Robben Ford Discussion

[jonhanks]

Hi

Had a great time at the guitar clinic in manchester last night. Robben really is one of the nicest people you could ever meet, he answered all the questions as accurately as he could and talked about his influences, guitars, amps, playing 'out', (he showed us the first lick he ever wrote using the half, whole tone scale), his love for bbking, albert collins. He tried to emphasize how 'simple' music is, and showed this by playing a straight triad, and then turned this 'triad' into 'music' by bending a note and givin it the 'bluesy' feel. Not sure how comfortable Robben felt at the start - i felt he was a little nervous to begin with but heh who wouldnt be. He soon got into it once he played a solo improvised slow blues thing. He talked about how tough it was in the early days when he was touring, travelling around everywhere in a van getting 3 hours sleep a night. The highlight of the night was when Robben played 'nothin to nobody' - just him and his guitar. It really was fantastic, and very difficult considering he had no band to support him!

Although no photos/recording euipment were allowed during the session, i managed to get one at the end. When I first asked him he seemed hesitant, but as he was leaving he called me over!! Its a dodgy pic though as i had to take it myself with the two of us on it!

Anyway cant wait until tonight at the life cafe - i'll bring u up to date on it 2morrow.

cheers

jon

[chalky]

I echo all of Jon's comments. Aparently, Robben had been rather delayed getting back to the hotel after the recording session for Radio 2. The delay was something to do with public demonstrations concerning the visit of another, slightly more prominent US citizen...
So Robben walked into the place about five minutes before the official start time and most of the audience (about 40 people, pretty wide age group form 14yrs - mid 50's) were already there. He got pretty much straight down to things, but needed to get the amp set up how he wanted it and also wasn't happy with how far away he was from the crowd, so he got all that adjusted too, wanted things to be more personal. None of this can help with relaxing into this sort of clinic. Still, he was completely proffessional and was probably at ease more quickly than the rest of us were. As he talked and introduced things, you could feel the room relaxing.
In the entire one and a half hour session, Robben probably only played guitar for about 10 - 15 minutes. He seemed to come with no agenda and just let the discussion take us where it would. Some may have been disappointed with this, but to me it just seemed right. He illustrated points in the discussion with his guitar (and voice) when he needed to and it was really down to us to decide what we got from Robben.
Robben encouraged some more technical questions at one point, but if he felt things were getting too technical, he would return to the stance that all the chords and scales are written down in many places today, he was more intrerested in how (once you have worked on getting to know them) you apply and relate them to each other to make music.
To me, the main message of the night was to be inspired by others and work hard and listen hard, but to only use what is right for you and be yourself.

What a pleasure the evening was. Now I get to go and see the man in his element tonight.