Adapting playing/tone for different genres

[Buffered]

Hi everyone,

So for the past few years I've geared my musical tastes mainly towards small combo jazz as well as bands like the JGB, Grateful Dead, MMSW, SCI, and of course Phish. During that time I've developed a great jam tone (IMHO) as well as worked on my phrasing in this genre (in addition to tinges bluesgrass, reggae, and rock from Phish and Cheese) However, when I play at the blues jam on regular lead I find my solos and phrasing gravitating back towards that "jam" style - even in a traditional 12 bar form. It's frustrating, and I feel that it limits my opportunities as a musician right now.

For example, I was playing LZ's Ramble On during a practice session last night and the jam thing started to happen during the solo section.

Do you guys encounter the same thing? What did you do to curb it? Should I start absorbing another genre, and lose the jams entirely for a bit?

[Hans Moleman]

Interesting question, I've actually been thinking about it a lot lately. I play in two bands - a 4 piece jam band that does originals and covers things like the Beatles to Wayne Shorter and everything in between, and a trio that does straight up hard bop, soul-jazz, MMW and things like that. I'm also involved in a project where a group of us plays a complete album live in concert. We're doing Dark Side in a couple weeks. I change my gear and tone a lot depending on the setting.

Right now I'm totally immersed in learning Floyd, so the Gilmour style playing is coming out in other contexts. Personally, I think that cross pollination is awesome, having lots of different influences is one way to end up finding your own thing. That being said, I have the same trouble as you in terms of phrasing/playing a certain way in contexts where it isn't necessarily suitable. Throwing in a bit of a jam style stuff during a 12 bar blues could be cool done right, but sounding like a Trey clone while playing Footprints, for example, is just kind of silly.

My solution is extreme, it's from Wayne Krantz. I intentionally do not listen to music that I am sounding too much like. Phish is a good example. I love that band, but I basically never listen to them now. I started to sound too much like Trey. As Wayne Krantz said "why would a grown man want to sound like someone else?" Don't get me wrong, they're probably my favorite band, but right now I'm on my own trip and my own development is way more important to me.

Definitely start absorbing new stuff in the practice room too. My next thing will probably be bluegrass. Will I ever play in a bluegrass band? Probably not. But I really dig that music and immersing in it will affect my approach to all the other music I play. Anyways that's my approach, it's probably not for everyone.

[Jkendrick]

Hi everyone,

So for the past few years I've geared my musical tastes mainly towards small combo jazz as well as bands like the JGB, Grateful Dead, MMSW, SCI, and of course Phish. During that time I've developed a great jam tone (IMHO) as well as worked on my phrasing in this genre (in addition to tinges bluesgrass, reggae, and rock from Phish and Cheese) However, when I play at the blues jam on regular lead I find my solos and phrasing gravitating back towards that "jam" style - even in a traditional 12 bar form. It's frustrating, and I feel that it limits my opportunities as a musician right now.

For example, I was playing LZ's Ramble On during a practice session last night and the jam thing started to happen during the solo section.

Do you guys encounter the same thing? What did you do to curb it? Should I start absorbing another genre, and lose the jams entirely for a bit?

I definitely feel the same. For me, no amount of "kill mommy" is going to remove some of my obvious Jerry influence from my playing.  It's just too ingrained in my style. That said, I feel my tendency to play too many notes (is that what you mean by "jam style"?) can be lessened by sitting down and writing solos for specific tunes. Once you get that in your head, you'll improvise with that as your basis. At least that's what works for me. Perhaps doing that with enough blues tunes would help you develop a blues style that would, in time,  allow you to not have to write a solo for every single tune.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Yeah, we played Dazed and Confused at our last gig and that solo is much more 'rock' than my typical style (more melody). I had to work at getting back into that style. Not to mention, my band wanted more distortion than my usual, so I cranked up my Rat.

It was a really fun song to play, but required stepping out of my style, which is probably good practice.

[Buffered]

Interesting question, I've actually been thinking about it a lot lately. I play in two bands - a 4 piece jam band that does originals and covers things like the Beatles to Wayne Shorter and everything in between, and a trio that does straight up hard bop, soul-jazz, MMW and things like that. I'm also involved in a project where a group of us plays a complete album live in concert. We're doing Dark Side in a couple weeks. I change my gear and tone a lot depending on the setting.

Right now I'm totally immersed in learning Floyd, so the Gilmour style playing is coming out in other contexts. Personally, I think that cross pollination is awesome, having lots of different influences is one way to end up finding your own thing. That being said, I have the same trouble as you in terms of phrasing/playing a certain way in contexts where it isn't necessarily suitable. Throwing in a bit of a jam style stuff during a 12 bar blues could be cool done right, but sounding like a Trey clone while playing Footprints, for example, is just kind of silly.

My solution is extreme, it's from Wayne Krantz. I intentionally do not listen to music that I am sounding too much like. Phish is a good example. I love that band, but I basically never listen to them now. I started to sound too much like Trey. As Wayne Krantz said "why would a grown man want to sound like someone else?" Don't get me wrong, they're probably my favorite band, but right now I'm on my own trip and my own development is way more important to me.

Definitely start absorbing new stuff in the practice room too. My next thing will probably be bluegrass. Will I ever play in a bluegrass band? Probably not. But I really dig that music and immersing in it will affect my approach to all the other music I play. Anyways that's my approach, it's probably not for everyone.

Hey thanks for the reply. That's interesting that you're in a few groups and still draw a similar conclusion to what I was probably going to have to start doing - just listen to new stuff. It'll be tough, but it does seem like the only option at this point. I'm working on the same jazz books and some songbooks I have, but you're right I have to start focusing more on what I want to do as a musician instead of just learning things for the sake of learning with no direction or method for applying them. That being said, it is interesting seeing songwriting mechanics in use right in front of me. I think learning new songs as well as adapting to new genres is what I'll have for getting out of this rut I feel myself in at the moment.

I definitely feel the same. For me, no amount of "kill mommy" is going to remove some of my obvious Jerry influence from my playing.  It's just too ingrained in my style. That said, I feel my tendency to play too many notes (is that what you mean by "jam style"?) can be lessened by sitting down and writing solos for specific tunes. Once you get that in your head, you'll improvise with that as your basis. At least that's what works for me. Perhaps doing that with enough blues tunes would help you develop a blues style that would, in time,  allow you to not have to write a solo for every single tune.

Well, when I think of "jam style" it's mainly improvising over say a im7-IV7 vamp and the dorian and mixolydian sounds naturally have me gravitate towards that sound. Hehe basically bending the 6th of the scale with some modulation. I'm a bit ashamed I guess, but I've never sat down and written a complete solo - sure I've notated Duane Allman licks from Whipping Post or a MGS NYE 95 Chalkdust lick and added to my bag, but never a whole solo. I've felt I'm a decent improvisor and like learning tools for that but lately I've missed the "when and where" for those scales. The Progressive Guitarist book has helped greatly with this.

Appreciate all the replies so far..keep em coming!

[Jkendrick]

I admit I'm lazy about it too. But when I do it, it's probably the single best thing I do to force me out of ruts.  Often I'll set up a backing track for a tune I'm working on and just record myself improvising over and over. Then I'll go back and pull out pieces of each track I like and delete the rest. Then you can stitch those pieces together. From there I force myself to really examine what's going on and I'll often think maybe resolving to the VII would be more interesting here, for example.  Or this section has a strong reolution, so what if I played something really "out" leading up to it. Things like that. It's a bit easier to get started that way, though truly writing a solo from scratch is definitely valuable.

The "kill mommy" thing you guys are talking about (you guys are familiar with that expression,  right?) Is important for sure, but what I'm listening to is less important than what I'm playing. So if you feel like listening to too much Phish is causing you to cop too much Trey style, stop listening to Phish for a while sure, but also get the guitar in your hands and learn a song or transcribe a solo in a completely different genre. Also transcribing instruments other than guitar is huge for me. Which reminds me I've been meaning to transcribe Cannonball Adderly's Autumn Leaves solo!

[Lephty]

Not exactly sure what the OP means by "jam style" but speaking of my own experience and playing style, what that often means is "too many notes." One characteristic of Trey's style, and perhaps a lot of other jamband-type guitarists, is that there isn't usually a whole lot of space. If you listen to Trey in the 1.0 era, there's virtually no space at all in his solos, although it does seem like he has become more conscious of that in the 3.0 era.

So when I'm making an effort to dial that back, what I try to do is think more in terms of phrases, and letting things breathe a bit in between the phrases (this would certainly be appropriate in the blues). When I was studying jazz, my teachers always told me to think like a horn player--a horn player HAS to stop and take a breath every few bars, whereas guitarists can just keep noodling right through a whole tune and never come up for air.

When I think of great phrasing, I think of Miles Davis, B.B. King, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Paul Desmond, Bill Frisell...

[Buffered]

Thanks for the replies so far everyone, formulating a response/better explanation of the jam style expression but you all pretty much got it in terms of many notes etc.