Guitars

[greg]

I might be getting a 7-string tomorrow (though not counting on it, long story)... but, I'm thinking I really wouldn't mind having an 8-string eventually, when I can afford one.

The two I'd consider most are:
The Ibanez RGA8

http://www.samash.com/p/RGA8BK%20RGA%208%20String%20Electric%20Guitar_-49952808
(because of the price)

and the ESP STEFB8

http://www.samash.com/p/STEFB8%20Stephen%20Carpenter%20Baritone%208%20String%20Electric%20Guitar%20Black_-49959665
(because it's the coolest looking guitar I've ever seen- except I doubt I'll ever be able to afford a near-$4000 guitar)

So, as you can probably tell, the style of guitar I like are ones that are more appropriate for metal, except ones with flames and skulls and horn-shaped headstocks. Flying Vs and Fenders are okay, but mostly I have limited taste and don't care much for anything other Ibanez and ESP. 

Also, I have a plan. After all of these years of being more absorbed in classical music than anything to do with electric guitar, I think I have an idea of what music I could make with the guitar, since I don't plan to do rock with a band.
What I'd do is make recordings of works that only use 8-string electric guitars, and nothing else.
I would tune them all like this:

E B E A D G B E

which is standard tuning, except that the 8th string is tuned down from a standard F# down a whole step. This way, it's the same as a bass guitar's lowest string, and there is no need to even have a bass guitar in my music.
Add a whammy pedal which can bring up a guitar's notes one octave (and substitute for the fact that no 8 string (that I know of) has a whammy bar) and in one guitar, you have the full range of a string orchestra (if you pretend that double basses don't have C extensions). This is literally 5 octaves without the pedal and 6 octaves with the pedal (7 possible E notes with the pedal!)

I'd plan to write for 10 different 8-strings and record them one over another (the concept would be modeled after a string orchestra). You can get a thick, full sound this way with infinite variety of tone colors and effects if you have a large enough pedal board, which is something I'll have to accumulate over time.

As for how music like this would be performed live...  idk... it's not like I could get 9 extra guys with 8-string guitars and a large pedal board to play music I write out in a score, so probably if I played music like this live, I'd have a recording of the 9 "other" guitars playing, and I'd just play over that.

(well, in the future, at least...) 

[Josquin des Prez]

Nice instrument for those who know how to play it properly. To wit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEzsPGHsi90

[Josquin des Prez]

Ugh no thx ...

Shows me how much you know about Jazz. Reinhardt could squeeze more out of that guitar with his two remaining fingers then any of those "super virtuosos" could do in their entire career. And his music actually swings, a concept that has unfortunately been lost since Jazz got polluted by all those crappy modern popular trends.

3 Masters.

Beautiful rich tones (youtube not the best sound source but you'll get the idea)... colorful, rich vocabularies, fire & brains ... betcha you can't predict what they're going to play at any given moment on first listen...!!! Aw shucks

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/vnQkkZiYmLw

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/xF6zCGpHl6g

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/BVdynYgE-pk

They are good virtuosos to be sure. If only their lines weren't so fucking boring.

[greg]

Lol

[Josquin des Prez]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXOrj7QAc8M

Here's another example of how guitar is meant to played.

[The new erato]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXOrj7QAc8M

Here's another example of how guitar is meant to played.

I don't think the idea of the guitar was to play it with the thumb only.

But what the hech; there are several ways to do it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Kz8Nxb-Bg

[greg]

I don't think the idea of the guitar was to play it with the thumb only.

But what the hech; there are several ways to do it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Kz8Nxb-Bg

... 
lol that was interesting 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXOrj7QAc8M

Here's another example of how guitar is meant to played.

I liked this one.

[Josquin des Prez]

I don't think the idea of the guitar was to play it with the thumb only.

Niether is it meant to be played with two fingers only (Django Reinhardt), but hey, it worked for both of them, didn't it? I was being sardonic anyway. I don't particularly care about the instrument in itself, but how its played. Charlie Parker once that said you can play any note you want, as long as you play it in context. In the case of many of those modern "virtuosos", the context has been lost a long time ago. To me it just isn't Jazz anymore. Take this for instance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2RRUVAD9Mc

The only one who still manages to do the Charlie Parker thing here is Martino (relatively speaking at least), but it is probably John Scofield who will be considered the greater player (or at least the more creative one) by modern audiences, even though to me his lines are utterly boring.

[snyprrr]

D.A.N.N.Y. G.A.T.T.O.N.

(.)



I defy anyone to come up with a more touching, human story of the guitar, tinged with mysterious deals with supernatural beings, and mind bending virtuosity, than the Tragedy of Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton.

I'm not going to open up the can right now, but the fact that these two rivals both dies from their own hand, in similarly depression circumstances, only heightens the authenticity of this most "Crossroads"-type Greek Tragedy.

One short example. Buchanan, a radid, Fundy-type preachin' kind o' man, a real, God FEARIN' man (uh,...in the Johnny Cash way, that is,... not too able to live it) put a curse on Gatton, whose banjo strings all busted during the next set.

One of my best friends became friends with Gatton, taking lessons, filming shows (the answer is,...NO!). We all felt very privy to our "own" guitar hero, who graced the cover of Guitar Player, wearing a wrestler's mask, as "The Greatest Unknown Guitarist."

None of his (Warner Bros.) recordings is really any good at all. May you all have heard the legendary Desperado's show with the Fatboys.



Anyhow,... I WAS the first guy on the block with a Roland Guitar Synth in the '80s. Haha, ohhh how I didn't know what to do with the thing! I only wish I'd not trashed it.

[drogulus]

      Ever notice how the looks of a guitar seem to dictate the kind of music played on it?

      Telecaster=country/bluegrass

      Strat=blues/blues rock

      Les Paul/SG=classic rock, late '60s to '80s

      Fat hollowbody Gibson=Jazz, but....

      Fat hollowbody Gretsch=country

      Rickenbacker anything= '60s roots/power pop

       .....yet my experience says that most of these guitars can easily fill most of these roles (not Ricks, though).

[greg]

      Ever notice how the looks of a guitar seem to dictate the kind of music played on it?

      Telecaster=country/bluegrass

      Strat=blues/blues rock

      Les Paul/SG=classic rock, late '60s to '80s

      Fat hollowbody Gibson=Jazz, but....

      Fat hollowbody Gretsch=country

      Rickenbacker anything= '60s roots/power pop

       .....yet my experience says that most of these guitars can easily fill most of these roles (not Ricks, though).

Yeah, and I think there is something about the style of how the guitar looks itself that tends to connect with what music is being played- or at least, there is a tendency. For example, I don't like country music at all or the guitars they use. But, music I like uses the guitars I like (with exceptions, such as the old, dirty Fenders used by Hendrix and Malmsteen).

What's weird is when you have bands like Sunn O))) using (i think) Les Pauls... 

[Scarpia]

Because you don't have ears. And I wish you would stop pretending to know about Jazz (not even the subject of the thread really), or the electric guitar & it's range, history & players ... again (as usual) you're out of your depth.

As if we don't already have enough evidence of what a self-important, pompous idiot you are.   

[Lethevich]

What's weird is when you have bands like Sunn O))) using (i think) Les Pauls... 

Well, even Euronymous from Mayhem used a Les Paul (sunburst, no less)...

[greg]

Well, even Euronymous from Mayhem used a Les Paul (sunburst, no less)...

Really? Is this a black metal thing? (obviously i don't know much about that genre, though I've learned a few things from this forum)

[Lethevich]

Indeedie.

[The new erato]

      Ever notice how the looks of a guitar seem to dictate the kind of music played on it?

      Telecaster=country/bluegrass

      Strat=blues/blues rock

      Les Paul/SG=classic rock, late '60s to '80s

      Fat hollowbody Gibson=Jazz, but....

      Fat hollowbody Gretsch=country

      Rickenbacker anything= '60s roots/power pop

       .....yet my experience says that most of these guitars can easily fill most of these roles (not Ricks, though).

Itend to think of the LP as a classic buesrock guitar just as much as the Strat....

[Harpo]

I might be getting a 7-string tomorrow (though not counting on it, long story)... but, I'm thinking I really wouldn't mind having an 8-string eventually, when I can afford one.....

(well, in the future, at least...) 

Wow! I play the guitar a little (60s-70s folkie) and never heard of a 7 or 8-string guitar, though I have seen harp and mandolin guitar hybrids. I always wondered how some of those guitarists on Sonic's CDs played so many strings at once. Now I know. 

[greg]

Wow! I play the guitar a little (60s-70s folkie) and never heard of a 7 or 8-string guitar, though I have seen harp and mandolin guitar hybrids. I always wondered how some of those guitarists on Sonic's CDs played so many strings at once. Now I know. 

They're mainly used for metal, that's probably why you've never heard of them- and they're pretty recent, too. I think the guitarist who first started the trend was Steve Vai sometimes in the 90s and then metal bands adopted it, etc. I don't know how to play a 7-string myself, but it wouldn't be too hard to get used to the extra string, I think. 

[Scarpia]

and they're pretty recent, too. I think the guitarist who first started the trend was Steve Vai sometimes in the 90s

If by 90's you mean the 1890s, you are way off.  7 string guitars were in use in Europe as early as the 1860s.

[Spotswood]

      Ever notice how the looks of a guitar seem to dictate the kind of music played on it?

The guitar is a wonderfully hermaphroditic instrument, with the phallic neck and a feminine body possessed (in acoustic versions) of a hole in the middle. The sexual  confusion accounts for its sustained popularity.