Please use the transcription I have provided to follow the following commentary. With that being said, I have decided to dissect those portions of the solo that I find need the most attention. In order to accurately deal with Wes Montgomery’s technique and rhythmic precision, one needs a format much larger than what is available. Unfortunately, the video was long winded, lengthily, and at times distracted. Originally, I recorded a step-by-step analysis for my video. Probably a thousand cats are using their thumbs – only they’re not in Indianapolis! The more I learnt about it, I found out that less guys were using their thumbs and I began to get a little frightened!” See, I couldn’t hear the difference in the sound as it is today, so I figured OK, I’ll just use my thumb. I was just playing for my own amusement so it was great. ![]() Well, that wasn’t easy either because I found out that I had developed the thumb for playing so that when I got ready to work my first job I picked up a pick and I think I must have lost about fifteen of them! I just didn’t realize that I had to develop my pick technique, too. So I said I’ll play like this till I get ready to play out, and then I’ll get me a pick. I said is that better.? Oh yes, she says, that’s better. Well, ‘thing’? It was a guitar and amplifier, you know? So I laid my pick down on the amplifier and just fiddled around with the thumb. But after two months my wife came to the door and asked me would I kindly turn that ‘thing’ off. But I was enjoying myself because it wasn’t noise to me, it was music. Soon they started complaining pretty heavy. I refused to play unamplified, so I’m sitting in my house playing, you know – happy, but when I used my brand new amplifier I guess I didn’t think about the neighbors. I got a box of picks because I felt sure there would be the right one in there for me. “When I started I bought the whole works. Not to mention his virtuosic technique which Wes described in a rare interview: The notation would be too cluttered and arduous to even look at. In fact, it is literally impossible to fully notate a Wes Montgomery solo. Wes could play any part of the beat, at any tempo, and in any style. He swung as a good horn player he was saying as much as a horn player.”Īgain, I can’t say enough about Wes Montgomery’s time and it’s relevance to today’s guitarists. “He was more as an interpreter of jazz, but on the guitar. ![]() John Scofield is quite right in saying the following regarding Wes Montgomery: During the process of transcribing Montgomery, I never become discouraged by my failures because I realize that I am trying to conquer the work of one the most sophisticated musicians in the history of jazz. Usually, I was rushing an eighth note here or an eighth note there.Įventually I got an expectable take and I was one step closer to reaching some of my personal goals as a musician. ![]() In listening back to each pass, I would hear a line or two that wasn’t quite inside the pocket. If my performance were transcribed, it would look correct on a piece of paper. Each pass was academically acceptable for sure. In making this video, I played the solo about 25 times. ![]() Transcribing Wes Montgomery can be a painful process. It should be the goal of every aspiring jazz guitarist to get inside of Wes’s head and experience his feel under their own fingers. Simply put-Wes Montgomery’s time is better than any jazz guitarist who has ever lived. In fact, I don’t think Wes’s harmonic ideas should be the focal point of these transcription studies. Of course, I would never suggest that a player should make a habit of blatantly lifting Wes’s lines and rehashing them in their own solos. It is my firm belief that anyone who is even remotely interested in playing modern jazz guitar should transcribe Wes Montgomery. This is the first of many Wes Montgomery solos I will be demonstrating. Wes Montgomery’s solo on “Billie’s Bounce” from Fingerpickin’
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