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Recent show & fun music!

10/29/2017

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Been a while since I checked in so I thought I’d better let the small but devoted readers of my ramblings know that I hadn’t gone to the Great Guitar Store in the Sky or anything like that! Actually, I’ve been pretty busy with various music adventures both as a listener and a player.
 
A highlight in the listening category was going to a show about a month ago to hear one of absolute favorite singer/songwriters, Kim Richey. I’ve been a big fan of hers for about 20 years and she rarely comes this far north (she is based in Nashville these days) and it was also an opportunity to check out a concert venue up in Plymouth called The Spire. More on that in a minute.
 
Kim’s music is fairly traditional country if you had to put a label on it, I guess. But since I bought her first album back in the 1990s I’ve always been struck by how well she crafts her songs, both lyrically and musically. They have a wonderful quality of seeming like a really, really song that you swear you’ve heard before….even if you haven’t! Plus she has a great voice, beautiful to listen to but with no affectations, just a natural, clean and clear resonance that is so delightful. Unfortunately, she is much less known in this area than she is elsewhere and the crowd was quite small, although everyone there seemed to be rabid fans (well, maybe not my wife, but hey, I don’t care for the Broadway show tunes she likes so she’s entitled, ha!).
 
Kim is not a fancy guitar player, just a solid strummer on her well-worn Gibson J-50, a vintage example that suits her style perfectly. Another highlight was her lead guitar player (on a Telecaster) who I did not know but he put on an absolute clinic in how to back up and enhance a single acoustic guitarist/singer without getting in the way. They played some tunes from her many albums but also a couple selections from an upcoming release on Yep Roc Records (where many of Nashville’s finest songwriter reside these days) and they sounded great. The best she saved for last, her most famous and well-loved tunes, “These Words We Said”, “Every River” and “Straight As The Crow Flies.” She still sounds great on those tunes, which were on her first and second records. She was also very gracious and funny between songs although I sensed she was a bit disappointed with the turn out. But being the seasoned pro she is, she didn’t put in any less effort and the crowd loved her for it. There is a reason she won a Grammy and was nominated for another.
 
The venue was fantastic! It is an old church, which is now owned by the town of Plymouth and run as a non-profit. They have been open only a couple years but already have a very impressive history with concerts by such artists as Shawn Colvin, Tom Rush, Peter Wolf, and many many others in the folk, country, jazz and rock world. The quite large stage is in the area of the old church where the altar must have been, with excellent lighting and a great sound system. Behind the stage are two huge stainedglass windows. About half the space has the old church pews (padded, thank goodness!), which are numbered for reserve seating. There is seating about 200 I would guess. In the back is a large open area with a small bar serving beer and wine and a few high top tables, no chairs but a couple benches. This encourages listeners to mingle before the shows and during intermissions and we found everyone to be friendly and musically astute. The mostly volunteer staff were great too. I am watching their schedule and will surely go back soon. The ticket cost was very reasonable too. We are fortunate to have The Spire nearly!
 
On a more personal level, I had a really fun evening last week playing with a friend and former student who still plays guitar but in the last few years has really fallen in love with the stand-up bass. It was sooooo great to hear him play with a lot of the songs I’ve been doing for the last few years by people like Steve Earle, Shawn Mullins, Tom Waits, Keb’ Mo’, John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Harry Manx, Taj Mahal, Chris Smither, others…  The next time we get together – soon, I hope – we will try some of the new songs I’ve learned recently by Iron & Wine and especially Mandolin Orange, who he recommended to me a about a year ago. I was definitely “late to the parade” on them, they are great and worth checking out if you haven’t heard them.
 
He is in a couple bands around here who are on something of a hiatus right now for various reasons so I want to keep this going. There’s nothing quite like the sound of a stand-up bass and an acoustic guitar. Not that I don’t appreciate a good electric bass player but the combo of those two instruments is much more organic and natural, which is something I’ve been striving for these days.
 
Where this will go I really have no idea. Work is tough to get around here even in tourist season and in the winter it is almost impossible. Also I must factor in the reality that people who go out to bars around here would much rather hear “Margaritaville” and “Sweet Caroline” than some obscure (but good, damn it!) songs by the artists I mentioned above. So it always has been on Cape Cod, and so it most likely always will be. Been there, done that. Really, really don’t want to do it again. But we’ll see.
 
In any case, my long-term gig at the wonderful Daily Brew café continues every Sunday morning. Today I played inside after a great summer season outside on the back deck. In the words of Jon Snow, winter is coming. But even though I must now pay closer attention to volume and dynamics in that small room I still love it and appreciate the fact that I know I have a good reason to keep practicing and learn new tunes. I’m hoping that I can get my bass player buddy involved before too long. That would be even more fun!
 
And speaking of practicing it is about time to drag out and dust off my folder of, gulp, Christmas songs. I always wait too long to refresh my musical memory of those things and there always seem to be a few bumps in the road when I try them again after ignoring them for the last 10 months. But I have a nice arrangement of “Carol of the Bells” that I’ve been meaning to learn, and I need a better arrangement of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Holiday season will be here before we know it. Or so the little man on my shoulder keeps whispering in my ear.
 
Peace & good music,
Gene

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Musical Embellishments, Part 1

10/7/2017

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Yet another great idea from Tony in Australia. He was wondering about embellishments in the structure of songs. This is a really fun subject because these little tweaks can make that song your own. First, we’ll look at chord embellishments.
 
Of course, the larger question is whether or not you want to play a song exactly like the original artist. In some cases, leaving things as they are maintains the original intent of the writer and the song sounds just fine as it is. Nothing wrong with that. Some songs demand a minimalist approach to be effective. Sometimes though the recipe need a few more spices. This is especially true if the chord structure already has interesting nuances beyond the straight scale-line triads. Wait a minute, Gene? What are those?
 
I’ve written about the importance of understanding scale-line triads before (search back through my posts for a complete explanation) but in a nutshell it comes down to this. Almost all popular music is based on the major diatonic scale. There are many other scales of course, and many are used in formats like jazz, world music, and blues. But the major diatonic scale (we know it as do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do) is the melodic base of much of the Western popular music heard and played for at least 100 years. Each note in that scale has a corresponding triad chord, which is built using notes in the key. The formula goes like this:
 
I (major), II (minor), III (minor), IV (major), V (major), VI (minor), VII (diminished, or with flatted root, major).
 
Adding notes to those chords or moving one of the notes in those triads up or down one half-step or a whole step adds some musical spice. Keep in mind however that our brains have been programed to know and be most comfortable with chords that are built entirely of notes in the key (those scale-line triads above). The more notes in a chord that are NOT in the key, the more disturbing – or some might say, interesting – that chord will sound in relation to the others and in relation to the major diatonic scale on which the melody is most likely based. Good songwriters almost always “resolve” one of those outside chords on the very next change with a chord that IS in the scale-line. This makes our brains go…. Ahhhh…. that’s better! In other words, embellished chords are usually used judiciously.
 
So here a just a couple of examples. In my opinion, the most commonly used embellishment is the suspended chord. To change a major chord into the suspended version, raise the 3rd of the chord by one-half step. This can be quite dramatic and interesting if the chord voicing you’re playing includes two thirds, usually an octave apart. An example would be first position C Major. From the lowest note to the highest, you’re playing the chord like this: Root, 3rd, 5th, Root, 3rd   (C, E, G, C, E, strings 5 – 1). By raising the 3rd on the 4th string from an E to an F, you’ve developed some subtle dissonance in the chord (play just the F and the high E string together to hear it by itself). Players will often then resolve that suspended note back to the original note in the chord. Many songwriters use the suspended chord for “coloring” in almost every song they play. James Taylor is one example. Joni Mitchell also does it in the many open tunings she uses. Listen to the change at the end of just about every line of “Both Sides Now” and you will hear her do it and then immediately resolve the sound to the previous chord.
 
It’s worth learning the suspended version of all the Major chords you commonly use and try inserting one here and there, especially on chords that last more than two beats. A nice effect, for sure!
 
The next embellishment you’ll hear again and again in modern singer/songwriter tunes involves adding a note to existing chord, either Major or minor. These are the minor 9th and Major 9th . Understanding this is a bit more involved because in guitar music players sometimes refer to a 9th chord (which includes the dominant 7 note plus the 9) when they really mean a Major 9th but that one is another critter altogether. It’s not important to understand that right at this moment, although it is worth your time to delve into chord construction that involves four or more notes in a chord at some point if you’re going to truly understand chord theory.
 
No, we are talking about taking a straight Major or minor triad and adding the 9th to it. The 9th is the note that is one whole-step above the root. Here are some examples. In some cases for ease of fingering, depending upon the inversion or voicing of the original chord you are playing you may have to eliminate one of the notes in the triad. That is a huge can of worms that I don’t want to get into to avoid giving you a headache so for now anyway, let’s just accept that on face value. Some will sound better than others, that’s the bottom line….for now!
 
Two very common Major 9ths I’ve seen used lately are CMaj9 (C, E, G, D, E, strings 5 – 1) and FMaj9 (A, F, G, C, F, strings 5 – 1). Many of the younger singer/songwriters like Sarah Jarosz, Iron & Wine, Joan Shelley, others, use these and other Maj9ths frequently, in some cases more often than the straight major chord.
 
Minor 9ths (no 7th ) add a nice almost jazzy touch to a minor chord. Two of the most common are Em9 (E, B, E, G, B, F#, string 6 – 1) and Am9 (A, E, A, B, E, strings 5 – 1). Resolving the Em9 to Em (lowering the F# back down to the open E natural on the 1st string) and resolving the Am9 (raising the open B back to a C – the 3rd of the chord – on the 2nd string) can be quite dramatic, especially if you’re finger picking.
 
Those are just two ways to add some embellishments to your chords, there are dozens of other ways (single note scales between chords, chromatic tones inside chords, etc.) so the trick is to experiment. Also, study what some of your favorite artists do; you’ll often find the little things they do to chords happen again and again in various songs. This is loosely called…..style. Find your own!
 
Peace & good music,
Gene
 

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