Andreas Öberg

Andreas Öberg started guitar at 7, and so far, his life has been dedicated to music. His early influences were Mozart and Chopin as a child, he started fusion at 13 when the others usually only start getting into mainstream music, he had his first jazz guitar teacher at 16, went to the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm at 20-24. Nowadays, he's about to be 30, he practices 1-2 hours a day, plus gigs, and he's considered as one of the best guitar players around. Check out his official Web site and his MySpace

You've been in music really early, how did you live your childhood and teen age? Do you feel there are things you sacrificed for music? And these days?

I was a tennis player, I wasn’t much into music from the beginning. When I was 8 years old, I got a tennis racket and I got a guitar as a birthday gift. I was more interested in the tennis racket. I was one of the best junior tennis players in Sweden. I went to guitar lessons once a week playing some classical, some blues. When I was 14, I had a really good guitar teacher playing fusion music for me like Mike Stern, Frank Gambale, Scott Henderson, Alan Holdsworth, Robert Ford, all of these guys. And then I really started liking this music. And then I started practicing, I started musical high school in Stockholm, I practiced several hours everyday so I guess I sacrificed something during that time. Because you have to put in a lot of work to improve, you learn all this new stuff, because I really wanted to learn jazz. And then straight after that, I started at the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm.

In various occasions, you have mentioned that acquiring a fast and clean technique has always been easy for you, right from the start. Fair enough! That's usually one of the main problems for guitarists though. What kind of exercises did you go through to specifically work out techniques if any? On the other hand, what have you considered as the most difficult aspects during your apprenticeship? Are there things you still can't do?

I would say that instead of practicing scales and patterns on metronome, I’ve been trying to improvise and playing along the CDs I like, some of them have really fast tempos. And then I played along with it and tried to improvise. That’s the kind of practicing I’ve been doing a lot. And also playing with people, friends, other musicians, and still be relaxed at fast tempos. When I started with the Django stuff, of course I had to learn some of the Gypsy picking stuff. That was difficult at first be because I was used to alternate picking. I still like to mix these techniques. But to get into some of the Gypsy picking technique, that was difficult at first. After a while, it starts feeling more and more natural. I’d say I still can’t do flamenco, it’s a really difficult style playing with the fingers. I started practicing some Chet Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel stuff, with the finger picks for fun, just as an exercise.

Do you practice flamenco these days ?

No, not flamenco, but I sometimes play with a flamenco player, we have a guitar trio and we there’s a flamenco player, a nylon strings player, and I play Gypsy guitar. I notice that flamenco is really difficult. It’s a difficult tradition of its own.

What useful improvisation devices did you learn from your jazz teachers (like Paul Pesonen)? How would you sum up your academic musical education? How does it compare with what you get from meeting other great musicians? How useful is theory when improvising?

I think it’s important to find a balance between theoretical knowledge and listening with your ear. Playing with Gypsy musicians has been really good for me because I’ve seen this other approach, learning stuff by hear. But I went to the Royal Music Academy, I studied arrangement for big bands, conducting orchestra, a lot of Berklee theory, modes and scales. This guy, Paul Pesonen, he went to Berklee, he was a top student and he knew a lot of modern devices for improvisation, he explained all this stuff from Coltrane, McCoy Tyner... He gave me a lot of ideas for improvisation.

Meeting with other musicians, that’s how you learn the most: to be in a live situation and play with other great musicians. But it may be good to learn a few scales when you actually play not trying to play too much about it. I’ve always been trying instead, if I want to play a G major scale, I would not play it in a position, I would play in all over the neck, in different fingerings, going up and down, instead of staying in a box, in a position.

I just got back now from the States, I played at the Savannah (Music Festival) and I had the opportunity to play with the great jazz legend Hank Jones. He’s 90 years old. That whole kind of meeting is when you learn the most I think.

Are there some really important advices you received while learning guitar that made you improve dramatically your playing?

I would say: discovering the great musicians in jazz like Coltrane, Django, Benson, Wes, Joe Pass. I tried to learn from each and every one of these guys, not whole solos, just learning short phrases that I tried to adapt into my own musical language, mix it up with my own stuff. It’s more like that than with scales that I really improved my playing. Listening is what I feel does the most. You can learn stuff just by sitting in a car listening.

You say you hear long melodic lines in your head and you try to play them. Has it always been the case? Where do these melodic lines come from in your opinion?

They come from the fact that I have listened so I have a lot a jazz language, I know the language of jazz and be-bop. I hear melodies that I play. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of scat thing singing along with what I play at the same time. It’s the ultimate test to see if you’re playing what you hear in your head. While I actually play, some people say: "When you play fast, do you play a scale or a pattern?", I would say I play melodic lines that I hear and sometimes I play them fast but if you slow it down, you can hear it’s a melody line and not a pattern.

Another thing that is good when singing along is that then you need some time to take a break, you need to breathe like a horn player. When you’re playing with your fingers, sometimes you play too long lines without pausing.

Have you ever felt there was a wall between the melodic lines and your fingers?

The best thing is just instead of learning the scales and the positions, it’s better to play the scale all over the next, maybe just on one string as an exercise. That way it’s easier to play the things you hear because you’re not locked in one position.

Your unaccompanied improvisations are really mind-boggling! You said on the forums that you like to play the notes of the underlying chords, including bass notes within arpeggios. How did you practice that particular aspect of your playing? Who inspired you in this direction?

I’ve been spending a lot of time in America and what American jazz guitarists there are really good at is chord melody. I’ve been listening to guys like Johnny Smith, Joe Pass, George Van Eps, even George Benson is really good at this, Martin Taylor too. There are a few Americans guys that I like today who are really good at this. The important thing is to really be able to link together, melody and bass lines, and sometimes melodic lines in between. If the melody is going up, maybe the bass note is going down. It’s important to find these movements, maybe contrary movements. Reharmonization is an important aspect to be able to play other chords in between, like chromatic approach or chord substitution to make it more interesting. Is there a lot of homework to do that or is it something you do on the spot ?

Well now I do it on the spot. Now I can improvise on standards in the moment. But of course you have to practice on it and learn many chord shapes you can use so you can have the vocabulary over chords.

What do you think of licks, chops and patterns? What was your objective when writing "Gypsy Fire"?

I think there’s nothing wrong with learning some licks if you manage to adapt it to your own style. So if you learn a lick over Am chord, then you can try to see if you can play it over some other chord like a dominant chord or a major chord. Can I play my own stuff, play into this lick and then play out of this lick, and then play my own stuff again. It comes like a part of your own language instead of playing "This is a lick. Stop. Now to the next lick."

Do you need a good memory to learn all this?

I have a good memory, I can memorize phone numbers, digits. So it’s been useful when I’ve been learning new stuff that I’ve been able to memorize it of course. And the "Gypsy Fire" book, I made it just because I could not find any book available with a lot of these phrases that I heard all these Gypsies playing. That’s why I made this book, to be able to teach people some licks and teach some of their picking. Personally, my style is a mix of so many styles but the book was more about how the Gypsies would approach this music.

And in the next book, "Gypsy Bop" that I made, there will probably be more alternate picking and sweep stuff and more modern vocabulary.

How would you define a good guitar player?

I would say a good guitar player is a guitarist who of course has musicality, good ears, and also I like to hear a guitar player that has skills, that knows a lot of stuff. But it’s personal. Some people play really good and they don’t play much, just a little bit, and other guys play lots of notes and that sounds good. So it’s about the personality. I would say I like guitarists who have their own sound, you can notice "It’s this player", you can hear it immediately. Like you can hear it’s George Benson, Wes Montgomery or Joe Pass. And I always appreciated guys who can play good and just pick up any guitar. Some guys are so depending on effects and amps. That’s what I like with the Gypsy style. You can pick up an old acoustic guitar with a really high string height, old strings and still be able to play.

Do you play other instruments?

Yes, I can play piano fairly good, I can play electric bass quite good actually, and I have played some drums.

Do you plan to use these instruments on records or do you play for yourself for now?

Maybe electric bass, I could probably use it on record. I haven’t done it yet but I hope to do it soon because it’s fun.

What kind of musical relationship do you have with Django? How did you get into Django's music? How did you learn Gypsy music from Sweden? What is your view of Django's spirit?

I heard Django early in my life but I only heard his early recording from the 30’s but then I started listening to Biréli Lagrène as a fusion player. Then I found his early recordings from when he was a kid and did Manouche stuff. And then from those records I found my way back to Django. I very much liked Django’s recordings from the 40’s to the 50’s too, and not just his stuff from the 30’s. I bought an old guitar that I found in a guitar shop, a Selmer-like guitar, I started practicing, I met Robin Nolan who was encouraging, he was helping me and thought I would do good in this style. I continued until I got in touch with Jon Larson who invited me to come and play with Jimmy Rosenberg when he came to Scandinavia and that’s when I first played with Jimmy. I didn’t know much, I had never played with a Gypsy before. He was the first Gypsy I played with. I learned a lot from him of course. And he was very nice. He liked some of the jazz stuff I did, he was interested to learn that.

It’s the meeting of two worlds

Yes, that’s the way it’s supposed to be I think. When you meet a new guitarist, they always know something you don’t know and vice-versa. I learn from any new musician in any style. For me, Django was way ahead of his time. His music is kind of immortal, he’s like Coltrane or Charlie Parker. This music will live on forever. It’s a good mix of music, swing, emotion, technique, and there’s a lot of dramatic stuff too. Django was very good at creating a dramatic atmosphere in his music. He had all these tricks, octaves, harmonics, stuff that noone had really done on a guitar before him.

Where does your appetite for learning come from? Alternate picking, hybrid picking for acoustic guitar, Wes-like thumb playing, unaccompanied solo, slapping, artificial harmonics-based harp effect, voicings, singing while improvising, it seems you want to master every technique there is? That makes me think of Biréli Lagrène who is also incredible in that respect. What do you think technique can bring to music in general?

Learning these different techniques is good for just being able to do stuff that you hear. They’re just tools to be able to express yourself musically. I’ve been eager to lear, I’ve shaken out many many many guitarists. You have to be able to shake out what they’re doing. Though I don’t want to play their stuff, I’m interested to see what they’re doing, so I’m learning some of their phrases because I’m curious. And if I like something, I try to mix it up with some of my own stuff. In music, there’s always something new to learn, that’s what I like. The moment you think "Oh well, I’m good" then you don’t get any better. It’s better when you think "I know some stuff", there’s always a lot of stuff to learn. That’s why I feel I get better because I feel I’m developing from month to month. But it can be difficult if you play too many different styles, you might lose your musical personality so it’s a difficult thing. What I’m trying at the moment is really to find my own stuff, what is really me, I’m trying to sort out many influences, the things I really like, that are really a part of me. That takes time.

Are there things you cannot do yet and wish to learn (style, techniques, and instruments)?

I like very much the way saxophone players play modern jazz, like Coltrane. I’m trying at the moment to learn some of this stuff and adapt it to guitar, as well as some of the piano stuff, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, some of their rhythmic ideas. I feel that jazz guitar is not 100% evolved yet. There’s still a lot of stuff to be done. It’s like that on every instrument but on saxophone they had Coltrane, it’s hard for everyone who comes after him. But in jazz guitar, I feel there is stuff to be done and that’s a good challenge for all of us guitarists.

You have been criticized in a few occasions because you are considered too technical and not musical enough. I personally disagree with that, especially when slowing down your choruses, one can hear there is definitely a melody that goes along the underlying chords. However, here's a touchy question, why do you play so fast so often, even though it's clean as can be? Just because you can, or in order to take more risks? When you play fast, do you feel you're playing fast?

I would say that it’s a question of what I hear. I’m trying to be true to myself, to play what I hear. When I hear a lot of fast stuff in my head, I play a lot of fast stuff. On this new album I made in the United States, I had a producer, we worked on it and we discussed on some tracks that I maybe should try to focus on some more melodic stuff and leave out everything that was fast. My new record will be a display of that. On some tracks, I do the burning stuff, on some songs, I do just the melodies and no fast stuff at all. Some that will probably appeal to people who are more into melody playing, like ballads. But for me, there’s nothing wrong with playing fast. You can do it melodically, you can do it with feeling and spirit. But I would still say that the more famous and well-known you get, the more people will criticize you. But of course, more people will like what you do. But I’m fine, I have no problems with people having opinions. Sometimes still with people who yell at us, they’re jealous and sometimes guys who never have any technique, they’re often the ones criticizing the most because they can’t really do it themselves. In some cases, not all the time. As long as people have opinions, it’s fine as long as they are respectful with other musicians. There will always be other opinions.

What is your relationship with your audience? Is your audience mostly composed of musicians and music lovers, or do you think you can reach a broader audience?

I think I’m already starting to reach a broader audience. If you check out my MySpace, I have a lot of younger people writing, rock guitarists, even young girls. I’m trying to make jazz music with improvisation elements that will appeal to even younger people, maybe play jazz with a more rock-like attitude. Or even mix it up with some club music, hip-hop, R’n’B. For me, it’s jazz as long as it’s improvised.

You seem more involved recently in mixing jazz and electronic sounds, do you think it is possible to come up with new things in jazz? What is the future of jazz in your opinion? How do you think it is going to evolve from now?

I think the jazz audience is getting older and older so we need to find a younger audience to be able to have an audience in the future for jazz. I think for younger people, it is important to find something like jazz with a mix of something else that they know and once they start to listen to that, then maybe they can find their way back and discover older styles of jazz. That’s how I did, I started with fusion and distorted electric guitar. I didn’t start with Django. I found my way back into musical history. Maybe the Gypsies, they’re brought up with the music of Django. But for me, I had to find my way back. "Who did Scott Henderson listen to?" "Yeah he listened to this guy." "Who did that guy listen to when he started?" And then you find your way back in several generations.

I think there will be a mix with the modern sounds and there will be a mix with world music and folk music. Of course, there will always be a flavour of blues because blues is really the roots of jazz.

At almost 30, you are an incredible be-bop player, a great Gypsy music player, acknowledged as one of the best guitarists out there (you won many awards), you played with some of the best guitarists, played in big bands, what would you like to have done at the age of 40?

I would like to have written more of my own music. Being able to do what I do, tour and play with other musicians. I haven’t still met my biggest guitar hero, George Benson. That would be a dream for me. I hope I will have time to play with him sometimes before I’m 40. Meeting new musicians and trying to evolve. Making music that is still good jazz but still would appeal to anyone, not people who just listen to jazz, without being too commercial or lose quality of music.

Would you like to sing for instance?

Maybe. I haven’t decided if I should try that yet. At the moment, I’m doing a lot of the scat singing stuff. But there are so many good vocalists out there.

What was your dream when you started guitar? Does your life meet these expectations?

My dream was only to do what I liked the most, to be able to live and make money on music. These days, I’m playing quite big festivals, concerts and tours, but of course when I started I had to play in more local places. You work your way out. In the beginning of course, it was difficult because you thought it would be easier, that you would get the big gigs right away but that’s not the way it works. It’s a long way, you have to start somewhere. It’s always good when you get a gig because one gig leads to another one. You have to have gigs to get gigs. What do you call it ? Momentum. Once you start to get the ball rolling and if you do well, you will get more and more. And especially if you have the whole world. I mean when I started I only played around Stockholm. Now I play all over the world. It’s a big difference when you have the whole world as a market instead you just your hometown.

How do you mix your personal life with musical life? Is it easy?

No it’s not easy. I’ve had a girlfriend for five years and now it didn’t work out. We separated because I travel so much and I’m never at home. That can be difficult. We own this dog together and I’m away so much, I would like to have spare time to meet my friends, my parents, and my dog. Fortunately I have many friends all over the world where I play and I meet new people all the time. I have a great life, I’m not complaining, I’m saying the life as a touring musician can be difficult to keep the relationships.

Is it a trade-off, a sacrifice you have to do?

Yes, but I’m not sure I want to do the travelling my whole life. Right now I’m doing it because I like it and I have fun. That’s what I want to do but maybe in the future, I’ll get more into writing music for other people. And that way you can only do the gigs you really like to do and make money on writing stuff too, if you want to have a family and stuff like that. But at the moment, I’m really happy with doing what I’m doing.

Are there other things you would like to talk about? Go ahead!

I’m coming to France, so if people are reading it. I’m playing at the Sunset Jazz Club on the 26th of April in a new trio with Benoît Sourisse (organ) and André Charlier (drums). And then I’ll play with Florin Nicolescu and Stochelo Rosenberg at a festival called "Jazz sous les Pommiers" at Coutances on the 27th of April. And I have a masterclass in a city called Tours on the 24th.

You give masterclasses?

Yes, I like to do that when I travel. It’s nice to meet other guitarists and discuss.

And I have an exciting project this month too. I’ve been invited by Europe’s best selling pop star, Eros Ramazotti to do a TV show with him in Italy.

Now you’re going to get a really broader audience! Is it something you really wanted to do or are you just curious ?

Eros is a nice guy. He likes jazz and actually he’s a jazz guitar player as a hobby. I’m really looking forward to playing that stuff with him. It will be broadcast live in Italy on the 19th of April I think. It’s a one-hour TV show with Eros Ramazotti. There’s a big audience for this TV show so I’m kind of nervous I must admit.

It’s nice to hear that you are nervous about such an experience!

I’m no longer nervous before jazz concerts, but this is a really new experience!