Re: another survey (wasRe: OT, but getting close to not-OT: guitar/sax improv sessions)

["Travis Hartnett" <travishartnett@gmail.com>]

On 10/6/07, Paul Mimlitsch <pmimlitsch@mac.com> wrote:

> >> 2) "the beauty of the single not line" - how many guitar players/
> >> players of multitimbral instruments can do an improv. gig using only
> >> single note lines and hold an audiences attention? for how long?
> >
> > Never tried it.  It certainly get dull for me pretty quickly (as a
> > player).
>
> Maybe a new approach/ something to explore?

Nah.
I have to keep people happy at my gigs, or I get fired, and I'm happy
with that.  Out of the many musical areas one can explore, I work in
the ones that interest me and which are likely to be interesting to a
general audience.  I could work all my life on those and still not get
to the bottom of it, without delving into the things that don't appeal
to me much and which don't have much of an audience.
Again, only so many hours in the day, so many days left in my life.
Even the "easy" things are hard.
For the record, I am a completely non-experimental musician...in public.

>
> >
> >>
> >> 3) if you're not comfortable doing this, is that because of
> >> preference (ie: vertical vs. linear hearing)?  Being raised on a
> >> particular instrument?  Or did you gravitate towards your preferred
> >> instrument due to how you hear things?
> >
> > Personally, the percussive note envelope of the guitar (the sound is
> > dying off almost as soon as its sounded) does not lend itself well to
> > unaccompanied single lines.  I so envy the bowed instruments or horns
> > that can make a note get louder after the initial attack, and for
> > years used a compressor, volume pedal and reverb/delay to cop some of
> > that ability.
>
> Not sure I agree with the "does not lend itself to unaccompanied
> single lines".

Yep, well, we can't all like the same things.  I'm drawing a blank on
notable examples of the unaccompanied single line guitarist genre
though.

Best,

TH