In all the years I’ve been playing I’ve made the mistake of only listening too and ripping off other guitar players in order to find my own ‘style’. Yep, this was a big mistake. More recently I’ve been listening to other instruments to expand my palette and I’ve been having a ‘meh’ time with it… coupled with a constant desire to get my head around a more modal approach to make my playing more interesting, it just ending up as a more frustration (and let’s face it, I’ve had one of the very best explain it to me multiple times – Mr Tom Quayle)… I’ve understood some of it, but you know, I can’t find a way of putting it into a vocabulary that is mine. 

This has been changing recently and it’s come from the most unexpected of sources.

… so… backstory.

I first met Dave when I was about 16, he’s 8-9 years older than me and from the moment I first heard him play I was utterly blown away by his musicality. He’s a piano player. Classically trained, a music teacher, and just a frightening sense of melody and structure. Way back then, I was hugely intimidated (and that’s a reflection of me, not him, a more lovely and open man you could never meet), that I just could not ask him anything… Our paths have crossed many times over the years and although I’ve always had the utmost respect for him as a musician, I never thought of talking to him about it all. A couple of years ago I saw on FB that he was doing a solo show close to me, so I went to see him. First time I’d seen him in years! We caught up and went our separate ways… then at around that time Mrs Wilding had a couple of piano lessons with him and they became friends, he was very understanding that she couldn’t always fulfil her lesson slots due to her illness, and then last year when he became poorly she was there for him and the friendship became stronger. Once he was a little better, he came over and he just fitted in with our family and it became a regular thing – “it’s Saturday, so Dave’s coming over”. 

Since the time I first met him and then during the time we barely saw each other, Dave has made a career out of teaching music/piano and has gone so far as to earn a doctorate in music composition. So, if anything, I should have been more intimidated by him than I was before. But, now I’m 44, I’m a lot more secure and confident in my musicality so I’m more open to speak to people…. That first day he came over he only played a little piano and music didn’t come into the conversation, but ever since then at some point in the day we end up playing. I am VERY lucky that my wife is a musician and my kids play everything they can get their hands on, so music is always happening in the house.

It was about a month ago and Dave was just messing around on the piano and this incredible run came out of nowhere and I sat there, on the other side of the room, with my mouth agape. He looked up and laughed and said “what?”… so, I just said “What the &%^$ was that?” and he said “Oh it was just an *insert explanation here* and it made sense. I don’t know why it made sense in what he said, because it was no different from a guitar player saying it, but I think because it sounded different, and I could then look at it and have it in black and white (and also see and understand the chord he was using underneath it) there was what you might call a lightbulb moment.

I’m not arrogant to say that because of this I have Quayle levels of theory at my disposal, but what has happened is that I’ve found someone, and a way, to demonstrate this kind of thing and then transfer it over to guitar and my own playing. I’ve started to understand how different intervals work over different chords and I guess I’m kinda approaching my solo construction slightly differently, maybe in a more piano way… not just a bunch of guitar-shaped boxes and scales, but a more fluid movement between them… but my playing has definitely changed because of my weekly jams and chats with Dave. This became obvious last weekend. As with any local music scene, it’s all slightly incestuous… the band I’m in now Dave was in during the early 90’s. So, after coming over Dave came with me one day (this was about 8 weeks ago) to the gig to see everyone. This was the week that he and I first talked theory and construction, so it was me he was seeing play that night. Then last week, he also came and saw us again, and was a couple of my lead lines caught his attention – a couple of times he looked at me and smiled and nodded… one of the times I said to him, well I mouthed, “That’s your fault” and he laughed… I realised that without actively knowing it, I had lifted part of his approach and taken into the guitar, into my own playing/style.

So, kids, the lesson in all this is this… if you have musical friends that aren’t necessarily guitar players and they have a better understanding of music than you do, pick their brains, take music as a thing outside your instrument and blatantly steal their lines and ideas. There is a huge chance it will make you a better player.

 

 

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