Quote Blog
120-160
Leading up to this point in the book, I have learnt a lot about Stevie's early life. This entailed how he came to learning the guitar and getting into the blues. When Stevie was younger, his brother would bring the blues into his household in all forms. Jimmy Vaughan, Stevie's brother is still a famous musician today. According to Stevie, he got to play on one of the toy guitars that was laying around the house, inspired by his brother. He managed to teach himself how to play the blues through watching his brother and listening to his brothers blues records. It was around this time that Stevie also listened to artists like Kenny Burrell, who played the blues with a jazz approach, using chordal ideas with their playing. This is something a that a lot of old blues players would also do. With Stevie not having a band until he formed the Blackbirds in 1970, playing lead and rhythm was something that he would do when playing with himself.
This is huge due to the impact that it had on Stevies musicianship later on in his career. Stevie would go to blues clubs in his area when he was first starting out to go and sit in with the traveling blues artists who would circulate through the clubs. A frequent passerby er according to Stevie was Albert King. Supposedly, any time Stevie was in the club when Albert was, he would invite Stevie onstage to sit in for a few songs. Albert liked Stevie's playing for his confidence as well as his ability to play with the band. There is a video from the same series that I showed in last weeks analytical blog of Albert King talking to Stevie about when he use to go and sit in with Albert. In this video, Albert talks about what it was like having Stevie around. Musicians now, talk a lot about Stevie's phrasing as well as his rhythm playing. With a lot of blues musicians, it is only the lead playing that is spoken of. For example, it is rare to find anyone who talks about the rhythm playing of Albert king as he was not a powerful rhythm player.
"Lots of times, Ill play lead and rhythm together" (134)
This quote to me, is such a reinforcement and a reminder to my studies in music. It is really easy to spend a lot of time working on lead guitar stuff. Such as solo vocabulary and ideas that fall into what one would do while improvising, that it is very easy to forget about working on improving ones rhythm guitar playing. As an accompanying instrument, you spend more time playing the chords than you do soloing. As my Berklee Audition is this Saturday, I have been trying to find a balance between working on my lead lines and by chordal playing, as both are extremely important! When I went to Berklee over the summer, my audition piece to get into the blues program was a chordal blues Etude. The feedback that I received was that they liked how I had focused on my rhythm playing. Taking that feedback, I have really been trying to push it for the real audition!
To really give you an idea of what it sounds like to play chords and lines like Stevie was talking about, here is Robben Ford doing it!!
Leading up to this point in the book, I have learnt a lot about Stevie's early life. This entailed how he came to learning the guitar and getting into the blues. When Stevie was younger, his brother would bring the blues into his household in all forms. Jimmy Vaughan, Stevie's brother is still a famous musician today. According to Stevie, he got to play on one of the toy guitars that was laying around the house, inspired by his brother. He managed to teach himself how to play the blues through watching his brother and listening to his brothers blues records. It was around this time that Stevie also listened to artists like Kenny Burrell, who played the blues with a jazz approach, using chordal ideas with their playing. This is something a that a lot of old blues players would also do. With Stevie not having a band until he formed the Blackbirds in 1970, playing lead and rhythm was something that he would do when playing with himself.
This is huge due to the impact that it had on Stevies musicianship later on in his career. Stevie would go to blues clubs in his area when he was first starting out to go and sit in with the traveling blues artists who would circulate through the clubs. A frequent passerby er according to Stevie was Albert King. Supposedly, any time Stevie was in the club when Albert was, he would invite Stevie onstage to sit in for a few songs. Albert liked Stevie's playing for his confidence as well as his ability to play with the band. There is a video from the same series that I showed in last weeks analytical blog of Albert King talking to Stevie about when he use to go and sit in with Albert. In this video, Albert talks about what it was like having Stevie around. Musicians now, talk a lot about Stevie's phrasing as well as his rhythm playing. With a lot of blues musicians, it is only the lead playing that is spoken of. For example, it is rare to find anyone who talks about the rhythm playing of Albert king as he was not a powerful rhythm player.
"Lots of times, Ill play lead and rhythm together" (134)
This quote to me, is such a reinforcement and a reminder to my studies in music. It is really easy to spend a lot of time working on lead guitar stuff. Such as solo vocabulary and ideas that fall into what one would do while improvising, that it is very easy to forget about working on improving ones rhythm guitar playing. As an accompanying instrument, you spend more time playing the chords than you do soloing. As my Berklee Audition is this Saturday, I have been trying to find a balance between working on my lead lines and by chordal playing, as both are extremely important! When I went to Berklee over the summer, my audition piece to get into the blues program was a chordal blues Etude. The feedback that I received was that they liked how I had focused on my rhythm playing. Taking that feedback, I have really been trying to push it for the real audition!
To really give you an idea of what it sounds like to play chords and lines like Stevie was talking about, here is Robben Ford doing it!!
Good luck with your audition! I know how much time you've already put into your musicianship.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I just finished my daily prep now! Reading and Analytical Blog here I come!
Delete