Ok, I was watching MTV(ahem)Vh1 and I noticed Santana making dramatic and pronounced facial movements with every wail from his guitar. But now, I notice almost all musicians do it, what is this?
In some societies, this is known as “getting your groove on”
Why do they do this? I would suggest that this is a learned behavior. You might start playing the guitar without any pronounced grimaces or whatever, then one day you do something like that and the crowd responds better to the music, because they think you are more into it. So you subconsciously train yourself to grimace like a madman because it helps pump up the crowd? I dunno, this is shaky.
I’ve seen Pat Metheny in concert a few times, and he is the king of the odd facial expression. He’s like a facial contortionist.
That’s where I got my theory, “If you look cool, you’re not paying attention to what you’re playing.”
I think it’s just the way some people’s reaction to doing something that’s totally absorbing to them. Guitar playing is a visceral, emotional, overwhelming experience when you’re into it. Try looking cool the next time you have an orgasm, and you’ll understand a bit more.
You’re about dead on here, mrvisible. I’m married to a guitar player who makes those weird faces from time to time, and this is pretty much what he said when I asked him about it several years ago, even down to what you said about the orgasm.
The way he’s explained it to me is that when you really, really get in to it, you sort of “become one” with the music and the instrument, and they take over. He’s told me that on those nights when he’s really, really on, he’s sometimes reached a point where all he can see is a huge white wall. I’ve seen him play when he’s like that, and it’s obvious when he’s hit that point. It’s amazing. And when he’s done, the look on his face is quite similar to the one after we’ve, well, you know. 
I’m an amature musician and often come under flack for the faces that I make while playing guitar. Even when I don’t want to make them I end up doing so, or get so distracted be the not-doing that I can’t play. You’ve got all this tension in your body from the fingering and nothing to do with it above the neck, so that’s how it manefests itself.
I married into a family of classical musicians. They’re all string players, aside from one renegade floutist that my brother in law married somehow.
They all get…this…look. Same deal, perhaps not so orgasmic- but they do have facial contortions that mimic the emotional content of the music. And, my 9 year old daughter is starting to show that as well. I think it’s almost all learned, but- not quite all learned. As one lets go, and really starts to groove, one gives one’s body over to it.
Cartooniverse
As a guitarist and a lyricist I could tell you.
…but then i’d have to kill you.
For the same reasons Joe Cocker makes all those odd faces when he’s singing.
Heh, I’m really bad when I am using a wah effect - I move my mouth to go along with the open/closed position of the pedal, I can’t help it.
Oh great, we are once again obliged to link to the guitar face website…
That was one of the things I always loved about the Greatful Dead…he could be playing the most amazing things, but Jerry Garcia always had an expression on his face like he was sitting in a traffic jam on the Long Island Expressway. Would’ve hated to play poker with the guy.
How could you tell he wasn’t making a face under all that bushy facial hair? IIRC from one of their videos, he had the eyebrow thing going during the bridge.
Ah, he was just winking at one of the fifteen-year-old girls down there twirling in the audience.
One of those ones with the long curly hair and the peaches-and-cream complexion that you just know if they lifted up the hem of their peasant skirts that bluebirds would fly out from underneath.
Phew. Been too long since my last Dead show…
Some of us guitarists may be doing it for telegenic showbiz value, but most of us do it because we’re doing something expressive and emotive and (maybe) technically ambitious, and facial expressions just come along with the ride. I know that when I’m deep into multi-track heaven, and focusing on a lead guitar part, I make faces all the time - think of the face as an ECG of the emotion behind the music.
Not all plank spankers do the face thing. The ‘cool technician’ types do it very little if at all - Brian May comes to mind. (Great guitarist, IMHO, even though I’m not a Queen fan.)
And plenty of other musicians DO do it. You could probably construct some sort of scaled chart for musicians’ facial contortions, with ‘Jim Carrey Demented Gurning Zone’ at one end and ‘Buster Keaton fan club’ at the other. I’d guess heavy metal stunt guitar heroes and jazz sax players would tie up most of the JCDGZ end, with the BKFC end of the scale largely taken up by third violinists in German symphony orchestras playing very slow, formal pieces.
[putting my guitar aside for the moment…]
What face?
I wouldn’t know about any faces, I don’t make them, I concentrate too much when I play Bass, but I can tell you one thing, when I pick up a guitar and play, I make faces from the intense concentration it takes to hit the right notes during a solo…
but I think Angus does it to stir up the crowds :)I’m the guitar apprentice of DB the genius, and whenever I ask him a question while he’s playing any kind of blues, he sometimes shakes his head slowly. It always seems as if he tellin me ‘no, no, no,’ etc.
I make a face, too, or at least he tells me that. i don’t realize it, and i don’t know what it looks like. I gotta go practice in front of a mirror…