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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink Baritone for rhythm guitar?

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Are there any bands that use baritone for rhythm? I’d imagine it would slide in perfectly between the lead guitar and bass …

Any thoughts on this?

I know of the bands the use baritone as a lead guitar in a great and cool way as The Scimitars
Not sure about the rhythm, it may sound just as a second bass guitar probably.

Waikiki Makaki surf-rock band from Ukraine

https://linktr.ee/waikikimakaki

Lost Diver

https://lostdiver.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/vitaly-yakushin

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Last edited: Jan 31, 2024 15:29:25

I once jammed with a guy that had a B-B baritone, and he basically spent almost all of his time high on the fretboard. IMHO, he would have been better off just playing a normal E-E guitar.

Chords work, because of overtones. It’s the mix of fundamentals and overtones which make a Major chord sound Major and a minor chord sound minor, etc. As you go deeper into the bass register, tightly voiced chords get muddy. If I wanted to play chords on my Bass VI, I would used “open” voicing, meaning 1-5-10, instead of 1-3-5. (In this case, the word “open” does not refer to open strings, but instead to the chord being opened up, with wider spacing between notes.)

Playing with such open voicings is possible, but limiting. If you want to get into complex, extended chords, it’s all but impossible to do, without crowding the notes together tightly, and this can be problematic, and especially so in a band situation.

Suppose you wanted to play a G13b9 chord, on a Bass VI. You could voice it as: 3x3454, which would get you everything except the 5th degree of the chord, but that Ab up top could easily end up a half step above a G natural being played but a guitar, or another instrument in the treble range. Even a simple Dominant Seventh, such as: 35x46x, which is a good “open” voicing, could still cause trouble, because that F note up top is actually fairly deep in the bass register, and if a treble register instrument plays a G, you could end up with a whole-step dissonance that you hadn’t planned on.

I do use chords in the deep bass register, from time to time, but I usually restrict these to 1-5-10 Major or minor triads, with no 7ths and no diminished 5ths to be heard, anywhere in the bass register, unless I know, to an absolute certainty, that there will be no other notes being played above me. In tne real world, this situation is rare, to non-existent.

Before the days of Rock n’ Roll, rhythm guitar was frequently played in the lower register of the guitar, in standard tuning. Freddie Green, of the Count Basie Orchestra, was the absolute master of this style, and he used three-note chords. When played well, this style of rhythm playing forms a bass line of its own, and IMHO, represents a true art form, all its own. Ranger Doug, from Riders in the Sky is a great example of someone using this approach, and he usually plays on a large acoustic archtop, “rhythm canon”.

On those rare occasions when I play a gig, I sometimes play these types of voicings under my vocals. They fit nicely into the arrangement, being above the range the bassist is working in, and usually are just below my bass-baritone vocals. I’ve never tried this in Surf, however, and I’m not so certain that this rhythm style wouldn’t produce a muddy sound in Surf. However, it could work brilliantly if the bass was either laying out, or just playing whole-note roots in the lowest part of its register, while the rhythm guitar held down a deep midrange and the melody line stayed way up top.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Last edited: Dec 26, 2023 07:04:02

Synchro pretty much covered it. We were short a rhythm gtr for a gig and Jim, who plays bass, tried it out to help cover some parts. We decided to can it. Muddy.

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ArtS wrote:

Synchro pretty much covered it. We were short a rhythm gtr for a gig and Jim, who plays bass, tried it out to help cover some parts. We decided to can it. Muddy.

What I’ve found, is that you can write bass parts that will add a lot of rhythmic interest, without actually playing chords. It’s hard to put into words, but if the 1 and the 3 beats cover the root and the fifth, the 3 and the 4 can reach higher, maybe playing a tenth, the seventh, etc. If the higher notes are chosen to suggest a degree of voice leading, it somewhat fills in where rhythm guitar would fit in.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

weird_oh84 wrote:

Are there any bands that use baritone for rhythm? I’d imagine it would slide in perfectly between the lead guitar and bass …

Any thoughts on this?

I think that you if you have some ideas that demand different approach to rhythm sound and mixing or some problems in arranging your tunes that may be solved by adding low frequency rhythm - just try it!

Waikiki Makaki surf-rock band from Ukraine

https://linktr.ee/waikikimakaki

Lost Diver

https://lostdiver.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/vitaly-yakushin

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