A supernova

It’s always fascinating to me how you can find the most profound lessons (about life, music, whatever) from the most seemingly unlikely places and events. The “light bulb” moments that, unfortunately, don’t come along as often as they probably should, and yet when they do, a fundamental paradigm shift occurs and rockets us forward to the next point of our journey.

One of these profound lessons – related to music – happened to me this past weekend, and it happened while playing in perhaps one of the most un-guitar situations you could ever possibly think of.

Ambient electronica music.

For those of you unfamiliar with ambient music, the best analogy I can think of would be the kind of “music” you would probably expect to hear if you were hanging out in outer space. Very slow, minimalist, electronica music, centered around synthesizers and slow-changing themes. Basically, trying to get the instruments you use to not sound like the instruments you are using.

I’m over-simplifying, of course, but that’s only because I don’t want to get bogged down in the definition; the lesson is more important.

Anyway, so I was hanging out with my friend John. He is an exceptional electronica musician who specializes in ambient music. I love his music, and this weekend I went to his place just to hang out and talk some shop. Nothing specific, just picking his brain, asking him some questions about gear and synthesis that I have been having trouble wrapping my head around, etc. He always has the answers, and I’m always much smarter when I leave than when I showed up.

This time around, he told me to bring my guitar. Again, not for anything specific. The conversation started turning towards convolution reverb and using the audio fx engines of software synths to affect a guitar’s audio signal. These two very simple methods can be employed to help create “instant ambient music” (just add water). He plugged my guitar into his rig, routed a few fx engines and add some convolution reverb and I was instantly transformed into ambient music territory.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not insinuating that I instantly became an ambient music expert. Not at all. But, what did happen was that I instantly became a much more critical listener than I ever had before; even when playing jazz!

Before I go further with my observations, have a listen to the song first:

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I hope you liked it. It’s certainly an interesting departure for a guitar blog, eh? Were you able to discern the guitar from the other instruments? Hopefully, for the most part you were not. That’s the point!

So let me fill you in on what I learned…

Less is definitely more!

The most interesting thing I learned was how much you should play. In all of the other styles of music I’ve dabbled with, when the energy of the other musicians is high and there is a lot going on, you tend to want to match that energy and build up. With this experience, however, that’s exactly what I did not want to do! As John would start to build up some tension, I had to really concentrate on doing less with my part to let his energy carry the section along. Now, it probably doesn’t sound like a lot of “energy” when you listen to it, but it’s there if you listen closely enough.

In essence, doing less when you really want to do more produced a much better piece of music.

Space is cool...

Patience

If there was ever one personality trait I was never blessed with, it would be patience. I have absolutely no ability to let things unfold naturally, to stand in line behind slow shoppers, or to calmly drive behind the old lady in the left lane of the highway. But it became very apparent to me, very quickly, that playing too much given how my guitar sounded was a very bad thing. Because the convolution reverb caused what I was playing to be heard for 25-30 seconds instead of 10, I started paying much more attention to the decay of the notes and choosing when I played the next note.

Be careful what you play

I also became much more aware of the importance of what notes I played, as any “wrong” note would result in a “mistake” that would last 30 seconds instead of 10. It takes a whole lot of concentration and mental energy, and a whole lot of on-the-fly critical listening to everything else going on around me. This is something we guitar players have a lot of trouble doing, and many a joke has been written at our expense as a result.

Blend, don’t stand out

Another “feature” of being a guitar player is that we’re quite comfortable with standing out and being up front, heard loud and clear for all to appreciate. In my ambient education, however, that would be a big no-no. It’s all about support and blending with everything else going on. Unfortunately, we should probably always think about blending with the rest of the instruments, but you know as well as I do that it rarely happens.

Enjoy the moment

When John and I “wrote” the song, there were absolutely no parameters. No set time, no song parts, no agenda. We lived in and enjoyed the moment, completely spontaneous creativity that was 100% all about our interaction as musicians rather than the end result. We obviously had no idea how it would turn out. As it happens, however, John liked what we did so much that he wants to include it on his next CD. To say that I was humbled and honored would be something of an understatement.

I hope you understand that this post isn’t just about ambient music. It’s about your contribution as a guitar player to whatever style of music you play. It’s about how you interact with the other musicians, and how important it can be to try something so completely off your beaten path that it virtually shocks your system and pushes you to new levels.

This weekend I received a major musical education. I encourage you all to do something – anything – to break out of whatever box you are in, and see what happens.