Tribute to Mick Goodrick by Tom Lippincott (and Lesson)

Tribute to Mick Goodrick by Tom Lippincott

In the late 1980s when I was a teaching assistant at the University of Miami, one of my students showed me Mick’s book, The Advancing Guitarist, and I was so intrigued that I immediately bought my own copy. The introduction, where Mick states that the text is a do-it-yourself book, not a method book, struck me as a welcoming and novel approach, and I was instantly drawn in when I saw that the first subject the book covers is playing up and down on one string. I’d already been practicing that way to a certain extent, but Mick’s way of organizing the information crystalized the concept and made it much easier to implement and to teach. I began working on various topics in The Advancing Guitarist in detail and at least touched on everything in the book, always finding it an indispensable resource.

After I received my master’s degree in jazz guitar at UM, I did more university teaching for a couple years but didn’t feel it was right for me then, so I began just playing for a living. Throughout my twenties, I was very dedicated to improving myself as a musician and continued to study jazz as well as other styles of music. As I neared the age of thirty, I began to realize I was spinning my wheels and didn’t have my own musical voice. I had been studying and copying many guitarists and other musicians and had reached the point where I could do bad imitations of most of my favorite players, but everything felt compartmentalized instead of unified.

In 1996, I had a summer gig playing six nights a week in a hotel halfway across the world on the island of Guam, and I had a lot of free time to practice and also to ruminate on my situation. Out of frustration, I began to write down many of my concerns and ended up with a fairly long essay. I decided that I needed a mentor—someone wise and experienced who would be willing to lend guidance. Having already received so much inspiration and clarification from The Advancing Guitarist, I thought of Mick. In the intervening years, I had seen him play with Jack DeJohnette’s band and heard some of his recordings, and I was always impressed by how he managed, so successfully, to incorporate the language of modern jazz pianists like McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea into his playing. When I learned that a few of my heroes including Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, and John Scofield counted Mick among their greatest influences, I was even more eager to meet him in person.

In the spring of 1997, I went to visit a friend in Boston named Ed Harlow, a tenor saxophonist and composer/arranger who had recently completed his master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music. I knew that Mick was teaching there, so Ed and I swung by the school to see if I could find him or at least get a phone number for him. I had already searched the white pages and a musician’s union directory and not had any luck. We ended up speaking to John McNeil who had been one of Ed’s professors, and John informed us that Mick was very private and didn’t want his number given out. With uncharacteristic boldness and desperation, I explained that Mick was one of my favorite guitarists and that I was visiting from out of town and was really hoping to arrange a lesson with him while there. I guess I was convincing enough because John kindly called Mick on my behalf as I stood nearby waiting hopefully. After a moment, John looked up and said, “Mick wants to know if you can be at his place tomorrow at 2:00,” and I replied with a grateful, “Of course!”

The next day, I took a train across town with my guitar in tow. Mick’s home, as I recall, was near Fenway Park, and it was a bit of a walk from the train station to his place. I knocked on his door breathlessly, and Mick let me in and made us each a cup of tea before we sat down. I was nervous to be there in person with someone I’d seen on stage, on album covers, and in the pages of Guitar Player magazine where he’d had a monthly column. I remember that he had an aura of a Zen master, a Yoda-like figure, but simultaneously somehow, he was so down-to-earth and relatable that I began to feel more comfortable. His apartment was almost shockingly spartan and small: just one room with a folding bed, a small kitchenette, and no television.

I told him that I had written down the questions I had in the form of an essay and asked if I could read it to him, to which he readily agreed. We paused to discuss each subject as I read, and when I reached the end, his advice was essentially to stop spending so much time and energy worrying about not having my own voice and simply try to enjoy the journey. Although one might think that was obvious, it absolutely wasn’t to me at that stage in my life. Mick offered many other sage words and reassurances while also keeping the proceedings lighthearted with a few amusing anecdotes. He told me that he liked my essay and that he thought I should consider publishing it. He said that I did a good job of articulating a lot of the issues that many musicians struggle with and assured me that others would benefit from reading my words.

Ninety minutes or so after we started, and with guitars untouched, my lesson ended when Mick’s next student arrived. Mick told me with a smile to feel free to come back any time. One of my few regrets is that I never took him up on his invitation. I did, however, publish my essay on my website, and it’s still available here:

https://tomlippincott.com/confessions

At the link above, I provide more backstory and a detailed account of the lesson with Mick, plus an update (written in 2005) describing the ways that several of my worries had resolved themselves and offering suggestions for those who are grappling with similar obstacles.

Although that hour and a half was the only personal interaction I ever had with Mick, the effects of that one lesson have resonated like a supernova throughout every moment of my life since then. Maybe it was just my imagination or wishful thinking, but I felt that Mick had managed to transfer an indefinable energy or force to me. As soon as I put his advice into practice and stopped obsessing over questions like “When will I find my voice?,” “What is my voice?,” and “Should I even be trying this?,” my voice did indeed begin to emerge, almost effortlessly. I was also able to easily make peace with the fact that I was never going to be a revolutionary, genre-defining artist like some of my heroes. It has been plenty enough of a privilege to have contributed, in a small way, to humanity through music and to have made a positive difference in the lives of my students. I remain convinced that I’ve achieved this level of fulfillment and happiness only because of Mick’s guidance.

My copy of The Advancing Guitarist is falling apart but, for fun, I still occasionally open it up to a random page and always find an interesting topic to reflect upon. I love the Commentaries section at the end so much that I have reread it numerous times, cite it often while teaching, and have encouraged countless students to read this section. Arguably, Mick’s magnum opus, Mr. Goodchord’s Almanac of Guitar Voice-Leading for the Year 2001 and Beyond, has influenced me even more. Shortly after the first of the three volumes was released, a colleague’s student showed me a copy. The rows and rows of letters, arrows, and dashes on colored paper just looked like indecipherable gobbledygook, and I was too overwhelmed to dive in.

A few years later, I came across a sample/teaser of Mick’s voice-leading book on my friend Bruce Saunders’ website. Bruce is a highly respected guitarist who was then teaching at Berklee, and everything he posted online was great, so I decided to give the material another try. Because there were only two pages scanned in black and white, it seemed less daunting. To my surprise, I was suddenly able to decipher the charts, and they made total sense. By then, volume 2 had already been published, so I immediately ordered the first two books. After my copies arrived, it definitely took concentrated effort to figure everything out, but I knew that this revolutionary information would change my playing and my whole musical outlook for the better. It almost goes without saying that I also ordered volume 3 as soon as it was available. Eventually, I began to write out my own shorthand version of the various cycles and chord types and then finally internalized the concepts enough to work on them without having anything in front of me.

I can’t overstate the impact that Mick had on my musical universe. In 2002, I finally returned to university teaching and have found a profound sense of enjoyment and satisfaction in passing along what I’ve learned to the next generation of guitarists. Much of my teaching with my university and private students, as well as many of my instructional videos at Mikes Master Classes, are based on subjects inspired by the voice-leading books. One of my main goals as a teacher is to make Mick’s ideas more widely available and a little more user-friendly. I know that Mick always favored the “do it yourself” approach, but I believe that the information in the voice-leading books is so valuable that I want to get it out there to as many people as I can. To that end, I have gathered many of the methods I used to interpret this material and made them available to my students. The original set of notes I created to help practice voice-leading was graciously reorganized for me in 2015 by David Stern, a former student of Mick’s. I have since updated the PDF and have made it available below and on my website for anyone who is interested.

Mick Goodrick for Dummies by Tom Lippincott 

I will forever be in debt to and extremely grateful for Mick Goodrick. He radically transformed my playing, composing, and teaching, and I consider myself immensely lucky to have had the chance to meet him and to work with his concepts. Even after decades of study, I continue to feel joy and excitement when I find new ways to implement his ideas. Mick’s legacy lives on in every musician directly and indirectly shaped by his brilliance and generosity.

Mick Goodrick for Dummies Explanation Video

Watch Tom discuss the Mick Goodrick cycles, voice leading, chord tones and much more in the video below.

Who Is Modern Guitar Harmony?

Modern Guitar Harmony (MGH) is a non profit educational website dedicated to bringing modern guitar harmony concepts free of charge to all guitar players around the world.

MGH has the legal rights over Mick Goodricks materials. We use these materials, and other harmonic materials, to spread the joy of harmony worldwide.

A website like this takes a lot of time and money to run so if you would like to help out you can do so in the following ways.

1. Make a monetary contribution here (no matter how big or small, all contributions are greatly appreciated)
2. Subscribe to the Modern Guitar Harmony Youtube channel

We greatly appreciate your support as it allows us to keep putting in the long hours on this website for the benefit of all guitarists worldwide. Help us make a difference.