 Though barely out of his 30s, David Garfield is an artist who seems to have done it all, because he can do it all. One of L.A.'s top session and touring keyboardists, David has appeared on over 80 albums, with artists as diverse as Cher, Boz Scaggs, Larry Carlton, Spinal Tap, the Manhattan Transfer, and Larry Carlton.
He's toured with Earl Klugh, Michael McDonald, Brenda Russell, Al Jarreau, and Luther Vandross, among many others. He's been the musical director for George Benson's band, played on dozens of film scores, composed more than a few himself, and has many successful jingles to his credit. He's led two very successful - and notorious - creative projects, Karizma and Los Lobotomys. He has serious jazz credentials, too, having toured and recorded with Freddie Hubbard, Willie Bobo, and Tom Scott. In short, he's one of those highly successful L.A. cats.
He credits much of his success to having followed a practice plan that allowed him, as he puts it, to find his own voice. 'There are many players who have influenced me profoundly,' says David. 'Guys like Eddie Palmieri, Joe Sample, Richard Tee, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Chick Corea, Cedar Walton, Mac Rebennack, and Russell Ferrante. There are all these great people who have come before you, in every style. They've all accomplished incredible things, and they've defined music as we understand it. I learned an incredible amount by listening to these players, and incorporating some of their ideas into my own. But they didn't play everything there is to be played; you can still have your own unique thing to say. That's what kept them going, and it's what keeps me going. 'That's what improvising is all about: finding your voice, and saying something that means something to you. You can't just do it, you have to have some knowledge.'
David's plan is thorough and methodical, yet stresses creativity. It starts with the basics: scales. 'Major, pentatonic, blues, melodic minor, harmonic minor; to me, every scale type is just as important as every other one,' he says. 'You need to learn them all. Whichever one you're working on, make sure you learn it from the low end of the keyboard, all the way to the high end. Don't just practice in one range around Middle C. Learn to recognize the notes of the scale and the chords within it visually, as well as with your fingers. Also, learn each scale really well starting on each note of the scale, not just the tonic. Be able to identify and play any scale starting on any of its notes.
Equally important as getting a scale under your fingers is getting comfortable being creative with it. 'Right from the beginning, practice improvising from one end of the keyboard to the other, in addition to practicing your scales:' says David. 'You get a sense of the potential of each range of the instrument, and of the power you have with just those seven particular notes.
Practice your scales by making up patterns and riffs, and play them using different notes of the scale. Experiment with all kinds of things; your safety net is your knowledge of the scale. Those notes are your guide. As you get familiar with locating the notes of each scale up and down the keyboard, a whole subcategory of patterns, melodies, and all kinds of techniques for approaching them become available to you.
Next, get to know the triads within the scale you're working on, playing them chordally and as arpeggios. Do the same with the seventh chords: learn where the minor seventh, major seventh, dominant seventh, and minor seventh with a flat fifth chords are within the scale.
Then work on developing melodic patterns and motifs,' says David. 'Patterns can sound mundane when they're all sixteenth-notes or eighth-notes. But the idea of patterns is to get away from just playing a scale up and down. When you come up with your own patterns, try to break up the order of notes in the scale. Skip notes, even several notes in a row, when you make up melodic riffs. When you're getting a handle on where the notes are, create patterns that have different rhythms, and play them up and down the scale. Sing along with your playing; it'll help you come up with different kinds of lines and patterns. Singing while you improvise is a great way to come up with more human-sounding lines.
What you're doing is setting up your palette of colors, just as a painter does. You're creating a set of tools. When you have a few tools at your disposal, then you can focus on making music from your heart, from your soul. Then you're making the music that you hear, and you're not copying other players.
Not that learning by listening and imitating is bad. Studying how a particular person plays can be really helpful,' says David. 'It can show you different ways to put the colors together, and ways to use the tools you're creating yourself. Once you see how some of your favorite players do it, you can create additional patterns based on your new knowledge, and you can use these to add new tools to your toolbox.'
David advocates playing along with a sequencer, or with other musicians, as early in the process as possible, as it gets you another step closer to just making music. If you have a sequencer available, David has a to-do list for you. 'Say you're in D minor, working on the D dorian mode of the C major scale,' he advises. 'Get a groove going with a Dmin7 harmony. Then play the C major scale, but not starting with C, the tonic. Play it from D to D, and then starting on other notes of the scale. Then create a simple, repetitive pattern, and play it beginning on each note of the scale. Next, try breaking up the pattern, combine your patterns into longer melodies, or mix repetitive patterns with sustained notes.'
Once you begin transposing your patterns and riffs up and down the keyboard, you'll probably have some questions about fingering. 'I use a lot of unorthodox fingerings when I work with patterns,' says David. 'I think more in terms of hand position: I'll set up a hand position for a pattern, and then keep that fingering consistent as I move the pattern up and down the scale. To increase your vocabulary, come up with patterns that stretch the reach of your hands a little - not so much that you're uncomfortable, just enough to go beyond what you'd normally reach for.'
You can take this approach no matter if you're learning your very first scale, or if you're wrapping up your mastery of all twelve major keys and the minor ones, too. 'If you learn all your patterns in all twelve keys, you really expand your set of tools,' says David. 'Not only can you play songs that are in those keys, but when you improvise in one key, you can bring in elements from other keys into the tune you're playing. It gives you more colors to draw on.
You're still playing in D minor. You're familiar with the keyboard territory, because you've practiced patterns and experimented with your own motifs in other keys. You can drift into C minor and improvise there while the rest of the band is still in D minor. Because there are so many common tones between the two modes, it doesn't sound like a clash, it sounds like a different color. I like focusing on groups of two or three notes that I know are common to several different keys: I'll choose three that are available to me in D minor, in Bb major, and C minor, so I can shift into one of those keys as I improvise.
And how do I have this knowledge? Because I've done the very first thing we talked about: learning where the notes are, in all twelve keys. That's the most important step. Then, whatever key you're moving into, you'll have tools available to you - and they'll be the tools you created.'
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