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Looper's Delight
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> It's one of the biggest problems I have listening to Stanley Jordan, I >just > can't get past that sound (and once I do, I'm not bowled over by his >aesthetic I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the tone of a guitar when tapping techniques are applied to it. If the biggest factor in tone is your fingers, then the second biggest factor is the setup of the strings. Stick players have discovered that even the smallest changes in the setup make for huge differences in tone. His choices of amplification, effects, and other outboard devices of course are factors as well. > > Has anyone ever managed to get big jazz tone > >out of a Stick or similar touchboard-style instrument? > > Or, I've got another wonder about the Stick that's puzzled me for a >while: > why, with this great potential of creating harmonic textures unavailable >on > guitar or bass alone, does virtually every player I've heard play 'white >key' > music on it? Are there any Stick players that really delve into 20th >century > chromatic or modern jazz harmony on the thing? I've heard many players >claim > to play jazz on it but their playing was totally diatonic. I dig a lot >of > what Tony Levin does on it, like these big weird, 'rubbery' bass lines, >but > man I'd love to hear someone with Richie Beirach or Herbie Hancock's >harmonic > sophistication really dig into the contrapuntal possibilities. Can it be > done? Why not? Keep in mind the Stick is a very young instrument. It seems like a lot of players are more interested in using the instrument as a guitar-and-bass with one hand playing mostly bass lines and chord fragments and the other playing lead/melody lines and chords. In other words, the role of each hand is strictly defined. It's a lot like the early days of jazz piano when it was standard for the piano player to occupy his/her left hand with playing bass lines. When more players start playing with a bass player - thus freeing up that left hand to do other things - I think we will see a creative explosion in the Stick world. To somewhat get back on-topic, I will note that a buddy of mine took up the Stick because he eventually wants to use it as a sound source for looping. He likes the extended pitch range of the Stick. Cheers, Paolo Valladolid --------------------------------------------------------------- |Moderator of Digital Guitar Digest, an Internet mailing list |\ |for Music Technology and Stringed Instruments | \ ---------------------------------------------------------------- | \ finger pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu for more info \ | \ http://waynesworld.ucsd.edu/DigitalGuitar/home.html \| -----------------------------------------------------------------