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Rob,
I'll dig through my collection and pull out a few more of these recordings. I'll have to convert them to mp3 before I can post them. I think that the intent of the method book becomes more clear after hearing GVE play this style with a plectrum.
Growing up in a musical family, with classical/ragtime banjoist father Fred, pianists such as his mother, brother Robert and George Gershwin, as well as a brother who was an arranger, no doubt gave GVE a thorough understanding of harmony. He used that knowledge, coupled with his prodigious technique, to superimpose simple triads over the chords of a song to acheive extensions and tensions.
A friend of mine, who is a fine player and excellent arranger for guitar, once remarked that Van Eps' music was "simple in concept but complex in execution". Which sums it up nicely, I think.
Regards,
Jerome
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12-18-2013 04:02 PM
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That would be great, Monk. Much appreciated!
I've just to the end of my read through the Method - that Etude on the last page is an odd one. Looking forward to polishing it up a little, get some shape into my reading of it. Not sure what to make of the d in bar 10. The first d is # with a 2 next to it. Then the same note has a 4, yet nothing seems to have changed, and the 4 doesn't make sense. So I've decided to ignore the 4. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know.
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Here is another clip of George Van Eps from 1949 playing Once In A While. Van Eps plectrum playing features triads, four note chords and chord-supported single note runs seamlessly integrated into a mind-boggling display of guitar playing that is always musical.
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For me, chord melody is the melody of a song harmonized or supported by chords. I consider a chord solo to be an extemporized statement that follows the structure of a song in the same way that most jazz guitarists play single note solos.
To say that George Van Eps was adept at both is an epic understatement. Here is GVE from 1956 playing I Never Knew. Here Van Eps demonstrates all the hallmarks of his plectrum style that I mentioned in my previous post to present the melody of the tune followed by a great solo.
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Guitar players didn't get a lot of air time in the 1930s. Most were relegated to the rhythm chair of an orchestra and seldom got to strut their stuff. If you were learning to play guitar in the 30s you had to wade through a lot of band recording to catch 4, 8, or 16 bars of solo guitar playing of your favorite player. In Van Eps' case it was always worth it. Like most of the top flight players of the time, GVE held a regular band gig and did lots of radio and session work.
The clip here, from 1934, features GVE with Adrian Rollini playing Gershwin's Somebody Loves Me. A "sweet band" recording, George gets a short solo where he plays off the melody while still getting in a few interesting ideas. There is a playfulness here that emphasizes the "play" in guitar playing.
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The Chant is a private recording made in the early 1930s in Van Eps' Long Island home. This was recorded at the same time as a duet by Van Eps and bassist Bob Haggart for their amusement and was never intended for release. This tune began showing up on anthologies in the mid-70s incorectly attributed to Dick McDonough and titled Chasin' A Buck. The duet I mentioned appears on anthologies as The Dick Bernstein Ramble, incorrectly atributed to to Dick McDonough and Atrie Bernstein.
A very interesting minor key tune, The Chant, again features Van Eps weaving triads and four string chords into a breath-taking two minutes of unaccompanied guitar playing. For those who have the George Van Eps Guitar Solos book, you will recognize the snippet of A Study in 8ths that he plays early in the tune.
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Monk, these are all wonderful
Great to hear him play with a pick, but do you know when he made the switch to fingerstyle?
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Rob,
Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Monk, these are all wonderful Great to hear him play with a pick, but do you know when he made the switch to fingerstyle?
According to interviews I've read, Van Eps began to study classical guitar pieces in the late Thirties or early Forties. He had a classic guitar that he played at home. Most of his professional work involved acoustic rhythm guitar with a plectrum and he usually soloed on acoustic guitar with a pick for reasons of volume.
Van Eps was fascinated by the way pianists could play moving harmonic sequences against melodies or sustained notes. He loved counterpoint and moving chordal lines. He considered his two methods of playing as separate and distinct in the right hand. He called his plectrum playing "banjo style" and referred to his fingerstyle playing as "lap piano".
At some point in the mid to late Forties he built a pickup for his Epiphone Deluxe. After that, he continued to play rhythm with a pick but occasionally took advantage of the pickup's increased volume to play a fingerstyle solo. After Gretsch produced the GVE seven string around 1967, he played fingerstyle electric guitar exclusively on recordings.
I posted a video here and on the Ted Greene forum in March 2013 of a TV program from mid-1950s with GVE playing Do You Know What It means to Miss New Orleans? There is a brief clear shot of Van Eps playing rhythm and another of him soloing. It's worth searching for. At 9:46, he's playing rhythm; at 10:40, he solos. Short but informative clips. Especially if one has worked with The GVE Guitar Method.
Best Regards,
JeromeLast edited by monk; 12-19-2013 at 04:12 AM.
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Jerome (thanks for your real name - I wish more people would use their real name - but that's an aside...) I have seen that video you refer to, and you can certainly hear the Method at work in his short but unique solo. There really was no one I know of doing anything remotely similar on the guitar at that time.
It doesn't surprise me he calls his pick playing "banjo style" as the plectrum and tenor banjos were all the rage in the 20s and 30s - three or four-note chords leaping around the fretboard in all manner of inversions and substitutions. I play a bit of plectrum banjo myself. If it's not too off-topic, here's a composition from the 1930s by Bud Cross, called Flirtation. It is not the flashy style, but gives some indication that the banjo was treated as a serious solo instrument at the time. There are four strings, tuned from the bass upwards, CGBD, and played with a pick. The melody often lay on the top string, and there is always a lot of movement up and down the neck.
But George's father was one of the greatest ever fingerstyle banjo players, and maybe George had been impressed at an early age by the possibilities of a fingerstyle technique.Last edited by Rob MacKillop; 12-19-2013 at 04:43 AM.
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When playing alone or in small groups, George predominately played with his fingers. However, when he played rhythm on his acoustic (no amplification), in the big bands, he had no choice but to play with the pick, otherwise his sound would not carry.
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Well, that makes sense.
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Rob, how long do you think it would take you to run a student through this book?
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Depends on the student
Really, it has hard to say. Some students are more dedicated and committed than others, some have more free time than others. But for one who does have the time and determination, there is still the question of how deep he or she goes into the material. One could - as I have done - go through the book quite quickly, but then spend the rest of ones life learning how to use it. The quick overview part might take anything from a month to a year, depending on reading skills and technique.
I went through it more quickly than I would normally have done, just to let others see what is ahead, give an overview of the span of the book. Today I'm on the last page, and might get time to record it. But right after that I'll be heading back to page 1...
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Final Page! Etude Study
This is not an easy piece if you use Van Eps' left-hand fingering. There are a couple of places I was desperate to change to something more comfortable. But it is his study, after all, and one should try. So, this could have been better, but it gives a good idea, I hope, of what is asked of us.
Here endeth my exploration of this intriguing book by one of the masters of the guitar. 30 videos in all. I won't be doing any more from the book, but I will be taking the book to the woodshed, practising and finding a use for the material.
It would be great if someone else could upload other connected recordings or videos of their own.
Best of luck! And I'll maybe bump into you in that woodshed!
Rob
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You may be right. It's certain that Fred Van Eps' life-long obsession with left hand fingering mechanisms made an impression on GVE's approach to the fingerboard. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Another possibilty is that Andres Segovia's first U.S. concert tour in 1928 was an influence. I've read several accounts that every top flight guitarist in Manhattan attended The Maestro's concerts. It's likely that 15 year old George, already a working professional, attended one or more of those concerts.
There is a book of articles and essays, edited by James Sallis, titled Jazz Guitars. The chapter Swing Guitar: The Acoustic Chordal Style by Richard Lieberson contains some excellent background on Van Eps, Allan Reuss, Carl Kress and Dick McDonough. The article highlights some important recordings by each player.
Lost Chords by Richard Sudhalter contains a substantial, well-researched chapter on the guitarists of the swing era, a subject most historians manage to ignore.
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Thanks for the book references, Jerome. It seems you have walked this path yourself many times over. If you are ever in Edinburgh, I'll buy you a coffee and you can tell me all about it ;-)
Yes, Segovia influenced many guitarists of all genres.
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All of this and more is covered in Van Eps own words in the interview Ted Greene did: http://www.tedgreene.com/audio/TedGr...orgeVanEps.asp. There's both an audio version and the transcript that was published in Guitar Player; the latter is a lot quicker to deal with. Originally Posted by monk
His parents were divorced when he was five, the kids stayed with their mother, and he doesn't think his father was much of an influence. His father did take him to Segovia's first Town Hall concert. His hero had been Eddie Lang; after seeing this concert he added Segovia to Lang. He "... spent eight years with the classical repertoire ..." while also studying modern stuff. His brother Robert (pianist) seems to have had more influence on him than his mother (also a high end pianist) - at least that's who he specifically mentions. In fact, he says that while he listened to everybody, he mainly listened to piano players. (In this, he's far from the only old-time jazz/blues guitar player about whom I've read this; seems to me that those guys learned from the piano players in the same way that rock guitarists learned from the sax players.) One interesting tidbit is that George Gershwin was Fred Van Eps' accompanist for a while.
Anyway, the interview is a quick read and beats speculation hands down.
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I know I'm not Rob (I'm Phil), but I went through the entire book many years ago. The way I did it, I would guess that I put in maybe 200 - 250 hours total; maybe a bit more - I'm not entirely sure. I would frequently spend time playing the previous exercise before moving into the new one. I didn't always do the exercises in all keys, but certainly many keys. I spent time playing the same exercise over and over at tempo until I got it perfect - every chord right on time with no clams or muffled notes. The whole thing really helped develop my left hand skills. In terms of music or theory, I didn't have a clue what was going on. Still don't. Originally Posted by mjt
If someone just wanted to 'work through the book', you could do it in much less time if you're already skilled. But I took Georges instructions at the front of the book at face value : discipline, perfection in timing and accuracy and fingering, etc. So that adds time that is quite worthwhile.
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I need to be walked! Originally Posted by mjt
Again, Rob thank you for these videos. They will be a motivation and a reference when I will hit a wall, and they will definitely help me get through the book.
I have the Sallis book that Monk mentioned. Great read. I had never heard about Lost Chords by Sudhalter though, so thanks a lot for that, Jerome. It seems to be OOP, but I'll keep my eyes opened for a used copy.
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Thanks, Richard. I managed to get the Sallis book through Amazon a few moments ago for 3.50 UK Pounds - about 5 USD. The Sudhalter is about 90 Pounds - way too much, but it should be in my local music library.
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Originally Posted by Eddie Lang
I found my copy of Lost Chords for $15.00 US two years ago in a used bookstore locally. At 890 pages, it's a huge book and after a quick browse, I bought it solely for Chapter 21: Guitars, Solo and in Combination. Sudhalter, a trumpet player, was kind enough to spend some real time and effort researching Eddie Lang, Carl Kress, Lonnie Johnson, Dick McDonough, Van Eps, Eldon Shamblin, Snoozer Quinn and George Barnes. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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"Snoozer Quinn" - wonderful name!
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George v. Eps told my teacher that the original HM books were the size of "phone books". What was the final result was the result of heavy editing. My teacher considers the HM books the "bible". Originally Posted by FatJeff
I've downloaded the PDF and will, as the Brits say, "have a go". Gotta be careful with expressions-yesterday, I was reading about a great musician who had musically "topped herself". Someone remarked that meant she committed suicide in UK slang
. Which thankfully she had not.
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So I practiced exercise 1--fairly straight-forward harmonizing the C major scale with 1st inv triads. No explanation with the 6th degree of the scale (A) is harmonized with a 2nd inv F triad. I guess the fingering falls nicely in a legato manner to the B dim triad?
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Don't know if you missed it before, but I read it as a IV (F) or iim7 (Dm7) to V (G7) to I (C). But it's ambiguity is useful.
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