acoustic guitar chunes

is there a place in modern 'popular' music for acoustic guitars?

  • no, acoustic music is totally gay

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Getting back to the roots

For me, the acoustic guitar will always be the foundation of my music. It's where most of my band's original tunes came from. Sure, once you throw 2 electric guitars, a base and drums into the mix the original song changes but not enough to forget when and how it was born.

I think the ability for any artist to lay down the distortion and return to their roots is a defining moment as a musician. One of the most powerful examples of this is Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters. The band rocks together but when Grohl breaks out the acoustic, you get a chance to see just how real this guy is.
 
Don't forget about Jack Johnson who has been tearing up the charts these days! I can think of plenty of folks doing it!!
 
The Late Great Mr Smith

He played a mean acoustic guitar. I am currently learning the fingerpicking part to Angeles. Absolutely beautiful. When it's that good you know it's here to stay.

...it's like asking if rock is dead....

2c
 
Rokket said:
I like the sound of a good acoustic mixed with the sound of a good nylon classical.....

I second that Rokket, whether it be a chord progression on a steel string with a nice melody played with a classical or vice versa.
Im still learning like most of us here but I am working on getting a nice full crisp recording of my Fender twelve string so I can play a melody line on my Alambra solid cedar topped classical over it. Both guitars sound beautiful when played, I've just got to capture the sound.

In short, yes I love the sound of acoustic guitar played well! :)
 
i love hearing any of my favorite artists just singing and playing an acoustic. it just sounds so much more intimate.

ever hear hendrix's acoustic take of Angel or Hear My Train A Comin? ahhhhhhhh!

Bradley Noels acoustic take of Pool Shark? I'm feelin his pain when i hear that one.

Weezer, Butterfly? Beautiful.

Ozma, Game Over. Makes me wanna cry.

Ryan Adams (not brian), Come Pick Me Up. Lives up to the cd's title, Heart Breaker. Every human being on earth should hear this cd.

I have an acoustic bootleg of Stevie Ray Vaughn. It's some of the meanest guitar playing i have ever heard, acoustic or electric.

The Flaming Lips - Plastic Jesus, Wilco - Sunken Treasure, Jack Johnson - Symbol In My Driveway, Ben Harper - Waiting On An Angel, Violent Femmes - American Music,....................I can go on all day. Man I love acoustic music.

Acoustic music will never be irrelevant. To me, it's the closest you can get to being inside someones head and heart.
 
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Timothy Lawler said:
Once in a while when the power goes out for a few hours- and everything gets really quiet - and you've gotta use candles at night - you play some acoustic guitar and it sounds so different than usual. Makes me wonder what it'd be like for us guitarists if the power didn't come back on.

Tim

My equivalent to the power not coming back on:

Last summer, I spent every weekend at the beach playing acoustic with people from every walk of life. I played with everyone from the homeless guy to the doctor. Rappers to hand percussionists. Some nights I did'nt even leave. I would play all night and late into the next day. It was great. I discovered that I could actually sing! Well, not that well but I do have my own voice. Since then, the last two hurricanes have shreaded the beach and it seems like a ghost town down there, musician wise. I learned and experienced so much out there last summer with my old beat up acoustic. It was like that old show Cheers. Every time a familiar face showed up, someone called out that persons name and greeted him/her with a guitar or a beer. Man I really miss last summer.

I wanted to take some gear down there this summer and record a bunch of stuff but it's so dead there now. Maybe next summer.
 
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i've fallen in lvoe with the unplugged sound. i really think there is no going back for me.
 
acoustic is all good

I mean come on think of Tenacious D

well its good except for gay ass emo cause they all suck or they make themselves suck

I know this one guitarist that is emo and he plays all the fucking time
its like his life for christ sake
he plays like all day long and is really good

and yet if you listen to his music he sucks cause he plays gay ass riffs that are just like four notes arpegiated

THAT AIN'T RIGHT :mad:
 
that reminds me

has anybody heard the stevie ray vaughan unplugged thing on MTV

well MTV is gay but that is the most insane unplugged guitar I have ever heard except for maybe steve howe

although steve howe isn't particularly insane but it is really melodic
 
PsychoBandito said:
that reminds me has anybody heard the stevie ray vaughan unplugged thing on MTV well MTV is gay but that is the most insane unplugged guitar I have ever heard except for maybe steve howe although steve howe isn't particularly insane but it is really melodic

MTV gay? wtf does that mean? Anyway, I'd be very interested to see what SRV did unplugged - I kind of missed the boat regarding his electric playing, never becoming one of the screaming, revering hordes. It was all very slick and all, but nothing I've heard was particularly 'insane' - more like 'very on the ball.'

Steve Howe, on the other hand, is pretty insane! Outside his Chet Atkins mode, his melodies aren't always the prettiest, and his 'attempts' at stuff acoustically (electrically, too, for that matter) don't always work, but his approach seems always to be from as fresh an angle as he can find.

Sorry, I've forgotten what this thread was even about. I'll quit on that note.
 
i would not be a part of a band that did not have both and electric and an acoustic guitar.

i can't get by without either.

songs without an acoustic always sound thin to me

and without an electric they have no meat.

acoustics are milky and electrics are creamy.. and we all know you gotta be milky and creamy.
 
I find acoustic useful in several different ways. In terms of an electric pop rock mix, or whatnot, there's plenty of room for the percussive and complimentary use of an acoustic guitar.

On its own, it can do a lot of things as well. Acoustic and voice can be used in sort of a traditional singer-songwriter sense, just as a singer and a piano might play. A lot of times when I play acoustic, it's really not an entirely differnent beast from when I play electric... I can play my same songs on acoustic or electric, although of course I give them a little bit of a different feel at times, but the same core song is there.

I'm actually working on an acoustic album right now of stuff that can just as easily be done electric with a full band, and I dont think it's necessarily better either way - just different. The kind of stuff I like to do these days can hold it's own completely with one voice and an acoustic guitar, or it can be a full on production with an entire electric band, and be just as musically enjoyable either way. In the end, it's just another tool to make music the way that's most appropriate.
 
Nutdotnet said:
Ben Harper
hell yes... i guess ill just add on:
jack johnson
john mayer
sister hazel
oasis
jason mraz
lots more i wish i have heard of, cuz its probably good stuff
 
KonradG said:
hell yes... i guess ill just add on:
jack johnson
john mayer
sister hazel
oasis
jason mraz
lots more i wish i have heard of, cuz its probably good stuff

forgot something though...
when i read further down i saw someone saying it need both elec and acoustic to sound full, i accidentally proved him right, and i myself totally agree.
all of the people listed above have acoustic, electric, bass and drums (mostly)
 
i personally primarily do acoustic and vocals, because it allows me to make music by myself pretty much anywhere. i don't think that there is a better solo played instrument than an acoustic, though it certainly can't do everything.

i second the mention of patty griffin's "living with ghosts". amazing.

i don't see led zeppelin mentioned here. or james taylor. or travis meeks. dylan. croce. there is a lot of amazing music out there done specifically on acoustic.
 
Acoustic music is beautiful. Sometimes it seems so simple all on it's own but I think it makes it more personal. Some people are too caught up in whether or not a song has a lot of complicated parts to it or effects when all it really comes down to is whether they like it or not. The music world keeps on changing but when you are good at something it doesn't really matter what you play. When you give something all you've got it shows and that's what people respond to. I think there is a place for all music whether it's played on a guitar or beat out with some drums. The key is not to care and just to do it.
 
I heard an interview with Incubus and they apparently write a large amount of their tunes on acoustic and 'electrify' them later. There is no right or wrong in music anyway. If it's from the heart and touches your soul it doesn't matter if it's written and played on an acoustic guitar or an old steel washboard.
 
There will always a place for acoustic music. I like the electric guitar, but I will stop what ever I am doing and listen, when I hear a song kicked off with the acoustic guitar.
 
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