6,743
edits
Changes
no edit summary
I do not know what will happen. I'm at a strange point in my life. I feel kind of lost. I do not know if I should continue with my music, or whether I not yet accept another job, perhaps a guitar company for four or five years, I mainly play with the same band - the accompanist changed in part:.. Gary Husband on drums and Chad and Jimmy Johnson. Although I know exactly what I wants to make music, but that it is difficult to finance his living. the last album for example, I loved, but no one will ever know that there is this record. with the new, the same will happen. Actually, I'm with my development in relation to the SynthAxe very satisfied compared to the first record I am very much further, but I'm afraid that it will go down again because of course you ask yourself...? Does it ever make sense sense to do something if no one can hear it? Especially not if you do not even manage to feed your family or to pay the rent.
==ChatGPT version==
Done in September 2023
Great poses are not his thing. Where others like to strike a pose, he tends to stay in the background. Nevertheless, he belongs to the greats. When his name is mentioned, the so-called guitar heroes pale in comparison. His innovative playing techniques, speed, and a penchant for unconventional sound creations have made Allan Holdsworth a leading avant-garde figure in the guitar scene. He talks about his pursuit of perfection and the associated challenges in the following interview with MUSIKER.
MM: Allan, you are one of the few who have been dealing with the topic of guitar synthesizers for some time now. What led you to work with the SynthAxe?
AH: Well, I've always been interested in guitar synthesizers; it's just that it had never worked before. The way previous guitar controllers were designed seemed downright crazy to me. They built all these weird pitch-to-voltage guitars, or "pitch to glitch" as I call them. There would be no synthesizer players in the world if keyboards were constructed based on the pitch-to-voltage principle. This way of playing is quite strange. There are many guitarists who just want an additional pickup to control a synthesizer now and then as an effect while playing their guitar. They see it as two separate things, just like a piano and a synthesizer. To me, an electric guitar is, in a way, a very acoustic instrument, with vibrating strings connected to a soundboard, etc. It's still based on those characteristics, whereas the SynthAxe is not. It's an entirely different thing.
MM: I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of putting high E-strings on all these pitch-to-voltage units.
AH: Sure, but doing that would deprive you of the ability to play guitar. You'd have a guitar with six high E-strings on it or whatever, and naturally, you wouldn't be able to use the guitar's original sound anymore because it now has six high E-strings. Plus, you'd have this tuning problem, which I think is a terrible hassle. Tuning guitars is already a pain, but calibrating a guitar to a synthesizer is a joke. It's like asking a keyboard player to tune and intonate every note. I believe that when using a MIDI controller, this shouldn't be an issue. With the SynthAxe, this is well solved, as it always stays in tune. The last time we came to Frankfurt, I had just received the SynthAxe and had a lot of problems with it. Not so much with the device itself but with controlling it in a live situation. I had to manually recall all the patches, and that was really difficult. It's something you don't want to think about when playing live. After that, SynthAxe came out with an upgrade.
MM: Step-on automation...
AH: That took care of everything because before, it was a nightmare, especially live. In the studio, it worked fine because I was only using one sound at a time. I would play chord pads first, and then do a solo. Now, I can use it live as well because it's much easier to control.
MM: How did you develop your playing style? When I see you play, I don't recognize any standard fingerings or anything like that. Did it suddenly appear to you, or did it develop gradually?
AH: It developed quite gradually because I never really wanted to play the guitar. Of course, I like the guitar now, partly because it's the only instrument I really master. But originally, I wanted to play a wind instrument.
MM: And your style emerged because you wanted to play like a wind instrument?
AH: Well, I just believed that the synthesizer is like a variable instrument, like a wind instrument. I think, in general, these devices can be controlled with such good controllers that they are fully acceptable as musical instruments. What I wanted to do is make music, be able to approach what I can really hear in my head, music... more than I could on the guitar. As I said, originally, I wanted to be a saxophonist, but I couldn't get one back then. They were very expensive. My father then bought a guitar from my uncle and just let it lie around. He didn't make the slightest effort to spark my interest. After six months or more, I started getting interested on my own. I began practicing rather than playing. Then, curiosity got the best of me, and I started working with it. I think ever since, I've only thought about music. I don't really pay attention to the guitar or how it works, which is what you would normally do. For example, my father was a great music teacher who quickly grasped the principle of the guitar with its chord structures, positions, etc., even without special prior knowledge, and after a short time, he could even give lessons. But I just wanted to do things differently. Ultimately, all I wanted was the ability to improvise. Improvisation is the greatest and at the same time the most difficult thing for me. It's something I want to master. That's why I wanted to find different ways to play over any chord sequence without using any formulas. Without saying, if you follow this chord, you have to follow that one, or if you use this substitution, you have to do it this way. I wanted to be able to play the same chords anywhere.
MM: You use really unusual fingerings with an immense number of stretches.
AH: I play like that because of the sound. I don't get the desired sound if I switch to another string and pluck the note there. That's why I play the same note on the previous string. Instead of looking at the guitar as a pattern from one side of the neck to the other, I see the guitar neck as a whole. More from top to bottom. When chords change, I try to imagine how the positions of the notes shift. It seems to me as if the entire fretboard is changing. I try to move away from certain directions or positions on the guitar, but in a way, that's very difficult because the guitar is visual...
MM: It looks completely different, and I don't hear you play certain sounds at all. You use a lot of altered sounds, but they all have a major quality. For example, it seems like you don't use the standard modes of the melodic minor scale.
AH: When I play over a chord progression, I try to play melodically rather than thinking of a scale that fits the chords. I think about what scales I can overlay on top of it. It's like adding one color to another to create a new color.
MM: You play an Ibanez Allan Holdsworth model?
AH: Yes, until recently when I discovered the Steinbergers. I had issues with Ibanez. The Ibanez guitar they built for me was really fantastic. I asked them to build me another one. They built five or six prototypes and couldn't get them right. They kept changing them. Finally, they wanted the guitar I was playing. And then I looked at this Allan Holdsworth guitar. It was nothing like mine. It was like a completely different guitar. I guess I've played maybe 15 or 20 different Ibanez A.H. models, and not a single one was like mine.
MM: In terms of how they were built?
AH: Yes, in the construction and certain things that I consider very important. For example, I emphasize keeping the string spacing Gibson-style, which wasn't the case with the models I tried. The spacings and the pickups were slightly wider, and the fretboards were slightly narrower. All the things where I tried to achieve balance, like with my guitar. It's great. Weight was also important. My guitar is very light. The body weighs less than three pounds. All the Ibanez guitars I found in stores were heavier. Last year, when I was at the NAMM Show in Chicago, I played the Steinberger for the first time. I didn't think I would like it. It was all plastic, and I had always placed a lot of value on certain types of wood. But it was fantastic. Since then, I've been playing the Steinberger.
MM: What equipment are you currently using? What kind of amplifiers?
AH: The equipment I use is rented. I use two Roland Jazz Chorus amplifiers for the clean sound and two Marshall 1x12 cabinets for the lead sound. I also brought a guitar rack with 'Pearce' amplifiers. They're from Buffalo and really excellent amplifiers. Solid-state, so to speak. The SynthAxe and the rhythm guitar run through the same unit, which is somewhat unfortunate. The SynthAxe sounds really good through full-range equipment. So it's more of a compromise. In fact, the guitar doesn't sound as good as it should, and the synth doesn't sound as good as it could. I'm thinking about maybe doing a tour later where I don't play the guitar at all and just use the SynthAxe with the right equipment. I get the sound I want with the SynthAxe alone because I use completely different things then. So it's really a problem to find something that works with both. Then I wouldn't have three setups, one for lead, one for rhythm, and one for the SynthAxe.
MM: Where are you currently living?
AH: South of Los Angeles, in Orange County, Justin.
MM: What made you decide to go to the United States?
AH: In England, I wasn't able to survive as a musician. A lot of people weren't. That's nothing new. My wife supported me. It got really bad. I had to decide whether I would take a permanent job—like repairing amplifiers or building guitars in a music store—or whether I would just try to keep playing. Well, I kept seeing articles about me in American music magazines, and we decided to give it a try. It ended up with us selling everything just to be able to afford the passage. I didn't even have a guitar. When we arrived in America, we started working and barely managed to get by. It wasn't great, but it was okay because people there were much more receptive to the way we played. I could do what I wanted to do, so in that respect, it was good. I played what I wanted to play and could make a living from it. It got tough again last year. We sold a lot of equipment again. When I have money, I buy equipment, and when I don't have any, I sell everything again. It's always going 'round and round. I don't know what will happen. I'm at a strange point in my life. I feel kind of lost. I don't know if I should continue with my music or if I should take another job, maybe with a guitar company. For the past four or five years, I've been mainly playing with the same band, although the supporting musicians have partly changed: Gary Husband on drums and Chad and Jimmy Johnson. I know exactly what I want to do musically, but it's difficult to make a living doing it. For example, I really liked the last album, but nobody even knows it exists. The same will happen with the new one. I'm actually very satisfied with my development with the SynthAxe. Compared to the first record, I've come a long way. But I'm afraid it will go under again. So you wonder: why? Does it even make sense to do something if nobody can hear it? Especially if you can't even manage to feed your family or pay the rent.
[[Category:Press]]
