Electric guitar => Stale?

rcaz · 29-10-2010 12:13AM #1

I've been thinking about this kind of thing a good bit lately, and at the risk of sounding arrogant or elitist or anything, I'd like to see what others think.

I've been trying to get my guitar playing to sound less and less like guitars usually sound (without being overly-oblique or weird-for-the-sake-of-weird or alienating potential listeners or anything) for the last 2 or 3 years, and the more I think about ideas and try realise them, the more I realise how stale the electric guitar has been in the public domain for the last 40 years or so?

Guys like Jimi Hendrix, Slash, Kirk Hammett, all the stereotypic Mr. Rock Guy guitarists are all over the place, when that kind of playing hasn't been going anywhere for a while, and guys like Christopher Willits and Ronald Jones barely even break through the barrier of total obscurity. There are one or two exceptions, like Jonny Greenwood or Matt Bellamy or someone, but even that doesn't seem like much. People might see Jonny Greenwood playing into the Max/MSP stutter patch and think, "Oh wow, how cool is that guy!", but he's barely scratching the surface of what can be done with today's technology, and there are so many people pushing the instrument and technology to its limits that never get heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyKCwDJ7ZUc

Even in the 80s when digital gear was just getting sophisticated and things were on a whole new cutting-edge, it didn't really catch on did it? Things like the Eventide Harmonizers have such amazing potential for new sounds and textures, and now, 30 years later, they're nowhere near commonplace?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN7lEAShGjM

I got an EBow the other day, and when I started playing around with it and my pedal board, I started wondering why all these sounds still seem so new - the gear's been around for ages, none of that is new, why don't more people go for this?

At the moment I'm really gassing over a nice audio interface so I can play my guitar into my pedal board, into my laptop, back into the pedal board and into the amp. I'd use Ableton and eventually Pure Data/Max/MSP to process the guitar. I can't even count the amount new things that could come from it, and I'm just a amateur musician gear nerd who wants to make some cool sounds, imagine what a professional musician/progammer could do.

I hope I did a good enough job of not sounding like a wanker there. I don't mean this at all in a 'I'm deadly, why isn't everyone like me' kind of way, just wondering why the instrument I fell in love with 10 years ago doesn't seem to be going anywhere new a lot of the time.

So, er, why are so many people content with playing/listening to overdriven minor pentatonics?

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 01:22AM

Yeah I'd definitely agree with your point. On the other hand you've overlooked some of the obvious. Tom Morello and Omar Rodriguez immediately spring to mind over Bellamy who would be more tame than you're giving him credit for... Squealy fuzzes in his playing moreso than anything else.

I reckon the reason it hasn't taken off as much as we'd like it to is because there's just not the market for it essentially. People like classic rock because it's easy to listen to and because it "makes sense". Retrospectively... Contemporary classical is hated by a lot of people because it's just being different for the sake of it and it loses all the appeal from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic etc.

I haven't really played around with midi or any audio interfaces at all but I have built up a good few pedals and absolutely love playing around with them and creating new sounds with them. I reckon the way forward with it is to not be painfully obscure or as you were afraid of being seen as - wankerish. It is possible to fit fresh sounds into music that still has appeal to more than just the painfully Indie kids who like it just because it's different. I always try and spice up my sound a bit while writing but not to the point where it's in your face.

Out of curiosity - in what context do you think it would be released? Instrumental stuff or in a more conventional band setting? And how do you mean new sounds? Again - not that I have much experience with it but is Midi not usually modeling other sounds?

And lastly, I reckon people are happy with overdrivin minor pentatonics because they learned them early and said "F*ck me, I'm savage at guitar", learned all the AC/DC solos and are perfectly content with it. At the same time - I'm not opposed to a bit of Angus from time to time. Or Yngwie... And I'm going to have to defend Hendrix there too - He was cutting edge at the time. Plus, he's the tits.

rcaz · 29-10-2010 01:45AM

Aaaaahhh! You get me!

I can't believe I didn't think of Tom Morello actually, he was one of my favourite guitarists for a long time. I mentioned Matt Bellamy because he took the slightly-weird-noise thing into the extremely popular domain. I don't actually rate him much.

I'm totally with you on the contemporary classical stuff. I'm a music student, I'm listening to a lot of Ligeti and Xenakis lately, and I love it. It annoys me that such invention is so possible, even in classical where the instruments are almost the same all the time (I haven't gotten into Xenakis' tape stuff or any Musique Concrete or anything yet), while popular music isn't attached to any particular set of timbres, and the classical world still gets all the amazing inventions.

How do I think it would be released? My dream is to make a kind of music that can take all the amazing artistic heights that the classical world has reached, and rationalise them into tunes. I hate all the elitism and perceived inaccessibility of the classical world, but I still absolutely love the music. Now if you could have thousands of teenagers jumping around and singing along to music that's at that creative front, well I think that would be just perfect

And as for MIDI modeling stuff, MIDI is just a protocol for controlling digital equipment. So if I had a MIDI pickup on my guitar, I'm just sending numbers into a computer. Those numbers can control anything! What I really want to do is have a microphone over the drum kit or in front of a singer or something, record samples live, then trigger those samples by playing guitar into the computer. Or use MIDI data from the guitar to control effects on the guitar or something. Yeah, you can have it for more basic stuff, like replacing the guitar voice with a synthesiser patch or something, which is still really cool, but doesn't grab me straight away. Seems like it'd be tougher to get that to not sound cheesey

As for Hendrix, again, I just used him as an arbitrary example. I know he was a very important man in the development of popular music, he was properly searching for new things. I guess maybe I wonder, why do so many people who were inspired by great innovators like him never try to innovate themselves?

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 07:46AM

El Pr0n wrote: »

How do I think it would be released? My dream is to make a kind of music that can take all the amazing artistic heights that the classical world has reached, and rationalise them into tunes. I hate all the elitism and perceived inaccessibility of the classical world, but I still absolutely love the music. Now if you could have thousands of teenagers jumping around and singing along to music that's at that creative front, well I think that would be just perfect

Ha, well everyone's dream in music is to have thousands of people revelling in our creativity - but do you mean you'd like to stand on stage with a guitar, pedal board and a computer and wow people with interesting sounds maybe using a loop station or do you mean adding interesting guitar sounds to a band format?

And I never got to watch those video's last night but at least the first one is not my kinda thing at all. That's pretty much what I'd call noise for the sake of being different/obscure... I think in terms of pushing the envelope with guitar sounds there is a limit to how far you can take those "sounds" and still keep people interested. For me, ring modulators and the likes are right out. Hate the yokes. When I'm trying to create sounds I definitely still have melody/harmony or at least basic tonality in mind. I'd see the sounds I'm making as an aspect of the music moreso than the focus of the music.

Just off the top of my head - If you take a Boss Phase Shifter on the step function and threw a harsh tremolo after it you'd get a pretty cool effect that isn't heard much, but is still "pleasing" to the ear (as subjective as that is you know what I'm saying). I love using my Harmonist (so much that I bought a second one just in case anything happened to it because they don't make them any more) because you get a genuine chorus effect that you really don't get off chorus pedals and once you layer that with other effects things start to get kinda mental... For example, my band are in the middle of writing a song and for a lot of it the pedals that are on simultaneously are: Compression (very compressed), Sub Octave (50/50 dry and sub), MicroSynth, Harmonist (5th below, 6th above), Compression again (a lot more subtle), Phaser (with a really slow rate), EQ (with a high bass) and Delay (standard slapback kinda thing). And I'm only playing natural harmonics on the guitar. I can guarantee you've never heard a guitar sound like that does before but at the same time its not difficult to listen to. You know what I mean?

rcaz · 29-10-2010 08:26AM

Yes, I'd rather be in a band.

That Jonny Greenwood video was supposed to get that reaction. I think it's really cool, but not much musical value to it - he's only doing really basic 'oh wow cool' stuff with it.

Ring modulators are great! Some people use them wrong, and totally destroy their guitars with them, but used right, perfect.

And yeah, I get your last point. I think of my pedal board as a modular synthesiser, with a guitar instead of oscillators. I think a lot of that has to do with changing your own ideas of what a guitar should sound like.

Rigsby · 29-10-2010 08:46AM

IMO if people concentrated more on the actual music and less on effects etc, they might see a difference. There are jazz saxophonists out there who are pushing the musical envelope without any other help from effects or gadgets. The guitar itself is just a conduit or tool, so the fresh ideas must come from the player.

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 08:49AM

Rigsby wrote: »

IMO if people concentrated more on the actual music and less on effects etc, they might see a difference. There are jazz saxophonists out there who are pushing the musical envelope without any other help from effects or gadgets. The guitar itself is just a conduit, so the ideas must come from the player.

Fair enough. There are guitarists out there who can do the same thing. They're not really comparable. They are two completely different aims/goals. And if you're talking about creativity... That's pretty much been the central point of the thread so far!

Rigsby · 29-10-2010 08:53AM

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

Fair enough. There are guitarists out there who can do the same thing. They're not really comparable. They are two completely different aims/goals. And if you're talking about creativity... That's pretty much been the central point of the thread so far!

Basically, I was refering to the title of the thread, where the OP seemed to be blaming the guitar.

strobe · 29-10-2010 09:05AM

I think your overlooking something fairly obvious Pron. Not everyone can afford to splash out on a load of gear to experiment with. In fact 99% of guitarists can afford themselves a half decent guitar and ok amp and maybe a one or if they are lucky two effects pedals. So if a guitarist and band get signed then they are signed by the label to create the kind of music the label heard them playing when they signed them. Which in 99% of cases is the lead guitarist playing with a bit of distortion and delay and maybe a wah pedal at the absolute most.

I often see people listing their gear out and sometimes if you added up the cost of the stuff they list you are talking thousands of euros worth of kit. These people often don't realise they are a tiny tiny minority.

So when you think about how few guitarists get a break in the industry and then how few of the ones that do ever had the opportunity to play around with anything beyond the most cut and dry basic technology and gear in their lives you realise why so few guitarist emerge that have the knowledge of or experience in the tech to develop their sound using it.

joolsthedog · 29-10-2010 09:10AM

What a load of tosh!

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 09:19AM

strobe wrote: »

I think your overlooking something fairly obvious Pron. Not everyone can afford to splash out on a load of gear to experiment with. In fact 99% of guitarists can afford themselves a half decent guitar and ok amp and maybe a one or if they are lucky two effects pedals. So if a guitarist and band get signed then they are signed by the label to create the kind of music the label heard them playing when they signed them. Which in 99% of cases is the lead guitarist playing with a bit of distortion and delay and maybe a wah pedal at the absolute most.

I often see people listing their gear out and sometimes if you added up the cost of the stuff they list you are talking thousands of euros worth of kit. These people often don't realise they are a tiny tiny minority.

So when you think about how few guitarists get a break in the industry and then how few of the ones that do ever had the opportunity to play around with anything beyond the most cut and dry basic technology and gear in their lives you realise why so few guitarist emerge that have the knowledge of or experience in the tech to develop their sound using it.

Nope I'd disagree 100%. Yeah most guitarists start out like that. I'm not exactly rolling in money but I'm a thrifty f*cker. I've never paid full price for a single piece of my equipment and its built up over the years. The thing is, if you're passionate about something and its your main interest it's not that expensive at all. Take any other hobby and it'll work out just as expensive really. For the price of a new football or rugby jersey you can go on adverts and find a good pedal. And that's just hobbies. There are a lot of aspiring musicians out there trying hard and investing a lot into trying to make it professionally. And they don't do that when they're still learning. When it gets to that stage you will have naturally accumulated a certain amount of whatever takes your interest in guitar

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 09:26AM

All this being said - There's a lot to be said for straight up guitar, lead and amp playing too!

But lets not overkill the blues wankery :P

strobe · 29-10-2010 09:55AM

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

Nope I'd disagree 100%. Yeah most guitarists start out like that. I'm not exactly rolling in money but I'm a thrifty f*cker. I've never paid full price for a single piece of my equipment and its built up over the years. The thing is, if you're passionate about something and its your main interest it's not that expensive at all. Take any other hobby and it'll work out just as expensive really. For the price of a new football or rugby jersey you can go on adverts and find a good pedal. And that's just hobbies. There are a lot of aspiring musicians out there trying hard and investing a lot into trying to make it professionally. And they don't do that when they're still learning. When it gets to that stage you will have naturally accumulated a certain amount of whatever takes your interest in guitar

How old are you, if you don't mind me asking Paddy? How old are most guitarists when the band get's signed? Building stuff up gradually over the years is all well and good but you have to remember you are talking about 18-21 year old guitarists a lot of the time here.

I'm not saying a financial barrier to experimenting with the tech out there is the only reason for what Pron is talking about but it's a fairly major one.

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 09:58AM

I'm 20! Been playing since I was about 12

Ash.J.Williams · 29-10-2010 10:01AM

A few words from sound perfectionist Gerodie walker from Killing Joke.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]An unusual choice maybe, but Geordie followed tin the footsteps of Elvis Presley sideman Scotty Moore, by choosing as his main guitar the Gibson ES 295, which is finished in a rather fetching gold lacquer. "It's a big fat semi-acoustic, made in 1952, with a trapeze tailpiece. If you hit a chord and press down on the bridge, it bends all six notes at once, that's probably one of the odder aspects of my technique. If you want to get technical - things like augmented fourths and sevenths have a certain unnerving effect, a bit like a tingle up the spine. I go for a lot of those in my chord structures, just for the excitement of it."[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Back to that Gibson ES 295; why such a choice?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]"I was getting a very raw sound from my solids, strident if you like. Connie Plank once described my playing as sounding like an orchestra turned up full blast through a radio ... I wasn't getting enough of the music, I was missing a certain bell-like quality which I wanted to hear. I thought I'd buy a semi-acoustic for this, put it through my stereo amps, put a contact pickup on it, and mix the two signals. I tried it once and it sounded horrible! Eventually, I was at Peter Cook's in Ealing, looking for a guitar called the Gibson ES 225T, which is a thinner version of the ES 295, anyway, he had an ES 295 and I fell in love with it. This old guy had been playing it locally in jazz clubs. I took it home, plugged it into the Burmans, and the sound was there - a full resonance, and totally bell-like with the sustain on it through 250 watts of amplification in stereo. You can feel the thing vibrating, it's a huge sound. I tune the guitar in D (below bottom E) and my strings are really thick, I use an 062 on the bottom, and because of the way I tune the guitar, the strings still have the same response as a normal guitar would. The amplification makes the bottom end sound unreal. The guitar cost me £660, and I've seen them going for a grand. The paint's all worn off the neck of mine, but the sound of the guitar is a lot sharper, a lot clearer than other one's I've heard. Some time later I got a call from that shop, and they said they'd found me an ES 225 that'd been under this guy's bed since 1958. It was just like it had come out of the factory, absolutely unmarked, I still haven't sussed that yet, I want to try to get a graphic for it, it's never been used, the pickups are really sharp, it sounds like a Les Paul, and I'm not getting quite the same bottom end as I am on the ES 295."[/FONT]

The sound coming from his amps in the Button factory were indeed unreal.

strobe · 29-10-2010 10:05AM

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

I'm 20! Been playing since I was about 12

Seriously? Fair play, have you been working since you were 12?

quicklickpaddy · 29-10-2010 10:07AM

Nope. Summer jobs here and there which covered a lot of it. Birthday presents/money. Bar drink, it's been pretty much my only expense! Got a real job 3 months ago and have had pretty bad GAS ever since :rolleyes:

**Vai** · 29-10-2010 11:07AM

I get what you're saying Pron but I disagree with the need for effects to make it sound original. Guys like Ron Thal and Mattias Eklundh rarely use anything more than an amp and some imagination and somehow make their guitars sound unlike anybody else. I dont think the electric guitar could ever be called stale when there are talented people out there still making it sound as good (and better in my opinion) as the days of Hendrix and co.

And whats wrong with the 80's?? I love that ****!

rcaz · 29-10-2010 11:14AM

This thread is doing way better than I thought

I'm in college at the moment, don't have long on the computer but I'll have a proper read/think and post later on.

Just wanted to say one thing; I know that following new technology isn't the only way to go about sounding original, but at the moment, it's the one that I'm interested in. I know exactly what you mean, Rigsby and **Vai**, but there's no 'right' way of finding new territory and sounding original. Maybe I'll be free jazz/aleatoric guy some day, but right now, I'm into Autechre and Willits

Malice · 29-10-2010 12:03PM

joolsthedog wrote: »

What a load of tosh!

I'm not sure if you're joking here but just to be clear: If you haven't got anything constructive to add to this thread, please don't bother posting.

darrenw5094 · 29-10-2010 12:32PM

I am not against technology or pedals etc., but sometimes these new pedals cross a line in my view. There can be a fine line between playing the guitar and not playing the guitar. Sometimes pedals make the guitarist cross that line. The pedal is doing 95% or the work and the player is doing the bare minimum.

I agree on a point earlier, that a genuinely great guitar player can do the business with no pedals. That takes time, tedious practice and discipline. Probably an unhealthy obsession at times.

Rigsby · 29-10-2010 01:06PM

El Pr0n wrote: »

Just wanted to say one thing; I know that following new technology isn't the only way to go about sounding original, but at the moment, it's the one that I'm interested in. I know exactly what you mean, Rigsby and **Vai**, but there's no 'right' way of finding new territory and sounding original.

Nothing wrong with following new technology in your quest for originality, but this is supposed to come from within the musician, and no amount of technology can make up for that. IMO the "only" way to find originality is through perseverance and dedication.

ceekay74 · 29-10-2010 01:15PM

Rigsby wrote: »

IMO if people concentrated more on the actual music and less on effects etc, they might see a difference. There are jazz saxophonists out there who are pushing the musical envelope without any other help from effects or gadgets. The guitar itself is just a conduit or tool, so the fresh ideas must come from the player.

Good point, theres always room for new sounds and effects but the musical idea must be interesting. I seen a few bands being innovative with sounds, loops and the like, but the audience is largely apathetic or lost to what they are trying. I suppose some people just like what they like and can be lazy about appreciating something new, some people percieve the artists as 'tossers' for their look/attitude, and some just don't care about music to bother listening!

rcaz · 29-10-2010 01:19PM

darrenw5094 wrote: »

I am not against technology or pedals etc., but sometimes these new pedals cross a line in my view. There can be a fine line between playing the guitar and not playing the guitar. Sometimes pedals make the guitarist cross that line. The pedal is doing 95% or the work and the player is doing the bare minimum.

That's an interesting point, but I dunno how much I agree. I know what you mean about a pedal providing almost all of the sound, and that can make musicians get lazy. Some pedals can get plug-and-play cool sounds out of the box. But then again, what if the musician puts the work in in the preparation stages spending months imagining sounds, working out all the logistics and refining the equipment and techniques to make the music they dreamed up, so that when it comes to doing it on stage, little effort is required? I mean, it's always cool to see a guy giving it socks on stage, sweating buckets and concentrating really hard on the music, but I think it's cooler to see someone performing the end result of months of planning and creative imagination.

Rigsby · 29-10-2010 01:28PM

El Pr0n wrote: »

That's an interesting point, but I dunno how much I agree. I know what you mean about a pedal providing almost all of the sound, and that can make musicians get lazy. Some pedals can get plug-and-play cool sounds out of the box. But then again, what if the musician puts the work in in the preparation stages spending months imagining sounds, working out all the logistics and refining the equipment and techniques to make the music they dreamed up, so that when it comes to doing it on stage, little effort is required? I mean, it's always cool to see a guy giving it socks on stage, sweating buckets and concentrating really hard on the music, but I think it's cooler to see someone performing the end result of months of planning and creative imagination.

That's one way of looking at how to play, listen to, or generally approach music. Another way is the spontaneous approach. A natural musician should not have to plan in advance what he "says" through music. Music is supposed to be a language, and we dont plan in advance what we are going to say tonight, when going out to meet friends. This happens spontaneously in conversation... like any good music should.

rcaz · 29-10-2010 01:50PM

Rigsby wrote: »

That's one way of looking at how to play, listen to, or generally approach music. Another way is the spontaneous approach. A natural musician should not have to plan in advance what he "says" through music. Music is supposed to be a language, and we dont plan in advance what we are going to say tonight, when going out to meet friends. This happens spontaneously in conversation... like any good music should.

But if you follow that logic, you could end up thinking there are right and wrong ways of doing this. Autechre probably take months to create one track, but Autechre are also amazingly original, inventive and groundbreaking. Not spontaneous, but an idea conceived and worked towards and finished with a lot of hard work and lateral thinking. And there's nothing wrong with that.

You say music is a language, but the tonal language that most people understand most, in our culture at least, has been created over hundreds of years. There's nothing spontaneous about the language of western tonality.

ceekay74 · 29-10-2010 01:58PM

El Pr0n wrote: »

I mean, it's always cool to see a guy giving it socks on stage, sweating buckets and concentrating really hard on the music, but I think it's cooler to see someone performing the end result of months of planning and creative imagination.

Really? Is it not a shortcut to a perfect performance?

rcaz · 29-10-2010 02:13PM

ceekay74 wrote: »

Really? Is it not a shortcut to a perfect performance?

Hmm, if I get you right, you mean doing a track with Autechre methodology is a little like cheating? I know what you mean, it could be like that, but if you look into just how far Autechre in particular are pushing things, I don't think so at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwtVJ6OFlR8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4OvHLdnRI8

In that second one, no rhythm pattern is ever repeated. That kind of super-intense programming is what I'm talking about. I think the first one has some generative programming to it as well.

And of course, with respect to guitar;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK2dCNacvNU

Rigsby · 29-10-2010 02:15PM

El Pr0n wrote: »

Not spontaneous, but an idea conceived and worked towards and finished with a lot of hard work and lateral thinking. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I never said there was anything wrong with it, merely that the spontaneous approach was another way of interpreting music.

Lets go back to the jazz saxist or musician for a minute. Over a four night concert, he might play the exact same "songs" each night. But because of the "conversation" he is having with the other musicians in the band (i.e. listening and responding to their musical ideas ), each piece of music will sound different from the previous night, and these musicians are using the language of western tonality. To me that is far more rewarding.

Granted jazz is unique this way, but IMO if more musicians from other genres adopted this approach, even in a small way, it would be more rewarding for both performer(s) and listeners alike.

Rigsby · 29-10-2010 02:24PM

El Pr0n wrote: »

There's nothing spontaneous about the language of western tonality.

The spontaneity comes from the musician's use of the "language", not the language itself.

rcaz · 29-10-2010 02:26PM

Rigsby wrote: »

I never said there was anything wrong with it, merely that the spontaneous approach was another way of interpreting music.

Lets go back to the jazz saxist or musician for a minute. Over a four night concert, he might play the exact same "songs" each night. But because of the "conversation" he is having with the other musicians in the band (i.e. listening and responding to their musical ideas ), each piece of music will sound different from the previous night, and these musicians are using the language of western tonality. To me that is far more rewarding.

Granted jazz is unique this way, but IMO if more musicians from other genres adopted this approach, even in a small way, it would be more rewarding for both performer(s) and listeners alike.

I definitely agree with you on your last point, but even then, how many scales and progressions do you have to study and practice, and for how long do you have to work, before you can play a convincing solo in a jazz tune? It's totally improvised, but I don't think it's totally spontaneous. The soloist will know exactly when the next chord is coming and where it's going to go, what scales will be appropriate and which intervals are most important.

Electric guitar => Stale?

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