INSTRUMENTAL INQUISITION!
Guitar instrumentals have supplied some of music’s most evocative moments. Jason Sidwell asks top guitarists for their take on this iconic movement. This month the evocative duo, Hermanos Gutierrez.
GT: What is it about guitar instrumentals that appeals to you?
HG: The fact that it leaves space for everyone to put something personal into it. Instrumentals impose less than a song with vocals. For us, instrumentals have always been a way of connecting within ourselves, it’s way more inwards. So therefore, you make it your own soundtrack and there’s this potential to personalise an instrumental song. We believe in the power of instrumental music, inspired by classic symphonic orchestras and many music scores. And since we all live our own life, our own movie, instrumentals can enforce the moments and how we perceive them.
GT: What can an instrumental provide a listener that a vocal song can’t?
HG: Both types evoke emotions but as we said, the main difference is its direction and the engagement with it. Instrumentals can be there and at the same time they’re not. They provide space for each of us. They accompany you the way you choose. Instrumentals ask for a different type of engagement with the music.
GT: Are there any tendencies with instrumentals that you aim to embrace or avoid - such as rhythms, harmony, playing approach or tones?
HG: We tend to stay as true as possible to our style and our rhythms. And in the end we want to share something with the audience which means something to us. We don’t feel limitations in rhythms, or harmonies, as long as it is us and as long as it comes from a very true place within ourselves.
GT: Is a typical song structure of intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle, outro etc, always relevant for an instrumental.
HG: Of course we try to follow a certain structure, trying to build up the song and create a climax. At the same time less is more; we’ve come across this sentence so many times while songwriting and the more you search for the right structure, the more you get lost in it. We don’t want to make it complicated but then also trying to give every part its power. We even consider moments of silence, and different intensities of playing a certain note as part of the structure but they can’t really be planned. In the end a certain structure is important, but not as important as the feeling of playing the melody.
GT: How useful is studying a vocalist’s approach for guitar melodies?
HG: We believe everyone works differently and follows different approaches. In our case we just hear melodies in our head when one of us c
