Thursday, August 31, 2006
Musical Musings.
Note: Saved this as a draft yesterday. Forgot to publish it. With recent happenings, I wonder if this post is even worth the time.
Nowadays, I favour the Blues and music that demonstrates adept use of Fuzz.
I used to singularly embrace the 'Metal tone'; scooped-mids, tight-bottom, heavy chug for rhythm parts and that also a searing lead-tone.
Well, the high-gain stuff and Metal still largely retains its appeal, but recently it's really the Blues and Fuzz that has captured my imagination.
This revelation could be due to a number of reasons;
It could be my extensive listening of Hendrix, SRV, King and Kotzen.
Or that my taste has mellowed and matured.
The current tone that I'm running with is (in my closest approximate) a sweet, warm, lower-gain overdrive that's wonderfully gritty and touch-sensitive.
Other than that, I use Fuzz. Fuzz is delicious, and boosting my overdrive with the Fuzz gives me a nice fuzz-infused distortion without the screechiness that's inherent in most Fuzz pedals.
All that, coupled with a touch of delay for texturing equates to relative tonal bliss. Afterall, I'm using a solid-state amp, so I can't expect to achieve that dream-tone that's sounding off in my head. And as I'm not much of a modulation lover, some delay is sufficient for my tastes.
When I start working, I'm getting myself one of those handwired boutique clean-tubes that contains so much Mojo.
Every once in a while, I crank up the drive-knob on the Tube Zone, scoop out most of the mids, lay on the low-end, up the highs a wee-bit and I have a nice high-gain tone which can comfortably cover sonic-realms ranging from Metallica to Pantera, Death to Behemoth.
Boosting it with the RC for leads can prove desirable as well.
Opeth is considered Metal. But they hardly fall in the scooped-mids category. They display an astounding array of tones and a startling variety in their execution, of which is another reason why I admire them so much.
Alas!
The deplorable thing is that for most part of recent weeks, I've my guitar in the hardcase.
Studies takes precedence now. But that's not going to prevent me from telling you fellows about my wonderment with the Blues, Fuzz and that 'sweet, warm tone.'
Fuzz is really hard to tame, but it sounds breathtaking when used appropriately. Also, I guess it's an acquired taste, I didn't appreciate Fuzz in the past as well.
The basic difference between Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz is the amount of clipping taking place, with Fuzz being the one that's clipped that hardest.
Hendrix has his Fuzz-Face, and so does Eric Johnson. Other notable users of Fuzz include Muse, The Smashing Pumpkins and the great Neil Young.
Be it a sweet-sounding, singing fuzz or a mean, gnarly one, it's really up to your personal preference.
That sweet, warm tone, I'm telling you, is one of the hardest and most elusive things to achieve.
Blues players generally avoid using many pedals, opting instead for a simple set-up of their guitar plugged straight into the amplifier. What most people are not aware about is the amount of tweaking and attention they invest in their amplifiers, guitars and cables.
A sweet, warm tone liaisons directly with your heart. It's that moving.
This might sound embellished, but listening to SRV or Hendrix playing Little Wing makes me feel floaty. I squinch my face in revelry along with each ravishing note and their jaw-dropping phrasing.
It's so dynamic, so tangibly passionate.
The fact that these late-masters can so intrinsically touch my heart with their music never fails to astonish me.
What I'm saying, is that there is no good or bad music. Music moves people in their own respective ways. As long as it accomplishes that, music has served its purpose.
I get positively charged when listening to Buckethead, Vai, Angelo or Bumblefoot shred. Metal in general gets me wired, they all possess their merits. And are accordingly well-appreciated by yours truly.
But sometimes I feel that their approach is so William Blake-esque, so didactic and vociferous.
The Blues is different, every note bears a significance. It's so succinctly expressive and so subtle, it impacts one deeply with its stylishly understated aplomb.It really does move me.
