more scrittles

I picked up the guitar today for the first time in nearly a month, save a few chords on the sweltering balcony in Mesa, Arizona. My fingers haven't been used in this way for so long, it feels like a important choice to decide what to do first. So...ii-V-I's, more ii-V-I's. Going back to the inversions I learned long ago, one of only two really valuable things I ever got from a professional teacher. This lesson, from a teacher in Pennsylvania who I studied with for over a year and never really listened to me, a common problem with teachers. I came to him not knowing anything about jazz except the rote-memorized chord shapes I used to get through rehearsals with the "jazz" band at my tiny Midwestern liberal arts school...the first lesson, he showed me lots of "hip" voicings and licks to memorize, yet I didn't even know what a major 7th was, nor the chords to a single standard, nor a single scale other than the major scale in a single position. He never really took the time to address any of those things, either, except that the second lesson he gave me a handful of chord sheets and explained how to fill them in with inversions. I didn't really know the notes I was using, but I used the shapes he gave me to start with to fill in the 24 basic seventh chord inversions. For that I'm grateful.

The only other other valuable lesson I ever got from a professional teacher was at Berklee. My first semester teacher was a complete waste of time, I can't remember a single thing he ever told me and I don't think I could then, either. For the next term I switched to a player of moderate renown, Garrison Fewell. He was talked about with some awe as a Buddhist...turns out he had just learned a simple chant, "nom myoho renge kyo", meaning something like "the jewel is in the lotus", and talked at length about the amazing effects this chant would have on one's playing if it was recited before picking up the instrument. I know now that any positive effects it had would have come from simply clearing one's mind before playing, and I also have come to think that it's pretty suspect to cherrypick a tiny element from a religion established for thousands of years to play tastier guitar solos. But I digress...at my first lesson, he noticed that I supported my picking hand with my pinky resting just below the strings. He pointed out how my hand had to bend and accomodate as I picked different strings, and suggested that I practice with the picking hand hovering freely. It was very hard at first to undo the habit, but in a week or two I was able to see a clear improvement in picking speed and agility.

Unfortunately, other than that all his efforts were wasted on me. He spent every lesson teaching me licks and imploring me to learn them in all twelve keys, and I never spent a moment on it. I could never be convinced (and still can't) that the way to improvise is to have an arsenal of melodies that can be strung together at appropriate places. That's not spontaneous composition! If you can't think of a note or chord to play, wait until one comes to you - or just end the damn solo! If you can play only two notes on your instrument, you have enough knowledge to improvise a meaningful melody.