KNOW YOUR STYLES

Each improvising player should know what his instrument is expected to do in a particular style. In a rehearsal or recording session, if you just hand out chord charts without identifying the style you want, you can lose a lot of time by muddling around trying to figure out what each player is supposed to do, and you may never hit on an authentic style. If you can identify the style by name, the head arrangement will begin to mesh quickly.

Here are some standard styles. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but if you know your way around in these, you’ve got a good foundation:
•  Country: country ballad, country rock, country blues, pop country or traditional country, bluegrass
•  Latin (lumped broadly under Salsa): rumba, samba, tango, mambo, conga, cha-cha, a new fusion of Latin pop, and others
•  Island or Caribbean: reggae (Latin and Caribbean styles are closely related and have been fused a lot, but each style has its distinguishing rhythm patterns.)
• Jazz: Dixieland or New Orleans, Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Rag, Charleston, Swing, Big Band, Bebop, Jazz waltz, Fusion, etc.
•  Blues: slow to medium, and usually with a prescribed 12-bar progression
•  Rhythm and Blues: blues chords, usually set to a faster, more rhythmic beat and not necessarily bound by the rigidly defined blues form
• Rock: Various styles too numerous to mention (and some not worth mentioning), but often identified by naming certain well-known songs or artists. Asaph did this in Psalm 77 (Amplified Version): “To the Chief Musician, after the manner of Jeduthun [one of David’s three chief musicians, founder of an official musical family]. A Psalm of Asaph.” This is the equivalent of saying, “Play it like Michael W.”
•  Southern Gospel
•  Black Gospel
•  Hymn
•  Hip-Hop
•  Shuffle
•  Soft-shoe or tap (stop time)
•  Waltz
•  Polka
•  March
•  Folk
•  Various ethnic styles
•  Pop: A broad, catchall term that includes any “popular” style not specifically designated by one of these other terms. “Classic pop” often refers to styles that were popular before the advent of rock, such as those of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole and the like. Just plain “pop” usually refers to whatever styles are current.

Other terms have their turn in the sun, but are usually permutations of one or more of the others we’ve mentioned here.

Notice that we haven’t listed “Contemporary Christian,” or “Praise and Worship” here. This is because songs in either of these broad categories may be defined by some of the styles listed above.

You probably won’t use some of these in your worship service, but a fun, story-telling children’s musical might use any of them.

Broaden Your Horizons
Try working in different idioms, even if you do it only for practice. Try pop ballads, country or rock. Try something classical, or combine classical with rock.

One of the most damaging and limiting vices of developing writers is musical chauvinism—that irrational fixation on one genre of music to the exclusion of all others. (This is not to say that you might not specialize in one or two styles.)

It’s a handicap, like a mental illness or blindness, that leads to musical malnutrition. These poor souls bring very little originality to their favorite field because they have cut themselves off from the fresh influences of other sources. If they are fortunate they will wake up one day to discover a whole wide wonderful world of music out there. But some never do—they just continue to become ingrown until they tire of the same old thing and burn out.

So stay fresh. Keep your pump primed. Broaden your spectrum. You’ll enrich your musical life.