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James Lane Diary for February 08: Yamaha guitar scholarship winner
If you didn’t read my last blog my name is James Lane and I’m the proud winner of a Yamaha Guitar Scholarship at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance. I’m going to share what I’ve been doing at the Institute and hopefully pass on a bit of information about playing and learning.
I’m currently on half term of Term two now, and it has flown by so fast. I’ll start by telling you a little about a couple of the lessons I’ve had this term.
Country rock
We have this lesson with Lee Hodgson who has been teaching at the Institute for so many years that I think of him as the guitar doctor. We’ve covered all sorts of picking styles including hybrid picking and chicken picking, which are my favourites, and a lot of licks and solo ideas. The general idea I get about obtaining an authentic country sound is to play from the relative minor pentatonic of the major chord. Lee said this was a good start when trying to get the feel of it, and most importantly to listen to some country music!
Harmony and Theory
This term we’ve moved onto modes covering Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian and looking at key signatures. The part I hadn’t really touched on before coming to the Institute was modes. I’m not going to try and type the theory out but I now understand that they are used to get different colours and sounds when soloing and writing music. The mistake I made before was that I would refer a mode back to the modes parent scale which always confused me as I didn’t know why I didn’t just play the original scale but starting on a different scale step. Now I’ve learnt that it’s better to think of it as a separate key, because then you will always get that required sound.
Being a scholarship winner also has its other benefits; a few weeks ago I went along to see a film preview of “There will be blood”. It’s an incredible film starring Daniel day Lewis and the film score is written by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead. The film was really well put together and the music really helped to tell the story and set the mood of the film. I thoroughly encourage you to go and see it!
I also have teamed up with the other scholarship winners, to form a scholarship band. We had our first practice last week and it went really well. We’re being mentored by Chuck Sabo who is a drum legend that has worked with everyone from Elton John to Natalie Imbruglia. This is all in preparation for the Institute’s Industry Showcase night at the Luminaire on February 22nd.
I’ve also been working with the vocal scholarship winners Frankie and Kate on a covers band project, covering some John Mayer and Eric Clapton tracks. I also recently had a gig at the Rock Garden in Covent Garden supporting a country rock band, I really enjoyed this gig as I was able to try out a few new ideas in a cosy little venue and it went really well.
Most excitingly of all I’ve got myself a new Yamaha guitar! It’s the SA503 TVL Troy Van Leeuwen Signature model and is a copy of a 335 jazz style guitar. It looks really good, the neck is nice and wide but not too thick and it’s got a comfortable action and a great sound when plugged in. I’ve already used it at a gig with my band The Blue Feeling.
So, things have been really, really busy! As well as a great place to learn, the Institute is also a great place to meet and work with new people. The part that I’ve found hard to get on top of is good time management but it’s slowly getting easier, even if it does mean going to bed later and getting up earlier!