RE: PERCUSSIVE TECHNIQUES for LOOPING GUITAR

[Patrick Bolan <pbolan@csiconstruction.com>]

Rick and all, 

Thanks for your elaborated response.  I actually printed it out to
really digest it.  

The Martini skewer in-the-strings was lots of fun....

I have a follow up question - Does the Digitech vocal processor have
intelligent harmonies?

Thanks,

Patrick

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Walker/Loop.pooL [mailto:GLOBAL@cruzio.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 7:42 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: PERCUSSIVE TECHNIQUES for LOOPING GUITAR: a new thread? hint
hint........... ;-)

Hey Patrick,

Rick Walker here. I'm a percussionist and thought I might be of some
assistance with your dilemma.

Not all acoustic guitars sound the same percussively for obvious
reasons.

If you have a guitar that doesn't have a naturally resonant set of
bass drum sounds (the hardest to get) here are a couple of suggestions
from a percussionists standpoint:

1) if you are looping and have a programmable equalizer (parametric or
31
band)
practise getting the best acoustic bass drum sound that you can from
your
axe.   This is best accomplished by playing in the middle of the back of
the
guitar with the side of your thumb..........you want to do a very quick
rotation
of your wrist so that thumb (with palm facing you)of your right hand is
to
the
right and then quickly wips (without moving your elbow or forearm)
laterally
so that your palm turns completely face down and then returns to the
open
position
as fast as you can.   Strike the back of your guitar with the fleshiest
portion of the side of your thumb (most akin to a hard felt bass drum
beater) or actually use
a soft felt mallet ($20-$30).

Now equalize that sound until you find the resonant frequency of the
guitar
being struck and raise it's volume.   You can cut all of the really high
frequencies out of this sound but leave a little 6k in there for the
'attack' of the sound.

Store your sound.

2) Now go to the part of the guitar where sides join the bottom or the
top
(the place of least resonance) and use your 1st or 2nd finger or middle
three fingers together  and quickly slap that place (making sure that no
fingers touch further into the guitar)..........now eq the bass and low
mid
frequencies completely out of the sound and boost everything from 1k to
6k.

Store your sound.

Voila!   instant bass drum and snare drum analogues.

Because you will be layering your 'drum' sounds into your mix, you can
recall the 'kick' drum sound,   layer it's rhythm, then call up your
snare
eq and layer that rhythm.

3) Go to half speed record on your looper and play half speed 8th notes
by
very quickly scratch the grooves of your strings so that they make
little
short and discreet sounds and then return to full speed:

Voila!    instant 'hi hat' sounds

4) other cool sounds can be going to the edge where the front meets the
sides
and 'snapping' your finger to produce sharp wooden sounds (clave/)

lightly palm mute your strings and then play harmonics by striking the
guitar with
anything from a plastic martini skewer to a hammer dulcimer mallet to a
bic
pen
to a chopstick...........again, if done at half speed while in half
speed
record
you can produce much faster sounds at normal speed that are very
interesting
an percussive.

5)  By creatively using a parametric equalizer you can go to several
parts
of the body and while striking it with your thumb you can take on band
of
the parametric, make the band width extremely narrow and sweep the
frequencies with the volume of that band very high and all the other
bands
very low.  You will come across several different distinct and loud
tones
that can also serve as your 'tom' 'tom's.

At my gig on New Year's Eve (at the Monterey Museum of Art) I used a
frisbie
with my new digitech vocal processor (more cool bang for the buck than
any
effects processor I've owned so far!!!!) and used the fact that I can
statically change the pitch of the input from two octaves below to two
octaves above to create a myriad
of different drum sounds.  It was awesome!!!  Any really cheap pitch
shifter
(boss has a really nice one for $165 called the IntelliShifter that is a
simple stomp box pedal with even a little bit of intelligent pitch
shifting
options and a very cool
stutter and 'whammy bar' effect built in---even pretty nice fidelity and
relatively low noise.).

I'm not a guitarist per se (although I own a few acoustic and electrics)
but I've had great fun by striking, bowing, malleting, sliding and
preparing
guitars.

Old stand bys are

1) lacing forks and knives and spoons under and over your strings to
create 'faux' gamelan sounds.........

2) rolling large ball bearing balls down the strings

3) dropping hard rice kernels on prepared guitars (stole that one, like
every one else and there mother's uncle, from Fred Frith......the
maestro).

4) tuning the strings to an open chord and playing the back of the
guitar
like a hand drum but micing it right under the bridge with a high
quality
condenser mic so that you get the chordal sympathetic vibrations.  You
can
then take that sound and
equalize all of the lower 'drum' sounds out of it and you get a very
cool
and unusual rhythmic chordal sound that has overring like a bowed
psaltery.

and, hey, what else guys and gals?    what other cool percussive things
can
we do to the guitar (or cello or bass or violin).  This might be a good
thread!!!!

have fun and let me know if you recieve any other good suggestions for
your
dilemma.

your, Rick