Right off the bat, let me make it clear that I own, and play in a legitimate context, a 9 string guitar. So you probably know why I’m here. Over the past few days, Agile announced a 10 string guitar, Etherial guitars announced my custom 9-string guitar (above), and death/grind supergroup Murder Construct put out a song with lyrics that probably make fans of “truer” metal nod in appreciation (“Behind your 9-string, musically bluffing”). So, let me ask and potentially answer the question: Why do people dislike the use of lower tunings and/or extended ranges on guitars?
Well, there is one immediately obvious answer. Many guitar players who aren’t very good songwriters like to simply chug the lowest note possible on their guitar. Wait a second, this answer doesn’t really involve the range of the guitar! Well yes, because if we go look at bands like Asking Alexandria, we can see that they chug on a six string guitar. If you give these guys a 7 string guitar, they will still chug on it. Similarly with more strings. The end of the line is that a bad guitar player is a bad guitar player regardless of what guitar he/she plays.
Similarly, take Jeff Loomis, ex-Nevermore guitar wizard. He was an insane guitarist with 6 strings, and when he jumped to 7 strings, he didn’t suddenly become a chugging machine. He maintained his style, and even developed it, becoming somewhat like a mascot of seven string guitars. Similarly for Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders and 8 string guitars. Even Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor, who helped to further popularize the “djent” movement and extended range guitars, won’t write with an extended range instrument unless he wants to use a majority of the range on the instrument. To summarize, a guitar player shouldn’t be judged by how many strings they choose to play, but whether they are actually good at it. And no, you don’t “need to master six strings before moving on to seven”. I started playing guitar with a 7 string. It’s not an incremental thing. Thinking about an extra string as an increment is exactly the wrong mentality. Keyboard players don’t hark on players with more octaves on their instruments, so why do guitar players do this?
View Full Article »
