How to Improvise Without Overthinking (feat. Mateus Asato)

[Music] Maus Cato is one of the best guitarists I've ever met he's known for his oneman covers of popular songs and his uniquely melodic and tasteful improvisations you're so good it's frustrating no I mean recently I performed with him at the universal audio Studio where we did a mashup cover of two songs by Billy ish and John Lennon and and I got a chance to sit down with him and ask him a bunch of questions about things I was dying to know about everything from how he built his musical taste how he thinks about chords Melody Groove so it's like note feel note feel and how he would guide a beginner to take a set of chords and build it into a beautiful and original piece of music how do you go [Music] from you know to something a little more creative and more personal this is a bit of a different format than usual but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this great information with you all so without further Ado here is the interview it's so cool to finally meet you really likewise nor you're amazing you're the first person that I've done a cover with and a cover period so I've been learning a lot today we were talking a little bit about like coming up with like this chord Melody situation so to me I mean let's just say we're talking about a cover right so there's this covert that I did of um the BG song How Deep Is Your Love So the first thing that I do I I I'm you know I try to recognize the Melody I identify the melody so let's just you know how deep is your love in K major [Music] you know where my mind goes like I start beaing up stacking up like more melodic sounds with it so instead of just playing what I just did I could have done [Music] like you know and then you just start messing around with different things is that just something that occurred naturally over time because you have the language in your ears so much or do you have a system in terms of at these spots between these chords I'm going to add a little more I actually never thought much about okay when is the appropriate time I think it depends a lot on the Rhythm First Step would definitely be like the groove I have to analy the song and say if it the groove is right to play that kind of stuff I always bring Jimmy hendris on the table I think he was one of the most revolutionary guitar players electric guitar players because when he played rhythm guitar it was actually not 100% Rhythm all the time you know like one thing is just like you know that's rhythm guitar and but Jimmy would always like I mean not always like who am I to try to copy what he did but it was something [Music] like so he was always mixing up things it's more about like this the the being sensitive enough to understand where to find the right spots again it's more about trying things and see like oh yeah this feels in this feels good in this kind of space you know this is a red H song by John forant so it's just [Music] like it's kind of like you give them the note the reference like the root and then you add a a little Flav like a little feel so it's like note feel note feel people needs to understand where the directions go you know again going back to how I hear how you build solos and just your Arrangements it sounds organic and tasteful it's very tasteful thank you so much and I that was something that I did not think much of it but I've always wanted to be able to play guitar by myself and again I mean of course every guitar player could actually do that but in a way that could be still entertaining like little by little I start thinking in ways of incorporating those things and in a more theorical way like it was very important for me to know like the inversions those Triads and you know mastering the fretboard in a way that I could like okay in case if I want to play a F chord I would be able to play this F chord in any sort of area of the neck you know like an F uh you know what I mean like what would a beginner SL intermediate musician do in terms of taking that and starting to build something on their instrument on the piano or guitar and you mean that in a way of like just playing the song yeah like I I if you were to imagine or I I imagine a beginner pianist being like okay I understand the chords uh-huh C major E minor F major I think a lot of pan or a lot of musicians could be stuck at just being like Oh makes sense okay you know how do you go [Music] from you know to something a little more creative and more personal okay um well again I think it's important to know first the foundation of the song so of course chords are mandatory okay in this situation of that song it's just like C E minor F and I'll start messing around with different um inversions so I'll probably be playing like and the second round I'll be playing [Music] like or maybe or just [Music] Triads and mess around with like adding like extension like you know maybe like you know cuz again this is a regular C major I already add like the seven on it cuz it sounds prety you know so you start adding your little flavors on it so in my situation I love opening like opening chords you know so so messing around with the chords first would be like already a good novelty of comparing to yeah and also what we're both doing is finding a very simple sort of transition point from cord to chord that is kind of like a melody where like uhhuh it's sort of in the background it softens up the chords a little more going back to the beginner now they feel a little more comfortable with the cords how do they break from that to now building something more on top so now now that I'm already familiar with the chords and the variations that I could provide you know messing around with just the progression itself I would probably start adding those little flavors I played in the beginning where it would be like where can I fit this you know like cuz from C2 E minor it's already too fast so maybe I'm not going to do that kind of stuff but maybe when I played the F chord extended a little longer I could be able to do something like this you [Music] know you know then I add those little like feels the feels you [Music] know you know and then and then if I want to mess around with the actual Melody of the song and then I'll figure out okay where is the range where what's the melody at it would be so okay how can I make this in a very like musical way too and be [Music] [Music] like the more familiar we you get with the progression and you know with the feeling with the Rhythm the more confident you're going to be able to start exploring different things you know I think something important to for everyone to remember is that taking cords and then building something on your own there are many Tiny Steps that you can take to get more comfortable and one shouldn't jump into it hearing some amazing solo yeah and trying to emulate that first because if you go from that end without understanding what's underneath oh yeah then you end up playing just a lot of filler yeah I mean for me like even if you're just playing one exercise you know a regular pentatonic run or scale I just try to make that as most musical as possible cuz again at the end of the day what's the point of us practicing scale run 4 hours a day I don't know if we don't make that in a mus you know musical you know there's no point it's just for or selfish you know pleasure I'm just like yeah cool I know how to play this but okay like how can you make that into a musical thing so just to go over a few things that were mentioned in this interview I really love how Matas combines a very intuitive approach with systematic thinking he first pays attention to the Core words of the song and when there is space he adds in fills and he doesn't overdo it he doesn't overthink it which is key he really prioritizes listening to the melody and paying attention to what is appropriate for each song and that is why I think his music is very tasteful it's very enjoyable to listen to and it also makes me personally so interested in the guitar as a Pianist because he talks about the layout of the friend fretboard how he uses open chords and some of those things I really don't understand so maybe in the future I may spend some time learning the guitar myself if you're interested in that please let me know in the comments thank you so much to universal audio for hosting us and also the full length interview will be available on universal Audi's YouTube as well as our Duo performance do check that out thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next [Music] video

Channel: Nahre Sol

Views: 276,412

Keywords: piano, music composition, harmony, music theory, nahre sol, classical music, improvisation, pianist, film scoring, jazz, modern music, mateus asato, guitar, electric guitar, guitar effects, guitar cover

Id: dgj3BjjghUg

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2024