David's Tip of the Day: Joining a Band - Part 4 (Make Each Song Special)

I stated previously...

"'What makes this song special' or 'How can I make this song sound unique and exciting from the other songs in my set.' This is an important question."

When a professional player comes in for lessons, often the first thing I ask for is to see their set list. I point to the first song on the list and ask "what are YOU playing to make this song special?" If there's a hook (think "I'm Ready") they commonly play that. Playing the hook of a song is a good idea. The hook is the small phrase repeated throughout the song to give the song groove and identity. By playing the hook, you help to make that hook important and also stops yourself from possibly playing something that will conflict with the hook.

I point to the next song and they may say that the guitar is playing a Charleston rhythm, so they use that rhythm and play in octaves to give the sense of a horn section... cool idea.

If I point to the next song and they shrug their head and say it's just a standard groove, so they just riff... this is a great place to randomly choose a technique or approach. With all of the songs in your set, do this, until an approach is chosen for each song.

One song in the set you could focus on only using the lower three holes

Another song you would play a lot of shakes

More thematic ideas could be...

1) long, flowing single notes

2) slaps and pulls (shuffle)

3) Flutter

4) Octaves

5) High end

6) 1st Position

7) 3rd Position

8) Chromatic

9) Sparse phrasing (a lot of space, or rest, between phrases)

10) Two-note textures

Again, the technique, or approach, can be random. The focus is to make sure that each song has something unique and exciting. Not only are you helping to make each song have its own theme, by focusing on one technique or approach, it saves the other techniques and approaches for the other songs in your set.