Last month I was asked to participate in a University of Iowa School of Music graduation recital for a violinist that I have recently been playing with.  Crazy Critters is the group in the style of Gypsy manouche Jazz, and it consists of Dave Hanson on upright bass, Oriana Ross on violin and myself on acoustic guitar.  During our rehearsals, it was apparent that playing by memory would be important.  Jazz music comes alive when players are listening to each other rather than staring at the notes in front of them.  Although I have immersed myself in Jazz music for decades, the confidence and ability to memorize songs for a live performance has been a challenge. I knew I needed to change my memorization method.

Thanks to growing up with my sisters’ vinyl record collection, early on I became a fan of 80’s pop music, and even a generic best of 80's playlist still has me snapping fingers.  At the same time, I love jazz standards performed by all the various acoustic ensembles and their freedom to arrange a melody in countless ways.  Why not take hits of the 80's and do the same thing?  Currently, I am playing with a flute player and violinist, and I have been thinking about reimagining 80’s chartbusters as instrumentals in a jazz trio style.

I am fortunate to be part of a project with a drummer, bassist and vocalist working on writing original rock songs.  This will be a challenge since songs don’t appear out of thin air or record themselves.  Birthing original songs will require the accumulation of musical material while minimizing the temptation to mimic others and instead, allow the band to grow both on a musical and personal level.

My neighborhood’s annual Longfellow Front Porch Music Festival is the perfect setting for throwing together something fresh.  I am concocting a set of music for a 7-piece group consisting of vocals, violin, flute, saxophone, upright bass and two acoustic guitars for this year’s porch fest.  The aim is for a swinging jazz ensemble in the style of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli’s Hot Club of France, which ranks as some of my all time favorite music.  Alone from a guitarist’s perspective this genre known as jazz manouche is extremely interesting.  The groundwork left behind by the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt is very challenging.  However, instead of focusing on Django’s one of a kind playing style, I want to share how I am going about getting arrangements ready for this upcoming gig.   

Play-along tracks are fantastic for improving your guitar playing abilities.  These recordings emulate the feel of playing with a real band and allow for refinement in various areas.  These so called backing tracks come in all kinds of genres, ranging from blues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, pop, funk, rock to metal in varying degrees of difficulty. They are excellent for all levels of players and provide the perfect setting to make use of music theory and expand your fretboard knowledge.  I was first exposed to play along backing tracks in high school when my band teacher used Jamey Aebersold vinyl play along records to practice improvising a 12 bar blues in the key of F and Bb.  To this day, I appreciate backing tracks old and new of all kinds.  

The month of June offered a new experience for me. The Fox Hill Troubadours, a band that I recently joined, are finishing up an EP and invited me to play on 3 of their original songs.  I’d like to use this experience to look at a recording session and some of it’s components like song preparation, knowing the tonal options of your guitar, making sure your equipment is functioning and dealing with mistakes and unpredictable situations in the studio.

Prior to the recording date, I warmed up by importing the songs the Troubadours had recorded onto my Spire Isotope, a basic 8 track home recording app, and began recording ideas over them.  Playing live with a band versus laying down additional tracks on a preexisting format are two separate worlds, and my task was to fuse them together.  I wanted to capture the adventurous feel the band has live and yet avoid errors and present a polished product.  In terms of figuring out what parts to come up with, the main objective was simple:  What would best suit the song and add energy and emotion?  This meant also trying out new ideas and ultimately refining any nuggets I stumbled across, and it paid off because I became way more aware and critical of what I was playing.  

In my musical journey, things tend to go in full circles.  At the moment, I find myself memorizing popular songs in bands that include in their repertoire covers, as well as originals.  Much earlier in my teens, I came across these classic songs, many of them consisting only of 3 chords.  This time I am relearning and performing them with greater maturity and respect.  Dissecting and memorizing them is definetely heightening my appreciation for songwriters who have mastered writing memorable singles using only a few chords.  Through this I have learned to shift my perspective, listen and play in a different manner.

Music is a funny thing.  It’s able to move us in an unknown realm and often the listener doesn’t have the proper terms to express what’s going on.  My 8 year-old son is doing a science fair project this month and chose the topic of sound waves.  With the use of a tuning fork and a shallow bowl of water, he will demonstrate how an activated tuning fork can create a splash when placed into the water.  We don’t see sound waves, but they certainly exist and possess force.  What a perfect analogy for the power of music in our lives.  I want to remind us there is much to learn, places to see, people to meet and souls to be touched through making music.

This also makes me reflect on Joe Pass, a jazz guitarist of cosmic grandeur, and Ella Fitzgerald, a jazz vocal icon.  They had a jazz guitar/vocal duo together.  The way Joe played guitar, dancing around Ella’s rich melodic vocals and giving her all the support akin a big band was stunning.  Ella and Joe are artists of the highest caliber, and not only have they internalized countless jazz classics, but more significantly, they found their own voices and interpreted them in a unique and sincere manner.  Their recordings and performances influenced all vocalists and guitarists in that genre.  They possessed the gift of spontaneity, and playfulness and you can sense that magic in the air.  

Art has an amazing power to draw people together.  Film makers, event organizers, visual artists and musicians are striving for their individual best, but during this process something separate is also taking place:  the building of relationships between people that otherwise might not cross paths. Two weeks ago, I played at the Iowa City FilmScene where 3 very short films premiered about efforts to foster solidarity in Iowa City neighborhoods.  Topics included soccer for youth, people gathering in dialogue about neighborhood issues and implementing art/murals to beautify residences.  The annual Longfellow Front Porch Music Festival, which happens in my neck of the woods, was also featured.  To my surprise, for a brief moment on the screen, there was a shot of my son watching me perform with my new band  in our garden!  That event bore much fruit including our debut, reconnecting with local musicians and picking up new guitar students who live within walking distance.  

Music is comprised of many different elements akin to a field of wild flowers.   All these components blend into a big picture and yet at the same time allow for zooming in.  With practice, you can listen attentively to the melodic, lyric, rhythmic, harmonic and textural parts that are present.  

As we head into the New Year I hope you can look back at 2023 and celebrate your accomplishments.  Whether you have started learning an instrument or upped your practice routine, found musicians to play with or opened your musical palette to new genres, we are all a work in progress, and celebrating and acknowledging growth is healthy.  

Playing in a cover band is a true growing experience.  Let’s explore the benefits and fun of working with a group of musicians learning songs that topped the charts.  Included in this list are bettering one’s ability to understand and memorize songs composed by other people, making use of new apps to speed up that process, creating a repertoire as a group, exploring new sonic possibilities on the guitar and broadening one’s understanding of popular music history.  For many musicians, myself included, it is normal to start out playing top 40 cover tunes, and this can help the move to creating original material.  Most folks don’t come out of the womb with a stack of songs ready to go!  I am delighted to find myself again in the position of learning songs that resonate with entire generations around the globe.  I am going about it with a new perspective and appreciation. 

Modern guitar players will forever be rooted in American Blues music.  A whole new world opens up when you dive into this vast genre.  You become aware of the origins of recorded popular music and the influence of Blues around the globe.  Especially for guitarists, there are countless musicians and recordings to explore.  This month’s guitar newsletter is aimed at more advanced students who have some music theory under their belt.  I would like to analyze an original blues tune by Eric Clapton, a frontman of the British Blues invasion.  It is called “Cryin’” and can be found on the double CD collection appropriately called “Blues”. 

Every year our neighborhood puts on the Longfellow Front Porch Music Festival.  It’s a communal effort to share live music at any level and makes for a wonderful family friendly event.  The whole point is to enjoy a Sunday afternoon of live music while strolling through the neighborhood, meeting people of all sorts and soaking up the various sound waves bristling through the fall leaves.  This year a few things stood out both in terms of performing and providing a performance space.  People passionate about playing music, be it trained musicians, students, lay people, or aspiring musicians, all should jump at opportunities like these.  I’m glad I did and would like to offer some practical insights, especially towards novices because the truth of the matter is that playing live music in front of an audience is what it is all about. 

My son’s childlike approach toward playing in front of an audience contrasts so starkly to the reality of high performers in the competitive world of entertainment. Maestro Christopher Parkening's career as a classical guitarist is a model example of this. In this month’s newsletter, I would like to explore this contrast further.