Non Guitar Inspiration

[thetick]

I found out something sad today, although it comes nearly eight years too late, so it's not news.

I remember way back in 1992 or 93, I was a young metalhead guitarist..you know Yngwie this, Steve Vai that, playing Metallica covers in bands, you know the deal. I hated, hated jazz..I was young and stupid of course.

Well, I had started jamming with this new bass player, who was very into heavy avant garde stuff (Helmet, and alot of the NY noise scene at that time) and his playing was very Les Claypool-ish. Fun to jam with him, and he started turning me onto alot of stuff outisde the normal "rock/metal" scene.

Well one night he rolls by and says he's going to the Knitting Factory to check out this hot jazz trio, the Thomas Chapin trio. I'm like "whatever". He said, "Man, just come. The Guiness is on me.." Alright, not one to overlook free beer, I tag along...well, to make a long story short, this jazz trio kicked my ass. Tiny space ,killer acoustics. Thomas Chapin, on various sax and flute, great standup bass, and a drummer who kicked the f'ing crap out of his kit. Remember this was a very hip, avant garde NYC jazz kinda scene, so the music was aggressive, noisy and challenging. The tumne they kicked off was I think called "Anima" and had a similar bass line to Vai's Attitude song (descending chromatic bluesy riff)..well the liones and melodies the guy was laying down on sax over it was so damn rock and roll - not in note choice, but in attack and delivery, I was instantly won over. One of the best shows I have ever seen to this day in fact..

Over the years, I had seen the band playing at various places in the city, but never had the opportunity to check 'em out again.

Well today I was digging around looking for some other jazz stuff, and came across a news bit - apparently the trio leader Thomas Chapin, passed away from luekimia back in '98!! He was only 40 years old..Oh man...so I jumped right over to iTunes and they have some of his stuff (which I am downloading right now)..listening to it brings me right back to that day when I hear music new again. Check him out, you won't regret it..

And what about you guys, what non-guitarists have influenced your music or understanding of music..

[Davey]

Wow, I really can't think of any.

Let me think...

[David McCarroll]

Well, lessee - Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Stephan Grappelli, Yehudi Menuen, wayne shorter, Brian Eno, Chick Corea, Herbie Flowers............. guitar is, no matter what we as players think, a small part of what music is all about - the original "shredders" were violinists like Paganini, and I can think of at least two bluegrass banjo players who can spit out notes at speeds that make most guitar shredders look like pensioners - AND it's more fun to listen to!!!

Cheers

David

P.S. Miles was the king - if you haven't tuned into him yet - do yourself a treat!

[mi2tom]

F.Chopin and tchaikovsky is an inspiration to me, they make shredders looks like kids who can't make music but just blasting up and down...

[Ki swordsman]

good modern R&b, rap, some drum and bass techno like pendulum(who used to be a metal guitar band)

i really get into heaps of r&b and find it the most awesome thing to improv solo over(best backing tracks i've ever found )

umm some world music- an AMAZING.........AMAZING!!! singer/songwriter who is russian and lives in+releases material in japan, she's called Origa

i am a singer too so i find a lot of this stuff probably more inspiring than a pure guitarist would(like the rap stuff)

but the No1 best non guitar inspiration is always hot members of the opposite sex..

[nickcoumbe]

Originally Posted by Ki swordsman

but the No1 best non guitar inspiration is always hot members of the opposite sex..

I am often motivated by non-guitar songs to do produce guitar songs from them. For example I am currently working on an '80s rock version of Hot Stuff by Donna Summer.

Singers that inspire me:
Bowie (well the whole production)
Tom Jones
Jon Bon Jovial
Mariah Carey

[Eggy]

John Bonham - He just make me feel so Rock n' Roll.

Aretha Franklin - There's no other word for that voice other than HARDCORE !

ABBA - How many catchy tunes can you write in one lifetime ?

...Just three off the top of my head.

Ben

[thetick]

Originally Posted by David McCarroll

...guitar is, no matter what we as players think, a small part of what music is all about..

Hahaha...just ask any drummer that!!

You know, another thing I just realized..a few years back I started to take this Brazilian martial art, Capoeira, and you have to learn all these funky instruments that come to Brazil by way of Africa. Being a guitarist, I immediately took to what is called a "berimbau"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berimbau

http://www.nscottrobinson.com/berimbau.php

Which is like a giant one string guitar, that you use a rock or brass coin as a moveable bridge and hit it with a stick to produce sound. It uses a gourd as a resonator, which you move back and forth creating a wah-wah effect. Primitive as all hell, and I'm like "heck, my guitar has six strings, this has got one, how hard can it be!!" Years later I'm still no closer to mastering this bizarre, ancient ancestor of the guitar. Just learning to hold the damn thing takes a while

It's more of a rhythmic instrument with a melodic component than the other way around, and it really has effected my guitar playing. In the hands of a master this thing sounds amazing and so vocal - with just two notes that it can produce (well, technically three, but the third note is like a buzz or muted tone, so I won't call it a "note"). My teacher makes the thing sing like a voice...after I play it and go back to the guitar I always try to make fewer notes say more...amazong what you can learn about guitar when you put the thing down and come back to it later with a fresh approach. That"s why the guitar is such an amazing instrument - with the right influence you can make it do so many things, expressively.

I eventually tracked down a guy in San Diego that makes this crazy custom berimbau - walnut, with a guitar tuner on the end..crazy thing..but it sounds awesome..I love bringing this thing to jam sessions and busting it out and have people say "What the hell is that!!" I wish I could get Ibanez to make one -

You can hear it on a few jazz albums, and any weird twangy sounds you hear on Sepultra and Soulfly records is a berimbau..

[Davey]

Capoeira eh?

That's involves a lot of fighting on your back does it not?

[Gurj]

Originally Posted by Eggy

ABBA - How many catchy tunes can you write in one lifetime ?

I grew up listening to ABBA, my dad was a huge fan. Suppose I'd have to add Elvis in that case.

Others that inspired me would probably include Freddy Mercury and probably watching Nigel Kennedy play violin, that's another instrument I wish I could play

[Aris_T]

If I had to choose from the jazz scene, I would say that Miles was the one who changed my perspective on music.
On the other hand there are non-metal/rock bands that I really love. Artists like Massive Attack, Amon Tobin e.t.c.
Other artists that have inspired me are:

Mike Patton
Devin Townsend (as a composer)
Michael Manring
Les Claypool
Herbie Han**** (I suppose you know who !)
Jonas Hellborg
Glenn Gould
Garm
and lots of drummers (in no particular order!)
Vinnie Colaiuta,Terry Bozio, Neil Peart, Sean Reinert, Mark Zonder, Danny Carrey, Mike Portnoy, Tomas Haake, Virgil Donati, John Blackwell and many others (tired of typing actually)

[thetick]

Miles Davis for sure..but I always preferred Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders on the horn. Pharoah especially, because his phrasing gets out there, but he's always somewhere in the blues..

It's so easy to start looking at music "guitaristically" that it's good to get out of it sometimes. I was just reading the review for the new Chili Peppers CD in the new issue of Rolling STone and it said something like "Frusciante makes the guitar sound like a nuclear attack at the end of the song" or something like that..and realized that that is a powerful way of thinking about music sometimes - forget scales and riffs and whatnot and go for making it sound like something - I think Hendrix did that consistently and Vai certainly alludes to it alot. It's like when I heard Vernon Reids solo on Cult of Personality the first time - it was "WTF is that!!!" Still not the most technical thing in the world, but it sounds like what frustrated political rage could sound like on a heavy distorted guitar..or Hendrix' entire approach to Machine Gun..creating soundscapes that tell a story...

[pawel]

Oh, tons of non-guitar stuff - from jazz (traditional through fusion to free), classical (mostly 20th century), ambient, electronica, Indian Carnatic music, Qawwali etc...

Some non-guitaristic names, from the top of my head at the moment:

Bela Bartok
Iannis Xenakis
Oliver Messiaen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
John Coltrane
Cecil Taylor
Autechre
Brian Eno
John Zorn
Jaco Pastorius
Zakir Hussein
L. Shankar
Selvaganesh
Kraftwerk
Merzbow
Dimitri Shostakovich
Biosphere
Nils Petter Molvaer
Jeff Buckley
Bjork
Syd Barrett

[guitarsalad14]

neil peart and john bonham