Noise Guitar & Related Conceptual Interpretations

[NoiseWiki]

I belive his doubts are more emotionally based than fact based...hahaha

The fact is that just because it's a guitar doesn't mean the person using it has any more of an idea how to play or make non boring noise with it.

One of the most absurd examples of this was when I saw somebody manage to be boring while using a "prepared guitar" that had been prepared by somebody else. uhuh

So its not so much the guitar but the goof ass pseudo hippy experimental MUSIC dork playing it thats the problem.

That makes sense.

Yea the connection to rock is a factor I guess and dissing the guitar probably offends some people because of that.

Anyway for all my bitching about it I haven't seen too many actual noise projects using one also not that many with laptops either.

But when I think about what comes to mind are really boring sets that went on way too long.

Also that time when Thurston Moore performed at the smell it was pretty hilarious because all the kids that were there didn't get the difference between what sonic youth does and noise but also that what Moore did was guitar noodling and not noise and they didn't seem to actually get that either.

Its kinda like how using a death metal pedal is funny because its true.

Since we're on the subject of things I don't like at noise shows.. perhaps far more than guitars is drums. I mean for starters I hate it when there's a snare drum just around because its fucking rattleling the entire fucking time because the fucking mute barely works but also because drums are too fuckng loud and sound like drum.

I have seen like one set were the guy did all sorts of cool shit with drums that was percussive and thats cool but pretending to be Keith Moon and calling it noise is kinda lame imo

I love things like the Portland bike ensemble.. they use bikes to make noise.. its great! That's creative and interesting.

[The Mysterious Creep]

I belive his doubts are more emotionally based than fact based...hahaha

The fact is that just because it's a guitar doesn't mean the person using it has any more of an idea how to play or make non boring noise with it.

One of the most absurd examples of this was when I saw somebody manage to be boring while using a "prepared guitar" that had been prepared by somebody else. uhuh

Jesus, what a fuckin' knob. Why would you deliberately try to turn a guitar into a non-guitar instrument and then hand it to somebody who didn't assemble it? "Figure it out, dipshit, we're live!" Smacks of sabotage if it was the preparer's idea, and abysmal laziness if it was the performer's idea.

[Indeterminacy]

abysmal laziness

Pardon my parsing this selectively.

But that is the exact problem I have with Noise Guitar. You have to work at it otherwise you are Thurstoning, (trade mark and pat, appl.)

If an example of having to work at is needed then refer to:

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I played with this concept for a while when I had a space that suited the technique.
Nuance rather than brute force and letting volume take care of the rest worked best for me.

[NoiseWiki]

I belive his doubts are more emotionally based than fact based...hahaha

The fact is that just because it's a guitar doesn't mean the person using it has any more of an idea how to play or make non boring noise with it.

One of the most absurd examples of this was when I saw somebody manage to be boring while using a "prepared guitar" that had been prepared by somebody else. uhuh

Jesus, what a fuckin' knob. Why would you deliberately try to turn a guitar into a non-guitar instrument and then hand it to somebody who didn't assemble it? "Figure it out, dipshit, we're live!" Smacks of sabotage if it was the preparer's idea, and abysmal laziness if it was the performer's idea.

It was the performers idea and it was a solo performance

[The Mysterious Creep]

abysmal laziness

Pardon my parsing this selectively.

But that is the exact problem I have with Noise Guitar. You have to work at it otherwise you are Thurstoning, (trade mark and pat, appl.)

If an example of having to work at is needed then refer to:



I played with this concept for a while when I had a space that suited the technique.
Nuance rather than brute force and letting volume take care of the rest worked best for me.

So, disclosing the conflict of interest right away: I make/have made guitar noise (e.g. so you can decide whether or not I'm guilty of "Thurstoning" myself) and I do actually enjoy Thurston Moore's work, both in noise rock and noise/free improv contexts (although I haven't heard a huge amount of his pure noise work, what I did hear I would be willing to come back to).

That said, I think it's a bit unfair to suggest that noise guitar inherently breeds laziness. You have to work at pedals and synths or you're just Merzbow-ing, you have to work at suspenseful droning and distant feedback manipulation or you're just Ramleh-ing (God Made Flesh by War, I enjoy you but I am looking right at you here), etc. & etc. Obviously you have to know your tools and have new ideas, it's the same as anything else. If it's less abstract by nature of already being an intended sound-making tool with a history to it, at least it's also got fairly wide possibilities in terms of what you can do with it. There's plenty of extended techniques to be explored, alternate ways of exciting strings, screwing with physics-based aspects like overtones and feedback, a wide pitch range, a whole range of alternate tuning possibilities, and the zillions of effect boxes to be experimented with, all in any possible combination. It may not deliver the sheer inhuman brutality of something like a contact mic'd piece of scrap metal through a dimed FX86, but I don't see how it's any more prone to repetition and aimlessness than any other tool of the noise trade. As an established musical instrument I can see it wandering more into related fields (your EAI, free jazz, drone, metal, psych rock, etc.) than staying pure noise, but I personally don't recoil when I hear any nods toward the "musical" though I know some noisers do.

I've enjoyed other stuff Yoshihide's done with guitar, but I've never heard that one. Any examples of him performing it, since I couldn't find the record digitally anywhere? I'm guessing it's feedback manipulation from the picture, but I'm sure it sounds much more interesting than that description implies. Plus I found some underground review site attacking it for resembling an "archaic hard rock thrash session," so now I'm even more curious.

If I'm misunderstanding your point, feel free to clarify. I just don't get why the guitar draws so much more controversy than any other noisemaker. People will roll their eyes at the billionth unimaginative guy hunched over a spaceship control panel of pedals and mixers, sure, but the guitar is the one instrument that I've seen get shit just from the concept.

[crochambeau]

the guitar is the one instrument that I've seen get shit just from the concept.

Drums and laptops also enjoy copious derision.

[The Mysterious Creep]

the guitar is the one instrument that I've seen get shit just from the concept.

Drums and laptops also enjoy copious derision.

I never see people talk about drums in noise at all, but you're right that I blanked on the laptops. Wonder how noise folks feel about EAI, which commonly uses both laptops and guitars and could easily be called "quiet, minimalist noise for eggheads."

[Indeterminacy]

but the guitar is the one instrument that I've seen get shit just from the concept.

Quick parsing again. Long day.

Just to re-state the obvious, I am the OP for this thread. I am a proponent of the guitar as a noise/sound generating instrument and usually can re-state that premise every time I use it as such. I lived in the greater metropolitan Tokyo area for 3 years in the early 90's and was exposed to more NoiseGuitar than I could have imagined. They do things very differently there and that influence lingers to this day. It informed my pure Acoustimatic/Bailey-esque 12 string work and my high volume excursions to such an extent that my then girlfriend began to call me Urusai.

Anyway I'll gather some links together.

Here is another favorite:

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And an ancient stupid favorite rig that lasted several months.
I fucked with the fabric of time with this:

[Indeterminacy]

Still one of my best sound generating devices:

[The Mysterious Creep]

Just to re-state the obvious, I am the OP for this thread.

...Yep, you are. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times, I am not a smart man.

And an ancient stupid favorite rig that lasted several months.
I fucked with the fabric of time with this:

That looks savage, any recordings of that? I'm trying to imagine what it would even sound like beyond the rather hard-to-visualize impression of "the souls of the damned."

And of course, since you haven't answered the implied question from my disclaimer I wait with bated breath for your assessment of my own guitar noise.