Lenny Breau was a unique and amazing guitarist. He grew up the son of country & western singing parents and started playing on stage when he was very young. His first hero was country legend Chet Atkins, and by the time Breau was 15 he was recording dead-on versions of Chet’s tunes (check out the CD Boy Wonder). Sometime in his teenage years he started hearing jazz, as played by guitarists like Tal Farlow and Barney Kessel, and eventually he heard jazz pianist Bill Evans. Bill Evans had a way of comping when he played using what are called shell voicings. You play a shell voicing by leaving out some notes while still implying a chord. The two most important notes in a chord are the third, which tells you if the chord is major or minor, and the seventh. You can add other notes in as you feel the need, but generally the root and the fifth are left out in a shell voicing. As you probably know playing chords on the guitar can be a matter of making note choices since we only have six strings, so Breau built a comping style based on using (mostly) two note chords over which he could then play melody or improvise.
Example 1: This shows the idea; start with the A7 and D7 and you can figure out how to play E7, and from there you can try some basic blues ideas.
Example 2: This example adds the chord root (tonic) on top of the chord. With this you can really start to hear what Breau heard. Try this and then try some other notes above the chord and see what you get.
Example 3: Another interesting thing about these two-note chords is that if you flip the third and seventh you get another chord. A7 flips to Eb7.
Listen
Buddhist teacher Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said “The more and more you listen, the more and more you hear, the more and more you hear, the deeper and deeper your understanding.” This is so true, not just of listening to Lenny Breau, but in playing any style. If you want to play in a style, listen to it—a lot! And listen to lots of styles, even if you are concentrating on one. Listen to other instruments and see what you can use on yours. Let me suggest a couple Lenny Breau CDs to hear. The Velvet touch of Lenny Breau—Live! is one of LB’s fist recordings. Notice the way Breau can make his melodies stand above the chords he plays, at times sounding like two players. Then give a listen to Live at Bourbon St., a duo recording with Bassist Dave Young. With those two you get either end of Breau’s recording career.
The Harmonics Thing
Lenny is, perhaps, best known for his use of harmonics with his chords (sometimes called artificial harmonics). If you have never played a harmonic, start by lightly touching your right index finger (if you are right handed) to the 12th fret on the low E string, and with your thumb pluck the string. Breau’s technique uses this to play a chord one note at a time and alternating a note with a harmonic. The effect is a cascade of notes that gives the illusion of being all harmonics, and it sounds real pretty. You can do this on any chord, but it works best on chords that don’t have redundant notes. So let’s try just using all open strings. As before, do the harmonic on the 6th string at the 12th fret, then with your third or fourth finger (whichever you find more comfortable—FYI Breau plucked with his fourth, I use my third), pluck the open D (4th) string. Then move over one set and do the harmonic on the fifth string, and pluck the open G (3rd) string. Then move over again, harmonic on the fourth, plucked note on the B (2nd) string. And again, harmonic on the G string followed by the open E (1st) string.
You can, of course, reverse and go back the other way, and you can play the note and harmonic either way (harmonic first then note, or note first then harmonic). You can also play them at the same time, which Chet Atkins did, which is where Breau got the idea. Try this technique with different chords and start to find things that you like. Playing guitar is all about the hunt for sounds, so don’t be shy, jump on in.
There are three terrific books about Lenny Breau and his music: One Long Tune: The Life and Music of Lenny Breau by Ron Forbes- Roberts; Lenny Breau Fingerstyle Jazz by Lenny Breau & John Knowles; and Visions: A personal tribute to jazz guitarist Lenny Breau by Stephen D. Anderson and Ronald Cid.
Pat Smith
Pat Smith founded the Penguin Jazz Quartet and played Brazilian music with Nossa Bossa. He studied guitar construction with Richard Schneider, Tom Ribbecke and Bob Benedetto, and pickin’ with Lenny Breau, Ted Greene, Guy Van Duser and others. Pat lives in Iowa with his cats Emmy and Squeeky, and plays in a duo with bassist Rich Wagor.