All About the Music: Danny Abel on Effective Guitar Practice, Finding Inspiration, & Focusing On the Melody

Danny Abel is a talented and versatile guitarist and producer based in the lively music city of New Orleans. Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, he moved to New Orleans in 2001 to study jazz at the University of New Orleans. Since then, Danny has become a key part of the local scene, playing with all kinds of artists across funk, jazz, R&B, and rock. He’s toured the world with the Grammy-nominated band Tank and the Bangas and shared the stage with big names like Big Freedia, The Revivalists, Stanton Moore, Erica Falls, and Ivan Neville.

Besides performing, Danny co-founded Brown Hound Sounds, a music production company in New Orleans that creates custom scores for film, TV, and commercials — they even won an ADDY Award in 2023 for Best Music in a Commercial! He also leads several original projects, like The Danny Abel Band, the organ trio Abelar, the guitar collective GuitArmy, and the funky 70s-inspired Brazilian group BrasiNola. Danny’s creativity and passion have made him a beloved figure in the New Orleans music community.

🎸 Q & A

What does your current guitar practice routine look like?

This really depends on what I have going on at the time. When I have a ton of gigs that I have to learn music for, then I spend a lot of my practice time listening to that music and going over it/making notes on it, getting tones together, etc.

When I have a little more free time, I like to start by finding some music that inspires me. Whether it's learning chord changes, melody, etc, or learning a solo or specific guitar part, I like to start with the inspiration of finding the thing that has been interesting me when I'm away from the guitar. Then I'll usually start my routine with just playing through some melodies, chords, soloing a little, come back to the melody (and always keep the melody in mind). I like to see where this takes me.

Try to keep your playing musical at all times, and working on songs as opposed to just jumping into technique, speed, or flashy devices can really keep your musicality at the front and center. In my experience, the technique follows this.

What's the best piece of advice you have for other guitar players?

Kind of like what I mentioned about my practice routine, try to maintain musicality in anything you practice. To me one of the best approaches to learning a song, just as an example, let's say a "jazz standard" or something of that sort: start with listening to it. Find a few versions. Try learning as much of the chords and melody as you can by ear. (This can work for any style of music, by the way). If you can, look for some sort of chart for the song, to help if you get stumped on some elements, but start with using your ear to guide you through learning the song. This really helps you internalize it. Spend time seeing how the chords and melody work together. If there's multiple versions of the song, see how different people approach the melody or chords.

When you're comfortable, try to learn a little bit of someone's solo over that same song. Approaching tunes this way really opens the door to understanding how your favorite artists are thinking when they play a song, as opposed to learning it in a vacuum of thinking "ok 7th fret on this string here and then 9th fret here". It gets you realizing, "ok, they're playing the 3rd of this chord and now the 5th of this chord," or whatever it may be. To me, the more you can grasp the bigger picture, the more you'll be prepared for any situation that may come your way, and the more you can maintain musicality throughout what you do, as opposed to sounding like you're running an exercise when you're playing in a real life situation.

What’s one technique, habit, or concept that helped you level up as a player?

On top of trying to remember it's all about the music all the time, also, try to realize how to stay relaxed in the moment of playing. I know this is much easier said than done, and I'm not saying I do it all the time. Sometimes you may find yourself on stage with some really intense players and you get pulled into that and it makes you feel tense. This is totally normal. But being able to realize these situations can help you to also find ways to adapt.

Listening to a big array of players helps me with this, too. Whereas one person may approach a song just burning out the gate, other people may approach the same thing with less notes. There's infinite ways to play, and the more you get to know your own playing, which is related to your own taste in music, the more you can relax into what you want to do when you're in musical situations.

What gear (guitar/amp/pedals) are you using lately—and why?

This is always evolving, but I'll start with pedals. Just for the sake of not carrying a ton of stuff, I have a pretty small board right now. I have an MXR Phase 90, Analogman King Of Tone, this Japanese drive pedal I got called the Organic Sounds Hades, and then an Eventide H90.

I do own a bunch of other pedals and sometimes swap out some stuff but that's where I'm at right now. Then, for my amp, I have this '64 Vibrolux clone made by a local New Orleans builder named Paul Webb. He has a small shop in New Orleans and builds incredible stuff. He calls it Webb Amplification.

I have probably 3 main gigging guitars right now, my Fender American Strat, a Fender Mexican '72 Tele Deluxe Reissue that I've modified quite a bit - Lollar Pickups, and a Stetsbar whammy, and then I have a 1971 Greco SA 500, which is a hollowbody with no F-holes and a really small body. I also have about 15 other guitars but those are the main three I've been using regularly.

What are the most effective ways you've found to market yourself or your band?

I'm terrible at self promotion...but I think as far as New Orleans, it's such a social town, a big part of it is just getting out and getting to know people. I'm not usually a front man so maybe I don't have to promote as much as some people, I'm more going for calls for gigs. So hanging out on music scenes that you wanna be involved with helps. Other than that, I do have a website and Instagram, but I'm not always great about being consistent with them.

Are there any books, albums, or videos you recommend to other guitarists?

This is tough. I've had some great teachers, which has been a huge help. I studied with David Newsam in high school, who teaches at Berklee and a few other universities, and then in college I had these two teachers, Hank Mackie and Steve Masakowski, who are two of the best guitarists I've been around.

I've also learned a ton from people I've gigged with over the years, and just from listening to a lot of people. I know there's books I've used, too, but I'm trying to think of their names. I'm not exactly sure off the top of my head. I remember Pat Martino had a pretty cool book that explains how he converts whatever chord he's on to the minor equivalent to be able to translate his lines to different harmonies. That got me thinking of ways you could do that with other harmonies (take major lines for example and move them over other harmonies). Other than that, I can't recall specifically what books I've used. But these days the sources are endless, and with things like YouTube where you can slow down the speed of recordings, it's pretty crazy what you can learn. The best tool is listening a lot and checking out the people that inspire you.

How do you approach creativity—writing, improvising, or building a solo?

This could really come from a lot of directions. Sometimes I'll sit down with the intention of writing a certain way, but a lot of times it is just like I'll be playing and I'll do something, maybe even make a mistake, that'll send me in a different direction and I'll run with that. I have a company I started with a friend, too. We call it Brown Hound Sounds and we make a lot of music for video - TV, ads, etc. That can be a cool way to get inspired, like watch something that's been filmed and then try to figure out how to score to the mood of what's happening. It's kind of endless possibilities of how to approach this.

As far as improvising/building a solo, a lot of that depends on who you're playing with too. Sometimes you think you're gonna come out the gate swinging hard but suddenly the drummer and band drops it way down and you're whole preconceived approach is shattered. So I try to just respond to the vibe that's happening while also keeping it moving in the direction I wanna go.

What’s one lesson you wish you'd learned earlier as a guitarist?

Never worry about trying to impress people. This almost never leads to anything cool. Find the music you enjoy the most and follow that. At the same time, always push yourself to expand. Just because you don't like a particular style or sound at first, doesn't mean it's not worth checking out. But if you're always seeking new ways to grow as a musician, while also trying to stay as true to your own musicality as possible, people will be impressed.

What’s been your biggest challenge as a guitarist and musician?

I have no idea haha. Maybe volume. That's an issue that goes beyond guitar, but I think especially for electric instruments it's more of an issue than you'd think. Like, if you're practicing at home, you can balance your room volume, amp volume, etc. You can hear every note you're playing, you can point your amp right at you and turn down your stereo or whatever you're playing along with. Everything sits in the mix just how you want it. That pretty much always goes out the window as soon as you get in a real situation with other people.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I don't love using in-ear monitors, but I also don't like the tone of my amp coming through monitors on stage. I also hate being told I'm too loud or seeing people cringe at my volume. I have no idea what the solution is, some spaces it just works better than others.

What’s next for you musically—any projects or goals you're working on?

I've been loving 7-string Brazilian style guitar, and been working on that a lot when I have the time. But otherwise, my main focus isn't so much guitar related, but focused on my music production business where we do music for video, TV, ads, but also produce music for other artists, etc. This is a lot of fun because it's a lot of music writing, but also factors in so much - midi sounds, textures, moods, finding the right approach to the right situation, etc.

And then for my more guitar related stuff, I am always writing music for myself, and have this group I helped create in New Orleans called the GuitArmy. I don't even know how to describe it, in my mind it's more of a community effort than a band. We do gigs, but my long term goal is just to get guitarists playing together and learning from each other. Guitarists don't get to work together often, most bands only have one guitar. So it's a chance to nerd out on each other's pedals or technique or whatever. Basically it's this interview in a live form with tons of guitarists together. And then when we perform it can be up to like 10 guitarists on stage figuring out how to stay musical and not annoying. Which might be a lot of NOT playing. That's a good lesson for us to all to learn.

⚡ Lightning Round

Desert island guitar and amp?

If I were on an island I'd just want my 7-string nylon guitar, no need for an amp then, just acoustic on the beach, enjoying the scenery, hoping that I can find enough food and water on the island to survive.

What guitarist should everyone know about?

Man...I'm so bad at these things, let's just say Wes Montgomery. But there's probably at least 1,000 more.