Extended/Prepared Guitar Techniques

I'm extremely interested in extended & prepared guitar techniques, & after Weetabix posted a prepared technique in another thread, I figured it might be helpful if all of us axe nerds had a place to suggest & request some others...

Edited by Captain Capricorn - March 13 2009 at 18:43

Extended guitar, meaning?
Extended range guitar?

I have no idea.

some I learned from Eddie;

- sliding the outer edge of the right hand down the strings while rapidly pulling-off the low E with the left.  Makes that staccato rumble, cool effect.

- percussive slapping of strings with right hand [at 12th fret] while left does a smaller slap [at a lower fret] with first two or three fingers on fretboard.  The motion in the right hand comes from the wrist and must be coordinated with rhythm of left hand slap.  This is that technique he does for the 'Mean Street' opening.  It is extremely difficult to do.

and Randy Rhoads developed a variation to Eddie's basic two-handed hammer/pull where he double-times the hammer of the right index finger..this is heard at the end of the 'Flying High Again' solo


I'm sur I'll think of others.  Hendrix of course pioneered many of the tricks guitarists take for granted now, as divebombs, howls, many other things

Captain Capricorn wrote: HughesJB4 wrote: Extended guitar, meaning? Extended range guitar? I have no idea.   Extended guitar techniques are methods of playing that step outside of the realm of notation, such as picking below the bridge, picking above the nut, tapping, muting, microtones (notes that fall between a note & it's sharp), harmonics, knocking on the neck, bending the neck, bending below the bridge, etc.

I don't think that all of those techniques are "outside the realm of notation" ... tapping, muting, microtones, harmonics, bending ... those techniques can all be noted down. Might look a bit complicated in standard notation, but definitely not in guitar tabulature.

Edited by Captain Capricorn - March 14 2009 at 08:46

Edited by Captain Capricorn - March 14 2009 at 08:56

Jake E. Lee, Randy Rhoads successor, actually used a number of extended technique as he refused to use a tremolo bar. One of the cooler ones is to tremolo pick over the neck frets, hitting notes you might choose to tap.

^ doesn't make too much sense to me on a fretted instrument. As far as violinists are concerned, I remember them creating vibrato typically by leaving the finger firmly on the board while moving the hand back and forth. Through the movement of the hand the angle of the finger changes, resulting in slight changes of pitch as it rolls back and forth.

^ I didn't mean to criticise the use of the technique - I only meant that personally I wouldn't use vertical finger movements on a fretted instrument to create vibrato. I realize though that sometimes sound isn't everything - for example you can do bends by bending the neck which definitely looks cooler on stage than using the vibrato bar. By the same reasoning the circular bend may simply look more aesthetically pleasing and you might also prefer the slightly different sound even when a traditional approach would be more efficient.

^ technically it's all vibrato though ... by applying pressure the tension of the string is increased, resulting in an increase of pitch. Vocalists can also use tremolo (modulation of volume/loudness), but you can't do that on a stringed instrument.