Clic Music

A report of the European Tap Guitar Seminar

Students and teachers at E-tap 2009

The E-Tap Report 09

A report by Dave Bowmer:

The European Tap Guitar Seminar takes place annually in Libramont, a small town in the attractive Ardenne forest region of Wallonie in Southern Belgium. This week long international event provides an exceptional opportunity to study the tapping method and perform concerts with other musicians. All levels of tapping musician are welcome from complete beginner to advanced expert.

The seminar is part of a much bigger event, the Summer Academie of Wallonie, which presents a wide range of music courses and concerts from traditional European & world music through jazz to contemporary music, all directed by masters of their instrument. A range of arts courses run simultaneously to the music, including dance, film making, visual arts, sculpture, ceramics, Marionette making, textiles etc. spread across two college campuses in Libramont and neighbouring Neufchâteau.

Fast train connections direct from Brussels to Libramont make travel to the seminar easy. I travelled to Brussels from London on the Eurostar train, which took only 2 hours. Staying in Brussels for one night I had a very enjoyable evening in the attractive medieval centre of the city. I can recommend the excellent ‘La Rose Blanche’ restaurant and the ‘Delerium Cafe’ where you can choose from the menu of over 1000 different Belgian beers.

The Libramont campus is situated on the edge of a pine forest where good walks can be enjoyed while picking wild fruit from the abundance of bilberry and raspberry bushes. Accommodation is provided in individual student rooms with en-suite shower and all meals are provided in the restaurant, allowing the participants to focus on enjoying their music. You are also actively encouraged to visit the classes of any of the other courses that may interest you. With so many musicians and artists in one place it is also a great holiday shared with like minded people, and every evening concerts are performed on the stage in the bar or concert hall. The stages benefit from excellent PA sytems and sound engineers, as sound recording and engineering is another of the courses on offer. The experience and opportunity to develop your music in supportive surroundings is so valuable that I have been attending since 1999 (of course the excellent Belgian beers have absolutely nothing to do with this!). Many musicians have been attending long term making each year a happy reunion with friends.

Music is everywhere on the campus, and the bar performances benefited from a group of excellent African musicians and story tellers visiting from the Congo. Particularly memorable for me this summer was the wonderful open air performance by Daniel Schell with Mathias Sorof on the terrace outside the bar on a sunny evening, showing just how magical two master tapping guitarists can sound together, joined by Mustafa, an amazing Algerian dumbek player. It was a joy to hear them.

The Tap Guitar Seminar welcomes all types of instrument in any tuning configuration, whether standard guitar or bass or any make of tapping guitar. The predominant tapping instrument this year was the Chapman Stick®.

Four Masters of the tap guitar technique taught the students and shared the secrets of their personal approach to music. The Masters were Daniel Schell, Wolfgang Daiss, Mathias Sorof, and Adam Fulara.

For the morning lessons the students were divided into separate classes to ensure an appropriate and comfortable level of teaching, whether beginner or advanced, and the teachers rotated between the classes mid morning. In the afternoons master classes on a range of subjects were presented. The classes selected pieces of music to work on and arrange through the week, applying the principles being taught in preparation for a student concert on Friday night.

The following is a brief recollection of some of the classes and workshops which I attended during the week. I will attempt to describe some of the key topics covered, but you really need to have been there physically working with the concepts to see how they apply to the tapping instrument.

Monday 20th July 2009 – Daniel Schell
We arrived today and checked in around mid-morning. After lunch in the restaurant we had the first meeting of teachers and students, where each person introduced themselves, described their chosen tuning configuration and instrument and then each played a short piece to introduce their playing. The structure for the week was discussed and agreed, and the first class organised to start with teaching by the founder, Daniel Schell, supported by Wolfgang Daiss.

Daniel paid homage to the late American tapping musician Ray Ashley with a special tribute class about his work. Ray, a talented musician and good friend of past seminar teachers and students, recently died of cancer. He visited the seminar a number of times from the USA, and taught lessons on his work on the music of Alexander Scriabin, JJ Johnson, Carl Nielsen, and the music of the African Shona people of Zimbabwe. This class focussed on his Shona Rhythm exercises for tap guitar which he had presented to us in 2003. In addition to playing tapping guitar Ray was also an expert on the African finger piano, the mbira, hence his depth of research and knowledge on this music.

Shona music embodies rhythmic elements that sound complex to a European ear and are initially challenging to get your head and hands around. The key to Shona music is mastering variations on a 3 against 2 rhythm. Ray’s exercises help to develop the ability to superimpose the two pulses between the hands. The first exercise started with triplets in the right hand, playing three over each beat in the left hand, alternating with three against two, then replacing notes with rests so only the second and fifth notes in the right hand coincided with the left hand notes. The second exercise expanded the three against two rhythm to arpeggiated triads in the right hand over alternating pairs of notes in the left hand. Exercise three really gave the feel of the Shona music, where the triads were offset by a beat to put the first three beat on an up-beat. Initially challenging on the brain and hands this superimposition eventually feels natural once you stop concentrating too hard and relax into its trance like qualities. While we had music scores to inform us I would be intrigued to observe how these complex rhythms are initially taught in the verbal tradition of the Shona people. To clarify the correct rhythm and phrasing Mathias Sorof entered the score into Sibelius on his computer, and a few days later I made a video clip of the class working through the exercises and will post it on the ETapguitar myspace. Once these exercises have been mastered two tapping guitarists could play together the interlocking melodies and rhythms of the traditional Shona piece ‘Nyuchi’ (bees) as arranged and scored by Ray. It will take some work to manage the Kushuara melody/bass and Kutsinhara bass parts simultaneously, a good aim for the next seminar. Ray may be no longer physically with us but he remains close through his music which lives on.

Tuesday 21st July – Wolfgang Daiss
Wolfgang shared his approach to developing his superb jazz walking bass style. He recommended taking standard bass exercises and applying to the tapping instrument, working from the range of Aebersold books and recordings to practice to. He also informed us of the Jazz Conception series covering different levels of experience, with more instruments where a selected instrument can be removed from the mix for practicing. Also practicing for example a 2 bar walking bass loop and working on keeping it tight while playing melody lines over it, using 4 fingers for the 5th tuning. The importance of 2 handed bass practice was also emphasised, useful where a pure bass role is to be achieved in combo. Have one simple bass sequence to fall back on. Use Root 3 5 3 as a basic fall back pattern to help hear the chords, learning both starting on 4th finger and 1st finger for smooth transitioning. For small hands playing minor with 1st finger and major with 4th finger is helpful. Gradually introduce chromatic joining notes. Learn all versions starting with 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers so you can connect chords easily.

For dynamics, always start with the simplest bass part possible (eg root only), leaving space develop the piece dynamically. While the bass is important, focus on achieving a great melody sound and phrasing. Then arpeggiate the bass, then expand. Wolfgang demonstrated this clearly on a version of ‘Blue Bossa’, starting with very minimal root bass and developing the accompaniment to his melody.

Learn solidly the 8 chord system taught in ETap. The 4 chords in 2 inversions avoid the fifth, using root-3-7. Learn to connect them with minimal movement. Initially the left hand top notes can help inform the right hand of top notes and shape.

Tuesday 21st July – Adam Fulara
Virtuoso guitarist Adam presented methods to introduce intentional points of tension into our playing to give the music more expression. Although may do this naturally by ear in improvisation Adam focussed on what the best musical mechanism to do it reliably is. When we improvise the standard matching scales over chord progressions they do not give tension. Adam describes harmonically neutral notes as black and the tension notes as red. Red notes are outside the scale, either flat or sharp, usually as transitional notes for example from the last chord of a progression back to the first chord. He proposed that the most effective method of tension was the use of the dominant 7th chord, and presented a demonstration with the George Michael tune ‘Careless Whispers’, introducing points of stress within his improvised melodies over the standard D G Bb A progression. (The 3rd of the dominant 7th chord on the 5th note of the scale is the leading note of the 1 chord, creating the perfect cadence 5 to 1 – DB). In teaching this piece various tricks were introduced, such as incorporating a percussive accent in the bass hand following the bass notes. Simulating a snare accent, this was placed on the upbeat rather than down beat. As Adam is a master of counterpoint, harmonic melodic parts were added to the melodic theme, shared between the tapping musicians. The bass part was enriched then with the addition of a high note on top (3rd or 7th). Tension was shown as coming from the Dominant 7th chord as the final chord in the progression. The use of Diminished and Augmented scales over the piece were investigated in addition to the Dominant 7th over the minor scale. Rhythmic accents were then added using a typically Scofield accent, always placed on beat 4. The surprise of the accent is its counterintuitive nature, making the challenge of this fast 4 beat rhythmic phrase to play the first and third beats quietly and place the louder accent on the 2nd and 4th beats.

Tuesday 21st July – Mathias Sorof
Mathias taught a method of developing a range of possible accompaniments, using the traditional tune ‘Molly Malone’ in 3/4 time as the vehicle to practice these techniques. First the melody and refrain was taught, then bass accompaniment added using root notes only, using the first finger in readiness for chord additions. The tap chord was then added to the bass, and developed into a simple arpeggiated bass, keeping it legato, then the same but in double time. Ostinato’s where then learnt. Initially a drone (as for example the Uillean pipes) holding the first root note through the progression, then adding rhythmic pulsing as the Bodhran drum would play. To capture the mechanics of the Bodhran beater, where both ends are used, fingering using alternating 1st and 2nd fingers was applied to the root of each chord in the progression. The pulse was first played straight on beats 1 and 3, then the first note stretched to dotted quarter note followed by a tied quarter & eighth creating a darker sounding accompaniment.

Tuesday 21st – Daniel Schell
Work continued on learning the third and more complex Shona exercise by Ray Ashley. Daniel also showed daily practice exercises, applying va et vient to scales, rolling the melody fingering 1232 over bass on beat one, then beat 2, beat 3 and finally 4 working with the metronome. Then the pentatonic in position 4 using matching fingering in both hands.

Wednesday 22nd July – Wolfgang Daiss
A standard progression (Handels Passacaglia) was used to work on connecting bass chords, expanding to the right hand building chords on the 3rd and 7th as also implied in the left hand chord, and recognising how the shapes of these are created by flattening one note at a time. The different old and modern chords were mentioned, and the avoid note discussed. The method of pulling towards the nut a note on one string in the chord was demonstrated as a means of achieving well tuned chords.

Wednesday 22nd July – Daniel Schell
The eight chord system was elaborated on and the inversions practiced, observing the same chord shapes on the melody side. A root 5 bass riff was added to the exercise, for which effective fingerings were shown. Major scales in the bass with 4 notes per string were added as an exercise. Daniel played a number of suggested pieces as proposals for a suitable performance piece for my group. We selected a Karo composition written by Daniel titled Ruissell d’or fin, which is based on the Indian Raga Durga. Accompanying musicians from other courses would be invited to join us in performing the piece.

Wednesday 22nd July – Wolfgang Daiss
Wolfgang used the piece ‘All of me’ to teach his walking bass method, applying the appropriate bass scales over the chords and finding the shortest route between scales. The dominant chord scale was shown in the bass as a diagonal form having the major 3rd and minor 7th. Again the eight chord system was incorporated and the melody chords seen to reflect the shapes of the bass tap extensions, and the inversions practiced. The triplet ‘swing’ feel was applied to the accompanying chords. Reharmonisation of chords and a substitutions was worked on.

Thursday 23rd July – Adam Fulara
Adam explained the development of his own style becoming a master of creating counterpoint melody lines and applying them to jazz & popular music playing simultaneous lines on his dual neck guitar and expanding this to bass, melody and counterpoint. Using his own experience as an example he investigated ways to help develop our own unique style and sound.

Thursday 23rd July – rehearsal
The two groups were guided by the masters in preparing their selected pieces ready for performance, and then rehearsed with additional invited musicians.

Thursday 23rd July – Instrument demonstration by Michael Koch
Michael Koch visited the seminar and demonstrated the Koyabu ‘Tiny’ 12 string tap-guitar which he markets in Europe. It features a maple neck with with Rosewood fingerboard and 30 inch scale length allowing the use of standard strings, twin truss rods, and a Chinese Alder body. Manufactured in China and assembled in Japan, it is priced at 1200 Euros direct from Michaels company Music Marketing. The headstock is unusual in combining bass tuners with banjo tuners. It features a great looking bridge designed by Mr Koyabu and made in Japan. The strings are configured in uncrossed standard 5ths/4ths, the same tuning that I use. A more expensive custom built version is also available with 3 dimensional headstock and Goto guitar & bass tuners. When standing the strap supports it in a comfortable playing position, for seated playing a stand is available. Michael showed how well the instrument plays by performing some of his own excellent compositions, combining effects and guitar synth on the melody side for a really big sound, and the bass direct to an amp giving a good solid bass sound. Information is available at www.music-marketing.de

Thursday 23rd July – Luthier Sigi Abramzik
Sigi Abramzik, a highly innovative luthier, showed his wonderful 14 string Resonator tapping guitar, with aged brass fittings, and told us about his Bruno guitar. All of Sigi’s custom built Bear Trax instrument feature designs and finishes that look totally unique. He updated us on his current research and development and exciting plans for a new tapping instrument.

Thursday 23rd July - Daniel Schell’s fretless instrument
Sigi has made a beautiful fretless 2 region instrument for Daniel Schell, which Daniel demonstrated by playing some of his evocative Indian music on. Sliding the notes with both hands independently, Daniel revealed the wide range of expressive sounds available. I look forward very much to hearing new pieces composed by Daniel specially for this uniquely voiced tapping instrument.

Thursday 23rd July – Dave Bowmer workshop
I demonstrated the use of electronics with tapping instruments. The beat synced multi effects, amp modelling, and percussion sounds of the Adrenalinn 3 were shown using some of my compositions, highlighting the programming of the inbuilt sequencer to create unique pulsing rhythms synchronised with percussion sounds, and lockable externally by midi clock to other units or recording equipment. This was then combined with real time loop recording using the Boss RC-50 Loop Station.

Friday 24th July – Adam Fulara
Some of the 30 Dominant substitutions on the 5th step of the scale were introduced and applied to the ‘Careless Whispers’ tune in continued work on adding tension. The shortest way to connect and using joining licks and resolving them was investigated. Diminished and Augmented scales were added. Figurative bass repeating patterns were used and melodic counterpoint demonstrated on a beautiful new Fulara composition yet to be released.

Friday 24th July – Mathias Sorof
Mathias taught another traditional Irish tune, ‘The Kerry Polka’, as a basis for work on further accompaniment methods. Different bass fingerings were shown for ease of repetitive patterns. In a later workshop Mathias presented a very useful map of fingerings of all the scale modes for the bass in 5ths, in one interconnecting diagram.

Friday 24th July – Adam Fulara
Adam gave a presentation on his teaching video that is soon to be released. This uses a range of classical music school pieces of progressive difficulty to teach the tapping method on six string guitar from total beginner up to advanced. It should be available September/October from www.adamfulara.com

Friday 24th July – Tapping student performance
Earlier in the week the tap guitar teachers had presented an inspiring concert, when especially notable was the wonderful soprano and overtone singing of Libena Karsch with Mathias on Stick. Now tonight it was the turn of two groups of tapping students to perform. Sadly Joeri Gydé could not join us as he had to leave early, hopefully he can join us again next year. First on stage were the three tap guitars of Daniel Marcenac, Andy Dallenbach and myself, joined by Brigitte Mareshal on flute and Jasmina on Dumbek drum. We performed ‘Ruisselle d’or fin’ composed by Daniel Schell and based on the Indian Raga Durga. Next to perform was the duo of Gerrit Swerthelm with the talented young vocalist Vaonne Sorof, performing a piece by Mathias Sorof. For their final piece they were joined by Sergio Camacho on tap guitar and the virtuoso Algerian Dumbek player Mustafa, while Gerrit changed to acoustic guitar.

Saturday 25th July – Mathias Sorof
Mathias has mastered a method of playing accompaniment on the tapping guitar while simultaneously playing the melody on a conventional six string guitar, primarily to enjoy the wide string bending capabilities of the six string. He has now developed a new arrangement for his double guitar concept which he presented to us, using ‘The Bone’ travel guitar for the six string and attaching this to the tapping guitar using his novel mounting arrangement with both necks in parallel. The two instruments looked great in this configuration and Mathias demonstrated the excellent playability of the new combination.

Saturday 25th July – Daniel Schell
Daniel taught a series of progressive exercises to help learn the technique of phasing with 2 hands. Daniel has naturally developed the ability to superimpose complex time combinations and there has been a lot of interest in how this is done since he had 8000 hits on the Youtube video where he plays his ‘polyrhythmic trance’. The first exercise presented a repeating 3/8 motif in the right hand over a repeating 3 note bass part in 4/4 in the left hand, both in Cm, where the melodic line phases across 3 bars before synchronising again. A way to approach this is to initially decompose and reduce the melody line to those notes that align with the bass notes, in this case in bar 1 note C, bar 2 note Eb, bar 3 note D. (The bass should maintain a smooth legato feel while the right is more staccato). Another approach is to take one bar at a time and observe which melody note coincides with each bass note. The process was then expanded by replacing a selected note of the motif with a rest, making the effect more interesting and imagnifying the impact of the shifting pairs of notes relative to the bass in each bar. This can be taken a bar at a time, for example starting with a silent 3rd note of the melody motif, cycling that bar until established. Then take the second bar where the rest has phased to the first note position and master it, then the third bar where the rest starts on the second eighth note, and finally putting the three bars together.

Summary
Etap 2009 was a great event, a lot of fun and a valuable learning and performing experience. The seminar provided all of the materials and understanding necessary to go home and continue working on applying the presented concepts to our own music. I look forward to returning again to the seminar next July.

Dave Bowmer, July 2009

Information on the European Tap Guitar Seminar is available at:
www.clicmusic.be
http://www.myspace.com/etapguitar
www.akdt.be/fr/stages.php?i=109

Trade marks
ADG is a trade mark of Austin Douglas Guitars USA.
Belgrado is a tm of Belgrado Belgium.
Megatar is a Trade Mark of Megatar USA.
Stick is a trade mark of Stick Enterprises USA.
Koyabu is a trade mark of Deviser co. ltd