Seven String Transition

I've been playing the new 7-string guitar for about four days. It's a challenge, but it's fun. I brought the 7-string to a Godfrey and Guy rehearsal after exactly one day of owning the instrument. I could practically feel the smoke coming out of my ears as my brain went into overdrive. To make a long story short, it'll be a while before I debut the new instrument in a performance.

While I expected the transition to 7-string guitar to be tricky, I was surprised at some initial awkwardness when picking up the 6-string again, although it didn't take long to readjust. Last night's performance at Noosh suffered a bit after focusing on the 7-string earlier in the week. I play as many songs as possible from memory. Memory slips are inevitable in a three hour gig, but I had more than my share last night.

Going forward, I'll spend equal time on the 6- and 7-string guitars. At some point, I may have to decide whether to continue playing both instruments in performance or switch permanently to a 7-string, but based on the way things are going, I'm not going to have to make that decision any time soon!

One More String

After saving my pennies, I bought a 7-string guitar. At $800, the Ibanez Artcore isn't exactly cheap, but it's the closest thing to an entry level price I could find for a 7-string archtop. It's a beautiful looking guitar. I prefer the tone of my Heritage 575, but still, this Ibanez has a pretty sound.

So why spring for a 7-string guitar when I haven't come close to mastering six strings? I've been fascinated by jazz guitarists who play 7-string instruments. In particular, I've been watching videos of Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, and Charlie Hunter. You can do a lot with a guitar, but if you are playing solo, or if the guitar is the only accompanying instrument, I find that even the best players lack a certain depth of sound. The extra string adds that depth.

The 7th string adds a bass note below the low E string. From what I understand, guitarists will either tune it to a low B or A. Like most jazz 7-string players, I've tuned mine to an A. Any note that I play on the 5th string can be played an octave below on the 7th string. I discovered right away that this adds a lot of body to chords with 5th string roots.

With the 7th string tuned an octave below the 5th string, I find the new landscape easy to understand intellectually. Physically, it's going to take a lot of adjustment. The guitar is tuned the same way with just one more string added. How tricky can that be? Plenty tricky! I'm so used to navigating from the 6th string, that I constantly find myself playing on the wrong group of strings. On the other hand, I find that the extra string doesn't affect my single note playing all that much, probably because I play most of my single note lines on strings 1 through 4.

This is not an instrument I would use while playing with a bassist. I'll continue playing my Heritage in the Sentimental Journey Orchestra and my church band. When I begin to feel comfortable with the Ibanez, I'll use it for Godfrey and Guy and solo playing.

The only way I'm going to learn to play this instrument is to simply play it as often as possible (which is obvious – this isn't rocket science). I spent quite a bit of time with the Ibanez today, mostly experimenting with different chord voicings. I'll also explore the 7th string in a more methodical way. I learned basic jazz guitar chord forms from the Mel Bay Rhythm Guitar Chord System. I've already taken myself through the book three times. I guess it's time to play through it a fourth time, adapting the chord forms for seven strings. I'll bring the Ibanez to my next lesson, too. Although he doesn't play a 7-string guitar himself, my teacher may have some suggestions for getting to know the Ibanez.

I already knew it would be challenging to learn the 7-string guitar, but all I had to do was play an "A" chord, and I was hooked. Even with the little experimenting I've done, I find that I love the depth of sound that the extra bass string offers. I'm looking forward to exploring and discovering new sounds and possibilities.

Ella's Poem

Today, I said goodbye to a delightful young guitar student, Ella, who is moving in a few weeks. I've lost track of time, but I think I've been teaching Ella for two years or so. The thing that makes Ella a joy to teach is her personality: part rock star, part comedian. In her first lesson, Ella was sizing me up and didn't say much. In her second lesson, she opened up right away about school, guitar, and life in general. From that point on, Ella has made me laugh out loud in nearly every guitar lesson.

Although Ella is moving to a different state, we are going to continue lessons through either Skype or Google Hangouts. I'll miss seeing Ella in person, but I'm glad that we'll continue lessons online.

Instead of having a lesson today, I went out for frozen yogurt with Ella and her mom. As a parting gift, I gave Ella a Snark tuner and a chord book. Ella gave me a card and a poem she had written. I was really touched by the poem. Here is Ella's poem:

"Guitar"

Strum, strum, strum.
Light sound, hard beat
Makes me want to move my feet.

Tap, tap, tap.
Guitar resting on my lap.

Bump, bump, bump.
Made from a tree stump.

You may like the sound
That comes from the amp on the ground,
But the acoustic guitar is for me
You see.

Simple Is Good

"Less is more." It's a cliché, but it's true. It's a lesson I find myself learning over and over again. Examples:

I lead a band at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, made up of two singers, two guitars, piano, bass, and percussion. When I begin learning a song for the band, I tend to play very rhythmically and with full chords. With two guitars and a piano, there is a lot of overlap in comping, so this full out approach usually doesn't work when I play with the band. As I listen to what the other players are doing, I invariably find myself playing less and less. I'll just play offbeats or some other simple rhythm, and I'll play 3- or 4-note chords instead of full guitar chords. On hymns, which tend to be simpler than the band songs, I sometimes find that it sounds best if I don't play at all. It's humbling to find the band sometimes sounds better when I lay out. On the other hand, it frees me up to be a more effective song leader for the congregation.

The larger the group, the less you have to do. I play guitar in the Sentimental Journey Orchestra, a 17-piece big band. My role as a rhythm guitarist is to help keep time and to outline the basic harmonic movement. Rhythmically, my job couldn't be simpler. I'm playing quarter notes 95% of the time. (Notice I said that my job is simple…not easy. Believe it or not, there is an art to playing quarter notes.) Harmonically, the less I play, the better it sounds. The bass player covers the root notes, so I leave those out. The piano player plays all the extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths), so I leave those out. That leaves me with the guide tones, sometimes called shell voicings. Unless I have a solo, which is rare for a guitarist in a big band setting, I usually play 2-note chords. By themselves, those shell voicings don't sound like much, but they're wonderfully effective in a big band.

Being the sole instrumentalist in the Godfrey and Guy duo, you'd think I could play all sorts of crazy stuff, but no. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, the main focus of the listener is on the vocals. If I get overly fancy with my guitar accompaniment, I get in the way of the singer. I have more freedom to branch out in Godfrey and Guy than I do with the church band or the SJO, but I still find that a strong basic groove sounds best…a walking bass with rhythmic stabs, simple quarter notes, a basic Bossa beat, all in support of the song. And if I feel like throwing in a little lick now and then, it's more effective when it jumps out of a simple texture. As a bonus, when I'm playing a 3+ hour gig, my hands get less fatigued if I keep it simple.

As I delve deeper and deeper into jazz guitar, I'm constantly working to improve my technique, solidify my time, and open my ears. I'm not setting the world on fire, but my technique is far better than it was five years ago, and I'll keep working to improve. But even as I continue to stretch my own boundaries, I keep reminding myself of the basic rule that less is more. Simple is good.

Roller Coaster Club

I have dropped twenty pounds since the beginning of the year. Like many of us, I am in the Roller Coaster Club. I'll have my weight under control, and then a few months later, my pants are too tight. I'll lose weight again, get cocky, and then let go of the habits that helped me stay smaller.

About a year ago, maybe longer, I was feeling pretty good about my weight. It wasn't as low as it was when I had lost 120 pounds running and dieting, but I was getting there. Then something switched in my brain. I don't even know what triggered it, but I started eating unhealthy foods again. I probably snuck a pint of Ben and Jerry's or something, and it all went downhill from there. You can live in denial for only so long, but your pants don't lie. By early December, there were three shirts and one pair of dress pants in my closet that still fit. I realized that I could either start buying bigger clothes, or I could make some changes so that I could fit into my smaller pants again.

For me, the most painful part of any new weight loss endeavor is dusting off the bathroom scale and weighing myself. Oddly enough, once I've recorded that first weigh-in, I immediately feel better. I don't feel good about the number, but the mystery and suspense are gone. Once I step on the scale, I have a clear goal, and I can proceed.

Fortunately, I don't have to drop 120 pounds this time, but I still have a lot of weight to shed. Once I set my mind to it, I'm really good at losing weight – I've done it so often! I've been losing the pounds pretty steadily.

How am I dropping weight? There's no magic involved. It's simply a matter of diet and exercise. Even when I'm heavy, I enjoy exercising. I wouldn't say I love my stationary bike as much as I loved running, but it's pleasant enough to break a sweat while watching Netflix or reading a book.

With my exercise routine already in place, I just needed to tighten up my diet. I'm not on an overly strict diet. All I'm doing is keeping track what I eat. I write down each meal and snack in a pocket sized notebook. That's really about it. I don't count calories. I'm not on any particular diet plan. I just write down what I eat, I eat smaller portions, and I make better food choices in general. For example, instead of a sandwich, I'll order a wrap. Instead of taking home a pint of Ben and Jerry's, I'll buy a box of fruit juice popsicles.

In the past, I've become lax when I've reached my goal weight. I figure that I'm skinny and exercising a lot, so I can eat what I want. Wrong! This was wrong in my 20s, and it's certainly wrong as I begin to approach 50 and my metabolism slows.

The reason I had problems maintaining weight in the past was that I didn't have an end game. This time is different. I already know what I'm going to do. When I get to that point, here's the plan for maintaining:

• Continue to exercise
• Continue recording my meals and snacks
• Continue weighing in every 2-3 days
• Gradually begin adding more calories to my diet until I find an equilibrium

If I can follow those simple steps, I think I'll finally be able to quit the Roller Coaster Club.

Things I Didn't Expect as a Guitarist

When I started learning the guitar 10 years ago, I knew it would be different from classical trombone. Some of the differences surprised me.

Fingernails
I never dreamed I would give so much attention to my fingernails. I don't keep my nails extra long like some classical and fingerstyle guitar players do, but I file them every morning to maintain a certain length. If I chip a nail, it's a tragedy. On the plus side, I stopped biting my nails the day I picked up a guitar.

Numb Fingertips
When I first began playing the guitar, I could only play for a short length of time before the pain in my left hand fingertips grew too much to bear. I gradually developed callouses, and now my left hand fingertips are permanently numb. Interestingly, my fingertips will start to burn toward the end of a gig that lasts 3 or more hours. So my left hand fingertips either feel pain or nothing.

G.A.S.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome, or in some cases, Guitar Acquisition Syndrome. When I was a trombone player, my gear consisted of a trombone and mutes. As a trombone player, I would see someone on stage with an acoustic guitar and marvel at how simple it looked. Not until I started gigging did I realize that the guitar was just one piece of the puzzle. I also needed an amp and cables. Batteries. Effects pedals if I was playing a musical or in a rock band. For many venues and every wedding gig ever, you need to bring a PA system. And there are the guitars. I've owned several guitars over the past 10 years. Now I'm down to four that I play on a regular basis. The only things left on my wish list are an AER Compact 60 amp, and a wireless microphone. Once I get those two pieces of equipment, I'll finished buying new equipment. Really. I can stop any time I want.

Gig Hunting
As a trombonist, I never had to look for gigs. I was in an Air Force band. Someone else booked the gigs. My job was to go wherever someone pointed and play a show. As a freelancer, things are very different. I count myself very lucky to have found a steady Friday gig with Godfrey and Guy, but I'm still on the hunt for wedding gigs, dinner parties, and another steady gig on a different night. Who knew that looking for work would be more work than the actual work itself?

Diversification
As an Air Force trombone player, I didn't need to diversify. I was hired to play in the concert band, and I was a decent section player in the jazz band. That was about as diverse as I got. Today, I'm a guitar player, church music director, music engraver, and teacher.

Teaching
I never planned on being a guitar teacher. At the time I began learning guitar, I was music engraving full time. The plan was to engrave and practice during the day, and to gig on weekends. I didn't expect the guitar to take over as much as it did, to the point where I do very little music engraving. Somewhere along the way, I began teaching private lessons and discovered that I really enjoy it. I'm branching out as a teacher, too. I've begun teaching beginning piano lessons and exploring the possibility of teaching general music to youngsters. Teaching used to be "Plan B," but it has become one of my favorite things.

Being a Soloist
When I was a classical trombone player, it was intimidating to play a solo. Most of my playing was in bands and orchestras, where I was part of a section. As a guitarist, and particularly as a jazz musician, I am usually the only one playing a guitar. Unless I'm playing in a big band like the Sentimental Journey Orchestra, I'm going to be called upon to play a lot of solos. Playing a solo gets my adrenaline pumping a little bit, but it's not nearly as scary as it used to be.

Improvising
While it was rare for me to play a solo as a classical trombonist, it was rarer still that I had to improvise. If playing a solo intimidated me, then improvising was downright terrifying. When I first began playing guitar, I intended to be a folk player. The plan was to come up with some nice arrangements and interesting accompaniments, but never to improvise. Little did I know that I would meet up with a teacher who would get me hooked on jazz. I'm not the greatest improviser in the world, but I'm making progress and having fun with it.

Fun!
Classical trombone was fun in its own way. I enjoyed the music, and I was part of a small, quirky community of low brass players. As much as I enjoyed trombone, I enjoy the guitar even more. Part of it is the diversity of styles. Depending on the situation, I might be playing jazz, blues, rock, acoustic, or even faking my way as a classical player. As a jazz player, I enjoy being able to just show up and sit in with a group on a gig and hold my own. I've always been a music theory geek, and I find that jazz guitar to be an endlessly fascinating puzzle.

I knew that playing guitar would be fun, but I had no idea! My body is beginning to betray me as my knees and back are slowly giving out, but guitar is going to keep my spirit young for a long time.

Sentimental Journey Orchestra

After hanging around as a sub for several years, I finally became the regular guitarist for the Sentimental Journey Orchestra. I had been subbing for Jerry Aull, who has played guitar and sung with the SJO for a long time. Jerry recently moved far enough away that driving to the weekly Monday rehearsal would be too much of a haul. Jerry contacted me about six months ago to let me know that he would probably be moving, and he floated the idea switching roles. I would become the SJO's regular guitarist and he would sub for me when needed. Jerry remains as the male vocalist and will rehearse with the group once a month as a singer.

My years of hanging around like a vulture, waiting for something to happen paid off. In a group like this, the joke is that you have to wait for someone to die before you can officially join the group. Fortunately, all Jerry did was move.

Last night was my first official night rehearsing with the Sentimental Journey Orchestra. I've played as a sub on countless occasions, so it didn't exactly feel fresh and new. As a matter of fact, I knew I would be asked soon, and I had been debating whether to join the group or not. A couple years ago, I would have jumped at the chance without hesitation. Lately, though, I've been busy with plenty of projects. There is my part time job at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, a weekly gig and rehearsal with Godfrey and Guy, and an ever increasing roster of private guitar and piano students at Tessitura. With all of that going on (plus making sure I have the time to dedicate to practicing), I wasn't sure I wanted to take on the extra weekly rehearsal.

Upon reflection, playing with the SJO was too good to pass up. The group doesn't actually gig often, so it's not like I suddenly have a bunch of shows to play. What made me say "yes" to SJO was the opportunity to grow as a musician. I play most often in small group settings, where we are playing from lead sheets or from memory, and things are looser. I am usually the leader of whatever small group I'm playing in, and I will often change things on the fly…maybe try a different introduction, repeat back to the bridge instead of the beginning, etc. Playing in a big band is a completely different experience. As a guitarist, I may play a solo once in a blue moon, but I'm usually playing a set rhythm guitar part. There's nothing better for your rhythm guitar reading than playing through a bunch of big band charts.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to play with the SJO on a weekly basis, and I'm grateful for another opportunity to grow as a musician.