Traditional acoustic instruments being used to play new electronic instrument songs.

John Watt

Member
For sure, I'm going to use a Jimi Hendrix song to begin this thread.
Jimi didn't write "Hey Joe", and it was a song picked by a record producer.
That was about making a hit single first for British airplay.
The lyrics about a girlfriend and shooting a man were considered radical and hot,
even if was an American afro-american stereotype they were using.
Jimi added a signature riff and used his approach to guitar chords,
but picking this as a first video is also using a song that isn't very complicated.

I just hafta add as a guitarist-vocalist myself, seeing music on a global YouTube scale,
it's more than nice to not feel challenged by any other guitarist I'm seeing.
I'm getting ready to start playing in a band again, and that's a very good feeling.
Saying this guitarist is just sitting there and doesn't sing might not look like much here,
but moving around and dancing is also what I do, and for anyone else thinking of posting here,
it would be a big bump up over this seriously performing trio.
A band of real gypsies, anyone?


 
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John Watt

Member
I've been allowed to play a few historic harpsichords myself,
but they're not the best instruments to play, compared to pianos.
The one I played that was a sea green with gold trim was nice.

Here's another version of "Hey Joe" and it sounds pretty good.


 

John Watt

Member
oh no... it's time for some ukulele singing, doing a big Hollywood studio production number.
I've always liked "Walk on By" by Burt Bacharach even if I'd do it a little faster.
That way the words could be more staccato, like footsteps rushing by,
so the pain of separation isn't felt as much.
The original Dionne Warwich video featured a long instrumental section,
where she has dancers and moves around to fill it in.
Just hearing the song being sung as it is here, is for me, more of a song,
even if it takes just half the time.


 

John Watt

Member
This live stage performance is pushing the boundaries of what is traditional acoustic,
and what is new and electronic in the best possible way.

First, the guitarist is using a Godin guitar, looking acoustic but deeply electronic.
It is now said that over 75% of the worlds' recording artists are using Godin guitars.
That's more about being able to plug them into almost anything to sound good,
than it is about creative body design and finish.
I can't jump up onstage and start jamming along with this group,
so I'm going to include a letter from President Robert Godin about my semi-solid-body.
I bought an Art & Lutherie acoustic from one of the old boys from Crowbar and King Biscuit Boy,
who wrote the songs used in the Blues Brothers movies, local friends of Dan Ackroyd.
I liked the low-gloss finish and sent an email asking about it.
They wanted proof I wasn't a manufacturer so I sent photos of my semi-solid-body.
We exchanged some email and I got advice about what products to use.
After that I got this letter from President Robert Godin commending me for my innovations,
and he's very "French" in Quebec, because my email weren't job applications.
At first I thought he might be using psychology to get me to reply and ask about it,
but considering he never sent me another I figured no, that was just him and his ways.
I didn't know at the time that Godin owned Art & Lutherie.
See! I did get myself into this video, a little.

The piano is a Yamaha, yeah... almost giving them away to take over pianos in foreign countries.
Here in Ontario, Canada, one year the provincial government sold off most band and public instruments,
and bought all Yamaha.
Yamaha paid for new illuminated signs for music stores if they put their name up on them.
I know China and Japan and the rest of the orient lost the war, and many wars,
but they won the peace. From my ancestral perspective that's only fair and a more honorable attack,
however, my poor musical heart went out to all the band instrument sellers and repairmen who lost jobs.

I kept looking at the bass to see who made it, and I'm not going to guess Ned Steinberger.

https://thinkns.com>instruments

It's a small-scale version of an upright that is electronic, sounding very, very good.
It's got a deep electric bass presence with the timbre of an upright, even cello sounding up the neck.
I say that, because it's accented when he's soloing up the neck,
and when he goes down to start playing back-up again the difference is very dramatic.

Zildjan cymbals on the drums are more than historic for that Arabic cymbal making family,
now the biggest maker of cymbals in the world. I couldn't read the maker of the drums,
if that's the name on the skins.
I'm surprised he doesn't have Roto-toms or tubular drums, something cultural,
or some percussion he stands up to go over to, for a different rhythmic effect.
I'm saying that because the guitarist starts off the song with the pianist just singing,
and then walks off the stage, leaving his guitar hanging there.

I can see that as being cultural for Brazilians, if that's standard stage practice.
When I was the only white guy onstage, playing with Buffalo r'n'b or "soul" bands in the 70's,
there could be a trumpeter, a harmonica player, or a sax man sitting in the audience,
where they would be called up to play a song the bandleader felt needed them.
If I didn't have my own wah-wah pedal and knew how to use it in various ways,
there would have been a guitarist sitting there with one waiting to come up.

This is a very nice performance by excellent musicians, over ten minutes long.





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John Watt

Member
Here's Colin Hay, a lead singer and songwriter for the Australian band "Men at Work".
They were a beat band, very dance-able, and kind of jazzy with some very nice flute playing.
He's in a radio studio singing "Overkill" solo with an acoustic guitar.
I did this song when it was on the charts, thinking of it as "Ghosts Appear and Fade Away".
The transition chord that takes you out of the verse is very nice to play,
and when it gets to ghosts appearing and fading away... there's a soft and peaceful moment.
It takes a band playing a bigger arrangement to really accent that, just how I felt it.
It's a really nice song to solo with, building on the melody and chords.

Colin is looking and sounding good, no big lines on his forehead and he's still hitting the high notes.
He toured the world as a solo act, and I was hoping he was looking to start a new band.
Men at Work are still working it, as their songs have never faded away.

 

John Watt

Member
I was in high school when a new music promoter came to visit our art teacher.
He said he wanted the best artist to draw psychedelic posters for three concerts at the Cove,
a big bar in Lowbanks, by Lake Erie, a half hour drive from Welland where there's a big American cottage population.
The art teacher recommended me and I got the job, saying free tickets for three concerts.
That was The Spenser Davis Trio, The Guess Who and I forget the third band.
My parents didn't want me to go, being underage, and I'm still a non-smoker, non-drinker.
The beaches by the Cove had a reputation for people passing out and sleeping overnight,
to just be polite about it. After all was done, it did become an expensive strip club.
It was better for me to sell the tickets and invest in my slot-racing cars.

When I started playing electric guitar at matinees in local bars, jamming onstage,
"I'm a Man" by Stevie Winwood, a big hit for The Spenser Davis trio, was a regular song.
Songs by The Guess Who, "These Eyes", "Laughing", "Blue Collar", were song favorites,
but were too complicated to just get up and jam with.

This Stevie Winwood song was recorded first with Blind Faith with Eric Clapton on guitar.
When Blind Faith played locally they abandoned Eric Clapton, too wasted on heroin.
That was a big part of his reputation and promotional materials, from Cream to then.
Bonnie and Delaney, a husband and wife team with their own rock band, took him in.
After he recovered, touring with them, he moved south for his "Lay Down Sally" era,
finally using a Stratocaster, even though the influence of Jimi Hendrix was always a negative force for him.
Eric Clapton said that when Paul McCartney first took him to hear Jimi in a nightclub,
he went outside and started shaking, thinking his career as the best psychedelic rock guitarist was over,
and then he went home and laid on the floor, doing heroin for over four weeks.

When I first listened to this Stevie Winwood video where he's playing an acoustic version of this song,
the snapping of the wood in the fireplace reminded me of how life can quickly create too much heat,
that takes you off the stage and into the frying land.
Stevie did something similar, retreating from the public and recording solo albums all by himself.
Seeing him here, I hope he gets another band together to uplift the live music scene.
After his solo albums generated some chart hits, he toured again with a new band.
I saw him at the Buffalo arena when that song with the line about "that breeze on a summer day", was a big hit,
and in this video it looks like he's trying to get warmed up again.
Stevie Winwood knows what it's like to jam with Jimi Hendrix, a special guest on "Electric Ladyland".
I hope he finds another partner who can push him to a new musical greatness.
When classic becomes Jurassic even old stoners won't pay to see bones onstage.
Stevie has the music inside him, and it needs to come out as something new.
I'm thinking Mick Fleetwood on drums, now that he's gone from Fleetwood Mac.
And where is the bassist from Ian Drury and the Blockheads?
It is time for a little more funk and a livelier r'n'b that Stevie has... uh... hinted at.


 

John Watt

Member
This video is another collection of rock royalty, as the British Invasion described them,
playing together as an acoustic performance. And it's not all British, even if the song is.
Dave Mason and Stevie Winwood recorded some albums together, thinking this song as a big hit.
There is Mark Farner sitting there, high harmonizing, when he was the singer-songwriter,
and guitarist for Grand Funk Railroad, a huge American rock trio.
Rick Derringer made it big when Johnny Winter asked him to join his band,
and his song "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" became a big hit and a song to jam with at matinees.

Yes... it's a seniors thing, especially for musicians who think back to "glory days",
hearing them talking like that here, but it looks like a very casual situation to meet with fans.
Who knows, they could be like me... and are playing for a free meal and some pop.
That was always a daytime thing for me, before the sun went down and it was time for stage lighting.
I can see them doing this song a little more uptempo with some raggae bass pushing it along.


 
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John Watt

Member
It's new to call music a "mash-up", and that really can mean anything,
being more about using technology to mix up your mixes as mixed up as you can get.
Here's an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar, if an acoustic guitar that's amplified is just an acoustic.
For me, using an electric guitar is better because it's far easier to play standing up,
so you can move around and dance if you want to.

This is a Nicolo Paganini "Caprice", for sure, a classical violin performance piece,
now with electric guitars.
I'd have set up the Ibanez to have a more mellow tone for the high notes,
and slack off on the bass, a little too boomy. It's also got a one-dimensional tone,
not having a sound envelope as a variety for picking attacks.
Changing a pickup to a big old P.A.F. Humbucker might do that.

For the longest time I carried my Jimi Hendrix ticket stub and a photo of Nicolo Paganini in my wallet.
Seeing this wonderful couple playing some Paganini and having fun with their video,
makes me think life is getting better, somewhere out there.
Fly me to your room so I can jam along with the stars.




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John Watt

Member
You might wonder how a man playing an acoustic piano fit in with the theme of this thread.
When I first heard these songs, or saw someone playing them, it was during a Sunday afternoon.
We would be back home for lunch, after church, our Scottish church, taking it easy, watching some television.
That's when a program would be about signing up for a record club, playing music with a painting showing,
or the musicians who made the album. I remember "Les Gymnopiedes" with Monet and Manet lilies the most.
It could also be a man selling a recliner chair, playing music in between scenes in a furniture showroom.
How electronic is this, hearing a classical piece on television, and now here through YouTube?

The first song this pianist uses for his demonstration is one of my all-time favorites.
I listened to this easily, something I did with my own records.
I could listen to the same piece or song four or five times in a row, thinking I was getting it into my head,
and the ones that made me want to listen more were to me, better music.

This reminded me of an article I read about symphony players and violins.
A carbon fiber violin maker got some Stradivarius violins and some carbon fiber violins,
and toured the world with them, visiting various violin virtuosos wherever they were playing.
They would lead them blind-folded into their hotel room with all these violins,
and get them to play them and say which ones where their favorites.
Most of the violinists chose the carbon fiber violins first.
I can understand that, a more neutral and wood-grain free instrument would have more even tone.
And for those of you who are still debating about the varnish or glue making the difference,
Stradivarius scoured the countryside looking for old wooden beams from forts and castles,
using wood that had gone through the centuries, something that wouldn't warp.
And no... I'm not thinking of calling my semi-solid-body a Stratovarius...
no... I'm not even thinking about it... not at all... "Stradacaster"... no.. not even a maybe...


 
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John Watt

Member
yes... I'm looking and listening to my own thread here, remembering those Sunday afternoons.
That was in our house on Wallace Avenue, so that was up to grade three when I was eight.
Listening again I remembered, this is "Clair de Lune" by, if I can guess, Claude Debussy.

If you can call that music styling cues, what I kept as part of my musical inventory on guitar,
you'll understand why I chose this solo guitarist as another example of acoustic music being played on electric.
You might look right away and say that is an acoustic guitar, but it's not.
It's got all the styling cues of one, even nylon strings, but it's an electric guitar for sure.

In some ways, this performer is a blend of street busker, because he is out on the street,
and a rock performer, and that's something that's holding him back as far as expanding his audience.
Instead of a cigarette stuck in his strings by the tuners, he's got some incense.
You really don't want to have something burning associated with you onstage, especially in this meth-head age.
As in the era of classic rock, that would have suggested a joint, something that was illegal back then.
It could also suggest something heavier involving lighting up a flame, uh, a heat-seeking invitation.
And this is broad daylight, a public crowd as much as a family crowd, and incense outdoors doesn't make sense.

Just wearing a vest isn't the best way to dress, if you expect your audience to concentrate on your music,
or be respectful of dress codes or non-nudity that many potential audience members would appreciate.
It's always nice to start off being polite, and it's not as if he's a body builder or model on display.
If he wants to be dramatic and tear off his shirt to illustrate an extreme amount of stage presence,
while he's playing, that would work. Having a roadie come onstage to cover up his naked display of emotion,
and sexuality, is an r'n'b, soul and funk stage routine, something a modern rock audience could get into.

This is talking about being flamboyant, so let's recap. Incense stuck in his guitar, no shirt and long hair.
What isn't he doing that is far more ordinary? He really doesn't have any facial expressions.
That's so necessary to communicate to an audience who can't look closely into your eyes.
He's looking up and around, away from his guitar, but he's not doing anything to communicate.
When I think of an entertainer using facial expressions I remember Roy Clark on Hee-Haw.
This guitarist could be making some vocal sounds to accent the sound and fury he works up,
being a very good guitarist, really good, and the video even shows his boot moving a little,
but he's not moving it in time or even stomping it, what is ordinary flamenco technique.

Considering that I play guitar with the bass strings on the bottom with the highs on top,
what is a left-handed body with a right-handed neck, I always feel sorry for finger-pickers.
Some classical guitarists never get their little fingers to pick very fast notes or chords,
but when you have your opposable thumb up there with your two main fingers, it's easy right away.
When I started out, other guitarists would shake their heads and walk away when I started doing that.
And when it comes to bass notes, what am I doing, having my little finger for that.
Bass notes are never that fast or driven for most music, easy for a little finger.
Your little finger wants to move with your other fingers, making it easier to follow on bass.
Needless to say, having an opposable thumb to help with melody and chordal applications,
allows a more complicated technique right away without having to develop it, just doing it.

I really like this guitar player just for his playing, don't get me wrong.
He works up a sound and fury most solo guitarists never reach,
even it it's a subtle use of the electronics of his guitar.
Watching him made me think of using my favorite chord passages from Clair de Lune,
as a fast finger-picking part, having a wider tonal range than most finger-picking chords.
Having a cleaner sound for that just so the notes are easily heard,
and then adding effects and playing them at the original speed for more sonic depth,
would be a beautiful musical interlude to break up jazzy jamming.
With an aquatic sounding poetry to Clair de Lune chords,
instead of "The Flight of the Bumble-bee",
it could be "The Fight of the Remote Controlled Drones", something like that,
those little boats buzzing around on the water, an insistent finger-picking sound,
with shots and cannons going off as a musical build...
until all you hear is the sound of waves washing ashore, with the cries of those wanting rescue...
fading in the depths... as the merman you would be makes some impatient flipper sounds...
wondering what happened to your mermaid.

The world needs a new gypsy guitarist. I'm still looking.
Wearing a tight brocade vest with a flashy shirt with puffy sleeves,
playing standing up, walking around as if he's walking around the campfire,
stomping his feet like a flamenco dancer, grabbing a violin bow to beat the strings and bow them,
and wearing just one metal bracelet on his wrist, so he can wipe the strings as a slide guitar.
And if his fingers kept playing while he raised his picking arm up and pointed at the sky,
and shouted "Jimi... Jimi", making everyone look... while he fell to his knees and kept playing,
leaning back with his guitar pointing up... he'd be doing it all.


 
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John Watt

Member
I'm thinking there are two possible explanations for this live stage performance.
This stage group is either recreating music they saw used as a soundtrack for a movie or documentary,
being very serious about their cultural ancestry,
or they are people who are still playing their first game of Dungeons and Dragons,
coming out onstage to earn some cash so they can continue to host their gaming lifestyle.
Was that a naked Scotsman covered in grey soot crawling across the stage, trying to remain unobserved?
Those Ladies from Hell know how to blend in with teutonic environments.


 

John Watt

Member
If I was continuing the kind of cultural clone that "Heilung" performed in the previous video,
trying to top that, I'll be thinking I had to revisit the planet Vulgaria, a secondary phase of Earth,
where strip clubs took over bar-band venues and strippers were successful at making media videos and recordings,
using a lot of nudity onstage and whatever they can get away with on YouTube.

But no, this is a modern performance of traditional Bulgarian vocalizing, not willing to call this a folk song.
When you have an orchestra and a choir on a stage in a big hall, it's a concerted attempt.


 
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John Watt

Member
I'm not thinking you have to watch all the way through these videos to understand.
Here's another concert hall with an orchestra that features stage performers.
It's only human nature, but the eyes want to see more than the ears want to hear.
The more detail you have, the more movement, from humans to waves washing ashore,
the more the human mind finds the enchantment it calls entertainment.
Yes... you see the name Yamaha onstage...
and those moving back-lights are descendants of acid-trip light shows from the Fillmore in L.A.
If there is some cultural ancestry on display, you'll have to figure that out yourself.
As far as physical dancing, I'm not seeing any Nutcracker moves.


 

John Watt

Member
As we continue to explore ancestral cultural music and human interaction,
we can consider the previous video as being stately, if not slow, and very repetitious.
That's being repetitious as far as costumes, movements and the number of stage-walkers.

This new video doesn't have an orchestra, just instrument you might find around a campfire or in a tent.
These stage twirlers have another repetitious movement even if it's very fast, and so are the costumes.
The architecture and artwork in mosques is some of the most elaborate on earth, very beautiful with optical illusions,
so it remains a mystery to me why the costumes of these men don't have swirls or colourful patterns,
to accent their movements and give you more to see, even having tassels to add to the spinning,
or bells to highlight their movement.
I know Whirling Dervishes spin to feel spun, a light-headed mental state that can be collective,
but when you consider how elaborate and colourful their tribal clothes are, they could be the same.


 
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John Watt

Member
This is my final video for this cultural, ancestral historic acoustic to modern electrical... uh... thread side-bar.
Hey! I mentioned naked Scotsmen crawling onstage covered in soot, I don't have to show them.

I'm asking you to hear how much the vocals, stringed instruments and drums all have in common.
Before electrical consumption created genres based on experimental sounds and loud volumes,
we can see and hear how humans evolved with the same approach to music and dance.

This video is special in one sense.
The titles explain the historic significance of the music and the dance,
and everything we see and hear can be many thousands of years old.
This is tradition, music and dance, with historic architecture, still alive in our world.
This is just one female performer, when I'm sure many women dancing this traditional dance,
is what it would be in a temple or stage presentation.


 
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John Watt

Member
No... it's not ending yet... forgetting one side of this planet.
Here's a very traditional and historic "dance" with a modern stage production.
When I see performers like this I remember something my mother would say,
"some peoples' kids", with "what they can get into" being unsaid.

I just hafta add, seeing this world as coming from down under,
that here, the eye is quicker than the hand.

 
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John Watt

Member
Here's a very strong return to the original intent of this thread,
a ukulele cover of "Voodoo Chile" by Jimi Hendrix.
I hope this doesn't make you get your four strings up into a "not".


 

John Watt

Member
Here we are, going from solo ukulele to a famous looper,
and that's famous as being on YouTube and Spotify, to name two.
Being a looper has become a big thing to do, as a solo producer.

Not everyone is going to break out of their own space,
to get up on stage with the invitation of your good grace,
and when you're looping you keep going when you can't erase,
when this technology stops carrying you, will all your talent surface?



The wonder of looping becomes more obvious when you see a different production.
And hey, there's nothing wrong with being stereo about it, both sides now.
If you think I'm including this because she's got a Haida mask on the wall,
you could be right. Or left. You were born that way.

 
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John Watt

Member
Going from acoustic instruments being used to recreate electronic instrument music,
to electronics being used to recreated band performances,
is just another example of our world being turned upside-down,
as my Mohawk friends describe it.
Here's a European example of looping.
These loopers better watch out before everyone expects them to be the next dance DJ's,
and they asked to take a request.
Take a look at all the views this has, almost 66,500,000.


 
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John Watt

Member
How electronic can be we get,
with a musical instrument that human hands don't even have to touch?
Here's "Claire de Lune" done with a theremin, and it's very, very nice.


 
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