An Interview with Ethan Meixsell

IC: Your debut solo album, "Pathos and Logos," has just been released.  You're by no means a one-genre musician, so stylistically what can new listeners expect to hear on the album?

Ethan: My goal with this record was to cover a lot of territory, stylistically.  I'm constantly working on a lot of music in seemingly disparate styles with the various projects I'm engaged in as a sideman, guitar soloist, singer, producer or teacher.  So, I think this record reflects that, although this is an entirely instrumental release with a focus on guitar.  There's a but of Fusion, Heavy Rock guitar, Blues, Ambient, Prog Rock, Acoustic Fingerstyle, and Jazz.

I tend to be attracted to music that takes risks and is hard to define... the very things that would frustrate a traditional record label.  I think that comes through in this release.  Traditional music business wisdom tells us that records like this are hard to market, but when we consider so many of the perennial best-selling records of the last 40 years, many of them were risky and multi-faceted.  I think of Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life",  "Blue" by Joni Mitchell, Michael Jackson's "Thriller", Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", and especially Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti".  Physical Graffiti was an influence conceptually for this record.  There's so much wonderful, seemingly conflicting musical content on there, but the thread was the strong personalities of Page, Bonham, Jones and Plant.  I think the thread is in my phrasing and in some of the harmonic vocabulary.  There are a couple of musical themes that pop up in different arrangements throughout the record.

Also, at this point so much of music sales is based on the digital distribution of MP3's.  If you have a record with many different styles on it, you have a greater potential to appeal to a wider audience.  Many of the time-tested methods of marketing and presenting new music are folding in the wake of a consumer base that is much more in control of what content they buy. Really, the shake-up of the music industry power structure is a wonderful opportunity for the independent musician if they can properly take advantage of it.

IC: Could you talk a bit about your work as an engineer and producer?

Ethan: I became an engineer/producer largely out of not wanting to be dependent on other people to realize my own music.  When I was just out of college, my father, an opera singer, was given a private grant to record some CD's.  In an effort to establish a greater autonomy he decided to invest in some gear and he had me engineer those projects.  Along the way I started doing other engineering, largely in the classical vein.  I recorded a lot of concerts, auditions, and a few full length CD's all the while using the equipment on my own projects.  So, engineering became yet another avenue to support myself, all the while learning the craft.  At this stage, much of my engineering goes toward producing projects for tv along with my songwriting partner Spyros Poulos.  I produced Rob Balducci's "The Color of Light" and produced the basic tracks for his newest CD, "Violet Horizon".  Also, I produced, engineered and mixed my newest CD, which was a big undertaking.  To be in the engineer head while simultaneously trying to be creative can be very difficult.  

IC: It seems Suhr Guitars has really become the go-to for many of the more discerning guitar virtuosos out there.  Reb Beach, Jose De Castro, Guthrie Govan, Richard Hallebeek, Scott Henderson, Rob Marcello, Carl Roa, Steffen Schackinger, Steve Trovato, and even Greg Howe before he got a signature model elsewhere.  What led you to Suhr Guitars originally?

Ethan: What drew me to Suhr initially was the tone of their instruments.  I'm a big fan of Michael Landau and Scott Henderson and they were two of the earliest Suhr endorsees, playing both their guitars and amps. It's rare that such distinguished players will play guitars and amps that are built by the same company.  I figured they had to be on to something.  I didn't have a chance to play one until the NAMM show in 2007.  I played one of their Classic models through their OD100 and it was truly the sound I had been hearing in my head.  The guitar itself was incredibly responsive and rose to meet every demand I put on it. The amplifier had a very open, lush and detailed sound that complimented the guitar brilliantly.  Needless to say I was hooked.

Suhr excels particularly in their quality control, attention to detail, choice of neck and body woods, and the design of their pickups.  John Suhr has a very unique understanding of the particular interactions of all of the components in his guitars.  He'll be very careful to pair a particular bridge design with a specific type of wood, paying great attention to the tonal interactions created.

As a company, they have truly been a pleasure to work with.  They take great pride in their work and they continue to be leading innovators in a very crowded industry. They understand the needs and challenges that are presented to the modern player and meet or exceed them in every possible way.

IC: How did your relationship with Ibanez come about?

Ethan: The Ibanez endorsement is really Rob Balducci's.  Rob has had a relationship with Ibanez dating back to the early 90's.  I've gotten to know the guys at the company through playing bass for Rob over the last 6 years.  They've always been very helpful to me.  I bought my first Ibanez when I was about 10 years old and I've had many since then.  Ibanez guitars have always facilitated rock instrumental playing because the necks are very comfortable and they have a wide tonal range.  The same is true of their basses.  Last year, the guys at Ibanez helped me get my hands on a really wonderful five string bass that has become my "go to" instrument.  It's an SR1005MANF.  I've been playing a 6 string Ibanez bass for many years and I got to a point where the weight and the width of the neck was starting to take its toll on my body so I switched to 5 string. Tonally, the new bass has an exceptionally open, bright, articulate sound and the neck feels like it's about half the width of my 6 string.  There are a few instances where I have to alter my fingerings to get through my 6 string arrangements of parts, but I'm much more comfortable on stage.

So, I don't have an endorsement with Ibanez per se but they have taken care of me over the years because of my work with Rob Balducci.  As a guitarist, I've been connected with Suhr Guitars for the last few years.  They built me an absolutely wonderful instrument in 2007 and that guitar has been home to me ever since.  It's one of their Classic models with some customizations.  The work on this guitar is so meticulous and it's truly inspiring to play on.  It's about as far from a traditional "shred" guitar as I could possibly get.  It's a thicker neck, with very low output single-coil pickups (V60LP's).  In my opinion you are really hearing the natural quality of the wood when you play through a lower output pickup.

When designing this guitar I was mostly focused on the tone of it's components and I wanted an instrument with some vintage character, one that would reward putting some effort into bending and articulations etc.  The Ibanezes I have play so effortlessly, and that creates a certain tonal characteristic.  I love Ibanez for that reason, but I wanted to do something different for my signature instrument.  I find it inspiring to play on an instrument that requires a little more energy to create a good sound.  My technique has grown as a result of this instrument and I feel less dependent on my comfortable, default riffs.

IC: You mentioned your work as a bassist for Rob Balducci.  How did you get started playing bass, and more recently, what led you to your collaboration with Carl Roa?

Ethan: When I left college I was hungry to learn as much as I could about being a self-sufficient musician.  In addition to spending many hours practicing every day,  I jumped into the deep end and started engineering projects, making mistakes and learning from them as I developed my craft.  Around that same time I picked up a 6 string Ibanez bass.  Learning the six string might have been an ambitious place to start, but I really liked the possibilities that the extended range offered.  I didn't focus much on my bass technique, but I had it available to play parts on my own demos, and occasionally I'd play on a project for a friend.  I never considered myself a true bass player.  I dabbled in it, but I still really identified with the "Guitar Player" persona.  

Flashing forward several years, we were knee deep into production on Rob Balducci's "Color of Light" CD.  I was producing that CD with Rob, and I covered the keyboard parts.  We had finished basic tracking of the drums and bass, and we had started overdubbing the guitars.  We needed to do some quick fixes to a few of the bass parts and we had trouble getting Rob's bass player back into the studio, so I brought that 6 string in and cut the parts myself.  There was also one tune on that record, Queen of Cups, that was produced a little later in the production.  I ended up playing bass on that track as well. 

When it came time to support the material, I stepped in as Rob's bass player and I've been playing with him ever since.  My playing grew largely as a result of that gig. Playing Rob's material isn't an easy task, but we've been working together for so long that there is a natural synergy to our working together at this point.  Learning the material and playing gig after gig really helped me learn to inhabit the head space required to play bass well.  It's a very different role than the guitar player.  It's so structurally important to the feel of the music and focusing on that task has caused my overall musicality and sensitivity to grow significantly.  Playing instrumental material in a trio format gives a lot of room to the bass player, so I can stretch out musically on the gigs with Rob and also with Carl Roa.  

I started playing with Carl Roa about 3 years ago.  I was familiar with Magic Elf, and we had met on a few different occasions over the years.  He had come down to a few of Rob Balducci's gigs along with Ricky Martinez, Carl's drummer.  We struck up a friendship, since there are many parallels in how we have supported ourselves in the music business.  Carl had asked me to learn a few of his tunes for a possible gig.  We quickly felt comfortable playing together and things naturally fell into place for me to become his regular bass player.  Carl and I have collaborated on a lot of projects since then.  Carl contributed a guest solo spot on the song "Dukkha" on my new record.  I also recorded basic tracks for 5 of the tracks from "Pathos and Logos" at his studio.  Playing with Carl is very challenging.  There's a lot of fast riffing, and also a lot of band improvising so it really stretches both my brain and my fingers.  I enjoy the challenge.  I really believe the trio (with Ricky Martinez on drums) has developed a unique personality and character.  There's a lot of dialogue between the three of us and I feel we are pretty musically adventurous.

IC: You’ve been published by Guitarist magazine -- how did that come about?

Ethan: During the mixing stage of Rob Balducci's "Color of Light", Rob was asked to write six articles for Guitarist magazine.  The idea was to have the articles accompanied by some recorded examples that would be included in the magazine's CD.  Rob asked me to be a part of the process.  Rob came to me with the ideas he wanted to explore for the columns, I transcribed the parts, engineered the recordings, played the backing parts, and we wrote the lessons together.  The articles were featured in the magazine from around October 2004 to March 2005... somewhere close to that.

IC: Do you have any plans to eventually release an instructional product?

Ethan: Yes, absolutely.  I'm getting some of my clinic material together and I'm hoping to turn that into an instructional video.

I am part of a family of music teachers and I teach music privately just about every day.  I believe that a big part of my calling to be a musician was to share this gift with my students.  I've been writing a book over the last few years that tries to address both the technical and psychological challenges that are presented to the developing musician.  Working with many different levels of players has shown me that the most productive students have the best grasp of how to practice efficiently and effectively.  There is so much raw material available for the beginning guitarist to pull from, much more so than when I was starting to play.  Many people are suffering from information overload and stand to benefit from studying simply how we amass information and develop our coordination.  This takes a lot of time and patience, but also an understanding of how to apply our focus to get the most out of our practicing time.  The challenge is in learning to understand and utilize our natural strengths, and target our weaknesses.  When the ear is properly developed, every experience we have presents an opportunity to expand our musicianship.  Learning riffs and developing your basic musical vocabulary and understanding is certainly a crucial component to being a successful musician, but the most significant work I do now is about learning to listen with greater precision.

IC: Any advice for aspiring transcribers or guitar teachers?

Ethan: On the transcription side of things, being familiar enough with Finale, Sibelius or some other notation software to the point that your work flow isn't hindered is really important.  I know some guys who write all of their material out by hand first and then transfer to Finale.  I've never had the time to do that, and my handwriting is awful, so I had to find a method that worked for me.  In terms of developing your ear, try transcribing easier material at first and try to do it as authentically as possible.  "Smoke on the Water" might be a riff that every aspiring guitarist knows, but representing it accurately on the page and really digesting all of the elements that create that sound is a humbling experience.  Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are a great place to start, too.  I do a lot of transcriptions for my students, usually more basic riffs and solos.  It's amazing how much I've gotten out of going back to this material and really taking it apart.  I hear so much more in it now than I did when I was first learning it. 

I think a great teacher spends most of their time listening to their students and coming up with creative ways to address the unique and specific challenges to their playing.  I try to provide my students with a rounded experience, spending a lot of time on the mechanics of learning the instrument and a fluency in music theory, but also teaching them how to listen, and how to be creatively free on the instrument.  I've had a lot of success breaking down music theory in a way that is more accessible to developing musicians.  

Fundamentally, I think it's very important to respect your students, whatever their age.  I feel that my greatest successes as a teacher occur when there is really a feeling that we are collaborating to make the student a better player.  Teachers may develop methods for digesting music that work for them, but they don't work for everyone.  We need to be able to look at what we are trying to teach from many perspectives.  We all have natural strengths and weaknesses and we tend to protect our weaknesses or hide them from view.  A teacher's job is to expose those weaknesses and help the student work through them, but it's important to understand that people naturally have a resistance to this undertaking and it takes a brave person to continually face your weaknesses and learn to overcome them.  There are people who are natural teachers that aren't necessarily great players themselves.  A natural teacher can teach just about any subject and have success with it.  Mastery of your subject helps, but it does not necessarily make you a great teacher.  It's its own skill set.  I found the book Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner to be an excellent resource for teachers and students alike.  I've incorporated a lot of his ideas into my own teaching. 

IC: How has the reception been thus far for "Pathos and Logos," and where do you hope to go next with your music and solo endeavors?

Ethan: Reception has been overwhelmingly positive for the new record.  This was such a personal project and it took a long time to complete, so it's very gratifying to let it out into the world and have it be received so well.  Since I released it independently, I've had a lot of work to do to get it promoted and visible to a larger audience.  I'm continuing to learn more and more about the promotional process.  In a lot of ways, the work has just started when you complete a record.  Getting it heard and finding a niche is a long, daunting process.

As of now I'm starting rehearsals to support the CD.  I pushed back my first official live performance a bit, but it’s looking like shows will begin in June.  I'm starting to book clinics, and I'm almost finished writing a new CD, which I'm hoping to finish within the next year or so.  In general, I'm hoping to capture a live and loose vibe to the music on the next record.  The tracks that were cut live in the studio on Pathos and Logos were especially fun to work on for me and I want to expand on that, possibly embracing a looser structure.

There's always a lot on the plate with teaching, session work, gigging as a side man, promotion, and many other things.  I'm also getting married this year, so I have a lot to look forward to.  Being a musician is often a balancing act, so more than anything I'm hoping to keep all of my endeavors afloat and moving forward. 

Purchase “Pathos and Logos” here.

Or visit: www.ethanmeixsell.com