Collaborative Guitar Playing - On One Guitar

Today I'm going to talk about a few videos that showcase guitar playing in a completely different way: Two people playing the same guitar, at once.

The first, is a bluegrass number, and is self-explanatory. It's an old one, so if you've seen this, go ahead and skip to the next video. A Fun song, and great showmanship too!



Believe it or not, this next video is much, MUCH more technically impressive, and here's why: If you notice in the first video, the guy standing is constantly playing the bass line. Both of their right hands are playing the strings that their left hand is holding down - in other words, it's as if they are each playing half of the guitar. This is still really impressive, since there's no way to play this song on your own because we don't have enough fingers etc.

However, take a look at this second one. First of all, the song itself is much more complex. But more impressively, pay attention to around 0:53. They SWITCH the strings that they hold down, such that person A is finger picking what person B is holding down. If this doesn't seem quite obvious, it becomes more clear around 1:04-1:08. The lady is holding down the strings with the right hand, while the man is playing the strings with the left. Now imagine doing this, but doing the exact opposite roles with the other hand, on the same guitar, at the same time! It's as if you're playing one song on the right hand, and playing another on the left... all the while coordinating it with someone else!! Mind blowing ability!



Finally, something a little different. The guitar is typically strummed/picked in two ways: with a pick, or with your fingers. There's a lot you can do with those things, but it's still just two ways of hitting the strings. Here's something a little different: a guitar being played with a couple pencils, ala a Yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer).

The Chromatone

The piano, is in many ways unintuitive. The fact that the arrangement of the keys is not in consistent intervals makes it a harder instrument to play. What do I mean? I am speaking of the fact that there are black and white keys. If you were to play all the white keys in a row from C, the intervals would not be consistent: it would be whole step, whole step, half step, whole step...etc.

This makes it fairly difficult to transpose songs into different keys. If I wanted to play a song so that it is easier to sing, I might need to lower or raise the key of the song. Doing so involves shifting all of the notes up or down a certain amount. But since the keys on a piano are arranged irregularly, shifting notes becomes more difficult to do.

The Chromatone is a new piano design, in which the keys are arranged in equal distance. It's not just a flat keyboard though: there are 5 sets of keys that are arranged on top of each other. Take a look, it's quite interesting:

Piano Stairs

Today's entry is actually a part of an ad campaign by volkswagen. It's fairly self-explanatory, so I'll just post it here. It's basically a set of stairs that have been refitted to mimic the piano keyboard, and it produces the sound that corresponds to that key:



From the perspectives of urban planning, marketing and other angles, it's definitely a cool concept. From the perspective of a musician, it makes me wonder how we can better integrate musical creation - as opposed to listening - in every day life. It would be neat if there was some simple way to create music with the people around you, easily and in a fun way. Hmmmm..