Exchange Rate
Published: Fri, 04/26/24
What follows is a delicate dance I've come to think of as The Exchange. The dog wants to go out, the cat wants to come in; the cat is rightfully skittish around the dog, as the dog historically wants to follow, sniff at and eventually take a running leap at the cat. So I have to find a way to crack the door such that the cat can weave her way over the threshold, around the piano and into the relative safety of the spot behind the big chair, while keeping the dog focused on her own real goal, which is getting leashed up and taken outside for a walk.
Lately I have found myself engaged in a different kind of exchange. It is a truism of the digital recording age that all audio workstation software does basically the same thing – it doesn't matter whether you use Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase or anything else, so long as you take the time to learn whichever platform you pick and get fluent enough with it that you're not struggling every time you sit down to make music. When I finally upgraded my Mac about a year ago, I switched from my longtime Apogee interface to a Universal Audio Apollo unit, and for a lark, I decided to try out UA's (relatively) new DAW, Luna.
Turns out Luna is pretty intuitive and fun to work with, so all has been just grand – I used it to make my (I swear) soon-to-be-released instrumental record, and I've been making any other recordings with it as well. But last week, a friend got in touch about scoring another of his animated short films, and that's when I realized: Oh. Luna doesn't support working with video. At all.
The whole time I was working full time as a composer, I used Digital Performer, which is widely considered the DAW for, as the film cats say, "working with picture." But when I upgraded computers, I didn't bother putting DP on the new Mac. At this point, I'd have to pay for the latest upgrade, which not that big a deal, but after almost two decades of avoiding one of the most popular softwares out there, I decided this week to give Logic a whirl.
I did so in part out of curiosity, in part because it's always looked sort of cool in tutorial videos I've watched, and in part because when you use a popular platform, there are way – WAY – more resources for learning about it online. (By comparison, Digital Performer has one dedicated online user forum, and the snark factor from long-time users, and lack of pity for newcomers, is notorious.)
A DAW ony becomes fast and intuitive to use once you've memorized a handful of important keyboard shortcuts: basics like record and undo, essentials like bouncing down your mixes, plus anything from from setting up and labeling markers to quickly creating and labeling new tracks. The bad news is, no two platforms use quite the same shortcuts. The good news is, well: at least you know what you're looking for.
Pat Metheny arrived at the University of Miami guitar program already knowing all the essential scales but not knowing the proper names for any of them. "Was that a hard transition?" he was asked in a Guitar Player interview. "Not really," he replied. "it was like learning to count in a different language, that's all." Basically, I'm learning to count all over again, this time in Logic. Really, things could be worse.
Besides, this idea is applicable to learning all kinds of things, not just software or diminished scales. At the moment, I'm designing the material for my next slide workshop, and I really hope to emphasize that you don't need to learn any new scales to improvise with the slide; you just need to know where to find a few basic major and minor pentatonic scales in open position.
Ultimately, the more you play, the more cumulative everything becomes: any time you exchange one genre for another, you bring much more than you realize along with you. Which is good news if you're like 99% of all guitar players, and are interested in expanding your reach into various styles over time.
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In last week's Youtube lesson, we started looking at vamps – short two- to four-bar chord progressions you can use to begin developing your own song arrangements. In today's lesson, I show you how to complete your vamp by putting a simple melody over one of those chord progressions. This lesson covers how to choose your melody notes, what bass notes to put them over, and how to create a few different variations, and can find it here:
The Three-Step Secret To Arranging Blues Songs, Part II
Starting next week in the Fingerstyle Five, we'll be spending a month looking at improvising over an alternating-thumb bass in the key of C. If you've been looking for a way to start adding your own licks and ideas to classic alternating-thumb songs like "Nobody's Dirty Business," I'll be covering this from the ground up all through May in the membership.
We'll start with isolating the alternating-thumb bass notes on chords like C, F and G, and using left-hand damping to get that percussive snap on the backbeat. Next, we'll focus on finding major and minor pentatonic notes in open position and how to make phrases out of them. Once we've put these to work in a model eight-bar solo, you'll learn some lick variations and how to get a feel for basic improvisation by swapping in specific licks for the I, IV or V chord. Finally, we'll circle back to technique with more damping tricks to help you get out of open positions.
You can work on as much or as little of the material as you like, at whatever pace is best for you. To learn more and sign up, go to:
Fretboard Confidential
More soon,
David