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Four-piece bands... am I right?

#42
Thumpin6string said:
4 pieces is not the problem. A 4 piece with guitar, bass, keyboards and drums works fine and a 4 piece with lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass and drums usually works fine. The problem is when you have 2 lead guitarists with egos. Then it ends up being a solo fest. Of course this is IMHO.
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A band with ONE guitarist is a problem if he has too much of an ego.
 
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#44
Ric5 said:
These guys make it work … 2 guitars, bass drums, keyboards, and backup singers and even some horns
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The tricky part has already been done. All the composition and orchestration is there on vinyl for these guys to pick up. If the rhythm guitarist decided to play root-note power chords through Shine On You Crazy Diamond then this band would never get gigs. They have Gilmour's studio lines to split out and play.

Semi-controversial opinion, but Brit Floyd and The Australian Pink Floyd Show put on a better show than real Pink Floyd. I have a stack of Pink Floyd live recordings, and on a bad night the real band were rough. Listen to their 1975 Knebworth gig, or vast chunks of that 1974-75 period. A hoarse, complacent band turning up to pick up a paycheck.

They also had to battle '70s PAs in baseball stadiums, so the subtleties of the studio recordings are pretty much lost. Gilmour in particular liked to bellow the lyrics at times.

micguy said:
Right now, there's a thread by a bassist demeaning all "simple bassists".
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Ach, they will learn in time. I wanted to play like Phil Lesh and Chris Squire when I started out. So many beginner players dive straight into loud slap technique. There is a time and a place for all of that! The trick is not to be playing right at the edge of your abilities. The guy who plays at the open mic blues gigs here can probably wail on bass, but he isn't doing that at the blues gig.


gumbynotpokey said:
It's not the instruments, it's the people. Knowing how to play is not what's needed. Knowing how to play in a BAND is what's needed.
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I agree. The real lightning in a bottle is finding the right people who know how to play in a band and who aren't lunatics, junkies or otherwise disordered individuals. :laugh:
 
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#45
Keyboardist just left our 6-piece covers project, finding keyboardists worth a tin poop in these parts is impossible... it's such slim pickens that I'm looking at sliding into that role so we can instead pick from bassists around here that are a dime-a-dozen.

In the meantime, I'm glad we have 2 guitars because keeps our sound filled out and gives us more options. As BL, I keep them from trampling all over each other by telling them to work all the parts out together, and the music director settles any disputes. We've had no problems.

If Rush had another guitarist, we most likely would never have heard Alex's solos or any of their music they way we know them now. Which means that the budding 2-piece version of Lakeside Park that the drummer and I roll into from time-to-time probably wouldn't exist. Same goes for my username. And potentially this entire forum, since it seems to have been founded on Geddy fan boys. :roflmao:
 
#46
Axstar said:
Semi-controversial opinion, but Brit Floyd and The Australian Pink Floyd Show put on a better show than real Pink Floyd. I have a stack of Pink Floyd live recordings, and on a bad night the real band were rough. Listen to their 1975 Knebworth gig, or vast chunks of that 1974-75 period. A hoarse, complacent band turning up to pick up a paycheck.
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Yes Brit Floyd is top notch

But I saw Pink Floyd in 1973 doing the Dark Side of the Moon tour … they were really good back then.
 
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#48
always preferred 3pc....... less people to pay, and less egos to deal with especially as the OP mentioned how guitarist are vying for attention, volume issues and insane amount of pedals etc......As long as the one guitar/vocals were decent i found it easier to write together and gel with the unit. First band i was in 8yrs and we hit it off from the start, tho he wasn't the greatest lead player, he wrote excellent lyrics, had great stage presence and could MC the microphone like nobody's business...More of a power chord punk trio aka ramones meets cro-mags..was alot of fun.
 
#49
Hi,

Axstar said:
A bit of a shower thought, but every four piece band I've been in has been two overlapping three-piece bands, subtly duking it out.

I answered a 'bassist wanted' add recently, from a guy trying to put a psychedelic band together. After we all met together last night for the first time, I noticed something that I've noticed many times before...

Drummer goes out for a smoke, so one guitarist jumps on drums. Nice, pleasant guitar + bass + jam develops.

Drummer comes back, so guitarist gets back on guitar. Immediately the two guitarists are playing all over each other, trying to copy each other's riffs and licks, trampling around and vying for attention.

Guitarist goes out for a smoke and nice, pleasant guitar + bass + jam develops.


Every band I've been in with two guitarists has wound up like this. If one guitarist is sick/broke/stuck in traffic then a nice time is had by all. In all cases the guitarists have both had strong ideas for what direction the band should be going in, musically, and often there is a conflict there. One guy wants to play lighter poppier stuff, and the other guy wants to get heavier, for example. Take one guitarist, any guitarist, out the equation and calmness descends.

Imagine if Rush had another guitarist who stamped around all over Alex Lifeson's solos and then told them they should be going in a more Folkie direction...

Imagine if Cream had a guy strumming a Telecaster in the opposite corner to Clapton and telling them they should be playing more Beatles covers...

And of course you get guitarist volume wars developing as well, and the time spent setting up all their pedals and trying to work out which patch cable is dead...

Is one guitarist enough? Surely one is enough!
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Oh, I don't know. It takes musicianship and maturity to really play together as a cohesive unit. A great example of a two guitar quartet is Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives. Kenny Vaughn and Marty Stuart compliment each other perfectly and the entire ensemble plays and sings together so well that it sounds like eight people on stage. Just fabulous!

I've played in a couple of similar bands that really rocked. We often have two guitarists in my current project. They get along great. Your mileage may vary. ;)


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
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#50
The way I tend to play the bass makes it better to have a single guitar player.

I've been in bands with two guitar players.

One worked ok because one was also the singer and wrote most of the songs, so he taught the other one the parts.

Other one worked fine with covers, but every time we wrote a song we had to accomodate for an unnecessary second guitar and it felt a bit sour for everybody.

In my most recent one it wasn't working at all. The guys were good and wrote stuff well, but the teaking was unending. One of the guys left and now it's so much easier. I play leading bass lines on that and this friend of mine is amazing on taking just as much space as the song demands, even if he is kind of limited. I think his limitations make up a nice frame and a good sense of rhythm that comes from playing samba percussion help him a lot. The songs just flow and I couldn't be happier.
 
#51
buldog5151bass said:
Unfair to compare Brit Floyd to '70s shows. Larger band, better technology, smaller arenas. There was no way the band with fewer musicians, and WAY worse technology to reproduce the album's. Add in the drugs...
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70s Pink Floyd was ahead of their time … They actually had a good PA system and when I saw them they had just made the transition from a 4 pieces to a big show band with several extra musicians. Most 70s bands that toured had pretty lame pa systems … today you can hire out a really good pa system if you have the money.
 
#53
I’m currently in a progressive band; singer, bass, drums, guitar and keys. We started out a four piece, with singer just singing. He’s actually a decent rhythm player, so one day I brought over my AE six string for fun. It was a bit of a battle, but I held my ground against the paradigm (there was as major push to have him switch to electric), and our singer has been playing rhythm on the AE for over a year now. Everyone has their own sonic space and we’re all very pleased with our sound. I don’t think it would have been that way had we gone with two electric guitars. Over the years, the best bands I’ve been I have had one guitar.
 
#54
Ric5 said:
70s Pink Floyd was ahead of their time … They actually had a good PA system and when I saw them they had just made the transition from a 4 pieces to a big show band with several extra musicians. Most 70s bands that toured had pretty lame pa systems … today you can hire out a really good pa system if you have the money.
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It was a great system FOR THE TIME. I'm sure the system Brit Floyd is using is generations ahead - never mind they aren't playing stadiums, and have digital effects to reproduce sounds in a way Roger and the boys couldn't have dreamed of back then.
 
#55
2 of my 3 favorite bands of all time (Dada, King's X) are trio's...ya got me thinkin' now @Axstar...

I can't brain today.jpg


I've actually been fairly lucky I guess. I've been in 3 bands that had dueling guitarists, one of them my current band. Of the 3, only one was like what you describe. A punk band, & both guitarists were basically playing the same thing...& then there were the basslines...basically doubling the guitars...it was a trainwreck that no one seemed interested in un-wrecking. I only played one show with them before departing.

The other 2 were much better, as all involved took it quite seriously, & everyone made/makes a concerted effort to draft parts that complement each other & serve the song.

One thing that has REALLY helped my current band is learning some Tom Petty songs, & then trying to do them justice. If y'all know what I mean, you know! If you don't know what I mean, go learn some Tom Petty songs. So simple, yet so easy to play wrong/badly.
 
#57
Two guitars can absolutely work - but they, and you all as a band, need to have a solid plan to work together. This isn't just "solo vs rhythm" or "two guitarists fighting" - stuff like this comes down to composition, plain and simple. Without composition, yeah, you're dead in the water.

People have already mentioned the Allman Brothers. I'll mention The Outlaws - Green Grass and High Tides is a good example of something similar (and it's awesome). However, I'll also mention Iron Maiden and Megadeth, where the guitarists worked together by writing specific rhythm harmonies and playing them; Hangar 18 by Megadeth, and The Trooper by Iron Maiden are great examples of this.

It can be done, but you have to write for it. It's not something that happens automatically. You have to work for it, just as those bands did.

You can make it awesome. Good luck!
 
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#60
LBS-bass said:
I'm talking about the complete lack of anything chordally rhythmic every single time a solo occurs, where something vital to the music is suddenly notably missing once the solo begins. It's boring and dull.
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This is probably as much due to the soloist as anything. A good solo will outline the chords and punctuate relevant rhythmic points. Bland scale runs sound boring and dull with or without accompaniment.
 
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