Performing With Stephen Bishop
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 02:52PM Thursday night last, I performed with Stephen Bishop (www.stephenbishop.com) at Kulak’s Woodshed (www.kulakswoodshed.com) in North Hollywood. It was the first time that I had a chance to sit down and listen to Stephen on stage in a long time. 
Last week we got together for a little while and traded new songs, which is always fun, but this time I did my set at the club and then settled down to listen to him. He is a wonderful songwriter as you probably know. For those of you who don’t realize that you know his work, he wrote and sang “On and On”, “Save It For A Rainy Day”, and Phil Collins w/Marilyn Martin did a wonderful job on Stephen’s song, “Separate Lives”
So I settled back, close to the stage because I wanted to pay special attention to the way Stephen voices his chords in his songs. He is a wonderful but underrated guitar player who truly knows his way around a guitar neck, and I wanted to see and hear what it was that set him apart. When you hear him do one of his songs, you know that no one else does them like that.
First of all, I noticed that he really uses his thumb a lot, coming over the top of the neck and delivering interesting bass notes and passing bass tones that change the colour and add complexity to even simple chordings.
Secondly, I found that he almost always uses some added tones. If a chord is C-E-G (or Do-Mi-So) he will add a D and / or an A (a Re and / or a La). By doing this he opens up the possibilities for where the chord and / or melody can go next. The more tones (notes) that you have in a chord, the more common tones you are going to have with other chords that might not be so closely related to a simple triad.
The sound of Stephen’s guitar playing is very much reminiscent of Debussy. All the added colour and surprising melodic twists make for some very fun listening and some very focused woodshedding trying to figure out what in the world he is doing.
I have been trying for at least twenty years to get Stephen to do a simple guitar and voice CD of all of his well known (and deservedly so) songs. The tablature for his work has got to be challenging and rewarding.
The down side of using so many complex chords, particularly when you are performing solo, is that the songs take on a sameness that may not be as impactful as the same approach on a single recording might be.
By that I mean, if you hear one of his songs on the radio, it sounds unique and fresh, but in a concert situation, hearing the same arrangement techniques, tempo and perspective can dull the impact. Many of Stephen’s songs are so wonderful that he must take care that they are presented in the most impactful fashion.
Fortunately, he is aware of that and breaks up his performance with personable and comedic anecdotes, as well as using a strange little device called, I believe, a Q Chord. It is a programmable synth that includes drums, bass, and all kinds of sounds. It is shaped like space age autoharp and played the same way. Stephen sets it in his lap and sings as he manipulates it.
But I digress.
The point of today’s post is the idea of adding additional notes to the usual chords that you use and see where it takes you. Just try adding a second or a sixth to any chord you normally play. Do you hear the difference and do you hear the possibilities opening up for where you could go next? That’s the fun part.
See you in a minute.
Reader Comments (5)
First off I want a Q Chord...
Second I use my thumb TONS...i recently was practicing a Leonard Cohen song called "Priests" and i found that the way I play b minor that if I wrap my thumb around the neck i great this really almost atonal bassiness...i'm still working on doing it with ease...unlike Mr Bishop tho I can't play really complex chords...so I pic/strum...using many variations and under and overtones...I heard somewhere maybe it was here...that one has to at least add excitment to the fingering on the neck ofr the strumming/picking of the strings at the body of the guitar
And hey Best Wishes on the Release of 'New Traces of the Old Road' tomorrow
I rediscovered my thumb this evening using it in chords I thought would never work...AMAZING!
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