Bridging Electro to Jazz Improv (Acoustic Guitar)

Magus1618 · Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 1 Location: Greensboro, NC

Hello everybody, my name is John Daniel Winters and I have just joined the electro-music.community. I am a professional musician, specializing in Jazz acoustic guitar (ala Al Di Meola, John Mclaughlin, etc) and I use Ableton's Live software (along with individual looping pedals) to record and loop progressions, themes, and verses with my guitar along with percussion and synthesized tones. I am wondering what everyone's opinions are on this subject........specifically, I have not heard many people experimenting with acoustic guitar admixed to electronic beats; further, I have not heard of many people doing it in live performance.

If anyone has any thoughts, opinions, comments, ideas, experiences, etc regarding this I am desperately seeking them. My music is available for listening at my website: www.johnwinters.biz and also at www.myspace.com/johnwinters. I would appreciate your input; thanks so much.

John

FLechdrop · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:30 am Post subject:

The fact that not many people are doing it makes it all the more interesting! I think this is a very interesting way you've taken. Especially if you're performing it live too and not only as a studio project. I'll have a listen to it later on but please go on this way, it sounds very interesting already!

Stanley Pain · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:48 am Post subject:

i djed at a festival in north yorkshire over the summer, and there was a guy doing some interesting stuff with jazz(ish) guitar and sequenced music.

he followed a standards improvisation structure (head followed by alternating chord sequences, familiar and predictable)

to make it interesting he'd hooked up his effects pedal to the sequencer and was able to set different effects settings to different parts of the structre, and improvised according to the direction the effects took him in.

in the midst of an improvisational package the effects would change, fitting the structure perfectly, but leaving him "stranded" in unsuitable territory... e.g. he'd be halfway through a 3 octave ascending mode using a filtered overdrive, and the fx would "morph" into a tripleted delay.

i probably haven't done a good job of describing what happened, but it worked very well.

mosc · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 10:58 am Post subject:

to electro-music.com.

There is a very rich tradition of guitar and electronic music. This is especially true of Space Music.

I listened to some of your music - sounds good. Keep it up...

I am not a guitar player, but my wife is. She is one of the few, if not the only, person to study with John Fahey. Anyway, when one is going to mix electronic music with guitar, why not use an electric guitar. Aren't they really guitars with built-in mics. If you are interested in the acoustic tone, then the electronic music probably will be difficult to blend. My wife has a bunch of Martin acoustics, but uses a Les Paul Studio when playing in electronic ensembles.

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:15 pm Post subject:

gravehill · Joined: Apr 12, 2005 Posts: 49 Location: Berlin, Germany

I think acoustic guitar (and basically any acoustic instrument) blends very well with electronics. Live I normally run the acoustic guitar through a Boss GT-5 multieffect pedal so sometimes it doesn't sound like an acoustic guitar at all. I also play synths and various other stuff alone on stage but guitar is the instrument I'm technically most proficient with. Also the audience seems to like it.

deknow · Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 10:52 am Post subject:

...i think you will find several looping guitarists on the loopers-delight list (see below).

as mentioned by others, if you are going to process the guitar sound, using a pickup will help a great deal (perhaps use a pickup for processing, and mic for acoustic sounds).

i recently saw an old friend perform on a hammered dulcimer with dampers (which made effected playing possible), perhaps there is a way to do the same to an acoustic gutiar in order to selectively take the reverb out of the guitar.

deknow

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gsilbers · Joined: Jun 28, 2006 Posts: 2 Location: LA

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:49 am Post subject:

Not jazz, but ..

Manuel Göttsching should be well known by now.

http://www.ashra.com/

Antimon · Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:12 am Post subject:

I think acoustic guitar mixes very well along with electronics, just like acoustic piano. I am curious though how this might be achieved in a live setting (looping acoustic guitar, I mean). How would you set up a microphone so that the sound doesn't get muddled by too much feedback?

/Stefan

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:22 pm Post subject:

My 5 euro..

.... a piezo.. works fine..