The Alternative Acoustic Podcast
A deep dive into acoustic artistry, with the guitarists who play their own way. Hear the stories behind their innovative guitar playing and receive exclusive tips and tricks to enhance your playing and creativity.
The Alternative Acoustic Podcast
Episode 4 - Bill Vencil/Chords of Orion 'Ambient Guitar'
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In this episode Chris chats with Bill Vencil of Chords of Orion. This podcast is brought to you by Ibanez UK. Join the mailing list here. https://chriswoodsgroove.co.uk/thealternativeacousticpodcast/
The regular listeners, you might have noticed the theme music has changed somewhat, just for this episode, mind. I just felt it was more appropriate for the conversation that you're about to hear, because my guest today is Bill Ventel, or more commonly known as Chords of Orion. Bill is the king of ambient guitar at the moment, I think that's fair to say. And aside from the fact that actually some of you asked for Bill to be a guest, I'm very happy to oblige. I think this is such a fascinating world to dive into for acoustic guitarists in particular. Because really, ambient guitar can be about using effects and ambient sounds, but I think it's also about playing guitar in a way that's for perhaps just your own enjoyment or playing guitar, kind of for well-being, I suppose. And I guess for most of us, that's probably the reason that we keep picking up the guitar anyway. In this conversation, it goes pretty deep, pretty philosophical, to be quite fair, and Bill is just fantastic to listen to and chat with. There's some ambient guitar playing, there's some talk of effects, there's some talk about guitar contemplation, guitar meditation. It's it's a different one and it's exciting, it's alternative and it's acoustic. And I really think you're going to enjoy listening. And one last thing before we get stuck into this fantastic conversation, please consider clicking subscribe or follow on wherever it is that you're listening to this podcast. And also, if you head to chriswoodsgroove.co.uk forward slash the alternative acoustic podcast, we have a mailing list. If you do join and you're based in the UK, we will be choosing one of those emails at random to win a fantastic and beautiful Ibernez acoustic guitar. And that competition is running up until December 2025. You can also head to my Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Chris Woodsgroove, where you'll find a whole host of tuition videos and lessons inspired by these very conversations, which is a great way to support the podcast too. Thanks so much. And where are you, Bill? Where are you?
SPEAKER_00So I am west of Washington, DC, in the state of Virginia. Okay. So um I'm not sure how familiar you are with the geography of the U.S.
SPEAKER_03Not good enough. Embarrassingly bad. But it's what is it beautiful and rural or yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah. So if you go about 80 to 90 miles due west of Washington, D.C., you're near the border of two states, wet uh Virginia and West Virginia. And there's a mountain range called the Appalachian Mountains that run kind of all the way down the east coast of the United States. And so where I live is in a valley called Shenandoah Valley. Take me home, country roads to the place. Yeah, that song. Yeah. The Shenandoah River that John Denver mentions. Being in West Virginia, there's only a couple miles. Almost all of it's in Virginia. And it's within walking distance of my house.
SPEAKER_03Oh man. I think that suitably fits in with the brand of being super chill and playing beautiful guitar. And possibly your beards as well. I feel they might be masked together as well.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's yeah, that's a long-running thing. I've had the beard since 1982. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03Good man. Good man. And I I I I'm loving the sound of that baritone as well. And that sort of I what what tuning are you playing around with, Bill? Are you just in standard?
SPEAKER_00So okay, so bariton. This is it's tuned in what I call baritone standard. So that's B-E-A-D-F sharp B. So it's basically a perfect fourth below standard tuning for guitar E A D G B E. So that's typically where I keep this guitar. I do have another acoustic baritone. I have an old Tacoma uh Thunderhawk, and that's a huge, like the body is really I think I've seen that in the video with the sort of sound holes on the front above up. Yeah, yeah. That's got a 29, this is a 27-inch scale length. Okay. So it feels pretty normal when you play it. The the Tacoma has a 29-inch scale length. And it feels kind of not normal when you play it. It feels really I I like it a lot, but it does force it force it. One of the reasons why I like it is it forces me to think about uh chord voicings differently than I would on a standard guitar, just because of the scale length. Right. Um and that one I usually down tune from baritone standard. I'll I'll lower the the sixth string down to A or even down to G, which is only a minor third above you know the low E string on a bass. So you can go pretty low on that one and still sound pretty good.
SPEAKER_03And what and what's your go-to, man, for sort of playing, you know, creating drones and things and the I don't know, the sitting and having a guitar meditation session, because you're talking about like drop tuning. Is it the idea of yeah, having a pedal note and what what's your sort of thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so a lot of times what I'll do, I'm a big fan of partial and full capos. Okay. How many is that covering that you're this partial capo covers uh three strings. It's meant to cover strings five, four, and three. And so if you put it on the second fret, you're in what I call faux dad gap. Okay. Now this is a baritone, so if you need a baritone. Right, so you get the um, you know, that kind of thing. So um I will I do a lot with drones and and pedal points, anyhow, in my um in my music in general, whether it's electric or guitar. So what I do sometimes is I will even even with acoustic guitar, I'll set up a drone with a delay. I don't I I might use a looper, but I more often use delays. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So, because I've got a looper at my feet, and that's my my go-to is to loop, but you uh are you just you're good you're just grabbing notes and making them so long that you so they sort of evolve? Is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_00Or yeah, so I have um the L-Kappa. Are you familiar with the Stryman L-Kappa stan delay? No, I'm not. Okay. So it is a it's been around for a while. Um it is a tape style delay pedal. Okay. And it has a sound-on-sound mode, which allows you it it allows you to basically treat it kind of like a mini looper. So you can do up to a 20-second uh tape, what they would call a tape splice. I used to do this way back in the day with real tape decks, by the way. Um in the band I played in. Well, let me set it up here. I'll do about uh eight-second loop or so. And then let's just play play the um the A. So that's that's the loops. So that's just gonna keep going, but it's gonna degrade over time. Ah. So now if I play against it. You can control how wobbly you want it to be, but so if I add in a and of course, I'm using a volume pedal to control the soil.
SPEAKER_03So I kind of like that. I love it. I I think that that volume pedal to get the what to take the attack away, because I know when I I I would use a looper for all mine, and whenever I'm um can you hear that alright by the way? Yeah. Oh yeah. Whenever I'm sort of creating a drone, I always have that element of okay, so take an A, click record, let it come back to you. But because what comes out is having that beginning sound, so you end up with that sort of rhythmia. My solution though, Bill, which I wanted to share with you, which is like a it's like a really old school volume pedal, is the violin bow. Which which works beautifully in sort of laying it up, but it just taking that attack out of that first note is so important, isn't it? It's to make to make to remove I mean, and what you were doing in that beautiful improvisation was just not um well the rhythm was it was like rhythm in a different way, isn't it? It's just kind of a sort of an ebbing and flowing thing. So that to have removing that that standardized rhythm is it seems like quite important, maybe. What do you reckon?
SPEAKER_00I yeah, I agree. Um I think the um I with so this style of playing with the uh Stryman or Kapistan delay is typically a lot of people, and I do too, call it Frippertronics. Are you familiar with that?
SPEAKER_03No. And you said it earlier, and I didn't jump in and go, what's that? Because I didn't want to seem like an idiot.
SPEAKER_00But no, no. So um so Brian Eno?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Robert Fripp? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Not just saying that you will love him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, good. Yeah, okay. So Robert Fripp. Um he did not invent the technique, but I I say that he popularized it in a way for as popular as he got. But um what he would do is essentially take two real-to-real tape decks and just physically set the tapedex apart and recorded the signal onto tape deck one and the tape moved across like the tape deck two where it played back. So you could move the tape decks further apart or closer together to create longer delay times. Because they didn't have digital delays then. And uh you incorporate it with a mixer so you can create feedback and get repeating delays. But they would they would transform over time because it's a tape, it was a tape delay, right? And you've got degrading signal going as the delays are fed back into the to the loop. So the L capistan is a is a pedal that is very well suited for fripertronics style looping, where you can create a um I hit a button here, you can create up to a 16-second uh what is what they call a tape splice, and then when you play it, right, it just and that's that's gonna go as long as I want it to go based on where I put the delay feedback knob. Okay, so if I turn the feedback knob down, it's just gonna fade out pretty quickly, which is cool. You can button so you can control your layers. So let me bring it down here. So I've set the feedback to about halfway. And then to your point earlier about rhythm and texture, this kind of looping ends up very often for me, I've visualize it kind of as waves, right? So and the wave is based on the length of the of the loop. So there we got, you know, three or four seconds, whatever it is, so it you end up with you end up with a tempo for sure. And you can do rhythmic things, especially with acoustic. I'm more with electric, I'm more want to just stick with volume swells, but the whole thing is kind of evolving in waves of sound as they come and go. And depending on where that feedback knob is on the delay pedal itself, that's going to control how many layers you're gonna be working with as they slowly die out.
SPEAKER_03Well, that sounded really beautiful to listen to. And what I really noticed about that while I'm listening to it, because I'm trying to decode in this conversation, I suppose, slightly why playing to drones, why plugging your acoustic guitar into a reverb pedal, or or or actually just drop tuning it and playing to one note and playing w what why there's so much uh enjoyment in that? And I think uh just listening to you there, one thing that I really noticed was space.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, I think there's I think I think there's a space for sure. Uh there's a texture. Um there is um I'm gonna call it contemplation on a smaller number of notes where you're working with a smaller palette of pitch um and then um working to kind of explore whatever that is. Um now for me personally, when I was a kid, um I heard about Robbie Shankar, and I'd never heard of classical Indian music before, but um I used to go to the library, this is back in the 70s, go to the library and check out vinyl record albums, and I discovered his music, and I'd never heard heard of sitar, although I found out that the Beatles, you know, George Harrison, etc. But um that really fascinated me. So I actually read his book on classical Indian music, I don't know, I was probably 15 or something like that. And so that's a I don't play classical Indian music, but some of the ethos of that has always kind of stuck with me. Um, you know, in all the years since then.
SPEAKER_03Wonderful. So in that so with my limited knowledge of Indian classical, maybe that build how a rub builds and develops where you explore a handful of notes and then that opens up.
SPEAKER_00Right. You know, it's typical that you're gonna have some kind of drone, right, and then you're gonna have a kind uh you're gonna have a type of scale or a collection of notes called a raga. And then the classical indie musician, especially the sitarist, is gonna be exploring that raga. Um, and then the other musicians are gonna be supporting that either rhythmically with a tabla, right? The drums, and then the tambora, which would be the droning instrument. Then you also have some other instruments too. So um, but that's kind of the ethos that really grabbed me was the drone, to be honest. I really, really enjoyed that a lot, even as a kid. So again, that's always kind of stuck with me.
SPEAKER_02Hmm.
SPEAKER_03I I I'm exactly the same, Bill. There's something that I don't know, the whole the whole pleasure for me for sitting down with a guitar of any kind, really, but I think particularly an acoustic guitar, is enjoying that yeah, the kind of the resonance of it. And the I don't know. I maybe used a word earlier uh contemplation, I think you said. Did you say that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, contemplate the notes you're playing, you know.
SPEAKER_03And just sort of enjoying that.
SPEAKER_00Right. So I think if even so I've even I even think of a player like BB King, you know, in his solos, they're not they're not fast. And so many times he will just hang out on one note and explore the note. And, you know, and this is obviously in the context of blues playing, but you know, what can you do with one note? I can get a lot of I can get a lot of different tones out of one note just by moving my hand on the fretboard. I can I can change it by applying pressure horizontally or vertically, if I have high enough frets, which I prefer. Um there's all kinds of things you can do with one note to uh create a variation, to create interesting um interesting variations of that note. And then you have rhythm, you know, you just play. You know, you can play different rhythms. There's all kinds of things you can do. You can play in play in octaves. You can go a long way with one note.
SPEAKER_03But you just get so much enjoyment out of it as well, right? Rather than just even though it might sound cool, it's that that you can I notice from teaching quite often guitarists can be quite focused on development and progression rather than necessarily, well, how much you would just enjoy how how much joy is that note that you're playing giving you?
SPEAKER_00Right, exactly. And I think that's especially true with some of the guitar-based genre out there today that's really focused on playing very fast. Okay. And you lose the com you lose the the thing that a note can communicate. Um so I I've said this before on some of my videos. I'm a big believer that when we play notes, we're communicating something. Like I just communicated something to you. I can't verbalize it because it's non-verbal communication. I actually don't want to verbalize it, right? But I am communicating. So I think you know, uh playing very fast all the time, you lose the emphasis on the beauty of the potential beauty and communication of each note. Doesn't mean you should never play fast. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm just saying sometimes that can get lost in the shuffle of the more modern genre.
SPEAKER_03It's that sort of you can't uh you're missing out on maybe it's impossible to connect so much with something moving so quickly, at the risk of sounding like I'm criticizing Shred, which I absolutely adore in its own way. But there's got to be well, I know my brain only moves so slow or so fast, and it's got to be a good thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's the relate of that bit.
SPEAKER_00I I can't shred.
SPEAKER_03It's just that time to sort of well go go go back to that word, contemplate or maybe reflect on something you've just you've just played. If it's if it's a a rush, it's sort of it's well, it's a different thing, isn't it? But but I uh I think it's just really interesting from this perspective of playing on your on your own, which is where all guitarists surely have most of their enjoyment anyway, because that's how we get better, because we sit there and we play. Oh sort of playing and giving yourself why why I'm so excited by what you do and ha having you on here is that message of um supporting or promoting sitting and playing and getting real enjoyment from that, then rather than it necessarily being like a workout at the gym.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I I feel that way very strongly. Um I mean I've even got an idea for a video in the future. I haven't really fleshed out exactly how I want to describe it, but uh or uh actually do the video, but I think the basic premise of it would be don't practice scales. Practice melodies. And uh that's to me that's how you stay connected with the music. I'm not again uh not saying you should never practice a scale, but that should not be primary. The primary practice should be playing music itself um and learning how to actually play the music rather than just building muscle memory. Muscle memory is important now, don't get me wrong, but there's a there's a balance there I think that's really important. Um I also think that um a lot of times I'll try to sing what I'm playing. Because if I can sing it when I'm playing it, I know that other people are gonna understand it. Because singing is really that's core, that's that's our core music as humans, right? Is singing. Although in our culture, I th unfortunately I think we're losing some of that. Um but sing the human voice is the key thing of music, his historically speaking. And I think, you know, our I think in our brains, if somebody's playing an instrument and we can relate it to a vocal melody, it's gonna be that much more meaningful. Think of all your favorite solos, perhaps that are not pure shredding where the tempo is so fast, right? But think of some of the most iconic solos. You can generally sing them. Um, for you know, uh if you go old school, like comfortably numb from Pink Floyd. I can st I could sing that solo, right? And that's part of the reason why it's so memorable is because I can sing it.
SPEAKER_03We might even c call it lyrical or lyrical, yeah. Yeah. It's real it's really interesting, but someone uh quite early on in my sort of instrumental performing career where I'd get up and play solo acoustic guitar, uh said to me, Oh man, I think I think you would really benefit from singing, and not even if you're singing uh in your set and in your compositions, but just as a means of connecting. And when I was you know, young and stupid, I was just kind of like, Well, what are you what are you talking about? You know, whatever why would I do that? And then it's just but it's it makes perfect and exactly what you're saying to me now, uh it makes perfect sense because even though it does sound kind of fluffy or it but it's it's so it's so true, isn't it? Because you can you can feel it resonating with the biggest thing. Music itself is fluffy. Yeah, and it it's um yeah, I I it's fluffy. So I I'm okay to talk about yeah, when it's a it's art, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's but you can't articulate it. You can feel it vibrating in your body, and and that's the thing that people love about acoustic guitar so importantly, isn't it? Is that I can feel it resonating. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A connection thing, right? It's just that sort of and the singing of the melody that you might be jamming and improvising on your own is kind of you're practicing connecting, dialing in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I yes. I also think that if you play while you sing, probably just when you practice, right? But um if you play while you you sing, I think it's it's easier to understand if you can hear the note because you're able to sing it. I think it's easier to hear where you're going when you're playing, in particular if you're improvising. I'm not talking about a set piece where you've got all the notes, you know, maybe on a piece of sheet music and you're playing them as is. Thinking more improvisationally.
SPEAKER_03Um So we're talking this on your own, maybe you're you've taken uh four or five notes and you're you're just exploring and playing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say, I would say also even in a live setting, you know.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00I mean, uh the pieces that I generally play on my YouTube channel are all improvised. I don't typically pre-compose before I turn the camera on and uh and Logic Pro and start recording. Um I might have a I might have an idea that I'm gonna start with, but um I don't generally um practice up a piece and then record it. That's I do from time to time, but that's not the normal way that I uh record performances on my channel. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Because you you do you just get more joy out of improvising and or will Yeah, I do.
SPEAKER_00I'm uh it's kind of what I do. You know, it's that's the way I think about things. So Okay. I I don't know. I like it. Yeah. But why? But yeah, you just like it. That's that's I don't know. I just like it. It's good. Um I yeah, I think from a YouTube perspective for me too, um uh it's it's faster than taking a month to create a piece, orchestrate it all out, arrange it all out, try to record it and all that. So that's um, but I've always enjoyed imp improvisation even before I started a YouTube channel. Um the the main band that I played in, uh, we would do a fair amount of improvisation um at certain points in our sets. So it's always it's kind of been part of me for a long, long, long time. Amazing. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think well, can I ask can I ask you about uh to get because this is a deep conversation anyway. It's a fluffy conversation, as you said. Music's fluffy, we like fluffy. Uh maybe this is fluffy and serious, but the mental health, mental well-being, that element of playing guitar in this way. Because there's a connection to that, I think, in some of the things I may have heard you say on your YouTube channel. And there's I don't know, I can definitely feel a lift in my mood if I'm stressed out and I've literally just forgotten to go and sit for 20 minutes and play my guitar. I think most people can relate to that. But what what do you think about playing in this way, in this more ambient way, and sort of general well-being? What do you think?
SPEAKER_00Um I think that in our current Western culture, um we are well, I can't I can't speak for across the pond. I can only speak for the United States.
SPEAKER_03Oh mate, it sucks over here. It really does.
SPEAKER_00Okay. All right. So maybe, yeah, so maybe there's some similarities. Um we so if you don't mind me getting a little philosophical for a moment. Do. Is that okay?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, please. Okay, so express your opinions however you want.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So um this is these are not going to be political comments at all, um, but rather um I think what underlies a lot in our culture. And I and I w I'm speaking from the perspective of somebody who's a Christian. So um, and when I say Christian, I mean I call myself an historic Christian. So the form of Christianity that I follow is like the historic Orthodox Northern, not Orthodox church, but the Orthodox Christianity that's been believed for 2,000 years. Okay. It's not the modern uh modern kind of Christianity that in America might be a megachurch with a rock band playing and stuff like that. Okay. That's what I mean. And it's a non-political I don't view Christianity, you know, the the Christian nationalism thing that's over here in the United States. That's farthest, I I can't even conceive how you would even connect those two together. But anyhow, as I think about that, um, I think about identity, and I know that's a buzzword, but hear me out. Identity historically was um what we would somewhat call external to ourselves. We would gain our identity not only from how we view ourselves, but the community around us. Right? So the our friends, family, the village, the name the neighborhood, the community, they would all help inform us who we are as people, right? And today, with a more postmodern uh perspective, our identity is really supposed to come out of us without reference to anything else. So it's a um a couple of philosophers call it the buffered self. In other words, you create a buffer around you, and then you're supposed to figure out who you are without reference to anything else. And I think, this is my opinion, I think that viewpoint has really propagated through at least the American version of Western culture to a large extent, and it crosses political boundaries. There's different versions of it. But what it does is it creates a lot of anxiety. Um, because no man is an island, you know, to quote that phrase. Um, I think we need others, we need community, we need things outside of ourselves to help us define who we are as people. And if we don't have that, it leads to a lot of anxiety. So getting back around then to music, um, a lot of modern music, I think, reflects that anxiety that is rampant in our culture. And so I think slower, more meditative forms of music really can be helpful to get ourselves out of that mindset, especially if we happen to be uh addicted to some social network platform and are addicted to doom scrolling or something like that. We can really find ourselves in an anxiety-ridden echo chamber. And I think this is not the only way, but this is one way to step back and get out of that mindset. And even though it's art, and even though it might be not as concrete in a way, I think it brings us back to as it brings us back to reality in some in some ways.
SPEAKER_03Even though that reality is the fluffy bit.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03That fluffy bit is the reality.
SPEAKER_00Right. I think so much in the way we understand identity in the modern world is not reality. It doesn't reflect historic reality. It doesn't reflect the way people have thought for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. It's a new thing that's only been around for a couple of generations. And frankly, it's not working out too well. I don't, I don't think it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair.
SPEAKER_03Fantastic, Pearl. That's kind of I knew I knew that was in there somewhere. I was, I was, you know, that's that's beautiful. That's wonderful. And and ultimately, to that massively profound um little intersection there, the result and the conclusion is go and play your guitar with some space and plug in a reverb pedal and like come back to reality. I I love coming full circle as well, of sort of not you know talking about it being fluffy or whatever, and then it's that that is the grounding thing. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00One of the other great things about music is that um that I really appreciate about it, actually, art in general, is um we sometimes we talk a lot about the intent of the artist. So we want to try to underst we try to we want to try to understand the art with the intent of the artist. But I think I personally think that's the wrong way to go about enjoying art, whether it's music or um visual art or dance or writing, whatever it might be. Um because art is only art um in the experience of within the experience of the person that is I'm saying I'm gonna use this word again because I can I'm saying it wrong. It's only within the context of the person experiencing the art. Yeah, fair. Okay. So I'm you know, I write I I my music when I as I think of it, I have a Christian worldview. But I'm pretty sure that only a small percentage of people that listen to my music would understand it in that way. And I'm I'm cool with that. I I it's okay. They're understanding it in their own way. I think another way to think about it, I think art truly is the idea of, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Um, when we you know there's so many people that discuss whether art is good or bad, I don't think there's any such thing as good or bad art, because art is the experience of art is entirely subjective.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that that's such wisdom. Go on.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say to your point then, you know, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm putting it out from a Christian perspective, but someone who's an atheist, for example, and I do get occasional comments on my channel, but someone who's an atheist could still enjoy it. They're just not enjoying it from the same perspective that I am.
SPEAKER_03I think that's fantastic. And that's cool. You know, it's great. It's it's lovely from a perspective of people who are playing guitar, making art, in uh maybe they're not professional or that they're underconfident in what they're creating and just understanding that what you're making is as valid as anything else if you are getting alignment from it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think in terms of what I'm saying, that right. Um I would agree. Uh there is you know, when people say that song is objectively bad, it makes me laugh because that to me that's an oxymoron. Uh an objectively bad piece of art. Uh it's like it's like uh movie critics. Who's to say, you know, that was a terrible movie? Well, that movie just made a billion dollars and 300 million people watched it and loved it, and you're one person saying it sucks. So who's right? I don't think anybody's right. But to say that it's objectively bad is not is not supportable through the evidence. You have to have a standard. To say something's good or bad, you have to have a standard. And there is no objective standard for any kind of art.
SPEAKER_03But it's it takes so much, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00To get rid of that in your head.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03But but that head, you know, that guy in your head, like the guy in my head, I hate him. I really hate him, and he's there going, you know, dude, that's not complicated enough, or no, that sounds weird, or that sort of it's brushing that off, right?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think I think also uh my tenure on YouTube has taught me that there is an audience for every kind of art.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Maybe a huge audience for other types, but there is an audience for and I I have a but a number of videos that discuss this, but in trying to encourage other small, you know, independent musicians, maybe a musician who's afraid to put themselves out there in public for some reason, uh, you know, whatever reason it might be. But my encouragement is don't don't think of yourself to your point as less than any other musician. Um it's there's an audience for what you do. It might just be you and your mom. Yeah. But that's okay but that's okay. That that's valid. There's not that's awesome, actually. If you can make music that your mother likes, that's great. My mother's still alive and she doesn't like the music that I make. So, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, my mom says she likes it, but I'm just gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00I love I love my mother, by the way. She's amazing. I couldn't ask for a better. Sorry, Ma.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, that that that's I think I think that's a beautiful conclusion. Um that yeah, whatever you're doing is valid and going, enjoy it. Um but I t I tell you what, Bill, actually, because I'd like to what I'd love is to have a little summary, a little uh tip of getting started with creating some kind of I don't know, should we say ambient guitar or should we say guitar meditation or guitar contemplation? I like that guitar because that seems slightly more um accessible. What what would your sort of you know, tips do a guitar contemplation on your own with an acoustic?
SPEAKER_00So we're just talking about playing, right? Not recording and okay.
SPEAKER_03If we're just gonna be able to do that, I think yeah, yeah, go on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so what I would say is obviously learning the basics of the instrument is important. I said don't play scales, but I don't really mean never ever ever play scales. But um learning the mechanics of the instrument, instrument, building muscle memory, that's all important for sure. Um getting to a point where you're comfortable on the instrument. But then I I think as far as um uh thinking about more ambient styles, um a couple things I think would be helpful. One is as you're thinking about it, think of just a couple of chords that you want to focus on. Okay. Yeah, right. So maybe it's the maybe it's the tonic, right? And maybe it's the you know the four chord, right? Maybe it's just those two chords. And then um pick pick whatever sounds good, and that's actually a good combination because there's not many notes that when you play them in particular sequences that we would consider to be horribly dissonant.
SPEAKER_03So what chords did you play there translated into standard?
SPEAKER_00If I translate it into standard, you could just say uh D and G. Okay. So if you and and I don't even think you need to s to down tune or use an alternate tuning to get started. Um, if you're just thinking about you know, if you that's that's not actually a D, but let's just say it's a D. Yeah. If we're just thinking about a D just explore where those notes lie on the on the fingerboard.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So tuning it, find that, find that note. Not necessarily thinking, but just hear it, like where else is it?
SPEAKER_00And a lot of times what I'll do is maybe I'll just hit one interval, say like the flat seventh. And maybe I'll just focus on that uh for a while. But I think that's kind of the key. Also, I think listening to what others have done. Uh, Celtic music, Celtic guitar music is a great place to go for um, especially some of the slower arrangements, can use a lot of open strings and pedal point or drones within that particular genre. Um, even if you don't want to play Celtic music, it's a good place to go to hear examples of how people are leveraging slower tempos and slower groups, groups of notes, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Amazing. I think I think uh we've covered a lot of ground. We've um we really, really have. I I think it's a wonderful place to start. Thank you so much, Bill.