Violin: Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
Created page with "==Sad scene say Softs (Melody Maker 1974)== "He also plays '''violin''' and hopefully, acoustic guitar and he sings a little, We do one thing at the moment which is like..." |
|||
| (2 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 19: | Line 19: | ||
‘In the beginning when I started playing, I wanted an instrument that I could blow on and I’ve now found a way of getting something that I want out of the guitar. About 2 or 3 years ago I basically rediscovered the guitar, if you know what I mean, because I started to find a way of expressing myself through the guitar. In a way the instrument doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter what it is really, whether it’s a saxophone, a '''violin''', anything, there’s always a way of trying to find something from it. What I didn’t want to do is sound like somebody else.’ | ‘In the beginning when I started playing, I wanted an instrument that I could blow on and I’ve now found a way of getting something that I want out of the guitar. About 2 or 3 years ago I basically rediscovered the guitar, if you know what I mean, because I started to find a way of expressing myself through the guitar. In a way the instrument doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter what it is really, whether it’s a saxophone, a '''violin''', anything, there’s always a way of trying to find something from it. What I didn’t want to do is sound like somebody else.’ | ||
==[[...Where No Guitarist Has Gone Before... (Cymbiosis 1986)]]== | ==[[Reaching For The Uncommon Chord]]== | ||
'''THE VIOLIN | |||
''' | |||
The violin is definitely a hobby because I never touch it. I haven't played it since I played that solo on the IOU album. I practiced a lot at one time, but I stopped. I don't seem to have enough time to do what I want to do on the guitar. | |||
==[["...Where No Guitarist Has Gone Before..." (Cymbiosis 1986)]]== | |||
Cymbiosis: I understand if your family could have afforded it you would have had a saxophone instead of a guitar when you were younger? | Cymbiosis: I understand if your family could have afforded it you would have had a saxophone instead of a guitar when you were younger? | ||
| Line 60: | Line 67: | ||
The eventual outcome of this approach was Holdsworth’s pioneering use of the Synthaxe. The name gives away the hybrid nature of the instrument, which also featured a facility for breath input that totally changes the nature of producing and sustaining sounds. Holdsworth is often quoted as saying that he sees his own playing more in terms of a wind instrument. Here he extends the analogy to the '''violin''': "Yeah, because, that was the thing with the '''violin''' - you can play a note on a '''violin''' and you can make it loud and make it soft, the same note. Whereas the guitar being a percussive instrument, once you’ve struck the note, there’s a limited amount of things you can do with it, and end up having to use an amplifier for distortion to get sustain from an instrument that doesn’t really have that sustain naturally. So it’s difficult to shape notes once they’ve been sounded. You can, and I’ve tried to do as much as I can with them, but it’s not as easy to do it as with a horn. That’s why I love the Synthaxe because you have the breath control. I just try to get a little bit more fluidity out of the guitar." The sheer expense of transporting the Synthaxe around means that you’re unlikely to see it on stage alongside the guitar - another reason is that they’re not being made any morel "That was the fear that I always had, was that I’d fall in love with this machine. There was a time when I didn’t want to play the guitar at all! And then I thought, well, it’s a piece of technology - what happens if someone decides ‘we’re not going to make them anymore?’ Then I’ll be really stuck. | The eventual outcome of this approach was Holdsworth’s pioneering use of the Synthaxe. The name gives away the hybrid nature of the instrument, which also featured a facility for breath input that totally changes the nature of producing and sustaining sounds. Holdsworth is often quoted as saying that he sees his own playing more in terms of a wind instrument. Here he extends the analogy to the '''violin''': "Yeah, because, that was the thing with the '''violin''' - you can play a note on a '''violin''' and you can make it loud and make it soft, the same note. Whereas the guitar being a percussive instrument, once you’ve struck the note, there’s a limited amount of things you can do with it, and end up having to use an amplifier for distortion to get sustain from an instrument that doesn’t really have that sustain naturally. So it’s difficult to shape notes once they’ve been sounded. You can, and I’ve tried to do as much as I can with them, but it’s not as easy to do it as with a horn. That’s why I love the Synthaxe because you have the breath control. I just try to get a little bit more fluidity out of the guitar." The sheer expense of transporting the Synthaxe around means that you’re unlikely to see it on stage alongside the guitar - another reason is that they’re not being made any morel "That was the fear that I always had, was that I’d fall in love with this machine. There was a time when I didn’t want to play the guitar at all! And then I thought, well, it’s a piece of technology - what happens if someone decides ‘we’re not going to make them anymore?’ Then I’ll be really stuck. | ||
==[[Allan Holdsworth: The final interview (Team Rock 2017)]]== | |||
Was it your time with Jean-Luc Ponty that sparked your interest in playing the violin? | |||
Oh no, no, it was just curiosity. I messed around with a lot of instruments; I played clarinet for a while. I had borrowed saxophones from bandmates in the past, just to get a feeling of how they work and the challenges of each; and it was like that with the violin. I got a violin, and then after that I did buy a viola. But the viola got lost in the shuffle when I moved; I don’t really know what happened to it. | |||
It’s hard to lose a viola! | |||
I ''did'', though. | |||
