Suggested by the Fleetwood Mac/Lindsay Buckingham thread over here: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=886795
Who are some musicians who are known for doing three or more things at once?
As mentioned in the cited thread:
Lindsay Buckingham - rhythm, lead, vocals
Richard Thompson - rhythm, lead, vocals
Geddy Lee - bass, vocals, synth (pedals)
Who else?
Also, I’m not sure that the Thompson and Buckingham examples cited above qualify. They’re playing the guitar and singing. That’s two things.
By that logic, a keyboard player playing a six-voice fugue is doing six things at once, although playing only one piece of music on one instrument.
I’m curious to hear from guitar players and/or music experts:
Does what these guitarists do really count as doing two things at once?
Is it particularly special, difficult, or unusual?
Is it comparable to what a drummer does who keeps time while also adding fills and ornamentation?
Or to a keyboard player who plays more than one voice in a polyphonic piece of music, or plays a melody with one hand and the accompanying harmony and/or rhythm with the other?
Does George Martin count? Not only did he produce almost every Beatles’ song, but he also wrote the string accompaniments for songs like Eleanor Rigby and Yesterday, plus he actually played on some songs, like the harpsichord-like piano solo on In My Life.
Ray Manzerik played bass with one hand and lead/rhythm on the organ with the other hand, and sang back-up vocals at the same time. Or in some cases had to sing lead when Jim was too fucking drunk to do it.
Manzarek was actually the first person who came to my mind. However, he was simply playing a bass line on a separate Rhodes piano bass, just as many musicians play two separate keyboards simultaneously. It was more notable at the time because The Doors were one of the first groups to do this. It’s much easier than playing a church organ using your feet to do basically the same thing.
No (in my opinion, of course).
It can be difficult, sure. Listen to Tuck Andress play a pretty simple tune (Jingle Bells). That ain’t easy.
On the other hand, your basic Merle Travis-style bass and melody picking isn’t that hard (not that Merle wasn’t a brilliant player). I can do it, and I’m a lazy amateur.
So it’s not unusual. In fact, if a guitarist is doing anything more than strumming simple chords, he/she is pretty much going to be playing multiple “parts.” It’s kind of the whole point of playing a polyphonic instrument.
That sounds like a different style to me. More like Joe Pass.
That’s more like what a guitar player playing multiple parts is doing. Hereis a three-voice fugue played on one instrument, by one pianist.
Being Awesome. Four things.
Bob Dylan: guitar, harmonica and vocals. Okay, harmonica and vocals aren’t done exactly at the same time, but he alternates between them in the same song.
And there’s this guy.
A guitarist who can play rhythm guitar, play lead, and sing, in the same song, is pretty impressive. Listen to this live recording of Rory Gallagher playing Shinkicker. There’s only ONE guitar in that song. Not many people can pull that off.
To me, that doesn’t seem that crazy. I mean, in a power trio (or duo like the White Stripes or Black Keys or whatnot) context, that’s pretty much what the guitarist often does: rhythm, lead, and vocals. Or in the case of a band like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the keyboardist will do vocals, “rhythm” keys, and lead keys (though they don’t separate them as separate roles for keyboardists.) Or just look at any of a gazillion blues guitarists who will do rhythm, lead, and vocals as well. I’m not saying it’s necessarily easy, but I don’t see it as unusual.
An inspired choice. He’s the only one who literally plays three instruments at once.
There are many multi-instrumentalists who play three instruments in the studio. Traffic had Steve Winwood (organ, guitar, and vocals), Chris Wood (saxophone, flute, organ), Dave Mason (guitar, mellotron, sitar, tambura, harmonica, percussion, bass guitar, vocals), and Jim Capaldi, if you count percussion separate from drums.
Ian McDonald played saxophone, flute, keyboards, guitar, clarinet, and did occasional vocals.
Yeah, when I read the thread title, I thought of one man bands. Specifically Hasil Adkins and Bob Log III. Both are playing guitar, singing, and playing drums at the same time. Hasil started doing it because he honestly thought that other records were made with one person playing all the parts at one time, so that’s the way he made his at home. Bob started playing drums with his feet when Thermos quit Doo Rag, turning him into a solo act. They both rule.
Groundskepper Willie. He does FOUR things simultaneously, he’s also dancing ;).
I’ve seen Kathryn Calder of The New Pornographers do the Manzarek-style bass line and synth chords while singing with her old band, Immaculate Machine. (Of course, nowadays it’s one physical keyboard with split tones.)
Would what Thom Yorke’s doing here in this acoustic performance of “Airbag” at Coachella 2010 count? Or am I making more of it than I should because he’s playing what’s normally a guitar and a string-ish synth at the same time?
When I read the thread title I was thinking of musicians who are members of three or more different bands at once, or are otherwise part of three different projects at the same time. Like Chris Thile – A member of Nickle Creek, and the Punch Brothers, and hosts Live From Here (formerly A Prairie Home Companion).
I would say it’s not uncommon for a good musician to play multiple instruments at a respectable level.
One of my favorites, though, is Howard Levy who can play simultaneously diatonic (10-hole) harmonica at a virtuoso level (he is one of the greats of the instruments and popularized, if not quite pioneered, various techniques like overblowing and overdrawing) and jazz piano at a highly competent level, as well. Here’s an example.
What I also really love to watch is really good church organists, who can play independent parts in their left hand, right hand, feet, sometimes while singing. I play piano, so left and right hand together isn’t too tough for me. Adding in feet isn’t bad if I’m just playing roots and stuff like that, but add any sort of moving counterpoint, and, man, it’s tough keeping all the parts straight at the same time.
And fellow harmonica virtuoso Toots Theilmans was a pretty decent guitarist, too. And he could whistle!
If building a song live with loop effects counts, KT Tunstall.
Emmit Rhodes did a couple of albums playing all the instruments himself, following in the footsteps of Paul McCartney, who had done the same for his first self-titled album. Rhodes also wrote all the songs and recorded and mixed his album in his own studio.
I play acoustic guitar, unaccompanied, and I don’t do much straight strumming of chords; I primarily do the ragtime/Travis picking style, and sometimes Carter-style picking. So I’m usually playing rhythm and melody parts simultaneously on one guitar.
I don’t consider these styles to be two separate instruments, but they were a little harder to learn than strumming chords, and took some time. It’s less common than it used to be, so I sometimes get surprised reactions. I played an audition once where I was asked why didn’t I just loop my parts.
I also sing and play harmonica, while playing guitar. So depending on how one defines ‘simultaneously’, I can do two or three things: you can’t very well sing and play harmonica literally simultaneously. But if you count the number of things that I do over the course of a single song, it’s three (like Dylan, as someone noted above).