Monthly Archives: March 2014

A Lesson Learned From A Tyler Variax JTV-69

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The JTV-69

A series of events conspired to put a Tyler Variax in my hands this week (these events included an upswing in students, massive price drops in that particular model, and a demo model in cherry condition selling for $800 shipped) but my joy on Wednesday quickly turned to frustration and, in a first for me,  it goes back to Sweetwater today.

Disclosure

I have owned Variaxs before.  When I moved from California, I sold a 300 and a 700AC and I liked things about both of them (I really regret selling the 700 to this day).  I like the concept of modeling and if there is an ideal demographic for a person who wants complete control over the sounds in his guitar, I would have thought it was me.

Unboxing

The guitar came with a Line 6 gig bag, USB interface (for connecting with Workbench), USB cable, Variax CAT cable and a battery charger.  The 700AC came with a GREAT gig bag.  While this gig bag looked the same, the interior was much cheaper in both materials and construction and the padding was of what’s found on a $30 no name bag from Musician’s Friend.

This was actually a harbinger of what was to come.

The Build

First, the positive.

  • The design on this is light years from the VAX 300.  It didn’t feel like a slab of wood the way the 300 did.  The wrist cut (rounded to the back) and rounded heel were nice additions and there was clear access all the way up to the 22nd fret.  The finish was flawless and, in short, it’s a nice looking guitar.
  • The top loading tremolo bridge is a really clever design and works well with the TUSQ nut and locking tuners.
  • Line 6 developed a new battery that worked really well with the guitar and was a welcome relief from the AA batter holder or the powered cable box required with earlier models.  They claim 12 hours of use time when fully charged.  I spent 3-4 hours my first day charging the battery and it didn’t run out of juice during the testing time so that seems like an accurate estimate to me.
  • The addition of the tuning wheel to dial in alternate tunings for the patches is also a great touch.

Now the not so positive:

  • The neck….I hate the neck.  The fingerboard radius is fine and the string spacing is actually comfortable – but the neck… first it’s a matte finish and not a gloss finish.  That’s just a personal preference but it didn’t work for me.  Second, the neck is a C shape but it just feels incredible bulky.  Apparently this isn’t a minority opinion as once it was determined on the forums that the Mighty-Mite compound radius Strat necks sold by Stew-Mac fit with very little alteration, Stew-Mac sold out of them, and they’re currently on back order.
  • The acoustic tone.  By that I don’t mean the models.  I mean, how does the guitar sound when it’s played un-amplified.  And to be honest, it just sounded a little one-dimensional.  More specifically, it sounded like a plastic Maccaferri which is not a tone I prize.  I bumped up the string guage to .011’s and that helped with the projection a bit but it wasn’t an inspiring guitar to play.

The Firmware

When I went to register the guitar I realized that it shipped with v 1.8 software (You need v 2.0 software to connect to workbench).  Upgrading required using the same USB interface that the 1st generation Vaxs used.  Given that a key selling point for this instrument is the integration of the Variax and the POD fact the requirement of an external box just seems clunky.

It behaved in a clunky manner as well.  It took 3-4 times to get recognized by Line 6 Monkey before I could upgrade it.  The upgrade was very straightforward.

Workbench

One of the most intriguing elements of this guitar is the fact that EVERY aspect of the tone (and intonation) is fully customizable with the Workbench software.

Pickups:

You can control the type of pickup. The wiring of the pickup (series or parallel) the polarity, the angle, height and placement. Virtual pickup placement and angles are literally drag and drop parameters and place them anywhere along the string path of the body.

WorkbenchJ

Strings:

StringsJ

You can control individual volumes!  No more of that E string barking out at you if you don’t want it!

You can control individual pitches (this can also be done on the guitar itself with the virtual capo function) and you can control the intonation through the Parallel Pitch function.

PotsJPots:

You can control the resistance and taper of the pots so the tone “rolls” on or off the way you want it to.

In other words, you can customize any aspect of a guitar or just create sounds that have never been made before.

It’s a remarkable piece of software and engineering, and a tweaker’s paradise.  But playing this guitar taught me something.

I’m not a really a tweaker.

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The Sounds and Performance

This is where this realization really came into play.

Again, let’s start off with the good.

  • The physical pickups.  A number of players who have these guitars say that they use the on board pickups most of the time and they sound good enough that it’s easy to see why.
  • The models are dead quiet.  That’s the thing I loved about my original Variaxs, no buzz when recording.
  • The string muting is MUCH better.  This was a big downfall on the original Vaxs but this was largely fixed with the new versions.
  • The tracking is unbelievable.  I found ZERO perceptable latency with the models on this guitar.
  • The virtual capo function is pretty awesome.  You can literally touch notes on a guitar and the computer will assign a new open tuning in a second or so.  I got this guitar because I thought It would be fun to play in standard tuning and drop into a DADGAD for a chorus.  You can do that with this guitar.
  • The integration with the POD is stunning.  You can change patches and guitars with a foot switch.  Acoustic alternate tuning on the verse and distorted Les Paul on the chorus.  One switch can be set to do that.
Here’s where I had a problem.
Basically, my biggest problem with the guitar (other than the neck) is that you have to adapt your playing and tone to the performance aspects associated with each guitar.  Sean Halley hipped me to that with his Line 6 Blog post where he talks about using .011 gauge strings, playing as light as possible and using a really minimal signal path to get his acoustic tone.
  • I tend to play hard.  So this was a learning curve for me, but even playing softer, I still needed to drop my volume down to about 50% on all of the models I was using because I was hearing really strange aliasing with some of the settings.  It was more pronounced on some models than others – (The Dano and the teles were some of the best sounding models on there to my ears) – but it was still really problematic.
  • I tend to play with low stage volume, and if you’re not playing loud enough to cover up the acoustic sound of the guitar, you’re going to be subjected to sonic weirdness as your ear tries to mix the acoustic sound with the modeled tone – particularly with regards to altered tunings.
This leads me to a favorite story of mine.
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The Ted Nugent Story

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Here’s where I get to tell my favorite second hand Ted Nugent story.  (If you like this story –  ask Bob Bradshaw about the time he made a board for Prince because it essentially ends the same way.)
A GREAT guy I knew from Berklee used to run sound for the Nuge back in the day.  Where most live stages have a wall of amps that are basically there to fill out the stage (there’s a reason that only one of them is miked usually), the Nuge had a wall of Fenders that were all live (even more insane when you consider that he was playing a hollowbody guitar at that point!).  The stage volume was deafening, and based on his signal path he would walk up to each amp and just dial in the numbers that he knew would get him his tone and play.
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The amount of noise that was coming from the stage was driving the sound people nuts.  So they rack mounted and hard wired his pedals and Echoplex (they changed the tapes and cleaned the heads as well) and got rid of a ton of hiss.  They showed their work to Ted and he hated it.
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He hated it, because it completely changed the sound of his amps – and the number system he used to dial in his tone no longer worked.  Ted wasn’t about to re-discover how to get his sound, so they had to undo everything (they put the old tape back in but refused to dirty up the heads again).
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With that in mind here was my problem.
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I might have been able to fix the aliasing issues with Workbench but the thing is, I didn’t dig how the models were sounding with my tones. It makes sense.  My tones were crafted around my FnH which sounds completely different from this guitar
But like the Nuge, I spent a lot of time getting some of those sounds together.  I didn’t want to do that again.
And there’s the real review.
This is a bold solution to a sonic problem.
If you are the type of person who wants to be able to control every aspect of tone and have the ability to create tones that have never been heard before – this is a solution that approaches the answer.  And I say that because if you are that type of person, then you will swap out physical pickups, swap out the neck and make every aspect of this instrument conform to what you want it to be.
This is expected when buying a used guitar but that’s not why I would buy a new guitar.
This particular guitar wasn’t inspiring to play, and the thought of customizing every aspect of it (from the neck to the pickups, to the string output, to the patches and having it be weeks or months to get to where I needed to go) just isn’t interesting to me.  As it is, I’ve already lost the better part of two days just trying to get it going, and that’s my threshold for moving on.
What follows is pure conjecture and should be viewed as opinion rather than fact.
I don’t think I’m alone.
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I’m guessing that the Variax cost, if you were getting an artist rate, would probably be $600-$700. So if Sweetwater is selling these at $899 for a new model.  They can’t be making much money.
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Furthermore, Guitar Center Used is selling these for around $700.  (A JTV-59 was up today for $549! – Ouch indeed!)
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I don’t know if they’re making a price drop to promote these guitars, to move them, or what have you but what is interesting to me, in contrast, is that the JTV-59 (The Les Paulish one) has not dropped in price.
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That one also looks much more comfortable to play and knowing that you can mount a Bigsby to it makes it appealing to me.  The only reason I didn’t look closer at that one is the substantial price difference.
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You may dig the JTV-69.  You might like the neck, embrace all the things I really liked about this guitar and not be bothered by what I didn’t like.
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So I haven’t given up entirely.  I’m sure that there will be a point where I try to cross this bridge again, but it’s not the right guitar for me right now and so back it goes.

As You Gaze Into The BabyMetal The BabyMetal Also Gazes Into Thee

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BabyMetal

Earlier this month on Facebook, I put up a link to a video that a friend of mine hipped me to called BabyMetal.

I loved it for a number of reasons.

As someone who was familiar with J-Pop and Metal, it was a bizarre juxtaposition of two musical styles that at first glance appear incompatible, but actually works in an indescribable way.

I may have been amused watching the video up to the verse of the tune but I was dumbfounded when it got to the chorus.  It completely surprised me, and I can’t tell you the last time that happened to me in a popular song.

I dug the production.  I dug the concept.  I dug the band in skeleton costumes.  I dug that SO MANY people were there to see the show.  (And it is most definitely a show – based on the audio in the video – I doubt that much of that performance is “live” in the same way that a Britney Spears performance is more about being a live show/event than a musical concert).

On repeated viewings, it made me smile ear to ear regardless of whatever mood I was in before I heard the tune. It’s high energy and fun and if given the chance I’d do that gig in a heartbeat.

However, when other people posted about this on FB, it appears that 3 young girls fronting a metal band, singing about loving chocolate and dancing synchronized steps to it can shake some people’s delicate sensibilities to the core.

There were people that were outright angry at having been exposed to this.  Comments like “This is cancer for metal” or “I don’t find this funny at all” or a dozen other sentiments of people who were annoyed or outraged that this existed in the world and that they saw it.

And then I had a realization about strong opinions to art.

Art can be a Rorschack test.

It’s not the inkblot on the paper, but what you see in the inkblot that’s important to what’s happening with you.

If you have strong opinions about something it’s because it challenges or conflicts with beliefs and/or aesthetics that you have.  However, that’s what art is supposed to do.  It communicates and challenges. It exposes you to things you haven’t seen/heard/experiences before so you can expand your horizons and develop your own aesthetic.

I heard a quote on The Wednesday, March 12th show of @ Midnight (a gameshow riff on Comedy Central) from staff writer/contestant Matt Mira that resonated with me.  When asked to help define the internet he started his punch line with:

“The Internet is actually a place where non-content creators go to complain about content that’s been created….”

For many guitarists, YouTube has become a delivery device for an endless pissing contest of this guitarist’s solo being better than that guitarist’s solo and this gear being better than that gear but do any of those comparisons challenge anything other than your opinion?

“As you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into thee.”

I posit that if the BabyMetal video makes you angry, it’s because you’re already angry.  If metal as a genre is so fragile that 3 girls (and a talented producer) combining J-Pop with it ruins it for you, then it’s probably time to move on.

Here’s what I see.

This video inspires me.  It has over 4,200,000 views on YouTube.  They had the number 2 album on iTunes and their cd’s are selling for $40 on Amazon!  In the video, it looks like they’re playing to a crowd of at least 5,000 people if not more – and the crowd is into it!

If a concept this weird can get traction, then what’s my/your/anyone else’s excuse for not getting things out into the world?

When asked by an acolyte how to make the world a better place Lord Basho replied something to the effect of, “Just be the best person you can and then there will be one less rascal in the world.”

It’s well documented that goal setting is a critical element in getting things accomplished, but in the best tip I gotten in a while – reverse engineering goal setting by looking back from the future is a great way to keep yourself on track with achieving goals.

  • Instead of looking at where you are right now, take a moment and write down today’s month and day on a piece of paper and add in the year 5 years from now.

 

  • Then write down all the things you accomplished in your life by that date.

 

  • Finally, write down today’s month and day and one year from now.

Now the question is, what are you doing right now to achieve those 5 year goals?

I’m going to go watch the video again, and then get my sounds together for a show next week, and put things in place for getting things done this year in meeting those goals.

What are you going to do?

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for reading!

-SC

You May Need A Teacher Or Buying Something Isn’t The Same As Doing Something

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Talkin’ Yourself Out Of A Job

There’s a study excerpt I read, (probably a link from a TED Talk page), that talked about new research that shows that when you talk to people about doing something that it has a similar chemical process in the brian as actually doing that thing.

You may have experienced this if you’ve ever gotten amped talking with your friends about something you’re going to do, resolve to start your life-changing journey the following day, and find yourself out of gas. (The band X has a great song line on the track, Lettuce and Vodka: “Last night’s judgment day is this morning’s cartoon…” that sums up this predicament well.)

Personal experience has shown me that it’s not just talk that has this effect.  Education can often work this way as well.

For example, you get all excited because guitarist X has released a new book on the topic you want to know more about.  You buy the book to study the material and after some initial examination of the material, you find it in the pile with the other materials that have gone neglected.

How many people buy gym memberships and then never go to a gym?  It’s those same people who are often making statements like, “Yeah…I know I have a membership and everything, I really need to go….”

The Point of College

One thing that surprised me a lot about college was coming to the conclusion that what I learned at the time only accounted for a fraction of it’s value.  Going to college:

  • Exposed me to new ideas
  • Honed my aesthetic and made me realize why I liked or didn’t like things
  • Exposed me to new players
  • Forced me to play with others on a higher level
  • Taught me how to learn.

That last one is the big ticket item in the list.  You might not have to go to college to learn that lesson but you do need to devote a lot of concentrated study to learn what works for you.

For example, there were times in my life that a gym was a really good fit for me.  There were times that a gym was a bad fit for me.  Being a home owner now, and realizing that it was easier to clock in at home and put the time in made it a much easier decision to get a stationary bike and some weights because that worked better for me.  Some people need to go to a gym to get in the proper mindset (and to have access to the right equipment) to work out.

So the first point is that everyone is different.

But, acknowledging that everyone is different, everyone starts from the beginning at multiple points in their life.  In my experience, the big difference between people who stay with it and people who drop out is what and how they are learning.

A large percentage of the lessons I have taught have been correcting misinformation.  For example, if left to your own devices and watching YouTube videos that tell you that even with two working legs that the “proper” way to run involves only using your left leg, you might get really skilled at running with just your left leg and be able to run with one leg faster than anyone that you come across, but not matter how much time or effort you put in, you are never going to outrun a trained athlete who runs with both legs.

It’s the same thing with technical things like picking, hand tension or fretboard attacks.  Sure you can learn it wrong and get to a certain point, but you will invariably plateau and then wonder why you aren’t progressing any further.

The Flamenco Dance Master Class Lesson Scam

I’ve already posted about this, but I can tell you all about, what I believe to be, a brilliant scam that I’ve seen perpetrated by multiple Flamenco dance teachers in the states.  It works like this:

A well known dancer who happens to be in town for a show advertises a master class for students through the promoter.  While you might think that a master class would imply that only advanced students would attend, generally a lot of beginning and intermediate students show up and  jockey for the best position in their class to see the teacher.  Two things happen with this:

  1. It automatically drops the level of the class to the lowest common denominator
  2. It becomes very difficult to see the choreography

This is also the point in the scam to mention that typically ANY recording device will not be allowed in the class.  Sometimes they’ll let you record the audio but video is generally forbidden.

Then the class is taken through some warm up exercises and then through the choreography.

Here’s the scam.  Unless you’re a trained dancer familiar with the style, there is no way you will be able to get the choreography down without recording it.

Here’s the genius of this.  Later, when the student is trying to figure out the choreography and getting it wrong they blame themselves for not having the ability to remember the steps.

The dance teachers know this.  They’re profoundly protective of their choreography because they had to learn it the same way everyone else did.  By working with their teachers repeatedly and learning the choreography slowly over time.

So, they either have two choices.  They cross an item off their bucket list and go onto something else or they take more lessons and learn the pieces.

Now “scam” is a harsh term for this.  The only scam aspect of it is that it presents a masters class that won’t offer a lot for most people to learn.  Only a microscopic percentage of people who take an individual master class will walk away with something substantial.  What this system does accomplish is perpetuating the need for a teacher.

While no one want’s to be out of a job here’s the thing:

A good teacher will teach you a skill.

A great teacher will teach you what you need to learn and a great teacher will ultimately teach him or herself  out of a job because the student won’t need the teacher anymore.

While this might seem like a terrible business plan it works on numbers.  Great teachers do this because there are always new students on the horizon who need to learn.  And students who get what they need will refer other people to those teachers.

Buying Something Isn’t The Same As Doing Something

While there are some people who can teach themselves by picking up a book and working through the material, many people will need someone to help guide them and challenge them to get the material down.

If you pick up a book or a video and don’t make any progress, don’t despair!  It may just mean that you need to schedule some lessons to get on track and have someone help guide you to get to your goals.

Buying something isn’t the same as doing something but it’s a great start!

The important thing is to figure out what works for you and then take the appropriate action.
I hope this helps!
-SC
ps – if this applies to you and you feel like lessons may benefit you – feel free to send me an e-mail at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com for information about lessons.

How NOT To Network Part 2 – Getting Press And Or Getting Reviewed

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Recap: The Power Of The Negative Example

In part 1 of this post I discussed a few key points:

  • Networking is a process of building a mutually advantageous relationship with other people, and not a way to manipulate people into getting what you want from them. Given that networking is a critical component in any success in any endeavor, it’s important to put some effort into doing it the right way.
  • I also talked about the power of negative example and illustrated how somethings successful completion can often be tied to numerous factors but its failure is generally tied into only one or two reasons.  Therefore in project management, it sometimes makes more sense to reverse engineer against failure (“This is what I don’t want to have happen”) instead of solely planning for success.

That Muse of Guitar

Some of you may be familiar with my interview/gear review/lesson series on Guitar-Muse.com With that in mind, I thought I’d write a little about my experience about networking with the media as someone who has conducted and given interviews and talk about some things that I’ve learned about dealing with the press taken from both sides of the isle.

Accentuate The Positive

In contrast to part one of this series, the list of things you should do in an interview is very short.

  • You should always be professional.
  • You should always respect people’s time
  • You should always be prepared.

While the list is short, there’s a great deal that goes into every bullet point, so I’ll use the space below to hit some talking points.

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A Tale Of 3 Reviews

The first tale

The first tale revolves an email from someone who saw my name in a review and then sent the following paraphrased e-mail (I couldn’t find the original in my in box).

“Hey.  Here’s my new release.  It’s great!  It would be good if you could get a review of it posted in the next week or so.  Also, I might be able to do an interview this week as well, but it’s pretty busy – so let me know.”

While a variation of this would be a perfectly appropriate email to send to your PR person on payroll,  I never heard of this guy before.  Or his music. I didn’t bother downloading the recording.  I’ve never heard of him since the “request” either.

  • Understand what you bring to the table.

Reviewers don’t work for you.  If they’re professional, they suffer through a lot of dreck trying to get 500 words out at a time and live for the moments that the discover things that actually move them.  They (generally) want to find new things but are innundated with content.

So while they don’t work for you, you (potentially) have fuel for their fire.

The second tale

In this second story, Jonathan Wilson, a friend of mine who created the awesome Togaman Guitatviol, had announced on his Facecook page that he had a new CD out.  I had already interviewed him for Guitar-Muse and had played with him before so I knew what he was doing and was interested in the CD.  I sent him a message and said that if he sent me a copy that I’d write a review.  He asked what I would need and I gave him the parameters (mp3s and jpegs of the cover art).  He mailed me the materials right away and when I sent him questions about the material and followed up with answers in short order.

  • Be visible

If writer’s don’t know about what you’re doing, they can’t write about it.

  • Be flexible and be prepared

Different publications will have different parameters for what they’ll want.  Since many blogs pay for bandwidth they’ll want small jpegs or gifs.  When I did an interview for an article in PW Magazine, the editor asked for headshots at 600 DPI and all variety of jpegs (none of which got used in the article).  You can’t be prepared for every scenario, but you should have head shots, promo photos and cover art in a variety of formats in case people need them.  Publications generally work on tight deadlines so when these things are asked for, you won’t have a lot of time to get them out the door.

The third tale

In another situation, I was contacted by someone who read an interview I did with a similar artist and sent me an email.  He introduced himself, explained how he found me, explained why I might be interested in his cd and asked if he could send me a copy.  He was sending the cd from overseas and the first copy never made it past customs.  He sent e-mails every week or two and then sent another cd when it was obvious the first CD never came.  He e-mailed sporadically and kept it on my radar.  He also sent me a thank you note after the interview.

This is pretty much an example of everything you should do for a review.

  • Be succinct

Don’t write an introductory page of material and make the pitch at the bottom.  Get right to it.  Here’s a sample outline:

  • Polite introduction – explanation of why you’re contacting them
  • here’s what I do/have
  • here’s why it might appeal to you or your readers
  • here’s where you can contact me
  • thank you

If you’re writing someone for the first time, don’t skip any of those points.  Especially the contact information and thanks.

  • Do your research

Don’t send your metal cd to a Jazz website unless it has some very concrete jazz element to it.  Read other reviews and interviews and target writers that may be sympathetic to what you’re doing.

  • Follow up

This is pretty much the perfect amount of follow up.  In contrast, I could point to the numerous people who just never responded to e-mails or the subject of the interview who  was e-mailing hourly and finally building to more than 10 e-mails an hour with revisions.  Either one of those is going to burn a bridge.

Research/Read. Write. Send. Follow up. Revise. Repeat.

Read other people’s press releases.  Get a sense of what is out there.  Make notes of what works and what doesn’t.

When you start writing to people, start from a position of being able to describe what you do in 5 words or less, knowing who you are trying to reach and why.  Write as succinctly as possible but write enough to entice.  The fan dancer entices an audience by the possibility of what they might see rather than what they actually do see.

Send and follow up are the same thing.

Revise your materials and your pitch.

The main thing with this is to build some inertia.  You might spend days relentlessly editing materials for your first pitch, but after you’ve sent out a few dozen you’ll get in a rhythm and get your time down to anywhere from a minute to a 1/2 hour.

Also, be sure to be balanced and don’t get hung up on your current project.  You always want to have a new project in your pocket as a goal on the horizon.  And you’ll need to cross the bridges you build now for everything in the future.

Remember:  The golden question of networking then isn’t, “What’s in it for me?” but instead is, “What’s in it for us?”  Build relationships sincerely and without an evil (i.e.  completely self serving) agenda.

That’s it for now.  Perhaps I’ll fill this out with a part three at some point but in the meantime I hope this helps!

-SC

Practicing With Intent Or You Play What You Know

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Hi Everyone!

I’ve been doing a lot of research for the book on practicing I’ve been threatening to release.  As part of that process, I’ve been examining various routines, rituals and regrets in my own regimen (and non-regimens) that I’ve adopted over the years and come back to the following conclusions.

  • People listen to music because they like it, but they go to see music or seek out music because they want to experience something and they want to feel something.
  • As musicians our job then is to communicate something.  The easiest way to do that is to do so with intent.  The easiest way to communicate with intent is to do so with authority and conviction.  Conviction comes from conveying what we know.
  • Practicing then is the process of transforming material from exposure to conception and then from conception to knowledge.

The (Please get me out of this) Blues Jam Example

For example, let’s say you’re sitting in with some musicians that you’ve never played with before.  What’s the first thing that you all try to do?  Find some common ground to play on.  For most rock player’s this will involve a rock standard (like a Led Zeppelin track) or a blues.  For the purposes of this argument, let’s say it’s a blues.

You learn a lot about people from how they play a blues.  How they comp and solo, how they utilize the form, how they support and drive other players.

Now, in this situation – how many times has the following happened to you?

It comes for your time to comp and all the hip voicings and cool comping ideas you have have gone out the window and you play the same chord voicings you always play.

It comes time to solo and all those cool things you’ve been shedding make a single (or no) appearance and you play the same licks you always do.

And you reflect on it later and think what happened there?

What happened was, you generally play what you know.

Let’s say you go to a job interview and you’re meeting with a prospective employer.

  • Are you going to launch into a free form association of how the color of the walls remind you of  when you would lay on your back in the fields on a warm summer’s day and gaze at the sky from your early days growing up on the farm or
  • are you going to talk about your skill sets and how they fit the position, answer the answers you’ve practiced for the questions that you know they’re going to ask and use all of your language skills to answer any questions you weren’t prepared for in a way that didn’t blow your chances at getting the position out of the water?

In stressful positions, we look for the familiar to help guide us through the unfamiliar.  In a performance situation, it’s very difficult to really be in the moment (i.e. setting the stage for an emotional connection with the audience) and have the presence of mind to think, “Hey maybe that symmetrical diminished thing would fit here.”

Practicing With Intent

What got me thinking about all of this was a lesson with a student where his playing was always quiet and reserved – even when he was trying to play aggressively.  It turned out that he practiced quietly at home and never practiced playing aggressively.  Where I end up seeing a lot of students is in making the distinction that playing loudly does not have to mean playing with excessive hand tension.

If you don’t practice being able to play at various degrees of emotional intensity, then you probably won’t be able to summon it on the stage.  There are scads of metal players who play a lot of notes, and there’s nothing behind them.  In contrast, I go back to this video:

of a 21 year old Yngwie Malmsteen just killing it with a live set of Alcatrazz.  The interesting change in perception for me came after reading his memoir and discovering just how deliberate his practicing was.  He practiced everything with the intent of playing it live.  It was all played with maximum intent, and that came across in every solo that he did.

There’s so much to experience, so much to learn and so little we will ever comparatively know.  Try to be mindful of both how and why you are practicing everything and make sure you bring it to the stage when you’re playing.  If you practice with intent, you’re more likely to play that way as well.

As always, thanks for reading!

-SC