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Blues, not metal or rock, is absolutely full of microtonal wails and chirps and wiggles and vibrato, and fret pressure very much gives way to a whole new way to

by titzer 6y ago

Blues, not metal or rock, is absolutely full of microtonal wails and chirps and wiggles and vibrato, and fret pressure very much gives way to a whole new way to think about the strings; not something to press down like a button at exactly perpendicular force to delicately or firmly contact the frets, but strings are something to be grabbed, ripped, whipped, twisted behind the frets. Add to that a hard attack can whiplash a string out of tune by another 10 cents, and we are talking about making this thing a voice, not some synthesized keyboard doodad. It's a human soul wailing. That's the blues.

DerDangDerDang 6y ago
Not metal? Go listen to some of Dimebag Darrell’s solos. They sound ridiculously bad if played in whole semitones. Fair enough, he’s fairly bluesy. But other genres of metal give the distinction you give the left hand to the right too - variations in pick attack wildly change the sound. I’m guessing it’s fair to suggest that similar things exist in all genres of music, and on all instruments.
hashkb 6y ago
Not rock? I guess we'd have to know your definition of "rock"... but if you allow "classic" or "progressive" rock into your view, then a lot of those players utilize every aspect of expression on the guitar. And how about the whammy bar? Maybe guitarists aren't consciously using it to untemper their intervals, but to say "rock guitar" is locked to tempered tuning is incorrect.
- titzer 6y ago
  Sure, I love gritty, classic rock. To the extent that rock was influenced by blues, it has that voice to it. But rock is dead. It died sometime in the 1990s, unfortunately. Metal survived somehow...I'm not really a metal fan, especially very technical stuff, because I find it very...masturbatory. The theory is that the guitar is not an instrument, it's an antenna. It picks up on the energy and mood of the player, all the way down to the stance, the heartbeat, the expression on your face. If you see players like Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Page--and thankfully now there are so many hours of footage of them at our fingertips--they throw their entire body into the performance, completely unafraid. They aren't staring at the fretboard and twiddling out some ridiculously complicated technical thing that (some believe) requires the perfect 45-degree neck angle, a highly mounted guitar, a severe fret-hand reacharound with the thumb on the back of the neck...no, those three I mentioned play mostly by feel. They are hardly looking at the neck, ever, instead enthralled in the whole experience, like a Tennis player watching the ball, not their racket. Contrast them with someone like John Petrucci, an extremely intelligent and cerebral player, with a vast knowledge of musical theory and absolutely excellent technical skills--but then he stands there on stage like he's jerking off with tweezers. (Pardon the imagery, but I can't unsee this after a friend explained it this way to me!)

by titzer 6y ago

DerDangDerDang 6y ago

Not metal? Go listen to some of Dimebag Darrell’s solos. They sound ridiculously bad if played in whole semitones. Fair enough, he’s fairly bluesy. But other genres of metal give the distinction you give the left hand to the right too - variations in pick attack wildly change the sound. I’m guessing it’s fair to suggest that similar things exist in all genres of music, and on all instruments.

hashkb 6y ago

Not rock? I guess we'd have to know your definition of "rock"... but if you allow "classic" or "progressive" rock into your view, then a lot of those players utilize every aspect of expression on the guitar. And how about the whammy bar? Maybe guitarists aren't consciously using it to untemper their intervals, but to say "rock guitar" is locked to tempered tuning is incorrect.

titzer 6y ago
Sure, I love gritty, classic rock. To the extent that rock was influenced by blues, it has that voice to it. But rock is dead. It died sometime in the 1990s, unfortunately. Metal survived somehow...I'm not really a metal fan, especially very technical stuff, because I find it very...masturbatory. The theory is that the guitar is not an instrument, it's an antenna. It picks up on the energy and mood of the player, all the way down to the stance, the heartbeat, the expression on your face. If you see players like Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Page--and thankfully now there are so many hours of footage of them at our fingertips--they throw their entire body into the performance, completely unafraid. They aren't staring at the fretboard and twiddling out some ridiculously complicated technical thing that (some believe) requires the perfect 45-degree neck angle, a highly mounted guitar, a severe fret-hand reacharound with the thumb on the back of the neck...no, those three I mentioned play mostly by feel. They are hardly looking at the neck, ever, instead enthralled in the whole experience, like a Tennis player watching the ball, not their racket. Contrast them with someone like John Petrucci, an extremely intelligent and cerebral player, with a vast knowledge of musical theory and absolutely excellent technical skills--but then he stands there on stage like he's jerking off with tweezers. (Pardon the imagery, but I can't unsee this after a friend explained it this way to me!)