RE: OT: Music books that transcend technique...(was Re: semi-OT: i recommend Victor Wooten's book)

["Dave Gallaher" <micdave@hiwaay.net>]

 

 

Great subject…

 

I have never seen these techniques written down before, but I have used them for a long time.  Playing the rests was something I learned from watching local r&b musicians in Atlanta in the early 1960s—they would focus and almost intonate a rest, whether is was a half a beat or five measures.  I think much of the body movement/grooving that is standard in pop music came from this field; it wasn’t a way of showing off or grabbing attention as it was enunciating a rest with movement and silence.  I play sitting down when looping, so there’s not much movement, but those rests have to be FELT.

 

Focusing on breathing/consciousness and merging that with audience consciousness is an exercise that flows effortlessly sometimes, yet is a huge struggle at others.  When it’s near-impossible to engage a distracted audience, I use the “cinema method:”  I pretend I am scoring a scene in a film, ,so by listening and looking around the room for cues, I adapt what I am playing to the moods and social architecture I see going on.  In this way, there are never ‘wasted’ nights of performing, to me.

 

I totally agree with underplaying the volume to attract listeners.  Most folks who go out regularly are so adept at filtering out amplified sound that they’ll ignore their own names being called over a PA system until someone points it out.  Soft, but emotionally and intellectually intense music will grab SOMEBODY; then that somebody will help focus others in with their attention.  An audience is thereby constructed out of a crowd, one listener at a time.

 

 

dave

 

So I tried to apply 3 aspects inferred from Wooten's book - playing the rests as well as the notes, playing quieter in a noisy bar in order to gain attention, and listening to the audience. And even tho my eyes were closed most of the time, I could actually hear and feel the audience's attention shift, even tho i don't think they were conscious of it, and they probably weren't looking at me. I believe I created several big silent spaces in their discussions where I think they were paying attention to me.


Warren