Cool Holdsworth interview

[mirth]

This is a pretty good read. Talks about his inventions, more about his practicing, etc... than you normally got from him.

www.fingerprintsweb.net/ah/press/gui1187.html

[mirth]

Oh and this....

wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1960&context=etd_hon_theses

[mirth]

From the Thesis:


When playing long lines, Holdsworth often incorporates what jazz
pianist Hal Galper refers to as “forward motion,” a simple concept with
profound implications. Galper asserts that beat one should be understood not
as the first beat of a measure, but the last. As it is the strongest in the
measure, beat one “is not the first beat of
the bar; it is the last beat of the bar. It is the beat toward which melodic id
eas are played and at which they end”
[66]. Consequently, melodic lines should begin at places other than beat one,
and Galper draws examples variously from the works of J.S. Bach and Dizzy
Gillespie to illustrate this. Upon analyzing Holdsworth’s music, we will find a
similar phenomenon, which is an important component of how he is able to
maintain interest over the course of his longer lines.


This seems worth investigating more.

[mirth]

www.amazon.com/Forward-Motion-Hal-Galper/dp/1883217415

This book appears to be a home run, worth investigating.

[sonicdeviant]

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing. Really want to find out more on how AH did the amazing things he did. Part of it was just his huge hands, but still--he had a very unique approach.

[asb]

His approach to harmony was really interesting I think. Not a normal cup of tea.

[mirth]

Step 1, from what I can tell. Remove anything in your playing that sounds like someone else. Haha. Particularly guitar players. Most of the interviews I've seen, as soon as he noticed he did something that was typical...he dropped it.

Also, seems to have very "specific" practice sessions. Working on very particular ideas or things. And from it sounds like Bill Bruford mentioned him just spending all his extra time going through the Slominsky stuff and working all that shit out.

I bought the Forward Motion book...so far it's pretty awesome, but I just started it. I'll comment on it more once I actually work through it a bit. One of the things I already spent a lot of time doing, that's in the book...is never starting on 1, or 3. This is definitely how Holdsworth plays too (or any good improvisor for that matter).

Well worth the reads, everything I posted here.

[mirth]

ASB, He's definitely different than the norm. I don't think it's as weird as it seems. At least not in a way, it's sort of more mathematical, from what I can tell.

He seems to have hated the sound of 1357.....but he could still play a "C major 7" sound, by grabbing other interval combinations in the key center. So really, when you see a Cmaj7 chord...what you're seeing is : 1 3 5 7 (9 #11 13)...at least that's the typical combinations, which makes the C Lydian mode. So any combination of those notes is still "Cmaj7". This is what keyboardists do when they see a Cmaj7...they don't just grab a shape. They see the keys shift, so to speak. So most of the Holdsworth harmony, in a way, isn't that crazy, from what I can tell.

Instead of playing 1357, he might play 1467 or something, then he'll move that voicing parallel through the key. Which is what I hear in most of his chord playing.

As far as soloing, he definitely is superimposing a lot of stuff, but I think he mostly thinks scaler. But like that lead sheet we saw on here....he might have something like:


Amin7: Then he knows he can play: Adorian, Aphyrgian, Amelodic minor etc.....

So doing a lot of Modal modulations...but also if the next chord is sort of F#min7....he'll start anticipating it before the chord actually comes....so if there is 2 bars of Amin7 then 2 bars of F#min7....he'll start playing F#min stuff in bar 2...not waiting till bar 3.

What an awesome player.

[mirth]

I've been rather enjoying my theoretical analysis phase of Holdsworth's stuff. Much more interesting in that regard than other players I've spent time analyzing (like Martino). He really seemed to cover so much ground...not only was Holdsworth inventive in his legato approach, his harmonic approach, his chordal approach, his linear line creation, his guitar sound, his composition, but also his rhytmic varitions etc...

Right now I'm trying to explore whether he actually worked out all the odd note groupings rythmically (like where he superimposses 11 over 4, or whatever) or if it was just a "feel" kind of thing.

He really has some of the most interesting resolutions, they're not just bullshit wankering. It's also interesting to go through the history lesson with his music, there is so much improvement and growing up from the late 70s stuff up through the 80s to where he seems to really mature around the late 90s, and makes his masterpiece in the early 2000s (16 men of tain). But wow, what an abolutely incredible musician.

It's funny there are some "clones" of his stuff, but they all seem so far away form the level of advancment he reached on the instrument, just in a random improvisation. It's amazing to me that he was so advanced in so many aspects of his playing.

Another intesreting thing about Holdsworth is that he doesn't fit our standard of the great "young" player. He didn't even start guitar till he was like 17. He was 30 when he he finally got some kind of "fame" playing with Bill Bruford, but wasn't until he was 36 that his first "solo" album came out. And really, not till he was 38 that Metal Fatigue came out, which was probably his "biggest" album. Nearly 40 years old when he started to really make his mark.

He was 46 when that REH video came out.

It's kind of nuts in a way. In a world that reveres youth, maybe that was one of his problems. Also probably one the reasons he sounds so mature by the time he's getting noticed.

It reminds me of an Guthrie Govan's thing a little, basically when he was in his 20s, Mike Varney wanted to sign him, but Guthrie Declined and spent the next 10 years getting "better" and more than just some shred kid. If he would have signed he might just be another 'generic" shredder.

However, Holdsworth is so much more advanced than Guthrie will ever be at this point. Well, probably more advanced that really anyone at that point, on guitar at least.

IMO, worth the exploration. unlike some of our "heroes" (The Rhames, Lane, Gatton) there really is a lifetime worth of stuff to explore with Holdsworth at least.