Electric guitar => Stale?

El Pr0n wrote: »

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.

Granted there is nearly always a rough sketch ( as in chords etc) for the jazz musician to interpret. As I said, the spontaneity comes in how a soloist brings his own original ideas, in this case, to a chord progression. A lot of times, a band leader/writer will trust the musician's intuition and experience to do his music justice.

I've got beef with all of the below, but just as a general point regarding the whole topic - trying to make new sounds and exercise creativity in the sounds
as well as/instead of the melody isn't about proving to people that you're a great guitarist. I don't think guitarists capabilities are really what we're talking about here. It's not "cheating" or "taking shortcuts". There's more to creativity than minimalism - it really does not have to be just a guitar and an amp. Why limit yourself?

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.

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.

Again, why is it about a showcase of your technical guitar ability? Or, if to suit your taste more - why can a new and interesting sound just not be a part of your repertoire? Are you saying that just because you strive to get an interesting sound you can't be a genuinely great guitar player? Or that if you were one, there is no need to improve/experiment with your sound?

Rigsby wrote: »

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.

I've seen people get very very creative/original with pedals. Just because there's computers used in no way means that it's ready made to just plug in and play. If you hadn't said it so nicely people could take offence to that! They (I) spend a lot of time and effort trying new things. I dedicate myself to it and I persevere with it... I don't see the logic in claiming that there is no originality to it if the whole point is trying something that hasn't really been done before?

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.

Problem here is a clash of genres. You are very much fixed on Jazz here. Improv jazz at that. There are very few other genres that take the spontaneous approach, especially nowadays. If a band walked into a studio in that mindset they'd be shot.

I genuinely don't mean to sound like a prick but as much as you seem to care about originality you don't seem very open minded at all to broaden your scope of music appreciation!

ceekay74 wrote: »

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

Not at all! I have to practice with my pedals to get it right. At some stages I'm just tap dancing on the pedalboard turning on and off the right pedals for a part in a song - something which would be No. 1 on the list against all this playing around with pedals. In my opinion, it's just adding to the performance. Adding more to what you have to do.

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.

Ok, lets say the musician was Jazz master. If he had that credibility under his belt and then started playing with his sound would you look down on it the same way? Wouldn't that be more rewarding for performers and listeners too?

/rant.
Phew! Sorry about that lads...

darrenw5094 wrote: »

I didn't say limit yourself, but sometimes the sounds created from the pedals, don't involve guitar playing. But new pedals sounds can be cool.

But why does that matter?

darrenw5094 wrote: »

It matters to a lot of people who spend hours practicing at home, but i suppose it doesn't matter to other musicians.;)

I have spent hours practising at home. I can sweep, play Malmsteen and Satch and all that lark. Pretty sure I'm sensing a bit of snobbery here but don't look down your nose at an aspect of guitar playing that you've just completely disregarded

Great thread btw, very interesting points being thrown across both sides of the debate.
I think we're conditioned to appreciate certain sounds and tonal qualities from the guitar, within a certain range of course. And that's what appeals to most guitar players and guitar music fans. I watched the first youtube vid you posted Pron and it sounded like an amusement arcade, like 100 pac-man machines being played at the same time. It didn't appeal to me in any way.
However I do agree that the guitar is an incredibly versatile instrument and still has vast untapped potential for creativity beyond what we currently value as being appealing musically. I've got a Boss ME50 multi-effects pedal and a Zoom g2.1u and I'd consider learning how to use those, or mess about with them, like learning another instrument. I'd imagine that over time guitarists who think like yourself and question the status quo will be the ones to push the boundaries of what the Guitar as an instrument can achieve and inspire future generations to produce new and innovative musical styles.

Myself, I just enjoy rocking the sh1t out

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the issue or problem is.

If the OP wants to create novel, unique and experimental soundscapes, using the guitar as a MIDI tool or whatever, for then fair play to him. But why worry about the fact that others don’t want to do so, or try to inflate the issue into some “state of the discipline” dilemma?

To an extent, it does actually come across as a sort of (inverse?) snobbery, and the talk of “blues wankery” and the implied pejorative connotations of the phrase “overdriven minor pentatonic” bear this out.

That said, I think that the history of guitar playing shows that radical changes in how a relatively simple instrument can sound and what it can do happen all the time. Maybe not in the last few years, but it will happen. And the fact that the OP is questioning this can only be a good thing for the guitar. Remember, for some in the ‘40s and ‘50s, amps were newfangled things that were not to be trusted...

However, the thing is, live and let live. Why worry about the fact that some guy gets his rocks off playing bad AC/DC covers in Ballyhaunis? I often bemoan the fact that cover/wedding bands make truckloads more money than me gig-wise, but I have to acknowledge the fact that (a) there’s a demand for them, (b) they have put the time and effort into (sometimes) perfecting what they do, and (c) I wouldn’t be interested in doing that myself and (d) I’m not in this for the money. So I say, fair play to them. Even while I bemoan them. But I play what I can play, and I have fun doing it, and I like what I do. That’s enough for me. But that doesn’t deny the right of the next guy to go crazy flanging his ring modulator.

I’ve used the example of Jimmy Page and his theremin usage before on these pages. Innovative at the time? Check. Novel soundscapes? Check. But how many of us actually look forward to that middle bit in "Whole Lotta Love", or the ridiculous “violin bow” bit in the live version of "Dazed and Confused"?

My point has been made before by previous posters: it’s about the song, the tune, and the context of both. Innovative sounds, outside the context of a song that you like, come close to being just noise, albeit noise that might be quite interesting. Sabbath did this on a couple of albums. But would you press replay?

Keith Richards apparently said that there are only two types of music: good and bad. He was wrong. There are two types, but they’re music you like and music you don’t, with a grey area of transition in between. Why get upset if someone likes the music you don’t? Or vice versa?

If every guitarist in the world was doing the new, interesting and innovative soundscape thing, then it wouldn’t really be new. It’d just be the current orthodoxy, and there’d be underground clubs where nerdy men got together to play minor pentatonics through non-modelling amps...

To my mind, karaoke phenomena like the X-Factor are more pernicious to the public acceptance of musical creativity than some guy who just wants to play 12-bar boogie that even Quo would be ashamed of.

In sum, the guitar is just a tool.

Shakespeare + quill = something we want to read again.
Capote + typewriter = something we want to read again.
Cecilia Ahern + word processor + severe editorial intervention = ah, you get my point...

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

I have spent hours practising at home. I can sweep, play Malmsteen and Satch and all that lark. Pretty sure I'm sensing a bit of snobbery here but don't look down your nose at an aspect of guitar playing that you've just completely disregarded

But can you play an E.:)

El Pr0n wrote: »

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

I've never heard Autechre before. Didn't like it personally, but that aside, can an intense mess like that be performed live?

El Pr0n wrote: »

You say an intense mess, but you've never listened to it before now. In that same way that someone who's never listened to hard bop or free atonality or serialism wouldn't be able to get it first time. If you stick with it you start to understand it more.

And of course it can be performed live.

I take your point, but first impressions last, at least with the vast majority of people.

Call me ignorant, but couldn't all that be performed 'live' with the touch of 1 button while the artist looks busy?

Honestly I skipped thru that first track, waiting to hear guitar playing. Its not my type of music at all but each to his weird drummy sounding own

Furthest out Ive gone is free style jazz and stuff like John Zorn. And Im not a big Zorn fan, specially the stuff with basically no music in it. Personally Id prefer to hear a guy and an acoustic instead of music that sounds like noise just for the sake of it. Doesnt need to be all sweepy and technical (or just plain strange) long as it sounds nice.

All music is beautiful when u think about it tho

I don't think stale is the issue with guitar playing, only whether or not it speaks to people on some level.

There are plenty of traditional players/bands who I really like because they do what they do well, it ain't (re)inventing the wheel but it conveys "something" which appeals to me.

There are plenty of experimental guitarists who also convey "something" albeit a different sort of "something" from more traditional approaches.

And then there are those players, they can be either traditional or experimental in their approach, who don't manage to convey anything. Some of these guys post on forums saying how a particular approach to the instrument is fundamentally bogus/no longer valid (depending on whether they are traditional of experimental). This isn't a snipe at anyone who posted here, but rather just a general observation about guitar forums and their posters.

If people worried more about how to express "something" in what they are doing, something which other people (including non-guitarists) find cool, rather that about which kind of "something" is better or worse, the world would be a better place.