STRINGS ATTACHED!
UK acoustic guitar virtuoso Chris Woods explores an exciting new direction in the development of the solo acoustic guitar…
odern Instrumental guitar music has seen many acoustic players adopting exciting new techniques as they explore new ways to approach to the instrument. The acoustic guitar’s hollow body naturally lends itself to doubling both as a natural amplifier and a drum; when the guitarist raps and taps on the the guitar to accompany chords and melody lines the resulting effects can sound astonishingly dramatic and powerful. Acoustic contemporary guitar, orchestral solo guitar, percussive guitar… it’s often hard to be sure exactly what to call it, but one thing you can be sure of is that its growing popularity has had a profound effect on acoustic guitar music. The way that we play guitar, they way we value virtuoso playing, even the way we promote our music have all been influenced by the explosion of this new style. As a player of this genre, I’m going to be speaking with some of the most influential people involved in the style trying to get to the bottom of things. The question is how has it come about? Why has it captured such a wide audience? And finally, where will this new style lead the acoustic guitar in the future?
M The amazing Andy McKee…
WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN? Percussive guitar playing isn’t new and neither are artificial harmonics and
tapping. Blues, Flamenco and a variety of other musical genres have seen taps, slaps and raps playing a major role in the overall sound. But what we are hearing from our modern acoustic instrumental players is something that seems to escape any previous genre, even if some of the techniques seem familiar, it still sounds fresh and new. So who are the influences? Andy Mckee grew up with a healthy obsession for Heavy Metal music, which might sound unusual for an acoustic guitar specialist but after a musical epiphany upon hearing the likes of Preston Reed, Andy began experimenting with the acoustic guitar. But how on earth did Preston himself arrive at groove based acoustic loveliness? According to the New York born guitarist, who now resides in Scotland, Preston’s influences are very wide but he says “my agenda had never been to play guitar like someone else”. Preston also insists that his style of playing “came about completely out of composing music and making the guitar do what I had in my head”. So these ‘inspirational’ players are purely passing inspiration to each other, perhaps a fast track to thinking outside the box, as it were. After spending a good while talking to a couple of really good guitar players that specialize in acoustic instrumental guitar and pondering the subject one can begin to understand that the key is in their approach, not in their influences.
GROOVE OPERATORS As Preston Reed puts it “The engine of pop music is rhythm!” It’s important
to remember these Guitar wizards are not just players - they are composers! Preston Reed describes his approach to composing as “negotiating the guitar into the composition”, adding “I never wanted to play like someone else”. This is the reason why the form is constantly evolving; by approaching an instrument from a completely different angle, each player brings something
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new to the party until the origins of this style become almost unrecognizable. We can only presume this was the same for the likes of the late Eric Roche and Michael Hedges. A great rhythmic feel is essential and for percussive guitar, the groove takes equal precedence with the melody, even when the melody itself might be killer, the groove is the glue that holds everything together. So where does it come from? Well most the guitarists that we spoke to
express a love for a huge mix of genres including popular music, be it heavy or not, So there we have it, a generous blend of some mixed popular influences and original approaches to composing have brought about this wonderful genre. Quite a mixed recipe, but originality doesn’t come easy!
The visually and sonically stunning techniques deliver plenty of ‘wow’ factor but without any musical substance this style wouldn’t have such a passionate following!
BIT HITTERS: PLAYERS TO CHECK OUT I think we can comfortably award Preston Reed the accolade of being, please
excuse the pun, very instrumental in establishing percussive guitar playing as a popular genre. However, I think another important guitarist currently doing a great job of bringing it to the masses has to be Andy Mckee. At the time of writing this article the low-key video of his instrumental track ‘Drifting’ had racked-up an astonishing 37,765,983 views! YouTube, as a medium, has arguably played the single most massive role in helping this genre be accepted into the main stream. Rob Poland, who signed McKee to his record label Candy Rat, has no hesitation in admitting how powerful a tool YouTube has been in helping to generate phenomenal interest in percussive guitar playing. Simply stating that “I knew that we needed to show visually how things were done”, Rob shot simple videos of Andy and other musicians on his label that were first uploaded to YouTube as far back as November 2006. Back then YouTube was
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