Rehearsal Rehearsal

What Do You Say?

Yesterday’s Bonus Round: The subtitle question was: What’s it to me? Answer: It’s “Something To Me”, by Tift Merritt, the first cut on her 2008 album “Another Country”. Tift Merritt is a singer/songwriter/musician who has a long career, her songs generally fall into the Americana/country category. The album “Another Country” is packed with some of my favorites of hers - definitely check out “Broken”!!

Yesterday we introduced the topic of rehearsing for rehearsal. I kinda dislike the term practice - but it’s practice until mastering the basics such as “cowboy” chords (the easier ones on the top 3 or 4 frets):

Also, changing chords on the beat, a basic knowledge of root/scale/tonic/chords/key and how to converse with other musicians about them, and how find, print, and play to a chord chart or tab - after being able to do these tasks, practice can transition to rehearsal.

Practice as rehearsal doesn’t have to be solely for an upcoming performance - it’s more of a mindset, a goal to achieve: making any song you learn “performance grade”, even if you never publicly perform it. Let’s look at some situations where you might publicly perform the song you’re rehearsing. Friends and family are great audiences - pretty forgiving usually if you prang a note, don’t quite hit the beat on a chord change, lose your place, etc. If you know someone on the Acapella app, even (especially!) your guitar instructor, you can send a private link of a performance so only you and the recipient can see it. From there you can have a conversation about tempo, timing, key changes, capoing, problem areas. If you’re jamming with friends, you may not know what songs are going to be part of the jam, it’s ok to sit one out and learn by watching and listening - most folks who are good at jamming and improvising are more than willing to share and teach a little. Be a good listener and take it all in, remembering as you get better to pass it along to other beginners in a helpful way. Jamming is an especially good place to put into play pentatonic scales, blues scales, blues rhythms, basic 12 bar blues structure, and anything you’re especially good at: fingerpicking, a variety of strumming patterns, percussive playing are examples.

If the terms in the last paragraph are unfamiliar - stay “tuned”, and don’t “fret” (guitarist puns….)! We’ll be covering the basics of all of them, but only in a familiarity fashion. Learning in depth to a rehearsal/performance level is the reason(!) you have a guitar instructor!!

If you’re rehearsing with bandmates for a live performance, it’s definitely time to bring your “A” game. That means a lot of rehearsal rehearsal, with a chord chart or tab utilizing the key, tempo, timing and rhythms you’ve agreed on. Here’s where that “music theory as a language between musicians” becomes especially important. Remember, the keyboardist/pianist, drummer and bass player don’t particularly care or even know your “chord shapes” and which ones are difficult for you. Knowing how to capo to a fret that has easier chord shapes while remaining in the same key as everyone else is really important. If you happened to watch Tift Merritt play “Something To Me” live (lots of examples on Chordify, and I presume YouTube), check out where she’s capoed in order to play GMaj “shapes” for a song written in BMaj. It ain’t cheatin’ if you’re winning! The important thing to remember when rehearsing with bandmates is to be flexible, don’t get frustrated with changes, negotiate respectfully when you need to, and most of all, show up on time and prepared!

So, what happens when you’re totally unprepared for a key change to a song? You can probably adjust to a tempo change easily, maybe it will sound better picked than strummed, or strummed than picked, but a surprise key change can be tough. Next week I’ll give you some tools to get through it gracefully in as little time as possible. We’ll be charting a course through Nashville!! If that’s a little cryptic, make sure you’re here next Thursday and Friday - I’ll bring gifts!!

Links In Pesky Emails (building on yesterday’s post): Acoustic Guitar Magazine - the superhero of acoustic guitar publications. I’m subscribed and I don’t know if you can get on their email list without a subscription, but totally worth it for acoustic guitarists, IMHO. No financial interest on my part, but check out my interview with AG editor Mr. Adam Perlmutter from Feb 4th in the (archive) for more insight.

Songtrust: Songtrust is a publishing administrator service - lots of great articles about collecting your royalties!! Looks like a free signup.

Bonus Round: A beautiful song by an absolute legend in acoustic Americana/country and her famous band.

Cheers, and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic