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Are guitars inherently more expressive than Keyboards?


Anderton

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Got the idea for this topic from an editorial by Paul White in Sound on Sound magazine. I won't prejudice your thinking by quoting what he said...but does the ability to massage strings on a guitar beat being able hit keys on a keyboard? Or maybe a sax is even more expressive than both...

 

Any opnions?

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Seems like a good time to pop up from the keys forum and chime in... :) I think it really, really depends on who's playing the guitar and keyboard, respectively. You could say that the guitar is maybe inherently more expressive, since a guitar doesn't require hours of programming. But with some good synth programming and decent use of aftertouch, mod wheel, control pedal and maybe breath control, combined with excellent playing technique, I would say keyboards can be as expressive as an any "analog" instrument if you get the drift...

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To me, each instrument has its own virtues and limitations. For the ability to play both accompaniment and melody at the same time, it's hard to beat a keyboard, although it's possible to do on guitar, it's arguably more difficult.

 

Wind instruments, although expressive, lack the ability to play chords (unless you're talking bagpipes or harmonicas)

 

Everything's a tradeoff...(shrug)

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As a guitarist, I can state unequivocably that I've never seen a guitar or a keyboard be expressive in the slightest. In fact, I think I would have been spooked if they began expressing anything. Probably something like, "Get OUT!!", or the like, right?

 

And, yes, it does sound different if a child hits Richard Clayderman, than if it is done by a classically trained adult.

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For me it's always gonna seem a guitar is more expressive. However now at this point in time I'm spending much less time playing guitar and more and more with keyboards I'm intrigued at how expressive one can get with a keyboard. Guitar expressive and keyboard expressive are two different realms.

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Depends on the player; depends on the listener.

 

Being a guitar player, my initial reaction was "sure, guitar's definitely the more expressive of the two." Mainly because of the directness of the instrument. Your fingers are touching the strings DIRECTLY and you can do things like impart vibrato, bends and things which are tougher (or at least require some advance preparation) on keyboard instruments.

 

But then I think about this friend of mine who is a concert pianist. When she plays something like Tchaikovsky's Concerto #1 and I just instantly crap my pants. :) That is so unbelieveably expressive to me, even though it's the expression of someone else's music.

 

BTW, looks like I registered here at HC a coupla years ago. Who knew?

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Originally posted by Jotown

No.


How expressive either instrument is will depend on the talent of the person playing it.


I have been told that I can be equally expressive on my guitar or my organ.
:D

 

I know groupies that have been very expressive with my organ ;)

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All other things being equal, I'd pick the guitar because there is more direct control over the notes, and more ways to play the notes than a keyboard. Not to say, of course, that keyboards aren't very expressive, though - and that it really depends on the person making the sounds as to whether it's expressive or not.

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Originally posted by Tralfaz

I always get a grin when I see keyboard players slamming down one of the keys and then jiggling their finger as though they're applying a vibrato to the sustained note. That ain't fooling anyone.
:p

 

Nice :D:cool:

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Although Tom Scholz likes to brag of emulating keyboards on his guitar, he still has to use pianos, Hammonds, pipe organs, and Wurlitzers.

 

And yes a greasy spitting Hammond/Leslie in the hands of a Hammond artist is very expressive. And that fahn cajun piano ala Billy Paine is expression you'll never hear out of a guitar.

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Players are expressive, instruments are simply the tools they use for that expression. The instrument in particular isn't as important as how it's being used.

 

Chick Corea playing arpeggios is quite expressive. BB King's extraordinary vibrato is equally so. And so on, and so on, and so on...

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Originally posted by Anderton

Are guitars inherently more expressive than Keyboards?

 

NO!!!

 

It's just that guitarists are inherently more expressive than Keyboardists :p

 

 

 

Flame suit on: CHECK

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it's an interesting question to be sure

 

I think it might be a good idea to separate the concepts of "artistically expressive" v "sonically expressive"

 

artistically expressive - well, I think that's up to how the artist controls the process (whatever that may be) to produce aesthetically valid work. Which I think we can safely say lies inside the artist.

 

"sonically expressive" - hmmm, this may be more what we are trying to get at

Wendy Carlos did mention, for instance, that the Bach selections were particularly well suited to that Mogg work b/c -

-They were contrapunctual (so multi mono lines were good)

-the synths of the time were not particualry strong at expressivo playing

 

In the same way, a harpsichord, for instance, may be seen as lacking some sonic expressiveness (limited dynamics/tonal variation) - now because of that, there is a body of technique developed to allow artistic expressiveness to be performed anyway (proper use of ornamentation, very slight arpeggiations to call to attention certain tones, doubling of key tones at the performer's discretion, etc)

 

As maybe another example, would be the manual morse code key (not a "bug" - the automated paddle that allows the keying of a dit one way and a dah the other) -- those so involved can recognize a transmitter's "fist" (style...voice) in the coding

 

 

conclusions? I have none, but figured that I'd offer those (unstructured at best) observations as food for thought

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This is something that was discussed a lot around the Keyboard Corner. 25 years ago you could buy keyboards like the Rhodes Chroma that were very expressive. Velocity, release velocity, bi-directions levers, multiple pedals. On top of that it had lots of routing possibilities and very good stock patches. It was designed to let the player be expressive and it was the first time I felt I could compete with guitarists on expressive solos. Then the Yamaha DX7 came out and all was lost. Sure, it had a breath controller, but not much else. The competition had even less. For years you got two wheels, velocity and after touch, but what was missing is routing possibilities. There was not much to do with bad sounding digital filters and LFO

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I find most of the responses to this thread to be humorously ignorant.

 

First, I am a guitar player who noodles on piano.

 

I love the expressiveness of guitars, both electric and acoustic.

 

But pianos can be very expressive. Just listen to the differences between piano on a variety of different classical pieces. Then compare it to various rock piano. There is definitely a lot of expressiveness in the comparisons and contrasts of these performances.

 

In fact, it was guitar that was largely overlooked for its' lack of expressiveness by many classical composers. I think they were misguided, and certainly they did not have the variety of timbres available in the 20th century with steel vs. nylon (gut) string acoustics, hollow body, solid and semi-hollow electrics. And, of course, an electric guitar is but half the tool for expressiveness. You can't talk about the expression of electric guitars without including the variety of amplifiers, tube vs. solid state, one kind of pre-amp or power amp tubes vs. another. The list goes on.

 

But Craig asked about the expressiveness of keyboards. A modern keyboard has so many avenues of expression and variation of the timbres it plays back, filters to process those timbres, etc., that in the hands of an expert a keyboard can be incredibly expressive with just one sound. But how many keyboard players use one sound. ;)

 

I guess I hate this question because of the implied inferiority of which ever you don't choose. It's an arguement starter, IMO, which neither position can win.

 

They're both incredibly expressive in the right hands, and blandly one dimensional in the hands of a novice.

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