Rhythm Guitar - This Machine Creates Texture and Interest
When asked what the most difficult instrument in the orchestra is, Leonard Bernstein responded:
“The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm – that’s a problem; and if we have no second fiddle, we have no harmony."
I read this quote the other day and immediately thought of the rhythm guitarist. The overlooked. The one who never gets the solo. The one in the back, sitting next to the drums, trying to stay out of the piano’s way, trying to be loud but not be heard. The band’s second fiddle player. I looked up the role of second fiddle in a symphony (news flash: apparently they prefer to be called second violin) and found an interesting interview from 2010 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s second violinist, Angela Fuller. When asked to explain the second violins’ role in the symphony she stated, “We are the motor. We are what creates texture and creates interest.” I love that line. As a matter of fact I think I’m going to tattoo that on my right forearm, “This motor creates texture and interest”. OK, maybe I’ll just have it inlaid on the finger rest in mother of pearl… OK fine! It’ll probably just end up on a sticky note on the inside of my case.
In a 1987 interview for Guitar Player Magazine about Freddie Green, Bucky Pizzarelli said, “To be an effective rhythm man, you can’t just play any old thing; you have to go out of your way to make things work.” To understand what Bucky means is to understand that the practice and study of playing rhythm guitar is of the same importance as the practice and study of single note soloing and improvising. Commonly today, the guitar is no longer seen as a rhythm instrument like it was in traditional jazz. Countless guitarists have proudly moved our instrument from rhythm section stalwart to the virtuosic vanguard, and there is nothing wrong with that. In that movement from the back row to the front of the stage the pedagogy of true rhythm guitar was lost. To be fair, as the large bands disappeared over the course of several years there became fewer opportunities for guitarists to practice this art and really, when was the last time you heard some kid say, "I want to play guitar like the rhythm guitarist from Aerosmith"?
In closing, let’s listen to a true rhythm machine create some texture and interest (Barry Galbraith with Hal McKusick).
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