Why stabbing your guitar amp with a butterknife matters, how dive-bombs saved the world from disco, playing with grasshoppers and 7 other ways guitar players like to thrill you

1) Butterknife Matters – Link Wray, Dave Davies, Pete Townsend

As with most legends, this clever methodology will never be precisely accredited to any one person. Rock and Roll was just too big, a mass consciousness, and it seems everyone had the same idea: make it loud! The blues players were doing it in Chicago long before The Kinks “You Really Got Me” was recorded. The “sound” was already becoming synonymous with the blues “harp” or harmonica. It was a struggle to be heard, using under-powered, not-purpose built equipment. There weren’t any guitar amps or PA systems. The musicians were using accordion amps and PA’s built for sports announcers. The result was distortion, and it was the perfect vehicle for the sonic rebellion called Rock and Roll, where everything was being pushed to the edge. Like all good things, “I want MORE than enough”, became the order of the day. They cut holes in the paper cones of their speakers. Slicing the cones created more distortion. The Kinks said when they recorded “You Really Got Me”, they used an amp that everyone kicked as they walked by it. They certainly weren’t going for any audiophile purity.

2) Butter? Feed What? FeedBACK!

Really CONTROLLED feedback. Jimi Hendrix is arguably the man who brought it into public consciousness. It’s truly a way to make your guitar scream. In the 90’s a device called the eBow was invented to artificially create a feedback type of sound, but nothing beats the real thing. An amp turned up all the way and holding the guitar’s pickups in front of the speakers, creating a feedback loop, sound amplifying itself. As all guitarists know, however absurd it may seem, holding the guitar in front of an amp to create the sound is one thing – it takes serious skill to control it.

3) The 80’s

brought plenty of innovation. Aside from neon colors, moussed hair sculptures, and sunglasses of only a thin slit, guitarists used another easy technique to grab your attention. Not unlike a piano player running his fingers across all the keys, the “pick-slide” was a flashy growl for your senses. This scratchy sound is as simple as sliding the pick’s edge along the strings. The ridge perpendicular to the strings length is where the pick scrapes along, creating a scratching sound. If that wasn’t enough, the sound could be punctuated with an over the shoulder, behind the neck, flip of the guitar, a la (Billy Gibbons).

4) Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

Want more flash and the illusion of speed? Violinists have been using this technique for a millenia. The name says it all – the string in this case is not plucked with a pick. The sound is created by the force of a finger “hammering” down on the string. The Pull-off is basically a pluck of the string as the finger is lifted. Watch an old Van Halen video to see an example of this technique turned up to 11. The more distortion, the easier this technique is to perfect.

5) Flanging Effect

In modern times this “underwater” effect is created digitally. Originally, however, it was created by putting some pressure on the “flange” of the tape reel. This caused the feed and take-up reel on a tape recorder to get slightly out of sync, momentarily running at different speeds. As the machine tried to catch up, the sound created is a flanging effect. Thank you, Ziggy Stardust for taking us to space.

6) Delay

Like flanging, this is now created digitally. This effect has many uses, it can make the player sound like they are playing twice, three times or even four times as fast. It can also be used to let a guitarist harmonize independently. Originally, tape delay was created by pulling the tape off of the playback head and wrapping it around the studio. Very short delays were created by holding it only a few inches away, with say, another ancient piece of gear like… the pencil. How about really long delays, like those heard on early Pink Floyd albums? They had the tape wrapping all the way around the studio. “BUT HOW?” you ask?
They wrapped the tape around lamps, mic stands, and anything handy for the makeshift “capstans” that kept the tape flat as it was stretched around the room, sometimes creating a turn-style type system to achieve the desired delay time. More tape = more delay.

7) Harmonics – two ways

Natural and pinch. Harpists and other string players have used the harmonic for centuries. It is achieved by placing the finger lightly at an even division along the string – effectively cutting the strings vibration into half, quarter, eighth, etc. The light touch coupled with the higher pitch of the “shortened” string creates a singing effect. As the sound of the guitar progressed and became more and more distorted, a new harmonic technique was created. By “pinching” the string with the side of the thumb as it was being plucked with the pick, the strings vibration could be divided again, this time creating a more piercing, wailing sound; much crunchier than the “singing” harmonics.

8) Grasshoppers and other Whammy Bar Acrobatics

Dive bombs, pull ups, vibrato and grasshoppers! The whammy bar is as old as the electric guitar itself – the original bridge on a Fender Strat was supposed to help players mimic the sliding pitch sound of a lap steel. Again, the 80’s saw much innovation in taking the guitar to new heights. The original Tremolo Bridge of the Fender was very capable, if set correctly. But lucky for us, most guitarists couldn’t set it properly. Plus, guitar playing was pushing this mechanical piece of the guitar to it’s physical limits. So along came a guy named Floyd Rose, who arguably perfected this piece of metal called the Tremolo Bridge. His Tremolo Bridge would “float” on top of the guitar and each end of the string would be locked down tight to avoid tuning problems with the now standard over-use. It was the birth of the Whammy Bar. Guitarists took this opportunity to push the limits once again. Now instead of just vibrato, they could do dive-bombs –  loosening the strings almost completely while being able to return safely to pitch. Before the Floyd Rose, going all the way down meant coming back up to a likely out of tune guitar. The floating aspect of the Floyd Rose also meant that you could now go UP much higher than with Leo Fender’s original, front-anchored design. This new Whammy Bar ushered in amazing new techniques including the “grasshopper” where the bar is struck with the palm creating enough force to cause the bridge to overcompensate before stabilizing. Think of a diving board bouncing as it comes to rest. Or perhaps the old ruler trick from grade school, where the ruler hung over the edge of the desk, the other end firmly held with the palm. As you “flick” the ruler, you pull the edge closer to the desk, causing the vibration to speed up. Unable to wrap your brain around that? Listen to this guitar track by Steve Vai – he uses almost every technique mentioned in this article, and more. You’ll soon know what it is that guitarists call “grasshoppers”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvcFbpLyt_M