A Conversation with Jazz Guitarist Adam Smale

By: Dr. Matt Warnock

The story of how I met jazz-guitarist Adam Smale is a funny one, at least from our perspective it is. Growing up a few miles apart, though a decade apart in age, Adam and I never once crossed paths in our small Northern Ontario hometown of Sault Ste. Marie. Though the jazz scene there is small, to say the least, there is a local core of jazz fans that work hard to keep jazz alive year round in The Soo. It was through the members of this close knit group of jazz fans that I first heard about this “guy who plays that funny guitar, the one with the extra strings on it.” Though I was now aware of Adam and his “funny guitar,” it would still be almost a decade before we finally connected in person.

In the years between first hearing about him and finally meeting Adam, I stumbled upon one of his albums and then was drawn to check out his website. I was intrigued by his fingerstyle approach and use of the 7-string guitar, which was in line with one of my guitar heroes Lenny Breau, and so I decided to send Adam an email to say hi. After waiting for days, then weeks, for a reply I figured I had been blown off by the now big-city guitarist, who was living in Toronto at the time. It was not until years later that we’d figure out that a server error had caused Adam to not receive emails for several weeks, and that I had contacted him during that time.

Between 2003 and 2005 I was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I was pursuing my Master’s degree in jazz guitar. In my second year there I received an email from Adam, he was looking into doing a Master’s degree in the U.S., had come across WMU and then had found me from a friend of a friend. At first I laughed a bit, after all these years it would take Kalamazoo and WMU to actually cause me and Adam to meet, but life’s funny sometimes. We ended up getting on the phone and Adam wound up auditioning at WMU, later he was awarded a teaching assistantship and completed his Master’s there in 2009.

Since that first meeting Adam and I have kept in touch. He’s been a guest artist at Western Illinois, where I’m the guitar professor, and we’ve been able to play a few shows in Michigan and finally share the stage in our hometown of Sault Ste. Marie in a local jazz club. Nowadays, Adam is living in New York where he’s building a reputation as being one of the baddest new jazz guitarists on the scene, and working behind the scenes at United We Tab, where he is a transcriber and editor.

It took a long time for me and Adam to finally connect, but I’m glad we did. He’s a great player and a fun guy to be around. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Adam Smale.

Adam Smale with his 7-String Guitar

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Matt Warnock: Is it really as hard to break into the New York music scene as everybody says?

Adam Smale: In a word, yes. If you come to New York cold, not knowing very many people, it can be very challenging. Make sure you bring lots of money with you because you’re going to need it to fall back on until you start making money with your music. It’s very easy to burn through money when you move to NYC.

It’s not easy in any city to make money solely from playing club dates. That’s why everyone has some kind of part-time job to round out their income, whether it is music related or not. The phone doesn’t start ring as soon as you move here, that’s for sure.

Matt: What’s been your experience booking gigs since you made the move to the Big Apple?

Adam: Again, it’s tough. If people don’t know you or recognize your name, they’re very leery to book you. There are places that will book anyone. But those are the places that don’t pay, or pay very little. When I book a gig for myself, it’s going to be a jazz gig, so that’s what I’m mostly familiar with here.

Remember, every place that you want to play at, 10, 000 other people want to play there too, maybe more. Furthermore, you’re competing with Pat Martino, Mike Stern, Ben Monder, and other heavy-weights for those same gigs. And those are just the guitarists.

Adam Smale's 7-String Classical Guitar

Matt: Did you find that your formal education prepared you for life after school as a professional guitarist?

Adam: That one is a yes and no answer. There is no substitute for practical experience, and you get that from doing lots of gigs. I’m fortunate because I started playing professionally since the age of 12, and versatility is key in New York. Over the years I’ve played country, rock, blues, funk, reggae, R&B, Latin styles, pop, and of course jazz. If you want to work be prepared to play a variety of music. I have upcoming auditions for things that cover nearly all the styles I mentioned.

As I side note, craigslist is a great resource for finding odd gigs. Look in the “gigs” section, oddly enough. For example, one of the auditions I’m going to in a few days is for the guitar chair for a new late night TV talk show was posted in craigslist. Studio gigs, live shows, and teaching gigs are often posted as well. You never know what’s listed there. I guess the moral of the story here is keep your fingers in a lot of pies and you’ll do well.

Formal education gives you an edge in other ways. Even though knowing how to read is less mandatory these days, it still gives you an advantage over someone who doesn’t. If you want to play jazz, then getting a good formal education at least gives you a head start in understanding and performing that style. So, over all I’d say the ultimate would be to have both practical and formal training.

Or as in my case, the transcribing in school sure has come in handy now that I’m doing it as a part-time job. My only complaint with 90% of the music schools, is they should be teaching you about the business side of music. It’s called the music business after all. Things like how to set up a business, running your music career as a business, taxes, booking shows, etc. All those things are essential these days in order to compete. It’s just as important as working on your chops.

Another site to check out is Music Jobs USA. That’s where I discovered the listing for a company I now work for as a transcriber called United We Tab.

Matt: Speaking of United We Tab, can you tell us how that relationship was formed and why you wanted to work for UWT as a transcriber and editor?

Adam: Well, remember I said you need other jobs to round out your income? That’s why I’m doing it. As a transcriber and UWT, we, there’s roughly 30 of us, get paid mostly from the back end form the sales of the transcriptions. The more the company grows in sales, the more we transcribers make.

I’m lucky because on top of the regular transcribing, I’m also UWT’s Chief Music Editor. My managerial role there can constitute a number of duties including helping out with the video editing. All of our transcriptions are accompanied by a video of us transcribers performing the song and all the guitar parts involved. But mostly my job as Editor involves listening to each song, and compare our transcriptions, as well as our audio for our recorded version of the song, for accuracy, and formatting.

I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work for UWT, and not have to work at job that’s not music related at all. Best of all, it equates to about 10 to 15 hours per week max, which allows me time to practice and pursue other gigs.

Adam Smale in Action

Matt: What makes UWT different from all of the other free tab websites out there on the web today?

Adam: I’m glad you asked that question. First off, UWT’s TABs are extremely accurate. Yeah, there are tons of places to get guitar TABs online, often for free, but the quality is sub-par at these free sites; most of the notes are wrong and songs are almost always incomplete.

Contrast that with UWT’s guitar TABs, which are essentially note-for-note versions of more than 13,000 songs. If you’re serious about playing a song, UWT is basically the “iTunes” of accurate tab. Oh, and almost all songs are only 99¢, so the bang-for-the-buck aspect is pretty amazing.

Secondly, UWT has hundreds of free videos that show-off our professional musicians, including myself, playing the popular guitar TABS on the site; this way you know the TABs are accurate, plus it’s a great way to hear each note of the song done right.

Third, UWT has partnered with a very cool software company called Noteflight to develop an outstanding guitar TAB viewer, maybe I’m a little biased, but I think it blows the socks off anything else guitarists use. You can essentially do anything you want to our scores.

For instance, let’s say you are looking at “Bohemian Rhapsody,” by Queen; normally a song like this would be 20 pages since it’s so long and has 4 plus instruments transcribed. But, with two clicks of your mouse you can remove any instruments you don’t want to see, so that you can learn just one instrument at a time for this song, and you can remove the standard notation so that only the guitar TAB is visible. Plus, the notes will play-back at any tempo you want, so you can learn the song at your own pace. Pretty cool stuff.

Finally, UWT is a legal site, which is a rarity in the guitar TAB space; there are hundreds of illegal TAB sites peddling bad quality TAB. But, UWT has reached out to hundreds of music publishers to sign the necessary licenses required to create online guitar TAB, which generates royalties for the artists and songwriters.

Matt: Do you think that you will continue to pursue your career as a transcriber and editor while you build your career as a performer and educator? Or is this a temporary gig until you can get locked into the New York jazz scene?

Adam: UWT is a long-term association for me. As the company continues to grow, us transcribers will only benefit from that. It allows me to do other things that a regular 9 to 5 office job just wouldn’t. Plus it’s a great company to work for. I can’t see why the two wouldn’t be able to coexist in my life.

New York Jazz Guitarist Adam Smale

Matt: What made you decide to play a 7-string guitar?

Adam: Lenny Breau. My set up is exactly like Lenny’s, with the high “A” string as the 7th string. Matter of fact, that’s how I think of it. That extra string above my high “E” is the 7th string, not the first. I have two 7-string guitars. One is an electric guitar that I designed and had someone in Toronto build it for me. It’s a semi-hollowbody, like an over-sized Les Paul, actually based on a Gibson Howard Roberts, but routed out like a thinline Tele.

The other is a nylon string acoustic that I designed and built myself from scratch. It’s a modified Hauser II for you luthier types out there. Modified meaning it has a cutaway and I messed with the bracing. I stole some of the bracing ideas from a great luthier in Washington, named Dake Traphagen. It has Brazillian Rosewood back and ribs, and a German Spruce top.

The electric came first. After about 3 years of playing it I knew I had to have an acoustic equivalent. I regard the electric as the masculine guitar, and the nylon string as the feminine. You have to play each one differently. With the electric you dig in more. With the acoustic you have to caress the nylon strings.

I use 40 pound test fishing line for my high “A” string on the acoustic. It works better than the regular strings. I kid you not, it stays in tune better. For the electric I don’t use any other strings than Tomastik-Infelds, Jazz Swing set, 11-47. But I swap out the wound G string for a plain, as well as use an 8 for my high A string. Maybe one day I can get Tomastik-Infeld to make an Adam Smale set.

The whole concept is simple really. By adding a string it increases the range you can play without having to slide up the neck.

Matt: Do you use your fingers, pick, fingerpicks or all of the above?

Adam: I use a thumbpick and fingers, Just like Lenny used to do. It wasn’t that foreign to me because I played in a Chet Atkins style when I was a kid. Chet was my hero at that time. That was before Eddie Van Halen came along. [Laughs] Plus I also used to play 5-string banjo in my teens. So using a thumbpick and fingers was not odd at all for me.

Matt: Who made your guitar and what kind of gear, amps and pedals, do you use to fine-tune your sound?

Adam: The guy who built my electric guitar is Brian Mascarin. I own a Fender Prosonic that I rarely use anymore, but a real nice sounding amp. I now mostly use an old ‘80s Roland CUBE 60 bass amp that has been modified electronically as well as the stock 12” speaker taken out and replaced with an EV 10” speaker.

Those amps are great because they’re the old school solid state amps and the sound warmer, and react a little closer to how tubes do than the new solid state amps, I think. Plus it’s really simple. I like simple as possible in my signal chain. It has a volume, bass, mid, and treble controls. And that’s it. Not even any reverb.

My pedalboard as of right now includes an MXR/Dunlop Boost/Line Driver, a BOSS Chorus Ensemble, CE-5, for getting a quasi-organ sound mostly, an Ibanez Tube Screamer TS9, A BOSS Volume Pedal, FV-50, an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Plus reverb, and an MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay pedal. I plan on experimenting with building my own effects pedals soon as well. I’m just one of those guys that doesn’t like much stuff from off the shelf, I guess.

Matt: Where do you go from here? Is there a new album in works?

Adam: There’s no album in the works right now. Maybe after I get more established in New York that might be an option. However I do have a fairly new album that I will make available soon that was recorded in 2009.

I’m working on a book right now that I want to put out there for us fellow guitarists. I’ve figured out a new way to map out scales on the guitar, a new way to think of scales and how they relate to chords and would like to get it out as soon as I’m finished. The working title right now is New Approach to Scales for Guitarists: Modern Practical Applications. It’ll more than likely be in two parts.

The first part would be explaining how my new system works and how to map out your guitar neck. Part two would be using this system in practical, musical ways, which will be very helpful for any guitarist who wants to have more ideas on improvising or just getting scales together. This really means where to find all the right notes. I hope to have Part I available in early 2011.