The wrong instrument

Tannin · April 2023

I watch a lot of guitar stuff on Youtube, stuff from all sorts of genres, from jazz to flamenco and everything in between. It's all useful in different ways, even though (sometimes especially though) I don't play those styles.

But even more useful, I often think, is all the stuff I watch teaching me how to play the "wrong" instrument.

Here is the inspirational Paul Thompson teaching bass - in this example electric bass, but he mainly teaches upright bass

Now I'm not a bass player (I used to be but that was 30 years ago) and I've never been an upright bass player, but I find Paul's videos really thought provoking. I watch something about playing (say) upright bass in a bebop context and find a few days later that it is giving me something new and exciting playing acoustic guitar in (say) a rock/folk context.

Piano lessons teach me all sorts of things about harmony and chord structures. (I haven't played piano since the 1960s as a child. Doesn't matter. I get good, usable ideas. That is the important thing.)

And so on.

So what are the "wrong instrument" lessons you find useful as a guitariast?

Roland · April 2023

Brass - harmonic stabs, breathing, phrasing
Bass - movements below a chord progression
Strings - sweetened notes
Sax - breathing, swells, and breathing

axisus · April 2023

I enjoyed that, thanks for posting. The Bee Gees were amazing, and I particularly love their disco hits. I've never given Maurice that much thought before, definitely less than the other two, so nice to hear that he made positive contributions to the whole BGs thing.

Tannin · April 2023

^ Yes @axisus I hadn't realised he was more than just a face, some manicured hair. some dance steps, and another layer in the harmony. We all put shit on disco (well, I do!) but it did great things for bass, and I'm not ashamed to say that as a fingerstyle acoustic player I try to have a "disco thumb" holding down the bass while I do the other stuff with my fingers.

AntonHunter · April 2023

Transcribing trumpet and sax solos is really great, quite commonplace for jazz of course, but well worth it!

stickyfiddle · April 2023

I find whenever I start watching videos of the wrong instrument it leads to me buying one…

But I totally agree on horn parts - there’s nothing better to help guitarists learn the power of restraint. My upbringing on clarinet & sax are a big part of why I play how I do, I think

ICBM · April 2023

Not a huge amount - I barely know theory for guitar, let alone anything else! - but I learned to play the minor pentatonic blues scale on guitar from my dad's old jazz trumpet book, and because (obviously) the finger positions are entirely unrelated, I simply worked out where to fit the notes onto the fingerboard, which turned out to be 'backwards' compared to most guitarists, with the root at the top not the bottom. To this day I still play my standard pentatonic box shape like that. Interestingly this seemed to make learning 50s-style rock'n'roll solos easier, when I later joined that sort of band.

everest · April 2023

I got pretty obsessed a while ago with working out how afrobeat "works" and I watched a load of videos about Tony Allen's drum style and how to mimic it. Not the most directly applicable to the guitar but I really think having broader rhythmic options has opened up my improvisations way more than chasing endlessly more sophisticated melodic / harmonic ideas. (it's also super interesting and great fun for messing about programming drums in a DAW!)

Tannin · September 2023

I just watched this one:

and now I'm sizzling with interesting new ideas to try out.

Cranky · September 2023

Roland said:

Brass - harmonic stabs, breathing, phrasing
Bass - movements below a chord progression
Strings - sweetened notes
Sax - breathing, swells, and breathing

What does that mean, “below a chord progression”?

viz · September 2023

^ playing a bass “tune” that isn’t just the root notes of the harmony. Including walking bass, inversions, passing notes, etc.

viz · September 2023

I really like this guy, Joel McCray. He comes at things from certain jazzy short-cut ways of thinking and then connects them to theory afterwards, which I find fascinating.

https://youtu.be/VowsMEUvryY?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/X0O7GeSFVt8?feature=shared

viz · September 2023

Another thing is singing.

You know when you’re in the garden on a sunny day and there’s a glinting light in the periphery of your vision and you don’t notice it at first because it flashes on and off but when you become aware of it you try and locate it, and at first it’s infuriating because you can’t quite get it, and then suddenly you find it and it’s a reflection of sunlight from something - maybe a little piece of mirror from a garden ornament or a tiny bit of glass in the soil - and you get your head in exactly the right place and manage to fix it there for a few moments and stare right into it, and you get this blinding glare and it’s just wonderful, it fills your whole view with neon greens and laser reds and blinding yellows and electric blues, it’s like a super saturated technicolour view of the corona of a full solar eclipse, and there’s no stronger light in the universe?

Well I used to get the same sensation when singing, unaccompanied in a choir, when the two treble voices happen to hit that perfectly just interval, like a major 3rd or something, exactly 5/4 times apart in frequency. It’s like 1.2500001 or 1.2499999 just doesn’t cut it, but them suddenly you hit that 1.25 and a ray of pure sound is beamed directly into your brain so that it almost hurts and you want to stay in that moment for ever.

It’s great when you get that on the guitar. We should really play 12-tet to keep in tune with our frets, but it’s such a moment of magic when we hit a just interval.

guitarjack66 · September 2023

viz said:

Another thing is singing.

You know when you’re in the garden on a sunny day and there’s a glinting light in the periphery of your vision and you don’t notice it at first because it flashes on and off but when you become aware of it you try and locate it, and at first it’s infuriating because you can’t quite get it, and then suddenly you find it and it’s a reflection of sunlight from something - maybe a little piece of mirror from a garden ornament or a tiny bit of glass in the soil - and you get your head in exactly the right place and manage to fix it there for a few moments and stare right into it, and you get this blinding glare and it’s just wonderful, it fills your whole view with neon greens and laser reds and blinding yellows and electric blues, it’s like a super saturated technicolour view of the corona of a full solar eclipse, and there’s no stronger light in the universe?

Well I used to get the same sensation when singing, unaccompanied in a choir, when the two treble voices happen to hit that perfectly just interval, like a major 3rd or something, exactly 5/4 times apart in frequency. It’s like 1.2500001 or 1.2499999 just doesn’t cut it, but them suddenly you hit that 1.25 and a ray of pure sound is beamed directly into your brain so that it almost hurts and you want to stay in that moment for ever.

It’s great when you get that on the guitar. We should really play 12-tet to keep in tune with our frets, but it’s such a moment of magic when we hit a just interval.

You are privileged to have a voice that invites wildlife into your garden rather than one like mine which forces them into migration. Whether they are migratory or not!

fretmeister · September 2023

Anything that needs breathing into.

Teaches phrasing so well.

For bass I use Trombone transcriptions. Close enough register and fun to play.

roberty · September 2023

I started on woodwind and I sing, and I seem to take breaths between phrases on the guitar. No idea if it helps. My approach is probably a bit different to many players

blobb · September 2023

I watched quite a few harp videos a while ago. Such a beautiful sound if done right, Welsh triple harp & steel string Clarsach. I sort of absorbed some of the plucking dynamics into my playing style.

roberty · September 2023

I've found the Nicki Benedetti violin videos interesting from a technique/practice perspective

Also this video about violin GAS which helps put guitar GAS into perspective

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The wrong instrument

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