Playing Around The Lead Guitarist

[Jason Rumley]

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive about this but here it goes..

The lead guitarist in my band is a pretty solid bar band guitarist. He doesn't stray too far from his pentatonic scales and his phrasing is okay too. Enough that his friends will tell him how awesome he is. Since I've picked up steel in the band(moving from bass) over a year ago he hasn't changed a single lick in his playing. Most the time it isn't a problem since we've been adding new songs and work it out. It bothers me because on some songs (Amarillo By Morning, Unwound..) he has worked out parts to mimic the steel and fiddle parts. He plays ALL OVER these songs playing fills after every line. Leaving almost no hole left that I can fill.

On top of that, he's told me a few times to "Keep it simple and do a lot of volume swells".. which I was a little offended by. On some songs I don't feel like I can play without immediately clashing with him doing pedal steel sounding licks.

What do I do? Play around him more? Talk to him about it? What have you done?

[Richard Sinkler]

Talk to him. He won't change on his own.

[Dave Mudgett]

Be the lead guitarist in the band also? OK, that's a smartass answer, but it works.

Enough that his friends will tell him how awesome he is. ... On top of that, he's told me a few times to "Keep it simple and do a lot of volume swells".. which I was a little offended by. On some songs I don't feel like I can play without immediately clashing with him doing pedal steel sounding licks.

Lemme guess - you guys are pretty young, and he doesn't know much about steel guitar. I call this behavior 'marking one's territory'. He has the solos and fills on those tunes already staked out and is just doing what he does. You're coming in from a different role and encroaching on his turf. If he's mature, maybe you can talk with him about working some steel in. If he's not, I expect it may just cause a problem.

If it really turns into a problem, there's not much aurally that a 200-300 watt pedal steel amp set on stun can't overcome, but that can lead to a bad result if you're not careful. But if you can just "muscle in" a few nice fills here and there and they can see that a pedal steel really does pedal steel fills a helluvalot better than a guitarist can do them, they might change their tune. Or maybe just work up a whole lot of new tunes and gradually phase out these old ones over which there is a conflict. Maybe if you revisit them much later you can work things out.

I think this is a pretty common problem when working with younger guitarists. My experience, anyway.

[Richard Sinkler]

I find it just as bad with older guitar players that have never, or rarely, played with a steel guitar player. I can always tell when a guitar player has spent most of his time in 3 piece bands (or more, but he was the only lead instrument). A lot of them never learned to "listen" to the overall sound coming from the band, and can't comprehend when to play and when not to. Really, if the record has steel fills/solos, you should be playing them and just bringing up the fact that this part or that part was actually the steel guitar. I find that is a good way to tell the guitar player that I want to play that part. If he can't adjust, it may be time to leave the band and find a more professional bunch of musicians.

[Marc Friedland]

Jason,
I agree with Richard – pretty much all of what he said is typically true.

Fortunately, and against all odds I’ve had a difference experience.
The Lead Guitarist in the band I’ve recently joined up with was used to playing all the leads & fills throughout every song and his background was almost all rock, very little country. Not that he wasn’t a good R & R guitarist - but I think he’s made terrific progress in the first few months we’ve been together. He now knows he can trust me to cover the parts I’m supposed to and is perfectly fine with playing supportive musical parts. For example: on Neon Moon he only plays his little rhythmic part and designated guitar solo while I play all the fills & do all the color work. And his solo is very close to the feel of the record now as compared to a Rock & Roll guitarist jamming over the chord changes. And he uses the same approach for Josh Turner’s Your Man which also works very well and just about the whole set list now.
I believe he “partly” changed his ways and learned some new tricks because he didn’t want to lose me to another band and also he was willing to take the time to see it made the whole band sound better, which fortunately was one of his goals – not just to have a platform to play loud lead guitar.

So the bottom line is SOME of these players can change their ways though most prefer not to.

I’m guessing you need to determine which camp he falls into and then you can make a decision regarding if this band is the right one for you at this time.

Good luck!

-- Marc

[John Billings]

"I call this behavior 'marking one's territory'. He has the solos and fills on those tunes already staked out and is just doing what he does. "

Well,,,,you need to mark your territory. Pee in his guitar case!
Had a fiddle player who stepped on everyone else. Constant noodling. One night the guitar player had just had enough! During a break, he sprayed WD-40 on the fiddler's bow stings. Hilarious results! But the band changed some personnel shortly thereafter.

[Peggy Green]

I've experienced this on more than one occasion. Even with a Berklee School of Music student who became a teacher there.

IMHO you can't turn taste on and off. You have to cultivate taste always. So you have to make the best music to compliment it the best you can. Guitar wants to sound like a steel. Let the steel sound like a guitar. You can also try an over under strategy. Let his be the over. But while he's playing your adding just a little under it to "support" his lines. That's a way to get into Amarillo by Morning.

It is along life. You will cross paths again and again. Do your best you can.

[Dave Hopping]

Yup.You need to learn all the steel fills and solos in every tune in your set list.Once you've got them down cold,play them where they're supposed to be as aggressively as you need to until the guitar player either knocks it off with the fake steel or confronts you.If the latter,you can explain politely but very firmly that for the sake of the song and the show,he needs to step off the steel parts.But also be sure you don't noodle your way thru HIS parts.Fair is fair.

[Peggy Green]

Just to add...after a lifetime that's all pretty old. So I am now fully Tele-capable on my 6 and 8 strings to put any lead player to the test if he really wants to play steel guitar on his lead guitar. Grin. Grin....that will be fun.

[Richard Sinkler]

As with Marc, I get to play with a guitar player that knows how to share. He also is used to playing all the parts in some of his past bands, but is aware enough to know when to let me have my parts.

[Paul Sutherland]

This is an extremely common problem. You learn real quick which guitar players (fiddlers, etc.) are worth playing with, and which ones are hopeless.

I've recently had a situation where the guitar player and I talked about the fills and solos, but even when I get the nod to play solos or fills, he keeps noodling around. He doesn't seem to understand that his syncopation type fill licks are highly likely to conflict with my fills or solo.

But I don't play with the band often enough to put up a fuss. It's just a paycheck (small I might add) for a band that has no future even if the guitar player had an epiphany. Bad attitude, but I'm not going to beat my head against a wall.

PS: I've been guilty of overplaying on occasions, so I'm not so quick to blame others. We all get overly enthusiastic at times.

[Nathan Emerson]

Suggest the band read "The Music Lesson" by Victor Wooten
(Bela Fleck & the Flecktones bassist)

The book covers letting music breathe, not stepping on eachothers feet, being tasteful while others solo, etc

I love it

[Nathan Emerson]

Suggest the band read "The Music Lesson" by Victor Wooten
(Bela Fleck & the Flecktones bassist)

The book covers letting music breathe, not stepping on eachothers feet, being tasteful while others solo, etc

I love it

[Steve Spitz]

The issue often is...does he want to be a tasteful ensemble player? Don't know, or don't care ? Don't know is easy to fix. Sometimes I can help by saying " we seem to be stepping on each other a bit, why don't we work out some order, that way when its your/my turn, we can really come in strong, it will sound more arranged, more polished"' he either wants to make it right, or he doesn't . Good luck!

[David Ellison]

Rock musicians really just have no idea that there's anything other than playing all the way through every song at one constant volume. They don't understand the dynamics of traditional country music, which involves the guitar player TURNING DOWN his guitar when it's not his turn to play fills behind the singer or play a solo. Country music is about taking turns playing fills behind the vocalist. One verse it's the guitar, the next it's steel, etc.

I would advise playing them some recordings of traditional country songs and really spelling it out for him. I've had to do this before. "OK, you hear how after this verse, the guitar disappears and the steel comes in? That's how we need to do it." Some people never get it, and I've refused to play with people like that. It's no fun to have to try to play over the top of someone else.

[Bryant Aycock]

There aren't many Jimmy Capps' out there. Most guitar players are showboats. Chances are the band owner will side with the guitar player. Just learn what you can and move on.

[Paul Sutherland]

I agree with Bryant, almost certainly the band leader will side with the guitar player, because he/she needs a good guitar player more than a good steel player. That's just a fact of life in modern country music.

If you can't work it out with the guitar player, time to think about moving on down the road, or just take the money and keep looking for something better.

[Dave Little]

Send him this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQStiF9D ... ults_video

('Course those are some pretty big shoes to fill on steel)
Ha

[Dave Hopping]

Jason-
I thought about this one some more after reading all the posts.I think there's maybe a bit of a power struggle going on,and that you can assert yourself better if you do it with the music,rather than in words;let him come to you if he has a problem with you playing it right.

Most bandleaders LIKE it when you play it right

[Jan Viljoen]

I don't know how the band is structured, how much say each player has in die overall identity of the band and what music is being played.

But, it also sounds like a power struggle between strings and it will be difficult to be rectified with ego's intact.

The bandleader obviously has a big say, but what is his assessment of the overall sound and outcome, in this case?
Isn't it also his responsibility to get a clean, well balanced sound with happy musicians?

One of the factors is that friendships that were made before any new member of the band enters the fray, will also influence the dynamics and interpersonal relations.
How is that being managed?
I know of a church band being autocratically run by two sisters, wit a high turnover of band members.

This is inter alia what makes a successful band; how is everybody getting along, and how is everybody's musical talent utilized.

I can only hope everything works out well. Joining a new band will have new adaptations.

It's like that the world over, here as well, unfortunately

Steel on!

[Tony Prior]

so basically you have moved to Steel , so now there are TWO lead Instruments when there was only ONE ????

I guess I am thinking this is what happened ..you guys didn't spend any time rehearsing or talking thru the music ?

This is probably the most common scenario in bands today... lead Instruments playing lead all the time...it takes a very special caliber of lead players to understand this scenario and make it work for the better good...I am talking Steel, Guitar, Keys, Fiddles etc....the worst is harmonica players...

Like many here, I have been on the club stages for over 40 years, I can name on 3 or 4 fingers the other lead players that I worked very well with..the other 100 were in their own world....

One thing is for certain, if you are working with a LICK HOG and take a back seat..it will get worse...not better...

I do not consider myself a great player by any stretch but I do consider myself a very established BAND player who knows how to listen, fit in, play and/or LIFT......I was not 20 years ago...

I recently left a group because of this , it was not my primary band so it didn't have much effect on me..but the band leader didn't like that I left...I recently told him why...he suspected that was the reason,,now he knows... The guitar player in that scenario just would not shut up..even on my dedicated parts..he would someone find some sort of part that he thought should be played along with my part...which basically made it impossible for me to create....so..I stopped creating..I quit !

You need to have a sit down with the band..tell them whats on your mind or you will not survive it....or go back to Bass...

[David Mason]

I just have a few questions: How much of the repertoire is rock? Was the lead guitarist one of the founders of the band? Are they a rock band just playing country for the money? And, how good are you at steel, yet?

I mean, you know these guys, spying on them from the bassist spot... if they weren't concerned with proper arrangements of songs a few years ago, that won't change easily. And if the singer and guitarist fancy themselves as some sort of hometown Mick/Keith dynamo, that won't change either.

[Bud Angelotti]

Pretty much the story of my musical life as well.
One thing to consider in the guitar pickers defense, the steel, you/me, sits in one spot. We get used to the way things sound from that one spot. The guitar moves around, even ever so slightly. We all know that can change ones perception of how things sound. Even a small change in position can change how we are "hit" with a speaker. There is no substitution for teamwork & communication.

[Jim Lindsey (Louisiana)]

Reading various posts about combative or greedy lead players makes me realize how blessed I was over my 35 year steel career. Out of the 15 bands that I played with, only once did I ever have the misfortune of working with a lead player who was, shall we say, less than desirable to work with. The rest of the time I had the opposite problem that's often mentioned whenever the subject of lead players comes up.

Actually, what happened to me in my career is that the lead players I worked with were only too happy to turn anything that wasn't specifically lead guitar over to me (which can be a two-edged sword in itself as it ends up forcing you to play far more than you're originally prepared to play). I can't count the number of times that when it came to fiddle parts, horn parts, harmonica, slide guitar, "oooh" and "aaah" vocal lines and other instruments, the band would point at me and say, "Oh, we'll let Jim do all of that; he'll come up with something there."

Most of the lead players I've worked with (actually all of them with the exception of one) were always throwing parts in my direction instead of trying to hog them to themselves.

I've worked with a few lead players, one in particular with Whatta Band, that loved for the steel and lead to inter-weave in and out of each other during fills and rides, and/or if it was steel playing lead, he'd lay a foundation or some nice counterpoint underneath what I was playing and vice versa.

Whatta Band's policy for their steel guitar players was only one big rule ... play too much and too loud and have the steel present 100% through every song. They turned out to be a fun band to work with in the end, but that rule of theirs about playing all the time took some real getting used to and I never did live up to the "too loud" part of their rule because I'm basically a pretty quiet player.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I gravitated from Whatta Band to Southern Thunder (which eventually turned into Ty Herndon & Ride The West) where all I had to worry about were steel parts and occasionaly comping fiddle or horn parts. But, that was short-lived and in a couple of months or so, here we went again:

That two-edged sword of the band wanting more steel still haunted me ... the lead players (we had two) would both say, "Wrap some steel around me on these parts" and I'd also get the same thing from the keyboard player who'd say stuff like "Ah, yes, lay a nice foundation under me to compliment my part here." Again, it would end up with me having to be present all through the song from start to finish and the band would then be happy once everything was "filled with steel".

If I were to have any sort of gripe regarding bands and lead players I've worked with it would be that they were too generous with having the steel play. I would sometimes find myself thinking "Just once I'd like to play in a group where all I had to play were strictly steel parts and be able to lay out the rest of the time."

Don't get me wrong, I love playing! But, when the band you're working with is always wanting the steel present from start to finish in seemingly every song, you can start wishing for moments when you can just lay out without someone in the band saying, "Hey, why aren't you playing there?"

I guess my thing was always feeling that I was playing too much, despite the band's view otherwise.

When I read horror stories about lead players hogging parts or not willing to work well with others, I'm made to realize that even though they were making me playing much more than I really wanted to in the course of a song, I really didn't have it bad at all.

[Pete Burak]

I would just tell the guy flat out...
"Listen Man, The amount of time that sound is coming out of your amp needs to be cut in half."
And/or...
The only members of the band that play from the beginning to the end of every song are the Drummer and the Bass player... and maybe the acoustic strummer if there is one.
There's also...
It's not a musical "conversation" if one member is "talking" at all times.