Favorite Avant-Garde guitarists

[rp314]

...or musicians using the guitar in unusual ways.

Folks defying the definition of some regarding what's music, or just doing stuff that falls outside of traditional techniques.

Let's see how far folks around here are willing to go.

Here's one of mine:

[andrelafosse]

Some personal favorites:

David Torn
Keiji Haino
Nels Cline
Fred Frith
Miroslav Tadic
Marc Ducret
Steve Tibbetts
Stian Westerhus
Dominic Frasca
Ava Mendoza
Marco Oppedisano
Max Kutner

Not so much my cup of tea, but definitely important/interesting:

Derek Bailey
Henry Kaiser
Glenn Branca
Rhys Chatham
David Fiuczynski
Elliot Sharp
Bill Orcutt
Sarah Lipstate/Noveller
Fennesz
Hans Reichel
Richard Pinhas
Loren Connors
Anthony Pirog
Oren Ambarchi

...cool thread!

[FrankH]

I would add to the list:
Mary Halvorson
Lionel Loueke

[schpaeckulum]

Trey Azagthoth

[BertKoor]

No mention yet of Robert Fripp, Alan Holdsworth?
Guess that's the generation gap

[ariston]

On the fine line between avant-garde and "still listenable and musical": Marc Ribot and Nels Cline. Eivind Aarset turns the guitar into a synth, in a good way. And, hey, Zappa, of course. Fripp and Belew, naturally. And if you look at Andy Summers' work with the Police, it was so cool how he managed to inject some really out-there fretwork into the poppiest of pop songs.

[ariston]

Of course, nothing beats the master, the man who took the guitar to new heights, the gold standard:

[andrelafosse]

No mention yet of Robert Fripp, Alan Holdsworth? Guess that's the generation gap

I'm 46! I love those guys through and through.

I think guys like Fripp and Holdsworth are sort of "avant-adjacent." To me, there's a difference between doing innovative things on the instrument, versus doing things in a musical context that's iconoclastic. And sure, they made super distinctive, wildly innovative music as well... but it's hard for me to put them in the same general territory as someone like Derek, for instance.

Guys like Van Halen, Jeff Beck, and Yngwie have done really innovative and distinctive things with the instrument, in terms of hands-on-strings technique. Beck, in particular, is about as exotic and sophisticated a player as any I can think of, in terms of what the hands are doing on the instrument. But I surely wouldn't call those guys "avante-garde" players...

Doesn't really matter, of course, but it's fun to think about.

[rp314]

Once upon a time I saw Eugene in a duet with tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe in some loft in NYC. When it was his turn to solo at some point he incorporated a balloon to coax unusual sounds from the guitar strings which I recall even Frank found to be somewhat humorous.

Many of these artists at times do music that wouldn't necessarily be considered avant-garde but that's part of the fun, no?

[mvrasseli]

I'd say Arthur Kampela

[kgdrum]

David Torn

[rp314]

Besides those associated with Free Jazz and the Improv scene, there's been some works for guitar from composers of so-called Contemporary Music.

For example, Elliott Carter's 1983 piece Changes written for David Starobin.



The origins date back to at least the Second Viennese School.

For example, Anton Weberns's Opus 18 composed in 1925 but for whatever reasons wasn't performed until 1954, nine years after his tragic death, by Robert Craft in L.A.



The guitarist I believe is John Williams.

[excuse me please]

Syd Barrett

[Aloysius]

[rp314]

Some personal favorites:

Fred Frith

...cool thread!

It didn't take long for Fred to appear in the thread.