American primitive guitar is a
fingerstyle guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...
music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...
, developed by the American guitarist
John Fahey in the late 1950s. While the term "American primitivism" has been used as a name for the genre, American primitive guitar is distinct from the
primitivism
Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate a "primitive" experience. It is also defined as a philosophical doctrine that considers "primitive" peoples as nobler than civilized peoples and was an o ...
art movement.
Development
John Fahey used the term "American primitive guitar" to describe the style of composition he developed in his releases from the 1950s onwards. Fahey employed traditional
country blues
Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...
fingerpicking
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of guitar picking, playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with ...
techniques, which had previously been used primarily to accompany vocals, on solo guitar, in combination with nontraditional harmonic and melodic material. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, other musicians would become associated with the genre, including
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke (born September 11, 1945) is an acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He overcame a series of personal obstacles, including parti ...
. The style is similar to some forms of
20th-century classical music
20th-century classical music describes art music that was written nominally from 1901 to 2000, inclusive. Musical style diverged during the 20th century as it never had previously. So this century was without a dominant style. Modernism, impressio ...
(particularly Minimalism), and the
classical music of India. Besides Fahey, other notable representatives of this genre include
Kottke Kottke may refer to:
* Leo Kottke - acoustic guitar player
* Jason Kottke - blogger
* Daniel Kottke
Daniel Kottke () is an American businessman known for being a college friend of Steve Jobs and one of the first employees of Apple Inc.
Early l ...
,
Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho (born Daniel R. Robinson, Jr., August 31, 1940 – February 28, 1986) was an American acoustic guitarist, pianist and singer.
Biography
Basho was born in Baltimore, and was orphaned as an infant. Adopted by the Robinson family, ...
, Bob Hadley and
Peter Lang,
who released recordings on Fahey's
Takoma Records
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s. label.
In recent years, some of the musicians of the genre have integrated
new-age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...
guitar techniques and have come to be broadly categorized into the
New Acoustic genre. Potentially because the new age guitarist
William Ackerman
William Ackerman (born November 16, 1949) is an American guitarist and record producer who founded Windham Hill Records.
Career Early years
Ackerman was born in Palo Alto, California. His adoptive father was a professor of English at Stanfor ...
cited Fahey, Basho, and Kottke as influences, critics began to associate Fahey with
new-age music
New-age is a genre of music intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation technique, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management to bring about a state of ecs ...
. Fahey himself rejected any influence upon or responsibility for the genre, referring to it derisively as "hot tub music" and feeling that any association with New Age meant that he had failed as an artist.
Peter Lang, a guitarist associated with the genre, described American primitive guitar, writing: ". . . The New Age people call it Folk; the Folk people call it New Age, but it is really neither. It's transitional. The style is derived from the country blues and string band music of the '20s and '30s, however much of the music is contemporary. Fahey referred to it as 'American Primitive' after the 'French
Primitive' painters, meaning untutored."
Artists within the genre
See also
*
New Acoustic Music
*
Folk baroque
Folk baroque or baroque guitar, is a distinctive and influential guitar fingerstyle developed in Britain in the 1960s, which combined elements of American folk, blues, jazz and ragtime with British folk music to produce a new and elaborate form o ...
References
External links
John Fahey and American Primitivism: Nick Schillace's Master's Thesis The Cosmos Club. American primitive guitar. Washington City Paper.
{{Folk music
20th-century music genres
American folk music