A Quote by Stefon Harris
If you listen to the way I speak, I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument, that concept comes through very clearly.
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I think it all comes back to the individual. My instrument's just a pile of metal and wood! If you listen to the way I speak I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument that concept comes through very clearly. In fact some people who've seen me play have noticed that I'm singing - but it's more that I'm actually speaking. So it's not really about the instrument. But for me, in my thinking, the music is all about the melody. When I compose, 99 percent of the time I start with the melody.
I do go back and listen to my songs. I'm biting my fingernails the whole way through, but I do listen. I have a lot of songs I've wanted to re-record just because of how advanced technology is and the different instrument sounds that I'm more experienced with.
I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.
When I was a kid, a lot of my parents' friends were in the music business. In the late '60s and early '70s - all the way through the '70s, actually - a lot of the bands that were around had kids at a very young age. So they were all working on that concept way early on. And I figured if they can do it, I could do it, too.
Practice. Listen. Use you ears. And as Rob [Halford] said, that team effort. You can learn your instrument in your room, but being in a band is more than playing your instrument.
Rhythms, beats, etc., are fundamentally central to my creative drive: my first instrument was the drums, nearly every band I have been involved in or at the helm of, is driven by rhythm, my band is driven entirely by rhythm, machine rhythm, and the purpose of the rock instrumentation is literally to speak the beats, to emulate the rhythms with guitars and bass, with very little articulation, and without being 'progressive'.
One very important side of my playing lies in rhythm; I have a very percussive style. It's one I've developed with Dream Theater over the years, and requires the guitar to be very locked into the rhythm of the drums... way more than what would normally entail.
My parents speak with an accent. A lot of people that I know speak with an accent. I have friends who speak with an accent. Accents in a vacuum aren't a problem; it's how you portray those characters and how well they're served in a script.
Most people think it's a linear relationship: I speak, you listen. Actually, it's a circle, because the way you listen affects how I speak, and the way I speak affects the way you listen.
I listen to 'Purple Haze' a lot. If I'm in the gym, I listen to that album the whole way through sometimes.
There are a lot of cases where I'm using, if not an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar more as a rhythm instrument. Rather than blasting away, I use it to create more of an acoustic feel.
I love playing characters with different accents. It's a lot of fun.
That was my way, and I also use the music after five years, I started hearing opera, opera, it was very good instrument to keep the spirit very strong because you feel like you are yourself singing opera, and I used to hear a lot of opera, they send me tapes.
Much of my playing is rhythmic and choppy; I use a lot of double stops. The wah just accents all those stops and chops and brings out the rhythmic aspect that much more.
I don't believe in getting a lot of new gear all the time, so I get very deeply into one instrument and use it for many years.
The guitar is such an incredible instrument; it plays classical, flamenco, jazz, country, bluegrass, rock, acid, blues. You'll never see a clarinet playing Black Sabbath. But you will see a guitar in a clarinet band playing rhythm. It is the most popular instrument in the world; it is the one everybody loves.
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