I like noodles.

Like, spaghetti, ramen, egg, Kevin from The Offspring, our brains, you know, all the cool noodles.

Of course, since this is a music blog, I’m not talking about food noodles or people noodles. I’m talking about noodles related to playing. Nothing too purposeful, just moving your fingers around and finding new ways to put notes together. Improvising little melodies or things that are completely pattern-based to stretch your fingers.

The Art of Noodling.

There are plenty of musicians who get annoyed at people who noodle during soundcheck, and I completely understand that feeling. It can be very annoying when your bandmates do that when you’re supposed to be getting things set up or getting sounds or whatever.

Annoying as it can be, it is FUN, no matter when you do it. It’s part of the love affair with your instrument. Yeah, you probably shouldn’t do it while people are setting up or waiting for you to play the soundcheck song, or at band practice when there’s a lull. Unfortunately, for most of us, the times are few and far between that we get to noodle at gig volume. Either we’re stuck in some apartment where we can’t be loud, or we have small children or people in our family with sensory issues – there are frequently obstacles to noodling.

I will say, it kind of makes me sad that there are no more Music Lab practice facilities in Austin (the last one just closed last month). I used to go to the one on St. Elmo during my lunch sometimes and crank my amp up to get sounds or just to be loud. It was great. Thankfully, even closer to home there’s Space Rehearsal, and it’s fantastic, but a little more pricey (and now a lot more busy).

Besides being loud, another aspect of noodling that is great fun is queueing up a song and finding the chords and key and noodling over top of it. It’s a great way to stretch out as a soloist and find your voice. It’s kind of how I learned to solo, actually. And to this day, I think I’m a fairly confident lead player because of it – I can almost always find something tuneful and interesting to play over whatever chord progression you throw at me, with a caveat: This is limited to pop, rock, country, and blues as of right now – some jazz stuff is still way over my head. But I still try. I still grab my guitar, throw together an inspiring sound or use one I already created, and noodle.

And you can do it, too, if you’ve never tried. You should, actually. The great part is that you can start super basic. Just find something with a basic chord progression or an easy 12-bar-blues sort of song – old Chuck Berry stuff is great – find the key, and find the notes that fit the chords. Let’s say you have a 12-bar blues in A – you can play pretty much anything with the notes A, C, D, E, G over it and make something approximating music while you learn to noodle. Add some other notes in there, like a D#, B, or F#, and you can add some really interesting texture and “flavor” to what you’re doing. If the chord structure underneath is basic – just A, D, and E – you can really go to town with those 8 notes and find interesting little melodies or harmonies.

The point is, stretch out. Don’t be afraid to sound like hot garbage. Messing around with scales and different notes is an excellent way to learn how different scales sound over different chord progressions. Learning what notes are in the chords you’re playing is also a good way of finding tasty source material for your noodling. Better yet, learn what notes seem “wrong” so you can color the main chords of what you’re playing and use those consonances and dissonances to make your noodles have some emotion and personality.

Or just say”fuck it” and wank whatever you want over it. There are plenty of “metal covers” of pop songs and stuff on YouTube and Instagram that basically feature the metal guy shredding metal licks over very non-metal songs that have been changed to have chunk-chunk metal rhythm guitars and typewriter bass drums. That’s kind of off topic, but that sort of wankery can be super fun, too.

So don’t worry about having a noodle plan, just NOODLE. It’s good for you.

Sadly, unlike most delicious food-type noodles – they’re just carbs, and we really don’t need a whole lot of carbs in our lives. I mean, we need enough, but we don’t need too many. Believe me, I know. I like all kinds of noodles WAY TOO MUCH. I am a chub chub as a result. But I can shred, kinda, so…

Have fun, take care, and peace be the journey!
TMS