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Hello
My name is John I created my account today to try to post on here since I can't find anything to help me.
i am in high school playing for my jazz band and I love it is my second year playing and we play a lot of big band and swing music like Count Basie. I have an AF 55 Ibanez hollow body I bought it because it was the cheapest thing I could find for what I need. My problem is not voicings or strumming 4 on the bar. My comping is decent I have the right voicings but getting the sound out of an electric is tough. I am using flat wounds but I have been considering playing with acoustic guitar strings to help with tone. I am also using a Roland keyboard amp since the guitar broke. I have messed around using an acoustic simulator and have had pretty good results... If anyone has any advice on getting a better sound or getting the Freddie green acoustic guitar sound out of an electric please let me know
. As a guitar player I am of course always looking for new guitars I have searched on line like eBay for old acoustic arch tops but I do not have money for that right now...
if anyone can help please let me know or if you have advice it would be much appreciated
thanks
john
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02-27-2015 05:51 PM
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The best resource for this style of playing: Freddie Green Style: Lessons & Technique
Note that Freddie Green style voicings are very different that what most people learn for playing in a combo. This website is an invaluable resource.
Johnathan Stout, who frequently posts here, has a great blog on swing guitar playing, gear, etc.. and will hopefully chime in: Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five, featuring Hilary Alexander - Swing Guitar Blog
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These videos by the JALC guitarist James Charillo are also priceless:
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I've been playing with a working big band for the last fourteen years and the simple answer is that you can't. If you want an acoustic rhythm sound you either need to play a suitably loud acoustic archtop (with suitably quiet bass and drums) or mic an acoustic archtop, or play an electric guitar and accept that it's going to sound different.
Changing to round wound strings will help. The Roland should be fine and an acoustic simulator probably gets you closer. In my case I just play it as an amplified electric guitar. The one time I showed up with a giant acoustic archtop the horn players complained that they wanted to hear the chords when they soloed, so I never did it again. Our leader prefers it when I cut the mids and bass on my amp, so that's what I do, although left to my own devices I prefer a more balanced sound. I also tend to play four-string chords rather than the more traditional three, since I find the latter tend to get lost when playing electric.
My band is very popular out here and everyone who sits in praises our rhythm section, so the result can't be too bad :-)
Good luck with your quest, and read everything on this site, if you haven't already:
The Freddie Green Web Site
Danny W.
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Jonathan Stout's blog was mentioned above, and he actually has a post on this exact topic. Here's what he has to say:
Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five, featuring Hilary Alexander - Swing Guitar Blog - If you absolutely must: making electric guitar work for Swing Rhythm
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I get a good driving rhythm sound on electric guitar mainly by going for a brighter, mid-scooped tone, i.e. the classic Fender sound. I also tend to remove a fair amount of bass. Most electric guitars are actually quite bass heavy compared to an acoustic archtop. You want to keep out of the sonic space of the bass and kick drum.
I keep the volume and tone controls on the guitar all the way up, but backing down just a smidge on the volume knob can have a good effect, depending on other factors. I find that a good driving rhythm tone tends to not be the best tone for soloing, so if you're also called on to solo a lot you'll need to keep that in mind.
But your best weapon is always going to be technique. Bounce your left hand to keep the chords short. Use 3-note voicings and aim your pick at the middle 3-4 strings of the guitar. The outer strings will take care of themselves
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Well, if it's purely about tone and you can't afford an acoustic archtop, the next best plan might be to use the guitar you have and get a piezoelectric pickup that goes between the foot of the bridge and the top. There are several of these on the market; they sound more acoustic than magnetic pickups. It's not the exact sound of Freddie Green, of course, but it's closer than what you have.
And good on you for enjoying playing this wonderful music at your age. Best wishes for many more years of enjoyment!
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@Danny W
"...I also tend to play four-string chords rather than the more traditional three, since I find the latter tend to get lost when playing electric."
Do you play the root with these 4 note chords?
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Yeah, I think my blog post has most of my tips and tricks.
The main problem with playing electric rhythm guitar is sustain (especially in the low end). Part and parcel of that is the vastly increased low-end response of an electric. That low end tends to keep the chords ringing into each other, loosing rhythmic definition of the four-beat pulse, and the increased low end is just over kill creating a muddy sound.
Reducing some of the bass on the amp can help. The biggest thing is to turn your volume down far enough so that you can hit the strings the way you would if you were playing acoustically. You want to do the work of producing the sound with your hands, and not letting the sustain and gain of the pickups and amp do the work for you.
If you're using the typical 3-note chord voicings found in the Charleton Johnston book, one thing you can try to do is "ghost" the lowest note. Use the same voicing shape, but don't fully fret the lowest note (usually on the 6th string), and use your finger to mute it instead. With your picking hand, emphasize the D and G strings. This is also a variation on the "one-note theory" found at The Freddie Green Web Site and other places. Essentially Freddie's style evolved from the typical voicings to playing just the D and G strings, and then eventually just the D string. But, he can be seen to still be fretting some of the typical voicing patters, but only fully pressing down on some of the notes in the chord, and "ghosting" the rest.
I would suggest practicing by playing without an amp whenever possible, and getting comfortable with how that feels and sounds, and then when playing in the band, keep your volume knob low enough so you can use that same technique without being too loud.
For your purposes, I doubt it makes much difference whether you're using the keyboard amp or not. Switching to round-wound will help, and the extra mile would be trying something like Martin monel strings (either under the "Tony Rice" signature set or "Martin Retro"), because they are meant to be an acoustic string, but are still magnetically active so they can be picked up by a normal electric pickup. Don't go with bronze, because the wound strings will barely pick up at all, and the high B and E will be super loud in comparison.
If you find the acoustic sim pedal helps with getting a more acoustic timbre, I say go for it. I don't think that's a great long-term solution, but if you're in high school jazz band (as I was once), sometimes you're just grateful to have any working amp in the band room - and many kids in your position are playing a strat, and they're gonna have an even harder time that you do.
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In particular, a believable amplified acoustic tone can be obtained by blending the output of the piezo with that of the magnetic pickup (as on the old Martin Taylor model by Yamaha), maybe using an external mixer (I think a Boss LS-2 should be able to mix the two signals) so that you just have to put the piezo under the bridge without making any permanent modification to the guitar.
Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Your in High School?
dont worry about equipment. That will come with time. We live in the 21st centurY not 1938. Accept that youre not going to sound like a 18" Stromburg. It's ok not to. do you want to spend your energy for a gig lugging around a bunch of equipment to get a sound or do you want to spend that time and energy on your playing? The advice above is excellent. Mr Stout's equipment recomendations are tried and true if you decide to go that route. But, I'd stick with what you have right now and just adjust the tone controls as mentioned above but focus your time and energy on listening to and studying the great players from then: Green Reuss Van Eps etc.
Read the numerous articles on freddiegreen.org. Read through Jonathan's blog, I learned a lot there. You can learn a lot just by reading these articles. There are several interviews with the older players that will give you an immense amount of knowledge about how the guitar was used for the great dance bands.Last edited by TheGrandWazoo; 02-28-2015 at 08:53 AM.
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I use an old Gretsch acoustic archtop with very high action and round strings. 3 note chords.
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Yeah, I wouldn't bother doing anything as drastic or expensive as installing a piezo pickup. If you already have the acoustic sim, and that seems to help, then great. If not, don't bother.
Save your pennies if you're serious, and buy an acoustic archtop. The Loar LH-600 can be found on ebay for under $1000 - if you buy used, you can probably resell for more or less what you paid for it. But of course, then you'll probably have to deal with figuring out how to mic it (although a simple dynamic mic through an $10 impedance changer into the keyboard amp would probably be fine for your purposes). Even an LH-300 would probably work fine.
To reference Breaking Bad, don't go with half-measures, go with full-measures. Don't spend $200 on a piezo bridge plus whatever peripherals are needed when you can spend ~$600-700 on a used Loar. Looking at the "sold listings" function on ebay, the last two LH-600's when for $575 and $645.
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I have an acoustic archtop set up for 4-to-the-bar playing. An electric guitar doesn't come near that sound. Whatever, with an electric guitar, I get a nicer sound for that 4-to-the-bar sound by using 2 and 3 note chords and brushing the strings with my right thumb rather that strumming them with a pick. That sounds sort of a softly percussive "swish-swish" - a little like a drummer using brushes. It even works with a strat.
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+1 campusfive and oldane
An acoustic archtop is the way to produce old, four-to-the-bar swing-jazz. As I said, I do it with an old Gretsch (out of a sense of tribute to Freddie Green, who switched to Gretsch for the longest stretch of his career), but a Loar or other acoustic will do it. The trick, IMO, is to set the action up high, in order to really work the top.
Another trick is to use essentially ALL downstrokes, which are very, very strong strumming strokes. The sound really pops out of the archtop on the downstroke.
Finally, if you slightly palm mute and use a HEAVY pick, you will generate that Freddie Green thump with a fast decay that is essential for keeping the four-to-the-bar beat. If you listen to Green, he was always right in the middle of the beat, never rushed, never behind.
I have some stuff he did with the great bassist Ray Brown. Brown, who was a tremendous timekeeper, always played on top of the note, i.e., slightly on the front of the beat. Green was "pocket" by comparison. Add the relaxed time of some of the soloists and you get the _energy_ of the band.
IMO, Freddie was playing a tuned drum with his thump/decay, three-string chords, right on the beat. The horns in the Basie band really played off of him.
It is pretty easy to mic an acoustic archtop--you can use your keyboard amp.
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Jonathan's blog is great because in addition to loving the music, he knows his stuff and expresses himself well. Originally Posted by Jehu
Here's a live set from Jonathan and his "Campus Five."
jonathan stout campus five youtube - Bing Videos
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03-08-2015, 10:29 AM #17destinytot Guest
+1 for Jonathan Stout, champion for a cause.
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He says that a guitar with set-in pickup(s) loses about 75% of its acoustic sound & projection. Seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. Originally Posted by ingeneri
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No, sounds just about right to me.
As much as James Chirillo is totally the real deal, the drummer in that video makes me sad. No 4 on the floor bass, constant emphasis on 2 and 4 - i.e. standard, straight-ahead jazz drumming. As much as I'm a purist about the important role of rhythm guitar in swing music (i.e. a dance band), conversely I feel it's totally a vestigial tail in anything straight-ahead. But then again, I'm an "Old Testament" kind of guy....
I tried recording a video lesson on this last week, but part of what makes electric rhythm guitar hard is having to compete with-/match level to- a big band. The quieter the situation, the easier it is. In my office, by myself, it was a bit too easy to reign in the electric volume. I need to give it a go a real-world volumes.
But I'm also looking at doing a video lesson, somewhat similar to the JALC ones, but actually having the 1930's rhythm feel, because so few people have any concept of how to play pre-bop music. There's so much "Jazz Education" out there, and basically none of it speaks anything but lip service to pre-bop jazz. I feel like having some understanding of pre-bop music really makes better all-around jazz musicians, anyway.
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I had a nice visit with my old teacher and his wife this weekend. He was explaining to me why, in part, he preferred solid Tonewood arch tops with nothing cut into the woods and a floating pick up over plywood boxes with Setin pick ups. One reason for this preference was comping in big bands. for example, he was telling me about playing with Frank Sinatra: Sinatra absolutely apparently hated the Electric sound of the guitar in a big band Comping setting. so, he would turn the volume down to next to almost nothing when comping, and use a volume pedal to slightly increase it if he was called on to take a solo. Originally Posted by campusfive
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Please holler when you get this done! I'm eager to hear it. Originally Posted by campusfive
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