Current Events > percussive guitar playing is trash

(+) Yeah! (+)

stop hitting your guitar and play drums instead noob
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In general I'm not a big fan of the whole trend of percussive guitar players. They give me the same feeling that guitar shredders do (Malmsteen and the like), like I'm just watching someone show me how clever they are instead of someone creating honest music.
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examples!
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dirtycommunist posted...

examples!

Pretty much any of the candyrat records crowd (look up the youtube channel). The whole thing was more or less invented by Michael Hedges who made it an original sound, and then got adopted by a lot of people who just make what sounds like pretty elevator music but with clever percussive skills.

This was the big youtube hit that made the whole thing very popular in the mainstream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4

Tommy Emmanuel might be another example, but he's also maybe the most gifted acoustic guitar player ever (on a technical level), so he gets a pass.
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never heard of it

I thought you meant punching their guitars like Doyle from Misfits does
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Got it. It's kinda nifty, but at the same time I didn't want to listen any more after a minute.
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dirtycommunist posted...

Got it. It's kinda nifty, but at the same time I didn't want to listen any more after a minute.

Exactly.

I've been playing guitar since I was 11, and I think every guitar player goes through an obsession with this stuff at some point. But one day I realised I was exhausting a shitload of effort into making music that sounds just crap. I mean you'll never get a quality tone by tapping an acoustic without some serious sound engineering antics, and those percussive sounds will never have the depth of sound you'd get out of a real drum or percussion setup. It's all very tinny and flat. And because your hands are so tied up you're not really going to be able to play much beyond a simple melody and bassline or a stunted rhythm part.

It's like trying to get the best of both worlds at the same time but only ending up with a mediocre version of either. And for what? Have to kind of conclude that the point here is to show off how many things you can do at once, and I hate music like that.
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Dunno. Classic blues guitarists like Sun House incorporated percussive playing and it really set the tone for Delta blues. And guitarists like Tosin Abasi are legendary. Same with John Butler.
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Dunno. Classic blues guitarists like Sun House incorporated percussive playing and it really set the tone for Delta blues. And guitarists like Tosin Abasi are legendary. Same with John Butler.

Alright, I'll take this opportunity to say I'm not saying never. It's true, you can incorporate percussion into a performance and it works and serves a useful purpose. You're not always going to have a drummer around, so having a stomp box or just using the guitar in a percussive way makes sense sometimes. Definitely not knocking that.

I think many of these contemporary guys just take it too far though. If the entire performance is rigged up to try and make the guitar an all-in-one band and the actual music seems to take a backseat I get bored of it.
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pinky0926 posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

Dunno. Classic blues guitarists like Sun House incorporated percussive playing and it really set the tone for Delta blues. And guitarists like Tosin Abasi are legendary. Same with John Butler.

Alright, I'll take this opportunity to say I'm not saying never. It's true, you can incorporate percussion into a performance and it works and serves a useful purpose. You're not always going to have a drummer around, so having a stomp box or just using the guitar in a percussive way makes sense sometimes. Definitely not knocking that.

I think many of these contemporary guys just take it too far though. If the entire performance is rigged up to try and make the guitar an all-in-one band and the actual music seems to take a backseat I get bored of it.

Have you ever listened to royal blood? The bass player uses a bunch of pedals to make it sound like there's an electric guitar in their band and it sounds awesome
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dirtycommunist posted...

examples!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5d8nXAngw
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Feline_Heart posted...

Have you ever listened to royal blood? The bass player uses a bunch of pedals to make it sound like there's an electric guitar in their band and it sounds awesome

Yeah those guys are pretty great. Jack White does the same thing, using pedals to make his guitar sound like a bass. Lemmy from Motorhead sounded like two guitars and a bass sometimes. I think that's a different thing though. Augmenting the sound of an instrument to achieve a specific sound is one thing. But trying to play all the parts on one instrument and losing the sound that makes those instruments useful I can't get behind. It just seems to me like fashion over function.

So yeah, I think it's fine to use an instrument in an unconventional way but I just don't have any taste for these guys who try to simultaneously play a drum beat and bass line and rhythm section and melody all on an acoustic guitar and end up just playing something that sounds pretty flat and dull, like Andy McKee up there.
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BCAM1984 posted...

dirtycommunist posted...

examples!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5d8nXAngw

literally who has this on their preferred media device and listens to it for enjoyment in their free time
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Turtlebread posted...

BCAM1984 posted...

dirtycommunist posted...

examples!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5d8nXAngw

literally who has this on their preferred media device and listens to it for enjoyment in their free time

It sounds like call waiting music lol
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Feline_Heart posted...

pinky0926 posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

Dunno. Classic blues guitarists like Sun House incorporated percussive playing and it really set the tone for Delta blues. And guitarists like Tosin Abasi are legendary. Same with John Butler.

Alright, I'll take this opportunity to say I'm not saying never. It's true, you can incorporate percussion into a performance and it works and serves a useful purpose. You're not always going to have a drummer around, so having a stomp box or just using the guitar in a percussive way makes sense sometimes. Definitely not knocking that.

I think many of these contemporary guys just take it too far though. If the entire performance is rigged up to try and make the guitar an all-in-one band and the actual music seems to take a backseat I get bored of it.

Have you ever listened to royal blood? The bass player uses a bunch of pedals to make it sound like there's an electric guitar in their band and it sounds awesome

Death from Above have been doing this for years. You should check them out if you like Royal Blood.

And it really depends on the artist. Yes it can be played as a gimmick, street performers do it to rake in easily impressed audience members, but guitarists like Tosin Abasi use percussive style right hand techniques heavily in his music and it works great.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYJf_ybyVo

Kinda a long video but maybe this song can change your mind. Super impressive playing from John Butler
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Smashingpmkns posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYJf_ybyVo

Kinda a long video but maybe this song can change your mind. Super impressive playing from John Butler

Doesn't change my mind because I was already a fan :) I preferred this performance personally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQjwkXrcUrs

Also already like death from above.

What I'm saying isn't that you shouldn't use percussive techniques on a guitar. More that percussive techniques and instrument multi-tasking shouldn't overshadow whatever it is you're trying to create to such a degree that it actually detracts from the sound. I don't have a lot of time for musical wizardry these days unless it's actually needed.
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Death from Above have been doing this for years. You should check them out if you like Royal Blood

was just about to say this. they're way better than RB imo
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Feline_Heart posted...

pinky0926 posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

Dunno. Classic blues guitarists like Sun House incorporated percussive playing and it really set the tone for Delta blues. And guitarists like Tosin Abasi are legendary. Same with John Butler.

Alright, I'll take this opportunity to say I'm not saying never. It's true, you can incorporate percussion into a performance and it works and serves a useful purpose. You're not always going to have a drummer around, so having a stomp box or just using the guitar in a percussive way makes sense sometimes. Definitely not knocking that.

I think many of these contemporary guys just take it too far though. If the entire performance is rigged up to try and make the guitar an all-in-one band and the actual music seems to take a backseat I get bored of it.

Have you ever listened to royal blood? The bass player uses a bunch of pedals to make it sound like there's an electric guitar in their band and it sounds awesome

Death from Above have been doing this for years. You should check them out if you like Royal Blood.

And it really depends on the artist. Yes it can be played as a gimmick, street performers do it to rake in easily impressed audience members, but guitarists like Tosin Abasi use percussive style right hand techniques heavily in his music and it works great.

Thanks, I'll listen to some of their stuff
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I thought the same thing until I saw a guy do a percussive solo on his guitar in the middle of a song.

But that dude was crazy good anyway. He played for a while with just the right hand, then played for a while with just the left hand, and pretty much destroyed the finish on one by scraping it for a "brush drumsticks" effect.

He also strummed the part of the strings between the tuning pegs and the neck. Which sounded terrible, tbh.
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DevsBro posted...

I thought the same thing until I saw a guy do a percussive solo on his guitar in the middle of a song.

But that dude was crazy good anyway. He played for a while with just the right hand, then played for a while with just the left hand, and pretty much destroyed the finish on one by scraping it for a "brush drumsticks" effect.

He also strummed the part of the strings between the tuning pegs and the neck. Which sounded terrible, tbh.

Sounds like it could be Tommy Emmanuel.
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idk about most of them but andy mckee, antoine dufour, and tommy emmanuel are all great
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Sounds like it could be Tommy Emmanuel.

The one and only. Guy was ridic.
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Wasn't Bo Diddley doing this sixty years ago?

It really depends for me. I find when it's a solo guitarist, the songwriting falls to shit because they're trying to concentrate on too much.

For Gabriela y Rodrigo it works amazingly because of the two different styles of guitar.

I prefer acoustic people who play rhythm with thier picking hand. Nothing too flashy, but enough to carry a bit of a background beat. By that i mean how they palm mute, which deadened strungs are plucked or strummed to add a bit.
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