[mapletrees]

Now getting back to Dave M.....I only caught a few glimpses of that MTV thing the other night....I got to flip to it when commercials came on the program that someone else was watching...

oh, by the way, he reminds me of a strange squeaky squeezy toy (in appearance and vocal sound!) that my son had as an infant...I just cannot get into this guy...don't know if it's that image of that annoying toy or what....you'd squeeze it and freaky eyes would come bulging out...Dave M makes the same exact face when he hits high notes....spooky...

I understand he's a talented guitarist (I've only learned the popular tunes that have come out in magazines - I thought some parts of those were tricky to say the least - get out the metronome - he's like a rabid monkey with the nutso strumming)

I'm surprised he's so popular....I'd expect him to be popular with young guitar players, but I'm stunned by the widespread appeal he has...his music seems so angular to me...makes me long for the sound of crickets and a four-chord Townes Van Zandt poem.

ANYWAYS, what I was going to say is that from what I saw on that MTV concert, his playing (to me) is buried in the overall sound or his band.....he would in all liklihood play differently in a setting where he was more on his own - especially if there was not a bass player.

Is there anything like a Dave Mathews "unplugged" album (why did that show go away?)? Something where it's just him? Or better yet, something with him and another guitar player? I would swear I have a tab magazine buried somewhere with DM playing a duet (I believe it's live, too... I think I recall spoken words in the TAB).

The point being that with no bass player someone has to play chords that do in fact provide some form of bass line (however limited) and harmony (I don't know if you've ever noticed - and this is tough for many guitar players to swallow - bands need bass players - they can do just fine without guitar players). You might (might!) see more in the way of "normal" chords in such a setting. If there was a second guitar, it would probably be doing the more sophisticated types of parts that DM typically sprinkles about his songs. It would probably give you a better chance to see "what the heck is going on here???" for lack of a better phrase. With a little knowledge of theory, you or your teacher ought to be able to get you adding your own second (or third) parts.

Did any of that make sense?

Even if there is no such "unplugged" album (or TAB book)...you could just look at the music of his other albums and try to add second guitar parts to those.....

I think I'm fading here........tired tonight...

A big problem I had in learning was getting the goofy notion of "what is the correct thing to play" out of my head......'correct' is anything that sounds good...anything. If you look at the TAB for Dave M's music you see all sorts of little weird chord fills and rhythm figures that on their own - out of context - wouldn't add up to a hill of beans. In the context of the song...you get music.

Take the nutso (nutso being the word of the day) intro to Dave M's What Would You Say (correct title? - it's torn apart a bit - rabid monkeys to blame). It centers on an A dominant chord (A9) moving to A/G - an A chord with G in the bass(which really still just represents A7(still A dominant)).

Attack on the nested parentheses.

The full A9 chord is the notes A, C#, E, G, and B.

The full A/G chord is the notes G, A, C#, E

(I should have picked a better example, this tune was sitting within arms reach of me and I picked the first chord change of the song - these chords are so similiar as to obscure what I'm getting at)

Virtually anything you do on that first cluster of notes (which are all over the neck) that leads to the second cluster of notes (which are also all over the neck) will sound correct. Some things will be more interesting than others, of course - but start doing SOMETHING - see what you get.

Later on in the pre-chorus section he plays F to G to Am (he moves up from F to G to Am)

F major = F A C
G major = G B D
Am = A C E

find a different way to play these moving up, find a way to play them down, find a way staying put, play pairs of notes going up, going down,,,,find those triads and their inversions.......there's tons of things you could do.....record the chords he plays and try to add in your own part,,,,maybe just record the bass notes and add parts.....If it sounds good, it is. Remember, that's just using the notes in the chords that he used. Any notes from the scale that generated those chords is fair game, too.....

[ 03-01-2001: Message edited by: mapletrees ]