The Importance of Scatting

As a jazz guitarist, it took me a while before I realized most of what I played was coming from my guitar neck and not necessarily from my head. One night at a gig a jazz vocalist sat in and sang a blues. Although she didn’t know a whole lot about musical theory or even what notes she was singing, I realized her solo was more thematic and melodic than mine. It was at that point I started to use my voice and scat my ideas and made my guitar express what I was singing/hearing. This opened up a new world for me and a deeper level of improvisation. This video is about learning to be in the driver’s seat and in control of what you play. It’s about making your instrument become your voice from the inside out. I would say the level is intermediate to advanced. I use a simple vehicle of Blue Bossa to demonstrate and designed this video for interactive playing with me. The last stage opens up the harmonies and expands the stock changes to a new level without losing the integrity of the piece. In the reharmonization part I explain what I did, which should give insight to the viewer’s harmonic vocabulary. The video is over 90 minutes in length.