Expose Yourself to Great Musicians
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 10:24AM The other night I was at the Folkscene Radio Show Party (www.folkscene.com), an annual event here in Southern California and among the players there was Laurence Juber (www.laurencejuber.com).
If you are unfamiliar with his work, I suggest you check out his website, video lessons, dvds, live concerts or his signature Martin guitar or his recordings with Paul McCartney when Laurence was in Wings.
It is no accident that he is so celebrated. He is devoted to his instrument and knows the neck like no one else I know.
Watching him go through various inversions up and down the neck, I realized that I STILL don’t practice enough.
He made it all look so effortless and so musical and fun, moving through various styles based upon who he was playing with.
I was listening to him and several others with bass, mandolin, and fiddle play music from the era of Django Reinhart, as they traded solos and vamped behind each other.
They demonstrated one of the most vital things that a musician can bring to an ensemble--the ability to listen to what the other is playing and support that. It wasn’t about egos, it was about sharing the time and space and the vibe.
I recommend that you expose yourself to as many wonderful players as you possibly can. Go listen to everything, as it all will effect and expand your creative output.
And I know I mentioned this before but try to find every single inversion of every chord that you know. Find every chord up and down the neck and find it so often that you always know where you are on the neck.
This will make playing with others easy and fun and also impact the leads you play.
Which reminds me, Laurence mostly plays in DADGAD on his solo recordings, but was in standard tuning all night at the party. Which means he knows the neck no matter what it is tuned to. Woo.
Reader Comments (1)
James…Good post. I checked out Laurence on a few YouTube tunes and he’s definitely a wonderful finger style guitarist. I realized that I need to take the D-35 off of its stand much more often.