Mr Richard Daniels recently visited 433Eros and discussed the more esoteric, evolutionary pivot points of the guitar. It was a sweeping review of the instrument that eschews the lampooning of popular artists of our past and present in favor of examining the "Big Bang" of the instrument's development. This interaction has been transcribed and will be made available in several parts over the course of the weeks to come. Put down the Zep records and dial up the guitar background radiation detector! We continue the discussion of musical theory and how it applies to the evolution of the guitar. Richard Daniels is a frequent visitor to 0433Eros. We always enjoy our time together watching the universe slide by.
E.D. Out.
R.D: So the history of rock guitar opened the floodgates past the classical model. For instance, classical violinists of history would not consider the wild harmonic overtones, being played with a whammy bar by Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, or Van Halen, or Stevie Ray... The reality is that the "new electric" is sensitive PAST THE ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENT... That is all I am saying... I have several acoustic guitars and even a classic nylon string. I know what the acoustic instrument can do at its finest output. I personally discovered that the real dynamics of the nylon stringed "Spanish Guitar" is in its delicacy. Something it takes a rock player a few days to see completely... The electric guitar is the powered up version of the acoustic guitars considerations, except the electric seems to have many more faces than the acoustic-- what I see is that those new faces were caused by the electronic input to the signal from the pickups... -- both guitars models depend on the string shaking- but the electric does not need air or wood... it works on the creation of electricity by the sting itself......
E.D: It Brings to mind an old horror movie poster.. so... in the vacuum of space can anybody hear you play electric guitar?
R.D: Just understand that this one thing drove music history into an entirely different direction, which included the world wide, loud rock stage. People forget because they lived through the revolution, they take for granted how the guitar got global... Not me... I carry that torch!!! I focus on the future of the guitar with billions of young people all going for it... Robert Johnson, what have you done??? So... the guitar was unique in that it "waited out" the classic period...after which IT REALLY BLOSSOMED ... History shows its acoustic history, but once it was outfitted with steel strings, after a century of gut strings... Then the brother was outfitted with an electromagnetic pick up - all by 1935 setting the stage for rock in the years ahead. This combination of events basically blasted open the doors for the guitar music explosion of the following century!!! The guitar won... Sure the piano and violin remain acoustically pure... there is always the acoustic guitar!!! but it was the electronic revolution that allowed Hendrix, Page, and a hundred others... to go forward with the invisible effort: the carrying forward of the Grail itself. The mantle of Paganini's power over the string passed over to the electric guitar and those who play it.
E.D: And this is due to the ELECTRIC guitar's sonic versatility? (long pause)
R.D: Ok, here is my point... The acoustic guitar, piano and violin all had working finished models by 1780. They all get the award for great finished acoustic instruments-- all three are great in their own way, but they remain the top acoustic instruments of Western Music History- all from the same centuries long effort in central Europe with an ending in 1780 where all three were done.,, Now, a more up to date trophy: The Award for the Only Instrument to Grow Up Past 1780: The freaking stage rock electric guitar in all its recklessly evolved glory!!!! In other words-- The award for the instrument that blew open the future of electronic music-- why it goes to the guitar... AND NOTHING ELSE!!!!!! We live too close to the guitar to see it in this new light. The future is already here. The world already has the guitar!!! Every which way... it is over. the next phase enters... Human thought as music. The string re-discovered in the vapors of digital capture. The entire physical world as one big free sample... go and play children, then come back to me later...
R.D: Certainly the creative drive that mankind brought with it, that single drive, is the very reason that the first musical instrument was created, wherever, or whenever it was made… so the whole effort is one… big… human focus to make expressive, useful music employing instruments as a tool. First the desire, then the thing. Then the new music…
E.D: OK... so it's all really, "all" being your focus, an effort to explain and or understand the anthropological history... the story of... are or affecting a semi-musical creationists' view of the electric guitar?
R.D: So maybe I just blow the horn of the guitar very loud just to make a freaking point. The effort to bring the finished piano, violin and guitar into existence by 1780 is the totaled effort I am addressing. Think of the three master instruments as they were at that point in time. That world was centered on the fact that the instrument itself, the harp inside of the piano’s wooden box, the wooden top of the violin, the wooden top of the guitar… these things HAD TO SHAKE OR THERE WAS NO MUSIC… The whole effort was to just refine, refine, refine the box itself… and refine they did-- endless books have been written on how the violin is made to transfer the string’s shaking to the wood top… Ends up: THOSE INSTRUMENTS ARE by nature VERY VERY VERY LIMITED BY THE PHYSICAL WORLD… THAT THE DESIGN GOAL WAS TO MAKE A VIBRATING WOOD BOX!!! STOP RIGHT THERE… SEE THAT…
Basically what I see is that the invention of the first stringed instruments brought a focus to harnessing the energy of the string, and transferring it to wood to create a sound wave... but the core of that scene-- the anchored singing string--- it was hijacked away from that first model-- the famous line from Les Paul to the wood worker was "I don't want it to shake" ... So what I see is that the nuts and bolts of getting string to shake got worked out, and as soon as they could make the quantum leap to being fixed to a board with an electro-magnet it pickup, Now I see that as the opposite of the acoustic guitar-- in principle it is the polar opposite, drawing its electric signal from the steel string, No reason to make a box to shake... It was a long while before the staid, and immobile instrument makers of any time warmed up to the idea of an electric instrument. Of course, they had a negative attitude toward any electric instrument... Thing is, it was not long before the guitar took over without asking. Like it or not: it is spelled "Hundreds of Guitar Centers!!!!!" and this is just the very beginning... Elvis, the whole nine yards is happening again... on a single global mix level... The guitar is the observed thing on all levels... but the new is much bigger than the past... and from one came many... all at once... a global convergence of diverse, endless music.
(to be continued)
