GUITAR
EXAMINING YOUR OWN PLAYING
James Duke
One of the hardest parts of being a creative
person is staying motivated to keep pushing
yourself to grow. As a guitar player, practicing
might become more of a chore that you start
avoiding. Taking the time to come up with new
parts or sounds can give way to whatever
comes easiest and is the most familiar. Why
take three guitars to a recording session when
you can actually get away with bringing just
one? Why learn that specific guitar line on
the bridge of a song when you can just play
whatever you want and get away with it?
Whenever I find myself in that headspace, you
might call that a “rut”, I try to put limitations
on myself in order to spark creativity. If I start
feeling like I’m playing the same lead guitar part
on every song, which is something that is easy
to in a Sunday morning set because most of
the parts can be pretty similar to begin with,
I will immediately stop playing it. I will say to
myself, I don’t know what I am going to play,
but I am not going to play that. If I’m playing the
same two-note driving high part, I make that
off limits and I play something different. Even if
I just pick a different spot on the neck to play it,
or find a different two-note voicing that works,
and adds a similar, but different vibe. Whatever
I can do to change it up. Guess what? It works.
A change even as small as that can start the
creative wheels spinning and next thing you
know you are excited again. You find new
melodies and parts by just moving your fingers
a few frets away. I love finding new takes on
common parts and tones. It’s a fun exercise and
gets you thinking from a different perspective. I
take the same approach with effects.
A few years ago I was talking to one of my
guitar player friends about the way he used his
delay. I noticed that he only used a dotted eight
delay. I encouraged him to stop using it for a
while and experiment with other sub-divisions.
He completely stopped using a dotted eight
delay for a couple of months and got used to
using different styles of delay. Granted, there
were probably some instances where he really
needed to use that particular sub-division, but
he made it work. What it did was show him how
important delay can be to certain parts and
he started thinking more musically with it. He
started thinking of it in terms of how it becomes
a part of the hook he was playing instead of just
something that had to be there because of the
style of music he was playing. That can seem
like a simple thing, but it’s a huge deal. For
instance, if the whole band is playing an eighthnote
build together into a big chorus, a dotted
eight delay can totally change the dynamic
of that rhythm and become really distracting,
where a quarter note delay would blend in but
still widen your overall guitar tone.
It’s easy to just have a “set it and forget it” delay
patch and never deviate from it, but, for me,
delay can make or break a guitar part in so many
instances. I think of delay as an instrument unto
itself, and try to always consider that when I’m
playing live or in the studio.
I’d encourage you to examine your own playing
and look for any areas where you might be
slacking a little. It’s ok. We all do it. Hold yourself
accountable and remind yourself that music is
a real, living, breathing thing. It is ever-changing
and ready to be thrown on its head. Allow
yourself to be creative. Don’t allow yourself to
phone it in. Go play guitar.
James Duke
James is a musician, songwriter, and producer from
Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Most known for playing
guitar alongside artists like John Mark McMillan, Matt
Redman, Johnnyswim, and Steven Curtis Chapman,
James also records his own music under the name
All The Bright Lights. He currently lives in Nashville,
Tennessee with his wife and 3 kids..
86 July 2020
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