Today’s technology makes for a large variety of experiences and possibilities in the field of personal music recording. I have spent a lot of time on the stage and in the studio as a guitarist and vocalist. But only recently did I finally set up my own personal recording studio and began laying down tracks.

While many folks start out on something like Garage Band and proceed to an Mbox/Pro Tools set-up (which are all great), I chose to go the traditional physical interface route, because I think riding the faders is an art form in itself in mixing down the final product.

So even though my Tascam 24-track digital portastudio with unlimited virtual tracks and an 80-gig hard drive can still create WAV files and interact with other computers, I love it because every channel has real knobs and faders I can manipulate.

I believe this really keeps the connection between your sense of touch and sense of hearing alive, something perhaps possible but not as enjoyable with a mouse and keypad.

I also realize it’s a generational thing and there are probably quite a few 25-year olds out there who can feel with a mouse.

In the big picture, the musical result is what really counts, right? In my case it will be a scenario of continuing to ride the faders.

I learned electric guitar by copping licks off the vinyl recordings of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, Duane Allman, Billy Gibbons, and a few other classic rockers. It was the early 70’s and these great players were my first teachers. I thought they were masters.

When interviewed, these 70’s rockers always paid tribute to the guys that they copied, namely the great electric blues players. I followed suit, and storing all my rock albums in the shed, I began emersing myself in Albert, Freddie, and B.B. King, Johnny Guitar Watson, Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, and Elmore James. Though many of the recordings were poor quality, the firey emotional genius, perfect timing, and killer tones of these blues stringers shone through like diamonds.

Passing backwards through the rock guitar portal to these electric blues gods, I felt like I had discovered the secret to the universe. They are still my main guitar influences. And because they were blues players (an original art form cooked permanently into country, rock, jazz, funk, and hiphop), they made me a natural player of all the later derivatives, though I never ‘studied’ jazz, country, or funk. Well, I lied about the funk—I studied the hell out of that, but that will be in another blog.

Whatever your genre of music or other art form, there are only three things you have to remember to do: Copy the masters, copy the masters, copy the masters. Then your own style will emerge out of that amalgamated genius.

In music, timing (phrasing) is everything. From my many years as a live-performance risk-taker, playing my own particular brand of improvisational music (blues & funk), I have learned the following things about timing and phrasing…

LESS IS MORE: BB King always said his guitar playing was simple like Southern cooking, involving only a few ingredients, so he had to become a good chef. Amen. The notes you don’t play are usually more important than the ones you do.

THE ART OF SURPRISE: You create this with syncopation and the right amount of empty space. As the first jazz trumpeter Buddy Bolden said way back in early 1900’s New Orleans, “There’s nothing like waitin’ to hit on the Big 4.”

MEAT ON THE STRINGS: When called for, I use fingers instead of a pick, but I’ve purposely trained myself not to get too good at it. This creates a subtle ‘stumble & slur’ in my phrasing & timing, which is one of the secrets to playing authentic sounding blues. Also there are sweet overtones that come from fingerskin pulling on an electric six string through a warmed-up tube amp.

SENSE OF HUMOR: Humor is an understated thing that really can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t, and it shows up in your phrasing and timing. A good example is Johnny Guitar Watson. Another is Johnny Carson.

Through these techniques you can develop Tasty Timing, which along with good Tone, will make people listen to your Tune a second Time.