The Next 10 Years

I started playing guitar 10 years ago. To make a long story short, I was a professional trombonist until an overuse injury ended my brass playing career. After a hiatus from any kind of performing, my wife (now my ex) gave me a guitar for Christmas, and I was immediately hooked. Even as I was struggling with my first chords, I was planning a new career as a guitarist. I originally intended to play folk and Celtic music, but I drifted toward jazz, which is my main focus.

When I decided I was going to become a professional guitarist, I drew up a list of goals for the first 10 years. My overall goal was to become an "entry level" professional. To me, this meant attaining a skill level that was high enough that I could do a good job at gigs. It also meant that, while I wouldn't necessarily be the first call player in Atlanta, I would develop enough connections to keep me gigging on a fairly regular basis.

I'm rarely satisfied with my playing, but I would like to pause for a moment and be grateful that I met my 10 year goal. I'm not a world beater on guitar, but I'm pretty good. I sight-read extremely well. I gig steadily.

Okay, the moment is over, and it's time to look at the next 10 years. This is my overall goal: To become a well established freelance musician making a comfortable living as a performer, teacher, and church musician.

That's a pretty broad goal. Maybe it's more of a mission statement, but it can be broken down into several goals. To be a well established performer implies an increasingly higher level of musicianship, so the most important goals to me are in the area of musical development.

These are my goals for 2024:

• Play an average of 2-3 good paying gigs per week.
• Maintain a roster of 30 students.
• Increase the NWUUC Music Director job to 20 hours per week.
• Memorize 100+ jazz standards.
• Comfortably improvise guitar solos in the style of Joe Pass.
• Become a good scat singer.
• Become a competent piano player.
• Become a competent ukulele player.
• Be financially stable enough to take 1-2 yearly vacations.
• Live in a rented house, big enough for a studio space, in a quiet, safe neighborhood.
• Comfortably maintain a healthy weight of 190-200 pounds.

Having all these goals without devising a way to meet them is no good. I've broken each of these goals down into separate steps, but I won't include them here, otherwise, this would be a really, really long article. I'll break down a few choice goals into steps in future articles.

Getting this far was a blast. It was 10 years well spent. Time to get busy and make the next 10 years even better.

Children's Choir

Today was a long day, but it was a good one. I led the church choir in the morning, led a children's choir rehearsal in the early afternoon, and then played a gig in the afternoon. It was all good. The adult choir did a good job, and the gig went well, but the highlight of my day was the children's choir.

Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation has been wanting a children's choir for a few years. I believe one of my predecessors, Sarah Dan Jones, started working with the children when she was music director. I don't recall if my immediate predecessor, Kathy Kelly George, led a children's choir or not. I do know that Kathy is excellent at working with children's choirs, and I had the privilege of observing one of her rehearsals a few months ago.

This is the first time Northwest UUC has had a children's choir for a long time. Today was their first rehearsal, and it was my first experience leading a children's choir. I had a blast! I expected maybe five children to show up this first time, so I was pleasantly surprised when we had about a dozen. After a quick warm-up, I taught them two easy songs. For the most part, the kids stayed on pitch, and they picked up on the words fairly quickly. Aside from teaching the music, my main focus was in getting them to sing out. We could see the parking lot from the window. To help them project, I told them to pretend they were singing to someone outside.

Some of today's highlights:

• A few of the children were wearing their Halloween costumes, which reminded me that last year at this time, I was having the kids help me write a song. That was a striking coincidence.
• When I led them through a breathing exercise, one of the girls raised her hand and told me that her choir teacher does the same thing. I took this as a sign that I wasn't completely clueless.
• After the rehearsal, one little boy came up to me with the lead sheet I had handed out and asked if he could use it to make a paper airplane.
• At the beginning of the rehearsal, one boy told me that he didn't want to sing. I told him that this was fine, but if he wasn't going to sing, he needed to be quiet during rehearsal. He stayed way in the back, and soon I noticed that he was singing along with everyone else. At the end of the rehearsal, he declared that he would like to sing after all.

This was such a rewarding experience for me, and I hope that this will be a fun and rewarding experience for the children. I'm so very glad I started this. I'm looking forward to working with these kids and getting to know them, and I can't wait to showcase them in a music service. My favorite part of being a school band director was working with beginners. It appears that this love for teaching beginners extends to singers, too.

UUMN Conference, Day 2

My friend Sarah Dan, who is the outgoing UUMN president, came up to me this afternoon and asked how I was liking the UUMN conference so far. The first words that burst out of my mouth were "I'm learning a sh*tload!" It's true. If I wrote about every single thing I learned today, I'd still be typing tomorrow morning. Here are the highlights.

We began the morning with a music service. Each service this week has a theme. Today's theme was "Better Together." We sang a few songs from Las Voces del Camino, which is a Spanish language Unitarian Universalist hymnal. I really enjoyed those songs. I bought a copy during lunch, and I'm strongly considering introducing the hymnal to my congregation back in Atlanta.

After the service, we had a meeting. Meetings aren't exactly my cup of tea, but my goal is to absorb everything I can this week, including things like meetings. I'm glad I stayed, because I learned about an upcoming hymn writing contest! The most beautiful moment of the meeting was after Sarah Dan spoke her final words as president. When she was finished, the people spontaneously began singing her Meditation on Breathing, which is a very popular song to sing among UUs.

Then we had a mass choir rehearsal for this Sunday's service. Dr. Paul Tucker is our conductor this week, and he is excellent. I learned a lot about choral conducting simply by watching him rehearse us. I found myself trying to sing and take notes simultaneously, which is not an easy trick! In particular, I learned a simple way to teach a choir how to sing proper vowel sounds. I'll be using that exercise with my choir when we start rehearsing again in August. Aside from observing and taking notes, it was wonderful to sing with a huge group of excellent musicians. The baritone section along had 20 strong voices!

Lunch followed, and then I attended a choral conducing masterclass given by Paul Tucker. It was an excellent masterclass, and I picked up a few new conducting techniques. There were three conductors signed up to be guinea pigs, and they were a good mix. One had obviously had good conducting training, one was a pianist with no formal training, and the other was an opera singer/voice teacher who also had no formal training. At a future conference, I would really like to be one of the conductor guinea pigs.

After the choral masterclass, I attended a workshop on vocal technique, which focused heavily on vowel sounds. This was all good information, which I'll put to good use with my choir. The thing that really stuck with me was what the clinician said at the end of the workshop. "The secret to good singing is that there is no secret. It is an accumulation of small skills that add up over time." How true! And it helped me put this week into perspective. I'm not going to come out of this workshop being the world's leading expert on choral vocal technique. Instead, I'll be leaving with a little more knowledge than I had before I came. These new skills will eventually become a regular part of my bag of tricks. Later on, I'll go to another conference or take part in a workshop and come back to my congregation knowing just a little bit more. My choral conducting, knowledge of UU music, guitar playing, repertoire, guitar teaching skills…it will all improve over time. I just need to stay curious, keep learning, and stick with it.

Before we broke for dinner, we had a choral repertoire reading session. We just read through a pile of music. Some of the music was forgettable, but there were a few standouts. We all received complimentary copies of the music. I marked the ones that I thought would work particularly well with my choir. I'll do the same tomorrow and the next day, and when I get back, I'll decide which pieces to order for the choir. I recognized one of the pieces, because I had engraved it for Santa Barbara Music Publishing. I had to resist the urge to inform everyone around me that I had engraved that piece.

After dinner, there was a singing meditation service. I've been trying to think of different approaches to a music service. This was a beautiful service, and I think I'd like to use this concept with my own congregation. There was very little speaking…just a lot of chanting (using chants from a variety or religious sources), and a lot of silence.

So that was my day! I'm looking forward to tomorrow, especially the rehearsal, another workshop by Paul Tucker, and the next choral repertoire reading session.

Singing and Playing

Most people pick up the guitar so they can accompany themselves while they sing. Playing guitar can be difficult enough. Singing and playing at the same time is another challenge. Here are some tips for those who are learning to play guitar and sing at the same time.

• Practice singing separately from the guitar. This will help you learn the melody more thoroughly. The nice thing about singing is that it doesn't require any special equipment. Sing the song everywhere. Some of my most productive song learning sessions take place in the car.
• Practice guitar separately from singing. Be sure you can play the chords smoothly before you try to put it together with the voice.
• It's important to practice the singing and the guitar playing separately, because you have have to divide your attention when you sing and play at the same time. You want to make sure you're comfortable with both the voice part and the guitar part. If you know the song so well that you can sing it automatically, it's going to be a lot easier to play the guitar part, and vice versa.
• Keep it simple. Once you start singing and playing at the same time, simplify the guitar part. (You can make it fancier later.) Try an easy strum, just to get used to playing chords and singing at the same time. Even after you're comfortable with the easy strumming, you might find that simple is good. Sometimes all you need is an easy rhythm and a good melody.
• Hum the melody. Instead of singing the words, try humming the melody as you play. Sometimes the words get in the way of learning a song. If you hum (or sing a generic syllable like "la" or "doo"), it's easier to focus on the melody and the guitar playing. I think this may be because using language requires some extra brain power that takes away from your focus on the melody and the guitar chords. That's my purely unscientific opinion. After you're comfortable humming and playing, then add the words.
• Slow down. If it's a fast song, you don't have to always sing it fast in your private practice sessions. Slow it down so that you can sing and play comfortably and gradually speed it up over the course of several sessions.
• Use a metronome. Even if you're a rock solid rhythm guitar player, it's amazing how funky your time can get when you start singing. Play with a metronome to train yourself to keep steady time.
• Record yourself. This can be a painful lesson. I know this from personal experience! Once you've put the song together, record yourself and do your best to listen objectively. You may sing in tune normally, but you might find that you sometimes sing out of tune when you're accompanying yourself. If you record yourself, you'll learn your tendencies. You'll also find out very quickly whether the arrangement is working. Maybe you've come up with a fancy guitar part that gets in the way of the song while you're singing. If it's a song with a lot of space in the vocal part, maybe you'll need to come up with some guitar fills here and there.

Learning to play guitar and sing at the same time can be challenging at first, but it's so much fun! If you have any other tips for learning to sing and play at the same time, please leave them in the comments section.
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If you live in Atlanta and are interested in private or group guitar lessons, please check my website at www.godfreyguitar.com for more information or email me directly.

Playing Within Yourself

Last night I played at the Hungry Ear Coffee House. I used to host the show, and it was nice to return as a performer. The new host, Bob Bakert, is doing wonders with the Hungry Ear. It's always been a great place to play, but Bob has taken the show to a new level. The room is filled every month, and the performers are superb. It did my heart good to see how much the show has grown.

My band, Tea for Two, played at the Hungry Ear last night. We shared the show with Curtis Jones and Martin Norgaard. Curtis is an amazing guitar player with chops to spare, and Martin is a world class jazz violinist. We performed second, and I have to admit that Curtis and Martin are a tough act to follow. Martin's violin playing was spectacular, and Curtis can play guitar at a speed that I probably won't even approach for at least 10 years.

It would have been easy to be intimidated by such good players, but I've been reading a book that helped me stay in a good frame of mind. The book is Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner. I haven't even practiced any of the exercises in the book yet, but just reading through it has been helpful. One of the main points of the book is that to be a "master," you don't have to master everything. You just have to be a master at what you do. This really clicked with me last night. Nobody in Tea for Two could match the virtuosity of Curtis and Martin, but we didn't have to. Blazing speed isn't our thing. Our musical strength is our sense of vocal blend and ensemble. (That's not to say that I wouldn't like to have Curtis' technical skills. As a matter of fact, I work daily on my speed so that I will eventually possess the technique to play whatever comes into my head.)

If we had taken the stage last night and tried to be instrumental wizards, we would have flopped. Curtis and Martin did what they did very well, and we did what we did very well. We sang our hearts out, sang tight harmonies, played some tasty solos, supported the singing with understated but effective instrumentals, and connected with the audience. I was happy with our set, and the audience really seemed to enjoy themselves. The people left smiling, happy, and humming our songs. You can't ask for much more than that.

What Key? Accompanying a Singer

Tomorrow night, I'm playing a free duo gig at Java Monkey in Downtown Decatur. I had originally booked this as a solo gig for the purpose of keeping up my solo chops, but I've been rehearsing with an excellent singer, Lori Guy. I am already committed to playing with Tea for Two, and I don't want to overextend myself with too many musical projects. Lori and I have mainly been rehearsing just to learn tunes, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to play a little bit in public, so I invited her to the gig. We'll each take turns singing our own solos while people ignore us, nurse their coffee, and take advantage of Java Monkey's free wi-fi.

Whether I'm playing with Lori or with Lynnette Suzanne of Tea for Two, I really enjoy performing in a vocal/guitar duo. It's a big challenge to "be the band." You have to tastefully support the singer while covering harmonies, bass lines, and lead lines, and you also have to play some solos without the benefit of another instrument, which is particularly challenging for a guitarist. The singer has challenges, too. She doesn't have the benefit of a full band backing her up. She has to generate a lot of excitement and interest, but she has to be able to do so nimbly so she doesn't overpower the guitarist.

Another big challenge in accompanying singers is being able to play songs in a variety of keys. If I only had to worry about myself, I would just have to learn a song in the standard key, plus "my key" if I'm going to sing it. When I play for Lynnette, I usually have to transpose a song a 4th or 5th (4 or 5 notes) away from my key. Lori's voice is a little lower than Lynnette's, so if I'm accompanying Lori, I usually have to transpose a 3rd lower than Lynnette's key.

As Lori finds her voice, she has had me transpose songs into several different keys. I give her a hard time about it, but I enjoy the challenge of learning songs in different keys. I often have to completely rework an intro and find different chord voicings. Different chord voicings will often suggest different lead lines. In our rehearsals, when we're finding Lori's key for a song, I may have to transpose the song two or three different times, which is a great skill to develop. My transposition skills are improving. I'm not quite ready to transpose on the fly in a public setting, but I'll get there.

To me, the epitome of a great vocal/guitar jazz duo is Joe Pass and Ella Fitzgerald. They were both world class musicians, and when they performed together, it was magic. I aspire to play like Joe Pass when I accompany a singer. I'm not even close to his level, but I'll be doing my best Joe Pass imitation at Java Monkey tomorrow.

Airport Mode

Last night, I played a pleasant gig. It was a two-hour solo job at a birthday party for a friend from church. I enjoy playing with my bands, Tea for Two and InTown Band, but sometimes it's pleasant to play a simple solo job. Set-up is a breeze, and I can meander through my song list as I please. There were plenty of church friends at the party, so even though it was your standard background gig, more people were paying attention to the music than usual. There was plenty of good food, and there were two friendly cats, which is always a bonus.

The one strange moment came when I discovered a surprise "feature" on my iPhone.

Although I mainly played guitar arrangements and attempted to channel Frank Sinatra, I used backing tracks on a handful of instrumentals to rest my hand. I record all my backing tracks myself. It's an investment of time and effort, but it's fun, and the finished product is a backing track specifically tailored for my needs. And because I have all the files, I have complete freedom to tweak these tracks in the future.

Once I'm finished creating a backing track, I load it on my iPhone, which becomes my "band in a pocket." I just hook the iPhone up to my amp, and I'm ready to go.

When I play a gig, I always make sure to set my iPhone to vibrate only. It's annoying to have someone else's phone start ringing when you're performing. It's REALLY annoying when it's your own phone, and I have a particularly obnoxious ringtone. I've included a short YouTube clip for your enjoyment.

Little did I know that if you hook your iPhone up to an amp, the ringtone will broadcast through the amp, even if you have it set on vibrate. Just before my break, my phone started ringing. My first reaction was surprise that someone else used the same annoying ringtone. My second reaction was to glance down at my phone and realize it was my phone, blasting through my amp. When there are distractions, you usually want to keep playing, but not this time! I quickly pawed at my phone to turn it off, only to accidentally swipe the front and answer the call. Through my amp, I could hear someone saying "Hello? Hello?"

Fortunately, this teachable moment occurred in a roomful of friends. Lesson learned. If the iPhone is plugged into the amp, it's airport mode from now on.

Back Up

A while ago, I began recording backing tracks for myself. I had completed a couple, but then I got sidetracked. I don't remember if I was preparing for a musical or if I just had a bunch of gigs. For whatever reason, I forgot about recording for a while.

Lately, I've started recording backing tracks again with the iPad, and I'm having a blast with it. I'm using Garage Band for the iPad. As recording software goes, it's very scaled down, but I don't need much for what I'm doing. For most tracks, I just record bass, percussion, rhythm guitar, and sometimes a keyboard part. Sometimes I also record a second lead guitar part to harmonize with my live solo guitar. One handy thing about using the iPad for recording is that I can record anywhere. For example, I often record bass and drum parts on Wednesdays at NWUUC after dinner while waiting for my choir to show up. The church has a huge porch, and it's relaxing to sit outside, fire up the iPad, and record a few tracks.

When I perform for background gigs, I mainly play and sing solo with no backing tracks or loops. Two or three hours of purely solo guitar is rough on the hands. Playing with a backing track allows me to play single notes for a while and give my hands a break.

Yesterday, I had a chance to use my backing tracks for the first time on a gig. I played at Tessitura for the 2012 Oakhurst Wine Crawl, singing and playing background music as literally hundreds of people filed through for a glass of wine. Every 20 minutes or so, I threw in an instrumental with a backing track. Not only did this rest my hands, but it provided a nice stylistic change. My music tends to be smooth and relaxing. Even the uptempo tunes come out that way. My backing tracks have more of a groove to them, and they allow me some space to jam. Overall, it was a successful event for both Tessitura and me. I think Tessitura will get more business out of this, and a substantial number of my cards were snatched up. After the wine crawl, I was told that lots of people were commenting on the music. Hopefully those comments, plus the missing business cards, will turn into future gigs.

I'm enjoying the process of recording, and I'm learning a lot. The main thing I learned at the gig was that I need to check the overall balance between tracks using the amp through which I'll be playing the tracks. Headphones aren't enough, especially my cheap headphones. Through the headphones, my tracks sounded balanced. Through the amp, though, I got just enough percussion, a little too much bass, and not quite enough rhythm guitar. I don't think it was noticeable to people standing in line, chatting, and waiting for wine, but it bothered me a little. I'll use my amp and balance out those parts before next week's gig.

*Side note. The only weird part of the gig was when a guy shooting video got up close and personal while I was performing. I often use background gigs to work in new material, and he could have started filming while I was performing something I wasn't entirely comfortable with yet. Fortunately, he got up in my face while I was performing Autumn Leaves, which is a song I can probably perform in my sleep.

Why I Sing

I'm singing a lot these days. As a matter of fact, I rarely play a purely instrumental gig. It wasn't always this way. Before I injured my lip, all of my professional life as a trombone player was spent performing instrumental music. When I took up guitar, it was the same. I've always thought of myself as an instrumentalist, and I came into singing reluctantly. Actually, that's not entirely true. I've enjoyed singing in choirs from time to time, but I've never considered myself a solo singer until recently.

Although I've been an instrumentalist most of my life, I've always been more attracted to singers. As a trombone player, I tried to emulate the expressiveness of a good singer. As a trombone teacher, I would often sing to my students to demonstrate a point, and I would sing to myself while practicing to help develop a better sense of phrasing.

This singing aesthetic carried over when I began playing jazz guitar. Sure, I listen to jazz guitar players, but I listen to a LOT of jazz singers. My collection of Ella Fitzgerald recordings is enormous! I listen to jazz singers for the same reason I used to listen to classical singers: to learn style and phrasing. Phrasing is something that guitar players often overlook. Our phrases aren't limited by our breathing, and as a result, many guitar players (and piano players) tend to play improvised solos in run-on sentences. I like to play my guitar solos like a singer, with shorter, more natural phrasing.

Whenever I learn a new song on guitar, I always learn the words right along with the melody and chords. Again, this helps with phrasing. Even if I'm playing a song as a guitar instrumental, I feel that knowing the words helps me put extra meaning into my playing. With this approach to playing guitar, I suppose it was inevitable that I would begin singing in public as a soloist.

To be honest, the main reason I started singing more often is because the tip jar fills up faster when there's a singer! Another reason I started singing is that it makes me more marketable. Most people prefer to listen to a singer rather than a solo guitarist.

I've since discovered that I truly enjoy singing these great jazz songs for an audience. I love, love, LOVE jazz songs, and it's fun to share these songs with others. Although I started solo singing for utilitarian reasons, the real reason I sing now is because I love it.

Here are a couple YouTube videos with singing:

• A Day in the Life of a Fool (guitar/bass duo)
• Dream a Little Dream of Me (guitar/piano duo)