Jane Miller: Newsletter

here's one for you: put your first finger across the 7th fret barring the first 5 strings (EBGDA). add your second finger to the 8th fret on the 2nd string (B string). what chord do you get? what do you want to call it?

name all of the notes that you have under your fingers. then think it through this way: if E is the root, what would the other notes be and then what could i call this chord? if A is the root, what could i call it; if G is the root, etc. etc.

ready for answers?

the notes are, from the bass notes to the high notes: EADGB. sound familiar? like the way the guitar is tuned. so, if E is the root, then here's how it lines up: E-1, A-11, D-b7, G-b3, B-5. so let's call it
E-7(11). nice chord.
continue on with each note taking a turn being the root (what would the bass player play) and get a new chord name each time. that's a baragin. but don't stop there- what if the bass player plays a C? how about F? keep going. let me know what you come up with. it's a great deal when you can grab a pretty easy to grab chord ("nice holds" as they say in nashville) and be able to use it in so many contexts.

answers next time. or you tell me.

what's new? well, i am wrapping up the semester at berklee, i have tilled the garden, i got strawberry and raspberry plants in the mail, i played a fun gig with dave clark and willie sordillo, one coming up with cercie miller and dave clark on may 25th, and i have been solidifying some writing ideas. i have been sleep deprived. oh, and i have been playing with betty, my new puppy.

really, i've just been mostly doing that last thing. playing, feeding, caring for, training, cuddling with, being horrified by, being awestruck by betty, elizabeth the great, the smartest cutest most mischievous little yellow lab in the world. she's the only being in my life who couldn't care less about the condition of my hands. guitar player, schmitar player- i'm biting them. sleep, schmeep-let's go outside.

ok, cutie-i'll be right there.

well, it's not a new tune, really. not by a long shot, actually. but it's newly available to you. check out the music page and scroll down to find a solo guitar version of "gratitude." it's unreleased; can't find it anywhere else. please drop me a line to let me know what you think of it, and of the idea of making things like this available from time to time.
happy spring.

La Guitara is a group of women guitarists representing a variety of genres gathered together on tour and on CD by Patty Larkin. Included on the first CD are artists such as Muriel Anderson, Mimi Fox, Badi Assad, and Jennifer Batten, to illustrate the huge scope of this project. Currently touring along with Patty are Sharon Isbin and Kaki King. To help us celebrate Women's History Month at Berklee, the three of them are doing a clinic on Friday March 31st from 3-5pm at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass Ave. in Boston. Later that night, they will be in concert starting at 8:15. If you're near Boston, don't miss these opportunities to watch and learn from three of the greats in their fields. I will be the moderator at the afternoon clinic and I look forward to hearing questions from those attending and coming up with a few of my own, too. If you can't make it but you have questions for Patty, Sharon, or Kaki, let me know via my guestbook here, or send me an email.
Here are a couple of links for more info:
http://www.pattylarkin.com/laguitara
http://www.berklee.edu
Hope to see you there.

when i was in the 5th grade, our creative english teacher walked calmly to the board and wrote the word "GO." we all looked at it for awhile, and then she told us "this is the GENERIC word 'go'." after we learned what "generic" meant, our task was to come up with a list of other words we could use instead of "go" that would be specific, more descriptive. the list began: walk, run, amble, drive, skip, fly, scurry, leave, hurry, scatter, split, boogie-ok, some of them i'm making up now. but each one evokes an image. it's a picture of going that adds excitement to the language.
when you're given a lead sheet, say from your songwriter friend, or a page from the real book or whatever, and the chord says "C," what else could you play? Cmaj7, Cmaj9, maybe it belongs in the dominant family: C7, C9, C7b9. maybe it doesn't really need a 7 in it, but Cadd9 might be a nice color to try. if the next chord is D minor, would Dmin9 work? or Dmin11? sometimes a lead sheet offers a general outline of a tune, but it is up to us to interpret it musically, tastefully, adventurously perhaps, or with restraint perhaps. each context calls for its own descriptive sound. what word could we choose that makes our story telling vivid and alive? what variation of a chord could we choose that makes magic with a melody? how many fingers do you have left over-what happens if you put one right there...