Stayin’ Alive: Inspiration, Motivation, and Approach

My band Chin Waggers is always looking for new material to perform. When playing clubs, it helps to have plenty of upbeat dance tunes in the repertoire.

Stayin’ Alive was a number 1 hit for the Bee Gees in 1978 and is recognizable today by folks of all ages. Some might appreciate the energy of the song, others might feel nostalgic at hearing the tune, and still others might enjoy it in a retro kitsch kind of way. Regardless the reason, Stayin’ Alive has broad appeal and it seemed like a good song to learn.

Also, I am a huge sucker for a well-crafted pop song. I like a lot of different styles of music, from jazz to heavy metal, classical to bluegrass, but one of my guilty pleasures is the love of a catchy tune: Burt Bacharach, Captain and Tennille, ABBA, the Bee Gees. I don’t care how “cheesy” a song is, if it has a strong melody, I’m there.

So I set out to learn how to play Stayin’ Alive. I ran the CD and listened carefully to the main riff, focusing on the feel and groove, as well as the notes.

When learning a new song, the first priority is to get the notes right (or at least close enough that most people won’t notice), but it’s important also to remember the bigger picture. Eventually you need to be able to convey an emotion or a mood that will resonate with listeners and get them to take action (tap their feet, dance, mosh, start a revolution, etc.).

I figured I probably could learn about five or six notes at a time, so I mentally broke down the riff into smaller chunks. Then I grabbed a guitar and fumbled around the fretboard for the first chunk. When I thought I’d found it, I ran the CD and tried to play along with it.

Once I was reasonably sure that I’d gotten it right, I found the best position on the guitar to play the phrase. Then I played it slowly several times to make sure I got the feeling of the pattern in my hands.

When I could play the first phrase without mistakes, I followed the same process with the next phrase. Eventually I was able to string the various phrases together to form a complete statetment, i.e., the main riff.

And now for a brief philosophical tangent…

When learning a new piece of music, it is best to play the phrases slowly at first. It’s important to get the notes right (or close enough) and to get the feel of those notes. Say you’re learning to play tennis. Before you start moving your opponent all over the court with great ground strokes, you need to learn proper mechanics, footwork, shot selection, and a thousand other things. Then you need to forget all that and just do it. Same with music. You need to think about hand position and pick attack. Which finger goes on which fret? Is this an upstroke or downstroke? Am I articulating each note, or am I playing legato? The more of that “overhead” you take care of up front, the less you have to think about it later on in performance, when all of your energy should be focused on delivering the message as effectively as possible. When you’re on stage performing, you don’t want to be thinking about stuff like mechanics. Any energy not directed toward delivering a great performance at that point is energy that keeps you from getting your message to the people.

Did that sound like a manifesto? Well, maybe it should be. The salient point to remember is that accuracy and precision come first. Only after those have been mastered is it time to start thinking about speed and embellishment.

And coming back full circle to the song at hand, in this case I never made it to the speed part. Actually, I did, but I found that I preferred the slower groove that I’d been practicing. I liked it so much, in fact, that I ended up building the arrangement in that tempo.

But this, as they say, is a story for another day.

On this day…

No other post on this day.