Chords for George Benson how to practice

[E] _ _ We're back with George Benson and we're talking about the early years and we left off talking
About playing underage in bars.
Okay now I
Started playing bars on
14 and there were more than one time where I had to call my dad to come pick me up after the gig
They didn't trust the guys to drive me home if you know what I mean, you know
But one thing I found is lots of times people weren't that helpful
I remember getting up on stage and people would start a tune.
They wouldn't tell me what key we're in
They wouldn't tell me what tune we're doing they wouldn't count it off and they just expected me to sink or swim
Did you have experiences like that too or was it mostly pretty supportive?
What a good thing in my career was by the time I was 15 and I started playing
As a guitar player.
They started calling me to play in nightclubs
_ Everybody knew who I was and
I would end up going to other clubs and stand in the doorway to hear the music because I know I wasn't allowed in
But the club owners liked me so they would come little Georgia come over here
Sit in this seat right in the corner and don't move a muscle
_ Anything you want to drink
So _ I would get a chance to hear and see the superstars of our time, you know the organ trios Sure
Johnny Hammond Smith Jimmy Smith
Wild Bill Davis and people like that and Jack McDuff who came through then later Jimmy McGriff and people like that
and groove homes and people like that, so it was a
Quite a ear-opening experience.
I'm sure
Exposed like that at such an early age.
I mean that's your blood at that point.
That's great
Well, you know whether you're self-taught or people have shown you things or you've had formal training
One thing that everybody experiences are times when your creativity sort of dries up or you get into a rut _
If that happens to you, how do you work your way out of it?
It is a very common question.
I hear from a lot of people and it has happened to me many times
And what I did I've discovered that if I practiced
Ten things I would remember one or two of them
So the secret was practice a hundred things and I got ten or twenty things
I would do you know get out of that session
So I'm practicing a lot of different things and I noticed that when I play with others
That someone would play something doing it to remind me of the things that I couldn't remember
They might start a thing, you know with a six or 13.
That's okay
[Dm] _ That's all that's [Db] all and it's a my [Bb] girl
That _ kind of thing and if I [A] would
_ _ [Bbm] _
[F] then
as [Bbm] [Em] a oh
Okay, that's a key
but the key for me was to
Just gather a lot of things and stay familiar with the instrument.
I don't really call it practicing
I call it becoming familiar with the instrument.
So if you hear something, you know where to get it.
I wasn't gifted with
Perfect pitch like a lot of my friends are which can be a great blessing, but it can also be a curse _
So _ I had to strive for things which were very easy for them
But what did what I learned along the way were
Passing things usable things that I could use to spice up the music, you know in harmony.
I
Found that if you study [G] harmony, you learn a lot of notes at one time instead of learning, you know one note at a
What I love an a13 chord, [Gbm] okay
What how many notes are in that 13 chord?
Well
[G] [A] Yes live right there
[D] But I also noticed that that's a passing thing for this
[G] Decor now, I'm thinking I'm talking very strange in simple language to you because this is the way I think of guitar
I always condense things down to the simplest form that way.
I don't have to remember too many [D] things
So I noticed that that [A] is part of the cycle of in the key of D
If that's the case that means that when I'm playing my
Chord progression I'm trying to get back to you know to the two five [C] progression to a minor [Em] d7 back to G, [A] but I'm playing
This [D] [A] is also D [Em] see
[D] _ _ _ _ [F] _ [Gbm] _ _
[Fm] Half [Bb] step back same thing
[Db] _ Now [Em] _
[N] I'm back to the root, but I haven't gone that
That route that really allows people to
Hear it before you get there
So you keep the surprise thing happening, you know, sure so this they would [Gbm] be able to hear [G] because [Cm] they've heard a thousand people do [G] this
[C] _ [Eb] _
[Em] [A] They [Am] _ [Cm] _ [Ab] know that that's in the air [N] they they don't know where they heard it but they've heard it sure sure so we [D] surprise with
_ [Db] _ _ [G] _
[B] [Am] So [C] _ [Em] _ they haven't heard [N] that
Where is he coming from?
I?
Don't know I got there, but he got there
Hurrah, show me some more
Beautiful stuff if I can clarify one thing with you when you first started talking about this
You said somebody would say well start on the 13th or start on this note or that note
Are we talking about learning to start on different degrees of a chord?
_ Relating those chords to something that is being played like say for instance if they're playing
Like we started [G] off in the key of G, [Db] but if they play this
[Bbm] We said [Db] wait a minute now.
Where's that coming from?
We know it's you and I know it's a flat five
But that's interesting because now we got to make it make sense.
Yeah, you know make it musical
We'll make it take it someplace.
That's logical and we have to no matter where you start a story
There's got to be an ending the place of agreement with the person you're talking to
So I'm always trying to get to a place that's a common denominator something that we all can agree on that's back to the root
Or wherever it is.
We're going we want to take them there with us, but in an interesting way
So that's what we try to do.
We I'm looking for ways of getting to a place
That's slightly different than we went the last time right so it makes variety in our music and variety is the spice
Well, you tell a different story every time yeah
Well, this is great stuff, but we're really just getting started and we'll be back with more lessons coming up stick in there with us y'all _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ [Bbm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [N] _