You may recognize guitarist/composer Mark Lettieri from his work with the band Snarky Puppy. Or perhaps from his solo albums and band. Or maybe from the Fearless Flyers project. Or perhaps from his session work with 50 Cent, David Crosby, Kirk Franklin, Snoop Dogg, and many more. Or perhaps from his online instruction. Or…
As you can gather, Lettieri is a busy, eclectic, accomplished musician, composer, session player, artist, producer, and instructor. I was fortunate to be able to sit down with him for an interview. Here are some highlights; check out our complete interview on our YouTube Channel.
You’ve played gospel music, funk, R&B, rock; you played in a country band. How did you go about learning all those styles of music?
There was a time when I was about 19, 20, or 21, where I started to figure out what it meant to be a professional musician. I’m reading about all these players who are session players, freelance players… sidemen. I thought this is really interesting because it seems like a sustainable sort of way to make a living. So I thought that I should figure out how to do a bunch of stuff and just be as convincing in a bunch of styles as I can. I just like being able to play the guitar in as many ways as possible. That led me to learn as much as I could stylistically.
I think at this point, now, because so much of my energy is put in my own music or in a band like Snarky Puppy, where I’m really asked to be myself within the scope of the music, I’m not as much into that dedicated thing, but I was. Really understanding the nuances of how a country player picks or a soul guitar player does a chord embellishment or whatever. So yeah, there was some serious self-discovery. A lot of it wasn’t so much gear based; a lot of it was more just feel and vibe study. Now I’m in this funny place where I’m making my own music, so what do I sound like? [Laughs.]
You’ve said that you’re interested in being a student of music and not a student of guitar. What do you mean by that?
I like understanding why music works. Why certain sounds make me feel the way that they do. I think looking at music beyond my instrument makes me a better musician and makes me a better songwriter. I do instrumental guitar music — guitar is my voice — but I want to make compositions. I want to have an overarching statement beyond six strings. That might mean listening to stuff that’s not guitar based, listening to stuff that’s not even “music.” [Laughs.] Just sounds, whatever. My influences are beyond just guitar, of course. I think everyone, deep down, thinks, yeah, I play guitar, but I like whatever. If it sounds good, it’s good.
You’ve also said that the rhythm is the hard part to nail; the other things aren’t quite as difficult. How can someone develop that?
Listen to non-guitar players. Listen to drummers, bass players, hip-hop, anything that’s by nature rhythmic first. You can listen to rhythms from non-American music. There’s so much stuff out there to check out. I get a lot of my rhythmic stuff from other instruments.
[You develop that by] playing with records and playing in bands with great rhythm sections. I’ve been really blessed that I’ve always had great drummers, bassists, heck, keyboard, guitar players. But I got lucky with drummers, man. But a big part of it was playing to records. Picking a very specific rhythm guitar part out of a record, and just playing that. Trying to keep focused: “I’m just going to play this one little eighth-note groove that Steve Lukather does.” Make yourself part of the band when you’re practicing along with a record.
And listen to the rest of the band! I listen to the kick drum and definitely the hi-hat, the bass line. I really try to listen to everything. Something like the hi-hat will give you a great idea of your syncopation. I listen to that and vocals too. You have to listen to the rhythm, the timing of the vocals. But I also just try to find a space that needs to be filled or that doesn’t need to be filled. I think that’s the real tricky part about playing rhythm guitar is just putting it where it needs to go. You have to fill the right spaces.
You work in diverse ensembles, from your 3-piece band to Snarky Puppy, which has three guitar players and a much larger ensemble. How do you approach them differently?
With my thing, we all have the flexibility and ability to move around the composition and the groove a bit more, and that’s by design. But at the same time, I still have to play the melodies right, I have to handle the right rhythm parts, I have to solo in time with everybody. It’s actually kind of hard. [Laughs.] I have to do a lot of things. With Snarky, the only time we actually have three guitar players is in the studio. The three of us will sit down and say, “Okay, I’ll take this part, you take that part, maybe I won’t do anything until the chorus…” That’s how we build up those tunes. Live, there’s only one guitar player onstage, so I’m playing a part, but then if we go into a section where we’re improvising, I just have to put on my big “wolf ears” and hear everything and find out where I need to play. And that just kind of comes with experience. We’ve been playing together for so long — it’s almost like second nature.
As a player, how do you maintain that vast “library” of music that you draw from?
You’re stressing me out just thinking about it! [Laughs.] I’m constantly going back and brushing up everything. I put everything in a big Logic session, and I just go down tune by tune, playing along. And just hope that I can remember it all. Usually it takes me a couple of gigs to get into the saddle and find my groove with it. Yeah, it’s a ton of information, but also a ton of sounds to remember. It takes some time just getting my tones together. Some of them are tones that I just don’t naturally use. It’s a challenge!