posted 03-26-2002 06:18 AM               

In fact, I do work with my hands around the fingerboard to discover new "nuggets" -- (you'd call them riffs) and I use these nuggets to learn how I can traverse the fret board in musical way. I sometimes link these nuggets, I deconstruct them (using a growing knowledge of music theory) and reconstruct them in other keys. At the end of the day, I've learned from this natural, play-like experimentation with guitar. Does it have soul? Well, it's captured my imagination for days and I will have gotten a musical, cognitive and physical experience of playing six strings across a wooden box -- perhaps its even enjoyable to listen some of the time. For now, that's "soul" enough for me.

posted 03-26-2002 06:47 AM               

By the way, I agree with you. This is clearly a gray area, and if Steve and you and I were sitting in a circle with guitars, we could probably demonstrate Steve's desired point to everyone's agreement, but in words it is tough.

posted 05-04-2002 03:31 PM               

When composing i don't think you have to have everything planned out a hundred percent in your head before hand, but you should have a rough idea of what you want to hear. If you just noodle around you may come up with some cool stuff, but thats all it is, totally random stuff that your fingers stumbled upon. There is nothing wrong with a random riff or voicing become a springboard for a new composition, but i have heard to many pieces where it sounds like people just string a bunch of cool licks together, slap on a title, and they have a "composition."

Anyways, those are just my thoughts.

posted 05-06-2002 07:00 AM               

In the end, who are we to discourage a creative process that may have created much of most lasting musical expressions in history. Certainly much of today's pop/rock & roll music might have been predicated on some guitar player riffing endlessly (perhaps while under the influence of some mind altrering substance) until the right meter produced a musical sentence (not riff) that spoke to him and his band. Is it souless music? I can't answer that question and I don't want to. Steve seems to though.

I think it is reasonably plausible that even Beethoven might have found his Fifth Symphony theme DA-Da-DA-Dum, DA-Da-Da Dum, stc. just banging around on his piano. And its up to us listeners to tell whether he wrote this piece with his soul.

Well did he?

I haven't a clue.

And there are plenty of folks who don't care for Beethoven. As such, one man's riff is another man's symphony or sonata.

posted 05-06-2002 03:31 PM               

When I sit down to actually arrange tunes, I find they sound less "DADGAD-ish" than if I were just playing them off the top of my head, (which, I guess, is a process of my schooling). But I find I tend to like the results better because they rely less upon a "gimmick" (the crutches of a new tuning). Following that route, I've got a few arrangements in CGDGAD that work pretty well, but I can't "get around" in that tuning off the top of my head, which may be a good thing.

I think the "riff" style has it's merits, but it's hard to make it consistently interesting and "timeless." There are those talented players who can but they do seem to incoroprate good songwriting elements into it as well, and that's not easy.

posted 05-07-2002 02:16 PM               

Camalex, GREAT points. I have to ponder them more deeply before I teach my Open Tuning Arrangement classes this summer.

It is certainly not my intention to rain on anybody's creative parade. Noodling is great fun and can lead to nice discoveries, as has been noted above.

But I also feel that caution about the dangers of the Yellow Pages Method of guitar composition (letting your fingers do the walking) is well in order. No rigid rules being promulgated here, just awareness and sensitivity to the lure of the perpetual noodle.

I should also clarify, I'm not dissing beginners and intermediates who come up with riff-laden compositions. More power to them. Have fun, and revel in yourself when you discover a cool sound. Who cares if it's been done! Nobody should ever bah humbug that.

But those who place their music before the public eye (and especially if it's for sale)are a different matter. They're fair game for comment (as am I when I put my stuff out there.) And I happen to believe that many professional guitarists passing off riffs coupled with New Agey titles as "compositions" are naked as the proverbial emperor. Calling them on it serves everybody's best interest.

True, one man's riff is another man's sonata. One man's modern art is another man's banality. The job of the critic, however, or any person who cares about the art form, is not to just sit back and say "it's all personal, if it feels good do it," but, rather, to strive to articulate ways in which a beloved genre can improve itself (in that critic's eyes.) Nothing wrong with that.

I'm curious if others feel, as I do, that 99% of the time original guitar compositions telegraph themselves as such. To me, that's a bad thing, one that it creates a disappointing listening experience. I hear a guitar composition and say "Oh yeah, there's that riff. I found that one also, and so did lots of other people." Am I the only one who is disturbed by this?

Thanks for the very thoughtful and stimulating comments.

steve baughman

[This message has been edited by frailerdude (edited 05-07-2002).]

posted 05-07-2002 02:58 PM               

I find myself drawn more to the players who are more "melodic" in what they create, but I still like to hear some of the "jaw dropping" stuff too. Just not a constant, restricted diet of it.

posted 05-07-2002 06:35 PM               

I'm strictly a follow the dots kind of player. One of these days maybe I'll get some fingerings down to the point where I can experiment and discover some riffs on my own. I'm sure it will be very enjoyable. And I wouldn't consider it as anything but noodling.

So, speaking as a listener, not a player, I have heard some of the professional string-of-noodle players (pho players?) on CD or mp3 and wondered what all the fuss was about. The music has no substance, very little variety, no meat, no message. It's simple. It bores. Soul? I don't know what's meant by that. I like professional music to show some intelligence, wit, emotion, some complexity of ideas. Maybe that's soul.

Thank you for speaking out. I'm still in a new world here, feeling uncertain, and it's reassuring to hear one of the leaders express what I've been thinking.

Everybody, thank you for all your thoughtful posts. This has been a very interesting thread.

posted 05-07-2002 08:24 PM               

As long as you are criticizing my music with out ever having heard it, let me say that playing guitar is very much like making love to oneself or another: it makes one feel good;
there are certain riffs one can rely on all the time; try and spice it up when it becomes boring, and for many players, it is a private act.

Steve, if I ever get my CD done, I will send it with my own review and criticism, including where I stole what, how I patched certain songs together from fragments that went no where, the application of dialectical materialism to neopostmodern steel string guitar noodling, the deconstrution of the endless riff, and my favorite tequila and how it inspired me to create another redundant
hand position, not to mention why I named a song " A Giant Rock with Your Name on it Fell from the Sky and Squished My Heart".

posted 05-09-2002 06:31 AM              

For the past week or so, I have been working on a couple of Mississippi John Hurt tunes and feel like I am just missing something. Now I have to wonder whether MJH played some of his songs in alt. tunings (I have no tablature or instruction materials to rely upon, just playing by ear.) Could this be the reason I just can't seem to get the sound I hear in his music (of course I'm not ruling out my apparent lack of dexterity as another possible culprit)?

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I would be grateful for any advice from those of you familiar with MJH's music. Please enlighten me. Thanks.