My guitar with a piece of sponge underneath the strings. The sponge shortens the sound and renders it almost oud-like. Hence the title of this post, the name a friend gave a track I recorded with it. (is the Oud masculine in Spanish??)
This last phase of recording Rain Poems has been about altering the guitar sound a little bit. Prepared guitar. Making the sound a little less pristine, less clear, less of that singing quality, and with more fuzz, a more percussive sound. Home-made wine. Moonshine. Kitchen food, not restaurant food. I used a cloth, woven through the strings and this sponge. I used a piece of paper, woven through the strings, on an album a few years ago. I bet nobody recognized it as a guitar sound. 😁
I often like limiting my palette because I have found that a small palette can inspire new ideas within those borders. There is so much one can discover through working with only a pencil. I suppose this is akin to having a tradition that limits what one is allowed to do. I don’t follow a tradition but perhaps I am creating my own for each album? There is an enormous difference between being told what we can and can’t do and choosing to draw our own lines within which we choose to work.
I have arrived at a point where I no longer want to use an electric guitar, or even a steel string guitar. I also haven’t used a synthesizer in a long time. I may use other instruments at some future time but right now I am loving everything about the Flamenco guitar. And, to be clear, by that I mean the instrument, not the tradition.
>I have arrived at a point where I no longer want to use an electric guitar, or even a steel string guitar. I also haven’t used a synthesizer in a long time. I may use other instruments at some future time but right now I am loving everything about the Flamenco guitar. And, to be clear, by that I mean the instrument, not the tradition.
Speaking of ouds … (I absolutely love ouds …)
Have you ever considered a fretless Flamenco guitar? Just curious.
Something similar to this:
https://www.2gguitars.com/shop/fretless-guitars-in-stock
I’m not endorsing these per se … just citing them as an example.
A long time ago Keith Vizcarra built a fretless guitar for me that he called a “luitar”. Twelve strings in six double courses. Uses oud strings. I have used it to double melodies on many many albums.
This is inspirational, thanks for sharing Ottmar. Looking forward to backstage
>There is an enormous difference between being told what we can and can’t do and choosing to draw our own lines within which we choose to work.
There is something very simple, elegant and … I dunno … for want of a better word, “ancient” about an acoustic musical instrument. There is nothing mediating the sound apart from the instrument itself. No pickups, no microphones, no piezo transducers … just the instrument and the player … Sublime.
Of course the impediment comes when trying to capture that performance for recall later because now one needs a microphone and a recording device and at the time of that capture there is information loss. Doesn’t matter how advanced the microphone or recording protocol or technique is … there is always loss. It might be close … perhaps very close … but it is always asymptotic.
And I suppose the same is true of traditions … there is always an information entropy or information dispersion in time or in transcription.
All of that is true but I enjoy working with microphones for the simple reason that the position of the guitar player is hardly ideal. We sit behind an instrument that projects forward, away from us. I suppose that is true for many instruments but I could make the case that for a trumpet player it’s actually very nice to be “behind the sound”… (because too loud!)
Unless we sit opposite a surface that reflects the guitar sound back to us, we don’t *really* hear what the instrument sounds like. And that makes it difficult to imagine the throw of the sound. I have noticed myself playing too hard in situations where I perform solo and without amplification, especially when the room is a little larger. In those situations I just need to trust that the sound carries and I make myself play lighter in order to get a better tone.
Sitting against a reflective surface is a good way to work on guitar tone, by the way.
>the position of the guitar player is hardly ideal.
Completely agree. Not ideal. But I wonder: how much of that sound is actually “felt” by the guitarist, and doesn’t register in their consciousness but rather at a more subliminal level? In the gut? In the body?
I know that when I play the upright bass (_particulary_ con arco) the whole instrument just “lights up” acoustically and I wonder how what I am feeling in this big, old wooden box translates to the people who hear it? Can a microphone (or piezo) capture that?
I guess the musician themselves are the only one actually experiencing the “full” output of the acoustic instrument.
I imagine the vibrations are felt much more clearly with the bass. All of those deep frequencies travel more easily. We actually try to hold the guitar as little as possible. You have seen the trad Flamenco guitarists who balance the instrument in a fairly upright position on the right thigh? It’s supposed to create a little more volume but also means that the left hand cannot move freely. Some guitarists even use devices, attached to the guitar, that lift the instrument away from the body, in order to achieve more resonance. I naturally hold the guitar lightly and that hasn’t been an issue for me. But I hear you, there is something special about that proximity to the instrument, perhaps feeling as much as hearing.
BTW, Backstage there will offer the option to get an email when a comment has been replied to. One can also chose to have each post emailed. Progress.