POLYCHORDS: When it comes to chords, the guitar has some serious limitations. Because of the way it’s tuned, it’s difficult to play chords that have more than about four, or sometimes five, different chord tones. In contrast, a keyboard player can use two hands to play 10 completely different notes, if desired.

    Polychords is the technique I use to create the more interesting “jazzy” chords I hear in my head. By multitracking, I can superimpose chords on top of chords to get those beautiful harmonies that are not usually available playing traditional guitar voicings. The majority of the rhythm guitar parts on the CD are based on polychords.

 

    MIDI: Simply put, MIDI is an acronym for a computer language that lets electronic musical instruments and devices “speak” to each other. MIDI data contains every bit of information about a specific sound except the sound itself. For instance: the length of a note; how hard that note is struck; its pitch, etc. Because the final instrument sound is not an intrinsic part of MIDI data, you can make it any instrument you want.

 

    SAMPLES: Samples are real instrument sounds that are recorded, note by note, and then assigned to notes on a keyboard or other input device. I don’t play Chinese stringed instruments or Brazilian percussion, such as a berimbau, but I can “play” them virtually using a MIDI keyboard or guitar synthesizer.