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Dave Wirth

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The Typewriter Method

Typewriter

Woman seated with Underwood typewriter, Library of Congress

When a beginner starts guitar, the best thing they can do is start by playing basic chords and learn how to strum. This is the vernacular of guitar, the most commonly spoken language. It is the language of pop songs.

What happens when a beginner outgrows the vernacular? Perhaps she would like to branch out and start playing melodies on the guitar. To me, this is playing lead guitar. Just like strumming and playing chords, playing lead guitar has hacks that really help the beginner to advance quickly. The Typwriter Method is the one of the best I've come across. First things first: pressure.

Each finger has a specific amount of pressure it must use to fret a note on the guitar. The pressure needed is magnified when more fingers are being used. More than one finger is needed to play chords, which means you need more pressure (it's worse for barre chords). This is not the case in lead guitar. In fact, when a finger is down that doesn't need to be down, it can make playing lead guitar more difficult.

Let's say that the melody you want to play has two notes, starting on your index finger. If your index finger lifts up en route to the second note, then you are maximizing your energy. If your index finger doesn't lift up, you are adding more pressure than needed:

I like to compare this to old time typewriters. The gears will get messed up if you accidentally use more than one key at one time. Same thing happens to guitarists. Use only what you need.

Posted by Dave Wirth
 

The Funnel Effect

The National has screamed into our musical listening consciousness like a tidal wave. The guys in The National combine beautiful melody, epic textures, and pulse pounding drums within each album. On top of all of this they are masters of musical weight.

Weight is best described in terms of gravity. A perfect example of a chord progression that has gravity is the movement from a Dsus (short for D Suspended) to a D Major chord. The Dsus has quite a bit of tension while the D chord resolves it. Tension and resolution is a common theme in good music. Some songwriters are so adept at playing with tension that they can make the entire song compelling until the very final chord. Fewer songwriters are even better because they would save this resolution even until the end of the album! Weight, in the way that I am describing, has that quality where we the listeners are pulled to listen to the rest of the song. Slow Show, by The National, is a perfect example of this.

What is impressive about Slow Show is that it doesn't seem to assume the audience. If it were played as lightly as background music we wouldn't probably notice it. The song reveals it's incredible weight only upon a closer look. The start of the song pulls us right to the end and then into the next song on the album. They are able to do this through an even distribution of weight throughout the song. That's what I like to call The Funnel Effect.

A shining example of how conscious The National is to craft an evenly weighted song occurs directly after the first chorus. Most of the verses in the song have eight measures to them, but this section only has six. Why? My best guess on this is that it felt right to them to have only six measures, but I think there is more than meets the eye. They might have felt that an extra two measures would just slightly unbalance the listeners enough to not pull them into the second verse. In other words, they shortened this section because they cared that the listeners enjoyed the entire song and not just the first chorus. They made it easier for the funnel effect, that easy distribution of weight seen in great and compelling songwriting, to flow easily to the final chord of the song.

Slow Show is by no means an isolated example, either from The National or any of their records. Nor is The National the only band that is consciously doing this. Musicians and composers have been crafting music that needs our attention since it's very humble beginnings. To me, the music that is most compelling can be either well-crafted or intensely rough. As long as it makes me want to listen to the end.

Posted by Dave Wirth