Archive for July, 2013

Split Brain – Playing 2 Parts At Once

July 18, 2013 by John No Comments »

In just a little under a month, The Dudley Manlove Quartet will take the stage at the Triple Door in Seattle for a fun night of music. I’ve been going back to listen to some of our songs to make adjustments to my guitar arrangements, especially where I’m covering two simultaneous parts. It’s an interesting process of deconstruction to take multiple parts and attempt to coalesce them into something that a single guitarist could perform.

In Jumbalassy, I experimented with covering multiple guitar parts by using a digital delay. In reggae songs there are usually a few separate distinctive parts:

  • The “skank”, a partially muted chord occurring on 2 and 4 in the measure
  • A rhythmic line providing interplay

These occur at the same time so there wasn’t a practical means of simultaneously recreating that effect as a lone guitarist. My solution involved a hall of mirrors: I’d tap the tempo into the delay using quarter-notes and set the delay for a whole note so it would take a full measure and repeat it once, remaining locked to the tempo of the song. Then it was just a matter of switching between the parts each measure… I’d play the skank one measure, then let the delay repeat it while I played the rhythmic picking part, then switch back the the skank while the other part repeated. It actually worked pretty well as long as the song didn’t have very complex chord changes. 

In DMQ I can’t get away with that kind of approach because the songs have complex arrangements and the guitar parts have significantly different timbres. It means my approach to layering the sounds has to be more of a compromise between the two parts, and sometimes requires a little technical trickery… one of my Stratocasters has a factory-installed Roland hexaphonic synth pickup system. I use it to drive a guitar synthesizer but one of the sneaky side-benefits of that system is that I can map different sounds to specific strings or zones on the fretboard. Again, it requires a careful arrangement of the parts to ensure I’m triggering the appropriate sounds.

The most challenging approach to this is in playing Warr Guitar, where my hands are independently performing on their own sides of the fretboard. It’s much harder for me to play this way. It might be due the fact that I never played piano with much facility, and I believe that type of hand independence would translate nicely to Warr Guitar. It takes me a bit of time to work out my parts on this instrument, but it’s very rewarding and fun. I’ve been considering using this instrument in the Dudley Manlove Quartet when we perform Depeche Mode songs; since I can independently route the signal paths for the two sides of the  instrument I could double the bass line and trigger a synth line at the same time.

In an upcoming post I’ll detail some of the songs that will involve a split-brain approach and discuss my approach to performing them.

 

Thoughts on the 6/15 DMQ “Under Pressure” Bowie Performance

July 8, 2013 by John No Comments »

under pressureOn Saturday 6/15, the Dudley Manlove Quartet performed our big “Under Pressure” show  at the Crocodile in Seattle. Also on the bill were our friends “Halloqueen”, delivering their tribute to Queen. I had been working hard on the guitar parts for these songs over the past few months and created detailed transcriptions for my own reference in learning the parts. My objective was to do more than merely delivering a credible bar-band version of the songs; I wanted to absolutely recreate the original studio performances and tones. I’ll provide detailed notes on my transcriptions in another post.

The show involved setting up both bands with all equipment onstage and ready to do. This was necessary due to the number of songs where we combined elements from both bands. Multiple rehearsals were held to polish these songs involving guest performers. We knew it was going to be something special, and the show was a blast.

Here is the set list DMQ performed during the Bowie portion of the evening:

  • Ziggy Stardust
  • Rebel Rebel
  • Space Oddity (with Brian Bermudez-sax)
  • Suffragette City (with Sean Bates-vocals, Tim DiJulio-guitar, Brian Bermudez-sax)
  • The Man Who Sold the World
  • Life on Mars?
  • Ashes to Ashes (with Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Changes (with Brian Bermudez-sax, Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Golden Years (with Brian, Kim, Nikol)
  • Fashion (with Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals, Chris Friel-drums)
  • China Girl (with Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Fame (with Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Blue Jean (with Brian Bermudez-sax, Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Young Americans (with Brian Bermudez-sax, Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Let’s Dance (with Brian Bermudez-sax, Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)
  • Heroes (with Brian Bermudez-sax, Kim Virant-vocals, Nikol Fiala-vocals)

I wound up using my trusty black stratocaster for this show. During rehearsals I experimented with using my Les Paul, but due to the range of guitar tones involved, the strat seemed like the best overall fit. I brought the Eric Johnson strat as well, fully intending to use it for the later material, but once we got underway there was just no time during the set to make the switch.  That black strat and I have been together a long time and it never fails me. Honestly I don’t know why I even own other guitars 🙂

Overall I was very satisfied with the performances during the show. The most difficult material for me to really nail was the ferocious Robert Fripp guitar solo in “Fashion”, and the delicate guitar work in “Life on Mars”. For tone building I relied on a combination of the Wampler Sovereign distortion, Way Huge Pork Loin overdrive, Line6 delay, TC Electronic reverb, and Strymon Lex rotary pedal. It was also the debut of my newly reconfigured pedalboard and I was happy with the outcome. For our next public performance, DMQ will be performing more of a standard mix of material, but I suspect a few Bowie songs might sneak their way into the set.