Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improvisor. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre, and Skeleton Crew. He has collaborated with a number of prominent musicians, including Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, the Residents, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Mike Patton, Lars Hollmer, Bill Laswell, Iva Bittova, Jad Fair, Kramer, the ARTE Quartett, and Bob Ostertag.
Guitars and playing technique
Fred Frith has used a number of different guitars, including homemade instruments, over the years, depending on the type of music he is playing. For the more structured and refined music he has often used a Gibson ES-345, for example on his solo album, Gravity. For the heavier "rock" sound, as in Massacre, he has used an old 1961 solid body Burns guitar, created by the British craftsman Jim Burns. On his landmark Guitar Solos album, Frith used a modified 1936 Gibson K-11 guitar (q.v. for details).  For Frith's early unstructured music, as with Henry Kaiser on With Friends Like These, and his early table-top guitar solo performances, he used a homemade six- and eight-string double-neck guitar created by a friend, Charles Fletcher. Frith told DownBeat magazine in 1983: "It was the one and only guitar that he ever built ... he constructed it mainly out of old pieces from other guitars that I had, and for the body I think he used an old door." The possibilities offered by homemade instruments prompted Frith to start creating his own guitars, basically slabs of wood on which he mounted a pickup, a bridge, and strings stretched over metal screws. "The basic design of the instrument is supposed to be as rudimentary and flexible as possible," Frith said, "so I can use an electric drill to bore holes into the body of it to achieve certain sounds ... ."  Frith uses a variety of implements to play guitar, from traditional guitar picks to violin bows, drum sticks, egg beaters, paint brushes, lengths of metal chain, and other found objects. Frith remarked: "It's more to do with my interest in found objects and the use of certain kinds of textures which have an effect on the string ... the difference between the touch of stone, the touch of glass, the touch of wood, the touch of paper - those kinds of basic elements that you're using against the surface of the strings which produce different sounds."  In a typical solo improvising concert, Frith would lay a couple of his homemade guitars flat on a table and play them with a collection of found objects (varying from concert to concert). He would drop objects, like ball bearings, dried beans, and rice on the strings while stroking, scraping, and hitting them with whatever was on hand. Later he added a live sampler to his on-stage equipment, which he controlled with pedals. The sampler enabled him to dynamically capture and loop guitar sounds, over which he would capture and loop new sounds, and so on, until he had a bed of repeated patterns on top of which he would then begin his solo performance.

Q: What type of guitars did they play?
A: Fred Frith has used a number of different guitars, including homemade instruments, over the years, depending on the type of music he is playing.

Q: Was there anything interesting about there playing technique?
A: Frith uses a variety of implements to play guitar, from traditional guitar picks to violin bows, drum sticks, egg beaters, paint brushes, lengths of metal chain, and other found objects.

Q: Has he influenced anyone from using these techniques?
A: unknown

Q: Anything else interesting about there guitars?
A: For the more structured and refined music he has often used a Gibson ES-345,
Is this guitar expensive?
unknown
unknown