I love the sound of horns. But if I play some lines with my guitar they sound clean but not as impressive. Is it me or the guitar tone? Fellow guitarists always say “that was cool”. But if a horn player does the same line the band (non string players) says “THAT WAS COOL” ! I want to sound just as impressive—but I guess that’s all our wishes. Any thoughts or input?
My band director from high school said saxophones only have 1 volume and it’s loud. Even the quiet is loud just at lower volume.
The sax player in a wedding band I was in used to warm up by making motorcycle noises that were deafening lol
Moar honking = more enthusiastic Elaine-style Seinfeld dancing
Also by humming or growling into the sax while playing you can make it significantly louder too since it’s designed to amplify the sound going into it.
lol that is so on-point, and also relevant for guitar. A well dialed guitar rig (for music besides jazz) should have a distortion and overdrive that is the same volume (in objective dB) as their clean tone (probably thanks to a compressor on the clean). But that dirty tone sounds so loud! It’s compressed and has a lot of harmonics, just like a sax. In jazz, we have to make do with fast modal playing, sweet chorded solos and other tricks that are our bread and butter!
Higher action on strings will help with the dynamics you speak of…. At least with how I play it does. People always seemed shock by how high my action is.
How would that help?
I apologize I don’t understand the physics of it. I just know how it feels and how it reacts.
Hmm, so you're fretting notes softly? Or does it change how the vibrato feels or something? Not trying to interrogate you, that just surprises me. I know yngwie likes a high action as well for tonal reasons, obviously not jazz but it's not unheard of.
The tone of a saxophone naturally sounds like an electric guitar that has heavy distortion + bending strings.
By itself, the electric guitar sounds clean, clear, and lucid. To mimic the quality, attitude, and timbre of a natural saxophone, the electric guitar would need to add distortion, and also bend those distorted strings.
However, in jazz, it’s usually not “stylistically appropriate” to 1.) have heavy distortion on electric guitar and 2.) bend strings. So, the guitar sounds like this clear, plain, lucid instrument, compared to the loud, abrasive, distortion, edge that is saxophone. The clean guitar is more like a flute than a saxophone.
The same way some rock guitar player plays some super simple blues lick, and everyone goes “ WOAH OMG! THAT WAS SO BADASS!” The sax player just plays one note, and it sounds like a thick heavy distorted guitar bending strings into notes and just really aggressive.
That’s my take. And that’s why I love jazz fusion so much, because it puts guitar on a more equivalent playing field.
I’ll have to consider taking some pedals. I’m a bit shy because I come from a nylon classical background. Got into jazz during the pandemic and some pedals, too. Met a guy that told me about the Jazz jam then he went on about how some come with pedals and seem so out of place. but maybe it's just him. hes an odd guy.
I'll say this, I heard a saxophone play pentatonic over a blues, empashizing the #9 like crazy, it sounded so good compared to guitar... I was ashamed of my instrument that moment, since practically the #9 is owned by guitarists. the amount of overtones in horns, i believe is much thicker and richer than guitar, obviously.
and if youl play with a strat, yeah you are gonna get that thin flimsy sound, as opposed to the fat sound matheny and jim hall have, or others. but i don't know what strings you play, or what guitar.
another thing to consider, to impress really, you'd have to be good at melodies even more than saxophone, because if your timber is weaker? what else can you provide? flutes have a problem similar, so they compensate by delicate sound, and using the air sound of it, to get more power off their instrument. its not just about pedals and such. if you can sound musical, by rhythm, and melody, and swing, it doesn't really matter.
the best example to me is christian and wes, they simply owned the band with their sound and groove.
Here’s an example of what I mean, this is a tune by jazz guitarist Tim Miller called “RB.”
In this track, he utilizes a bunch of techniques that are not normally “stylistically appropriate” for traditional jazz guitar. He has some distortion + (other effects), he is bending some strings, and he’s using vibrato on his notes.
These 3 things give his sound so much more power compared to if he played the exact same notes with no vibrato at all, no bending strings even slightly, and no distortion or effects.
Awesome!! I’ll check it out when I time to listen to it when I’m alone. Busy with family now.
Seriously, thanks!
I never got how distortion guitar is even considered a valid sound for jazz.
it is for fusion, and it sounds good there. but for swing? it is always sounds off to me. never heard a good one. also, it was discussed here-1 dynamic. LOUD(in distortion). yeah you can play like knopfler. but its the same problem still.
I don’t think it is considered a valid sound for jazz at all. Which is basically my point, the valid jazz guitar sound is more comparable to a flute than to a saxophone, so it’s not possible to emulate the timbre and power of a natural saxophone on guitar unless you break the rules (which sounds corny and amateur usually) or you go to a different style where distortion and vibrato is appropriate.
Think about how a saxophone can slide into a note, have thick vibrato, and bend and manipulate the note with microtones. A guitar can only do half steps, unless you bend the strings. But usually bending strings in jazz is not accepted as stylistically appropriate.
I think that’s why the op is saying the lick on guitar sounds less impressive compared to the natural power and aggressiveness of the sax.
It’s like imagine a flute player who plays in a rock band. And he says, “man when I play a lick everyone just says it sounds nice. But when the lead guitar player plays the same lick out of his Marshall stack, people go crazy! What gives?”
my bad... you gave that example as a counter argument.
No problem I love talking about this stuff lol
This is a great example of jazz that’s interesting from a technical level but lacks musicality and is difficult to listen to
Well that’s your subjective opinion, fusion isn’t for everyone just like straight ahead clean jazz isn’t for everyone
A good fuzz/dist/overdrive stack pared with an envelope filter and/or wah pedal could be what you're looking for. Gives you more sustain and beef but more dynamics that are closer to horn sounds..
That’s why I play jazz through an amp on the edge of breakup. While bending strings. On a Strat.
I often feel like guitar was late to the party and can do it all, but not as well as any other instrument. We can comp, but piano has much more range and dynamics, and more notes. We can solo but the horns get us on that too, they’re loud fast and showy.
Just embrace it. Guitar is a wonderful support instrument when you know how too. And we can rip off the bluesyist solos. I love it! Just gotta accept we are never gonna have the love the sax gets.
Guitar will always be timeless though! Remember when sax was too mainstream popular in the 80s/early 90s until it was oversaturated? It fell out of style for a while because it was being abused so cheesily, in fact, I think it’s safe to say it never got that resurgence in popularity.
Guitar will always be cool.
I'm sick of both of em XD
Why are you here?
been subbed for 10 years i play other instruments too. and jazz guitar is an exception of course
I know what you’re feeling. Every other instrument has the same problem. Jazz was largely built on Saxophone. But if you really dig in and strive to get all of the sound you can out of the guitar, you can come close.
I woke up today really intrigued but this thought. I thought has passed in passing many times but today I’m really thinking of it.
I’ve been transcribing some Lester Young today. It’s not hard, but it’s really amazing how economical he is with his lines and how rich his tone is. There are places where has almost modern dissonances, and still makes it back home.
Guthrie Govan said something similar. This is a very inclusive concept.
I think the guitar, with a clean mellow jazz tone, just doesn't "shine" as bright as a saxophone. Spectral analysis would probably confirm, the overtones are not so rich, the sustain is not the same, you cannot manipulate a note after playing it as much as other instruments.
But that's not a problem, not every instrument is made to be similar and fulfil the same function in an ensemble.
however, if you want to achieve some of the characteristics of a saxophone tone, you might look into what other people did with effects and a different kind of articulation on guitar to achieve it. I'm thinking of Scofield, Frisell, Holdsworth, Metheny - they all have different strategies to get their instrument to do what they want! You can look into Compression, Hammer-Ons, Pull-offs, Slides, Distortion, Volume Pedal, Delays etc. etc., also using more treble
Exactly! I also think that for most non musicians the sound of a clean dark jazz guitar is just not very exciting, period. I remember talking to a fairly famous session guy who could rip on jazz standards but mostly played Strats with distortion, and he candidly told me that he thought that the "standard jazz guitar tone" was "just bad" and nobody liked it except for guitar players:)
I love a bright, overtone rich piano-like tone on my jazz guitars
i thought i was the only one! (except for jim hall of course)
nobody liked it except for guitar players
I mean I'm subscribed to /r/jazzguitar, you can imagine my hobbies, and I don't even like the flatwounds & tone knob turned down thing.
Overtones and pick attack are our friends!
I feel you. To this day, most of my heroes play with roundwounds and fairly bright sound
This is my thinking exactly. I’m always wondering why other genres of guitarist are using any piece of technology they can to cut through the mix or add body to the tone and many jazz guitarists not only eschew these tools, but look down on the people who use them.
Horns have more dynamics and are more naturally suited for legato. Horns also have a more “full” sound that punches through the mix better. Guitar and piano both have more of a clinky sound and each note resolves very quickly so it tends to not have much sustain especially without overdrive or distortion. Allan holdsworth originally got into playing with overdrive because his parents couldn’t afford a horn for him so he tried to mimick the characteristics of a horn player.
I also feel the same way about horns and do my fair share of imitation. But you also have to understand that the instrument sounds how it sounds so make use of what it is. One thing I really like is how chords sound on guitar, so easy to make quartal voicings and the vibration of the strings makes a very nice sound
I think some of it has to do with the harmonic richness of a horn. Which isn’t to say that guitar isn’t playing the same notes, but a horn moves air as you hear it. Because archtops are the OG jazz guitar sound, it was only reluctantly that people got cool with any kind of amplification. And decades later, Serious Jazz Cats still hang onto the Joe Pass/Wes Montgomery sound as the accepted standard. That sound is beautiful, but it has neither the fullness, sustain, or immediacy of a horn. This is what Holdsworth was chasing with the whole “guitar like a saxophone” concept. Because of fusion’s rock heritage, all the stuff that compression, distortion, reverb, delay, etc add to a guitar’s notes are part of the accepted palette. Don’t take my word for it: dial up even a super generic rock tone and play a Bird head like “Donna Lee”. It feels more like a horn in terms of complexity and dynamics.
Oh boy! Thanks for the info.
This should be fun trying to dial in a “rock” sound. Despite listening to rock as a kid, as an ex classical player, I’ve been trying to dial in that jazz tone. But I’ll give it a shot. Sounds like fun for sure.
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Man! Wish I could play horn. I’ve thought of taking it up but just stuck to guitar.
I’ve noticed—maybe just me—that when the horn plays there is a mild flutter to it. The flutter seems to project the harmonic series. Is that what’s happening?
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Ah! I see. So it’s the tongue or reed or something like that.
I'll trade you! Kinda half joking as I love the saxophone, but if I was a kid again, I would definitely choose guitar.
It's funny that the same harmonic series effect you're talking about that makes sax cut through and be expressive is the thing about sax that I also find a bit frustrating. I'm envious of the guitar's ability to comp and play counterpoint lines that truly BLEND with the entire sounds scape, whereas with sax players the tone sticks out - sure it's good when soloing, but how I wish I could play throughout the entire song!
Ha! We have a sax player in our group and she’s always talking about how we can strike chord. She seems a bit envious but she freak’n rocks the horn.
Nearly every Joe, John, Steve, Mary, Sarah, and Ashley has a cousin, brother, or friend who plays guitar - so hearing a sax, trumpet, or trombone solo is not a common experience for the adverage Dick, Jane, or Trenton.
No love for Juan, Maria or Luise’s? Lol.
I get it, though.
i will say: a little overdrive goes a long way - so do stark rhythmic choises (in a solo)
my credentials: guitarist in New Orleans, home of brass
Maybe off topic. Any suggestions on a distortion pedal. With a few extras thrown in. Nothing like a strymon. I have a few strumming and they are over kill. Way too many options for me.
I don't use one myself - I use the gain on my amp - but i imagine any overdrive pedal will do you right. My set-up now is solidbody 2 PAF humbucker De'Angelico into a volume pedal into a ZT lunchbox
Oh. I see. I only have a Deluxe Reverb amp and a tele deluxe.
that's all you need
people will still be more impressed by horn players anyway though ... lol
So true. Lol
I mean, this is why guitarists started using distortion, to get a more full and exciting tone that attracts the casual listener.
Distortion is "not acceptable" for jazz unfortunately, but Scofield and Frissell are doing unconventional things with their guitar tone.
That’s been my thinking. I want a unique sound and it’s been a journey finding it.
Have you tried using phasing and/or flanging?
I love playing with my phaser pedals. Only home alone in a room. But I do have a Boss Blues driver and the connection with distortion or overdrive I didn’t make until just now. D’oh!
When horns play they can create a full, sustained sound. When guitar plays it immediately starts to decay, with the full sound only being close to the initiation of the note. Two very different types of sounds.
Ha! I guess I haven’t figured out how to use sustain. My jazz ensemble teacher told me I need to cut the sustain and keep notes staccato. I’m used to letting them ring out as if playing a classical. Now that I’ve been playing electric, it feels like I know less.
My point is even if you did let them ring out it’s not the same effect as with a wind or a voice instrument
That’s 100 right
i feel like horns just have more textural control and variety even on a sustaining note. and the transient attack is pretty punchy without losing sustain.
Jazz sax and guitar doubling lines is one of the greatest tone combos on earth.
This what is called a confirmation bias. You notice it because you want to notice it, not because it happens all the time or everywhere.
confirmation bias is when my guitar doesn’t sound like charlie parker
So it’s just imaginary? A nice clean jazz guitar doesn’t have a different timbre and sound than a blazing tenor saxophone?
Other’s reactions are what I’m talking about.
I don't think this is true. Objectively, horns and piano have played a far more significant role in the history of jazz.
So true. Before I played I recall the cool and intriguing sound of the horn. It wasn’t until today I really thought about it.
Ah, the latest 'a fallacy only I can spot' trend, confirmation bias. You know, you cannot just stamp it everywhere.
Not helpful, but, joke's on you, people who play horn who can and do absolutely rip it up get their music called boring or "elevator music" by the common public. Take those same solos and add electric distortion and they'd be shredders
Hmm. Wonder if I should take my pedal board in to jam session. I’ll need a distortion pedal of course.
Horns sound angry and rad, they have power and sustain. Guitar sounds tame and anemic. They solved this problem for the guitar with distortion, but sadly this extremely taboo in jazz.
Allan Holdsworth had a clean tone that could project better though, he did it by chaining many delays.
Dunno. Maybe people just like horny things.
Lol. Right!?
Time to break out the pedal board
The correct answer is yes... Or wait it could also be no.
Thank the 80s.
It's volume. It's the same with drum solos. If I play loudly and with a little more of a blues approach and/or with distortion I get a better response from audiences.
I think the problem is inherently a string one. Bass players suffer the same, although they have lower frequencies that can be hard to hear.
Use some drive to add more harmonics. Mod fx like chorus or rotary, even octaver. Reverb too, room or short spring/plate. Slap back delay. And obviously more volume:)
It always amazes me when teachers tell guitar players to ‘play like a horn’ or ‘play like a drum’ , makes no sense! First thing you should do is learn django, Charlie Christian, Wes and Joe pass. Like they listened to Charlie Parker and miles extensively and developed vocabulary.
You think that a newbie student with poor ears is going to listen to a horn player and suddenly innovate something that the masters missed?
Ridiculous!
That's what the fuzz pedal was invented for.
I’d recommend you check out Allan holdsworth. His lead sound is fucking RIDICULOUS, especially when you contrast it with his dreamlike clean chord tone he so often employed.
Do it with chord melody
Some guys can really pull it off, I think of Jimmy Raney and Pat Martino as cats with great tone. Big fat tone from Martino and probably the best, most dialed in hollow body tone from Raney. Machine gun picking from Martino, slurred phrases with Raney. I think the trick is heavy, heavy strings, humbuckers, and authority. Both Martino and Raney (actually Wes and Sheryl Bailey and Rosenwinkle have this too) are a great example of having a unique sense of time. Interesting thing is it’s a lot straighter than most, and gets straighter the faster it gets. Sounds authoritative and confident, which is the vibe I get from a lot of horn players.
I will answer this way:
I have found at jams I go to the same feeling. A trumpet or sax hits chord tones and sounds amazing where guitar plays some more interesting lines and falls a bit flat. Not that there aren't great players on both sides of the fence.
I find that to get the validation I crave from the other people at the jam (audience and musicians) comes from careful note choice and some flashy technique to compensate.
The natural tone may not be exciting in a jam setting, but you can try to add the excitement in other ways.
Using some more "out there" textures is one way I do it. I always get complimented for playing some basic harmonic minor sounding stuff over a minor ii V i for example. Nothing wild, but different enough that it perks the ears in the mixed skill jams I go to.
Similarly, do what other instruments can't do, technique-wise. Sweeping an arpeggio into a line is always fun and not something that can easily be replicated on other instruments. Use the fact you are picking to mess with the dynamics (digging in for some real spice or even using some tremolo style picking). Trying to dazzle while playing cool lines is my go-to mindset on soloing with this kind of atmosphere. I actually find comping behind 3 sax players, two trumpets, two flues and a pianist the hardest part!
i use a drive pedal to get more oomph with my lines, if you play single note lines you don’t lose clarity and if you use it subtly you get a cool effect
It’s purely a matter of opinion, but probably has a lot to do with swinging or not.
I think the world has had almost enough guitar in general.
I’m a guitarist too and had an electronic duo thing where I would play guitar, run the tracks, sing, and rap, and when my buddy would pull out a trumpet for a basic line people would lose their shit.
I know that’s not jazz. But I think guitar shredding and riffing has been beat to death over the last 60 years and almost any other instrument gets more excitement out of people in general.
A lot of jazz just isn’t musically good. It’s a technical demonstration of the fretting and coordination of the player combined with their knowledge of music theory. It doesn’t even necessarily lack soul it just doesn’t have the type of musicality that people appreciate.
even I as a guitarist who likes jazz thinks it sucks. This doesn’t just apply to guitar, there’s plenty of terrible shit by Coltrane and Miles Davis and the other greats that is nearly unlistenable despite the advanced techniques being displayed.
This also happens across genres, like Malmsteem’s speed is a neat parlor trick but again, unlistenable.
Please define, "Musically good," for the class.
I think part of this has to do with dynamics. Brass instruments and piano typically have a much greater dynamic range than a guitar. That said, I find it helps to concentrate on creating as much variation as you can given the limitations of the instrument.