"Negotiate the medium"

[DrewJD82]

I first heard Eric Johnson say this phrase and I was so stoked because it finally verbalized something I'd been trying to say in discussion for years. It was brought up in his interview on Dipped In Tone and, well he can explain it better-

(timestamped)


tl;dw - A racecar driver has to learn the nuances of a car and how the tires handle at certain speed at certain turns, an artist has to see the viscosity of the paint and know how much or how little to apply or how many hairs in the paintbrush will give the desired effect, a baker has to know when the dough is ready to go in the oven, etc. Gear is no different in that regard and sometimes there's a lot more negotiating required when it's something specific we want and there aren't a lot of ways to get there.

Sometimes when I read an opinion about the same piece of gear and hear a total opposite opinion of mine, like say what it feels like to play through a non-boosted Dual Rec, or maybe when someone says they did not find an amp to be "forgiving" and it's really "stiff", I'm always curious how much time was put into negitating the medium in those situations.

Had I not adapted my playing to the Plexi50, I'd absolutely find it stiff, lifeless and sterile. You can't really bitchpick through that amp and expect it's going to sound like Hendrix or Eddie. Same thing when I started playing Dual Rec but in reverse; I had to loosen up my picking hand quite a bit and lay into the mush factor to get it to 'perform' how I needed it to, it's a total different attack than a 5150.

I'm curious in which ways any of you have negotiated to get what you were going for? I think ultimately it's great to have a collection of these negotiations because it really allows for some versatility in your playing, tones and willingness to stretch in directions you wouldn't normally go in for the pursuit of a tone that strikes your fancy.

 

[Sidler72]

Gear can absolutely make you play a certain way whether it’s guitars, amps or pedals. Sometimes it’s frustrating but sometimes it pulls something out of you you didn’t know was there.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I'm curious in which ways any of you have negotiated to get what you were going for? I think ultimately it's great to have a collection of these negotiations because it really allows for some versatility in your playing, tones and willingness to stretch in directions you wouldn't normally go in for the pursuit of a tone that strikes your fancy.

I think this is really the crux of playing music on any instrument at all a something thats almost so fundamental that it gets overlooked. I've recorded a LOT of guitarists over the years and the very best ones have an intuitive sense of reacting and adjusting based on what they are hearing. And conversely, the worst ones are way too focussed on hitting the notes that they aren't really even listening to the result coming back at them (and certainly not adjusting what they are doing to what they are hearing). They're just hitting the guitar like its Guitar Hero.

I don't really see the negotiations as one off levelling up things, and more of an ongoing skill where you essentially just adapt to any situation. That could be timing related, tuning related, dynamics related, or even just what you're trying to play (chord voicings, how many notes you're trying to play, which octave you're in, which rhythms to emphasise, when to hold off etc). I'm adapting my playing constantly but it'll vary in so many different ways - where I'm muting, how I'm picking and attacking the strings, how I'm fretting notes. It's a constant feedback thing and it really just comes down to trying to get the sound out of the speakers that I'm looking for in that moment.

My favourite examples of it are when you see legendary musicians playing on the crappiest instruments, and they still just sound like themselves. They just intuitively adjust and find something that does what they're looking for and it's all subconscious and natural.