One of the true living guitar greats . I have seen him many times. Anyone who doubts if he can "shred" listen to Henry Cow his group from 70s.. it is not a lack of chops that he plays this way .
I love these rare videos that somehow attract an audience with conventional tastes who are just so confused. Nothing odd about this, people, just music. Enjoy.
I randomly clicked on the link to this video, then opened up a new tab, just listening and not viewing. At first, I thought it was some guitar with alot of effects and editting added in with a computer. I was curious and open this video tab back up, only to see him making all of these sounds himself. Amazing. I think I just found one of my new favorite musicians.
It's a shame people are so concerned on whether this is "music" or not, because it's just such FUN to hear the unexpected and interesting sounds he's making. If people had more FUN with music, maybe these stupid arguments would, you know, stop? Before this video, my only contact with Frith was Henry Cow. I'm now very interested on his solo work.
A lot of impovised music with treated guitar is pretty hard work. I find this piece very musical, beautiful and entertaining. I would love to hear more.
Listen to Henry Cow's 'Greasy Truckers' set from 1973. Fred does this stuff but in more of a group setting. The improvisational interplay is otherworldly!
He uses a custom guitar. The "device" behind the nut is actually an extra pick-up, an extraneous one held in an aluminum harness bolted onto the nut, that picks up notes and pitches that sound behind and on the nut. In many pieces of his, you can hear what sounds like a scale going up as another scale goes down, both sounding at the same time. This is because the pick-up on the headstock actually picks up a "reverse" scale of notes that sound behind the frets. It's a very interesting technique.
pangtjoff, the device near the headstock is an additional pickup mounted above the strings. Frith uses the pickup for fingertapping arppegio parts in other pieces, hes been using the same guitar for years.
Hate to frighten anyone who is stuck inside a "conventional box" but this man knows exactly what he is doing at all times, right down to the very micro-tone.
Frith is a genius he is wideniuing the definitions of music as we know them ...openminding every time i hear something its innovative and astounding and brillant and not from this earth..
Fred Frith,le musicien qui fait tous les efforts possibles pour ne SURTOUT PAS se retrouver au Top 50 ..bien sûr le mieux c"est même d'IGNORER qu'un truc comme le Top 50 puisse exister..mais faut quand-même pas trop en demander...très très bel effort en tout cas..
could be... i find it hard to imagine with the things he does (like rubbing a ribbon up and down yr fretboard), that he ALWAYS KNOWS exactly what sound its going to make... once again i just discovered his music, as far as i know you ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT dont get me wrong i think its fantastic what he is doing and i will read about it first before i make remarks.. thanks for making me notice from one musiclover to another :-))
His playing blows my mind. Composition with non traditional guitar sounds is completely unheard of in western music. This is as impressive as Eddie Van Halen.
For some it might help to listen to how he developed before he got to this point, since he started off in the 60s. It seems that really getting into what an artist is about has more and more become a thing of the past, with all other options to choose from.
IS HE KILLING THAT GUITAR DADDY? Yes, son. Yes he is. Seriously though, if you can keep an open mind this is actually a very creative way to approach the instrument and makes for some interesting music. I'd listen to hours of this before I listened to five minutes of Lady Shergar or whatever her damn name is.
@adalaku Well i'm pretty sure this fall under the catagory of free improvisation. I do think he knows what he's doing, but the effects are not clear to him before he's performing. Still nice to watch though. Like a painter, painting a still life or something. Pretty cool
You get there when you have played every single note. Every single song you wanted to play and you want to go into that Twilight Zone of playing the guitar!
Doing something out of conentional though is thinking outside of the box, but when that thinking is forced to be the exact opposite is not originality, but simply acting as a mirror, therefore, even if you're not doing what everyone else, you still depend on the action of the others to make your equal, exact opposite reaction.
Alex Haddad I swear fred can do anything. This is some of his more "unconventional" playing which is really fun to listen to and watch. Then there's bands like Henry Cow and his work with John Zorn, that's before you get into all the other non prog things he's done!
well, that's not entirely true; i know. having done this, as well as actually playin' with the guy, it's partially an amazing set of ears & intuition, & knowing when things sound/feel right, that the piece is working. he has the mechanics down to a science, but it's the openness to letting things happen that creates the real magic. that explains why there are people, like arto, who can't play a lick to save his life, is capable of creating lasting art. fred just happens to ALSO be a real player.
@qishmish the black thing is a pickup on the nut so it amplifies the notes between the nut and whatever is on the neck. So yes and no... I really don't know how he does it all I know is that it's fucking awesome
Fred Frith does know exactly what he is doing at all times and is an iconoclastic guitar player in every sense. He is also a professor of music at Mills College. I have seen him play a few times and it is always very interesting and fun to watch. Those not familiar with him should check out his earlier work with his band Henry Cow.
I couldn't agree more. Let's compare this to a marble statue versus a few tomatoes thrown at a canvas and named untitled. At least with the marble statue you can appreciate the work that went into it even if you are not a fan of the style or statues in general. Now you could argue that the tomato artist pondered forever as to where to throw the tomatoes, but if you can't tell the work that went into it then what does it matter?
While I couldn’t listen to this for hours I will easily admit that he has endless creative ideas, not just the sounds or noises but also how quick he is from one technique to another, as well as his timing or phrasing varies constantly....most guitarists trying this would quickly become repetitive and out of ideas....
Anyone can look at the tomato piece and say "i could do that", the same definately does not go for the statue. I'm sure many people heard this and said to themselves "i could do this" and perhaps thats what the artist is going for, however the beauty in music lies in the ability for virtuosos to blow us away with their limitless prowess of the instruments they wield.
Jackson Pollock would on occasion tie a paint brush to his dog's tail and have it walk on the canvas. Apparently, many of Mr. Pollock's paintings are in museums and are worth quite a sum of money.
Uh no. What this guy is doing is prepared guitar and it requires technique. Also I bet your cat couldn’t do this (m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tVk355fsads.html)
LOL- it's like they said "Our normal guitarist is sick! Can anyone play guitar?!" Then some drunk guy raised his hand in the audience and said "Yeah! I kin do that! How hard kin it beeee?"
Some people really have that gifted sense of pitch. I used to think the same about atonal music or freestyle jazz, that they were just noodling and noise-making. I studied and discovered that they do, in fact, read from scored music. Check out John Cage's works for the prepared piano.
