COLUMNS
IN DEEP
IN THE GROOVE, PART 2
More on how to lay a solo deep in the pocket
by Andy Aledort
ALISON HASBACH
For video of this lesson, go to guitarworld.com/may2024
LAST MONTH, WE began exploring ways to instill a solo with a solid groove and a deep pocket. A great technique I have found for fortifying one’s connection to the groove is to first set up a specific repeating vamp then utilize different approaches to play over it, in terms of the phrasing and syncopation of the lines. This exercise allows one to study two things at once: first, we are tasked with coming up with a foundation riff that has a clearly defined groove, built from its own collective syncopations of quarter-, eighthand 16th-note accents. When we solo, the goal is to connect the syncopations of the solo to those of the vamp. This month’s vamp is played in the key of G and with a swing-16ths groove not unlike that heard in Shuggie Otis’ “Me and My Woman.”