Patrick Dean Interview

0:00 Patrick Dean Music appreciation.

0:10 Luke F. Walton Hey everybody, welcome back to Music 101 Podcast. I am joined with Patrick Dean, a very special guest. Hello, Patrick.

0:20 Patrick Dean Oh, what's going on?

0:21 Luke F. Walton What's up, man? We're going to be talking about all sorts of good music stuff, everything from social media to guitar playing to, you know, SoCal, San Diego, LA, the beach, all that good stuff. And just to preface this, I want to, if anybody's joining the show for the first time, basically the idea is if you want to have, if you want to write great books, you need great readers. If you want to be a great chef.

0:47 Luke F. Walton You need people that like understand great food. That's kind of the premise of this podcast is

0:53 Luke F. Walton creating a sense of like everything that goes into music every part of it so that when you listen to a song It's a deeper richer experience and with that let's talk music Patrick

1:05 Patrick Dean Oh, yeah. Silky smooth.

1:09 Luke F. Walton so first of all i just want to talk i just want to find out how'd you get to be such a shredder like how are you i've been watching your lick of the days like crazy and like um amazing facility great uh you know familiarity and and interesting lines throughout the fretboard kind of explain me your path like how did you how'd you end up falling in love with the guitar and becoming the guitarist that you are

1:33 Patrick Dean Yeah, I mean, there's like a long and winding path, but. I got into it really just because like I finally at some point had like I'd been playing guitar for a long time like I started playing guitar when I was like 10 years old but I never really like got super into it into it until

1:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

1:51 Patrick Dean I met this guy who I started kind of like taking lessons from and started playing in his band and he was giving me lessons and he was like the first person to really like instill any like really rock solid foundation in like wanting to grow as a musician and as a guitar player.

2:08 Patrick Dean And so that was kind of like really the beginning was, you know, kind of coming out of middle school and going into high school, which was when I really first started taking guitar super seriously.

2:20 Patrick Dean And I really started to like enjoy guitar and like enjoy music in a way that I just never really did before. For

2:27 Patrick Dean Yeah, me, it was like an exercise. My parents always like wanted me and my siblings to play music in some capacity. My older brother was like a really great pianist

2:37 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

2:38 Patrick Dean And he really had like the limelight as far as like the good musician in the family for, you know, the longest time. And so for me, it was always just kind of like, all right, I have to do this because it's like something that my parents want me to do.

2:51 Luke F. Walton Okay.

2:52 Patrick Dean And it really wasn't until like, you know, I had somebody to like look up to in music that I got super into it, which is really kind of like part of what I love the most about what I do now, you know, is trying to like get people who maybe aren't.

3:06 Patrick Dean um motivated enough like in music or in guitar to really start taking it seriously to kind of like go to the next level so um it started with that um and just playing a ton like by myself coming home like all through high school and stuff like that was never like go to the party type of person i was i'd rather just like go home and like sit out in like my living my parents living room and like plug in my amp and just like sit there and noodle around on the guitar because

3:32 Luke F. Walton Да.

3:33 Patrick Dean It just like brought so much joy to me that like it never occurred to me to do any of the other things that like might be considered like standard high school experience things.

3:42 Patrick Dean Yes. And so like I, I really kind of developed like a really strong bond with with a guitar, like during that time and that was kind of really what got me over that initial hump of like.

3:55 Patrick Dean you know the the guy who taught me to play guitar would always say that like you know you'd be really good at playing guitar if you can like play kind of what you want to hear hearing

4:02 Luke F. Walton Okay.

4:03 Patrick Dean in your head and you know maybe what you're able to sing or something like that so that kind of was what that time period was what got me over that hump of um you know sitting there and like looking at a guitar and like trying to figure out exactly how to make it sound good or like how to make it have any sort of pleasantness to it

4:21 Patrick Dean And it allowed me to kind of like get over that and, you know, get more to a like level where I could kind of take off from there.

4:30 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:31 Patrick Dean And so that's when like music school came in. So I went to music school with like a very minimal amount of like theory knowledge and knowledge of like, you know, higher forms of music like jazz and things like that.

4:44 Luke F. Walton Mm

4:45 Patrick Dean And

4:45 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

4:45 Patrick Dean I really went in there just with like the expectation that I was going to work super hard and like I really wanted to learn how to play those types of things and I really wanted to understand those types of things.

4:54 Patrick Dean And so I did music school and I really tried to like apply myself as best as I could and and that whole deal. And then, you know, after music school, it came down to like me just trying to do as much session work as I possibly could.

5:09 Patrick Dean Yes and trying to surround myself with like the best possible players that I could just to try like soak up as much uh you know external knowledge as I could just from people who I was meeting and stuff like that because there's so many great guitar players and

5:22 Luke F. Walton For sure.

5:22 Patrick Dean musicians in general so um yeah session work and then it was you know touring and stuff like that and you know ever since like the pandemic and all the shutdowns there's been none of that so that's when I really got into social media uh

5:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:35 Patrick Dean and then that created a whole different drive for me you know in terms of

5:39 Luke F. Walton Yes.

5:39 Patrick Dean hearing from like all these people who I was capable of like connecting with who otherwise would have been inaccessible to me

5:45 Luke F. Walton Yes.

5:45 Patrick Dean or I would have been inaccessible to them you know it it allowed me to kind of renew my love for guitar and for music just based on like you know the positive feedback that I was getting from people so

5:59 Luke F. Walton Love that.

6:00 Patrick Dean You know, I feel like the underlying theme is just having like this positive reinforcing force behind whatever it is that you're doing, especially in music.

6:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:10 Patrick Dean It takes support and it takes giving

6:11 Luke F. Walton Of course.

6:12 Patrick Dean and getting support to like to make it happen.

6:14 Luke F. Walton I love that. I also feel like you touched on a few things that I'm all about. One of them is talking about combining the like the practice to like, you know, going to learn how to do this thing. I'm going to learn this vocabulary, but then combining that with just kind of the learning by osmosis, the, you know, just kind of being in it, being around people, what you soak.

6:36 Luke F. Walton up by that positivity by those people that are better than you like that that contextualizes you need both but without like being in it and becoming fluent it's half the equation yeah

6:49 Patrick Dean Yeah, you know, and you can learn a lot from listening to an album a lot

6:53 Luke F. Walton okay

6:53 Patrick Dean more, especially like being a visual learner, you know, you learn. exponentially more by sitting there and looking at somebody do it you

7:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:02 Patrick Dean know which again is a really great thing about you know social media is that you know you can sit there and you can watch it a bunch of times and you can just soak up the information

7:12 Patrick Dean And, you know, it comes from like listening to, you know, not just people who are doing what it is that you're doing like I play guitar, you know, but a

7:18 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

7:19 Patrick Dean lot of like great piano players influence me a lot, you know, not so much but some drummers do you know like rhythm and stuff like that kind of creating like a different, you know, rhythmic thing

7:31 Luke F. Walton Oh,

7:31 Patrick Dean like

7:31 Luke F. Walton yeah.

7:32 Patrick Dean a solo or in something like that you know you can you can learn a lot from From people outside of your instrument is

7:38 Luke F. Walton totally

7:38 Patrick Dean yeah.

7:38 Luke F. Walton totally i mean i i thought when i was trying to really crack the nut of like swing um i listened to a lot of like new orleans kind of music and i the snare drum parts always like that that was like what i wanted to be because it's not perfect swing they like rush and then drag they have this like really cool push pull and so it's like i tried to pull that pull it onto the guitar and bass because it's like that chugga chugga is something i can't do in the computer you know

8:05 Patrick Dean yeah exactly yeah and that kind of stuff it's like swing feel can be so hard to like figure out unless you're just sitting

8:11 Luke F. Walton Oh,

8:11 Patrick Dean like

8:11 Luke F. Walton God.

8:12 Patrick Dean how can you feel it unless you're like in a room where the sound is like coming at you from all angles and you're like oh man like here it is like this is the thing yeah

8:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly. Those light bulb moments where it's like, oh, I get it now.

8:27 Patrick Dean exactly exactly and that's that's what comes all those are like my favorite moments in music

8:32 Patrick Dean when I'm like sitting around and like a lot of times it happens to me even when I'm not holding a guitar like I'll Cool.

8:38 Patrick Dean just be sitting somewhere like thinking about the guitar and all of a sudden this like musical thing will like pop up in my head and I'm like oh shit I'm like that's what that is like that's what I've been looking for like that's going to be the sound and I'll like get home and like sit down and with my guitar and like figure it out and be like oh man like this is the greatest thing ever you know that's like those are like the greatest things to me is like those aha moments where you're like Oh, that's what that is.

9:02 Luke F. Walton yes yes

9:03 Patrick Dean You discover the sound that you've been hearing in your head for so long, you're like, oh, it's like a relief, you know?

9:09 Luke F. Walton it's so true it's so true and it validates all the work you know like you the stuff that you put in every day allows you to when you have that spark like turn it into something but like if you didn't develop the facility then you'd just be like well crap i can't

9:22 Patrick Dean Can't do it. yeah and you know that all comes from like you know because like i said i'm like a very visual learner so like even like i said like when i'm not holding a guitar it's like i'm thinking about a guitar fretboard in like a three-dimensional space and i'm like just myself playing guitar like all the time like i'll just get spaced out

9:42 Patrick Dean constantly and it's like you know if somebody's talking like all of a sudden they fade to the background and I'm like thinking about the guitar and I'm just like you know it

9:51 Luke F. Walton Yes.

9:51 Patrick Dean can be not great in certain situations but in most situations it's amazing because you're just sitting there like you know coming up with something in your head that you've never thought of before you know

10:02 Luke F. Walton Yes.

10:03 Patrick Dean I don't know. It's like it's just a whole other thing. And you can get that from listening to a song, too. Like when you hear somebody do something that you're hearing in your head for so long, you go like, oh, man, that's it. Rewind. Like, what did he just do?

10:17 Luke F. Walton yeah

10:17 Patrick Dean You're out how to play it, you know.

10:19 Luke F. Walton yes i'm so curious because you're talking about visual learning and three-dimensional stuff one of the like aha moments for me on guitar was i think i was talking to a jazz drummer and they were talking about shapes like playing in shapes

10:30 Luke F. Walton like you know like they would hit toms and like ways that like form geometric geometric patterns in their heads and i started like i play that with like triads and stuff like that i've seen you do some really cool triad stuff in some of your lessons um do you think in shapes do you or like how do you approach like the fretboard um as a visual learner like what made those things click and not just be like scale you know cage system patterny things but like musical

10:54 Patrick Dean I feel like the first instance of like a breakthrough in that way would actually. It'd be when I finally was able to like, you know, when I was finally able to just know every single note on a fretboard.

11:08 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

11:09 Patrick Dean just you know any string any fret like i you know you can figure out whatever that note is and

11:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:13 Patrick Dean rudely knowing it like just like in a snap like being able to say exactly what it is without having to think like oh like what are my octave patterns so like you know you can learn the low e and the a string you know the other four strings on a guitar like it still is somewhat of a mystery so that was the first one in terms of the way that i just

11:33 Patrick Dean was able to visualize what key i would be playing in in any given moment at any given point on the fretboard so that was the first one you

11:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah, it's great.

11:42 Patrick Dean know the way that i really visualize it is yeah i guess shapes but like it's really just like those caged patterns it's

11:51 Luke F. Walton Right.

11:51 Patrick Dean you know the whole thing like oh i'm gonna like jump up to the c pattern and like play this little ditty and like that's what i know how to do there you know you kind of I always say this to like students, especially people who are like just starting out. It's like you have to learn how to play guitar and then you have to like completely unlearn how to play it in order to really get good at it.

12:13 Patrick Dean And so now it just comes down to like, you know, the whole entire fretboard becomes like this dot pattern of

12:19 Luke F. Walton Okay, yeah.

12:19 Patrick Dean notes I already know that are in the key and that we're at. And then. you know beyond that a lot of what I do is also involving a lot of chromatics and stuff like that especially with shreddy stuff because you gotta like have notes somewhere otherwise it's just not going to work out so then it comes down to like you know learning where you can break the rules and just like play whatever notes are right there and

12:43 Luke F. Walton Yep.

12:43 Patrick Dean it doesn't matter as long as like the downbeat is the right note

12:47 Luke F. Walton Cool.

12:49 Patrick Dean And I learned a lot of that from jazz too, because it's like, you know, if you're playing like some crazy altered line over going to a one chord, all those notes don't even matter. You know, you can play all the wrong notes in the world, but as long as you land on the right note, everybody's going to be like, bravo,

13:05 Luke F. Walton Yes,

13:05 Patrick Dean good.

13:06 Luke F. Walton yes.

13:08 Patrick Dean worse you land on that right note you're golden oh

13:12 Luke F. Walton That's one of the things that people I don't think realize, like that's one of these separator points from a good musician to a great musician. Great musicians know how to turn their mistakes into successes.

13:23 Patrick Dean yeah 100 especially in like a you know a situation where you're the soloist

13:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

13:31 Patrick Dean right it's

13:31 Luke F. Walton yeah, exactly. Yeah.

13:32 Patrick Dean kind of hard to like make if you play a chord wrong you know on just you

13:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:38 Patrick Dean know everybody looking at you like what the heck are you doing but yeah as a solo yeah it's like learning how to just do the wrong thing but make it sound right you know yeah

13:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah, sticking those landings.

13:49 Patrick Dean exactly you just exactly sticking those landings like yeah like the freaking in the olympics the people who like jump off the trampoline and then are just spinning around the air i don't know what they're doing on that mat and they're like bam it's like yeah you know i knew it but yeah it's the same thing you're just kind of you know

14:09 Patrick Dean flailing in the wind especially with some of the shreddy things that I do and that I like to do so much it's like a lot of that stuff is just kind of like throwing in notes to fill up the space kind

14:18 Luke F. Walton Cool.

14:19 Patrick Dean of surrounded by the target notes that I know I want to go to you

14:23 Luke F. Walton I like it.

14:24 Patrick Dean know and so yeah a lot of also what I think about is just pentatonics like just remember the pentatonic scale is in any given situation is you know that's a lot of the battle for guitar players is you know figuring out how to make that pentatonic scale work because those

14:38 Luke F. Walton oh yeah

14:38 Patrick Dean notes

14:39 Luke F. Walton oh

14:39 Patrick Dean you know that's

14:40 Luke F. Walton yeah

14:40 Patrick Dean right there

14:41 Luke F. Walton that's the magic that's the magic totally

14:43 Patrick Dean work before you make anything else work really

14:45 Luke F. Walton totally and it's fun that we're talking about these things so in some of the earlier podcasts i talked about like what is a chromatic scale of like basically western music like we got all those 12 notes you're going to use all those 12 notes if you have anything that you want at that buffet you can take some pentatonic scales like on the opposite end it's like we are picking five of these notes and we're going to make those sing

15:05 Patrick Dean Yeah, exactly. And that comes into like what I really appreciate about a lot of guitar players is a guitar player who can play not a lot of notes, but say a whole lot with those notes.

15:17 Patrick Dean because i have such a hard time doing that a lot um especially with like the social media stuff because it's like you know every day if i post a slow lick it's like everybody's like shred

15:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

15:30 Patrick Dean and then like if i post shred licks it's like a bunch of people hitting me up being like you're like you're playing too fast you know one of those things but that's why i really appreciate really great guitar players like yeah somebody who can just play something that's like moving you know when

15:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:47 Patrick Dean was the last time you heard a song that like really hit you and like moved you for me like a guitar solo was like when i heard jimmy barnes do uh stone cold but it's like him with joe bonamassa and his son and like the whole band and stuff like that and joe bonamassa solo on that song

16:08 Patrick Dean blew me away when I first heard it and it like brought me to tears just about because it was like so good he's a shredder so that's but like most of the solo is just all melody and it's like so so good it's like you know and that's what I strive for especially when writing a solo for something like my own music that's

16:27 Patrick Dean oh yeah no notes I try not to shred but it and it's again it's like informed by the medium if you're if you have a 20 second clip It's like I'm gonna throw some notes at you

16:38 Patrick Dean Oh, yeah, absolutely. Even like the days are I never Yeah, it's yeah like I don't yeah, it's like there's no time time at all.

16:48 Patrick Dean yeah so when you're when you're making those lick of the days are you you're just like okay we're gonna get like one because they're usually what like they're under 10 seconds usually right how fast are you shooting

16:57 Patrick Dean the longer lick of the days are like nine seconds very short they're like never that long um the only ones that are longer are like the newer the more recent ones that i've been doing which are like 20 seconds long which is even still like a blip in the radar

17:10 Patrick Dean right so composing to that space is like you think of that right it's like Like it'd be a completely different headspace than composing to a song you're composing to here's one lick

17:21 Patrick Dean Yeah. Yeah different headspace. You know, in terms of like how I think about composing it, I try to like, I guess in my head. visualize what i could do with like maybe two bars of music that's

17:33 Patrick Dean Okay. usually how long each of them are is like you know one two three four two two three four done you

17:41 Patrick Dean Yeah. hit it there it's like whatever um so it's you know i don't know like for me it's a lot of those come to me when i'm just sitting around and noodling on the guitar so like what i'll do is just on like one day i'll film like 10 of them

17:58 Patrick Dean you know just because like i'm like all right i'm just gonna like instead of not filming myself like noodling playing guitar i'll just like actually film myself doing because that's what i do all day anyway sit around with a metronome on and like you know write licks or like write a little thing like a little ditty of a melody line or something like that you know

18:17 Patrick Dean For sure. and so yeah it's really as simple as that like I'll just sit there and play something until something sounds cool and then I just I have my phone always like sitting in front of me with the you know I use a ring light and stuff like that I have it set up and I just turn it on and say lick of the day and hit the lick and then I just move on it's

18:36 Patrick Dean I love it. very much a passive process like I got into doing it because I was super lazy and it was like during the it was during the pandemic and so I was like I need to do something but

18:48 Patrick Dean Uh-huh. I just I don't have the attention span to like make you know a backing track and logic and then like film it and then like line up the audio to the video and then like bounce that and do that whole thing like that just takes too much time so it really just came from me being lazy and wanting to be like you know all right I can do seven second licks and I can film a ton of them and that's all I need to do yeah

19:11 Patrick Dean But there's there's a certain wisdom in that, though, because I think I think a lot of people have such grand ideas where it's like, I'm going to do a million different things and then it's going to be perfect and everyone's going to love my masterpiece. And then they just don't finish anything ever.

19:25 Patrick Dean it's it's just about like the consistency of doing it yeah like it's it's about just saying like all right fine like that's you know that's good enough like first started doing lick of the day i was a perfectionist and i was like i need to hit this and it needs to be sit here and like do it so well so that everybody can see how good i am and then now it's like you know it's mistake riddled like it's not perfect you know sometimes they're less good but it's weird because those are the ones sometimes that do better

19:54 Patrick Dean Love it. human you know Yeah, it's like everything right. being perfect and like you know people always wanting to make it look like they're having the best time possible and that everything's perfect like a little bit of reality and a little bit of like messing something up like it you know

20:10 Patrick Dean Cool. That's cool. That's been one of the weirdest things for me about like more recent social media is like how big people smile now when they're like playing drums and stuff.

20:21 Patrick Dean yeah dude the whole smile i i i find the smiles creepy and like Yeah, me too. i'm like my mouth is open and stuff i'm like trying not to look weird yeah there's the social yeah all the smiling and stuff like that that stuff's hilarious to me um i try not to do it i know i do it sometimes but that's usually just because i'm like looking at the camera and i'm like this is hilarious Because I'm just sitting in my room for like,

20:49 Patrick Dean you know, a couple hours just yelling at my, I'm yelling at my phone and pretty loud. And I know my neighbors can hear me. And it's like, you know, I know they can hear me just yelling over.

21:02 Patrick Dean Yelling lick of the day ten times in a... I like, I got my roommate, he has his room, there's a balcony and he sits out on the balcony a lot. And I'm like. he gave me the the inside tip that like when i leave my windows open loud

21:19 Patrick Dean Ha ha. because he was like sitting out on his balcony and he like heard me playing and like saying stuff and it's like dude he's like everybody can hear you i was like oh no but you know it doesn't matter i

21:32 Patrick Dean Free concert people. have to hear it like there's other i hear people playing guitar all the time next door to me literally right in this hallway across this across the hallway from me somebody played like a trumpet like a week ago i do trumpet and i was like this is awesome you know so i'm like i don't feel bad about it

21:51 Patrick Dean And that's like one of my favorite things, low key about like LA because I'm in San Diego. I love San Diego from San Diego. One of the fun things about LA though is some of the neighborhoods, nobody cares.

22:02 Patrick Dean if you're loud at all like my buddy Oku Doxish they're like full-on mariachi bands loud music there's like a party every night of the week for different people and so he just can like play drums at like any hour it's just like I'm gonna go play some drums I can't do that in San Diego people would freak out

22:23 Patrick Dean Yeah, exactly. it's it's it's hard that's why also i love that i'm just a guitar player like

22:30 Patrick Dean Yeah, I friends who are drummers and they're always like you know oh man you have such a luxury like you can just sit in your room and like play your licks and like film the videos and it's so easy they

22:41 Patrick Dean know. have to go to a lockout and like you know tune their drum heads and do the whole thing and it's like Whole different involved process. I'm very fortunate.

22:52 Patrick Dean Yes, it is a beast. Guitar strings every once in a while. Yeah, right. And even then.

22:58 Patrick Dean And then, yeah, it's like, I don't know, sometimes I don't. Yeah, for sure. Guitar strings get nasty. Freaking shout out Ernie Ball. Thank you for your time.

23:07 Patrick Dean Sponsor us, Ernie Ball. Seriously. I want to talk to you about teaching and Uh-huh.

23:16 Patrick Dean because it's cool like I have a similar experience where somebody that was like, you know, that that guy and I guess junior high for me late junior high early high school that like put the wind in my sails and I wouldn't be sitting here with a crazy mask and a bananas shirt without him.

23:33 Patrick Dean I want to talk to you about your like what have you learned from your teacher that you're passing on and then what have you kind of like. kind of like innovated on your own what what level of like emulation versus person like your your individuality are you imparting in your teaching andrew

23:49 Patrick Dean Yeah, I feel like especially from, and I'll say his name, Andrew, part of like what Andrew really instilled in me was that first thing that I talked about, which was just knowing every single note on your fretboard.

24:01 Luke F. Walton Cool.

24:01 Patrick Dean That's the most important thing in the world. You know, with keyboard, like all you have to learn is one octave and you know all the notes, you know what I'm saying? With guitar, there's shapes to like each area and like there's... there's you know it's it's a varying degree of you know complexity as far as fingering for for things so learning

24:19 Patrick Dean Totally. notes on your fretboard is is really gonna be the first thing because that's really what's going to unlock like a lot of the uh tools that you have at your disposal for like opening up guitar to yourself and so that's really the first thing that I like anytime I give somebody a lesson first thing I always talk about because they're always like

24:38 Patrick Dean you know like what do you do like how did you learn how to do what you do and it's really starts there it's

24:43 Patrick Dean Yeah, pretty like musical literacy and and being able to even though you know you're not going to go to a gig and have to like sight read a chart but able to sight read a chart is pretty sweet and that's nice you know especially if you got to learn songs quickly

25:00 Patrick Dean So musical literacy is the first one, and that came from Andrew. So that was like all just him coming right through me and me wanting to make sure that people did that, you know, as far as like, you know, stuff that I've kind of implemented on my own, you know, a lot of what I do and what is I'm

25:21 Patrick Dean A lot of what I do that allows me to have a lot of different variations of licks and to make like licks that sound different, even though they're using similar mechanics, there's a lot of just learning how to take like any sort of motif and move that throughout the fretboard. You know, I don't

25:40 Patrick Dean I like play it. Yeah. guitar for a second and like, yeah, please. Yeah. I'm just going to play with the acoustic guitar so that you can.

25:47 Patrick Dean Yeah, perfect. i'm like if we're in all right league of the day is always in five minor so we're like if you have you know like a motif that goes you can do that you know there you can do it you can

26:05 Patrick Dean do it anywhere like so you can move that little like you move that i always think of them as like motions

26:12 Patrick Dean Okay. Yeah. motion on a guitar and the motion is it can be related to like a three note per string pattern it can be related to like a pentatonic scale pattern but basically you take that motion and you just apply it to the next available note down in every instance you kind of just start to take the mechanic of a lick and you apply it elsewhere

26:36 Patrick Dean Mm-hmm. So that's what like a lot of the legato stuff is that I do is it's just taking like a little, you know, three note per string pattern and then just applying it to every note that I can. And then it's applying to it, it's applying that movement to like chromatics too, if you're outside of the key and that sort of thing. So that kind of, for me, like is always where I lose people.

26:59 Patrick Dean I feel like I don't think of it as being that heady, but I feel like to a lot of people it is heady because it's like. you're just you're it's like you know you can say one word to get a concept across but you can also say like another word or you can say like a different sentence you can word

27:13 Patrick Dean Yeah. it like it's that kind of thing like you just you're like taking what you already know and you're just applying it to something else you

27:21 Patrick Dean Yes. know in the end you know some sort of new finger movement Yeah. So that's, you know, I don't know. That's kind of like my main thing that I.

27:32 Patrick Dean That's how that's what I was trying to say with like the shape thing. like or it's like people you know like synesthesia where they like you like you taste a smell or you like see a color like same this is like one of the things that helped it click for me like that you have a motive that's like a triangle say you have a triangle and you're just going to move that triangle onto different points but it's still a triangle right

27:51 Patrick Dean exactly and it looks slightly different maybe but it's it's this yeah that's that's a great way to that's a great way to look at it like i've never even thought to

28:00 Patrick Dean well that that's that's part of what like unlock locked it for me because i i try to do a lot of triad stuff and i do a lot of you know most of my stuff is is uh recording and and so like a lot of what i think about is stacking guitar parts and the way that i stack parts is to like think about voicings like that's most of what i do is just thinking about voicings yeah

28:20 Patrick Dean Yeah, that's and that's like mostly exactly and the voicings is a great way to apply that to some like outside of just a single note deal. Yeah, it's like you have all these different inversions of a chord and then you know, it can give a completely different effect based on whatever voicing it is that you're using.

28:37 Patrick Dean exactly so to give a non-musician insight into that voicings we're just we're just talking about we take the same notes of a notes of a chord, you know, G, B, D, and then you're going to instead of playing G, B, D, you're going to play B, D, G or

28:51 Patrick Dean Exactly. D, G, B. it's the same things it's just the order and which and who's the highest note who's the lowest note even what string things are on that's kind of crazy to me is it can be the same note but if it's on different strings it can have like a certain tonal

29:06 Patrick Dean Yep. thing because it's like a thicker string or a lighter string i don't know exactly how to put it cool

29:11 Patrick Dean I think about that all the time with recording, like, especially bass guitar. Oh my God. If I can get away with playing an entire bass part on the low. easiest

29:22 Patrick Dean Hell yeah. lot Hell yeah. move like i will just slide up and down on that one string because yeah it's like it holds so much more weight like a thicker string will always sound meatier

29:32 Patrick Dean Cool. yeah i like i'm totally agree not like a down-tuned guy but like i like people who play extended range guitars and like who down-tune and stuff like that like there's a reason they're using a thicker string you know retention but it's also partially because that string's like sound super thick you're not gonna be able to get that kind of tone on like a wound string i

29:55 Patrick Dean no that's how i went for a five string bass man i was like i need that low b i need

29:59 Patrick Dean used that to own a five string fretless bass bass Yes. and then my roommate gave me a free conversion to a four string by dropping it but

30:12 Patrick Dean But he broke off the low, so it's literally just a four-string bass.

30:15 Luke F. Walton Just a normal bass now. That's fine.

30:16 Patrick Dean Probably fine, but it split. Split. I still use it all the time, but it's hilarious.

30:21 Luke F. Walton That is hilarious. It's like not meant to be.

30:26 Patrick Dean you know it was like what our like apartment flooded and

30:29 Luke F. Walton Oh

30:29 Patrick Dean like left

30:30 Luke F. Walton my god.

30:30 Patrick Dean i was gone and so he had to like move all of my stuff out of like the room that i was in like the living room it

30:37 Luke F. Walton Crazy.

30:38 Patrick Dean all into his room and then like i came back and we started moving everything out and i was like oh shit i was like my i was like my bass is broken but it was fine it's like it's still yeah it's still a four string bass it's

30:50 Luke F. Walton Right. Exactly. It's just normal now.

30:53 Patrick Dean just a normal he like it's a custom conversion like that's why i always tell people like this is a one of one bass where it's you know a five string it actually feels really comfortable in my hand too because it's the fretboard is wider and

31:07 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yeah. Okay.

31:08 Patrick Dean kind of like rests on it a little bit more naturally and

31:12 Luke F. Walton I like it.

31:12 Patrick Dean it feels great like it's it's the most comfortable bass i've ever played yeah

31:17 Luke F. Walton I love that.

31:17 Patrick Dean it's it's fantastic happy accidents

31:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly. I wanted to ask you about adapting your teaching method to like a

31:28 Luke F. Walton passive medium where it's not like directly like you're having a conversation or you're like reacting to a student but instead like filming videos i've always kind of wondered about that like was that a challenge is are there different techniques that you kind of employ or does it not feel passive because you're getting comments and feedback and you're kind of going back and forth

31:45 Patrick Dean Um, I feel like. I don't know like it to me it doesn't feel that much different from like sitting with a student and like wanting to like show them some sort of concept um yeah I guess like the main difference would be like it's not just immediate like I'm sitting talking to somebody feedback um but I don't think it was necessarily a challenge because like I mean I don't know like so much of my personality I feel like shows through in the videos that like for me it's just as simple as like

32:15 Patrick Dean talking to a camera instead of like just talking to myself in my own head about

32:19 Luke F. Walton Uh

32:19 Patrick Dean like

32:20 Luke F. Walton -huh.

32:20 Patrick Dean on guitar because

32:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:21 Patrick Dean a lot of times that's what i'm doing is just sitting there like thinking about what i'm gonna say and then just like saying that um

32:28 Luke F. Walton Yes.

32:28 Patrick Dean i feel like where the real challenge comes in is like wanting to personalize it for each individual person right because like everybody has their own needs and their own you know they have their own questions and stuff like that um

32:44 Patrick Dean Which is what's great about private lessons as opposed to like just filming a 20 second guitar lesson, you

32:49 Luke F. Walton Totally.

32:49 Patrick Dean know, like Instagram and TikTok. But it doesn't feel, you know, crazy different, you know, again, like it's just me talking about whatever the concept is, you know.

33:00 Patrick Dean as easily as I would try to explain some other concept in real life, except actually probably even easier because I'm not sitting there getting tongue tied talking to somebody, you know, trying to like on the fly, think about a concept and then how to like verbalize it to make sense. You know, I kind of sit in my room and, you know, talk it out loud until it sounds about right. And then I just kind of go for it.

33:23 Luke F. Walton Cool.

33:25 Patrick Dean a lot of what i talk about in those videos is really just trying to name the notes that i'm playing you know because

33:30 Patrick Dean Yeah. like if you know all the notes and i tell you what note it is you're gonna be able to find the note it's you know it's a guitar it's not that complicated it's like right there seeing it too so it's like one of the you know i feel like people are able to learn just as much from 20 seconds

33:47 Patrick Dean of a 20-second Instagram video as much as they would if I just had 20 seconds to sit there and tell somebody about something

33:54 Luke F. Walton yeah that's good yeah

33:56 Patrick Dean because I'm sidetracked all over the place.

34:00 Luke F. Walton totally that's a great point i wonder you know i always see people they're usually people that haven't like learned or something that they they just kind of throw out like oh you can just learn it all on youtube or you can just learn it all through tiktok and like

34:15 Luke F. Walton like yes and no i guess like yeah you can but i definitely think like that other half like we talked about of like playing with others or private lessons or like it can be any combination of those things i still find a lot of like value in the the stuff in between the gaps

34:31 Patrick Dean yeah it's yeah it takes so much of just like looking at somebody and watching them do it and like finding a really strong like connection with what somebody is playing is

34:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

34:44 Patrick Dean especially if you find someone who hopefully they're alive you know hopefully you don't some like long dead guitar hero but like watching them do it and in real person too you know because like that's what was so great about having Andrew was that he lived across the street from my parents in San Diego and so like

35:04 Patrick Dean you know i i could see him anytime i wanted to really you know he would bring over his guitar we'd sit around you know he would like leave amps at my parents place and like i could just like play through his amp and

35:14 Luke F. Walton How

35:14 Patrick Dean he

35:14 Luke F. Walton cool.

35:14 Patrick Dean would like leave guitars sometimes and

35:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:16 Patrick Dean like you know it was like stuff like that where it's like you really just you become so much more connected to it by like being physically there and by like seeing it happen in real person because i can also demystify a lot of it too like i feel like

35:32 Patrick Dean there's a certain level that you can get to where you know you'll be able to like look at somebody play something on guitar or any instrument you know if you're fluent enough in it you'll look at anybody playing something on guitar and like you can kind of understand the gist of what it is that's going on regardless of what your ear is trained you know but like sitting there watching somebody do it it's you get a lot of information and you see how their hand is moving exactly what the inflection is you know maybe like are they picking all those notes are they

36:01 Patrick Dean so are they not picking all that it can be tough to tell sometimes you know like in the thread it's like you know people throw legato licks around that sound like they're picked you

36:11 Luke F. Walton yep yep oh

36:12 Patrick Dean know they're you know it's crazy and it can be tough to tell sometimes

36:17 Luke F. Walton i totally agree i agree that that's probably the number one for me is articulation so like for those that don't know that that's like all the right-handed stuff the way that you're actually hitting the string um game changer for me was learning about

36:30 Patrick Dean Different picking techniques and holding the pick differently. I hold the pick depending on what tone I'm looking for and then also different pick density I like really thin picks for rhythm and then really thick picks for lead.

36:45 Patrick Dean Curious, do you have anything like that? Do you have any preferences or do you kind of equipment stuff?

36:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:51 Patrick Dean as far as picks are concerned like about three years ago i made the decision to stop trying to like chase like pick you know like i didn't need like the pick of destiny you know in music school

37:07 Patrick Dean excuse me music school i got really caught up with that and everybody played jazz three picks and like ones and like that's the one that like eric johnson uses and like that's the secret to his shred it's not it's you know all it really is about is like finding whatever works for you so like i use like the anytime i go to a pick story it's usually the purple color i get little picks

37:32 Patrick Dean They Dunlop? I have a Dunlop one. Yes, these are ones, they're slightly thinner, which I actually prefer the thicker ones. So I've been using the Dunlop one. Yeah, let's see. 1.14 millimeters. So, you know, for people who don't know pick densities. it's not crazy yeah

37:54 Patrick Dean no yeah it's not crazy i play 1.21 millimeter i which makes a difference it's just you know i can tell the difference when i'm playing one of these one millimeter ones versus when i'm playing the 1.14 it's drastic to me um i

38:08 Patrick Dean have no idea how thin this is but this is what i play for rhythm just a fender thin these suckers rock yeah

38:14 Patrick Dean used like if i'm recording i'll use uh thinner picks guitars yeah yeah specifically uh but you know nine times out of ten like especially if i'm at a gig it's just a regular pick because

38:27 Patrick Dean Totally. i went to like nam and it was like oh my like where's my pick you know everyone was like this was the pick that was handed to me and i was like i just need to know how to be able to play on it like if some dude at like a guitar store was to just like throw a bunch of picks at me i'll find one of these in there so that's the whole reasoning why i use these picks you

38:50 Patrick Dean Love it. know they're big and flabby but yeah like what you were talking about like just grabbing a pick in a different way like

38:56 Patrick Dean Uh-huh. picking and i'm gonna like like lay into some shred it's like Yeah. choking off most of that pick

39:02 Patrick Dean Yeah, yeah. not really there but if i'm playing big rhythm chords and i'm like you know jangling around it's like

39:08 Patrick Dean Yep. kick out I like that. I like that you do. So that's what I taught myself was how to pick like that later on, like in college to do the balance picking to like be able to actually have equal force because when I started. and I still play like this probably majority I was loosey-goosey Steve Ray Vaughan style okay

39:28 Patrick Dean yeah yeah i like i always do that sometimes i'll go like that in the camera like a little half claw type situation it's like it's just it's like where my hand falls

39:42 Patrick Dean and like a lot of times i do that too because like if i'm going to go from finger picking to picking or the pick like

39:50 Patrick Dean tuck it you're doing my other stuff and then it's just right there for grabbing it like

39:54 Patrick Dean totally no a lot of people do it like you know like this type of thing i can't do that that

39:59 Patrick Dean i can't do that either yeah just that eliminates too many fingers so i'm like it's there and it's there those you

40:05 Patrick Dean yeah i do the same thing i do the exact same thing tuck it tuck it in there know that's what

40:12 Patrick Dean you bring out an interesting point because we don't talk about this on guitar as much drummers talk about this a lot but i think it's a big deal on guitar too just like like a basketball shot it's like yeah there are proper mechanics but so much of it is about your body and the way that your body works you're not just going to like go shoot like kobe it's like that's kobe's body you're not gonna shoot like braun that's lebron's body i feel the same way with the guitar it's like there's a certain part of it is like this is how your hands are built this is how your wrist is built do you agree with that

40:39 Patrick Dean yeah absolutely like the the way that you sit with a guitar will change over your career of playing guitar or just any instrument like the way that you

40:50 Patrick Dean Yeah. sit will change like my dad is like not super musically inclined in the way of like playing anything he has a very like he has a very large affinity for music and everything involved in music and like one of the first things he told me when I started going to music school was that like the way that I held a guitar was different like

41:08 Patrick Dean Cool. so true because like Yeah. you know a lot of people don't think about this and like you know kind of the more zen aspect of playing guitar is you know the whole like muscle tension thing and like learning how to

41:20 Patrick Dean Yeah. properly warm yourself up in order to play guitar like when i was going to music school and stuff we were like stretching our arms all the way up here and like massaging the muscles all the way down to your finger you

41:33 Patrick Dean Yeah. know because this muscle gets connected all the way up here and it gets in your neck and it's a whole thing so if you're tense up here it's down here it's like a whole thing you know so

41:44 Patrick Dean Yes. yeah just like natural as natural as you can get with holding a guitar uh is usually gonna be the best thing and you know it translates to picks like you know the most natural way that you can hold your hand so that your whole wrist is loose so effectively do this to like actually tremolo pick or like is going to make it vastly easier.

42:06 Patrick Dean Yes, I've always had a I've always had some trouble explaining tremolo picking like how to do it. I'm curious if you have a better way to do it. For those that don't know tremolo picking is like super fast. It's like for me, it's like this. How do I even do it?

42:19 Patrick Dean it's so weird to even do it without the tension of a string um but like i i a lot of students some of those like some older guys too they're like how do you do that and i'm like like you know just do it it's one of the things i'm like worse explaining okay

42:34 Patrick Dean I was always explained to it as like it's like the motion of like if you're going to go to like open a doorknob reach a doorknob that motion that's your tremolo picking. like you're like yanking a fishing line a little bit like a tiny

42:52 Patrick Dean yeah that's a good one that's a good one because see that's the tension right yeah no

42:56 Patrick Dean little motion yeah because you don't need a whole lot of motion like the distance between strings is not that far so it's the tiniest littlest thing that gets that going and it's all about tension like you know especially with like you know uh What am I trying to think of?

43:13 Patrick Dean Not economy picking, but, you know, when you're picking every single note, I'm terrible right now. But, you know, a lot of people ask me how I get to be quicker with doing that.

43:22 Patrick Dean Yeah. And it's really just about doing it until it becomes until all those loops.

43:29 Patrick Dean that's when you're going to break through is when you're able to just figure out what it is that your muscles have to do to get the least movement like

43:36 Patrick Dean Mm-hmm. the most precise movement you Yes. will you know you're just bouncing back and forth across the string um you watch mandolin players do that all the time like mandolins are even on a smaller scale they're like the close people like andy wood and stuff like that when they have like those close-up shots of what their pick is doing is is

43:59 Patrick Dean yes and oh it's like that kind of technique insane mandolin's a great example because they actually use a pick yeah

44:07 Patrick Dean yeah exactly and they use a tiny pick oh my gosh mandolin picks are small just it's so small and they're doing two strings so it's like you're playing a 12 string you know but it's smaller scale you know it's it's absolutely insane but it's it's the same kind of mechanic and you know those guys get it down in

44:24 Patrick Dean oh yeah to a crazy degree Totally. I love that. And again, looking at another instrument, looking at another player, finding that inspiration is huge.

44:36 Patrick Dean Yeah, it's it's tantamount to finding, you know, the thing that's going to push you the furthest in music is finding other people outside your instrument, you know, because that's who you're going to be playing with. And I'm just going to just be sitting there playing with a guitar player, you know?

44:51 Patrick Dean I love that. And on that awesome knowledge bomb, I think we're going to wrap up there. This is awesome talking to you, Patrick.

44:57 Patrick Dean Yeah, likewise. For sure. Hopefully we can hang out in person one of these days. We're both in SoCal.

45:02 Patrick Dean You know, I'll freaking holler at you. Yeah, man, we can trend pick together. Absolutely.

45:07 Patrick Dean Yeah, man. Awesome. Pleasure. And talk to you later. Thanks, everybody, for listening.

45:14 Luke F. Walton Appreciate.