Discovering the Link Between “Jam” Bands Like Phish and Jazz Guitar
Jam bands are musical groups whose albums and live performances relate to a fan culture that originated with the 1960s group Grateful Dead and continued in the 1990s with Phish. The performances of these bands often feature extended musical improvisation (“jams”) over rhythmic grooves and chord patterns and long sets of music that cross genre boundaries.
While the seminal group Grateful Dead were originally categorized as psychedelic rock, by the 1990s the term “jam band” was used for groups playing a variety of genres, including those outside of rock such as funk, progressive bluegrass, and jazz fusion.
Read MoreUnderstanding Your Musical Convictions
One of the biggest problems that musicians face is holding on to their own musical identity and integrity. It’s often tempting to bail out on your own direction and capitulate to an agent, an audience, a label or society in general.
Even with my experience in this business, I continue to be surprised by how a negative or even a neutral comment will often throw me out of balance. If someone says that my new CD “Freefall” is “nice”, it throws me. If someone doesn’t like my direction, my style, my songs or my sound, I feel emotionally like I should change what I do – what I am to please them. The logical side of me knows that this is not true. But the logical side isn’t the only side that operates. In the arts, it’s probably not even the most important side.
Read MoreBill Evans, Jazz Pianist – Philosophy and Quotes
“When you play music you discover a part of yourself that you never knew existed.”
“Actually, I’m not interested in Zen that much, as a philosophy, nor in joining any movements. I don’t pretend to understand it. I just find it comforting. And very similar to jazz. Like jazz, you can’t explain it to anyone without losing the experience. It’s got to be experienced, because it’s feeling, not words.”
Read More“Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can’t explain it. They really can’t translate feeling because they’re not part of it. That’s why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.”
The Value of Music Education and Participation
Music education has benefits beyond the obvious. It’s great to play an instrument or sing or write songs. But few people appreciate the long lasting value of studying music.
It’s beneficial at every stage of life. Youngsters benefit from the discipline, the logic, the process of learning itself. It can increase self esteem and balance out personalities. Aggressive behavior can be balanced by a developing sensitivity. Overly shy behavior can be balanced by developing a more focused and assertive self.
10 Fundamentals To Learning How to Play Guitar
Introduction
Regardless of the resources you use to learn to play the guitar, it’s important to know what there is to learn and how that affects what you want to do. Whether it’s playing in a band, singing and playing or being a singer-songwriter. there are specific things to learn and specific skills to develop. Here’s an overview of the ten most fundamental things to learn.
1. Chords
The first thing that almost all guitar players learn is chords. A chord is played by holding down multiple notes simultaneously on the fingering hand. The opposite hand makes a chord sound by strumming it or finger picking it. There is nothing more fundamental than playing basic chords.
Read MoreMastering The Modes for Jazz Guitar
The modes are a system of seven scales dating back to Pythagoras of Ancient Greece. The scales are named: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.
Though many music schools teach the modes as versions of the C major scale, it is perhaps the worst possible way to teach them. This explanation is valid historically but is relatively useless for jazz guitar applications.
Chuck records Flight from the "Freefall" CD