It seemed so wimpy at first when I started to play [guitar]. So I started playing loud with lots of effects just to try to mimic the dynamic [of the drums]. Drums seemed a lot more expressive. [I was] Trying to emulate the feeling of playing the drums on the guitar - I guess that's why I played it so loud.
My experience and growth in the film music world and the time I've spent studying legendary film composers have given me depth of insight into how music can inspire a range of emotions.
The piano is where everything starts and ends. Everything is based off of it. If you understand that, you wind up understanding a lot more in all other instruments. For me, it had always been something important to try and learn.
When you do a 'messa di voce,' that means you start soft, you crescendo into loud - and then you go back to soft again. Some people call it circus tricks, but in bel canto, it's really written into the music.
The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.
Blues is such a dynamic and ever-changing system of music.
I can read music, but I have no technique, and singing was never an option even though I sang a lot growing up.
I've started to look at guitar playing from more than just a standpoint of using certain modes and techniques.
In the car on my way to the studio, I was listening to 'Where Are U Now' with Justin Bieber and Jack U, so I was like, 'Wow, this is such a banger.' I loved the thought of having a ballad at the beginning and then just a massive drop.
I was in a church choir early on and that really helped me musically in terms of chops, learning how to sing harmonies.
You want the song to be at least at the same level of goodness throughout. Whereas with something you're doing live, a song dips and rises and that can actually be worked to the song's benefit.
After playing for 40 years, I've been able to evolve the way I see the fretboard and how I hear the guitar in my head.
I think that most films have too much music in them; it overwhelms an audience.
I feel, in a way, on a record, you can be more subtle. In the live setting, everything gets amplified. The dynamics are more extreme in concert.
I am a self-taught guitarist. I just try to piece together passages that have some melodic value!
Piano feels soft. Violins and all different string instruments feel soft. Guitar, even electric guitar before you start adding distortion, that you can play soft.
Yes indeed I have gained a lot out of playing scales and etudes.
If you listen to the first, second, and third chorus of a song, they don't sound the same. It's the same melody and all that, but what really happens is that the energy changes. It's all about getting the listener to keep his or her concentration.
No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.
Radio or no radio, I just like the way records sound when the drums and vocals are loud.
Once you've developed some technical facility on the guitar, the musical side (which entails theory, harmony, chord structure, ear training, sight-reading, composition and being able to hear chord progressions and licks) comes into play a lot more.
That's what I miss out of all this synthesized music - it starts to lose dynamics.
