Embellishments on an Acoustic.

guitarjack66

Anybody do them? If so,what and how?
Partly inspired somebody asking about bends on another forum,which I don't really do myself as I'm not a great fan of the sound and have always wondered 'Why not just play the note you are looking to play instead?' But I am a simpleton/simple player ( delete as appropriate.)

Away you go,and happy new guitar playing or flailing year.

digitalkettle

It's just music innit? Expression: bends, slides, legato, vibrato, etc...it's all in the toolbox.

bertie

cos some choons require a bendette or three  - especially blooze/rag picking

when/if all notes are played, without any feel/vibrato/bend/slide  it sounds so so sterile so dull, so boring..  Its part of the personification, its what make your playing,  you.  When to, and when not to

also personally,   I play on acoustic, what I play on electric (with a few exceptions) so any choon that requres a "twiddly bit" on leccy, gets one on acoustic.

bluecat

I totally agree with Bertie.

munckee

That's for fancy folks.  Just bash chords as hard as you can and swear at the thing occasionally.  That's what acoustics are for - and if you're fingers don't bleed you didn't do it right.

Tannin

I am not a bender. Not at all. Don't get me wrong, bending is a great technique on electric and is sometimes good on acoustic. But its just not what I like to do.

(Most acoustic players would be better if they bent one quarter as many notes. There are many other things which work better on acoustic,)

As for other embellishments ... I do way too many of them. Hamer-ons, pull-offs, trills and more trills ... I overdo it. But I'm working on being more selective with it, and also with playing more long notes and more rests. Give me another 50 years and I'll get the hang of this instrument. Really!

stickyfiddle

I don't like more than a half-a-fret bend on acoustic. Never feels good, rarely sounds good and I don't really want to sound like Gilmour these days anyway

guitarjack66

I've never really felt the urge to bend the note when hammer ons,pull offs and slides do the trick for me. Mostly though,strings are too expensive for me to replace.

Musical_Mystery_Tour

When playing acoustics I do the odd very slight bend sometimes on the bass strings to give things a bit of expression, but mostly it's hammer ons and pull offs whch do that for me, where of course you do sometimes bend it a little bit to pluck or sustain it  it as you come off or on the string, but usually no more than that. To be fair, my electric playing is mostly like that too.

Stuckfast

I don't think I ever bend on acoustic. There are other embellishments that only work on acoustic, like percussive flicks with the nail. I probably over-use those.

sev112

The thumb slap or wha5ever yo7 call it on the low 3 strings, on the beat to exaggerate the next syncopated beat

there must be a real name for that

but other than that I really don’t get all the percussive acoustic stuff as a norm, although that Newton Faulkner chap is very melodic with it

DannyP

I love the little bends Elliott does on this:

bertie

stickyfiddle said:

rarely sounds good

you're playing the wrong music

Devil#20

Does a 'ban the bomb' sticker or 'keep music live' sticker count?

bertie

Devil#20 said:

Does a 'ban the bomb' sticker or 'keep music live' sticker count?

only if there's a big yellow smily in between

stickyfiddle

bertie said:

stickyfiddle said:

rarely sounds good

you're playing the wrong music

No! I'm playing the music with little to no bends in it. It's the good stuff!! 

guitarjack66

Surely Shirley the bendy stuff can be saved for electrics and we want our acoustics to play the real earthy, unpolluted and clear sounds that they are meant to play? That's the way I like an acoustic to be played. Understated,but real and untainted by unnecessary effects that overwhelm the actual instrument? Or at least when good players play it rather than those of us who sound like we are castrating cats!

bertie

guitarjack66 said:

Surely Shirley the bendy stuff can be saved for electrics and we want our acoustics to play the real earthy, unpolluted and clear sounds that they are meant to play? That's the way I like an acoustic to be played. Understated,but real and untainted by unnecessary effects that overwhelm the actual instrument? Or at least when good players play it rather than those of us who sound like we are castrating cats!

so you're not into bluesy rag, woody man, tommy emanuel, steffan grossman ry cooder, all the old guard Big Bill Broonzy, Mance Liscombe, Rev Gary, Mississippi John and all the others ???  

and you never pick up an acoustic and play zz top or zep or anything else other an "tunes for acoustic" ?

my kryptonite is the hey nonny super accurate celtic folky open tuning stuff I cant get my ears around........... dire sounding IMHO

guitarjack66

bertie said:

guitarjack66 said:

Surely Shirley the bendy stuff can be saved for electrics and we want our acoustics to play the real earthy, unpolluted and clear sounds that they are meant to play? That's the way I like an acoustic to be played. Understated,but real and untainted by unnecessary effects that overwhelm the actual instrument? Or at least when good players play it rather than those of us who sound like we are castrating cats!

so you're not into bluesy rag, woody man, tommy emanuel, steffan grossman ry cooder, all the old guard Big Bill Broonzy, Mance Liscombe, Rev Gary, Mississippi John and all the others ???  

and you never pick up an acoustic and play zz top or zep or anything else other an "tunes for acoustic" ?

my kryptonite is the hey nonny super accurate celtic folky open tuning stuff I cant get my ears around........... dire sounding IMHO

I just pick up and strum to be honest Bertie. I can play bits of this and bits of that but my kryptonite is simply needing to play with others to start putting my pieces together. My mind wanders towards more understanding of the theoretical reasons before I feel I can start playing a bit more unhindered. I could probably do that on an electric quicker but just prefer the acoustic instrument instead. I am desperately trying to keep the quest for tone Wolves at the door but my budget instruments could possibly be hindering me and forcing me to open that door!

ArchtopDave

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was held in high regard for his use of Embellishment.

 It was perfectly normal and acceptable, during his life, for Embellishments of any piece of music to be spontaneously added when played live, just as anyone of us might, for instance, spontaneously add some improvisation whilst playing guitar solo.

Maybe make a start by reading Dorian Bandy's learned text, which it available online at Cambridge University Press for anyone to read, which is recent and dates from 2022. This publication has the title   :  "Thema da Capo : Another Look at Mozart's Embellishments".  There are multiple hyper links to pieces of music, which demonstrate many of the differing forms of Embellishment.     

bertie

@guitarjack66 ;;;;; -  gotcha  

Im just a neanderthal  "pick up and play"  been like it for 50 years, cant change now !! - what ever it is, I'll grab the parlor and get going...........and most of the time not all the way through