the sound of guitars

[shakahislop]

what do you like? what do you hate? what is it about the guitar which makes it so tonally varied and so enduring? why have guitar sounds come in and out of vogue over the decades? no interest in songwriting or songs here. specifically guitar sounds.

 

[shakahislop]

alternatively a place to talk about why you hate guitars and anything to do with them. but any beats vs guitars dichotomies will be shot down. coz that's never been real.

also a place to shamefacedly reveal that you play the guitar

 

[Leo]

There's no greater phallic object/penis substitute. The ladies aren't gonna go wild if you try to cock rock with a violin.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Favourite guitar tones ever

Getting back into sound design (I'm rubbish, but it interests me), and reading music press articles (eg Sound on Sound) about the greatest tones ever. These tend to be way too obvious, although interesting. So, I was thinking about my own (but the list I have so far is also pretty obvious)...

dissensus.com

 

[Leo]

the perfect vehicle for channeling raging teenage hormones, limited experience/ability be damned.

 

[Leo]

also, they take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.

 

[Benny Bunter]

also a place to shamefacedly reveal that you play the guitar

I'm quite good on the guitar but I'll go for years without playing it at all. Last time I picked it up was during the 1st lockdown when I finally taught myself fingerpicking properly and learned a few a Bert Jansch songs. Haven't touched it since then though.

 

[WashYourHands]

aluminium travis bean

 

[WashYourHands]

lol

 

[Leo]

aluminium travis bean

that's what Steve Albini played when I've seen Shellac, a particularly ringing incision of sound.

 

[Benny Bunter]

that's what Steve Albini played when I've seen Big Black and Shellac, a particularly ringing incision of sound.

With a metal plectrum 😬

 

[WashYourHands]

that's what Steve Albini played when I've seen Shellac, a particularly ringing incision of sound.

Edit fail post but it’s an imperfect world, the bridge was to this, sounds distinct today

 

[WashYourHands]

Ok seriously, Bad Brains. Raucous, never overbearing, a sound my older brother sought for a few years, among others, butchering covers night after night



Turkish massive, preferably an edit as the original is less than two minutes and deserves longer exposure




anyway, the intention isn’t to shitpost but to highlight hating an instrument is absurd, imagine hating something like bricks, makes no sense even if I sense a hovering cenobitical intervention

 

[martin]

Electric guitars are cool. Was given a sunburst Zenta (old, cheap '70s Japanese make) at 13 or 14, much to my parents’ disgust. I only really learned a few Ramones tunes, but what did I care? I had to run the cable through a Toshiba tape-to-tape player and it gave me the odd electric shock, but it was so much better than having a Nintendo. And yes, girls do react to it (just not the ones I wanted)

First guitarist who made my jaw drop was Marco Pirroni from Adam & The Ants, he made so many other bands' guitarists sound puny and 1-dimensional (bear in mind I was 6 and just getting into whatever was in the charts, so didn't exactly compare him to Crass or Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, lol). I loved that bit at the end of "Ants Invasion" where he's scratching the strings and feedbacking, and it sounds like a bunch of insects are crawling around and going mental inside your speakers...I mean, I liked The Jam too, but how could Weller compete with this barrage?


Guitarists who sit on stools while they're playing make me sick.

 

[Leo]

maybe guitars don't fit in today's autotuned/neutered music world, where everything is two-dimensionally computer generated, all the edged smoothed down. maybe they need sweat and raunch.

 

[luka]

eas ily the worst instrument

 

[okzharp]

i was in Granada one time a few years ago and my Granadino friend took me to a jazz bar on a Sunday night in the Albaycin and the place was packed... turns out it was because some guy called Tomatito was there, who used to play with Camaron, who I was told was like the Spanish Elvis... anyway Tomatito staggered onto the little stage at 2am and played solo guitar for a couple of hours accompanied at various points by serious-looking singers, clappers, dancers... one amazing old lady could barely walk but when she danced she was young and sexy and everyone lost their shit... among various magic tricks he played an extended version of Thelonius Monk's Round Midnight which was pretty wild I only recognised it because it has that little melody that repeats... but people seemed to recognise riffs and licks here and there and he stirred the crowd up like a master... and I remember thinking how amazing it was that with 6 strings he managed to create such intensity and tenderness and fury and joy.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Adolescent @martin in action:

 

[martin]

Adolescent @martin in action:

View attachment 13970

Well, yeah...first port of call's to practice looking like Johnny Thunders. 'Learning songs' comes later.