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John Scofield - A Moment's Peace Excerpts from an excellent Premier Guitar magazine interview with John Scofield on the new album and how to solo through ballads removing the element of speed. The art of effectively playing a ballad is a delicate thing. Balancing the sensitivity of a melody with the intense spirit of improvisation has been a constant struggle for musicians for eons. Within that struggle lies the excitement and challenge that guitarist John Scofield tackles with his latest album, A Moment’s Peace. Over the course of a 30+ year career Scofield has tackled everything from cutting-edge fusion (Blue Matter) to down-and-dirty NOLA funk (Flat Out) and techno-jam-band grooves (Überjam). “A ballad album was just the next thing on my to-do list,” says Scofield. Normally, a jazz ballads record is a collection of tried and true standards that have been recorded and performed countless times. With this album, Scofield took a slightly different approach by composing about half of the tunes on the album. You have covered a lot of stylistic ground over your career. What prompted you to do an album of ballads? I really felt like now was the time. I feel like I’m able to do it know. When I was younger, I was more into playing hot. I’m still into that and trying to shred but I feel like I can actually play a ballad now. Do you approach a ballad differently than other tunes? It's completely different. Most of these, first of all, are songs. They have a melody and the melody reigns supreme, even when you are blowing on it the melody is always in your mind. The songs I wrote for this album follow that tradition too. It's really about trying to sing on your guitar. If I were to really oversimplify it I would say I just don't play so many notes. When you have a slow tempo, there’s room for so much interpretation of the beat. You can play rubato over it, which is tricky because you always have to keep you place at the same time. You can also play a lot of fast stuff, which is what I got into on "I Want to Talk About You," which is a tune John Coltrane played. Mainly, I would say it’s really just playing the song and your interpretation of it and letting the music breathe. This record is all about the four of us playing together. Also, you need to get a nice sound. When you're playing fast, it almost always doesn't matter what your guitar sounds like. Well, It doesn't matter as much, let's put it that way. You mentioned earlier how you feel like you are just now learning how to play a ballad. What specifically do you notice about your playing that makes you feel that way? When I listen back to my early records, one thing I really hear is that I didn't know how to get off a note. I knew how to hit it, but I didn't know how to end it. Part of that was because I didn't practice through an amp. When you are playing without an amp, it's just kind of dead and the note ends on its own faster. With an amp, you have a monster you must tame. There are a lot of things to think about when you are playing slowly that are really important and we all tend to over-emphasize this one aspect of playing really fast and getting that happening as if the slow stuff will take care of itself. The great lyrical guitar players, there's not that many, only a couple, but their technique is incredible at doing that and getting a sound. So, the real secret to playing slow is playing slow. [Laughs]. Yeah, playing slow. Actually you’re just getting ready for something that isn't going to end up being fast. The secret to playing slow is playing slow and just calming down. Try to pretend your nervous system is that of a really relaxed old guy, rather than the nervous people that we are inside. Your solo on “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You” is especially bluesy. I imagine B.B. King was quite an influence on you? I love the blues, man. The thing about that tune is that if you look at the chords it sounds like the same old thing. But it's kind of in two keys. It starts in the key of C, but then all of a sudden it's in the key of E flat. There are a lot of different ways to treat it, but the blues works all the way through it. I love blues. I find myself getting more and more into it. It's like what we were talking about before when you want to phrase like a singer. Pat Metheny once said to me, the stuff that he and I play on the guitar—all those notes and licks—is not really what the guitar does best. He said he thought the guitar did two things really well, big open-string chords and the blues. Everyone plays the blues, but you need the vibrato. I remember there were certain guys that had a vibrato that just killed me when I was younger. Yeah, you always hear jazz guitarists try to emulate saxophonists. Or even blues vocals. It’s just the idiom. Saxophone was the primary solo instrument in early rock and roll and R&B. A lot of it does come from the sax. A lot of it also comes from singing. You just sit there with a string and bend the notes and if someone understands blues and can hear it a little bit, they can get some of that happening. You just need one string. It's been much maligned, there have been a lot off sad-ass blues guitar players but the greats like to me Albert King and B.B. King, the inventor of the idiom, Otis Rush, those are the guys I love and continue to just be in awe of them.
Full article here: http://www.premierguitar....spx?Page=1
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"Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |