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From an article preceding his Nashville gig this weekend the following-
"And that's exactly what Bernstein does. Instead of trying to match the relentless ferocity of Coltrane's recording, he deconstructs the song, weaving extended rubato sequences of chords with in-tempo single-note lines. The result is five minutes and 23 seconds of modern jazz guitar at its best. And the word "modern" is significant. Unlike many of his peers, Bernstein eschews effects like overdrive, chorus and delay, preferring a more natural sound. He admits to bristling a bit when music journalists make too big a deal of his straightforward approach, or imply that he's a throwback.
"Why don't you ever hear a writer saying [about a piano player], 'How come this guy doesn't use electronic keyboards?' ... It's kind of a double standard. You can be a modern musician and play the piano. But if you just play the guitar, you're somehow suspect. You must be beholden to the past."
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02-21-2014 11:18 AM
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It's Metheny's fault.
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Great post!!!!!
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This is exactly why I don't use any pedals or effects other than a touch of reverb. Trumpets are trumpets, saxes are saxes, why a guitar has to sound all special and different is beyond me.
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That is what I admire in players like Pete, Jesse Van Ruller, Anthony Wilson etc.
They sound original and different just playing similar guitars through similar amps.
Thanks for the article NSJ.
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While I agree w/ Peter Bernstein's comments, I can see where the reviewer's comments are comming from as well. Someone like John McGlaughlin has also used a trad archtop (Johnny Smith) but doesn't use traditional Wes, J. Pass, etc. tone. Even Metheny rarely plays straight guitar to amp type of tone. A lot of great younger players like Peter B.,Russell Malone, etc. have embraced the old school tone along w/ the trad. "Great American Songbook" approach to Jazz. And while it's wonderful, it really just revisits what's already been done etremely well already. It doesn't break any new ground musically, for better or worse!
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does using effects break new ground musically?
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Great post.
And that is why is also admire, besides jazz, the acoustic guitar new wave:
McKee, Dufour, Barone, Reed, Mongrain, etc... Sooo many artists!
Some have better taste than others ,some are just technique with poor artistic contents but nevertheless,
still the plain good old flat top with so many ingenious approaches to transcend the intrument's limits.
Has any other intrument generated so many different approaches ?
Thank you NSJ
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Playing the piano is playing the piano.
Originally Posted by xuoham
Playing the guitar, from a technical stand point, is often contingent upon the type of music you wish to play. E.g., playing flamenco verses playing rock verses playing jazz verses classical.
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Well my son who's an excellent pianist might disagree with you there, but I get where you're coming from. He plays his own compositions as well as transcriptions of music by artists like Coldplay and Radiohead, as well as a good portion of the classical repertoire. About the only thing he doesn't play (much) is jazz. :-( Originally Posted by NSJ
There is a different mindset to each instrument.
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to some extent it probably does, yes. Originally Posted by wintermoon
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I think it has a lot to do with taste. I mainly prefer guitarists who use a straight guitar to amp sound. But there are guitarists who use effects that I also like. A lot of it has to do with the speed of playing. Extremely fast isn't a favorite of mine. A slower, more melodic approach is. A lot of effects laden players play so fast they massacre the individual notes severely. Remember Frank Zappa's remark about "clouds of pentatonic gnat notes?" Not great.
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What I mean is, someone who plays jazz or classical on piano learns the same technique on the instrument, hand position, how to play chords and scales, left hand right hand, when to cross over or under, how to use the pedals, etc. It's in the application of this knowledge where players differ. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Whereas, someone who is playing rock with a pick is going to have a radically different right hand technique than a flamenco player. Mr. Van Halen isn't going to be playing true polyphony or know much about rasgueados so forth,and the only tremolo he may be aware of is derived from his little wiggle stick/whammy bar.
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Well using effects per se does not always break new ground. In fact Fuzztones and Wah Wah's were originally used in Pop/Country music I believe. And guitar straight into the amp is what Michael Bloomfield, and many other rock/blues artists tend to do. I think it's more playing trad. type tones along w/ trad instrumentation in say Jazz or even Blues where it's harder to seperate yourself from what's come before you. Again I love peter's playing as well as trad. Bebop,Straight Ahead, etc mmusic as well as their proponents of music. I just think it's very hard to sound original and there in may lay the issue. One player who plays that way that we all can identify immediately is Pat Martino.
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Maybe I don't read the same things, but I've never heard straight guitar players referred to as throwbacks (or anything like that).
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Bernstein uses a magnetic pickup-equipped guitar (an effect), plugged into a tube amp (an effect), which he typically overdrives a bit (an effect), with reverb (an effect). It's funny that people think of this as almost a kind of luddism.
John
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Guitar is the instrument bridging mostly every genre of music, from classical to black death metal...
The rock and roll, rockabilly, hardrock, fusion, metal would not exist without distorted guitar sound, it is part of the reason I would say.
No other instrument can get away playing 3 chords songs or endless repetitive pentatonic solos noodling the way the guitar is doing. When you think saxophone, you think jazz, when you think piano it is mostly either classical or jazz for guitar well...sorry to sayit is rock and roll and all subgenres for the reason mentioned before.
It was never a fully recognized purist instrument and never will be...a kind of bastard vehicule for experimentation...
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From my point of view as a younger student in his early 20s.
Playing with no effects does bring a certain more straight-ahead vibe to a guitar sound.
It is very common for a modern jazz musician to expect effects from guitar players - just look at any charts by modern composers such as Maria Schneider, or Darcy James Argue.
For me it is a tool to express my sound and it does change how you play - so yes, I believe it does break new musical grounds.
Personally, Bernstein brings a more traditional type sound to the music. Sonically, he does sound like an old timer sometimes but he has his personal approach to how he works with the sound.
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Originally Posted by vinlander
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I don't disagree with the sentiment but it's a false equivalent to me. A piano is an acoustic instrument, and piano players continue to play acoustic pianos, or emulate the acoustic sound digitally. Same with horns & bass. If he played an acoustic guitar then he could stand on that leg. Playing an electric guitar is one notch "more modern" than piano. If he was playing an acoustic archtop he would get even more flak for being "old school". The tools should be irrelevant. Originally Posted by NSJ
I would bristle too though, who cares what effects or not effects he is using. It seems like something only a journalist would care about. We live in a wonderfully remixed / cross-pollinated musical culture which has plenty of room for simplicity and complexity. At the end of the day, is it interesting music?
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They are all just tools and colors. Thumbs, picks, strings, pedals, delays, reverbs, tubes, caps, resistors, speakers, cabs, mics, rooms, halls... And a lot of wood. Add a big heart, big ears and well timed silence.
Should we ban any of these from our future? Why argue against the creative and judicious use of any of these? Why insist on one recipe? Alternatively, why throw everything into the soup all the time?
It's not the ingredients that guarantee the outcome. Let's talk about THAT
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I remember Julian Lage said he prefers to make the guitar to sound like a guitar, I agree.
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Piano (or more accurately, keyboards):
- a nice concert grand?
- honky-tonk upright?
- Rhodes?
- B-3?
- Clavinet?
- maybe a couple more?
Guitar may have a few more variations but it's the same - no big deal.
There are a few well-recognized standard sound envelopes for any instrument, some more than others.
Within each, all sorts of subtle variation. And some well-recognized combinations that are considered pleasing to the ear.
The rest are irrelevant. In a civilized society, anyone who wants to pursue these other options is free to do so. Once in awhile something interesting arises out of such ventures. But rarely, IMO.Last edited by Hammertone; 02-22-2014 at 03:13 PM.
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I think it's the mindset one brings to the instrument, not the other way around. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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the guitar is a tool. As soon as there is a requirement for it to sound a certain way in order to satisfy expectations, the art has been diminished. IMO of course...
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