Jordan Tice
by Rebecca Frazier
Many artists struggle to remain inspired, but guitarist Jordan Tice has made it a habit to follow his muse wherever it leads. The musical landscape of Tice’s recordings, 2006 to present, provides a fascinating window into an artistic evolution. On his most recent albums, he’s singing insightful yet lighthearted original songs while backing himself up with intricate fingerstyle country blues guitar stylings. Tice’s late-aughts releases, over a decade ago, brought an intense array of all-instrumental, progressive, grass-influenced music; and before that, in 2006, Tice offered up a plate of traditional flatpicking and Irish-influenced compositions. The entire gamut ushers an experience that is informed, shreddy, and heady—while later swinging full circle to vocal songs that sound relaxed, effortless and just plain funny. Rarely does an artist evolve so drastically in such a short period of time.
What brought about the transformation from a ‘flatpicker’ identity to a songwriting fingerstyle player identity? “I’ve always loved songs, and part of it is feeling,” Tice explains. “I do the next thing, I’m always learning different things and playing with different people. In terms of album output, I take the path of least resistance. I make things with the people around me and make music that I’m interested in listening to at the time. That’s the reason for all the changes; I get into this different thing and try to assimilate it into my style.”
Growing up in Annapolis, Maryland, Tice was surrounded by traditional music, as both of his parents played bluegrass. Yet when Tice started playing guitar at age 12, he started a rock band with his friends and did not take an interest in traditional acoustic music until age 16. “My folks had been trying to get me hooked, and I resisted it for a long time. But I realized I loved the music and the community and all of the people my parents would bring into the house. I finally succumbed to the bluegrass tranquilizer dart,” he jokes. Tice played regionally and then majored in composition at Towson University. “I always wrote music; that was the key thing,” he says.
After a stint in Boston, Tice moved to Nashville in 2015. “All of a sudden I was surrounded by songs,” he says. “I really wrote my first songs in 2015. I finished my first three songs the first few days I moved to Nashville—songs with words. I’d written instrumental music up to that point. So that’s a big part of the change; all of a sudden being surrounded by songs. I’ve always loved songs, and then the combination of those two factors gave me the courage to put myself out there and try to write a song.”
At this time, Tice had been making waves as an accomplished flatpicker in the bluegrass world, and he was touring nationally with the acoustic ‘super group’ Hawktail, which includes fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie. Yet Tice’s 2020 offering, ‘Motivational Speakeasy,’ features his fingerstyle guitar compositions and complex arrangements for his original vocal songs. “Up until 2015, I considered myself an instrumental writer and flatpicker, basically,” he confesses. “I didn’t play fingerstyle or write songs, and those came about at the same time. I was feeling less aligned with the idea of being a bluegrass picker and instrumentalist, and switched my identity to more of a Pan-American guitar person, someone who might be flatpicking, might play fingerstyle, might play a traditional song, might sing a song they wrote; that all started for me in 2015. I was listening to a lot of Doc Watson and Norman Blake,” he muses.
Tice’s natural flow in his artistic vision is in symmetry with his approach to improvisation and composition. He learned the basics of jazz guitar and scale theory in high school and college, and he has been improvising ever since. “In the best-case scenario, in the times I feel like I really surprise myself, I feel like I’m not thinking at all,” he says, describing his improvisational process. He says he is thinking, “but it’s a subconscious, faster way of thinking; you’re letting it out of the way. But there are things I do to fall back on when it doesn’t flow like that.” He allows himself a similar freedom in his compositional process. “Sometimes I have an idea of a concept, sometimes I hear words that could be the genesis for a song, sometimes it all comes at the same time,” he says. “Sometimes I’m slogging it out, doing a million iterations, and sometimes it just pops out on the first try; literally I think the continuum of both extremes and everything in between on every axis is present in all of my albums.”
Tice has taught guitar for many years, and he gives meaningful advice for those aspiring to advance their skills. “This is a powerful thing. You ask yourself—what would it be so cool to be able to do? That could be something very different. Maybe it’s improvising, maybe it’s playing a fiddle tune, or strumming chords and singing, but what do you actually want to do? It seems people often come to educational situations with a nebulous idea of what they want to do—that’s worthless; it’s not focused enough. What gives you visceral pleasure to be able to do? Then really focus on that, break that down, really figure out a way to advance at that in bite-size incremental but consistent steps.”
When asked how he envisions his future, Tice, now 34, exhibits an innate joy and satisfaction with the life he’s crafted for himself. “More of the same. I really love playing music, creating music—maybe no more global pandemics to complicate everything! Just more writing learning, playing, writing, trying to get better, and having an avenue to make records and play for people. I’m quite grateful to have this avenue to do what I do.”
Originally published in Americana Rhythm Music Magazine
