my name is mwd

I wasn’t setting out to play this. But I had one of those moments whilst trying to get a sound for something very different, I played a note, just one, and my brain immediate recognised it as this other tune from another genre, and that’s it, the evening vanishes as I learn something new.

It’s a somewhat crude version of Radiohead’s Hunting Bears from Amnesiac, but the sound is there, at least in the room - my recording might have lost it a little. But as a player that in the room inspiration is all that matters, as it’s what makes you want to keep trying rather than moving on.

I got this whilst trying to set up a slap-back delay on my new (to me, but otherwise quite old) Line 6 DL4 delay pedal. Slapback is a short echo used in old 50s style country and blues, thus it was I ended up a million miles away from where I’d initially intended to go, but that’s the fun of pedals I guess.

I’ve not played guitar much of late, as I was very bored of listening to myself, and so I was looking for ways to make it sound less like I was playing just one instrument, and delay is a great effect to do that. The DL4 is also capable of some quite synth-y sounds too, and lets you loop and reverse things and generally make a mess, and I think that sort of mess appeals to me. I doubt I’ll take it this far though:

Back to Hunting Bears, playing it did remind me of the style of playing when I was trying to learn bits of Julian Lage. Very different application, but the cadence and subtle difference that comes through from how you hold each note is quite similar.