[SGFletch]

Perhaps I’m obsessive, but I had a lot to think about and learn from a solo acoustic (guitar/vocal) gig last night. I also had a 2+-hour drive home to ruminate on it all.

I have mostly played with a band for the past 15 years, and only recently have been trying to book more solo acoustic shows, because I like the challenge. I played solo for a long time when I was in college and through my 20s but was concentrating on original music. In my mid-30s, I shifted to playing in cover bands, because it afforded me more opportunities to gig, allowed me to play electric guitar, and (at that time) had some money in it.

Anyway, playing in a band has allowed me to develop many aspects of my playing, but when I go out and must “carry” everything myself, I notice where I have shortcomings in my playing. Most noticeably for me, the flatpick vs. thumbpick and fingers thing is a challenge. Lately I have been trying to transition to a thumbpick and fingers. On songs with “traditional” fingerpicking parts, it is not a huge issue. However, there are songs where I would ordinarily just default to a flatpick that I have tried to transition to a somewhat hybrid approach. The counterpoint of a thumbpick and my fingers (or hybrid picking with a flatpick at times) makes me think more like a piano player, trying to have a “left and right” hand creating more motion under the vocal. I can’t really find a lot of examples of what I’m talking about. Maybe Nils Lofgren comes closest. Often, I’m kind of trying to have some sort of bass line with the thumb, while the fingers serve to strum and play fills here and there. It’s not unlike James Taylor at times. It works well on JT arrangements. Trying to apply it to other songs is a challenge. Trying to do it on a gig is even harder for me. You know how much harder it is to nail a part on a gig than it is at home. I feel like that is compounded when you are playing solo. I could just default to a flatpick, because my general meter is better with one and it’s more comfortable. However, the more I try this other approach, the more a flatpick can seem inelegant as a solution to me. All of that comes down to “practice more.” I realize that, but like everyone…life, day job, my band, all pretty much eat up my available practice time. So I have to go out and “wing it” in public. That’s what I had to do last night for 3 hours and I felt very exposed at times.

Another thing I noticed was the contrast of how I play with a band does not necessarily apply when I play solo. When I’m playing electric in a band (I play and sing in a covers trio – so it’s a constant multi-tasking gig), I’m constantly adjusting little things to make parts work. Volume knob up or down on the guitar, a little gain from a pedal, add a delay, tap the tempo, add a modulation effect, hit a boost to make a guitar fill stand out, stack the right pedals for a solo then turn them all off, sing a harmony part, double a chorus, sing a lead vocal, etc. etc. When I’m playing solo acoustic, yes, I could set up an elaborate pedalboard (I haven’t yet), but I’m kind of faced with trying to make little adjustments with only my hands and voice. Maybe my guitar volume is not loud enough for a fingerpicked part, so I have to play harder. Maybe I turned up the guitar between songs and now I’ve switched to a flatpicked strummed song…oops…play more gently with my right hand. Maybe I had a thumbpick on and just started playing a song that I’ve never used a thumbpick for…oops…adjust on the fly, no time like the present to learn new things. You can’t stop once you’ve started a song. I also abhor dead air on a gig and tend to go from one song to the next as often as possible.

Then, there is the whole aspect of playing amplified and how foreign it can feel and how it changes in each room or outside (as I was last night). I will leave that for a separate post, however, as it is another topic I have a lot of thoughts about and I’ve definitely gone on long enough.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I have a lot of work to do to be able to do this as well as I’d like to. I have a ton of respect for folks out there who make it work just playing solo. It is hard.