Playing less, and choosing only the notes that matter

[timwat]

I was listening to a live version of Mark Knopfler's Romeo and Juliet, from the concert video of his tour with Emmylou Harris (attached below). The short piano introduction (Matt Rollings, with Guy Fletcher adding some pad work) is just sublime, to my ears. And of course the song itself is just one of those genuine heart on a sleeves that I adore.

 

So then I listened to Rollings play a little Gershwin from one of his solo piano videos from his studio (also attached below). And what they both really remind me of this morning is how Rollings doesn't play crap or noodling or meaningless runs or filler.

 

Like I do all the time.

 

I hate my playing and it frustrates me.

 

I just turned down a solo piano gig I was offered in August, at least in part because I'm weary of hearing myself play sometimes.

 

The hard part isn't just to quit playing meaningless filler.

 

The harder part is the other part - choosing the right notes and the right harmony (and the right substitutions when appropriate) - or maybe "right" isn't the best term, but "great".

 

Lots of work to do, and it seems less time than ever to invest.

 

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

[CEB]

They pay me by the note. ð

[Morrissey]

I was listening to a live version of Mark Knopfler's Romeo and Juliet, from the concert video of his tour with Emmylou Harris (attached below). The short piano introduction (Matt Rollings, with Guy Fletcher adding some pad work) is just sublime, to my ears. And of course the song itself is just one of those genuine heart on a sleeves that I adore.

 

So then I listened to Rollings play a little Gershwin from one of his solo piano videos from his studio (also attached below). And what they both really remind me of this morning is how Rollings doesn't play crap or noodling or meaningless runs or filler.

 

Like I do all the time.

 

I hate my playing and it frustrates me.

 

I just turned down a solo piano gig I was offered in August, at least in part because I'm weary of hearing myself play sometimes.

 

The hard part isn't just to quit playing meaningless filler.

 

The harder part is the other part - choosing the right notes and the right harmony (and the right substitutions when appropriate) - or maybe "right" isn't the best term, but "great".

 

Lots of work to do, and it seems less time than ever to invest.

 

 

 

It is a constant battle. A pendulum. I did a gig last week in a quartet that is usually a quintet. I struggled all gig with how much busier to play to compensate for the lack of the fifth musician. The reverse of your problem: I didn't play enough notes!

 

You bring a lot of wisdom to this forum. Re-read some of your posts that have inspired others. Keep the fire for constant improvement... but cut yourself some slack, too.

[Docbop]

The quality of the notes is more important than the quantity in any kind of music. Charlie Parker played fast, but if you slow down the recording they are great lines at any tempo. Playing music is like talking it's someone and fast talkers just either BS'ing or tiring to listen to same goes in music.

[OB Dave]

You're only as good as your last gig. I occasionally take solace in the following:

 

"All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But it's like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't so good. It"s not that great. It"s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it"s not that good.

 

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.

 

Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work they went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.

 

And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you're going to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you're going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions.

 

I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I"ve ever met. It takes awhile. It"s gonna take you a while. It"s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that."

 

-- Ira Glass, on the creative process

[MathOfInsects]

Get out of my head.

[KuruPrionz]

 

The harder part is the other part - choosing the right notes and the right harmony (and the right substitutions when appropriate) - or maybe "right" isn't the best term, but "great".

 

Allow yourself the time to make the changes you want. I used to play all-out most of the time. One evening I was in the kitchen washing dishes and the television was on in the living room.

I heard one note and instantly I knew that BB King was on TV. I went into the living room and watched BB play.

 

That really hit me, I was blazing out flurries of blatherspew and BB King told me who he was with one note. It's taken a long time and I have a ways to go yet but I started trying to play something that mattered.

There is a time and a place to launch a barrage but it needs broken up by more open sounds. Tension and release, that is really what music is able to create. It is the basis for all Art, tension and release.

 

We love an emotional roller coaster ride, slowly up to the top of the track and then ZOOM!!!! back down to the bottom. Texture, we can create textures, smooth and rough. Colors, first blue then yellow. Light, darkness and then blindingly bright.

 

Allow it, it will change you. You cannot change it.

[Mark Schmieder]

Tastes change, and time offers great perspective. It's good to take a break from whatever has become routine, because it allows us to refresh, remove ourselves emotionally from any attachments we have to doing things a certain way, and then come back at it with renewed energy and inspiration.

 

I am sad to leave my jazz combo as I move to Virginia for my new job, as we have been growing like crazy since starting rehearsals and gigs again after the 15 month COVID lockdown. Each of us had new approaches to bring to the table, and we all improved ensemble-wise, as listeners, and in tasteful choice of intros/endings and when not to play.

 

Less is more. Almost always. But now and then there's a complex signature line that makes a song what it is, whether or not it's the lead instrument for that song or not. Time tells us when that's true or when it's something that distracts from where the listener's focus should be.

 

I just re-recorded a bunch of bass parts this past week, some of which were for other people's projects where they had sketched the general concept themselves. In every case, I simplified, stopped doubling-up on rhythms other instruments were playing, and found that it allowed everything to poke through the mix better, with higher energy and a better "story" from start to finish.

 

During COVID, I did the same thing with my keyboard parts. It takes a lot of experience though, to know where to draw the line between overplaying and underplaying.

[skipeb3]

Saying the most with the least. I'm all for it. Two words for ya... Spooner Oldham.

[Baldwin Funster]

It depends on who the intended audience is. The reason some of our favorite overplayers continue to have successful careers is that their following wants to hear alot of notes. I guess you could say in their case just the right notes but in large quantities. Allan Holdworth played alot of notes. His audience wouldn't have any other way. Lindsay Buckingham plays many fewer notes. And sold many MORE records. So there seems to be some kind of inverse proportion going on as far as record sales.

[KuruPrionz]

I just thought of a great musician who told us all who he was by what he didn't play - Thelonious Monk.

 

His timing of silence was profound but a huge part of it was how well he played notes too.

[GRollins]

The "less is more" line is a mental trap, frequently used as a guilt trip/mind control technique by those who can't keep up. Can you imagine John Coltrane's response to someone telling him "too many notes?" Probably not printable.

 

It all boils down to what kind of music you're playing. If you're playing, say, a children's sing-along song, then less is definitely more. Row, row, row your boat does not need a lot of fancy filigree...ever. It destroys the intention of the song. Stick to the basics.

 

If you're playing Miles Davis, say, So What, then you've got two choices: Play it as it came off the record, in which case you're going to walk in the footsteps of those who came before, or take it as a jazz tune, meaning stretch and improvise...probably calling for a sorta medium level of improvisation; not too crazy.

 

Yet something by Keith Jarrett would tax even accomplished players, yes?

 

If someone else is telling you that you play too much, it may be a sign that you need to find different people to play with. If you're telling yourself that you play too much, you may need to realign yourself vis-a-vis your preferred musical genre--find simpler music to play. Sometimes that messes with your self image; who you think you are as a musician. I, for instance, adore classical music, but would be an ambulatory disaster as a classical musician. I would take too many liberties with the music. I know this about myself, so aside from learning a few riffs here and there as "how do they do that?" exercises, I avoid playing classical--I just listen to it. (And play air conductor, but don't tell anybody.)

 

Yes, there are people who play too much...in my opinion. My personal bane is people who play scales at light speed, but only scales. Nothing but scales. Ever. Scales quickly get boring at any speed, fast or slow. Show me someone who can develop a melody. Then I'm open to slow, fast, or mid-tempo, depending on the melody itself and the skill of the player.

 

It all depends on the music. I can't imagine Close To The Edge with Rick Wakeman replaced by a third grade music teacher with only rudimentary piano skills. Conversely, I'm sure Wakeman would be happy to play songs for his granddaughter's elementary school class...once. But it would drive him absolutely stark raving bonkers to do that sort of thing all day, every day.

 

Grey

[Outkaster]

There is a a lot of overplaying around. I see it everywhere. A lot of people don't understand their role in the music.

[Dr Mike Metlay]

I play in very, VERY different genres than everyone else here, and I have never been a technically strong player (for reasons of both physical limitation and criminal lack of proper training and practice). However, I very much subscribe to the idea that playing style, including how much you do or don't play, should serve the song and the setting. For my setting, these rules have never steered me wrong:

 

"Listen twice, play once."

 

or in some cases

 

"Listen three times and shut up."

 

I don't value silence nearly enough in my work. In fact, I launched a series of live concerts entitled "Journey Into Silence" that were to be particularly aimed at encouraging this process, and every single one of them has been a dismal failure. I've been a DJ too long, and the words "dead air" are like hearing the rattle of a rattlesnake nearby.

[CEB]

[video:youtube]

[Al Quinn]

It"s often more important how you say it than what you say. There are so many players with really good material that come up short with the presentation of their material. On the other hand great players can play the simplest material and give people goosebumps. I think it"s less a matter of the amount of notes, which is the material, and more a matter of how the material is presented by the player.

[GovernorSilver]

Have you tried limitation exercises?

 

https://lessons.bobreynoldsmusic.com/improvising-with-only-4-notes/

 

[video:youtube]

 

I'm sure more ideas for limitation exercise can be found with Google. I first heard about this in discussions of Wayne Krantz's book:

https://waynekrantz.bandcamp.com/merch/wayne-krantz-an-improvisers-os-2nd-edition

 

Wayne is unlikely to be the inventor of this stuff - I'm sure people were doing it years before he published the first edition of his book.

[GovernorSilver]

The other issue might be ear training and harmony studies. I've had several professional level improvising musicians tell me that more serious ear training and harmony studies (one swears by Barry Harris harmonic concepts) transformed them from "pattern runner" improvisers to more lyrical players. I can hear it for sure in one case - when I first heard his playing, he was a total pattern runner - just running patterns as fast as he can. Nowadays his playing is much closer to George Benson (in serious jazz mode, not pop mode)

 

I am not at their level on any of the instruments I play but I've noticed improvements after more focused work on ear training (interval recognition) and getting more familiar with the chord changes (esp. any voice leading I can hear or imagine) of a tune before attempting to improvise on that tune.

[confidence]

I don't think economy is the reason that Gershwin sounds good (I've only listened to The Man I Love at the beginning). It sounds good because he makes subtle, musical and interesting chord choices and voices them with sensitivity to the instrument. Somebody who did all that AND had real jazz chops with more ease and flow and ability to incorporate a wider technical vocabulary, would probably sound even better.

[o0Ampy0o]

The blues has been played the same tried and true way by many for a long long long time. It can all sound the same. While Stevie Ray Vaughn is famous for his leads as well as his tone, there is a recording floating around of him playing rhythm guitar durng a special live performance with other blues musicians. When he played rhythm it was beautifully melodic yet sparse laying the backdrop for the other musicians to take the spotlight playing lead. He gets a lot of attention for his screaming leads. Although some may be equals no one played rhythm better than he could. In the context of rhythm he perfectly kept within his place in musical space using interesting phrasing and carefully timed silence.

 

 

...Allan Holdworth played alot of notes. His audience wouldn't have any other way. Lindsay Buckingham plays many fewer notes. And sold many MORE records. So there seems to be some kind of inverse proportion going on as far as record sales.

It is likely that Buckingham sold more records because he joined a band that was already famous and popular and together they created music that has been appealing to the masses. Buckingham has always been more main stream. The notes he plays are more predictable and common. His style also allows people to perceive when he is playing with a lot of heart. He can be a showman live but he successfully conveys his emotion in his studio performances, compositions and lyrics.

 

Holdsworth was always that virtuoso tumbling legato played most frequently in fusion, a very different / foreign genre incomprehensible to more people than not. Holdsworth's leads were story arcs in a different language. There were emotional peaks but unless you understood the language you might not be able to distinguish one sentence from another.

[nadroj]

As the old cliché goes: It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play.

 

I think many of us suffer from this. Perhaps it comes from a misplaced desire to impress, or to show that we're as cool as our favourite players, when we aren't. Two incidents stick out to me relating to this topic:

 

1) Studying at music college. For one mid-term performance exam I played "Peace Piece" by Bill Evans. There are a few quick atonal runs (most of which I memorised and played) but not a lot in there that requires shredding or super fast runs of any kind. I got to the end of it, and one of the lecturers (a vocalist) said to me: "It sounded lovely, and you played it with expression, but at this stage I want to see more of this", which was followed by her mimicking someone shredding notes all over a keyboard. The other examiner next to her, a jazz guy, gave her a funny look and gave me a sympathetic, "well done" nod. [The thing that annoys me about this is if she wanted me to play that kind of stuff, why on earth did she approve of that tune for my exam in the first place? Not that I'm still bitter or anything...] The fact that this one incident sticks so vividly in my head years later leads me to believe that that moment created a kind of musical complex in me, when I genuinely feel if I'm not playing fast, impressive runs, I'm not being musical...which of course, is bullshit. It's made worse by the fact that years later I still can't really do that kind of stuff.

 

2) A wedding gig years ago. Our normal guitarist was off, so I took the solo in a medium tempo pop tune. I can't remember which one, but again, I remember the reaction. It was a simple tune that would have been easy just to play melodies over, but that complex kicked in and I started riffing over some of my most well memorised blues licks, and just started spewing musical diahorea, really. The drummer (who I was close friends with at the time, so he was comfortable enough with me to say this) actually shouted out to me mid solo, loud enough to be heard over the monitor mix: (pardon my french, I'm quoting him vertabim as I remember it so clearly: "Why the fuck are you playing all of that blues shit? It's a pop song.". Quite the opposite from the above, I learned in that moment that just because you can doesn't mean you should.

 

When I joined my current ska/funk/soul band, at the time I was the youngest member in the band by far - 20-30 years younger than everyone else, and as a result, the least experienced. The first thing I noticed was that in their solos (of which there are a lot in that band) they just played melodies. Simple melodies, that worked. They sat well with the chords, anticipated the changes, and while the base solos were similar every night, even when they were improvising they very seldom played anything quicker than 8th notes, or 16th triplets. I was listening to one live recording last week, and the sax player (the oldest member in the band, and very, very good) played just ONE NOTE for several bars, varying the rhythm. I hadn't even noticed when we were on stage because it sounded so freaking good in conjunction with the rest of what was going on.

The trombonist is also a keyboard player, trained to a very high level. He and the singer lay a demo down for a new song, and did a simple piano solo in it. Again, it was all just melody, and I was struck by how simple it was, but also how good it sounded. When I tried to make up my own solos for that tune in rehearsal, they sounded utter crap compared to what he did. We played the same notes, but it was like every note he played was deliberate, creating simple melodies that referenced the main melody, worked well with the changes and just generally fit with the theme of the song. I don't think he played anything outside of the major pentatonic.

 

Shaun Martin from Snarky Puppy once said "If you can't sing it, it ain't good", and that guy can shred. But one thing I've found from transcribing his solos is that even when he's shredding 52nd note riffs over 13 different keys, they're still singable. I can sing plenty of his and Cory's solos because even though they often go outside of the key and even sound atonal at times, they're still pretty singable.

 

That was a big post. Sorry for making it about me. Tim, you are not alone, as several other posts here have shown. We're all musicians on a journey, and the wonderful but maddening thing about music (particularly jazz and other types of improvisatory styles) is that you're never there. You'll never know everything, never have it all together, never be perfect, ever, until the day you die. There will always be some way to improve, always be something you can work on, always be someway you can be better. And that's okay.

 

I'll finish with another colourful quote a rather drunk Mike League (again, of Snarky Puppy fame) said to me at 4am after a late night set at Edinburgh's jazz club a few years ago:

 

"At first you sound really shitty. Then you play a bit more, and you start to sound a bit less shitty. Eventually you still sound shitty, but nowhere near as shitty as you were when you first started. You might always sound shitty, but the important thing is that you're growing enough to consistently sound less shitty than you were before."

[AnotherScott]

Holdsworth was always that virtuoso tumbling legato played most frequently in fusion, a very different / foreign genre incomprehensible to more people than not. Holdsworth's leads were story arcs in a different language. There were emotional peaks but unless you understood the language you might not be able to distinguish one sentence from another.

Interesting... I generally don't like super fast guitar work... but Holdsworth is probably the only exception. Even despite the fact that I hate most jazz. But his lines just speak to me. But also, he isn't consistently fast, his leads mix up the tempos, it's not merely a constant barrage of notes.

[16251]

Hearing Holdsworth being mentioned made me think of RTF. I'll take Bill Connors over Al Di Meola any day of the week. Al is great, of course (who am I to judge any maestro,) but when I'm in the mood for fusion RTF, I go for Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy.

[GRollins]

I find it interesting that the title of the thread is "Playing less, and choosing only the notes that matter," which says nothing whatsoever about speed...yet inevitably a number of people instantly started piling on the speed-is-bad bandwagon. You can play less, but still play fast...for instance, by leaving gaps in fast flurries of notes. And you can play only the notes that matter fast...or slow, of course, depending on the needs of the tune.

 

I was talking with a guitarist that I met in a music store. I'd heard him play and thought we might have something in common. I asked him what sort of music he liked. The answer was Steve Vai. I asked what he found in Vai's playing that spoke to him. His response was that Vai always played "the right note." I found this an interesting response for a number of reasons, not least because Vai is a fairly flashy player, yet his music obviously worked for the fellow I was talking to. (For the record, I prefer Vai's teacher, Satriani.)

 

What notes are the "right" notes and how fast to play them will vary depending on the style of music, the player, and the listener. To me, that seems painfully obvious, yet others feel differently so maybe it's not so obvious after all.

 

At this point I'll bow out of the thread. There are clearly people that have entrenched positions that speed is always bad (even when they confess to liking players who aren't/weren't shy about doing a fast run or two, e.g. Coltrane, Corea, et. al., not to mention any number of pieces of classical music such as Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto); it's not worth having arguments about and the last month has been stressful enough already. You guys/gals have fun.

 

Grey

[rickzjamm]

Was Matt Rollings playing a Yamaha in the Knopfler video?

[o0Ampy0o]

Was Matt Rollings playing a Yamaha in the Knopfler video?

At 1:02 the side of the piano says "Yamaha" however before that when the camera is a close up of him from behind while playing it appears to be a digital keyboard in a fake grand piano body. At :25 you see the pitch bend / mod wheels on the left side and a screen in the middle. Maybe some form of Motif?

[o0Ampy0o]

Holdsworth was always that virtuoso tumbling legato played most frequently in fusion, a very different / foreign genre incomprehensible to more people than not. Holdsworth's leads were story arcs in a different language. There were emotional peaks but unless you understood the language you might not be able to distinguish one sentence from another.

Interesting... I generally don't like super fast guitar work... but Holdsworth is probably the only exception. Even despite the fact that I hate most jazz. But his lines just speak to me. But also, he isn't consistently fast, his leads mix up the tempos, it's not merely a constant barrage of notes.

He definitely was a soulful musician with a unique voice regardless of any other classification. I loved how his guitar could sing out and how he varied his intensity. To me his "tone" was quintessential progressive rock. Some of that "tone" came from his "touch" on the fretboard, what he did with his fingertips. He said he thought of playing sax as he played guitar. I could imagine a sax playing the same way. He even seemed to break up what he was doing as though he was taking a breath in like a sax player.

 

I cannot recall whether it was the band UK or Jean Luc Ponty's band where I discovered him. I was less interested in his solo material. He said he left UK because they wanted him to play the songs the same way each performance while he wanted to improvise freely. To me at least, he was like a prolific author who needed a good editor. I found him more appealing when he was more restricted to a structure. When completely free on his own I found him less interesting like it was too much of something good making it not as good. (My personal speculation and opinion of course).

[KuruPrionz]

I find it interesting that the title of the thread is "Playing less, and choosing only the notes that matter," which says nothing whatsoever about speed...yet inevitably a number of people instantly started piling on the speed-is-bad bandwagon. You can play less, but still play fast...for instance, by leaving gaps in fast flurries of notes. And you can play only the notes that matter fast...or slow, of course, depending on the needs of the tune.

 

I was talking with a guitarist that I met in a music store. I'd heard him play and thought we might have something in common. I asked him what sort of music he liked. The answer was Steve Vai. I asked what he found in Vai's playing that spoke to him. His response was that Vai always played "the right note." I found this an interesting response for a number of reasons, not least because Vai is a fairly flashy player, yet his music obviously worked for the fellow I was talking to. (For the record, I prefer Vai's teacher, Satriani.)

 

What notes are the "right" notes and how fast to play them will vary depending on the style of music, the player, and the listener. To me, that seems painfully obvious, yet others feel differently so maybe it's not so obvious after all.

 

At this point I'll bow out of the thread. There are clearly people that have entrenched positions that speed is always bad (even when they confess to liking players who aren't/weren't shy about doing a fast run or two, e.g. Coltrane, Corea, et. al., not to mention any number of pieces of classical music such as Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto); it's not worth having arguments about and the last month has been stressful enough already. You guys/gals have fun.

 

Grey

 

Speed is a tool. I use it. What I learned is to use other things as well. I was a speed demon and I don't regret doing it but full expression requires a range of musical approaches. I'm comfortable to play a note here and there now. Whatever serves the song, that's what I try to do. I sing some tunes in the gigging band, that makes you more aware of not crowding out the vocals. When it's good, I am not thinking a single thing, just responding the moment or moving it to another place depending. The band are all "floaters" so somebody can shift gears and everybody else just finds a new place to be. The groove is what matters sometimes, at least at the gigs I play. The freedom brings some interesting approaches. Maybe my job at the moment is to pop up with a "chunk-chunka" every now and then like clockwork. Even with fewer band members, if you can make a groove out of almost nothing that's magic. If you explode into space later, that's magic too.

[Tusker]

Thanks to Tim, who raised a very important question. I struggle with this too. On the question of the right number of notes, I am increasingly turning to Kenny Werner's philosophy in "effortless mastery." It won't get me from conscious incompetence to unconscious competence by magic, but it provides a path. The struggle and the leaving behind of the struggle are parts of the journey.

[Al Coda]

the most important note is bank note !

 

A.C.