ot: jazz w/ a tele....

[Scott Hansen <evanpeewee@gmail.com>]

ok, wow, i'm reading all these different posts....jazz on tele, strings debate, tone control debate, pick debate....and i'm thinking: has this turned into:

JAZZERS-DELIGHT.COM???

ha, most funny. but interesting stuff....

i will throw in my measly cent & 1/2....

back in dec i decided to start trying to play w/ out my pick. for some reason i had some idea of old blues guys in me head, you know, guys who played crappy guitars long ago, tuned to open chord tunings, played slide b/c their action was 1 1/2" off fretboard....etc....was also thinking of this sound in my head of this one john lee hooker song i heard from the 50s, it was just the meanest rhythm rumble, real basic, w/ just drumm sound, guitar, voice--when i 1st heard it i thought it was some old hendrix tune....then i got the jeff beck live dvd and i had just watched the danny gatton telemaster dvd -yet again....and i was thinking of the 20 yrs ago story of christopher parkening talking about how segovia got his sound, how he used a combo of his fingernail ends to get bright sounds, but also mixed in using end of fingertips to get warmer sounds and how he mixed these together a lot....& also an interview yrs ago of EVH talking about seeing some hendrix footage when he was young and he said one min you could see him using a pick,& the next the pick was gone & he'd use his fingers-the theorized that he would hide it in his palm...& it seemed i remember watching some hendrix footage that he seemed to use his thumb a lot for more bassy wes montgomery sounds....ok, so all this is going through my head...and i decide to try going sans pick in my playing....

i think one of the reasons i decided to, was i found that i fall into a lot of patterns from my listenings (& i would pt out i'm not doing accurate steve vai transcriptions-b/c I SUCK!)....to my ear in evaluating my playing i always did a lot of the EVH tremolo picking (probably getting some of my randy R influence too), and i think i thought,  hmmm, i'm nowhere near them, why am i trying? and the other thing i thought i was OVERUSING was the pick pinch harmonics that billy gibbons, EVH do so well...i just thought find something on my own (or try)...so i've been stumbling trying to find my way just using my fingers/thumb...the thing i've noticed is that it's really hard to play fast w/o a pick for me (not that i was ever yngvie or buckethead...). i guess the other thing that had to change or that i relied on is that rhythm playing w/ a pick is so much easier-or easier to get a certain definition-it's brighter, and w/ distortion  going metal sounding you can do the chug chug chug on strings....again for me, i thought it was over used (i also love a few of buckethead's metal rhythms-easy to do those w/ a pick!)...so the last 4 months have been rediscovery....things i've found: if i want a "metalish rhythm sound or more definition i use the top nail part of my index finger, or i just find ways to be satisfied w/ thumb playing-it's more bassy, when playing single notes-i do probably a bastard country claw form of index finger/thumb--i've also been fascinated w/ the country chicken picking-still working on that...but the thing i've found is that in playing notes w/ my fingers, i like the sound better, seems to be fuller, rounder-and i can control it better. can use the nail if i want clearer sound and can move around quicker w/ my finger ends in picking/plucking notes--the pick for me it all just seemed the same, & usually i kept my hand by the bridge and picked there-no variation...w/ just fingers i find myself scraping strings more, using my thumb to bash rhythms sort of funk style (probably more the EVH mean st intro played badly by me)...so i don't know...i think in the end i just like the exploration of notes better than relying on this little piece of plastic to get my sound....

as for the other topics that have come up-i still don't put tone controls in any of my guitars-never liked them ( but feedback mics & ground switch kills-love them!). if i want bassy sounds i use the neck pu (which i love now) pick closer to fretboard, or turn on a wah and bass up the sound (again-from watching some hendrix-i think a lot of time he had his wah on a lot and would rock it back & forth between more bass for rhythm and treble for solo stuff.....)i'm always sort of amazed at the sound variation you can get w/ wah use....lastly-i think i should give credit i had been watching some of the youtube vids of andre LF-and he just uses his fingers & i noticed that he was all over the place w/ his picking hand, creating the sounds he does, & i thought i'd never be able to do that w/ a pick...well, i can't do what andre does anyway....but it also got me thinking....

also for sound-i will say that when i switched to my fender keyboard 60 amp w/ a 12" speaker-love that sound way more than my small speaker amps.

boy i don't  think i even touched the "jazz on a tele", guess that's b/c i can't play JAZZ, but i do like my solid rosewood neck semi hollow tele w/ a trem!!!!

 

lastly, krispen-it's not your gtr/bass/drums format, but have you heard the band "the bad plus"? for gtr they substitute piano-they had the jazzy reworking of nirvana's smells like teen spirit a few yrs ago. they are an interesting listen....

hmmm,that's all folks......(finally!)

s----