Hello fellow players,
I got so many emails praising Bob Hempkers insights into pedal steel guitar playing that Im going to let Bob do an entire series of newsletters for me. Take it away Bob.
We got several questions from readers concerning the last newsletter and Id like to answer a couple of them. One person asked how important it was to play exactly like the recording when you sub or sit-in with the artist who recorded the song.
When in doubt, if you know how the recorded arrangement went, start with that. Singers are all different. Some of them want their material played just like the record and some of them dont. To cover yourself, if you can beforehand, know the recorded arrangement.
If the singer wants it done differently, you just sort of have to wing it.
One other thing that you might encounter is the signature licks on the recorded arrangement may have to be played in a different key since the singer has raised or lowered the key since they recorded it. For example, Ray Price, Loretta and Little Jimmy Dickens have all lowered their keys.
This is another reason you should practice songs in different keys when youre learning them. Boy Scouts arent the only ones who have to be prepared. Musicians do too.
Another example is if you have a female singer singing a hit song that a male artist originally recorded or vice versa, you can bet it will be in a different key. A female singer in many cases will raise the key a perfect fourth. For example, if a song is normally done in the key of C by a male singer, a female singer will want to sing it in F. This is not etched in stone, but it does happen frequently. You can use it as a guideline.
One of the responses came from a lifelong friend of mine named Wayne Kaiser. Wayne, I remember sitting in as a kid with you and your brothers Louie and Ross. Wayne played steel, Louie played bass and Ross played accordion. Thanks for putting up with me as a kid.
When I left off on the last newsletter, I was getting ready to talk about fills, turnarounds, solos and endings.
The main thing about playing fills behind a singer is to not play over top of the singer, to play between the singers phrases. Again, you have to listen to whats going on besides just listening to yourself.
Sometimes you will get in a rotation with the other lead instrument youre playing with. If you play fills on the verse, the guitar player or fiddle player will play fills on the chorus and you rotate around until it comes back to you. Some songs have little signature licks that maybe youre playing parts with the guitar with.
Again, listen to whats going on, keep eye contact with the different players in the band. If youre playing parts with someone, try to blend with them, you need match their volume, their phrasing and play in tune with them.
Some songs have lines that you may want to echo the singer with a melodic echo of what theyre singing. Every song has a different feel to it so get involved in the song and the feeling of the song will take over. Its about working as a team on stage instead of one person show-boating by himself.
Now lets address turnarounds. Sometimes a song just calls for a simple four or eight bar turnaround. You may play it all yourself or you may play half of it and another lead instrument play the other half of it.
One neat thing I like about working clubs where people are dancing is normally the rule of thumb is each lead instrument will play a whole chorus and youll have a whole solo to yourself. In a club if people are dancing, they want you to stretch the song out as long as you can.
I look at this as great practice because youre having to play the melody of the song without sometimes really knowing the song. It also gives you a chance to play around the melody and improvise.
As far as endings are concerned, in the situation where youre winging it, again make eye contact with everyone else who is onstage, listen and you will hear when the end is coming and act accordingly. Again, keep your eye on the singer. Sometimes they will repeat or tag the last line. Sometimes they wont.
You dont want to play over them if theyre going to tag it and thus end it while theyre still singing. On the other hand, if they are going to end it, you dont want to keep on playing after theyve ended it. The importance of good bandstand communication is vital for a band to sound like a band.
Weve all heard bands where half the band sounds like theyre playing one song and the other half sounds like theyre playing another song. They dont teach bandstand communication at any music school, you have to learn it through experience.
Every time you sit down to play, you learn something. Ive never met anybody that I couldnt learn something from, even some simple little thing they might play a little bit different than I would.
Again, Bobbes DVD Intros, Fills and Turnarounds is a great resource. www.steelguitar.net/videos.html
This is Bob Hempker substituting for Bobbe Seymour.
Check out our monthly specials at http://www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and well try to save you a lot of money.
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