my fella is starting a band, and i am invited to join. there's going to be two guitarists in the band. the other guitarist will also be doing vocals.
what should i do to fit my role in the band? is there any general guide? how does all the "2 guitarists" thing work? i've never been in a band with 2 guitars, and as i found out i almost don't listen to anything with more that one guitarist. so i basically have no clue.
any help would be greatly appreciated
we're going to start off some simple indie/punk stuff, if that matters.
i like chocolate, i like fudge
if i can't make any, i won't budge
Just make sure you're doing different things. It infuriates me when two guitarists are playing exactly the same chords in the same place, might as well get rid of one of them.
i like the two guitarist interaction in aids wolf and arab on radar, but nomatter what, don't follow any 'common thing to do when there's two guitarists' kinda JOKE, it's boring, just follow your gut feeling, better stuff comes out of that, my opinion anyway. of course your bandsmates have to feel the same way otherwise they're assholes and the band's gonna be boring as fuck.
BobArsecake wrote:Just make sure you're doing different things. It infuriates me when two guitarists are playing exactly the same chords in the same place, might as well get rid of one of them.
yeah, that's what i'm thinking. i guess one of us would have to do nothing like 50% of time, because it might overcumber the music with complexity, which i think is bad.
i like chocolate, i like fudge
if i can't make any, i won't budge
heavium wrote:i like the two guitarist interaction in aids wolf and arab on radar, but nomatter what, don't follow any 'common thing to do when there's two guitarists' kinda JOKE, it's boring, just follow your gut feeling, better stuff comes out of that, my opinion anyway. of course your bandsmates have to feel the same way otherwise they're assholes and the band's gonna be boring as fuck.
big thanks for the heads up!
i like chocolate, i like fudge
if i can't make any, i won't budge
I like two guitars filling the same kinda role, instead of rhythm and lead like it always is.
Two guitars playing different solos that sort of fit together but don't quite I love and playing different rhythm parts.
Just don't do two guitars playing the same solo a fifth apart, then you sound like iron maiden and no-one else can quite pull that off like iron maiden.
BobArsecake wrote:Just make sure you're doing different things. It infuriates me when two guitarists are playing exactly the same chords in the same place, might as well get rid of one of them.
yeah, that's what i'm thinking. i guess one of us would have to do nothing like 50% of time, because it might overcumber the music with complexity, which i think is bad.
Nah, 'cause otherwise, again, what's the point in the other guitarist if the other is doing nothing?
you'll want to work on developing complimentary guitar tones. Having two guitars play the same thing can end up sounding considerably different if, for example you had one guitar sounding real fuzzed-out and washy and another pushing out more of a shrilly garage clean. (Some early Raveonettes stuff is a good example of what I'm talking about, here)
I find that once you have a main guitar part down, the second guitar parts basically write themselves, though.
Last edited by laterallateral on Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:57 am, edited 4 times in total.
Last edited by laterallateral on Fri Sep 19, 2014 3:05 pm; edited 115,726 times in total
I was the second guitarist in my band, sometimes I had to step back and let the other guy do his thing and sometimes he would do the same...I would mostly play rhythm parts as the other guy was a better player than me...So sometimes you have to watch out for egos either his or yours....
I have recently started a side project with a good friend of mine (he's on guitar & lead vocals, I'm on guitar & backup vocals) it's mostly alot of Pop-punk, Alt rock (pixies, dinasaur JR, Sonic Youth, etc..)/grunge, and ska..with a blues rock influence.
We've only jammed a couple of times but neither of us are labled as rhythm or lead (even though he is better at technical stuff than me...the result of 7 years of lessons vs 3 years self taught) ....what we've done so far is one of us will start with a riff (usually rhythm) and the other plays (usually blues rock-ish) lead over it.
My only advice is to make sure that the guitarists are truly on the same page. I was in a band with this kid who we thought was into the same shit we were but wasnt, and he was a cocky motherfucker; always trying to solo in random out of nowhere places, trying to completely run everything. He even tried to demand his placement on stage (so he can be by himself to look cool). This ended up in numerous fist fights and ended really bad. So yeah thats my advice.
DuoSonicBoy wrote:Listen to the first 2 Television albums - everything you need to know about making 2 guitars working together.
This.
I hate the idea of one guitarist playing chords while the other mainly solos, or worse only one guitarist playing for most of the time. I also really hate when people ask if I play 'rhythm' or 'lead' guitar.
Gareth and I work out parts differently so we are rarely playing anything similar, plus our guitars sound really different, the combination of the two is where the action is.
Slag Iron has two guitarists. We work well together because he has absolutely no idea about theory or anything even approaching it, and has no real respect or reverance for the way other people do things. I have sixteen years of classical experience behind me, and am always very aware of what's happening in the music. It means that he can write things that I don't think I ever would, and I have the know-how (for want of a better term) to get the most out of what he writes and build something big out of it.
I approach it the way I approach playing with any other instrument, be it bass, piano, saxophone, whatever: play what works and be honest with eachother, don't listen to what other people have to say about the musical relationship that you ought to have with someone, nobody else knows any more than you do. I see it as a very personal thing. You wouldn't ask advice along the lines of "I'm going out with a friend tonight. What should we talk about?"
Who knows, you might end up with a really cool relationship, where you create textures and such that any other pair of guitarists wouldn't be able to because they're different people.
not my favorite band in the world, but bloc party are a top notch example of the sort of texture you can get going when two guitarists put their heads together. they have a b-side called "cain said to abel" where one of them is playing an arpeggio whilst the other plays this really simple thing, and something about the combination ebbs and flows in the most awesome way. check it out.
there's another band called the cribs that is a 3 piece, so just guitar/bass/drums, and it suits their music perfect, but now apparently johnny marr of the smiths has joined, and i am at an absolute loss as to how they are going to sort that out; not only is an entirely unnecessary second guitar introduced, but johnny marr of all guitarists?
