30
Dec 10

Learning from Listening to Music

When I was focusing on learning to write short fiction and took several writing workshops, the writer-teachers often expressed dismay that aspiring writers didn’t read enough good fiction. How could one learn to write without reading a lot?, they wondered.

If you’ve ever spent any time around young children, you know that one of their primary paths to learning is imitation. They pay keen attention to what’s going on around them and soak up every detail. It seems natural for them to “practice” the behaviors and activities they see adults doing–until they can do them as well.

Adults who want to learn any art form or creative activity would do well to remember the example of children. Instructional media, teachers and classes contribute to learning, but a key element is paying attention to good examples of the art one seeks to master.

Just as aspiring writers need to read, study and deeply experience good writing, so do aspiring musicians need to listen widely and deeply to the music they care about. Since I started taking guitar lessons, I’ve listened to music much more often than I used to–even though I’ve always enjoyed and loved music. Listening to music, especially blues by the masters, nurtures and encourages my love of the music and also helps me learn to play the music better.

Now that I’ve learned to play a little, I hear music in a different way. The more I know how to play, the more I can hear in the music I listen to. At the same time, I’m also trying to hear new things. What is that riff? How is the guitarist playing that passage? Could I play that?

My teacher has had me do Music Listening Analyses to encourage me to focus on certain elements in a song. In the process, I’ve listened to songs over and over. There is always more to hear. Even a relatively “simple” song has so much going on in it that it requires multiple listenings to absorb it deeply.

Whether listening for an analysis or just listening, it’s important to pay attention to the feel of the music. Music isn’t an intellectual exercise, nor is it just a matter of good technique. The ultimate goal is for “technique” to fall below a conscious level and simply play out the feelings.

Since I started taking lessons, I’ve also gone to hear live music more often. I find it helpful to see what a guitarist is doing as I’m hearing the music. However, I often can’t tell what is going on even as I’m looking, because it happens too fast.

Before I took guitar lessons, I hadn’t given any thought to ear training, but it’s obviously as important to playing music as finger training. Fortunately, listening to music I enjoy is never an onerous assignment.

In a sense, listening to music is also a form of goal-setting. I don’t expect ever to play at the level of blues mentors like Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker or Hubert Sumlin. However, as I sail over the wide seas of music, they are like the North Star, a point of orientation that guides me and keeps me on track.


15
Jul 10

Pick or Finger?

I’m fascinated by the fact that the many of the blues guitarists I admire most play without a pick: John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Albert King, Hubert Sumlin and others. Before I paid attention to such things, I assumed that one always used a pick to play an electric guitar.

There are advantages to each approach and the sound is certainly different. I’ve read that Howlin’ Wolf told Hubert Sumlin to stop using a pick and that was how he found his style. I’ve noticed some players (Buddy Guy, for example) switch back and forth during a performance. Guy plays mainly with a pick (and he’s hard to beat for speed), but he has a magician’s touch in concealing it in his hand when he wants to play fingerstyle.

In December 2009, I started practicing rhythm and bass lines without a pick and then practiced soloing fingerstyle. The exercises and songs in Kenny Sultan’s Introduction to Acoustic Blues, which I started working with in January 2010, need to be played fingerstyle.

A pick seems to allow one to play faster, but I enjoy the more intimate physical involvement that fingerstyle playing provides. It feels too early in my development to make a choice (versatility may ultimately be the best choice), so I’ll continue to practice both ways and to explore the pros and cons of the two approaches.

Most players who use a pick, use the traditional teardrop-shaped pick. However, Muddy Waters, for example, used a thumb pick and a pick that fit on the index finger. Magic Slim also uses a thumb pick. My teacher tells me these take some getting used to. I haven’t tried them yet, but would like to experiment with them.


10
Jun 10

Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba (6/10/10)

Malian musician Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba played at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on Thursday, 10 June 2010. Their music was exhilarating and thrilling. It continues to amaze me that they can get so much music out of such “primitive”-looking instruments as the ngoni.

Ngoni

As someone who is still learning to play a six-string fretted guitar, It’s hard to imagine how one can play a four-stringed unfretted instrument with such apparent ease and precision. They played their hypnotic music for a little over an hour.

As an introduction to the Chicago Blues Festival that began the following night,  Barry Dollins came on stage and announced the Howlin’ Wolf tribute (yesterday was the 100th anniversary of his birth). Otis Taylor came out with Eddie Shaw and Hubert Sumlin. They played a few Wolf tunes (“Spoonful,” “Back Door Man,” “Shake It”) with the Kouyate group. Taylor played a white Fender Telecaster, Shaw played sax and sang, and Sumlin played his well-worn Strat. He had his oxygen tank with him and had to sit, but he seemed to be having a good time.

The jam was a chaotic mess. Taylor mostly just played a rhythm line. Sumlin’s guitar was hard to hear whenever he got a chance to solo. I imagine they never rehearsed, but I’m surprised that they didn’t do it so everyone got a chance to be heard. Fortunately, I’d heard Otis Taylor and Hubert Sumlin before so I knew what they were capable of, but it wasn’t a good introduction for new listeners.

 


11
Jan 10

The Howlin’ Wolf Story (2003) [DVD]

I really enjoyed Don McGlynn’s The Howlin’ Wolf Story (2003), which I saw on DVD. I think it’s one of the best blues documentaries I’ve seen. It’s a typical mix of archival footage and photos with contemporary talking heads interviews. It gives an overview of Wolf’s life and music. One of its strengths is that several songs are heard in entirety. Some are recordings behind a montage of images. The best segments are from a 1966 performance of Wolf with Hubert Sumlin, his lead guitarist, and others. There are also some clips of drummer Sam Lay’s home movies of Wolf and the band at Silvio’s Lounge in Chicago (now a vacant lot). One really gets a sense of what he might have been like as a performer. I would give almost anything to have seen him perform before his death in 1976.

Howlin’ Wolf is one of my blues heroes and mentors. While he’s not as well known, perhaps, as Muddy Waters, he’s of equal stature in his importance to the blues and his influence on later music, including rock ‘n’ roll.