And now for something completely
different. Okay, maybe not playing like a
guitar doesn’t seem very revolutionary by
today’s standards considering the wealth of
guitarists who fit this bill by regularly venturing
far beyond the commonly perceived
limitations of the instrument. Jeff Beck’s
faux blues-harp wails, bleating car horns,
and uncanny “vocalizations;” Adrian Belew’s
musical menagerie of seagulls, jungle insects,
elephants, rhinos, and modulated feedback
solos; David Torn’s SPLaTTeRCeLL sonic
soundscapes and microtonal excursions;
Steve Vai’s stunt- and speech-guitar antics;
the unclassifiable Allan Holdsworth; and, of
course, spaceman Jimi Hendrix immediately
come to mind. But these are guitar players,
and today we’re on the pick for farm-fresh
ideas from other instruments.
I was initially drawn to learning stuff
from instruments I didn’t really play out
of both curiosity and necessity. Back in the
days before synths, computers, and sample
libraries, cover bands rarely possessed all of
the instruments or players needed to recreate
every part of a record, so we adapted.
Organ and piano players routinely covered
horn and string parts as well as keyboard
duties, and guitarists were often called on
to do the same. This requirement soon led
to my studying, performing, and eventually
transcribing songs by Todd Rundgren,
Gentle Giant, Tower of Power, the Mahavishnu
Orchestra, and scores of others, all
of which spawned not only an obsession,
but also a secondary career that has continued
to date. Currently, I’d guesstimate
that at least 40 to 50 percent of my guitar
playing involves adapting parts and techniques
from other instruments. In fact, GP
editor Mike Molenda once commented after
witnessing a Todd Rundgren show that I
didn’t play a barre chord all night. That’s
not entirely true, but it’s close enough to
the point: Why limit one’s musical vocabulary
by learning to play music only from
guitarists when there’s a whole other world
of instruments out there?
 |
| Jesse Gress (left) onstage with Todd Rundgren. Note Rundgren’s “Fool” replica SG copy at right. |
All of the following examples have been
culled from over 40 years of personal experience
in almost every imaginable musical
setting, including countless past gigs with
a slew of hip (and not-so-hip) cover bands
and songwriters, more recent shows with
Jim Weider’s Project Percolator, Gregg Bendian’s
Mahavishnu Project, Jim McCarty, and
multiple world tours with Todd Rundgren
and the Tony Levin Band, so I can definitely
attest that this stuff works. (Plus, I’ve been
looking for a way to get Jan Hammer into
GP for nearly two decades!) The emphasis
here is on
playing like other instruments—
copping ideas from drum and percussion
patterns, saxophone phrasing, tight horn
sections, piano-based chord progressions,
atmospheric synth pads and ripping leadsynth
licks, and singers—without necessarily
trying to
sound like them.
There are no rules-of-gear this month—no
necessary special effects other than a floating
tremolo system for one example—just pure playing techniques derived from the
aforementioned instruments, so pick up
your guitar, plug in to whatever you’ve got
handy, and go nuts with every effect you
own as we pilfer (err...), plunder (arr!), I
mean explore (that’s the ticket!) the vast
riches of this brave new world of other
instruments and discover what they’ve got
to offer us guitarists. First, you’ve gotta...
1 BANG ON THE
DRUM ALL DAY
Time is king. It rules every
aspect of our daily lives, and
all of the music we learn to
play is subject to its laws.
Rhythm is time organized
by division. It is the glue that binds and
shapes melody and harmony and holds
together ensembles. Hence, an impeccable
sense of time and rhythm is essential for
any successful musician. Fortunately, we
guitarists have chosen an instrument that
puts at our disposal a wide array of percussive
sounds that can be used not only
in almost any musical context, but also to
drill and improve our own rhythmic skills.
We’ve all done the wacka-wacka on our
muted strings, but have you ever considered
utilizing the lower- and upper-register
string groups on your ax as a stripped-down,
bass-and-snare drum kit? Ex. 1a, which uses
“x”-headed C octaves to notate these groupings
of approximately three muted strings
each, manifests the concept with a funky,
one-bar rhythm figure suitable for a wide
range of tempos. Use alternating down and
upstrokes, keep your wrist loose, accent
those backbeats, and get in the groove.
(Tip: Try it with a swing-sixteenth feel and
add wah to taste.) Ex. 1b shows what happens
when you apply the same concept to
Hendrix’s choppy “Machine Gun” intro.
And speaking of Jimi, Ex. 1c reveals one way
the master of time and space locked in his
alternating bass notes and signature 7#9
chords with the drums on classics like “Foxy
Lady.” Moving into the stratosphere, Ex. 1d
simulates a high-pitched Latin percussion
part with a reverse clave rhythm played off
the fretboard on the high E string. Muting
the string anywhere around the virtual 36th fret works fine, but be sure to avoid ringing
harmonic nodes. Want to make sax-y
time? Then you’ve gotta…
2 SLUR YOUR LICKS
If you’ve ever copped any
saxophone licks, you may
have discovered how well
many of them translate to
the guitar. Let’s start with
some bebop phrasing à la
Charlie “Bird” Parker. When I attended GIT
in 1978, the great Joe Diorio taught a Parker
bebop class, and the one thing he constantly
stressed about phrasing like a sax was the
importance of slurring, which includes hammer-
ons, pull-offs, slides, and sweep picking.
The trick is to find fingerings that organically
accommodate these techniques. Bar 1
of Ex. 2a illustrates typical Parker-style phrasing
for a reverse Fmaj7 arpeggio-based line,
which is played here over a Dm7 II chord.
This IV-for-II sub (along with other ones)
was pioneered by Parker as a hip way to play
off of a chord’s upper extensions. (Tip: Try
the same line over G7.) After stating the
chord’s 9 (E) on the downbeat, Diorio’s
slurring comes into play on beat two, where
we sweep across the F-triad triplet using a
smooth flow of consecutive upstrokes—
think “ooh-blee-ah”—before concluding on
beat three with a pair of down/up, swingeighth
notes. Cooler still is how raising the
same lick a minor third (three frets) yields
the altered-tension-laden, V-chord (G7) run
in bar 2, and jumping it up another major
third (four frets) in bar 3 brings us home to
Cmaj7. Play all three bars in sequence and
you’ve got a complete II-V-I lick. Ex. 2b’s
I-VI-II-V progression, which fits nicely into
bars 7 through 10 of a 12-bar bop blues in
C, frames many Parker-isms embellished
with strategically-placed, Diorio-style hammer-
ons, pull-offs, and sweeps. (Note the
variation of Ex. 2a in bars 3 and 4.) Never
thought of trilling a bent note before? For
more bluesy and R&B affairs, drop the flutter-
tongued bent trills shown in Ex. 2c into
your next funky jam in C or A minor and
watch the heads turn. Follow the fingering
and picking notation in these examples and
a sax-y time will be had by all!
3 STAY HORNY
A logical step after becoming
versed in a few saxophone
techniques is taking
on full horn-section parts.
I’ve done this with tunes by
Chicago, Tower of Power,
James Brown, Sly, and many others, and
it can be big fun. A good starting point
is to take a few typical phrases and harmonize
them in various triad inversions.
Ex. 3a shows four harmonizations of essentially
the same one-bar, R&B-flavored
turnaround. The first set of inversions
(bar 1) is built below three different top
voices. Bar 2 reduces that to two, while
bar 3 features a common tone on top of
all three chords, and bar 4 offers a slight
change in the original harmony. For funkier
grooves in F, drop Ex. 3b’s two-bar, Towerof-
Power-inspired figure in the slot, and
check out how bouncing between chords
and bass notes creates a full section effect.
The opening E7-F7 slide and final F9 hit in
bar 1 capture a brass-and-reeds vibe, while
the octave F’s create the impression of a
contrapuntal baritone sax line. The fourchord
figure in bar 2 was shown to me in
1978 by GIT guru Don Mock (whose licks
I still regurgitate regularly), and I’ve been
relying on it ever since! Funky sixteenthnote
grooves also dominate a good portion
of the T.O.P. book, and the tight syncopations
depicted in Ex. 3c go a long way in
defining what is hip. Here, we reprise the
four Mock chords (bar 1), introduce some
parallel chromatic motion (bar 2), and add
a rhythmically altered Count Basie ending
(bar 3). Vootie!
4 MAKE A GRAND
Keyboard styles and techniques
offer another important
avenue of exploration
available to every guitarist.
So how does one begin
to play like a piano? The
most obvious answer is “don’t strum.” Play
Ex. 4a as written using either alternate down/
up strumming or consecutive down-strokes,
and you’ll hear a very guitar-y version of this
Rundgren-esque chord progression. Other
than the chord voicings, there’s nothing
remotely piano-like about it, right? Now,
lose the pick and dig into Ex. 4b, where the
same figure has been arranged for fingerstyle
guitar. Note how we get a much more piano-y
vibe by sustaining the bass notes and attacking
the notes of each chord both individually
and simultaneously. (Tip: Try applying this
technique to Ex. 3a.) Another alternative
is to rhythmically break up the chords and
bass notes while letting them ring, as shown
in Ex. 4c. Got it? Good, ’cause it’s time to…
5 UNLOCK YOUR INNER
EIGHTY-EIGHTS
I began investigating piano
techniques because I was
attracted to certain songs and
liked the idea of being able
to cover bass, harmony, and
melody at the same time. Of course, jazz and
classical guitarists do this all the time, but I
was on a different course, intrigued enough
by the harmonic structure of dozens of Todd
Rundgren’s piano-based tunes to spend considerable
time and brainpower translating
them to the guitar. Ex. 5a shows the results
of one such effort that eventually led to regularly
performing the song with its composer
beginning some 20 years later! This intro to
the aptly titled “Lucky Guy” (from Hermit of
Mink Hollow) combines classical piano technique
with Todd’s clever signature suspensions,
which, in this case, are formed by playing a
descending B major scale beneath a repetitive,
one-bar eighth-note figure. Suss out the
chord fingerings, which change every two
beats, and gradually work it up to tempo. (I
later re-harmonized the song in a bossa nova
style.) One of TR’s most exquisite compositions
was birthed as incidental organ music
for a funeral scene in the TV series Crime
Story and eventually appeared in orchestrated
form as “Kindness” on 1991’s Second Wind.
The six-bar chord sequence transcribed in Ex. 5b appears in both the intro and verses, and features almost every Todd suspension
in the book, including the legendary “T chord,” which appears in bar
2 as Gadd4, but was originally conceived as a third-less Cmaj7. They’re stretchy
for guitarists, but studying T.R.’s piano voicings proved invaluable for me, and
I urge you to do the same with your favorite keyboard players. But piano isn’t
the only keyboard out there. Have you ever tried to…
6 SYNTHESIZE A SYNTHESIZER?
As one of his biggest fans, I’ve always been in awe of Jan
Hammer’s ability to transcend his instrument and sound
at times like the most amazing guitar player on the planet.
In an ironic bit of reverse engineering, let’s investigate how
the world’s foremost synth god crafts licks that outgun the
world’s greatest guitarists—even on their best day. Decorated
with select, organic bends, Examples 6a and 6b exhibit the type of
Eastern Indian-influenced A Mixolydian runs and motifs that often turn
up in Hammer’s compositions and improvisations. Ex. 6c features fluttery bent trills (played in the same manner as
Ex. 2c) applied to three different qualities
of A-based chords—a personal favorite.
Moving to B minor, Ex. 6d recalls a snippet
of Hammer’s solo on “Stratus,” from Billy
Cobham’s seminal fusion album Spectrum.
We begin with two bars of upper-register,
B pentatonic-based riffing—highlighted by
a whopping major-third bend (that’s four
frets!) and some wide intervallic jumps—
before dropping into open position and
playing a D pentatonic minor-based ostinato
for two more measures. The cool rule
here is you can create hip, outside sounds
by playing pentatonic minor lines a minor
third (3 frets) above the root of any minor
seventh chord, (Tip: Follow up with any
Bm7-based line to back inside the tonality.)
Hammer’s no slouch on the piano, either,
and his compressed Fender Rhodes tones
permeate much of his catalog, including
Ex. 6e’s take on the spacey, impressionistic
intro figure that segues into a funky
verse groove on “Full Moon Boogie” (from
Like Children and Jeff Beck Live with the Jan
Hammer Group). But Hammer time’s not
over just yet. You’ve still gotta…
7 CROSS THE LINE
The bar line, that is. Hammer’s
stupendous leadsynth
work is inexorably
tied to his exceptional
drumming chops, something
you’ll find evident in
the septet of polyrhythmic 3/4 hemiolas
illustrated in Ex. 7a. The idea here is to play
each phrase—which has also been designed
to illustrate Hammer’s notorious “string”
bends applied to the A pentatonic minor
and A Mixolydian scales—four times over
the course of three measures of 4/4 time,
at which point it recycles and starts over.
(Tip: Bend toward the floor in bar six and
then try all of these moves over Dm7, Em7,
or Fmaj7.) Ex. 7b provides the seed for you
to transform the same moves into a pair
of quintuplets played in 5/8 time. (Fact:
Every song on the Jan Hammer Group’s Oh
Yeah? album is in a different time signature.
Yow!) Let’s change our plan of attack and…
8 MAKE IT SWELL
(OR NOT)
When it comes to simulating
brass- and woodwindsection
swells, or creating
synth-y string lines and
pads, your volume control
or pedal is your best friend. Volume
swells can be used to vary the attack time
of simple single-note lines like the one in
Ex. 8a—based on the faux-synth part I play
on Todd Rundgren’s “Flaw” from Liars—or in a more complex manner by adding softly
tapped or aggressively slapped harmonics
to the equation. Ex. 8b shows how I would
adapt a flute-and-soft-brass synth figure
from Todd’s “Healing Pt.1” to the guitar,
though I actually played the part on keyboards
on tour. Memorize the chord shapes,
and, with your volume down, tap each harmonic
node 12 frets higher and fade in to
taste. (Tip: At slower tempos, try tapping
slightly ahead of the beat.) Slant your tapping
finger to conform to the angle of the
chord shape whenever necessary. You may
not get every note to sound as a harmonic,
but you’ll get most of them. (Tip: Add some
compression, delay and/or reverb, and try
this technique with Ex.5b.) On the other
hand, you’ll want to crank the gain up to
“11” for Ex. 8c, which documents the nonswelled,
Bm, Em/B, and Asus4 voicings that
I furiously slapped 12 frets above each
chord shape to create a swirling maelstrom
of harmonic chime and feedback for the
intro to the Tony Levin Band’s “Pieces of
the Sun” (from Pieces of the Sun and Double
Espresso). But to truly make your guitar
sing, you’ve gotta…
9 FIND YOUR VOICE
Okay, it took a brilliant English
guitarist to figure out,
but manipulating your ax’s
natural harmonics with your
volume control or pedal and
a whammy bar is probably the closest you’re ever going to get when
it comes to approximating the purity of
the word-less female voice. In preparation,
Ex. 9a diagrams a descending A Mixolydian
scale played entirely with natural harmonics
located between the 3rd and 5th frets
on the bottom four strings. Get to know it.
In honor of Jeff Beck’s “Where Were You”
(from Guitar Shop), which was inspired by the Bulgarian Women’s Choir, Ex. 9b
presents a challenging exercise designed
to develop precise intonation and facility
for bending and shaping harmonics into
melodic fragments over A7, the V chord
in the key of D. (Fact: A floating tremolo
is essential.) Each five-note motif is generated
from a single harmonic. Continue
this melodic sequence beginning on each
of the remaining four scale tones, and then
try out any of these moves over various
chords harmonically related to the key of
D, like Bm7, Em7, and Gmaj7. You’ll like
what you hear. So what’s left?
10 PLAY
LIKE TWO
GUITARS
Finally, if there’s
really one thing
you’ve gotta do
to not play like
a guitar, it’s playing like two guitars! Do
a little homework and you’ll find that it’s
not as hard as you might think to play twopart,
harmonized melodies all by yourself.
Back in 1997, I had the honor and pleasure
of recording and co-arranging Todd Rundgren’s
With a Twist album, which featured
select T.R. standards re-cast in a bossa nova/
exotica vein. One particular challenge was
to adapt Todd’s electric “I Saw the Light”
solo (from Something/Anything?) to nylonstring
acoustic without losing the flavor of
the original. The first half of the original
solo was a single-note line, and the second
half was harmonized in thirds. My solution
was to re-harmonize the first four bars of
Todd’s original solo over a bossa-fied Bm9-
E13-C#m7b5-F#7#5 progression and play it
chord-melody-style, and then follow up
with Ex. 10, a virtual note-for-note reading
of the harmony portion of the original with
a slightly twisted ending. It took a couple of
days to master, but the effort proved well
spent when we began playing the song live
in both full band and duo settings. During
recent T.R. tours, I’ve been covering both
parts of the harmonized fills and solos on
“Love of the Common Man” (from Faithful)
and “Courage” (from Arena). Now get
to work and figure out a few harmonized
solos of your own—I’ll be listening for
your one-guitar version of “In Memory of
Elizabeth Reed.” I hope you had as much
fun with this edition of 10 Things as I did.
Keep those ears open and I’ll see you on
the road or at jessegress.com!