Tuesday, September 12, 2017

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 499 #543)

Accompany by Sustaining!!!

Always be working on your accompaniment playing - you'll do far more of that than soloing on stage and it's always best to add to the music, not duplicate what other instruments are doing or detract. Because the rhythm section usually has the shuffle well in hand, you often want to do something different. As Joe says, think of the music as layers, like a pizza. If there is already a crust, should you add another one to it? Probably not.

So do an "organ sustain", which is a chord or notes from each of the chords of the progression. This is also great breathing exercise. The other thing you can do is "train whistle sustain" which is a cluster of notes in a chordal effect that are played in a sustained way. The difference from the organ sustain is that this is often more dissonant - think head or tongue shakes - and also may not change at every chord change.

Practice your sustains!

Class Notes

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German Harmonicas And The Blues

German Harmonicas And The Blues – A Concert & Book Reading With Grammy Award Winner Peter Madcat Ruth And Author Herbert Quelle

Get your tickets now for Madcat Ruth at Dankhaus, October 6.

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew