Andy's Blog: Muscle Hand
Hello Reso friends and neighbors! Well Infamous Stringdusters Ski Tour 2012 is almost over. It’s been a doozy! Lot’s of fun sold old shows, friends, and amazing music with my buddies. By this point in a tour, your tired, but you’ve got what we like to call your “Muscle Hand”. When you’ve been doing 3 hours of music every night, your right hand gets really strong, and execution of difficult passages becomes easier. The weeks of shows can really catapult your playing forward. Also I’ve noticed that I get forced into being more creative as the tour goes on. We draw from maybe 50 songs, so you repeat some quite a bit. To keep things fresh and interesting, I start experimenting with what I play more. Also there is a level a comfort within the band onstage later in tours that allows for some real freedom musically. That level of comfort actually makes me play more tastefully. Sometimes at the start of a tour, I’m trying to force it a little too much, and my playing is a little more notey than I’d like. As you relax, it gets easier to leave space in your phrasing. To try different rhythmic ideas. And boy you can really notice the crowd react in a positive way when you give their ears some space. Then when you hit the ripping fast licks, they just explode! This lesson has taken me a long time to learn.
The other thing I’ll mention that may be of some interest, is the technique of listening while playing. When you first start out, and you begin to play a song, or a melody, usually the player is completely focused on what they are playing. Seems to make sense right? Learning an instrument is a challenge, so of course you use all of your focus on what you are doing. Once you begin to play with others, this focus on one’s self tends to continue, as that’s how we’ve been learning the whole time. But another technique can be introduced that can vastly improve how you play with others. That is the technique of listening to someone else while you play.The focus on what you are doing relaxes, and you include what the others are playing into your focus. A good way to see if your doing this is by playing a song with your group, and at the end, see if you can remember some things that the other musicians played. If you can, then you’re doing it. This is when making music with others really begins.
Another aspect of this can be making sure you can actually hear and listen to the lyrics that the singer is singing as it happens. I talk about this in my lessons on backing up a vocalist. One way to practice this on your own is to play with a metronome. Now, at first, when you start using a metronome, you may want to have it be pretty loud. But as you get better, not only can you adjust the tempo of the metronome, but you can bring the volume down. This increases your f depth of focus on it. It also makes you rely more on your own sense of timing, while still having to stay on track with the click.
As you develop this ability to listen while you play, you will be much more free to interact with the other musicians that you’re playing with, and you’ll be a lot of fun for the others in you group to play with! Give it a try, and let me know how it goes. Pick on!