Anyone? Anyone? Voodoo Economics.

I equate dynamics with emotions, or perhaps better stated, inflection. Just as much as you wouldn’t give a speech in a monotone voice (unless you’re Ben Stein) you probably shouldn’t make a musical statement in a monotone voice, either.

In today’s technology-happy world, much of the loss of dynamics in music has to do with engineering and production. The non-profit organization Turn Me Up! advocates for a set of standards that will allow musicians to bring back more dynamics in recorded music. I’m a huge fan, personally. If any of you might have some doubts I have two words for you – Death Magnetic.

But putting production aside, adding dynamics to our own playing not only gives you more control over what you say and how you say it, but it can also open up a whole new world of exploration into your own style.

Duane Allman

Every time I hear Derek Trucks or Duane Allman play I’m completely overwhelmed and inspired by how well they have mastered dynamics. They know exactly how to get the sound they want, and it’s usually more with the hands or a very subtle tweak to the volume pot on their guitar. More importantly, their dynamics change with what they’re playing at that moment. A typical solo would go through a whole range of emotive content. You can literally feel what they are playing, so one can only imagine how powerful it must feel to them!

Time To Exercise

Don’t worry, you can keep your gym shorts in the closet. I’m talking about a little exercise to try and get some dynamics back into your playing and stop being a slave to your distortion and delay. Here’s what I want you to do:

• Turn off your compressor (if you use one).
• If the gain setting on your amp is higher than 6, turn it down to 5 or 6.
• Turn the volume pot on your guitar to 75%.
• If you have a tube amp, use it instead of a solid-state amp.

Now, I want you to play your guitar for a while, concentrating on the attack of your notes. Don’t play 800 notes a second; play slowly and listen. Hit some notes hard, some notes soft. Use your fingers to pluck some notes. Try different picks, too. Listen to each note carefully. Try to really hear and internalize how each note sounds depending on the way you play it. Play the same note on a few different strings and see how they differ depending on what picking technique you use.

What are you hearing? More importantly, how are you feeling? I’m hoping that after a few minutes you’re starting to feel like you are more in control over your sound, that your fingers and picking technique are more responsible for the sound coming out of your gear than your gear is. Control… that’s the key. You’re playing your guitar and amp rather than having to fight them for control.

To finish out this exercise, try playing with the volume and tone knobs on your guitar – subtly. We’re not looking for extremes here, we’re looking for incremental changes and how they affect your playing and sound. We’re looking for the ability to master your personal sound.

If you don’t typically play with distortion and/or effects, that’s okay, too! You can still experiment with dynamics using the pick and finger techniques I described above. Especially if you are playing an acoustic or hollowbody guitar, you can experiment with picking in different places (closer to the bridge or neck) to see what happens. Joe Pass would often pick very close to the neck – in many cases on top of it – in order to get the dynamics and tone he wanted.

I think it really comes down to whether or not you want to be in charge, or if you want to spend tons of money on gear that probably won’t satisfy the quest for your sound anyway. As many of the greats have said, the tone is in your fingers. I think that’s true, but I also think a big component of that is having your gear be the conduit for your tone and not the tone itself.

Good luck!