the Yoda of guitar

here's what he taught me

RIFFS

It was like studying with Yoda.

Ten years ago last month, I took some lessons with the singular Bob Palmieri. There were a number of frame-breaking ideas he poured into my mind:

• “The Sentence,”

• “the world’s shortest jazz guitar lesson,”

• “you should never try to beat your fastest speed without also trying to beat your slowest speed,”

• and on and on.

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Here’s what we did first.

He had me take out the Real Book, flip to the table of contents, and put a rating next to each song. It went something like this:

0 - Never heard of it
1 - Would know its name if I heard it
2 - Could sing the melody
3 - Could play melody & chords with a lead sheet
4 - Could play melody & chords from memory
5 - Could play melody & chords in 3 keys
6 - Can play a free-standing guitar version if appropriate and eat it for lunch

He said “significant progress in one’s jazz conception can result from just bumping almost everything up one number.”

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I don’t really play the jazz.

Don’t get me wrong—I like jazz. I can hang with those $5 chords, maybe even take a solo at sub-bebop tempos. But if you need an actual jazz guitarist?

I’ll refer you to Neal or Andy or Zoey or Chris.

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This past year I’ve mostly played solo shows.

Rock & pop from the past ~70 years. It’s a delight—total freedom, easy scheduling, great money. Someone requests a tune I don’t know? I just look it up on my phone and take a stab at it.

But I’ve never tried to level up the solo show in any organized way.

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Here’s what I’m trying next.

It’s not a clear hierarchy like Bob’s levels. But I can certainly level up any song in my repertoire, one step at a time:

• song request I wasn’t familiar with →

  • listen to it

  • transcribe anything unintuitive

• song request I faked poorly →

  • pick a better key

  • start an arrangement

• song I can play decently →

  • improve the arrangement

  • practice/record it to a click

  • add greater dynamic range

• song I know well →

  • create a new arrangement

  • steal a vocal run from a better singer

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RECS:

This week I’ve been re-reading Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys.

It’s set in the same literary universe as the wildly popular American Gods.

But it’s lighter, shorter, funnier, and a helluva good time.

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CHARTS:

Here’s a song I kinda-sorta knew that got a new arrangement this week.

Includes:

• PDF

• musicXML

• Sibelius file

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SMARTS:

That link above’ll take you to a basic rhythm section chart.

Let’s look at how that “map” of the original turned into my arrangement.

1 - the key

Steve Perry sings the original in the key of B, which is way out of my vocal range.

I’ll play it in G (and simply capo up if I’m accompanying a singer who wants it higher).

2 - the melodies

The fun challenge of a solo show is trying to incorporate the key instrumental bits into your arrangement.

There’s the piano part:

SoundSlice here

And the synth/guitar part:

SoundSlice here

3 - one other thing

The form on the verse isn’t quite what you’d expect.

The first half of the phrase has an extra bar of the I chord:

In VERSE 1, you could cut that bar and it’d work fine.

But in VERSE 2—if you kept with a standard 8-bar 4+4 phrase—the lyric “through space and time” would be an awkward fit.

Here’s a crude edit I made to illustrate that:

And here’s the real version:

That atmospheric guitar fill makes it feel perfectly natural.

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That’s all I got this week.

See you next Wednesday,

Josh

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