Scott Henderson Discussion

[Thanasis]

Hi Scott,

Hope you enjoy your tour and having fun!

I'd like to ask a question if you don't mind about one of the best moments in guitar history dare I say.

Church of Xotic Dance:

How many guitars are in between the two 6/4 beats on page 4(around 5:00 to 5:24 mins in the piece)?

The guitar panned left is the slide guitar, the one (or two?) in the sort of middle in the mix is the one that is written in the score (?) and I can hear one panned right, playing the slide melody but with a more straight quarter note feel.

Is there another guitar in there or am I hallucinating from the thousand times I've heard it? Certainly two hands and ten fingers don't seem to be enough.

Thank you for your time reading this.

All the best,

Thanasis

[Scott Henderson]

There are three guitars in that section - one is playing chords, one is playing the octaves melody, and one is playing the high melody with distortion (it's not slide, just using the bar). On stage I had to figure out a way to play those chords and the melody at the same time but unfortunately it sounded lame, so we stopped playing the song after the record came out. I wouldn't necessarily call that a writing mistake because I like the recorded version, but I have to be careful not to write music which can't be played live. Even with layering in the studio, there's always a main guitar part which can survive on it's own - that tune was an exception.

[Thanasis]

Thanks a lot Scott!!

This tune is something else. So are the others, but.....

I thought the distorted one was played with a slide and I made a horrible noise trying to catch the quick notes with a slide just before the shuffle, now I know!! Just trying to recreate the layers as much as I can for practice.

Also, another question If you don't mind me asking of course...

What type of effect do you use on the intro chords? (Ab13)
Is it the Arion Chorus?

Thanks!

[Scott Henderson]

It's a Strymon Lex - great stereo rotating speaker emulator. The Arion is cool too but doesn't have the detailed stereo effect of the Strymon.

[Kevin Thomas]

Sorry for the digression, but...
Yesterday I was listening to some pop song with a lot of weird sounds, effects, overdubs, layers, etc... and I was trying to imagine the band playing that song on stage, and I though "they never could play that song as it is on the record".
That reminded me of two things Scott said many times :
1-Playing live is like a stage play, and an album is more like a movie.
2-Scott said he loves music with many little details that only appear after you listened a hundred times, like Star Wars

And because of that (well, in a way, because of Scott), I found myself thinking about someone who would try to create a stage play version of Star Wars.
Thanks for that good laugh I had, Scott!

Kevin

[Thanasis]

Hi Scott, hope the tour is going well.

A couple of questions on the slide guitar solo.
Is the guitar a Les Paul? It's hard to tell every time because your settings make it hard (at least for my untrained ear to catch)

Is the slide made of something unusual? (material wise)

Also, at the end of the slide solo, exactly when the Strymon Lex comes back in, the D string sounds like you put an EQ filter or even a wah, but still seems "naturally aspirated".
Is that a thing that occured with the slide (string buzzing because it's closer to the frets) or is there a trick behind it? It is like it's buzzing but of course in a nice way, don't know how to put it, again, please excuse my terminology. My aim is to compliment it, buzzing is not the best word for it. It has a vocal quality to it.

Thanks!

[Scott Henderson]

Yes that's my Les Paul and it's just a normal metal slide. That effect which sounds like a wah is just a lucky fluke - sometimes when playing with both slide and fingers, you lift up just enough to make a string buzz with a cool sound. I love those weird tones and I keep almost every take when it happens. With fingers it's usually at the end of a note as you lift the finger off the string - with slide it seems like anything can happen anytime.

[Thanasis]

It sounds great. I think I know what you mean with the finger lift off, kinda with a reference to Calhoun solo if I can remember well. The Calhoun solo is fairly clean and you can hear all the details.

Another thing that really interests me is your awareness of the individual voices in the chords. Volume and tone wise. It is almost like the voicings have been recorded separately, one note at a time. Especially on Church of xotic dance and Vibe Station.

Anyways, it is great that we have an album like this to learn from, apart from the listening pleasure it gives us.

[Scott Henderson]

Thanks, I really appreciate that you understand the difficulty of the work. When I played Chelsea Bridge on Vibe Station, it took me about a tenth as long to finish it as the other tunes. With a strat and distortion, chords become challenging to say the least. A chord is like a snowflake - no two are alike. I can record the same voicing 20 times and every one sounds different - the individual volume of each note, the amount of gain, the tonal differences when you play it on just a slightly different part of the strings with the right hand.... I could go on... The variance in gain, tone, and dynamics is simply too subtle for the right hand to address - that is unless you resort to using a compressor. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes - I hate those fucking things.

I'm getting more consistent since I'm recording every day, but I always have to comp takes together to get anything I'm happy with. Thank goodness there are still lots of single note lines in my music - those are a hundred times easier.