What About Editing Songs For Performance?

I have a house concert tomorrow night in Woodland Hills, California. I am debuting my New Traces of the Old Road CD and have been practicing all the songs from it that I can do justice to with one guitar.

Several of the arrangements are so involved and, for me, all the parts so integral, that I don’t think I can do them with one guitar. At least not until I rethink them.

One of the things that seems to develop when you tour behind a new album is that you try to reproduce the arrangements exactly as they were on the recording.

Sometimes you will have a motif that you introduce in a recording and then every time is shows up later, it is slightly altered or more developed or perhaps more instruments or harmonies are being added.

If you play that part that you played on the recording over and over again (as you did on the recording) without the development, the arrangement becomes static and boring. So here is something to remember when you are playing songs from your album.

You need not do all the solo’s that are on all the songs. I like solos and instrumentals but when you are playing by yourself, putting a solo into each song can be pretty tedious, even if you are a remarkable instrumentalist.

In the studio as I practiced for the gig tomorrow night, I realized that while I love the solo in “Anywhere Love Goes” and think it is a perfect development out of the chorus on the recording, when I go into the solo when it’s just me all alone, it just doesn’t have the impact that it has on the recording.

For me, it loses momentum and drive. I mean I play it just like on the CD, but without the keyboard and the drums, even if I kick up the volume, it doesn’t satisfy me, so I tried leaving it out and the song works great without it.

Once I discovered that, I realized that one of the reasons I hardly ever play that song live is that I never liked what happened in the solo section. Even though I played exactly what works great on the recording.

It’s not that I don’t like taking solo’s with one guitar. On the New Traces CD, I take solo’s in Last Day of Summer, Just Like Thom Thumb’s Blues, One Heart Falling, Most Likely You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Mine, Stop This Rain, Just Let It Go and Anywhere Love Goes; and I also have one solo instrumental guitar piece called Harris Creek Shuffle.

Live I do all the solo’s save Anywhere Love Goes and Just Let It Go, and of course, I do the solo guitar instrumental, so I’m not afraid of doing solo’s with no band behind me, but I don’t believe that those two particular songs are served by me doing the solo’s in them.

Listen to what you are doing on stage. Tape the shows and listen to them by yourself and with others if you have friends that are that wonderful. Be real when you listen to them. You can tell what works and what you only wish would work.

The wishes are for the studio and practice, but on stage you have to do what works and remove what doesn’t work…no matter how much you like it, if it isn’t serving the performance of the song, take it out.

I know it is difficult to remove things that you love, but listen with open ears and you’ll find that all the memorable music you love is just that. There aren’t any unnecessary parts.

Try to figure out if you have any of these unnecessary parts and excise them. An audience tells you which ones they are because they stop paying attention; they start talking or drifting and you can feel it. The same with your friends; they will let you know in a thousand subtle ways, or if they are good friends, they’ll tell you if it doesn’t work for them.

For me, I can always feel the audience drift and consequently, I try to create a lyric, an arrangement, a melody and a space that simply doesn’t encourage that response. It doesn’t always work, but that’s what I’m going for.

Have a great weekend and come to my show if you are in Los Angeles, I’d love to meet you.