And While I was Away…..

I’ve been in the woodshed quite a bit. Not working on exercises or that sort of thing; just picking up the Tele and playing for joy.

I’ve had a sort of breakthrough.

I got to set this up though. Sometimes, the real valuable stuff…the advice some cat gives you takes a while, sometimes a long while to sink in. Well, for me at least.

Way back, I was temporarily hanging in Monterey, California and working at a car wash; I walked in to a little guitar shop (South Seas Guitars, I think). I didn’t have any dough but, it was a cool place; cool guitars and the owner (I really wish I could remember his name…seemed like it Phil something) was very knowledgeable. He seemed to take a liking to me, even though I wasn’t a “buyer”, and I would stop by to chat from time to time.

This guy was real deal jazzer. He even took the time to make cassettes of players I should be aware of for me; just in the interest of passing it on.

He would often grab an archtop and play chord melody stuff and he was real good at it. I would always bug him…”you got to show me how to do that man”.

It’s all just shapes.

I asked him about the theory behind it all. I bugged him so much that he wrote out some chord melody “scales” for me.

These scales won’t do you any good man. You got to learn these shapes though. Trust your ear, trust your gut and just start finding what works for you! You are over analyzing. It’s all just shapes…that are sounds.

So, of course, I started working on those scales…spent hours and hours and, I would try to incorporate some on solos over the years and fall on my ass.

I did remember the shapes though.

Just learn the shapes and start throwing them in here and there on some blues stuff. Stop thinking and just find what sounds good to you. You don’t need to know the harmonic implications. Go with your gut. Start with the blues.

And, finally…that’s exactly what I’ve been doing over the last few days. Wham!!! It’s actually starting to make sense. It’s coming to me in big sweet chunks. I’m not going to sit down and play “Stardust” or “Misty” like Jim Hall or Joe Pass anytime soon but, I may whip some stuff on “Further On Up The Road” in the near future.

So, the moral is…keep all of that dusty advice in your back pocket.