Ideas That Make Bands Sound Better

I've been a professional musician for over 25 years. The last seven, I've worked as a guitarist and music director on cruise ships, playing every single day, different material, different styles, different situations. And I can tell you this with absolute certainty: 90% of my job is accompanying. That's the reality. Steve Lukather said it in an interview with Rick Beato. "I've been paid to play rhythm guitar 90% of the time." He's right. I've lived it. But most guitarists hav

When I started arranging Pink Panther, the first thing that comes to mind with such a recognizable theme is preserving its most fundamental elements: the melody — by virtue of it being an instrumental piece — and the hard swing feel it carries. Those were my two non-negotiable parameters. The second parameter was the project itself: a gypsy jazz ensemble, which meant preserving the 4/4 feel and the swing element, while working within a specific instrumentation — clarinet, vio

A few days ago I told you about a Latin pop project I arranged years ago — bigger ensemble, fuller instrumentation — and the decisions I regret making. This time the story is different. Same period, different project. Two guitars, bass, and drums — with a couple of guest instruments that showed up exactly where they needed to and nowhere else. And ten years later, I have zero regrets. Here's what happened. In 2014, I joined a project as an arranger and session guitarist for a

About 25 years ago, I had a Latin pop band. It wasn't a two-guitar band. The rhythm section was Latin percussion, bass, piano, and electric guitar, plus a tenor saxophone supporting the vocals. The melody of the song we recorded was pretty strong, and since I was the arranger, the first thing I did was try to find a chord progression that sounded unique. I wanted something as unusual as possible. The piano player, who was quite good, did a good job with the chords I wrote, bu

There isn't one specific situation that made me arrive at that particular conclusion that the bass is the one calling the shots. The Bass Is The Boss is a concept that emerged over the years from realizing the foundation the bass provides. Ninety-nine percent of popular music wouldn't survive without bass. That's what I've noticed in recordings. If you think of music as a bell curve, that's the ninety-nine percent sitting in the middle. You can, in fact, leave the other one p

When I started playing guitar, I was about nine or ten years old. Back then, I was getting by with whatever little songbooks I could find, Beatles songs and stuff like that, or learning La Bamba, which only had three chords. My dad, God rest his soul, was very supportive of my pursuit of becoming a musician. He was a lawyer, and he loved reading, so he spent a lot of time in bookstores. One day he found a book that caught his attention because of the title. It was called “2,5

A few years ago, a bassist friend of mine called me for a lesson. But the lesson wasn’t just for him; it was for his whole band. He wanted me to attend their rehearsal, listen, and give advice on how to work better together. This wasn’t entirely new to me because I’d been teaching at Danilo Pérez’s foundation. We had a class called Ensemble, where groups of 5 or 6 students worked on songs together. I also took an Ensemble class at the conservatory in Puerto Rico, where studen

When I decided to arrange the song A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton for guitar, I wanted to mimic the main piano riff as faithfully and pianistically as possible. I had seen several guitar versions played with distortion or single notes, but I aimed for a version that two guitars could perform to sound like the piano, with that cascading effect. First, I identified the tempo and key. Since it's in B major, I used the open strings available on the guitar in that scale. For

About 15 years ago, I was playing in a theater production, probably Jesus Christ Superstar. This time, the orchestra was bigger, likely due to a better budget. The director played the piano, and we had two guitars. Usually, these shows have two guitars. We were rehearsing one of the pieces with just the orchestra, without the cast. In front of me were chord symbols and slashes, meaning I had some freedom to play in a way that contributed to the music. I remember one of the ch

One of the clearest examples of unnecessarily complicated guitar parts is six-string barre chords, especially on electric guitar. Why? Because those barre chords are only useful in a very limited number of situations. A long sustained note held for one or two measures can fill the spectrum nicely. They work for arpeggios that need sustain and require that particular voicing. But I can’t think of many other situations where strumming them is actually useful. On electric guitar

A couple of years ago, a drummer friend invited me to his band’s gig where they were playing covers. The band had two guitars, bass, drums, and female vocals. I went there to hang out and enjoyed the show because they played well. The instrumental arrangements were close to the original songs, the musicians were tight, and the overall volume felt balanced. But every time the vocals entered, something fell apart. I could barely understand the lyrics. I spent the whole night u

If you're the songwriter with some ideas for your song's arrangement, you might not notice everything on your own. Let’s say you've got the melody down. Now it's time to get together with your band. You've got two guitars, a bass, and drums. Even though you could play any of those instruments, you're probably the rhythm guitarist since songwriters usually hold that role. You've created a solid melody and good lyrics. Now you need to decide on the arrangement and parts for eac