MARCIO PHILOMENA

Guitar instrumentals have supplied some of music’s most evocative moments. Jason Sidwell asks top guitarists for their take on this iconic movement. This month: the brilliant New York-based Brazilian jazz guitarist.

GT: What is it about guitar instrumentals that appeals to you?

MP: I’ve always loved the freedom of improvised music, and there’s something to the flow of a great improvised guitar solo that I find really appealing.

GT: What can an instrumental provide a listener that a vocal song can't?

MP: Like a good book or movie, it leaves things open to interpretation. You can almost assign any meaning to it, and that sometimes can be wildly different than what the composer had in mind.

GT: Are there any tendencies that you aim to embrace or avoid - rhythms, harmony, playing approach?

MP: I always try to write the things that I really hear. So in that sense I avoid writing out of concepts, for instance aiming to write a song in a specific metre or around a specific chord. Maybe I’ll try to have more of that in my next album to balance things out, but on the one I’ve released, it’s mainly that.

GT: Is a typical song structure of intro, verse, chorus, middle eight, verse, etc, always relevant for an instrumental?

MP:  Since I grew up listening to pop and rock songs, I try to write within that structure as much as I can. But usually things end up falling on the classic AABA form of a jazz standard that, as instrumentalists, we end up getting really familiar with.

GT: How useful is studying a vocalist's approach for creating guitar melodies?