Classical on electric

[JeffD]

I have been messing with my new MandoStrat and thought I would just try out everything I play on my acoustics and see how it sounds. An electric guitar friend of mine helped me set up my amp and we got this really angry "hate your parents and everyone else" sound out of it.

And I played the Vivaldi A minor Violin Concerto, and the Gigue from Victor Kioulaphides' Suite for Ali.

It sounds really really good, somehow better, or more enjoyable, than I am able on my acoustic mandolin. So now I am doing this kind of thing regularly. I think part of the pleasure is that there is no comparison (and let down) to other mandolin renditions I have heard.

The Gigue in particular takes on a kind of "recovery from recent menacing encounter" feeling to it which is missed entirely when I play it acoustically. (I hope Victor doesn't mind, I doubt that feeling is what he intended.)

Any of you play classical on an electric more than somewhat?

[JeffD]

OK not really really good in a performance kind of way, but really really good in the wow I didn't know I could play it that well kind of way.

[zedmando]

It's done on electric guitar all the time.
But I've played some classical music on my Epi Mandobird 8

[darrylicshon]

i love to play it on both but i started as a classical violinist so that's got alot to do with it. With distortion or clean with a little delay

[T.D.Nydn]

I'm working on sarasate's "gypsy airs" on my '59 fender stratocaster,works out well if you compensate certain passages for the guitar...

[bratsche]

Oh yes, I've always thought Vivaldi just oozes with that visceral "hate your parents and everyone else" vibe. Those poor girls in the Ospedale della Pietà orchestra certainly had some heavy baggage to unload!

(Just kidding - and no, I've not tried anything electric, just being a wiseass on a Saturday afternoon...)

bratsche

[JeffD]

It's done on electric guitar all the time.

Well, not all the time. But sometimes.

But yea, I did some searching and I have seen youtubes of various folks play Pachelbel's Canon, or some Bach, or even some Paganini, or the fastest Beethoven Moonlight Sonata ever, on electric guitar. Correct me if I am way off - it usually seems to be somebody trying to impress us with speed and ability to shred, rarely (ever?) anyone trying to show us how beautifully they can present some classical piece. If these efforts are meant to represent music, (as opposed to just fast playing) it seems to be to show how classical themes can be part of rock and roll, more than to show how the electric guitar is a viable choice in interpreting classical music.

Has anyone presented classical music on an electric guitar as a classical offering? The way Walter Carlos presented Bach on the synthesizer many years ago?

I dunno. Might also be my own prejudices and ignorance bubbling up here.


I have been having a lot of fun with it in any case.

On acoustic mandolin I have performed some classical, entirely to force myself to get the pieces down as well as I can. So all I am doing now playing what I already play, but on the emando, to see how it sounds and what all the amp knobs do, and trying to figure out a context where this MandoStrat adds to the party. Especially as I am rock and roll semi-illiterate. And playing classical seems to be the most successful experiment to date.

(And considering that nobody my age can ever be taken seriously playing electric guitar, much less emulating it on a emando. The best I can ever do is to jam with some paunch rockers at a neighborhood bar for free beer and cheesy goldfish. Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

[JeffD]

Oh yes, I've always thought Vivaldi just oozes with that visceral "hate your parents and everyone else" vibe. Those poor girls in the Ospedale della Pietà orchestra certainly had some heavy baggage to unload!

That was coffee spilling funny.

[JeffD]

I'm working on sarasate's "gypsy airs" on my '59 fender stratocaster,...

I bet it can sound pretty awesome. Lots of inherent drama in that. Electrics are good for drama.

[T.D.Nydn]

Yeah Jeff,,gypsy airs is one of the most moving pieces I ever heard...

[Jim Bevan]

Back in the day, when I was on tour a lot (well, I still am -- I'm writing this from a Moscow hotel room), I was playing violin in a couple of semi-pro orchestras ("semi-amateur" would be a more accurate term) when I was home, and I did all my on-tour practising on an '57 mandocaster (actually, the one that's for sale on Martin Stillion's website). The very-slightly-longer-than-a-violin scale-length worked out perfectly -- when I got home, my fingers would land in the correct places on the violin without any effort. (My bowing wasn't great, as you would expect.) And it sure was easy to figure out fingerings way up the neck, too.

Anyways, to answer Jeff's question: ya, way more than somewhat, for a few years there...

[derbex]

So what pedals do you use -my favourite is the Vox Baroque!

[T.D.Nydn]

Dont use a pedal,that's practically obselete today,,use a desk top processor.these things can do more than you have time to figure out.you can put it up to any sound,for example,and it will duplicate it.

[crisscross]

I found a nice arrangement of Dowland's song "If my complaints could passion move". I tried the melody on my acoustic mando with every note played just once, but with the short sustain of an acoustic mandolin, that didn't match a singer's legato phrasing.
Then I tried it tremoloed, but that sounded a tad Italian.
Next I tried it on my E-mando with a good amount of distortion
Well, I'm no big fan of guitar players like Uli Roth, who do classical stuff on a distorted electric guitar, I like to keep it clean, even when playing electric, so I think, in the end I'll stick with my slightly Neapolitan version of Dowland

[Tavy]

Apologies for reviving this old thread, but I've been experimenting with this too - first minute is fairly restrained, after that not so much

[Andy Boden]

I've got an 8 string electric by Paul Shippey which, strangely enough, sounds like a mandolin (and a nice one too !) or I sometimes use my JBovier EMC-5 which sounds like whatever wonderful noise-making effect pedal I want to pump it through!

Nevertheless, whether I play normally or if I'm being silly, a touch of reverb works wonders.

Seriously though, I generally sequence music and then use it as a backing track to play along to, but if I (rarely) want to multitrack it myself, it's useful using an electric played through a 'pitchfork' pedal to drop the 8ve so I've got an 8ve mandola.

[JeffD]

So what pedals do you use -my favourite is the Vox Baroque!

I used a MXR Full Bore Metal followed by a little bit of Corona chorus and a little bit of Hall of Fame reverb, both T.C. Electronic. It sounded pretty cool.

And all through a 10 Watt Vox on a picnic table.

[Bill Clements]

If Bela Fleck can play Scarlatti on a banjo, why not Bach on an electric mandolin!
Well done, John.