Riddle Me This: Synth vs. Guitar

[alfonso]

Allan Holdsworth is the widest minded musician that plays with six strings, going out of all cathegories...He's the only one, that shake all of our assumptions.

I don't want to say anything, just suggest to listen to the man...

[Programgirl]

Originally posted by Jeff Da Weasel:

I think the primary answer is really pretty simple.

 

People who play synth instruments have been creating and using emulative sounds since the origin of the instrument. This obviously isn't limited to guitar sounds. Strings, horns, drums and so on have been part of the keyboardist's bag of tricks for a few decades.

 

Guitar, as versatile as it is, has never been expected to be used to emulate instruments other than itself. Also, as a trigger/controller device, in as much as it has advanced much since the days of huge latency and so on, it's still inferior to the keyboard-oriented paradigm, with both hands simultaneously accessible for control and note generation.

 

One last thing: guitarists, historically, have been a little more technophobic than keyboardists. It could be that the simplicity of plugging in and playing doesn't lend itself to setting up MIDI, choosing sounds, triggering from multiple devices and so on.

Having both instruments in the house, this would be the explanation I most agree with. I would also add that guitarists as a rule have chosen their instrument for the unique sound it creates, while a musician who chooses to play the keyboard does so because they intend to have more flexibility in the type of sound that comes out of it.

[Rog]

Originally posted by Geoff Grace:

BT (Brian Transeau) first achieved fame as the inventor of the trance genre of dance music. He's done remix work for your man, Seal, played synth for Salt-N-Pepa, produced hits for Britney Spears ("I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman") and *NSYNC ("Pop"), and had a Top 40 hit of his own a few months ago with "Somnambulist."

Inventor?

 

You're kidding, right?

[Geoff Grace]

Originally posted by Rog:

Inventor?

 

You're kidding, right?

Creator might have been a better choice of words...or am I wrong?

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Rog]

Originally posted by Geoff Grace:

Originally posted by Rog:

Inventor?

 

You're kidding, right?

Creator might have been a better choice of words...or am I wrong?

 

Best,

 

Geoff

It's kinda like saying Claption invented the blues

[Geoff Grace]

Originally posted by Rog:

It's kinda like saying Claption invented the blues

Gotcha. Thanks Rog!

 

FWIW, I did a quick Internet search while I awaited your reply. Here's what I found:

 

Posted at Pop Matters :

When BT first burst onto the dance music scene in the mid-'90s, he was one of the pioneers of a style that eventually became known as epic trance, or dream trance, or, some would argue, just trance (Which is ridiculous, by the way -- BT and Sasha didn't invent trance any more than Chuck Berry and Elvis invented rock 'n' roll -- they took existing sounds and, thanks to their immense talents, pushed them from the underground into the mainstream. But I'll save that for another rambling album review).

I'm sorry for my false impression.

 

Boy are we off-topic. Sorry for that too!

 

...So Mike, don't just take my word for it. Go ahead and do your own research. I probably got most of my info right, but there may be an additional mistake or two (...or three).

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Geoff Grace:

I'm not sure that there are many more famous guitar players than there are keyboard players. I think that one's perception of fame depends on the listener's preferences. Certainly, there are plenty of opportunities to achieve fame from playing keyboards...

 

...Best,

 

Geoff

That's an impressive list, Geoff, but I think you're ignoring the fact that guitar has proven more popular with the general public, at least in the U.S. That's the reason, I believe, that the whole "guitar-envy" question is a valid question, whether or not it proves to be true or false. I think you'd be hard pressed to keep up with a list of famous guitar players.

 

1. Eddie Van Halen
   
2. Stevie Ray Vaughn
   
3. Jimi Hendrix
   
4. Eric Clapton
   
5. John Lennon
   
6. George Harrison
   
7. Buddy Holly
   
8. Tom Scholz
   
9. Neal Schon
   
10. Carlos Santana
    
11. Steve Howe
    
12. Steve Cropper
    
13. Angus Young
    
14. Steve Lynch
    
15. George Lynch
    
16. Segovia
    
17. Larry Carlton
    
18. Muddy Waters
    
19. Freddie King
    
20. B.B. King
    
21. Chet Atkins
    
22. Lee Ritenour
    
23. Vince Gill
    
24. Keith Urban
    
25. Tom Petty
    
26. Mike Campbell
    
27. Johnny Cash
    
28. Willie Nelson
    
29. James Taylor
    
30. Harry Chapin
    
31. Jim Croce
    
32. Michael Hedges
    
33. Leo Kotke
    
34. Alan Jackson
    
35. Jimmie Vaughn
    
36. Steve Vai
    
37. Joe Satriani
    
38. Vivian Campbell
    
39. Steve Morse
    
40. Buck Dharma
    
41. Jeff Baxter
    
42. Elliott Randall
    
43. John Pizzarelli
    
44. Bucky Pizzarelli
    
45. Joe Walsh
    
46. Don Felder
    
47. Kerry Livgren
    
48. Mark Slaughter
    
49. Adrian Belew
    
50. Robert Johnson
    
51. Buddy Guy
    
52. Duane Allman
    
53. George Thoroughgood
    
54. John Mellencamp
    
55. Andy Summers
    
56. Elliot Easton
    
57. The Edge
    
58. Prince
    
59. Dave Matthews
    
60. Tony Rice
    
61. Doc Watson
    
62. Hank Williams Sr.
    
63. Junior Brown
     
    

I could go on for days...

 

I should point out I left many famous guitarists off the list because I wanted to include names that could be expected to be part of the American cultural identity. Some of the names you mentioned would only be known to the tiny niche of harcore jazz or (apparently) trance afficianados, whereas most on my list would be recognizable to many who don't listen at all to the genre they represent. I've also left off any guitarists of recent fame, mostly because I don't listen to much new rock. Plus, who knows how far and wide their fame will reach with any endurance.

 

It's not that piano or synth doesn't afford the chance for fame, and there have been a few notable exceptions to the rule in recent years with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, etc., but most keyboard players still live in the wings while the mobility of guitar plus its popularity tend to put guitar players front and center in pop music. Jazz is the only genre of pop music that comes to mind where that idea could be truly challenged.

 

Besides, just look at the sales of guitars vs. keyboards and pianos combined. There's little doubt that more players are learning the guitar for a variety of reasons.

[Salyphus]

That's a pretty esoteric list of guitar players.

 

I'd bet anything that the average Joe wouldn't know who over half

of those people are. I don't know more than 75% of them myself.

 

Not the best choices to make the point

 

I'd bet the average person doesn't think about instrumentalists of any kind. Hell, not everyone even listens to music at all. Think about that one for a while

[Programgirl]

Originally posted by Salonious:

That's a pretty esoteric list of guitar players.

 

I'd bet anything that the average Joe wouldn't know who over half

of those people are. I don't know more than 75% of them myself.

 

Not the best choices to make the point

 

I'd bet the average person doesn't think about instrumentalists of any kind. Hell, not everyone even listens to music at all. Think about that one for a while

I must be stalker material because I recognized all but a couple of names. Of course I am one of the few that will appreciate a really good band even if I don't like the vocalist, so I probably care more about those things. I'm sad to admit you're right though Salonious - if you can't sing along, and you can't dance to it, then most people don't want to know it.

[Dan South]

This is a subject that's near and dear to my heart.

 

Keyboard players have always had the ability to mimic an entire arrangement - bass lines, melodies, counterpoint, harmonic lines, chords, rhythms. This ability expanded even further with the advent of synthesizers, and eventually, sampling and modeling technology.

 

The guitar is a critical part of many ensembles. Even a little bit of rhythm guitar or a brief solo can make a huge difference in a pop arrangement, for example. It makes sense that keyboard players would like to add these very useful guitar sounds to their sonic palette.

 

One might argue that it's better to just learn how to play the guitar. That's a good point, but the guitar is a complex instrument that is played in many styles. Even the best guitarists don't master all styles and techniques. A part time player isn't going to be able to master lead and rhythm playing in pop, blues, jazz, rock, funk, metal, country, and R&B, not to mention Spanish, classical, and ethnic techniques. If you're good on electric, you may not be good on acoustic. If you can play jazz well, you may not be well-versed in Spanish guitar, island styles, speed metal, slide guitar, pedal steel, etc.

 

Another argument is to hire a guitarist who specializes in the style that you're looking for. Great! But guitarists tend not to be readers, so communicating ideas with them can be difficult unless you can either play the part yourself or play a tape for them that approximates the sound that you want. The ability to convey aurally what you want to hear from the player would make the session a lot more productive and a lot less painful for all parties involved. We can do this with a drummer, a bassist, and most other instrumentalists fairly easily, but it's difficult to mimic the sound of a guitar, particularly rhythm guitar, but also string bends, feedback, and other nuances. Plus sampled guitar sounds universally suck - I don't know why; they just do. So guitar is one of those Holy Grail sounds that's always just out of reach for us.

 

Anyway, that sums up my position on the subject. If you can get the Bob Moogs and Dave Smiths and Roger Linns of the world to come up with a decent guitar emulator, you'll thrill a lot of appreciative keyboard players, arrangers, and musical directors.

[RABid]

My first thought is that beginning guitarists bend notes, use a whammy bar and play around with feedback as methods of being expressive. Many, if not most decent keyboardists have no clue about being expressive on a synthesizer. Making a synth sound like a guitar is really a first step in expressive playing. And it is easier than making a synthesizer sound like a saxophone.

 

Robert

[Tusker]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

That's an impressive list, Geoff, but I think you're ignoring the fact that guitar has proven more popular with the general public, at least in the U.S. That's the reason, I believe, that the whole "guitar-envy" question is a valid question, whether or not it proves to be true or false. I think you'd be hard pressed to keep up with a list of famous guitar players.

[*]Eddie Van Halen

[*]

Oh yeah. I know lots of keyboardists who imitate this guitar player.

 

May as well cue up the OB8 string pad and jump. Why do so many guitar players feel the need to play keyboards anyway?

 

Could it be {gulp} because our instruments can be bigger. It's a valid question whether or not it is proved correct you know.

 

Jerry

[Geoff Grace]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

I should point out I left many famous guitarists off the list because I wanted to include names that could be expected to be part of the American cultural identity. Some of the names you mentioned would only be known to the tiny niche of harcore jazz or (apparently) trance afficianados

Actually, I only named the most famous jazz pianists with whom I would expect an average jazz fan to be familiar. In fact, I'd have trouble naming pianists that only hardcore jazz fans would know of because I'm not a hardcore jazz fan.

 

As for trance aficionados, I obviously didn't know what I was talking about there! BT must have transcended that genre for me to know about him; and as I mentioned on page three, he has not only worked with an assortment of superstars, he had a top 40 hit of his own a few months ago. I'd call that widespread fame.

 

Neil, I hate to admit it, but I didn't know who almost a third of the guitar players on your list were. If these folks are expected to be part of the American cultural identity, then I suddenly feel "un-American." Perhaps many of them are country players? I don't really follow that genre. Like Mike, I appreciate the chance to inform myself, so I'll probably do some research. Thanks for that list!

 

The reactions to our lists of players reinforce my belief that our perception of fame depends to a significant part on what our interests are. It seems that a guitar player will probably know of more guitar players while a keyboard player will probably know of more keyboard players. That settles the envy issue in my mind, at least in general. After all, wouldn't a keyboard player who envied guitar players be more aware of guitarists?

 

I'm not discounting the possibility of guitar-envy from some keyboardists, nor vice versa. I just don't think it's widespread. I certainly value guitar as an instrument; but if I valued it more than keyboards, I'd have learned the guitar instead.

 

Veering back on topic, I'm struck by how many posters seem to feel that guitar synths and keyboard emulations of guitar are unsatisfying. It seems that while we've come a long way in the last 50 years, it's a matter of so close but yet so far!

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[michael saulnier]

Originally posted by Jerry Aiyathurai:

quote:

---

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

That's an impressive list, Geoff, but I think you're ignoring the fact that guitar has proven more

popular

with the general public, at least in the U.S. That's the reason, I believe, that the whole "guitar-envy" question is a valid question, whether or not it proves to be true or false. I think you'd be hard pressed to keep up with a list of famous guitar players.

[*]Eddie Van Halen

[*]

Oh yeah. I know lots of keyboardists who imitate this guitar player.

 

May as well cue up the OB8 string pad and

jump

. Why do so many guitar players feel the need to play keyboards anyway?

 

Could it be {gulp} because our instruments can be

bigger

. It's a valid question whether or not it is proved correct you know.

 

Jerry

---

Jerry,

 

Funny you mention EVH in the context of guitarist who want to play keys.

 

It turns out that as a youngster, Edward Van Halen was QUITE the piano prodigy. I believe he performed at the Long Beach Auditorium in a large contest, and won a prestigious award for his classical piano playing at the age of 12.

 

Then he heard rock and roll, and wanted to play. First, he thought of drums... and his brother Alex got a guitar. Soon though, Eddie tired of drums, and they switched...

 

Their parents were classically trained musicians, with his father a violinist I believe.

 

So actually...

 

Eddie was a keyboardist, who went on to pick up guitar.

 

Ironically, once he decided to put keys in Van Halen songs, it was the beginning of the end for David Lee Roth, who couldn't understand why Eddie could possibly think a Van Halen song could or should have keys.

 

guitplayer

[Dan South]

The Van Halen brothers' father (now deceased) played clarinet on Big Bad Bill from Diver Down. - I think that was the album. - I don't know what other instruments he may have played.

[Tusker]

Originally posted by guitplayer:

So actually...

 

Eddie was a keyboardist, who went on to pick up guitar.

Touche.

 

Man some of those keyboardists are pretty good at guitar aren't they? Imagine if more of them took up the guitar. Nice to see that Eddie heads Neal's list.

 

Now it's really hard to accuse Eddie of playing his fretboard like a keyboard since he is (gulp) one of us.

 

Jerry

[Bill Heins]

I play both and like them for different reasons.

 

The guitar to me can be a very expressive and personal instrument. It's very easy to "pour your soul out" with the guitar and though I don't believe that there is such a thing as "playing with feeling" you can certainly use technique(and equipment ) to create a signature sound.On the con side it's one-dimensional, it is what it is and though it feels good to play solo pieces with it, it's usually best at home with other players.

 

The keyboards on the other hand represents a "symphony" to me. I can go from up close and personal to huge and grandiose. I command either a simple piano to a full blown band or orchestra. I can write and record into the sequencer various parts to be able to solo against. I can layer sounds and using controllers fade instruments, volumes, parts,etc. The con side is it's very hard to get a good and realistic guitar part out of it

 

I also play the drums and unless you try it you have no idea how much fun they are to play! Plus it gives you another perspective when you are writing material on your other instrument(s)

 

Darkon the Incandescent

[realtrance]

The thing that brought me to electronic music as a student, musician, performer, more than anything else, by contrast, was not the issue of expressiveness so much as the issue of being able to dig more deeply, more theoretically, more scientifically into the nature of sound on a synthesizer than is possible with any other instrument.

 

All of the knowledge about the way timbre works, all of the knowledge about piano tunings, the relationships between frequencies, the psychoacoustic experience of sound across the spectral as well as time domains, is something you can translate from theory to musical result.

 

I can read and reread the science behind the analyses of sound, and it can give me ideas to experiment with on my synthesizers. The constraints on doing this with any "natural" instrument are, by contrast, severe (though not complete, of course).

 

This, for me, is what brought the excitement back to my music-making, more than the thought of mastering all of Chopin's Ballades before I die.

 

rt

[Dylan]

The thing that got me started with playing the electric guitar was the fascination of the sound a distorted guitar. Ive always been attracted to tone, regardless of the instrument. Not surprisingly, I ended up getting into synths for the very same reason later on in my musical days.

[karmadude]

I am not kidding here. I am classically trained on both keyboard and guitar, I have a Karma keyboard nad a Roland GR-33. My guitar stuff sounds like a keyboard and my keyboard stuff sounds like a guitar. Meaning the keyboard stuff has a Jan Hammer approach to bending notes,etc. and my guitar stuff still have classical guitar technique leftovers from a bygone era. Strange, that this thread made me think about this and I have had others say the same. Oh well.

[Geoff Grace]

In the movie Beautiful Girls, Annabeth Gish says to Timothy Hutton, "Piano players are sexy."

 

You know, I think we do alright for not being guitar players.

 

Just sayin'...

 

 

Best,

 

Geoff