ELECTRIC LOVE

A journal of musical musings, thoughts, revelations, ideas, things to check out and sources of inspiration. Written by guitarist Donna Grantis. donnagrantis.com

[donnagrantis]

Hour 100

I lifted and practiced the first 24 bars of Miles Davis’ solo in “Right Off”, from the album A Tribute To Jack Johnson.  A few observations:

Miles famously said, “It’s not the notes you play; it’s the notes you don't play.”  This solo perfectly backs up this claim with bars of whole rests that leave room for the rhythm section to interact in a big way.  The space provides support for the coolest lines with maximum impact.  This is the first solo I’ve transcribed by a trumpet player and probably one of the most spacious solos I’ve ever lifted.  The takeaway: even though, by nature of my instrument, I don’t need to stop playing to take a breath, I’ll give it a try more often.  

The range of a trumpet is higher than that of a guitar’s.  I’ll need to use a whammy pedal set to an octave above to emulate Mile’s line at 3:01. 

I love the chromatic lines (notably at 2:25, 2:41and 2:50).  Not only are they fun to play, but conceptually, they open up a whole new world of sonic possibilities.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 97 - 99

Midnight Special is a quintessential blues album and song featuring the incredible Jimmy Smith on organ, Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax, Kenny Burrell on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums.  I lifted Kenny Burrell’s solo (4 choruses of a blues in G beginning around the 5:55 min mark) and jammed along with the recording to commit it to memory.  It’s a gorgeous solo with incredible feel, phrasing, use of space, conviction and tone.  So bluesy!  The process of trying to imitate Kenny Burrell’s guitar, or anyone’s playing for that matter, highlights the nuances in their playing.  In Kenny’s case, the dynamics, value and attack of each note in his solo, makes his playing sound so refined and full of personality.  His approach to this solo is quite different from how I would usually instinctively play a blues; I loved jamming along and soaking up what he was thinking, musically, during the recording of this song.  It’s a refreshing and mind-expanding experience to get into that headspace.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 94 - 96

Miles Smiles, released in 1967, is the second of five albums recorded by Davis's second great quintet, which featured saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. The melody of Freedom Jazz Dance sounds fresh.  It’s made up mostly of intervals of a 4th, which I think sound so angular and cool.  It moves “outside” - a semitone above and below the key to create the hippest dissonance before resolving back to Bb.  I spent time learning the head, getting it up to speed, working out a picking approach (even though there is a lot of string jumping on the same fret, I still prefer the sound of alternate picking for the most part).  I jammed along with this version, as well as a version by the original composer, Eddie Harris, from the album The In Sound.  

[donnagrantis]

FUNKLOPEDIA

Hour 66 - 93

The FUNKLOPEDIA is pretty self explanatory:  it’s an encyclopedia of funk!  I compiled all of the funk riffs I’ve learned over the past 3 years into one concise document for regular review.  Benefits of going through this process with any style of music are:

1) Riffs and rhythms become second nature.

2) An improved ability to improvise in the idiom.

3) A stronger feel by reiterating the nuances that make funk funky, or blues bluesy, etc.

The Funklopedia is for my personal use and study.  Since I am not the composer of the riffs, I will not share specific musical examples, however I would highly recommend going through this process to any musician interested in expanding his/her musical vocabulary in any style of music.  Anyone interested in funk specifically, dive into the Prince catalogue as well as music by James Brown and Sly & The Family Stone as a starting point.  There, you’ll find the greatest examples of legendary funk guitar grooves.  

[donnagrantis]

HI Donna! Hope you can help me with this. I started to play guitar 4 years ago, but right now I sincerely see no progress on my way to play, I'm still playing the same scales I used to and the same songs. I really love playing guitar, but it became harder to get inspired, and easier to get frustrated. But I don't want to give up, but I don't know where to start. I would love to have an advice from you because I admire you so much. Thanks for everything. Keep rockin'! xx

Hi @bh6277!  If you learn something - even 1 small thing - every time you pick up the guitar, whether it’s for 5 minutes or 5 hours, you can trust you are making progress. :) As a place to start, I would recommend learning songs or parts of songs that you really love.  You can gain so much from doing that.  You may learn new techniques, chord voicings and/or melodies while improving your ear and musical feel.  There’s a ton of information you can pull out of songs if you dissect everything and ask questions like: How can I reproduce the guitar tone on the record?  What are the names of the chords used in the song?  Can I play those chords in other places on the guitar? What key is the song in?  What scales are being used?  How can I improvise over this song?  Can I play any of the melodies in the song in other places on the guitar? Can I play the vocal melody by ear?  What do I like most about the song and why?  What elements in this song would I like to incorporate in my own compositions?  Thinking about this kind of stuff can open a lot of doors and lead to exciting revelations.  

The main thing I did when I was first learning how to play, that I think is the best way to improve as efficiently as possible (it’s also extremely fun), was jamming along with albums that inspired me.  I’d crank up the stereo (usually with a blues album) crank up my amp, find the key, and then improvise and try to copy by ear what my guitar heroes were playing.  I still do this today (all the time).  It could be helpful to work with a teacher to understand the theory behind it - what notes are played and why, where to find them on the fretboard, learn how to identify specific notes that stick out to you as being particularly cool, etc.   

Start with music that moves you.  

[donnagrantis]

Here is something: what are the beautiful chords you play at the end of the youtube video about the Traynor Darkhorse ("Traynor Dark Horse Demo Donna Grantis") after about 3:44? I tried to figure out these nice voicings for some time but did not succeed satisfactorily - is it by you or is it something well known? If you can point me to a source I'd be very thankful - sounds just beautiful!

Thanks @haraldnowak!  I was playing a variation of chord changes loosely based on the song Georgia On My Mind (Ray Charles).  Here’s a breakdown of the changes played in the Dark Horse video:

|Gmaj7 / / / | F#min7b5 / B7#9#5 / | Emin7 / Cmin7 G13 | Cmaj7 / Cmin7 F13 |

|Gmaj7 / Emin7 / | Amin9 / D13 / | Gmaj7 / / / | Gmaj7 / / / |

[donnagrantis]

Hour 61 - 65

I’m starting to chip away at the plethora of material that Sco recommended to practice (see hour 58 - 59).  I’m taking one small concept at a time; specifically, I starting with the major scale and played it ascending and descending, 2 notes per string, starting on every note in the scale, in eighths, triplets and sixteenths with the metronome set to 80 beats per minute.  I repeated the exercise in all keys - I like to run through the cycle of 5ths to mix things up: C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, B, E, A, D and then G.  It takes me about 40 minutes to run through a single mode this way.  Eventually, I’ll work through all 24 modes including the 7 modes of the major, melodic minor and harmonic minor scales as well as whole tone, diminished half whole and diminished whole half.  I’ve never been a fan of memorizing patterns - instead, I like to understand the function and sound of each note by identifying it’s interval name.  When I first run a mode from a starting note, I consciously and slowly think of each interval as it’s played.  From there, speeding it up is pretty easy - it’s just repetition.  Some of the benefits of practicing this exercise are: developing a better understanding of the fingerboard, increasing speed and improving one’s ear in identifying so many colorful sounds.  Ultimately, all of this info should be second nature.  Learning it in such detail leads to being able to execute anything musically imaginable on the instrument without even thinking.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 60

I’ve been listening to this album on repeat for days.  Featuring an all-star lineup: Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland and Tony Williams, In A Silent Way is regarded by music writers as Miles’ first fusion recording and the beginning of his ‘electric’ period.  It has been regarded by fans and critics as one of Davis's greatest and most influential works.  During hour 60, I jammed along and had 2 main observations:

- In the song “Shhh /Peaceful”, Miles beautifully introduces a b9 over a predominantly D7sus vamp at the 16:21 minute mark and it fits perfectly.  

- The chord progression that kicks in at the 5 minute mark of In A Silent Way has so much momentum.  It’s a 3 bar phrase! 

[donnagrantis]

Hour 58 - 59

These are notes I made while watching the instructional video “John Scofield On Improvisation”.  Lots to practice... 

- all modes from major, melodic minor, harmonic minor, diminished and whole tone scales; 2 to 7 notes per string in all keys played in all intervals, with a metronome.

- 4 note arpeggios; all modes and keys.

- chords in 4ths; 4 to 6 string groupings of all modes and keys.

- jam and play chromatic passing tones a semitone higher and lower than target notes.

- chords voiced a 2nd and 5th away (ex. C D G in C major) moved throughout all modes and keys in 4 groups of 3 strings.

- major, minor and dominant pentatonics over major, minor, dominant, altered dominant and minor7b5 chords.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 57

I checked out a few instructional videos from Sco this morning on YouTube.  In the video above, at the 2:30 mark, he plays 5ths in C major: C, G, D, A and E notes which imply a C6/9 sound.  It sounds fresh!  I like to play these notes over strings 6, 5, 4, and then jump to 2 and 1.  In moving this sequence of notes up and down the neck throughout the major scale, I noticed that I gravitate towards the sound of perfect 5ths over voicings with b5ths - so I, IV and V chords work best:

Cmaj - C G D A E = C6/9

Fmaj - F C G D  A = F6/9

Gmaj - G D A E B = G6/9

This opens up new possibilities for both chord voicings and single note lines. :)

[donnagrantis]

Hour 55 - 56

I heard Mike Stern’s “Believe It” from the album Is What It Is on JAZZ.FM91 the other day.  It’s melodic and bluesy, with a couple of signature Stern lines where he effortlessly plays 16ths and sextuplets.  During hour 55 and 56, I transcribed the lines using a great app called iLift and played them repeatedly to internalize them.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 54

I revisited Oz Noy’s “Guitar Improvisation Workout” and was inspired by Exercise 2.1  - Jumping in 3rds in Minor Pentatonics.  Skipping a note in this scale (aka “jumping in 3rds”) creates mostly intervals of a 4th and it reminded me of the song “Blues For Herb” as performed by the great Emily Remler.  At the 0:14 second mark you can hear how she uses 4ths and then takes the phrase outside for a split second by moving up a 1/2 step.  I zeroed in on this for a while - improvising lines and moving them in and “out”.  This led to a new composition in the works with the following chord progression:

|D/E / / / | C/D / / / | Bb/C / / / | Bb/C / / / |

From a soloing perspective I think of this as mostly D7 for 2 bars to Dmin.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 53

Jammed along to “Soul Serenade/Rasta Man Chant” and “Bock To Bock” from the album Soul Serenade by The Derek Trucks Band.  2 observations:

1) In trying to mimic Derek’s slide playing without a slide myself, I was reminded how interesting the effect can be.  I slid in and out of notes quickly from above and below and exaggerated the technique by using it way more than I normally would.  I’ve been listening to classical Indian music lately, and this fit right in with that vibe.

2) A phrase flew by around the 1:45 minute mark of “Bock To Bock”.  My first instinct in trying to do something similar was to play an ascending fast run that turned out to be 2 notes per string.  Without thinking about it too much, I repeated this concept throughout the song using any combination of 2 notes in a Db dorian scale.  Incorporating color tones to this approach sounds especially good - it adds a more exciting dimension compared to straight pentatonics.  The runs easily set up and lead to new phrases.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 52

Practiced playing the melody of Charlie Parker's "Now's The Time" in two places on the fretboard with a metronome at 90-100bpm on 2 and 4.  Observations:  Revisiting bebop heads is a great exercise for improving funk phrasing.  A lot of emphasis is placed on the upbeats and notes are often played short in both styles.  A lot of information is lost in reading transcriptions... always check out the audio recordings!

Jammed over an F blues exploring F7alt to Bb7 by thinking of:

F whole tone (F, G, A, B, C#, Eb = R, 2, 3, b5, #5, b7)

minor pentatonic scale up a b3rd

In this case, that's Ab minor (Ab, B, Db, Eb, Gb).  Compared to an F root note, this creates #9, b5, #5, b7, b9.  Very cool.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 50 - 51

Messed around with 5 and 6 note groupings of 16th notes, mostly in pentatonics, mixed in with improv.  I'm working on internalizing where the accents are placed.  Check out what this sounds like just over a single bar.  It's an exciting way to tie ideas together, or to kickstart a new concept.  

I stretched this out to build a long run, by articulating the first note from each grouping, while playing a steady stream of 16ths until the rhythmic pattern repeated itself.  It's cool to take notes away and only play fragments of this idea, or even just the accented notes on their own to build tension.

[donnagrantis]

Hour 49

Practiced playing major, mixolydian and dorian scales, 2 notes per string starting off of each note in the scale, in all keys, in 16th notes at 80 bpm.  Soon to be practiced as fast as possible!  

[donnagrantis]

Hour 48

“Billie’s Bounce” by Charlie Parker.  Epiphany: playing an augmented triad off the 9, b5 and b7 of a V chord implies inversions of a dominant 7#11. :) I played each phrase all over the neck (with the starting note on each string).