Scott Henderson Discussion

[dizzy]

Composing solo sections:

Scott

Something I like about your compositions is that you don’t always solo over the exact chords of the melody. But your solo sections still sound like they are part of the song so clearly you write them with similar harmony.

Do you ever find it a difficult balancing act to make your solo section chords a departure from the song but still sound like a natural extension of the song?

Do you ever write tunes that have very hard solo sections so you have to wait a long time to play the tune until you learn to solo over the tune?

When you solo in a trio context you clearly play more chords then if there is a keyboard player. But do you also outline the chords more clearly with your lines? Something I notice about your playing is you seem to outline the harmony equally clearly with and without a harmony instrument playing the chords. I am just curious if your approach changes from trio to quartet in that you even have to outline the changes MORE when no keyboard is playing.

Finally---have you ever seen “the Vader sessions” on YouTube? Here it is if you haven’t---it is pretty hilarious---


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A0rwG39Jzk

[Scott Henderson]

Great Vader video! The Field Of Dreams thing had me on the floor! I'm also a big fan of the Family Guy Star Wars series.

I could talk about this forever, but to get to your questions:

Sometimes when I write melody sections, there are too many chords moving too quickly to make the section any fun to solo over. Challenging yes, fun no. I'm way too lazy to spend hours learning to play over changes which are way too complicated and not written as solo changes anyway, so the easiest and most logical thing to do is re-work it by removing the non-essential chords and making the progression simpler and more fun to play on. It still musically relates to the song, but doesn't cause a brain aneurism to play it.

Sometimes we blow off the whole section and solo over one chord, which can provide a much needed break from all the chords.

About outlining the changes, I try to do that whether there are keyboards or not - it's just the way I hear things these days.

[dizzy]

Thanks for the response Scott. Very helpful.
I like the way you sound when you play over changes in your trio because when the chords are not being stated in a literal way underneath you your lines sound abstract in a very cool way---like you are creating the harmony in real time---hard to explain what I mean.

And I just watched some Family Guy Star Wars on youtube---that's funny!