Every instrument can be used to solo, that is, play a melody line that dominates the other players. Alas, this leads to people who try to accompany others in a band while still playing essentially a solo part they think is turned down enough. Well, it ain’t. I’ve never yet seen a music teacher focus on accompaniment parts, though they do give it lip service. There isn’t an instrumentalist out there that hasn’t dreamed of a hit solo.
The problem surfaces when that mentality is applied to band membership. There is no place I know of that you can study the different ways you’d play your instrument in a duo, or a trio, or a larger band. I suggest that is why too many rock bands sound like a bunch of soloists in collusion. The reality of the matter is that in a band, the part each person plays usually is far simpler than what would be played as a solo. This is so obscure it is rare to meet even a virtuoso who understands the concept.
Well, JJ is right on schedule with the expected. He feels that the piano riffs he is playing on my tunes are too unprofessional on stage. That is, I think, totally due to his experience playing solo to the auto-chord feature and he’s conditioned his ear to hear that full orchestra. His instinct is to go for as full a solo sound as possible. He has zero experience in keeping it simple, no experience in the most effective musical technique in the world—letting the audience fill in the blanks.
As a band manager, I’ve gone through this transition countless times. In a duo, each “soloist” has to simplify their part to allow for the other components to mesh. This sounds to some like detraction from playing, but in fact it is a subtle chance to add notes or frills that get left out when soloing. They are not there unless you know how to listen for them, but anyone who listens to me play bass knows how nice it is to hear those extras.
The reality of the matter is that JJ’s piano parts are excellent. I know, I showed them to him. But I have to be careful around touchy egos since I can really play piano as a soloist. I’ve shown him how to punch out a piano line in the lower to mid-range octaves that lends a driving energy to the overall sound. But he is not yet able to hear it for himself and only hears how sparse it sound when he tries to “solo” the part after I’m gone for the day. That’s par, for most keyboardists can’t play such riffs until they are shown how.
Like many who have never deeply contemplated why some bands are successful, JJ doesn’t understand how to blend in with others all that well. Hey, at least he’s not a guitarist with a mental block that it is everybody else that doesn’t get it. In a good band, the individual parts are indeed thinner than usual by as many members as in the group, or you get people overplaying the band. I know there is progress in the sense that JJ asked if I would give him a recording of myself doing the bass parts to a drum beat.
No chance. That amounts to musical suicide. If I do that, I’ll never see the other guy again. That would be handing somebody an original backup band. I cautiously make sure I teach nobody anything they can run away with, I tend to build in assurances that what I teach only sounds good to my bass playing. Some may say that is hard-nosed, but hey, they are supposed to be joining a band, not getting free music lessons out of me. At the same time, I’m making concessions to obey my own rules when I learn the songs they want to play. I understand each person in a band is his own dictator.
Now pay attention as the wryest smile in twenty years creeps onto my face. I’m reading a novel with the author has discovered my mating call, or at least made a credible story out of my technique. Don’t get me wrong, every man and woman has their own way of communicating sexual overtures and I stand by my assertion that I have never had to talk a woman into the sack. The book is called “Scent of Danger” by Andrea Kane, and the relevant details are in chapter 11.
As she presents it, Kane is just writing about a casual encounter but had my methods down to a tee. Ignoring her constant insinuation that only smooth, wealthy, socialites have sophisticated moves and there I saw my reflection. Like myself, the man never mentions sex or propositions a single thing. He’s wise enough to merely create the circumstances and a decent woman will put the make on herself. A fantastically successful ritual, I can confirm, and it weeds out the losers. If a man is at fault for it, a woman is equally at fault for the same.
The rest of the book is a good mystery, if a little stereotyped. The police are right off basic cable and you have to regularly put up with the annoying fallacy that rich, conservative parents produce superior offspring. All the main characters are wrapped up in the self-love typified by American corporate culture. To a one, they have impeccable taste in steaks and wine, know every vogue catch-phrase, and would be devoured by their own irrepressible creativity if not for golf, yoga and oriental massage. It’s a wonder how they find time for all that inner city charity work where, disguised in dungarees, they so instantly behold each other’s true merit.
Could be the designer labels?
