Playing Electric Music On An Acoustic

[fpuhan]

I have recently come to a revelation that somewhat surprised me, although it shouldn't have. Simply put: I'm an electric guitar player trying to play the music I like on acoustic guitars. To me, it's not the same thing. I've been a member here for a while because I play a lot of acoustic guitar. Just not acoustic music.

Even though I've been playing for more than 55 years, I started out with an acoustic 12-string and a little later, a Gibson single-pickup archtop. Which I mostly played acoustically.

But the music I play mostly originates from the rock 'n' roll of my youth. A lot of I-IV-V three chord tunes, with a bit (a lot, in fact) of blues thrown in.

Even though I've taken to performing live at a folk club, every time I hit the stage my set list consists of relics from my youth. Invariably, the songs have electric origins. I am not a folkie! For example, "Pride of Man" is a song written by a folkie and performed by a variety of folkies, but the song that sits in my hands and comes out through my fingers is the electrified version as performed by Quicksilver Messenger Service.

The closest I've gotten to folk music are some folk-pop-rock songs as performed by Michael Nesmith, Brewer & Shipley and Steve Goodman.

This post is mostly self-relevatory; I'm not asking for advice or seeking alternatives. I enjoy playing acoustic guitar, and it's a lot handier than plugging in, finding the right tone and volume and going through a lot of prep work. But making electric music sound acoustic can be a challenge, and that's what I've been trying to do. Now that I realize it, perhaps I don't have to try so hard.

[mr. beaumont]

I feel ya. I play the same stuff on electric as I do on acoustic. I don't see them as two different worlds like a lot of folks do...just different colors in a palette.

[Steve DeRosa]

I fail to see the problem :

[lowrider]

There's been a whole lot of songs written since the folk era of the 60's. It would be a real shame to ignore them and keep on singing ''Hang Down You Head Tom Dooly!

Some of my friends play mostly ''folky songs'', but they seem to enjoy enjoy it if I break out something like ''White Rabbit'' or ''What's Up'' or ''Wake Up Little Susie''.

[nostatic]

preaching to the choir. Part of the fun is figuring out arrangements.

Here's my current book - all done either on acoustic or dobro:

https://nostatic.com/request/

[CASD57]

Actually I find it a little harder to play acoustic music on a Electric, mainly because I play both the same except I have to ease up on the Electric

[12barBill]

What's not to like? I also put this up in the Listen section.

[Turtle Power]

Rock is great on acoustic! This is the whole premise of mtv unplugged back in the day. I even like turning some old rock songs into fingerpicked pieces my personal favorite being Dokken's "Alone again" and evolve from the intro. Also fun to do rock songs with a nice fast flatpicked solo to change it up. I find it MUCH harder to transition acoustic music to electric even with my piezos on a clean channel.

[1neeto]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

I fail to see the problem :

I was gonna mention that there’s countless of MTV unplugged performances that are electric songs played with acoustic guitars.

[Puddleglum]

I do the same thing a lot and this eventually led me to buying another electric guitar after not having one for many years. It has been fun to discover riffs and rock and roll licks again.

I also enjoy taking an electric guitar song and stripping it down to acoustic, changing some of the parts and the overall dynamic of the song. It's great fun. And it's important to remember that there are no rules. Eddie Van Halen used to be fond of saying: "It's called music THEORY, not music FACT!"

[KevWind]

my humble attempt---- admittedly a (Hybrid) I couldn't resist doing the little lead riffs on my Tele but I actually learned them practiced on my on acoustic first .

[fpuhan]

Originally Posted by CASD57

Actually I find it a little harder to play acoustic music on a Electric, mainly because I play both the same except I have to ease up on the Electric

Boy, ain't that the truth! If I'm not careful, I'm bending strings inappropriately, which can make a song sound just terrible!

[Bob Womack]

I grew up playing a lot of hybrid music - music that involved both electric and acoustic, and playing it in some situations that were purely acoustic and some that were mostly electric, so I know where you are coming from. The Doobie Brothers first five albums featured that blended sound. The James Gang tended to have a soft and a hard side of each album. Etc.

Bob

[Brent Hutto]

My sort of first love type of stringed instrument music is fiddle tunes. I can't really play a lick on fiddle (lord knows I've tried) but on acoustic guitar, mandolin and more recently electric guitar that's my favorite thing to play.

It takes an amazing degree of awareness, focus and intentionality to keep my picking hand light when playing a fiddle tune on electric guitar. All those years of digging and to get a solid, big sound on mandolin and acoustic guitar have to be reprogrammed out of my right hand for electric. Sometimes I tend to start "getting into it" a little enthusiastically and falling back into those habits. It can sound pretty nasty, especially if I'm running through a clean amp.

OTOH, it puts a whole new light on a familiar tune to run through it on electric guitar with a bit of distortion and some delay slathered on. And it's a good self control exercise to do that while still being precise and intentional with the point of the pick rather than just driving it down and through the strings.

[aK_bAsh7]

[QUOTE=fpuhan;7182309]I have recently come to a revelation that somewhat surprised me, although it shouldn't have. Simply put: I'm an electric guitar player trying to play the music I like on acoustic guitars. To me, it's not the same thing. I've been a member here for a while because I play a lot of acoustic guitar. Just not acoustic music.

I'd agree that it's not the same thing. I graduated HS in '74 and my biggest influences were early Americana pioneers like The Band and G. Dead. I enjoy arranging and playing electric songs for acoustic but very few are of the 3 chord variety because I love chord changes. I also play Blues tunes like "Stormy Monday" and "Ain't Nobody's Business", Country tunes like "Crazy" and "Too Far Gone" and few Stevie Wonder tunes.

The associations I have with acoustic guitars are singer-songwriters like CSNY, James Taylor, J. Browne and J. Mitchell but have never been drawn to playing that stuff. My right hand is limited to strumming and hybrid picking and I try to compensate by utilizing as much variety as I can in terms of chord inversions, bass movement, arpeggios and fills between chords. I love dreadnaughts but have no interest in learning to play Bluegrass and although Jazz comprises a hefty chunk of my listening time, I've never aspired to play that, either.

Anyway, you are not alone!