Music and Inner Focus — Source Transcripts & Research
Research and source material behind the article What’s Between the Notes and the working document. This file is a durable, searchable home for the full transcripts, so that ideas raised in these interviews can be cross-referenced into future conceptual work through wikilinks and the vault relationship index (graph view, backlinks, and SQL queries over vault-index.db).
Transcription note (updated 2026-07-01): The two Jacob Collier transcripts below were re-transcribed from the original audio via Whisper (Groq, whisper-large-v3) — the same method used for the Angine de Poitrine interview — replacing an earlier pass built from YouTube’s auto-generated captions. Timestamps in [mm:ss] mark the start of each ~20–25 second block; text within a block is continuous speech, lightly punctuated for readability. Spot-checked against the source video for the passages quoted in the article; treat as reliable for direct quotation. The Angine de Poitrine interview (French, with English translation) has its own dedicated record and is cross-linked rather than duplicated here.
Concepts surfaced (for cross-referencing)
Section titled “Concepts surfaced (for cross-referencing)”Threads in this source material that connect to Baseworks and to future writing. Linked so the graph and vault-index.db can surface them:
- Sensory resolution / perceptual discrimination — the same harmony perceived at different granularities (child to Herbie Hancock). See Perceptual Skills.
- SENSE then ADAPT — sensing finely is what lets you work within a limit. See SENSE-CONTROL-ADAPT, Intensity Modification.
- Discovery inside a constraint — the “butter notes” mishearing; the costume “handicap”; designing a new instrument to fit how you hear. See Reverse Engineering, Emergence.
- Micro-tonality / between the notes — just intonation “hits the soul”; micro-tonal intervals; finer grain in the same space.
- Practice as inquiry, not drilling — “deep experimentation,” led by curiosity; “you do your best work on the edge.” See Iterative Refinement, Communicability.
- Tier 1 vs Tier 2 attainments — cross-domain depth from any practice vs. the body-as-sensing-instrument that physical practice specifically opens. See The Two-Layer Framework.
- Anonymity / removing the performer — changing the audience’s perceptual filter so the work is what registers.
A. Angine de Poitrine (Aucard de Tours podcast, 2026-02-26)
Section titled “A. Angine de Poitrine (Aucard de Tours podcast, 2026-02-26)”Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYQq153rLEg
Full French transcript and English translation: Angine de Poitrine — Interview Transcript & Translation.
Timing peg (verified 2026-06-30): ~70,000 people at their free Montreal International Jazz Festival show, TD Stage / Place des Festivals, June 27, 2026; largest festival turnout since 2009.
B. Jacob Collier — “5 Levels of Harmony” ft. Herbie Hancock (WIRED)
Section titled “B. Jacob Collier — “5 Levels of Harmony” ft. Herbie Hancock (WIRED)”Source: https://youtu.be/eRkgK4jfi6M (15:41, WIRED). Collier explains harmony at five levels: a child, a teenager, a music student, a professional, and Herbie Hancock. A live demonstration of perceptual resolution.
[00:00] Hello everybody, my name is Jacob Collier and I’m a musician. I’ve been challenged today to explain one simple concept in five levels of increasing complexity. My topic? Harmony. I’m positive that everybody can leave this video with some understanding at some level. Bodhi, how’s it going?
[00:20] Good. Cool. So do you know what harmony is? It’s when people sing together and it sounds nice. Yeah, that’s 100% correct. Have you ever heard a song called Amazing Grace? No. It’s a good one. The melody on its own just goes… That melody on its own is kind of lonely, right? And no one really knows how it feels.
[00:47] So which one did you prefer? The second one. Awesome. And why did you prefer that one? Because it sounds better. Yeah, oh that’s great. I can decide how I want this melody to feel and the more notes there are, the more exciting it is. That’s what musical harmony is. Does that make sense? You’re the best. Thank you. Have you ever heard of harmony?
[01:09] Yes. Okay, so what do you think harmony is? I think basically it’s like one person has the lower voice and like a girl usually has the higher voice. Yeah. And then they blend it together. I like it. That’s absolutely correct. Okay. Harmony is about injecting melody with emotion so that ultimately you leave home and you return home and you’ve learned something along the way. Yeah. So a nice place to start is with the idea of a triad.
[01:32] A triad is a three-part harmony, basically. So that’s a triad. So this triad is called C major. Okay. Have you ever heard of this idea of major chords and minor chords? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is C major, yeah? And then this is C minor. So the feelings are different, right? Yeah. It feels like dark and spooky. Yeah, this one’s dark and spooky.
[01:53] And how does this one make you feel then? Happy. Right. And joyful. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. So in Amazing Grace, we start with F. You know, if I go… Where am I right now? I don’t know where I am. And my job is to get back home, but to make this chord make sense.
[02:13] Yeah. So I might go… Oh man, that sounded really good. I was surprised. That was like happened. My job as a harmonizer is to find that narrative and make it make sense. That was interesting because I didn’t think that that would work together because there
[02:34] were two completely different sounds but then like it just made it happen and it just was like pow. Magic. Amazing. That’s great. Essentially what harmony is, is like a language, right? And so as with any language, the more words you’re capable of speaking in a language the more you can say. So in harmony this might be how many notes you can think to add to a chord to make it feel a different way. Have
[02:57] you ever heard of the circle of fifths? Okay that’s great. On one side we have a lot of the notes which make us feel brighter, you know like these kinds of these really bright sounds and the other side is a lot more to do with the darkness of a key centum. So we’re home in F but imagine we’re taking a quick visit to B flat but then the sun comes out. Oh yeah yeah yeah. What notes would
[03:17] would you suggest I add? F. F is a great one. Yeah. And if we keep going in that direction. Yeah. C. Yeah. And then G. You got it. Yeah. Yeah. So this is really, this is like a gleaming glade or something, you know. Let’s play this tune Amazing Grace. Let’s play it in its simplest form. Yeah. All right. So we’re going to start in F, right? Yeah. So say, I want F, yeah.
[03:40] Bb F F C F So at home Yeah Nice Okay cool Let try one more version where we add some colors All right. So let’s visit the B flat with a bit more imagination just to see how things feel.
[04:04] Yeah. All right. Let’s do it. So it’s F major 7, but it’s over A. Which is F7 over A. B flat major 7 with an A and a G in it. F major 7 with an E and a D and a G. D minor 7 with a G in it.
[04:27] C sus. Oh, minor, nice. B flat major. G7 and F sharp major 7. I like that. So what harmony does is just gives us even more tools to tell those stories. Cool, yeah. Nice man. One nice emotional device when it comes to harmony is just thinking about how to arrive
[04:53] somewhere. You know, it can be so sparse, it can be so rich, and it can be really emotional. So this idea of the overtone and undertone in the harmonic series, how much do you know about this? Only until I started listening to singing, like Barbershop, Quartet, and I was a violinist as well, then I finally understood the idea where the overtone series came from, that If a bunch of singers were to nail a chord or have it perfectly tuned, the overtones,
[05:15] you would hear a tone that necessarily wasn’t being produced by one of the singers. The amazing thing about harmony is that it exists in nature. So take the harmonic series of the note F, for example. You have the octave and then the fifth and the fourth and then the… That’s a little bit sharper, that’s fine. And then the intervals get increasingly small. Beneath that note, you have the undertone series,
[05:36] which essentially is like a reflection of something, in the same way that when a tree grows in nature, you have the branches which go upwards and the roots which go downwards. So it’s quite a nice thing to think about this being the key centre, the floor, the ground, and then these two different directions of ways in which it can express itself and the differences in the sensations with that. Lots of the time, I think, when it comes to reharmonisation or harmonisation,
[05:58] people think that the solution to the problems come when we add more notes. Yeah. I think that people forget that you can work with the notes you already have by just rearranging them. Just the simple idea of inversion, you know, inversion of the simple triad of F major. So I once was lost and now I’m found, was young but now can see.
[06:25] Now how home do I want to go here, you know? Is there another verse to come? Right. Because I can delay the gratification of going home, first of all just by using inversions, even before we add notes to the chord. to the chord. One thing that I was very joyful to discover is that every single melody note works with every single bass note. So… Can you demonstrate that? Yeah. So this is the note F.
[06:47] Yeah. F major, F minor, G flat major 7, G flat diminished, G flat minor major 7, G minor 7, Gsus, G7, G7 sharp 11, and then G7 with a flat 13, A flat sus, A flat major 7, A flat major 7 sharp 5 with a sharp 11.
[07:10] Essentially what that demonstrates is that every note and every bass note are compatible. So once we realise this, it’s like, that’s great, now what should we do? What am I supposed to do? And sometimes the paralysing thing when it comes to arranging, there are too many options, too many things are possible. So that’s when it becomes super, super important to be aware of what you want to try and say emotionally, you know?
[07:31] But what about negative harmony, the dark side? So essentially, the way I’d apply negative harmony would be this idea of polarity, you know, between the undertone series and the overtone series, or, you know, the one side and the other side, the perfect and the plagal. The feeling of a minor plagal cadence… resolving is so moving you know And it just it a good alternative to something like It funny you know you doing that makes something in a major key sound like kind of a
[07:56] wistful sad song. Right. You know, you change the feeling of what otherwise would, you know, if you would tell a kid that this is a major song, she’d be happy. Exactly. Yeah, no, for sure. And, you know, F major can be something you arrive in from if you arrive in F major from D flat, then it’s like the sun’s come up. Right. But if you arrive in F major from A major, And it’s like the sun’s gone in.
[08:18] Interesting. So there’s a lot about context, I think. Once you have a language, it’s about using it and applying it in those emotional ways. I think that’s what makes the difference. All right. A lot of people will see you as somebody who’s drank in harmony their whole life. They’ve seen so much harmony, heard so much harmony. How do you make the choices? There’s so much that’s possible when you know stuff. How do you have the courage to make a choice?
[08:40] It comes from just your life experience. and that moves you in a certain direction. How it gets expressed many times, it’s a complete surprise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find it fascinating in music to think about, you know, say I arrive in a place.
[09:00] Say I’m going to D-flat major and there was something you once taught me. You taught me this song called Don’t Follow the Crowd. Oh, yeah. And there’s that chord. It’s not a dominant chord, but it functions as a dominant chord. but it doesn’t matter because you’re still going to the place you’re going to right right right it’s something like
[09:22] right right right yeah so this chord being like a major seven the shop five and a natural nine like there’s no dominant thing right right but at that moment I’m coming from here and I want to forge some some solution I get myself in a situation yeah yeah yeah right and then that haunted me for days because you know i just
[09:53] wouldn’t think to use that chord in that situation yeah and there it was and yeah you know if you read the rule book it’s that’s not in it yeah and this is what i learned from the great chris anderson yeah yeah yeah the idea of going to d flat chord normally it does a dominant like a flat seventh but back in the 20s they also used to do things like oh yeah you know so it’s always
[10:22] coming yeah coming from just just below the the key from c yeah with a seventh yeah and we don’t normally say a C7 and an Ab7 are related. Because so many of the notes are different.
[10:47] Because you got this and you got a G. It gets gnarly, right? But if you voice that correctly, then you’re safe. You can get all of those notes. You can can get away with it. Yeah. The other thing that I like that we both do on occasion is to be on the
[11:09] chord we want to arrive at with the bottom part of our structure and the chord before the arrival chord to have that on top yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah something like that and that’s not
[11:35] because like emotionally it almost like i here i arriving here but if the bass note is the same it like this inevitability about it It like I was there all along And it makes a pull happen It’s like one thing is moving in one direction, one thing has arrived, so it’s this tension and it’s glorious.
[11:56] I love thinking about these things emotionally just because that’s a feeling. I know that feeling in my life. Music is not different from life. No. And I think that’s probably the greatest attraction to those of us who play music. Yeah. Was there ever a point in your life when you were younger where you felt like you had consistently fell back into the same habits? You’d find, oh man, I’m not going to play the same thing again.
[12:19] I had a really great experience when I was working with Miles Davis. I felt like I was in a rut playing the same stuff and I was getting depressed because of it. And Miles said something to me. I thought he said, don’t play the butter notes. Right? And so I thought, what do you mean by that? So you thought he said butter? Butter notes, right.
[12:39] And he said bottom, but you thought he said butter? Yeah. Wow. And so I started thinking, what could butter be? What is butter? Then I started thinking, what are the obvious notes, for example, in a chord? The obvious notes are the third and the seventh. So I said, oh, maybe if I leave those out. It changed everything for me from that moment on.
[12:59] I got more applause for that solo than I did the whole week. Wow. I wouldn’t play the voicings I play today if that had not happened. That’s amazing. You know? I’ve been using this tune, Amazing Grace. Oh, right. And so we could play a bit of that if you want to. Okay. And we could talk about some stuff.
[13:21] I’ve been doing it in F. Thank you.
[14:06] Thank you.
[14:36] Thank you.
[15:06] Thank you.
[15:36] Thanks, sir. That was good. Thank you.
C. Jacob Collier — “How Jacob Collier Reinvented The Guitar” (Paul Davids)
Section titled “C. Jacob Collier — “How Jacob Collier Reinvented The Guitar” (Paul Davids)”Source: https://youtu.be/WknTbYOet4c (40:52, Paul Davids). Collier could not connect with the standard guitar, so he designed a five-string, mirror-tuned instrument that fits how he hears and imagines. Contains the just-intonation “hits the soul” line and the “deep experimentation / best work on the edge” passage on practice.
[00:00] It’s one of my favorite chords ever and I would never play this chord if it wasn’t for this guitar. I have so much respect for people who learn music through the guitar. Also look how many fingers I have. Five! Come on! So lightweight! So what video game are you playing? Yeah exactly! Today I’ve got the pleasure to be joined by Grammy award-winning artist Jacob Collier. This is the legendary room. And despite his reputation as a multi-instrumentalist and a bit of a musical
[00:27] prodigy he had a hard time connecting with a traditional guitar it’s so strange it’s messed up with my mind so then he decided to redefine the instrument and now the guitar plays a significant role on his most recent record jesse volume four whether it’s finger picking intricate melodies layering complex harmonies or just rocking out his guitars and playing style are truly something to
[00:53] to shine a light on. Jethro has arrived. After we found a good place for Jethro. So Jethro has been on the piano for every concert I’ve done since 2019. I always refer to him as a crocodile because I like crocs. That’s it. He loves any flat surfaces. I normally don’t use tuners, but I should. I was wondering about that actually. I tune to where I feel the note is in my head.
[01:18] Alright, I’ll follow you. there is there more space between the strings is it later did so it’s a six string neck for five strings which I love because it means you can really enjoy all the space everything is rolling all right cool what a day we’re in studio David’s we are a long lost so good to see you and
[01:43] we’re here discussing your approach to guitar I think that would be super interesting to talk about because for me too how does one get to this point with a five string guitar with a five string guitar okay so picture this right london is a city filled with music filled with music shops and there’s a particular district in london called soho which is where denmark street is very very legendary music street and around that area are a lot of amazing music shops and there’s
[02:09] one music shop i think it’s on a road called rathbone place and the shop’s called hop goblin music which for me as a 17 18 year old is like a candy store right so I walked in there one day after college I looked around and thought was amazing guitars I couldn’t resist it and there was one guitar that really caught my eye and it was a four string tenor guitar which was tuned like this that’s how it was tuned to fifths so it basically one or two down from a from a mandolin yeah you can
[02:37] say or one or two down from a violin and I played bass at that point but I didn’t play guitar so I had this funny approach to the guitar which is kind of based in in fifths but I chose to tune down the top guitar to the top string to this note here so what I had was fourth on the top so I could play bassy kind of language and then fifths on the bottom and that kind of defined so much of my
[03:05] guitar playing it in the early years that was like my first ever guitar and then over the years of just being very curious about the guitar because I always play guitar in my head even though I could play with my fingers I could always imagine the guitar and imagine the kinds of things I would do and so over the years I started to imagine a sort of a language of guitar playing where it was again half in fourths and half in fifths because I think both are really helpful and important and so I dreamed I basically dreamed of this guitar
[03:33] tuning for many many years before it existed and then one day I asked Taylor I said hey how do you feel about putting a five string guitar on a six string neck, tuned in a very strange way, but with exactly the same range as a normal guitar, but just with a different set of intervals. And they said yes, which changed my whole life. So the tuning, if I take off the capo, or you say capo. I say capo. I say capo as well. Nice. That’s internet. Yeah.
[04:01] I’ve had some, I’ve received some shtook for that, but I’m glad you say it. Capo. Thank you yes so without the capo you got D A E A D so it’s almost like there’s a mirror down the middle so the octave here an octave here which is lovely because it means if you play these lines it’s really gorgeous and easy to find
[04:29] yeah not to mention a major chord is very easy right so for a guitar novice like me coming into the guitar this and this it’s just so straightforward to understand I can play that anywhere right so I can I can fire these calls very very easy and then as I was saying
[04:56] before when I play lines so the top this this fifth fifth area it’s very much sort of wide intervals so it can be quite droney you know and then the top the the higher strings a lot of this language is kind of familiar to the ears of what more familiar to these of guitar
[05:21] players so i can i can be a guitarist yeah on the top i like this yeah 40 stuff but i can also So it’s just a combination of languages which really appeals to me greatly. It’s a new sound for me actually. It’s really interesting. You’ve got that 9 as well.
[05:48] Yeah, so there’s an inherent 9th in the chord which I… Are you leaning on that? Are you throwing in a certain direction when you play guitar? Do you write differently on the guitar? Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess there are two ways I would approach this tuning. It makes sense. One is from this side and one is from this side. If I approach from this side, a lot of my main voicings can be on these three strings,
[06:13] because these two strings can just hang. So if I go… They’re always playing. Which I love because as a lover of harmony, you can find really amazing changes but with these two notes as sort of like the
[06:39] bridge that crosses them all through so it’s one of my favorite chords ever and I would never play this chord if it wasn’t for this guitar so it’s a bit of sweet isn’t it So, I don’t know what it is about the guitar, but it definitely brings out, in a sense,
[07:08] a simplicity of harmonic language for me, which is sometimes rare, because I only have three strings to choose from. So a lot of things are based in triads, just three-part chords and inversions. And there are certain sequences that a guitar like this might lend itself to like you know something like um you know i i don’t know what it is about the harmonic
[07:34] language that it presents but it does inspire me to write songs in a different way as soon as you strum the guitar it evokes a sort of emotion and you’re there yeah i i mean i know i’m very biased here but i think that if you’re just starting out on guitar this is a really great place to start because it’s if you if you strum all the strings it already sounds good you don’t have to you don’t to do a funky shape to begin whenever i discovered open d for example it’s a game changer isn’t it
[07:59] why don’t people start with open d just and you can play on the top string just add some melodies in there it’s and you can change an entire chord by just changing the bass note and sort of i love it so so much yeah it’s funny the other day i was hanging out with joni mitchell um which i know is a weird thing to say but it’s true i performed with her at the grammys this year i saw yeah and i was just asking her about tunings because she is such a legend of guitar tunings and the way she thinks about it, so unique. And she was describing just the way that different kinds of tunings
[08:28] would just evoke a spirit, which would guide her towards a song, would evoke a lyric, would evoke a mood. But she didn’t know any of the chords she was playing. She was just, her fingers would just find this stuff. And, you know, like amazing tunes like with the fourth in, you know, and sometimes with the sixth in. And so all these really strange tunings. but she’d like you know drop c tunings you know like c g d f a c
[08:57] or so things like this it’s just an amazing thing but i i love the approach i’ve always been of that mind of you know if you don’t like a rule tweak it yeah like i would be scared saying wait a second uh everyone has been doing it wrong six strings no standard tuning no no no this is is how we do it five strings i i think it’s a bold move but i love it yeah oh that mindset so just change everything to what suits you because so many different personalities use different things
[09:24] and finding a voice absolutely and i mean six string guitars are beautiful and there’s so many amazing players of them but i think i wanted to find my own way into the language and i was playing this in my head for so many years before i could play it in real life also look how many fingers i have five come on five fingers which is so lovely so I can actually do you know if I’m doing that’s really easy
[09:57] just every one of my fingers has a job which I love so that’s just a very straightforward fingering So you pluck with all fingers Sometimes yeah that kind of yeah there something exciting about that to me Very dynamic because you can really control all the strings Yeah you can control each yeah and you can bite them out in different ways But I will say with guitar in general, again, because I’m utterly self-taught and experimental,
[10:25] I follow my ears much more than I follow my technique. I do a lot with my left hand, and that’s partly because as a bass player, I’ve had to strengthen up my fingers to do quite dexterous things. I actually started playing bass on double bass, which is proper like hardcore, you know, you kind of need to have strength Yeah, and when I came to electric bass many years later, I was like this is so easy But you just play like light ready, but because of that, you know
[10:52] You can kind of just play play one note You know This does like all the work, you know My right is not doing very much at all I don’t know why that made sense to me, but I think also as a piano player, playing notes like this feels natural.
[11:17] So sometimes I can literally just hang out with my right hand not doing very much and then enunciate as I need to as well. So I have both hands doing very unusual things I suppose. I suppose. And I saw your picking technique is pretty well Sort of evolved into something that suits this guitar very well. Yeah, it’s quite bespoke to this guitar I think so Yeah, so this pattern
[11:47] It’s fine, I don’t think too much about it With the thumb. Yeah, even the droney So my fan just feels like it’s doing that I suppose.
[12:16] I think I hop up and around a little bit. And I don’t use my little finger too much unless I’m doing this thing, which is helpful. But I’m not sure many people do pick with their little fingers. I think only a few, and indeed, usually only when they plug heavy chords. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a weird one. It’s always tricky. You play with your pinky on your left hand. When I’m reaching a little bit, yeah. But my pinky’s not the strongest. It’s when I recently picked up the Mando Cello.
[12:43] Have you ever seen a Mando Cello? I got one for Christmas. My mum got one for me for Christmas. The sweetest. It’s a really massive mandolin, basically. It’s tuned like a cello. So it’s like C, G, D, A, like super low. There’s two strings for every note. It sounds really big and wide. It’s the first one in my life I’ve ever picked with a pick, the last month or so. I’m trying to get better at it. And, yeah, it’s hard with something.
[13:12] Oh, you’ve got to pick that. If you want to try it. Yeah, actually, I’ve never picked this guitar before. Yes, it’s brand new for me. I’m sure you in the comments will be saying, Jacob, don’t do it like that! But that’s okay. It’s all good. Whatever you want.
[13:37] It’s fine. Okay, cool. I might ask you for some tips later. Well, usually people tend to pick not on the fretboard because it gives you something that’s… Oh, the clicky thing. Yeah, I thought you might say. So down here is better, is it? You sort of got your equalizer up here. If you pick here, it’s right. Oh yeah, that’s a good point. This guy’s good. Right, so you get to design the… It’s funny, I always… I picked here from the mandocello for some reason.
[14:05] This just sounds much better, thanks. Then if you want to really ring a chord, you can sort of do that. That sounds good. Wow. This is a small one as well. Yeah, yeah. But what I was going to say was on the…
[14:30] So with chords like this, that’s where my little finger can come in handy. Yeah, I definitely think with… Oh, you’re going to have to pick back. Thank you. I think with technique on any instrument, really, It’s like there is no objectively good technique for everyone. I think that it’s helpful to realize that for certain people’s purposes or sounds they hear,
[14:56] certain things are going to work better for them than others. There are also core principles that can help general people to get onto the horse, as it were. I think a big one that’s super interesting when I saw you play is like the thumb position behind the neck because I just saw you put the thumb really underneath the neck sort of to really, you put it here to play certain chords like the thumb oh I see right I think when you play wait with this chord here was it wait let me show you
[15:25] I think when you really want to stretch you sort of put it like here I know that’s yeah yeah so I think it really says it all like the thumb position is so debatable like when Jimi Hendrix started playing he put it all over his neck which i love and like to the day more traditional guitar teachers are still like saying no no no well how are you going to play a little wing yeah exactly it’s built for a hand with a thumb over the string exactly yeah it’s funny on that topic did you ever play a traditional guitar before you
[15:55] found a five string or no never i never i never did i i think i i had to get there was a guitar in the house uh which i i didn’t really do much with because i just didn’t my brain wouldn’t get get inside the tuning and because I was such a piano player I was just I think I was I was harmonically impatient you could say I wanted immediate harmonic results and so I would sit at the piano and go bang bang bang bang bang and then I pick up the guitar and go oh I can’t quite
[16:20] find the shape you know also the thing with guitar is that a lot of the shapes that you start with are you hear them all the time yes you know so yeah E major oh everyone’s heard that a million in time or C major you know everyone’s heard that before I think that my ears were more attracted to sounds I had not heard before and so for whatever reason I think the guitar was in some ways off putting because there was no way in until you unless you do something that is that you’ve heard
[16:48] before which sounds like a funny thing to say but I think what drew me to the tenor guitar was I was finding shapes on the guitar which were in some ways simpler than the six string guitar because were only four strings but I hadn’t heard a guitar do that before so I was excited by that and then more recently I’ve come back around and now I now I want to learn the more traditional shapes on six string but at first I think I wasn’t it didn’t it didn’t like turn me on it didn’t get me I think it also matters that you were already so proficient in different instruments so
[17:17] if you feel held back by a design of an instrument you’re like yeah well maybe yeah well I have so much respect for people who learn music through the guitar because I feel like the guitar is such a it’s so distinct in a sense you have to you have to climb in through these shapes and things and if you can map up map out the whole of music and understanding on a fretboard I think that’s such an amazing thing to do I feel like the piano is in some ways
[17:44] easier because it’s all there you think you know and then you can apply that to other things but I think the guitar is an amazing place to to learn that I I definitely struggle with that when I was growing up yeah the guitar is like a a maze but when you found your path like it’s it’s beautiful it’s so it’s so beautiful i remember hearing a guitar player do you know ted green yeah yeah just one of the one of the greats to me it was one of my biggest guitar inspirations he also inspired me in my harpeggi playing i play this
[18:10] instrument called a harpeggi it’s like a 16 string like whole tone tuned it’s a wild instrument and the way i play harpeggi is very much inspired by ted green the way he plays guitar it’s so soft and all the harmonica tappy oh it’s gorgeous but um that’s another example of someone i heard play the guitar i thought is that even a guitar what instrument is that he’s playing it i’ve never heard it sound like that before yeah i was listening to your new record jesse number four yeah yeah on that it is absolutely beautiful oh thank you like just speaking about it give me some
[18:39] goosebumps oh yeah there are some tracks on there wow this just blew my mind oh uh and sometimes like is it a guitar or is it something else yeah yeah it’s hard to tell sometimes i didn’t know also because of the production a little bit it’s not guitar centric i’m well of course yes yes maybe It’s time to show me the other guitar. Should we crack out the electric? I think so. This is the one that I played on well, so since you mentioned it, let’s do that. There we go, let’s do it. Just gonna sit here and be shocked. Let’s do it. Alright.
[19:04] Here’s the beastie. Isn’t that beautiful? There you go. Oh wow. So lightweight. So what video game are you playing? Yeah, exactly. That’s my first. Ah, a duo of the blue and the colour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It suits your taste. suits your personality I do not I do like my colors has to be said yeah I’ve actually I’ve never seen a guitar with with these fret inlays as these kind of
[19:31] like these colorful lines before I see you tune it down here yeah that’s super interesting yeah and why did you choose the super modern Strandberg design is that something so okay so back in 2021 right I I fell in love with a group a musical group called arch echo the way they get around the neck was just like liquid you know so fluid and so musical and effortless and uh and they said you know you
[19:56] should you should hang up with with all that at some point and yeah so they connected me with all that because i was explaining to them that i was kind of imagining this idea in my head what if there was a five string electric guitar that’s kind of like my absolute dream and so i then met all of strandberg um the man who is responsible for all these beats in stockholm 2022 when i played a show there and i i showed him the five string acoustic i said hey man you know this is kind of like my baby I play this one on tour and I love the tuning and and he just kind of like had this twinkle in his eye said leave it with me And I wasn expecting anything But then a few short weeks later he said you basically sent me the first prototype of this
[20:33] Which is yeah the same exact shooting is that but it’s in in electric form which completely blew my mind and There are certain things that you can do on this that you just can’t do on this. So for example, I Can bend super far which is which I’ve never been able to do that kind of thing before bending wise just being able to get right into it
[21:02] which again is a testament to the yeah the neck being slightly bigger than you would normally have yeah there’s so much real estate around those strings and it’s funny because I heard so much guitar growing up and I absorbed it all but not being a guitar player now even if I do a really simple thing like this it just makes me laugh
[21:28] I know about that sound yeah exactly yeah so it’s really it’s just a total joy a total joy it’s pretty beautiful i think it’s interesting that because you’re not a traditional guitar player i think it would make more sense to go for a super new modern guitar design would you say so yeah because i think traditional guitarists often tend to hook up their sounds to what they heard on their like in the 60s and
[21:57] yeah right right you want that old school oh wow yeah probably this is more comfortable you can faster yeah it’s easier to just carry around so there’s a lot of things that speak for a guitar like this yeah which is super interesting yeah all this that’s also so easy on this more easier than on the acoustic you know this is so much fun in terms of amps for your record what kind of amps do you use do you so
[22:29] I have a little Princeton at home which I sometimes mic up which is super like grungy and yeah, it sounds great It sounds if you want that like the real the sort of like you can feel the air moving sound I’m also a huge fan of the the helix. I think there’s a bunch of great stuff in there. Yeah, and So yeah, just plenty of time going through I have both the hardware and the software version of the helix Oh, yeah, so for the record, I think we use the hardware at first and then we switched over to software To just kind of looking for that looking for that sound but um
[22:56] you know, there’s one particular sound for well, you know. Whenever we record electric guitar, I always, I tune the third down to be in just intonation, right? There it is. So that, it’s just like, it hits the soul, you know?
[23:26] Yeah, now you’ve got the… Yeah, but that is so great. And, you know, that’s a bit of journey, isn’t it? Again, I feel like I’m just starting to find the world of it.
[23:53] I speak for every guitar player out there. We’re very happy to to welcome you in the guitar community. Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me your in addition I think you sort of pass the test. Oh, that’s good. That’s very good And I also noticed when you play the electric you sort of strum upwards with your index finger Yeah, I read Picking and I suppose you’re right. Yeah That works for me
[24:19] And I have a go on the pick one more time. Sure. Oh, there’s a black one now. Yeah, I guess it’s changed colour. Yeah. I’m leaning on the E string, the bottom string a lot. So when I get to that string, then what do I do? Yeah, I would lean here on the bridge. Ah. So. Oh, I see, you lean on the bridge.
[24:45] Yeah, that’s where I lean. my anchoring point because it’s great to have some anchoring before you’re picking yeah right yeah I can’t do that first you see the movements should be a little bit small and also you can slant the pick a little bit. Is that something in the right direction? Yeah, yeah. I’m so new to
[25:19] picking, it’s amazing. What I think is also great about pick, if you really want to do string skipping but with more emphasis like sort of you are not getting that from
[25:55] That was beautiful. One of my favourite ways to really use the big sort of… And if you do it fast it’s… Yeah, it looks almost sort of… It’s a little bit more… And it has a different ring to it than finger picking. I feel like I always feel I can get a little bit more freedom with this,
[26:22] but then I miss the sound. it’s a vastly different sound. It’s cool that there are two different options, you know. And I think when you play like this, you should sort of avoid the… Because I think your string tension is quite low. Yeah. So if you dig in too much, it becomes… Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. You have a moment where you pick too loud
[26:48] and the beginning of the note goes sharp a little bit. Yeah, exactly. yeah okay you know try to anchor my bridge better how do you think about the pickups because for the first few years I was playing I just never looked at it yeah I don’t know everything too much but the one thing I do know is that when I have the distortion turned on special moment when we play live we did the
[27:15] songs like well live this I always I tend to go into this side so I yeah this is this pickup right yeah so I’m biased towards this one but with one notch still towards this one. There’s something bright and forthright about that. This one doesn’t quite have… I think the distortion responds to the high end a bit better. Like chimey a little bit. We call it the in-between setting. I’m not sure how it’s
[27:48] routed but it’s like when you use two different pickups there’s a space thing. I like it. It sounds really… Yeah, it’s a bit more like that. Yeah, it’s like rounded and lovely. That sounds great. That sounds really, really lovely. Yeah. So many different colours to choose from, you know. Yeah.
[28:15] But I always think it’s interesting to approach an instrument that is new to me, like this one, to me like this one but with with with knowledge of language that goes from different instruments yeah so like thinking like like a piano player I’m wanting to play like you know the things I could play on piano then I I think my instinct is often to yeah as I said to play with my left hand but that means that now what I’m going to pick it my ears like lead me into different
[28:45] directions so I think it’s always for anyone who’s ever starting an instrument me included i always think it’s cool to lean into the the parts of the way you think about things that sets you apart you hear something and you want to play it on the guitar but sometimes guitarists tend to go to the things that the guitar gives them yes exactly the traditional shapes uh i mean why is all of pop music or like rock music is c g d and a yeah yeah because the
[29:14] chords are easy. It’s not because they are the best chords, but it’s just we are leaning into those chords. Exactly, exactly. I think that makes sense that people want to recreate the things that they love. That’s actually a natural part of learning. I normally get more interesting results if I’m not trying to control things too much. So even when I pick up the guitar and I go for a line, if something comes out weird, sometimes it’s more interesting than if it comes out not weird you know and and i also think it’s healthy when
[29:44] you’re you know young and you’re starting out to go for things that you can’t quite do you know so i might say oh i’m going to play this uh this this impossible line it kind of goes you know and i can’t play it but and in stumbling around on it, you know, you find just interesting stuff and then that stuff
[30:10] becomes a bit more of your identity as well as the thing you were going for. So it’s cool to sort of shoot for the moon when you’re young. I think it’s true for learning in any field. I think the most progress is to be made at the edges of your capability, right? And if you stress, you push the edge. I would say so, yeah. Yeah in some ways the more certain I become of things the less confident I am in myself Because being certain is way less interesting than being uncertain Being open or curious to how does that how did you do that That a good state to be in
[30:43] At the moment it’s like this is the one way I do it. I know from my own experience that I always get slightly uncomfortable. It’s just like I don’t want to stop learning. There’s always a new way of doing everything. Even though you amass a technique over time of things that work for you. I think it’s always good to look at the world in that way. Honestly, this album has the most guitar out of any album I’ve ever made. So it’s a great time to have this conversation. Yeah. Right when I’m getting into the language.
[31:10] I love it that you are exploring. Because it warms my heart that you said, like, oh, it’s a difficult instrument to learn. And I know a lot of guitar players probably watching right now are like, oh, the neck. I never really fully understood it. And I’m still learning. And the same goes for me. I’m still learning, still finding new routes in this maze. so it sort of warms my heart that even a person like you can say something like oh man it’s pretty difficult sometimes. Oh yeah for sure, I mean I think every instrument has its twiddles you know but it’s so satisfying
[31:40] to get inside them and again it comes down to what your priorities are you know if you want to learn to shred like Steve Ray Vaughan you can do it, awesome, that’s amazing but I think for me I was always interested like how do I get into the thing that feels new you know how do I extend my voice. thing I’ll say is I feel like every instrument I play whether it’s a piano or guitar or drums or bass whatever I feel like I’m I’m kind of trying to sing through it you know it feels like an
[32:08] extension of my voice because the voice is the first thing I ever really did um that I really identified with so and I love the guitar because it does feel like a voice yeah you know do you miss that connection sometimes on the piano that directs you know the vibrato is you can’t get this on the piano and all the corkies like the flops and the flops and the squiggles yeah when I play piano I like to get inside
[32:35] the strings then you get all the all that you can find squiggles of your own yeah we don’t need it we just we just play yeah for sure for sure very direct instrument that’s also why in the beginning it’s very challenging because as you said like the C chord even just the basic C chord I mean plus everyone and play it a hundred million times so it’s nothing new and then still struggling with it i mean that’s such a bummer for a new guitarist it is yeah and so i would suggest finding you know
[33:01] find a way to play c major you’ve never heard on the guitar but you hear it in your head so i was wondering if you play guitar do you always know where you are in terms of chord degrees in terms of chordal structures or are you also just letting your ear go and just don’t think about anything um i think it’s a mixture of both on on any instrument i definitely have an understanding of what the chords are and where the notes are. And I feel like what I’ve built over the years
[33:27] is a sort of emotional connection between what extensions can do to a chord. So if I am playing this G major chord and I go… I could follow those lines through
[33:58] and I know the emotional properties that they hold. So, yeah, again, I would say, like, I know what the notes are because I can hear them, but I also, I think the more important relationship that I’ve built is not, oh, that’s a G or that’s a 13, but it’s like, that’s the note that pulls you, pushes you, that’s the note that brightens or darkens or twists and turns, you know. And there’s something about, you know, playing this on the piano that’s very familiar to me because it’s like oh I can find that I can see it but when you find a
[34:25] good one on the guitar it’s like oh I really found a juicy one you know and that so that’s what is it like a gt with a flat 13 or something what did you play but yeah I would say this is with a sharp five sharp five yeah because because there’s a oh I guess there’s there’s the fifth on the top as well yeah you could you could call it a flat 13. yeah i love the way that the the flat 13
[34:51] or the sharp five sort of rubs against this as well you know what i mean and i another thing with this tuning which i love so much is just just even just the process of contextualizing these two strings you know i wouldn’t necessarily be that cool on the piano but resolving that is beautiful yeah the guitar lends itself I always call them like the fix you
[35:22] sure like that yeah these high B and E’s yeah you good on this tuning even even easier you know But I love it when you have common tones, you know, pivot notes, they go all the way over and then…
[35:50] All the different ways you can make those make sense. It’s gorgeous, amazing. I don’t know why no one has done five so much. There’s five string basses. There are five string basses, it’s true. But yeah, that’s… To me, this is where it’s at. I’m telling you, five fingers. It makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. Do you want to have a one quick go on it?
[36:15] Now it’s plugged in. Yeah, let’s do it. Oh, you want to play this track? Oh yeah, go on then. I’ll play this track. This is really out of my… It’s so light. Oh man. Yeah. Sliding. All that stuff is so much fun, right?
[36:42] I always think of that as the Perth riff. Yeah, Perth. That’s a weird tune as well. I’m sure it is, yeah. And the neck, yeah, the V shape. We could hang all day. We could hang all day, and then at the end we have a song. Yeah, that would be fun, that would be great. I feel awkward with this. I feel awkward with this.
[37:07] Do you ever practice? Sometimes. I think I practice something if I want to get a particular thing down. Yeah. Then, yeah. But I don’t really sit down and say, right, now I’m going to practice. Pentatonic. I normally have, yeah. Yeah, well, that’s nice and smooth. I think I’m very led by my curiosity, in a sense. It’s like, oh, this is interesting. So I think sometimes I do practice, but I just don’t think of it as practicing.
[37:33] I think of it as deep experimentation. Yeah. You know, like I remember when I… It sounds more fun as well. Yeah, totally. I remember when I was learning piano and I would sit down and do like 10 hours at the piano and just be like, I’m going to find every single chord with this triad in it on the whole instrument and play around, which is practice really, but it was more just me going into my zone. I’ve never been particularly good with like a disciplined regime of practice and you must do this and that and the other.
[37:59] It just doesn’t really work for my brain. but I think that I think I have done a lot of work over the years in getting certain bits of technique down but it’s fun I mean it depends on the gig you’re playing but I think audiences are audiences are really moved by watching somebody fumble it’s one of the best gifts you can give to an audience is saying I don’t really know what I’m doing I’m going to find it though and it’s like you’re what you were saying earlier about the edge you know you find your best work
[38:25] and you do your best work on the edge so if you’re playing something on stage that you pretty much have got but you’re just going an extra mile the audience will feel that and they’ll go there with you you know and it’s there’s something beautiful about that process for me music’s not that serious you know i know it feels serious sometimes but the most important thing is just to be comfortable on stage whether you’re playing a million notes or one note it’s just about being like i’m me on the stage right now and i’m i’m in this note that i’m playing you know owning it and you know not taking yourself too seriously
[38:52] either yeah thinking i’m just a person you know what do i know about music a lot yeah well i don’t know i think sometimes i think i know a lot and that but i think when i’m at my wisest i think i feel like i i know my know the least if that makes any sense yes well the further you delve into music the more you realize there’s so much to learn as you said before yeah and then even if you look across genres and across instruments and across like
[39:17] i just made a video about the oud yeah the beautiful instrument and i was just blown away by the macams and how they play by moods and not just by scales it’s just yeah it opened up so a whole new world and never even set food in so it’s it’s so so special yeah yeah it’s endless endless things to discover yeah um i love it i love music it’s great what a great thing to hang out yeah it’s uh it’s the gift of the world and we are very happy that you shared some of that with
[39:47] us today oh well you’re so welcome thanks for thanks i would really recommend everyone watching checking out jesse volume four beautiful guitar work but also composition work producing work it’s all it’s exquisite there’s john mayer yes john’s on the album steve steve’s on the album uh i’ll check over on the album as well oh okay yeah they’re playing in some of the songs who else is on the album who plays guitar madison cunningham did yeah chris thiele there was not quite a guitar
[40:15] He’s a mandolin player. Best in the world. Chris Martin, is he playing guitar? He’s just singing. Chris Martin is just singing. I play guitar on that song. What a sentence. He’s just singing. Yeah, he’s just singing. That’s all he’s doing on that one. Well, that sets it for today. Thank you so much. Yeah. And it was my pleasure. Thank you, my friend. And I hope to see you around. It’s beautiful. I’ll see you soon. Cheers, you guys. Bye. Boom. Yeah. The best guitar players can just do this and you feel amazing.
[40:45] Now Rogers would be… Yeah, I think he’s probably the greatest of all time. Or Prince. Yeah.
Related
Section titled “Related”- What’s Between the Notes — the article drafted from this material
- Working Document — voice, source threads, cross-reference map
- music-and-inner-focus — originating idea
- Angine de Poitrine transcript & translation
- Perceptual Skills · SENSE-CONTROL-ADAPT · Intensity Modification · The Two-Layer Framework