Thursday, July 14, 2011

"Shoot the Hostage"

So, you walk in and find the gig's just you and a guy on vox and acoustic guitar. You're playing electric guitar through stomp boxes into a D/I box.

Acoustic guitars are very percussive, so he is doing rhythm, and this is very vocal-centric. It won't be like there's too much time to go on extended breaks.

First thing I did was keep above the fifth fret. Acoustic guitar guy was in first position, and there's no reason for two guitarists to play the same voicings.

I also played lots of sustained chords, maybe arpeggiating them when I thought there was room. Acoustic guitar is punchy, so he can handle the rhythm.

I sorta thought about Mark Spencer playing with Jay Farrar and decided that I couldn't be that busy. Except in one spot, and I didn't take that to the full extreme like I could.

So, when you're supporting a folksinger with an electric guitar, what do you do?


Furtheron said...

Panic!!! :-)

Furtheron said...

Luckily however... I'm normally the folky acoustic basher who is warbling in the mic these days... so therefore it is as they say a SEP.... Someone Else's Problem ;-)

Dave Jacoby said...

Accompanying with an acoustic is it's own set of weirdness. I know that Gillian Welch plays on the high two and low two, giving David Rawlings the middle two to play around on, but you have to have that worked out and part of your style before you start.