They should release Fred Frith DLC for games like Guitar Hero, just to troll the fuck out of players.

One of the true living guitar greats . I have seen him many times. Anyone who doubts if he can "shred" listen to Henry Cow his group from 70s.. it is not a lack of chops that he plays this way .

Art is not technique. It is expression, it is passion.

I love these rare videos that somehow attract an audience with conventional tastes who are just so confused. Nothing odd about this, people, just music. Enjoy.

I randomly clicked on the link to this video, then opened up a new tab, just listening and not viewing. At first, I thought it was some guitar with alot of effects and editting added in with a computer. I was curious and open this video tab back up, only to see him making all of these sounds himself. Amazing. I think I just found one of my new favorite musicians.

Top 5 concerts I have ever been to. With him in Iceland. More than half of the people left. They just didn’t get it.

this is fucking brilliant

GENIUS. I love this so much.

tab pls?

probably one of the greatest living guitar players

Oh my god ! This is a complete genius ! Change change my life forever ! Love U !

ギター鳴らすのにルールはないけど FRED FRITHの哲学とかギター、楽器に対する考え方 これは尊重すべきもの。 もはやこれこそが、ミュージシャンにとって、 "ルール"の心理なのではないでしょうか。

How is it possible that I've come back to this video multiple times already? I'm enthralled.

I first saw this video 10 years ago , its still good

Fred Frith,le musicien qui fait tous les efforts possibles pour ne SURTOUT PAS se retrouver au Top 50 ..bien sûr le mieux c"est même d'IGNORER qu'un truc comme le Top 50 puisse exister..mais faut quand-même pas trop en demander...très très bel effort en tout cas..

Frith is a genius he is wideniuing the definitions of music as we know them ...openminding every time i hear something its innovative and astounding and brillant and not from this earth..

I have always admired the intense concentration on the moment in Fred's work.

Great performance! Happy Birthday, Fred!

he is such a lovely human being and gifted musicians with much more talent in one finger than others in whole..

well that was amazing, like autechre on the fly, on a guitar.

pure magic

This is literally the single best piece of music I have ever heard.

This is WONDERFUL! genius and madness simultaneously.

It's a shame people are so concerned on whether this is "music" or not, because it's just such FUN to hear the unexpected and interesting sounds he's making. If people had more FUN with music, maybe these stupid arguments would, you know, stop? Before this video, my only contact with Frith was Henry Cow. I'm now very interested on his solo work.

A lot of impovised music with treated guitar is pretty hard work. I find this piece very musical, beautiful and entertaining. I would love to hear more.

Thanks for posting this! One doesn't get many opportunities to SEE this kind of guitar playing in action.

Great clip! Beautifully captured!

Thank you Fred Frith!

Wow! This is Amazing I love it 😊 👍 👏 👍 👏 👍

In a darkened room you wouldn't know what you were listeniing to. Seeing him do this piece is everything.

his plaing guitar always shows new sight of music. i like his improvisation very much.

His playing blows my mind. Composition with non traditional guitar sounds is completely unheard of in western music. This is as impressive as Eddie Van Halen.

weird in all his greatness, this is fantastic, i just discovered so...

i did it! i cannot believe it! i have reached the end of the internet! goodnight and god bless!

holy shit! i didn't know someone could do that with a guitar.

Fred is always amazing!

Sticky hot room and Frith was on fire. I was at this gig. Was my first taste and I liked it. Mesmerising.

Just amazing: the mind, applied to an instrument, is so limitless.

i like the stuff of fred over the last 42 years. what is creativity?? .................................system-field-and...

@MokshaIS An additional pickup, so he can pick up noises and "notes" from both sides of a fretted string.

pangtjoff, the device near the headstock is an additional pickup mounted above the strings. Frith uses the pickup for fingertapping arppegio parts in other pieces, hes been using the same guitar for years.

Wtf with all these plebs crying about how "bad" this is, who brought them here and why...

great Fred !! super !!

He uses a custom guitar. The "device" behind the nut is actually an extra pick-up, an extraneous one held in an aluminum harness bolted onto the nut, that picks up notes and pitches that sound behind and on the nut. In many pieces of his, you can hear what sounds like a scale going up as another scale goes down, both sounding at the same time. This is because the pick-up on the headstock actually picks up a "reverse" scale of notes that sound behind the frets. It's a very interesting technique.

this is great - forget the flash, the slickness - this guy is all about THE SOUND. i'm a new fan

Wow! Just realized that you don't have to be a musician or have a technique to perform and make money! This man is genius!

Very fun performance by a very prolific and diverse guitarist!

Hate to frighten anyone who is stuck inside a "conventional box" but this man knows exactly what he is doing at all times, right down to the very micro-tone.

I still miss the music

This is genius...but I don't know how to describe it.

I've been waiting for Frith to play a conventional song since 1969. .really dug the Art Bears era. .

I KNOW so. You can find videos of him explaining his techniques and sounds. He definately knows what he's doing.

Great Music!

For some it might help to listen to how he developed before he got to this point, since he started off in the 60s. It seems that really getting into what an artist is about has more and more become a thing of the past, with all other options to choose from.

fantastic!

amazing. FRED FRITH, period. thank you so much for posting this.

Doing something out of conentional though is thinking outside of the box, but when that thinking is forced to be the exact opposite is not originality, but simply acting as a mirror, therefore, even if you're not doing what everyone else, you still depend on the action of the others to make your equal, exact opposite reaction.

Thank you for this great Vid............

1:21 - Thread Frith

could be... i find it hard to imagine with the things he does (like rubbing a ribbon up and down yr fretboard), that he ALWAYS KNOWS exactly what sound its going to make... once again i just discovered his music, as far as i know you ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT dont get me wrong i think its fantastic what he is doing and i will read about it first before i make remarks.. thanks for making me notice from one musiclover to another :-))

The perfect song to drive your neighbor nuts with

This is amazing.

While I couldn’t listen to this for hours I will easily admit that he has endless creative ideas, not just the sounds or noises but also how quick he is from one technique to another, as well as his timing or phrasing varies constantly....most guitarists trying this would quickly become repetitive and out of ideas....

magnifico

Love it Fred!

This is great....

Thanks gyantic 1, I will have a listen.

Today's flavor of English Avante... Creative genius. This is truly not easy to do. #OdedFriedGaon #OdedMusic #OdedTodaysAvantCorner #Audioded

will do, i find this all very fascinating

Genius.

Genius Music real ART-MUSIC I LOVE IT the respectfully greetings of me, Johan Capiau

Weird as hell and I kinda love it

Fred Frith does know exactly what he is doing at all times and is an iconoclastic guitar player in every sense. He is also a professor of music at Mills College. I have seen him play a few times and it is always very interesting and fun to watch. Those not familiar with him should check out his earlier work with his band Henry Cow.

Je l’ai vu fin des années 1980s à Colmar

brilliant!

YUJUUU!!!!! Fred Frith and Mike Patton on México UNAM next friday!!!

If he could get the guitar to play the drumstick, that would be amazing .

IS HE KILLING THAT GUITAR DADDY? Yes, son. Yes he is. Seriously though, if you can keep an open mind this is actually a very creative way to approach the instrument and makes for some interesting music. I'd listen to hours of this before I listened to five minutes of Lady Shergar or whatever her damn name is.

This guy is such fun - haven't laughed so much all year! A sort of Spike Milligan with an abused Gibson.

PIONEER.😀

well, that's not entirely true; i know. having done this, as well as actually playin' with the guy, it's partially an amazing set of ears & intuition, & knowing when things sound/feel right, that the piece is working. he has the mechanics down to a science, but it's the openness to letting things happen that creates the real magic. that explains why there are people, like arto, who can't play a lick to save his life, is capable of creating lasting art. fred just happens to ALSO be a real player.

This guy a GOD.

@adalaku Well i'm pretty sure this fall under the catagory of free improvisation. I do think he knows what he's doing, but the effects are not clear to him before he's performing. Still nice to watch though. Like a painter, painting a still life or something. Pretty cool

@qishmish the black thing is a pickup on the nut so it amplifies the notes between the nut and whatever is on the neck. So yes and no... I really don't know how he does it all I know is that it's fucking awesome

great stuff

Dobrze ze mam przy sobie tabletki.....

LOL- it's like they said "Our normal guitarist is sick! Can anyone play guitar?!" Then some drunk guy raised his hand in the audience and said "Yeah! I kin do that! How hard kin it beeee?"

they told me my uncle was crazy

i'll say this is very sounding very interesting, nice way to treat a guitar ;)

Anyone can look at the tomato piece and say "i could do that", the same definately does not go for the statue. I'm sure many people heard this and said to themselves "i could do this" and perhaps thats what the artist is going for, however the beauty in music lies in the ability for virtuosos to blow us away with their limitless prowess of the instruments they wield.

sadomazo!!))

This is a mindfuck

i want one of those youtube guitar teachers to explain this yeah

the rhythm in this is clear, harmony also. The melodies are subtle and scattered but are present. It´s like the Beethoven´s Fifth.

I couldn't agree more. Let's compare this to a marble statue versus a few tomatoes thrown at a canvas and named untitled. At least with the marble statue you can appreciate the work that went into it even if you are not a fan of the style or statues in general. Now you could argue that the tomato artist pondered forever as to where to throw the tomatoes, but if you can't tell the work that went into it then what does it matter?

🎶💫🎶

Cool guitar sounds man

The birth of guitar dubstep.

E ‘ il figlio nascosto del Maestro Bini!!

Now that's a REALLY CONSERVATIVE way of seeing art... of course you wouldn't understand a pollock's painting either. Now, beyond theory, lies something known as concept, which is something -i'm guessing- you may not have heard of. Obviously there's beauty and worth in a structured and more "palpable" work, something that, for example, can be transcribed to a partiture. But there's also enjoyment of art in other levels, which is what Frith tries to do. It's not about if you can do it or not.