When It came to making noise using nothing but his guitar, Kurt Cobain was a geinus. In fact, IMHO, the only person who I have seen make BETTER noise would have to be Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. It would impossible to accuratly re-create alot of the sounds that Kurt achives with his guitar (ie. Endless Nameless, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, Gallons...), since alot of it was improvised. This is why this book may actually be better than published tabs...they actually try to tab noise jams like the RFUS outro and the Scentless Apperentice solo, and it is very frustrating when you are doing exactly what the book tells you and it still sounds wrong. My solution to this problem: create your own feedback.
As you may or may not know, feedback is that ringing noise that occurs when you play at a high volume, or play too close to the amp, or leave your guitar sitting next to the amp when it is still turned on. There is some scientific explination for this, like it makes the coils in the pickups vibrate, or something like that. Basically, it occurs in strange situations when you don't want it, but when you DO want it it is a pain in the ass to get! There are several techniques that I use that produce decent feedback/noise. One is bending. I find that if you do a double bend on your high E and B strings anywhere above the 10th fret (as you see in Endless Nameless), will be loud and ring, and (if you're lucky) echo.
Another is harmonics. Feedback will usually occur instantly when you strike a high pitched harmonic. This is quite effective when you have to come up with a certain pitched feedback, if you can remember which harmonics make which pitches. It doesn't work as well with 12th and 7th fret harmonics, though. If you want GOOD feedback, go for 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th fret harmonics. Sometimes, depeniding on the kind of guitar you have, you will be able to take harmonics above the pickups. If you are able to do this, go for it, cause you can't really get any more high pitched than that! One method I have seen Kurt do in concert (you can witness this before Breed on the MTV Live And Loud vid) that is quite effective is tapping the back of the neck. You should try hitting the upper neck with either your pick or fingers, behind the first or second fret. If the destortion is high enough, it will produce a cool sounding rumbling noise at first, then become
screeching feedback.
Another technique used in Oh The Guilt is picking the strings above the nut or below the bridge. It produces various high-pitched rings, which produce excellent feedback. However, the strings must be struck somewhat hard, or the sound may not be picked up.
If you would like to use the natural approach, simply turn up the volume on your amp. It will eventually start ringing, and as you move your guitar around in different positions the pitch will change. If you're lucky, you may actually be able to pick up radio stations with this method!
Two things you should be aware of when doing this are:
1) Feedback occurs much more readily when the pickups are facing away from the amp. An easy thing to do is take off your guitar and place it up against the cabinet with the strings facing outward. This would save lots of waiting.
2) Different pickups create different pitch feedback. You may want to try using your pickup switch, especially if you have a strat or a strat imitation. This can produce anything from a low growl to a high scream. Again, you should expariment on your own.
There are various other noisemaking methods...so many that I will not be able to list them all. Two that must not be ignored, however, are the whammy bar and the pick scrape.
The whammy bar is probably the most useful tool in producing noise. What it is is a bar attached to the bridge of the guitar which, when depressed, lowers the pitch of the strings by raising the bridge. You can hear this in action at the end of Stay Away, where Kurt drops the strings as far as they go, raises them, and drops them again and again. However, dropping the pitch of the strings is only one use for the whammy bar, as it can be used to make exaggerated vibratos and other such noises. Depending on what model guitar you have, the whammy bar will be built differently. On strat models, the bridge is pretty well attached to the guitar, and the bar will only be able to lower the pitch. However, on Ibanezes, the bridge is just sorta floating there, so the whammy bar can be used both ways...raising AND lowering the pitch. There is really not a hell of lot I can say about HOW to use this as it isn't a very complicated tool. (It has two positions...up and down. How much more simple can it be??) You hould just fool around with your own and get familiar with it and the noises it can make and soon you will be able to produce decent noise with it.
Pick scrapes are very underrated, as they seem to produce one kind of noise. Actually, there are many things you can do with pick scrapes aside from just scraping the low E or A strings and making the same old usual sound. One is scraping actually above the pickups (which Kurt does at the end of Heart Shaped Box) which produces a more high pitched sound. Another is using the same top to bottom method on your higher strings (B and high E). Or you could just scrape all the strings over the pickups. This is another method that must be exparimented with so that you can come up sounds that you like Of course there are various other methods that Kurt used that I'm not going to get into, basically because my knowledge of feedback and noisemaking is very limited compared to his. However, this should provide you with somewhat of a guide so that you too can make noise with your guitar!
TABULATURE DEFINITION
What all the little symbols in the tab mean...
)=Bend
/=slide
~~=vibrato
^=hammeron/pulloff
PM=Palm mute
*=uncontrolled feedback
x\x=pick scrape
NH=Natural Harmonic
+=Tremelo Pick
)=Unison Bend
)
|=ghost bend
|\=ghost bend and release
@@@@@=Smash Guitar :)
