be in a band

I had done a lot of practicing before the lesson because we had a gap where my teacher was doing some recordings. I had layered my finger picking over my strumming on my four-track. And have memorized the shapes of the pentotonic scale up and down the fret board. My finger agility up and down the fret board is improving having speeded up with the help of the metronome.

Anyway. I approached this lesson with much confidence.

I had a song. ‘Cannonball’ by Damien Rice which I wanted to go through with my teacher. I wanted to play it better than the way I was playing it. He played it a few times and sang to it. He’s strumming was so much better than mine. A lot more delicate and dynamic. My strumming was very robotic and static. So this is what we focused on: Strumming.

I was shown how strumming is not so different from drumming. That it was important to see how the guitar rhythm connected with the drum kick-drum and snare. How you could strum down with the down beat and strum up with an upbeat and how important it is to also have the beat in your head mentally.

We broke down beats into halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths and I needed to practice strumming the guitar at these different beats so that I could get used to the variations. Also it wasn’t necessarily important to be strumming a chord. You could just strum with muted strings .

Now when I listen to guitarists I try to listen to their beat and when I listened to The White Stripe’s ‘Black Math’ I could really identify with how the guitar was being strummed.

I left this lesson excited as I now was starting to understand how to get exciting sounds out of my guitar through rhythm.

I went to see the following:

1) On Monday I went to see The Automatic at ULU, Malet Street
2) On Wednesday evening was a folk night with Cliff Smith and Mick Hart at 12 Bar Cafe, Denmark Street
3) and on friday I chilled out to Keith Waithe and the Macusi Players at the Ealing jazz festival.

Some of the sets were more inspirational than others. Cliff Smith’s set was good. He’s a great singer/(folk) song writer and he even gave some of his guitar students a chance to accompany him on stage. His material was very inspirational. The venue was small and intimate and it gave me a chance to fantasize what’ll it be like for me to be on stage.

The Automatic were ok. The mostly student audience much adored them. My girlfriend liked them more than me. They’re more of a pop band whilst I’m more into deep and meaningful lyrics and emotions. I’d like to form a four-piece band of my own but the logistics can be a bit of a nightmare (in terms organising practices as well as finding reliable band members) so I’ll probably have to start off solo (or do a Thom Yoke thing and just accompany my voice to electronica).

Keith Waithe and the Macusi Players were in the background but I was too exhausted to listen to them properly. Some of the jazz sets were very ‘easy listening’ which made me realise that I do like angrier or more emotive styles.

I had brought a set of new strings with me and my teacher offered to re-string my guitar for me. He had this peg-winding device that speeded up the process. After he removed all the strings he cleaned off the neck with some alcohol and then added some general oil which the unpolished neck soaks up.

We then went over the different shapes of the pentatonic scale along the fretboard. I’ve only learnt 1 block of it, so the idea of learning the whole fret board made me feel excited. We weaved in the last few riffs into a final chord progression. The riff I had to learn consisted of hammer-ons and pull-offs, but the pull-off technique is slightly different as you need to pull on the string slightly after you have pulled off so that the secound note reverberates.

Even though I’m getting more and more techincally confident when playing my guitar I feel like I’m a million miles away from having any material to play. When I was in a punk band I easily tapped into angsty frustrations and the pains of growing up and general dysfunctionality but now I feel alot happier within myself and don’t feel a need to express myself this way. Maybe I should write about the daily grind or something abit more political. Or maybe past relationships and friendships? I’m not sure yet. Watch this space.

In Lesson 3, I practised playing a riff generated from the pentatonic scale into my teachers chords which he found that fitted in. (Am, F, G and C) We also went through some artists that he had stored on his laptop and I pointed out aspects of the songs and riffs that I would like to learn how to play. He also said to me that he would like to help me record some of my stuff onto a digital format which is a bonus that I wasn’t expecting.

The gig was not my gig – but my teacher’s. He was playing at a JB pub in West London and he was also there as the sound engineer. The line up was of a very good quality. The bands that where there were The Miracle Retreat (a country folk quartet with a Cobain-ish frontman)http://www.myspace.com/themiracleretreat and The Citizen Band (I’d describe them as upbeat punk for angry gentlemen) as well as two solo performers who included my teacher. As my teacher has only been in the UK for a month and is looking for gigs I told him about this unsigned bands night in Earls court that I gave him the link to the website so he could speak to the organisers and maybe do a gig at one of their venues.

This gig was absolutely free (though we did make a small donation into a pint glass going round)and I was glad to have gone. Even though the audience was made up of mostly other bands and was not really busy the atmosphere was great. My sister, who was with me, enjoyed it too and I’m definately going to come back (maybe even to do my own set!)

We went over, ascending and descending, the pentatonic scales: playing as quarters and 8ths. I need retrain myself to play the guitar fret board with my thumb squarely at the back of the neck even when playing notes on the high strings.

The teacher also showed me how to gradually increase the speed on the metronome subtly to trick myself into strumming at greater speeds. Also, he wrote out some tabluture for the scales so I could practice them in my own time.

Overall, I’m finding the timing practice I’m getting with the metronome is improving my confidence in my guitar, improving my music skills, and will also no doubt make life a little easier when I start jamming with others.

My first lesson was half price and the teacher only lived about 25 mins away. I got to the house we were living at and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I sat down in his room, unzipped my guitar. He took a look at it and said the action was ok. Then I tried to flesh out what i knew, I told him I wanted to write, that I wanted to start with blues, played nervously a Radiohead song (Karma Police)and went through a few things with him and had a quick jam so as to show him where I was at and therefore where I needed to go.

The first thing he realised was that I needed a metronome as he didn’t particuliarly enjoy playing with some one out-of-time, then he showed me how to create your own strumming patterns, dominant 7 chords and blue-sy sounding 7ths chords. He took me right back to the basics and made sure I understood what was meant by 12-bar blues (i think i was playing him a slurred 8-bar blues of my own making). Also he insisted I start using a pick as the sharper sound has a better contrast with a deep male voice.

By the end of the lesson I felt I had a lot to work with and to refine but in a way I also felt like I had lost the rock’n’ roll ethos behind being in a band or a great musician. I often imagine the greatest guitarists as never needing guitar lessons, that they have a natural talent and a great ear.

Also on the same week I went to see some unsigned live bands in Earls Court. They were unexpectedly high quality bands. The venue was cosy and atmospheric unlike Hammersmith Appollo which hosts bigger bands but I find immense and impersonal. The best bands there were Amelie, Cradle abd Hurricane State – in that order. The night is once every month and can be found on: www.openmiclondon.co.uk

So there we go, a little bit of guidance and a little bit of inspiration in one week. Bring it on!

I think what’s stopping me is that I have creative block and that I need to take my guitar playing to the next level. I keep messing around with the same old scales and same old strumming style. I’m going to see a guitar teacher this saturday and hopefully he can help me inject a bit of life into my current playing habits. Then once I’ve got some material together I will look for other band members.

Oh what a great feeling. I was in a punk rock band at university as the lead singer and it was a terrific buzz playing your own stuff to an audience. It felt totally awesome. I would love to do it again. It was totally carthartic and made me feel alive. What’s more is that i was living a dream, which these days I don’t feel like anymore: more nightmare around the corner!