https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:47:28 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/3/#post-291839 Thu, 08 May 2008 07:09:21 +0000
practicing loud is actually, and this isn't to offend anybody, really quite a bad idea, and actually can result in permanent hearing loss from unnecessary prolonged exposure to loud noise. musicians get exposed to enough loud music without taking it home with us.

by using an acoustic, you are in complete control of how loud or soft you are playing without electricity as a middle man. Practice playing loud and soft, try a few swells too. It's great fun and can sound amazing.

You'll also notice the difference in timbre from playing soft to loud. I think it adds a hell of a lot more emotional feel to your playing as all the feel and touch is coming from you, not a pedal. This is why SRV can almost bring a tear to my eye with his playing. It's straight from the heart baby.

without adjusting volume controls, you should be able to go from barely audible to kick in the nuts just with your technique, you have to remember to feel the changes tho, think of it like a singer. If they sing a line like "I'm so lost without you i wanna die" with a big grin on their face, nobody will feel it. emotion is the key to unlocking great playing.

Hope this helps.]]> Guitar Players Discussion spides https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/3/#post-291839 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/3/#post-291262 Fri, 02 May 2008 14:05:38 +0000 really well - I was listening to SRV doing Tin Pan Alley last night, and I've got a DVD where he does this on electric, too, and it just kills me how much control the guy has, and its all from his hands. That what I want!!! :mrgreen:

This is why Ive been recluctant to buy many pedals, too. I want to push myself to get as much from my hands (or a limited set-up) as possible, before chucking pedals into the mix. I don't want to be one of those guitarists who sounds great but, take away their pedals, and they just sound standard. I'm not anti-pedals, and will probs get more over time, I just want it to be something of a 'last resort' if that makes sense.]]> Guitar Players Discussion Scrybe https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/3/#post-291262 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/3/#post-291209 Fri, 02 May 2008 02:03:57 +0000
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMtFFYmVzo4&feature=related

He could play with dynamics on any guitar. Listen to how soft he gets around 2:08 in the video.

I know this will sound like a jab, and it is not meant to, but this is one reason I do not like Metal players. They try to get their dynamics with volume or boost pedals. They use tons of compression which completely takes dynamics out of their playing to get long singing sustain. Real dynamics comes from the hands, not pedals, or even your amp.]]> Guitar Players Discussion Wes Inman https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/3/#post-291209 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291148 Thu, 01 May 2008 17:32:53 +0000
Try playing REALLY REALLY QUIET sometimes.

I spent a week on vacation with my Gretsch hollowbody, which is almost an acoustic and can be quite loud even without an amp. I practiced every night in the hotel room after my wife went to sleep, and between her and the neighbors, I had to be very quiet. Surprisingly, I found that I could play just about everything at very quiet volumes if I wanted to. Light picking and a bit of palm muting.

The quieter you can play, the better your dynamic range... +1 Dynamics is about the ratio of Softest to Loudest (pppp -- ffff, as Sara puts it). Playing softer (fingers/hands -- not turning down the guitar's volume control) and really grabbing the audience with nuance is a lot harder than turning up and playing through the various tonal changes through compression/saturation. Play it loud; play it soft, and do both from the fingers. Without both there is no dynamic range, only loud or only soft.]]> Guitar Players Discussion gnease https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291148 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291130 Thu, 01 May 2008 14:40:29 +0000
Try playing REALLY REALLY QUIET sometimes.

I spent a week on vacation with my Gretsch hollowbody, which is almost an acoustic and can be quite loud even without an amp. I practiced every night in the hotel room after my wife went to sleep, and between her and the neighbors, I had to be very quiet. Surprisingly, I found that I could play just about everything at very quiet volumes if I wanted to. Light picking and a bit of palm muting.

The quieter you can play, the better your dynamic range...

One more thing: I found my fingers didn't hurt at all after quiet practice. I seem to push harder on the frets when I'm playing loud... This was also a valuable lesson, since fretting "quietly" works just as well with loud playing...]]> Guitar Players Discussion mmoncur https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291130 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291094 Thu, 01 May 2008 05:04:08 +0000 Guitar Players Discussion Scrybe https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291094 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291093 Thu, 01 May 2008 05:02:51 +0000
I'm thinking regular scale + metronome practice with these, moving uptempo as I progress and adding more variation into the runs as I progress, too (i.e. play a scale quiet, then getting louder, then months later trying to alter the dynamics more from note-to-note than between two bigger runs), should reap some measurable rewards.

I think for the fingers-on-electric guitar approach, a combination of the classical stuff you mentioned,some palm muting (and other muting) work and as much as I can steal from Jeff Beck as possible should have some interesting results by this time next year! :mrgreen:


props to everyone else who posted, too. esp. Wes, yup, I needed to hear that "work harder, damnit!" blue sentence. seriously, though, some good stuff in this thread and plenty for me to be getting on with. thanks guys!

and anyone who wishes to further discuss the comparative loudness of guitar/amp settings, please do so. I'm looking forward to it. :wink:]]> Guitar Players Discussion Scrybe https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291093 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291085 Thu, 01 May 2008 03:18:08 +0000
With a pick: grip the pick very lightly. Get used to the way that feels across the strings, and make that your standard p or mp volume level... with a very light grip, the pick is deflected by the string, and your fingertips absorb most of the energy.

As you increase the force on your pick grip, you'll find you get increasing levels of sound - the force of your picking hand is transferred more directly.

Once you combine that with the obvious increase in speed/force of picking, it's pretty simple (although simple doesn't mean easy - takes a bit of practice) to get a fairly wide range of dynamics without touching the volume knob.

With the fingers: there are two main attacks in classical technique, tirando and the apoyando. In tirando picking, the finger clears the plane of the strings after striking the note - it's also called a "free stroke". This makes the string vibrate more or less in line with the plane of the strings. In apoyando picking, also called the "rest stroke", the finger comes to rest on the next lower string after striking a note. That makes the string vibrate more or less vertically against the plane of the strings (or at least, more vertically than with the tirando). When a string vibrates vertically, the bridge saddle actually flexes slightly in response to the vibrations - and that means the energy is transferred more efficiently to the top of the guitar. You get a louder sound with apoyando... you get more sustain with tirando. In addition, you can play with different angles of the nails to have control over the sound.

But that applies to acoustic guitars, where most of the sound is generated by the top. You'll get slightly more volume from an electric using apoyando, as the string passes closer to the pickup, but it's not as striking a difference as with an acoustic.]]> Guitar Players Discussion NoteBoat https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291085 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291072 Thu, 01 May 2008 01:24:53 +0000
Fer sure, you can do that at low volume. But you can't do that quite so well without dynamic compression of some sort -- either overdrive or compression or distortion or saturation (now that might be high volume) or a combo. And we all know SRV used a tube screamer for input overdrive. That's exactly what enables him to play with hammer-ons and pull-offs at something close to the same volume as the rest of the performance. Being at high volume is not required for that bit of fingerplay.]]> Guitar Players Discussion gnease https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291072 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291060 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:31:07 +0000 Guitar Players Discussion Rune https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/electric-guitar-dynamics/paged/2/#post-291060