[Slow_Hand]

Nice article for engineers to understand something that most guitar players will intuitively know.

One of the great things about a hi-gain setup like Hendrix's is how the feedback loop will inject an element of controlled chaos into the sound. It allows for emergent fluctuations in timbre that Hendrix can wrangle, but never fully control. It's the squealing, chaotic element in something like his 'Star Spangled Banner'. It's a positive feedback loop that can run away from the player and create all kinds of unexpected elements.

The art of Hendrix's playing, then, is partly in how he harnessed that sound and integrated it into his voice. And of course, he's a force of nature when he does so.

A great place to hear artful feedback would be the intro to Prince's 'Computer Blue'. It's the squealing "birdsong" at the beginning and ending of the record. You can hear it particularly well if you search for 'Computer Blue - Hallway Speech Version' with the extended intro.

[9dev]

Star Spangled Banner was incredible. The way you can hear the machine guns, choppers, sirens, screaming in agony… that was a masterpiece.

[ssl-3]

> The way you can hear the machine guns, choppers, sirens, screaming in agony…

You know, I've heard that performance so many times over so many decades that I don't have to hit a play button or even close my eyes in order to hear it. It's there inside my head when I want it to be.

And somehow I never interpreted it in that way (sirens, screaming, etc) until just a moment ago. I thought it was just a quirky little early-morning break in the familiar tune from someone who had been up way too long by that point.

And now instead of just being the quirky sounds of an impromptu guitar solo that I can recall whenever I wish, it now has unpleasant pictures to go with it.

Thanks (I think).

[musictubes]

If you listen to the Woodstock soundtrack it is clear that Hendrix was on a completely different musical level than anyone else in that scene. Ravi Shankar was probably the only person there above him from a chops perspective and possibly in the expressivity department as well. But when it came to sheer inventiveness no one was close to Hendrix. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see and hear him. It must have felt like an alien was performing.

[sonofhans]

Yeah, it’s always seemed that way to me too. Like a sonic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)

[emmelaich]

I've not listened to that song much at all. I am however obsessed with Machine Gun which has all those elements and more. Maybe I'll have a re-listen to SSB.

[b33j0r]

The first time I had an amp distorted and loud enough to cause feedback (if I wanted to) at band practice was the most magical day of my life.

I had heard it a lot in punk and pop-punk to create swells. I improvised my still-favorite solo that day.

[douglee650]

I wonder if tube harmonics modeled by solid state settings has shaped music. Of course it has; music from that era is instrument-oriented.

The discovery of feedback tones and the resulting incorporation in the musical experience — a three hour warm bank of tubes turned up to the limit with a maxxed out savant unlocking new realms of sound.

[fuzzfactor]

It's quite likely that when Hendrix went to London the first time, he was the first person ever to play a Stratocaster through a Marshall full stack at full volume.

Also maybe not until the night of his first big gig there.

Townshend had Marshall build 100 watters so he could play louder clean, Clapton had already been cranking it with a Gibson SG which is a characteristic sound all its own, he was in the audience at the gig and was blown away watching Hendrix.

Every year from at least 1964 to 1984, more advanced amps were made than ever existed before.

[dumb1224]

> The art of Hendrix's playing, then, is partly in how he harnessed that sound and integrated it into his voice. And of course, he's a force of nature when he does so.

One thing for me to notice is his playing does not require a rhythm guitarist. I discovered that what worked well is Mitch Mitchell as a Jazz drummer his playing was heavily influenced by classics. In a way it complemented Jimi's guitar tone so well.

[nineteen999]

While I love Mitch's drumming and Noel's bass, can you imagine if Hendrix had worked with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce - both much more confident and strident players than the Experience's rythym section.

That would have blown the doors off of everything.

I don't think there was another as "out there" guitar player as Jimi until EVH came along - a little more controlled, but just as confident and chaotic. EVH was quite the systems engineer himself (variac, Floyd Rose later on etc)

[prettyblocks]

I think I recall reading about Hendrix that he tried to emulate the sounds of cartoons with his guitar, and then when he was in the army he did the same with trying to reproduce the sounds of fighter jets. Not sure if urban legend, but cool origin story.

[WalterBright]

This leaves me wondering what would happen if you attached a coupling to a trumpet and ran the sound through an effects/feedback box. Why should electric guitars have all the fun?

[xcf_seetan]

Well,i remember a performance of Jorge Lima Barreto (Portuguese electronic/free jazz) playing with a saxophonist with 2 microphones, one normal and the other with a brutal delay. He would play on the normal microphone and sometimes he directed the instrument output to the delayed microphone and it sounded monumental. Not sure what musician he was, i think is Tomas Stanko, but not sure. The performance sounded like you went through a big storm. :D

[Slow_Hand]

I like the thought, but trumpets require a lot of energy to excite them (i.e. you have to blow a LOT of air into a horn just to get a note. Getting an instrument like that to feedback would require a pretty radical system.

The difference with electric guitars is that guitar pickups are relatively sensitive and then go through multiple stages of amplification, which makes the system ripe for feedback loops.

Some saxophone players have been known to generate feedback through on-board microphones. Strictly speaking, this isn't exciting the horn, but it does introduce feedback that's excited BY the instrument.

[schrectacular]

People do! But you have to sit there and buzz your lips to make a trumpet make sound, but for a guitar you just have to shake the strings. And the sound coming from the amp will do this shaking, completing the feedback loop. So it's mostly portable stringed instruments that get this treatment. There are some violin players that play with feedback effects. I hear Jon Rose is one but I am not familiar with his music. Folks like Jean Luc Ponty and Jerry Goodman make ample use of guitar pedal effects in their violin. And there's a YouTuber out there who plays with them on her harp.

[WalterBright]

P.S. I learned to play a trumpet when I was a kid. I wasn't any good at it, but I do know how it works!

[jawilson2]

Early 70s Miles Davis did that on his fusion albums and concerts. Fuzz, wah pedal, etc.