Scott Henderson Discussion

[barik01]

Hey Scott, thanks for anwering all our stuff.

1) I've bought the DVD with both of your instruction vids, great stuff!
You've said before that you started out playing mainly rock and blues while knowing some bebop licks. That's where I'm at right now basically.
And looking at the material you go through in your first video, a lot of that stuff is easy to get but hard to apply to anything if you've wasted years faking your way playing over changes relying on relative pitch and a few Bird licks instead of really knowing what's happening musically.
So how did you approach the whole jazz thing when you started out?
Basically, besides transcribing solos everything else needed in terms of concepts is covered in your improv video. Now there are hundreds of books out there telling you to learn thousands of patterns and fingerings, which is what I already did with a teacher, and it sucks. I mean most Bird solos are actually simpler in terms of concepts than all the stuff you're supposed to memorize according to traditional jazz guitar books. But nobody tells you to find these ideas on the fretboard in the first place.
So how did you learn to approach the guitar like a horn player? It sucks to realize how much you can fake your way around these things on a guitar while a sax player needs to understand everything from the beginning...

2) Did you ever hear back from Avid about Eleven?

3) The idea was mentioned some time ago I think...Is there any chance that you might release backing tracks for some of your music? I would pay money for pretty much all Tribal Tech or later stuff minus guitar tracks.

[Scott Henderson]

Without going into great detail. which would be teaching for free, I'll say that 90% of everything I've learned comes from transcription. Yes, I know all the scales and chord tones and have pretty fast access to them on the neck - that definitely helps, but without studying many different players on different instruments, I wouldn't have learned nearly as much as I have. The pattern thing is very boring for me too - I usually avoid that kind of stuff. If I use it, it's in very small amounts.

I never heard back from Avid but in retrospect I'm glad I didn't attach my name to something I don't believe in.

I'm working on something even better than backing tracks. We're talking about hooking up with Jammit, so not only could you take the guitar out of the tracks, you could hear the guitar without the backing tracks. I've been listening to Ritchie Blackmore's guitar on Highway Star - it's a lot of fun.

[barik01]

Jammit sounds pretty cool. Do you already have plans whether it'll be music off you records or more like the stuff Jamtrackcentral does, where guys like Guthrie Govan record solos over new backings?

Yeah, and didn't want to rip-off a lesson for free or anything...guess it's just hard to imagine that even guys like you started out like anybody else and couldn't play shit at some point in the past. Like imagining Tommy Emmanuel struggling with an open G...So I really appreciate the 2 videos you did, it covers so much stuff it's almost not fair being less expensive than most half-hour lessons with a real teacher.

About Eleven, did you simply not beliveve in the idea of modelling in general or was it more specifically about the product? What I don't understand with modellers is that the presets are almost always useless. You can make them sound good, but not by copying real-life setups that just don't sound anything like the real deal. Have you ever used digital plugins on any of your records?

[Scott Henderson]

I certainly started out like everyone else - the first thing I tried to do when I got my first guitar was learn the Whole Lotta Love solo. That took weeks of hard work and sore fingers but I finally got it!

The Jammit thing will most likely be Tribal Tech X and HBC, with all instruments available to solo. I also plan on doing some more videos, probably this year. One on lines, both over changes and one chord vamps, and a video shot in the studio about tone.

I've yet to hear an amp modeler that sounds as good as the real deal. They may pull it off in the future, but it isn't here yet. Eleven wasn't any worse than the rest of them, besides not being nearly as flexible as Axe FX.

Yes, I use plug ins and I love them. In my opinion that's where the biggest digital improvements have been made. The Waves V-EQ sounds amazingly close to real Neve hardware, and Sound Toys EchoBoy replaced my echoplex, even though I still keep it around for the runaway effect that nothing else will do. All the delays on X and HBC are from EchoBoy.

[barik01]

More videos are great. Does that mean shorter clips available online or full length DVD-stuff? Don't know how much success your 2 videos had, but personally I'd probably buy any instructional video you might do in the future. Even if it's only you playing over tunes with short explanations, that's still much better than yet another jazz guitarist telling us how to combine 800 fingerings of lydian dominant.

[Scott Henderson]

They'll be DVD's. One will be a video on lines, because the videos I did on improvisation and melodic phrasing didn't really cover much of the "hot licks" aspect of lines using chromaticism, diminished, combining scales, ect. The other one is about tone, which will be harder to do since we'll be recording real audio clips in lossless format, synced to the movie/talking part.

[Roope]

Great to hear you're planning cowork with jammit! Now... releasing some of your commercial hit songs could really secure the financial side of things D

Just kidding, been using jammit and love it - for an amateur like me for example just hearing some of the guitar tones and sounds separated from the mix has been a surprise and a lesson. some might sound a little strange alone, yet fit the mix perfectly. and of course playing along is great fun.

but really some older tribal tech would really be interesting to dig to (elvis at the hop, sub aqua, face first etc.) as well as dolemite - would be on my top wish (buying) list for sure. As well as the latest...

Hope to see them on jammit soon!

Cheers,
Roope