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One guitar, or three?

Many fans of Rock music guitar playing consider the players who were the only guitarist in their band "the best": Jimi Hendrix (in The Experience), Eric Clapton (in Cream), Jeff Beck (post-Yardbirds), Jimmy Page, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the clown in Black Sabbath, etc. etc.

I on the other hand have a love of not the classic 2-guitar line-up (The Beatles, Stones, Rockpile, etc.)---good as that can be---, but of 3-guitar bands: Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, Fleetwood Mac in their Peter Green/Danny Kirwin/Jeremy Spencer period, and The Flamin’ Groovies in the Shake Some Action album era.

Three guitars is even more musical than two, and far more so than one. All kinds of little song parts are possible with three musical instruments, and Springfield and The Grape really exploited the possibilities. One guitar is so, well, 1-dimensional. Sure, on recordings the single guitarist in a band can recorded multiple parts, but "lead" guitarists rarely think in "song part" terms, but instead in "guitar chops" terms. Know what I mean?

I bought the first two albums by both Cream and Hendrix when they were released, and saw both live twice in 1967 and ’68. But the music of both got old pretty quickly, I losing interest after those albums. You may disagree. ;-)

Now, one guitar is fine if you have other musical instruments (bass and drums can be played musically, but they aren’t "chordal" instruments), such as piano and/or organ. Two of Rock ’n’ Roll’s most musical ensembles had both piano and organ, and only one guitar: The Band and Procol Harum. Those bands also had great songs. Coincidence?

If anyone has other 3-guitar bands/groups to recommend, I’m all ears.

128x128bdp24

Showing 4 responses by stuartk

stuartk
2,432 posts
 

While I agree that two is often better than one, for my tastes, a third is usually one too many. The degree of commitment required to listen carefully enough so as to stay out each-other's way is usually more than most guitarists can summon in such a situation. 

Never "grokked" Moby Grape.  

I did hear Emmylou with the Hot Band and they did fine, but you specified Rock, so nope. 

stuartk
2,432 posts
 

@bdp24 

I'm really curious about what you meant when you said you find Jazz is "too urban".

Care to elaborate further?

 

 

stuartk
2,432 posts
 

@bdp24 

OK. . . but the sound of horns is not restricted to "squawking". There are folk singers whose off-key singing can be plenty dissonant. If you are asserting that Jazz is inherently dissonant or hectic, I can't agree, unless you're talking about Free Jazz, which is indeed, too "squawky" , "hectic" and dissonant for my taste. We all like what we like and I'd never suggest to anyone that their taste is "wrong". At the same time, your characterization of Jazz does seem inaccurate to me, based upon what I've heard over some 40 years of listening to it.

 

 

 

 

stuartk
2,432 posts
 

@bdp24 

"Now, there is Jazz I like, names you would expect: Count Basie (man did his band swing!), Ellington, Mose Allison, Ray Charles, early Big Joe Turner, Cab Calloway. Composers including Irving Berlin, Bernstein, Gershwin, etc."

I apologize for my carelessness in making false assumptions. 

No excuse, but I suspect I was feeling a bit triggered and "protective" of a genre that seems to have very few fans. In other words, I somehow misread your words as a broad attack on the genre as a whole.  

"I listen for for and respond to first form: great chord progressions. melodies, harmonies, etc."

This is true for me, as well. I enjoy improvisation but please (!) give me a nicely crafted melody as a jumping off point, and some actual chord changes, not just a hip riff or a two-chord vamp, repeated ad nauseum. Jazz seems to be heading increasingly away from melody and chord changes, unfortunately. 

"Plus, as I said, Bluegrass instruments are more pleasing to me in terms of timbre than is most Jazz". 

A matter of personal taste, and therefore, inarguable.

"Jazz music tends to not give me what I’m looking for musically, not as much as do other genres."

It only makes sense for each of us to "follow our bliss" when it comes to aesthetic experiences. 

I enjoy your contributions, even if I occasionally have a strange way of showing it ;o)

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