Main Concept
(this page is always in construction)
Since the very beginning, I was always interested on new sounds and concepts that has never done before. I wasn’t a very smart person, but I always liked to be creative. About the age of 13, I started playing two guitars simultaneously as it was one guitar, just to explore new sounds. Then I kept on doing it while growing up in Venezuela, and discovered that there are millions of possibilities for new sounds for the electric guitar. The fact that I didn’t have any teachers, nor the internet, actually helped me to be more creative, as I had to start from scratch and force myself to be creative.
When performing with two guitars simultaneously, this opens up a million more possibilities for the instrument. It’s like a hidden, unexplored world inside the electric guitar. Things like, playing two different chords simultaneously, melody lines without overlapping hards, chord + melody, melody + melody, percussion using both guitars, 8 finger chords, etc, are just a few ideas for this. I do this with my 14 and 16-strings guitars, which are basically two regular guitars in one.
I am doing this mainly because I have a big passion for music and the guitar, (I love it so much I like to play two of them!) to challenge myself to be very creative, inspire people to be more open minded about art, contribute a little bit with the history of the instrument and to become a better musician myself!
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Be aware the this is all under construction, since this is a new concept, I'm always discovering things every day. Thanks for reading!
Fretboard
As you can see, my guitars are two guitars in one. The first one is two 7-strings together, and the second one is one 8-string and one 6-string together. Both 14-string guitars and they have the same tuning as a regular guitar.
Chords
Chords
The way I play chords is by playing two of them at the same time, making a new chord. Normally these are impossible on a regular guitar, as the hands would overlap. Sometimes these chords are called PolyChords. Red Dotes is the fretboard hand, and the green dotes are for the picking hand. Chords are shown on a regular 8 string guitar, but keep in mind that those chords are to be played on two guitars.
In this piece, I’m using what I like to call 5 finger chords.
This is the STANDARD, most common chord shape for playing two guitars simultaneously, since they are the easiest, most comfortable chord shape. They are also very flexible for percussive techniques, since they don’t require complex fingering.
(See end) The first hand (Blue Dots) plays a 3 finger triad, either major or minor. The second hand (Green Dots) plays 2 notes, using a 6th interval, to get tension and sometimes chord tones.
The way I think about chords is by playing a different one on each hand and mixing them, to get one final chord. This is a new way of playing the electric guitar, as you can reach chords that are impossible to play and "hidden" on a regular guitar. This is illustrated on the fretboard graphic, which is a regular 8 string guitar.
RED notes: 1st hand
GREEN notes: 2nd hand.
WHITE chord: FINAL chord
These are several 8 finger chords, just informally jamming a several of them.
Most complex chords of all. Most of them are 4 part chords on each hand.
Soloing / Lead / Melodic Techniques
My main technique for soloing is by mixing lines using my two hands instead of one. This gives you more freedom and possibilities because we are dividing the lines with the two hands.
This song was inspired by Jason Becker’s song Serrana.
He was one of my main influences when I was learning
the "sweep picking" technique on the guitar, so I decided
to pay tribute to him and also develop my own technique
for this.
There’s an explanation for music nerds at 2:48.
For all musicians, the technique consist of playing the
Root and the 5ths with the first hand (Blue Dots) and
the 3rds and 7ths with the second hand (Green Dots)
Since I'm dividing the arpeggios half and half between the
two hands, it is easier to play really precise and fast.
Be aware that playing 7th arpeggios this precise at this
speed using regular "sweep picking" would be really hard.
That's the main reason why I came up with this technique.
I tried to use almost every 7th arpeggio on this tune.
The fingerboard is from a regular 7-string guitar.
This tune was inspired on hip hop grooves and percussion techniques on the guitar.
For the ultimate music nerds: The technique I use to play this
is called “Two arpeggios for scale”. In this case, the first hand
plays Dm(M7) (blue dots) and the second hand Em7(b5) (green dots), to get a D harmonic scale. Since we are dividing the scale with the two hands, it is easier to play fast lines extremely precise. Playing scales with both hands also opens up a new way of playing "melodic percussion" on the guitar.
Part I 0:00
Part II 1:29
Part III 2:32
This song was inspired on a Futurama’s episode called “The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings” I was amazed by the fact that Fry (the main character) traded his hands with a Robot Devil. Having the hands of the Robot Devil, he was able to play impossible and extremely difficult pieces on some futuristic instrument from the year 3000. I tried to compose the piece like if the Robot Devil would have written the piece, and, what would I do If I had those Robot Hands. The piece ended up being dark, robotic, industrial and extremely technical.
Scales using both hands.
Harmonizing scales
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Classical arpeggios inspired piece.
Percussion
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These are a few new guitar techniques for all of you nerds.
-The Helicopter Blast (0:13 0:59 1:37) One hand plays an extremely fast series of hits, and the other hand plays any chord.
-Slap Tap (0:20 2:03) Tapping hits mixed with slap/pop techniques. HIT IT LIKE A MAN!
-Other Blast Beats - Traditional Blast, Hammer Blast and Skank beats (1:05) go and ask Roddy and Kollias!
-Drum Grooves (1:44) Upper side of the neck is treated like the hihat/cymbals, the lower side of the neck as the snare (it higher dynamics) and the kick would be the lower notes on the guitar. (More on this on future videos)
-Polyrhythmic Drum Groves (2:36) Same theory as the drum grooves, but avoiding the snare. Play attention to the cymbals/guitar relation.
oh and all of this just got approved by George Kollias :)
This video is part of the project TEOT, where I’m exploring new ways of playing the electric guitar. Here I’m trying to recreate various drum grooves on a electric guitar. Drums and guitar are playing exactly the same thing (unison) most of the time.
This is just one way of imitating drum grooves, and the idea is very young and open for guitar players to explore with.
The basic orchestration/legend is:
Snare: hit on the middle side of the guitar.
Hihat: hit on the upper fretboard side.
Kick: lower bass note with a hit.
This varies several times, but those are the fundamentals.
Part I: Basic grooves.
Part II: grooves with more variations.
Part III: grooves with add-ons (noises, slides, notes, etc)
Another tune imitating drum grooves.
More:
Donna Lee (Jazz Tune)
Chord Melody
Jazz Melody
The tune in this video was inspired by using tapping on the guitar (free hands technique) on modern progressive metal, specifically like the band Meshuggah and how they use complex rhythms in metal (musically called Polyrhythms, which are shown at the botton of the video)
I tried to do everything by tapping the guitar, such as power chords, muted sounding lines, disonant chords, etc. Almost everything with Polyrhythms.
The video was filmed inside a cable car in the Avila Park in Caracas, Venezuela. We wanted to see how what music would be inspired when playing in these conditions. It was very difficult as I was dizzy most of the time while playing, but the scenery was really amazing!
Guitars were recorded using a clean signal and later on pre-amped with an Axe-FX II. We were also using a mic signal to get the sound from the Cable car.
For guitar players and musicians. The main guitar technique on this song is to make lines and chords strictly using one "power chord shape" on each hand. In other words, root and fifth in one hand, and another root and fifth in the other hand BUT on different places on both fretboards.
Chord + Melody medley.
© 2016 FELIX MARTIN