Favorite prepared guitar techniques?

[Seth]

I use one of those with my sink. They're very playable, a lot of control.

[Midnoon]

A while back I got one of these vibration-based portable ipod speaker things, haven't done much with it but I think it could be useful stuck on a guitar:

I bet you could get some interesting feedback if you could somehow route the output of the amp to the vibration speaker. I'd love to know how that goes.

[Midnoon]

I use one of those with my sink. They're very playable, a lot of control.

One of what, pray tell?

[Seth]

Same as the post you were replying to - the vibration speaker. Lots of variety in how you can play it, very controllable, good purchase!

[lao]

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[Dohol]

a new book...

[lao]

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[Dohol]

sounds from the book here: http://nicenoise.bandcamp.com/

seems like it's preparations and extended techniques geared towards supplementing more conventional playing?

i'm wondering if we can list some essential prepared guitar recordings in this thread, for research purposes

so far i'm familiar with frith's guitar solos, various rowe recordings, and the kevin drumm s/t

i guess i'd like to find out just how much has already been said with this instrument - not that i don't feel fraudulent enough as it is, adopting a way of playing that is so well associated with major characters such as the above... but it would be cool at least to get a handle on what sounds one should avoid, for example

All I can say is...it's all been done before... Avoid nothing. The wheel was invented a thousand times, but we still use it. (don't be afraid of independent invention..) All those techniques are just colors you can mix together to achieve whatever result you want. The imagination is the limiting factor..

[orangettecoleman]

sounds from the book here: http://nicenoise.bandcamp.com/

seems like it's preparations and extended techniques geared towards supplementing more conventional playing?

i'm wondering if we can list some essential prepared guitar recordings in this thread, for research purposes

so far i'm familiar with frith's guitar solos, various rowe recordings, and the kevin drumm s/t

i guess i'd like to find out just how much has already been said with this instrument - not that i don't feel fraudulent enough as it is, adopting a way of playing that is so well associated with major characters such as the above... but it would be cool at least to get a handle on what sounds one should avoid, for example

as far as 'essential recordings', I'd include Eugene Chadbourne's "Solo Acoustic" records as well, and Davey Williams, who was doing prepared guitar stuff with Curlew before the Frith/Rowe influence became really prevalent... Newer prepared guitar people I like are Tim Catlin and Bill Horist. Ferran Fages plays amplified guitar pickup, and Alan Courtis has made records with guitar with no strings, just messing with the electronics and rubbing stuff against the pickups and what not. David Stackenas, Harald Volden, and Daniel Gronvold all work with prepared steel-string acoustic guitar...

The thing I like (and I may have mentioned this before) is that you can pretty much get any sound you want out a guitar if you know how to prepare it, from piano sounds to drum sounds, sine waves, static/noise etc etc...
so you can build an inventory of sounds and deploy it however you want, you don't need to emulate other prepared guitarists at all (although a lot of people do). Personally I listen to a lot of prepared/improv percussion like Eddie Prevost and Tatsuya Nakatani, and try to bring those sounds over to prepared guitar... although it's tough to improvise without resorting to drone-based stuff because it takes time to switch preparations. I always thought a good way to practice would be to write down a sequence of preparations and change preparations in time with a metronome...

[orangettecoleman]

a couple of things I've been doing a lot (which may have been mentioned earlier, I haven't checked): using one of those neck massagers you buy at the drug store to make the table vibrate, which excites the strings in weird ways. Also I got some metal skewers as Doug suggested and I use an Ebow on the skewers themselves, or on bits of extra guitar string woven perpendicularly to the strings of the guitar. Also made a little U-shaped cradle with a bit of carpet on the inside which I can rest the neck on, and I can sit stuff on top of it about a half inch away from the strings. Works well with electric fans and laptop speakers... I run a line out from the mixer through a parametric EQ, put one speaker over the strings, and control the volume with the knob on the other speaker, all sorts of fun feedback things can be done with that setup... gotta get one of those suction cup speaker things mentioned earlier and try it stuck to the headstock

[orangettecoleman]

some really crucial info in this thread

i'm just starting out on prepared guitar adventures. so far exploring very simple preparations like crocodile clips, chopsticks under the strings etc. i really like the crackling sounds you can achieve by holding a metal object close enough to a pick up pole so that you can feel the magnetic pull but avoid actual contact. does anybody deliberately sabotage the electronics of their guitar to make it sound extra crackly? like making cold solder joints or short circuiting connections, for example. or even fucking with the pick up windings. wondering how kevin drumm got that almost granular synthesis sound on the self titled record...

David Torn did install a ground loop or some such thing into his guitar that just puts out 60 cycle hum or ground noise or some such. It's just a simple switch he put in, I think he used it on 'Presens' although I'm not sure... A kill switch is something I always install and I should look into just hooking random circuit loops up to switches to make noise... frank zappa used to put piezo mics inside the guitar body, under the pickguard and what not. Frith and Oren Ambarchi have both installed magnetic pickups by the nut to amplify the 'far' side of the string, one of the tracks on Frith's "guitar solos" is based on this sound, maybe it's 'no birds'?

[Dohol]

The thing I like (and I may have mentioned this before) is that you can pretty much get any sound you want out a guitar if you know how to prepare it, from piano sounds to drum sounds, sine waves, static/noise etc etc...
...

yes...agreed..

Personally I listen to a lot of prepared/improv percussion like Eddie Prevost and Tatsuya Nakatani, and try to bring those sounds over to prepared guitar...

amen....(in this regard, percussionists are more interesting than guitarists..)

[Dohol]

as far as intentionally crackly sounds... this is a guitar played with a nine volt battery (the +lead attached to the low E with an alligator clip lead..the - with a iron nail on the end of another clip..)


https://soundcloud.com/doug-holbrook/ninevolts-0

[lao]

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