Erhu Phrasing

Ok, now for something completely different:
Stealing phrases from other instruments! 

This is a lot of fun and can give you some really fresh ideas. In this example i stole a short phrase from one of my favourite east asian instruments, the erhu. Take a look at the phrase the lady in the video plays at around 0:38 seconds:

Now try to play that phrase!
Don't just play the notes. Pay attention to the little nuances, like the short pull-offs and hammer-ons and study the vibrato. Quite different from how you play your guitar normally, isn't it?

Once you get a feel for the phrasing try to write your own little piece of music with it. It doesn't have to be traditional chinese music. Here I've recorded a little funky backing. First I play the phrase from the video (My version is far from perfect) then I add some improvised pentatonic phrase mixing the erhu feel with a more traditional electric guitar feel:

Erhu Phrasing 1 by vidi74

The cool thing today with youtube and the likes you can just listen to all kinds of fascinating instruments. If you find something you like, try to learn from it. And remember you don't need to learn a whole song. If there's one thing that strongly appeals to you, learn that, copy it analyze, do whatever youcan and want to get something out of it, which will be usefull for your music.
Have fun experimenting!

PS: If you want to listen to a whole instrumental guitar song, where I tried to incorporate some asian sounds, listen to "Tsingtao Blues" of my CD "Space Fish" on my Myspace page:
www.myspace.com/svidi