My emulation of Paul Desmond and Herb Hardesty on a strat.

[abelk]

Hi All,

My name is Abel and I am actually a guitar player amateur from Santa Clarita.
From the early 50's, I have alwas been fascinated by R & B and Jazz Saxophone players like Herb Hardesty (Fats Domino / Little Richard) and
Paul Desmond (Take Five).
I just discovered the joy of being able to hear Saxophone sound out of my guitar with my new Roland GR-20 Guitar Synth.
The sound is very convincing, the only problem is to struggle to play like
a real sax player would.
You might find my experiments interesting if only for the sound quality.
I hope the purists won't object to this.

Here are 3 links on Youtube of me playing "Take Five" and "Moanin'", and
one link to my website where I try to emulate Herb Hardesty famous 1957 solo
on Fats Domino's "I' M WALKIN'".
I hope you like these performances despite the imperfections.

"TAKE FIVE" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW5lNVWi-cs

"I' M WALKIN'" http://akhineche.com/IMWALKIN.WMV

"MOANIN'" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCZExUFu6k

Best Regards,
Abel

 

[phil_edwards]

Amazing stuff and fantastic playing. I love Take Five, seems 'odd' to see you playing guitar but hear Paul Desmond!

You've got some other good videos on there too (Sukiyaki esp.)

Love it,

regards, Phil

 

[abelk]

Glad you liked it and my other videos Phil.
Sukiyaki is a song that touched me more than any other song.
I did it as a tribute and to the memory of Kyu Sakamoto who
died in the 1985 crash of Japan Airline Flight 123 (512 dead).
The aircraft for no apparent reason, lost the standing (aileron)
part of the tail.
In the last 30 mn, while they knew no one will survive, he wrote
a very moving letter to his wife.

Regards,
Abel

 

[mfox]

while i think you are a good guitarist, i don't see the point in trying to make a guitar sound like a horn or anything else.. i would have much prefer you to play the tune sounding like a guitar, and not a keyboard sax sound..

this is not a criticism of your playing, just a pop at the technology.

 

[Bobby G]

It's very interesting, Abel - how do you get to grips with the technology? I think if I was playing a guitar-synth (I play acoustic guitar mainly, apart from sax) I would be confused not so much by the sounds coming out as by the differing attack, sustain, and decay (also guitar-techniques like vibrato and string-bending or damping, hammer-on/pulloffs etc) of the synth as distinct from the 'natural' sound of the guitar. It's almost as if you have to get away from the guitaristic part of what you are doing, and I wonder how difficult that is.

Having said that, I've played electric guitar with various effects like distortion, chorus and delay etc, but you're still essentially playing the guitar rather than emulating the characteristics of another instrument.