aa Masterclass ROBBEN FORD ornet etn) Eauiraty<) [ GTRATING | moveRATENARS || mere GT has be (MEREEEG | meet wih eo the reat suiarists of his, or ary’ other | ueetre generation, Robben Ford is in town oowiedge | and today is press day. although reat | init reticen, ashe warms toa Note placement | | topic his speech patterns begin to | reflect hi dctinctve playing style slow, often quiet, deliberate and | considered, with sudden fons key word ot phrase. W ‘vith Fords infvences My rst instrument was | saxophone and I realy liked Paul Desmond,” he sald, "But in my eaey teens I heard bike Bloomfield with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. It wae the fest time Pd ever heard anyone really playing the shit out of ‘the gua, so that piqued my interes in the guitar. I soon found self rally dravn towards i although I kept up the saxophane Into my early-20s. I found the things ‘that I enjoyed most in music were jz, bivos and R & B, and parlour [loved great saxophone players and great Blues guitar players, My style is fusion of those two things, the saxophone and jazz being whore all the harmonic Dipness comes fram and the broader musical landscape, and the blues being so strony about feeling. vas lntuenced by the English syle but Iwas more drawn towards Mike Bloomeld and B B King - they were my two biggest heroes on the sitar My saxon {nce John Coltrane and Wayn shorter, and a guy named A ‘Shepp, who alot of people now. He's my alltime hero wrote great tunes; Omette Coleman Pharoah Sanders. the 60s were 8 56 OhitarTecriqus OcroBER 2004 Guitar Techniques: Clear you rel the blues and jazz si together seam distinct Robben Ford: “Jazz is really Justa palette. Tere is ure and the demands are greater on aa instrumentalist, 80 to develo yourself as an instrumentalist you ‘eed 8 challe Aad all the great understand the blues, they love the blues, but, vo Stravinsky and Ravel and th do and to me, my heart is the same. {eis nota diferent heart when you listen to lifferent Kind of musi, if it pulls on you, i GT Are there any spec ‘on fom these gutar saxophone players to develop 2 che guitar or was it more just ‘composers, hich I ou work 3s. didnt transribe, am note for note, i was al listening and then applying. Constantly listening, playing seeing, playing, Ithink tha that made possible for me todo that was listening to saxophone players instead of guitar players youre learning from guitar players and youre a guitars, you're in trouble. We good fora whe an always cheek it out, but you are ju going to sound lik ther, you wil not develop independent of them. instrument, docs’ automata to make an effort to make it Work, transpose it onto the guitar Consequently youve not goin to sound like tht gu, like saxophone player, but you're n going to sound lke other guitar players either, ao there's a much fsreater opportunity to develop your GT, What do you feel you developed in your playing as result of listening to sax plavers? ARF: “I can say that, harmonsealy there is lot of pentatonic because I was listening to Jahn Coltrane and ‘Wayne Shorter, those exe [Note records. Shorter and Coltrane played alt of pentatonic — both af them expanded but it wasn't playing bebop, Blues is pentatonic, but | Be ee Bo theaters1nd try to make melodies from it e notes, There's a when you only ha and, approach. For ded on i ida’ know a lot armonically, Iwas not and s0 when people were really playing jaz, you know, alt eworfives and up-em couldn really hang ith went more for kind oft GT: You manage to work jazay harmonic ideas into blues, yeti til -unds like your own music and st unde like blues ARF: “is from years of just playing and doing it by ear and knowing ‘what scale there is over any given My style is very much blues pentatonic and {use the other stuff langeiy for just passing to a get from one chord ta the next Really my style boils down to that. I never learned a bunch of licks — ou play licks, you have to learn a hoe lot of licks before people don't realise you're playing licks. kopt my musie simple and close to pentatonic and blues oriented and layed and played, pushed (RF: "Well, its hard to say. What is really important is who you listen to, x0 again, [ister to saxophone players and Miles Davies trumpet and there's much more of tendency to play in a melodle way. EXAMPLE TSLOW BLUES IN'C Robben Ford demonstrated sore of approaches on a slow 12 barb ashe went along. something sev times Ihave waiter They have to breathe so thei phrases are going to be more broken up, not ike guitar players who don’t have to breathe so they can pla all day. Dynamic, intent, i is jut like talking in the way you accentuate or ay something softly itis exactly ike language. [heard that professional musicians hear music i the same way other people hear language, I is ike the 2 om my oven personal experienc would say thats true ~ ti 00 Afferent to learning another lanaunge. Everybody speaks with inflection, everybody, 20 you bring hat into our playing and ou have to ou need to say someth itout onee ints most complete form, Ihave also included tings in the Brst two “Only playing blues guitar is limited, but blues as a foundation is essential — all the great jazz musicians understand the blues” @: SOUND ADVICE JAZZ-BLUESTONE For the examples onthe Reblien Ford ued hs Baker sgrstre Tweed Until rcerth, Ford was er uae Fender Ext sas, timate th touch and fe lexampies to make the: ns easier to f chord symbols th aim to refect soicings that Robben plays andthe iiplied harmony that he's soloing sround. in EXAMPLE shows some altered and diminished ideas, and reveals an ingenious use forthe major ‘ocrouer 2004 Guitar Totniques 57Pisses a] Masterclass ROBBEN FORD | | weyack tit 58 Guitar Technine ocrosen 2004@ TRACKS 16-18 [Ee] *-biteaty rm stpeira Ob parr! vias coe bal tbe EXAMPLE 2 Robben demonstrates some diferent chord concepts, adding altered chords, bs substitutions and a great descending 19th char ides over the same C blues progression 7 oo os (SEEPS =e CocrOseR 200 Guitar Techniques 59eae Masterclass ROBBEN FORD [Ee cw 3 cre coun ats. [25] -—eestenang mate clon er ee sis ois ants testes phd te i f f =f f f f : | | : : “Yaansonston on (eee: oe “EXAMPLE 3 SLOW BLUE INC 9 UOT Le a SSS For the final example Robben opt fora somewhat mare traditional take the sequence to demonstrate how to apply an altered scale ea - in bar cn aC blues, treading a subeIine between straightforward pertatonle 4 using itv resolve from C7 to F7in ber 6, and in br 15 using cover ‘ideas and outining the diferent chords in the progression. He also wes an implied GT#5 chord to resolve back to the CT in bar 18, er mk bg et ect tcl 60 Guitar Tectniques ocroses 2004lt (ocrOnER 2004 CuitarTadnigues 61