Two man band

[MattZ]

So, I am in a band, if you could call it that with a buddy of mine. He is a drummer and I am a guitarist, if you could call it that. For a variety of reasons mostly related to the fact that none of our friends play instruments, we are stuck with just the two of us.

 

Without a second guitar or bass player, I find that the sound we get (while often full) is sometimes empty. We are probably too ambitious with our song choices, but even when we try to cover bands like White Stripes or Black Keys, I find that the whole "one guitar, one drummer" is more of a theory with these bands than a reality. Keyboards and bass are certainly all over a ton of White Stripes tunes and even the Black Keys seem to use multi-tracked guitars.

 

Obviously, as the one guitarist, it is impossible to solo when I dont have any rhythm guitar behind me. So sometimes I mess around and pick out individual notes of the chords to try to cheat and get a bit of both. I am not really in love with how that turns out, though. I have thought about a loop pedal, but ones I have looked into have limited loop times (e.g., 20 seconds). And I dont know if you can really pull off what I am trying to do with a loop pedal so I dont want to waste the money if it doesn't work...

 

Does anyone have any ideas? Or thoughts/suggestions/etc.? Anyone live in NYC and want to play some cool wilco/spoon/ryan adams tunes as a lead guitarist or bass player and help solve this problem directly?

 

Really appreciate any help...

Thanks,

MattZ

[FourStrongWinds]

do you play harmonica?. thats an easy way to add another texture

[Atticus]

I would love to sit in with you guys, but it's a bit of a drive

[jmacomber68w]

hmmm, i say drop everything in your life and move to nashville, find a bass player and ride the college circuit so your just big enough of a band to still be cool and not considered a sellout

[Twisted Acres]

Matt, I do about 4-5 shows per week in Manhattan as an acoustic/percussion duo, doing mostly old rhythm-and-blues... we get a lot of mileage out of the limited instrumentation (the plus being that with one melodic instrument, you can go just about anywhere on a dime, the minus being the missing extra-low end). My only suggestion is to simplify the chords you play down to 3 notes or so, with at least one string's distance between the bass note and the other notes that comprise the chord. This seems (to me anyway) to let the bass frequency breathe a bit more, and be a bit more present. Then you can pump the low end a touch more and not have it turn to mud.

 

Have fun and turn what could be perceived as a weakness into an advantage.

[MattZ]

Ok - thanks for the ideas everyone. Hey - Mr. Acres (Mart?), I'd love to check out one of your shows. Where do you play? My buddy and I usually practice at Funkadelic Studios on 26th/6th. It would be cool to see how you guys pull it off...

 

And Atticus, let me know if you ever end up in NYC. We aren't terrific, and while I am certainly no great guitar god, we more than make up for it with laughs and passion. And it helps that the songs we play are great...

[Twisted Acres]

Hey Matt, we do every Sunday night at the Red Lion on Bleecker (7:30-10:30), every other friday there from 7-10, Prohibition on 84th & Columbus every Wednesday, 9:30pm-12:30am, Slane on MacDougal every Tuesday, 9-11pm. Come on down, always great to meet a fellow vc'er. Schedule is at my myspace page

 

We rehearse one of our original bands, otis, at Funkadelic. Crazy place.

[MattZ]

Hey Matt, we do every Sunday night at the Red Lion on Bleecker (7:30-10:30), every other friday there from 7-10, Prohibition on 84th & Columbus every Wednesday, 9:30pm-12:30am, Slane on MacDougal every Tuesday, 9-11pm. Come on down, always great to meet a fellow vc'er. Schedule is at my myspace page

 

We rehearse one of our original bands, otis, at Funkadelic. Crazy place.

 

Hey- thats really cool. We may have passed each other in the halls at Funkadelic. And I know the Red Lion well. Don't know Slane but I am always walking down MacDougal so I must have passed it a million times. I will definitely swing by one of these days. The next few weeks are probably a bit crazy with the holidays, but sounds like a great gig you've got going. Will certainly stop by and say hi.

 

And now that I have hijacked my own thread, I am probably going to give the Boss RC-2 loop pedal a shot. See how it works out. Me and my drummer have been *trying* to play You Are My Face and a loop pedal would really help... Thanks again everyone.

[Twisted Acres]

Just make sure your drummer either has visual contact with the flashing tempo light or can clearly hear the loop... nothing worse than drifting from a looped rhythm and trying to find your way back.

[fortuneinmyhead]

do 2 or more string solos. it can be done, but you have to be able to play in certain keys; another option would be to begin playing songs in open tunings.

 

play with your dynamics, quiet / mid / loud .... there really is a lot you can do with 2 instruments, it takes some inventiveness however. keep at it.

 

i have buddies that were the 'proto' white stripes. the guitarist split his guitar so one amp was cranked with bass frequencies, the other with higher, i think he used a octave pedal too. the drummer played drums and keyboards at the same time. it was an interesting combo & they never really sounded empty.