Early Days: Difference between revisions
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A native of Bradford, Yorkshire, Allan Holdsworth was born on August 6, 1948 [Note: The correct year is 1946]. Although his father was a skilled pianist, a love for the 88 keys never bloomed in young Allan. His early interest in music never went beyond listening to jazz records, and it wasn’t until he was 16 that he even tried playing a guitar. At that time his father bought him an acoustic for about ten shillings. The instrument sat around for awhile until Allan’s interest in playing was sparked by hearing the local guitarists play in the neighborhood pub. Soon thereafter he joined a band that covered pop songs, in which he played two guitar solos per song: "One was supposed to be an impersonation of the one on the record," he explains, "and the other was something of my own." | A native of Bradford, Yorkshire, Allan Holdsworth was born on August 6, 1948 [Note: The correct year is 1946]. Although his father was a skilled pianist, a love for the 88 keys never bloomed in young Allan. His early interest in music never went beyond listening to jazz records, and it wasn’t until he was 16 that he even tried playing a guitar. At that time his father bought him an acoustic for about ten shillings. The instrument sat around for awhile until Allan’s interest in playing was sparked by hearing the local guitarists play in the neighborhood pub. Soon thereafter he joined a band that covered pop songs, in which he played two guitar solos per song: "One was supposed to be an impersonation of the one on the record," he explains, "and the other was something of my own." | ||
What induced you to pick up the guitar? | |||
When I was 16, my father bought an acoustic from an uncle of mine who played in various clubs—he paid about ten shillings for it. The guitar was always sitting around, so I started messing with it and gradually made progress, though I still wasn't that serious. Being very stubborn, I never took lessons. It's sort of my nature to not ask for information - even if I'm dying to find something out. I like to discover things. And even if I were screaming inside to ask, I just can't bring myself to do it. My father tried to help me, but I refused. That was a stupid thing to have done, since there was so much knowledge he could have given me. You know, I could have learned things three or four times faster from him than I did on my own. | |||
How did you come to the realization that you wanted to pursue the guitar seriously? | |||
Well, I used to sneak into a pub a few miles from where I lived with my brother-in-law - I wasn't old enough to drink legally yet. We watched the local bands. I really liked a lot of the guitarists - I just became more and more interested in it. I joined some bands that did note-for-note renderings of pop records. In each song, there were two guitar solos. One was supposed to be an impersonation of the one on the record, and the other was something of my own. And my solos were always so disgusting! | |||
Why didn't you quit doing that? | |||
I did. I realized that instead of learning, I was just calculating - copying something without any insight into what was going on in the mind of the guy who first played those parts. So I decided that wasn't the thing to do. I stopped copying, and for quite a long time afterwards I couldn't play solos that I felt were anywhere near as good as those I heard. I was trying to get something that was good in its essence—musically equal, but not the same. | |||
As your skills increased, did you find a need for a better guitar? | |||
Yes. My father purchased a Hofner f-hole acoustic for me. A friend of his who owned a hi-fi shop built a 15-watt amp for me and placed a pickup on my guitar. But in a year's time, I had progressed beyond that guitar's capabilities, too. So I talked my parents into buying me a Fender Stratocaster. | |||
Did this satisfy your needs? | |||
Oh, yeah. But only about six months later I sold it so that I could get a cherry Gibson SG Standard. I'd never seen an SG before, and I was interested in the way it looked - weird. So I tried it and instantly fell in love. I didn't want to put it down. Luckily the SG didn't cost as much as the Fender. Even back then, the Strat cost £200 - about $400 - which was pretty expensive. The Gibson was only about £165. I kept the SG until joined a group called the Glen South Band at a club called Sunderland, near Newcastle. Then I got an SG Custom and a new amp a Vox AC-30. | |||
Did you play regularly? | |||
At first, no. I had a day job making baskets - strange job. But soon the band was working enough to enable me to quit the day job. Then we moved to Manchester. I met a couple of musicians from London there, and one was a sax player named Ray Warleigh. Around 1971 I quit the band and moved to London, where Ray put me up. I couldn't have made it without him. He fed me and kept me alive, and he used to take me along to his gigs; he went to quite a few sessions. It was a long time before anything started happening, but luckily I met up with [drummer] Jon Hiseman, who was putting a rock band together called Tempest. | |||
==[[The Innocent Abroad (Musician 1984) ]]== | ==[[The Innocent Abroad (Musician 1984) ]]== | ||
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AH: When I was about 15 or 16, I thought it might be interesting to try the horn, because I found myself listening to a lot of saxophone players. I was really drawn to the idea that you could shape the notes after they were sounded, as opposed to the guitar which was basically a percussive instrument. Saxophones were pretty expensive and we couldn’t afford one, so I ended up with a guitar that I got from my uncle. I wasn’t really that interested in this instrument. I wasn’t particularly drawn to it. I soon took an interest in some local Skiffle music which sort of lit the torch. My father realized this and started helping me with my musical education. Interestingly, even though he was a pianist, he realized that playing scales and such with open strings on the guitar was counterproductive to playing in different keys. So I learned and still use lots of fingers to accomplish my musical ideas. | AH: When I was about 15 or 16, I thought it might be interesting to try the horn, because I found myself listening to a lot of saxophone players. I was really drawn to the idea that you could shape the notes after they were sounded, as opposed to the guitar which was basically a percussive instrument. Saxophones were pretty expensive and we couldn’t afford one, so I ended up with a guitar that I got from my uncle. I wasn’t really that interested in this instrument. I wasn’t particularly drawn to it. I soon took an interest in some local Skiffle music which sort of lit the torch. My father realized this and started helping me with my musical education. Interestingly, even though he was a pianist, he realized that playing scales and such with open strings on the guitar was counterproductive to playing in different keys. So I learned and still use lots of fingers to accomplish my musical ideas. | ||
Allan Holdsworth - A biography (Atavachron 1994) | |||
==[[Allan Holdsworth - A biography (Atavachron 1994)]]== | |||
The sounds of Django Reinhardt, Jimmy Rainey, Charlie Christian, Joe Pass, Eric Clapton, and John Coltrane were among the primary inspirations identified by Holdsworth which steered him away from an early passion for bicycle racing and instead towards learning to play a musical instrument. Having never picked up a guitar until his late teens, he found his musical hobby paying off on England’s Mecca dance hall circuit. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire (U.K.), in 1946, Holdsworth had been tutored in many aspects of musical theory and jazz appreciation by his father, Sam, an accomplished amateur musician. Allan later went on to analyze scales on his own, based on mathematical permutations of intervals-the results of which can still be heard in Allan’s playing today. | The sounds of Django Reinhardt, Jimmy Rainey, Charlie Christian, Joe Pass, Eric Clapton, and John Coltrane were among the primary inspirations identified by Holdsworth which steered him away from an early passion for bicycle racing and instead towards learning to play a musical instrument. Having never picked up a guitar until his late teens, he found his musical hobby paying off on England’s Mecca dance hall circuit. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire (U.K.), in 1946, Holdsworth had been tutored in many aspects of musical theory and jazz appreciation by his father, Sam, an accomplished amateur musician. Allan later went on to analyze scales on his own, based on mathematical permutations of intervals-the results of which can still be heard in Allan’s playing today. | ||
