago) because I "sing" better ones. So, it seems to blossom "up there".
But I've also had one day, I just was "dead". I didn't even care to but forced myself and it just didn't come out. There's that too.

During these last years' quest to teach myself to solo in Jazz/Bebop, I have come to think that I understand why so many of Jazz's greats fell into drugs and booze. It's an emocional thing, there's a lot about feelings, and there's a constant in-satisfaction following one day's emotions of "accomplishment", feeling the need to progress further, feeling and often realizing just to have scratched the surface... of an iceberg. It's an emocional roller coaster.
Luckily, I am too old to fall for crap, but I believe to understand better now (even when I can't condone "using").

... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________

Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"

A Little Mental Health Warning:

Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.

I say it humorously, but I mean it.

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Here is a mad soloist who seems to be using JDs technique! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPHcBvy6yT4&t=24s

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

I discovered Upper Structures in my quest to understand what was going on when playing what most would refer to as IV-over-V chords. Maurice Anderson had introduced me to a little "secret" about these during our last visit. I wasn't even taking lessons that time, just visiting and picking up a SuperSlide.

At our supper, I mentioned his show at the 2000 Dallas Steel Convention and some of the reactions of some well known Pros. watching him reeling out his "chord-chains" in evident awe. Not without reason, Maurice had often been referred to as "The Chord King".
The next morning, as we got stuck at his home in Keller, TX by a snow storm, he sat me at his MSA and, without any introduction, asked me to hold down what we commonly refer to as P7 on C6th raising A & C both a whole step and pick a carefully selected group of strings and moving them up and down in a whole/half or half/whole step pattern. Even thou, the evening before, I had not been able to precisely describe in words what I had heard him play at that show SEVEN years before, he knew and just gave it away to take home... no explanations! And so, so we went back to watch the news on TV of trailer trucks sideways all over the Interstates' overpasses... me originally being from Switzerland scratching my head over all the fuss, over 3 inches of snow. But it was a quite spectacle nevertheless. But it made us miss doing a "New"-MSA Factory tour and visit John Fabian and Bud Carter in Mesquite.

About 2 1/2 years ago I opened a thread asking for help on MAJOR 11th chords... which inadvertently turned out to spill the beans on upper structure.

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=380049

As some chipped in, I started researching from the "Upper Structure" angle and within a week I came to an eyeopening discovery, which made me rename the thread because it went much further:

Upper Structure is close to "Relativity Theory"! It's where all them notes are which we often just don't seem to have on OUR neck... and when we think we found one, it just doesn't SEEM to make sense.... but it's the gateway to near everything we find difficult to grasp. Turns out, Upper Structure can be ANY and EVERYTHING and this is why when it got re-discovered (after having been used in Classical Music) it became such a fundamental sound shaper to Modern Jazz, Soul & Gospel and now Neo-Soul.
It also multiplies the chords and harmonic possibilities of any instrument... our thing too.

Tim, I hope you can extract some better understanding on the subject from the aforementioned thread.
The key is to not look at notes and not even a key center, but basically build a chromatic Interval ruler and move it against a set of rulers of most known chords. You will be amazed to find out that it can fit and thus suggest ANY chord.

... J-D
_________________
__________________________________________________________

Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"

A Little Mental Health Warning:

Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.

I say it humorously, but I mean it.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

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