Trios Vs Quartets

I'm more of a fan of quartets personally. I think there is limited options with a trio. I'll take for instance two very popular "trios". Greenday, and the one that we can't mentioned. Both had/have other guitarist to cover the extra parts. If they really had four members this could have been avoided.

With four members, it is easy to designate a rhytm and lead guitarist. The sound becomes more full, and it takes a lot of pressure of the singer. Few regular players have the ability to play as well as they can while singing also.

I guess if a group would insist on three members, they could do some looping, similar to what K.T. Tunstall is commonly doing now, and layer the different guitar parts, but it's not really the same. More often then not there is a great vibe between two guitarist and power trios just seem to lack that.

It depends on the instrumentation. In general, with a small band your playing will be pretty simple, get more complex as you add an instrument or two, and then get simple again as the size of the act grows.

In a trio, you're the only guitar. Typical trios in rock are guitar/bass/drums. Solos tend to be more rhythmic, less busy, and stick more closely to the primary scale (or there may be no solo at all!) - listen to Cream, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin (instrumentally a trio), The Who (same deal), Nirvana etc. for how this is done. Or go all the way back to the old school stuff, like Buddy Holly's trio. Hendrix' trio is a classic example - most of his solo playing is extremely rhythmic.

In a quartet, or a guitar/keyboard/drums trio, the guitarist can step out a lot more, because there's a harmonic backdrop. Using stuff like altered scales really points out the differences when the inherent harmony is still sounding - listen to bands like Rush or ELP to see how it's possible to step out against the background.

As the size of a group grows, you do less and less. I play with a 7piece right now, and on some tunes I'll play as few as two notes in a rhythmic pattern. Everybody's lines get simpler, but the result can sound really complex because of all the layered instruments. On those tunes where there's a big solo guitar part, the other musicians are reduced to just a couple of notes - we sort of take turns.

Don't mean to sink your ship Noteboat (pun intended), but isn't Rush a trio?? Although in the studio you can play rhythm and lead with just one guitarist.

Rush, instrumentally, is a quartet.

You have a drum, guitar, bass and keyboard.

Yes, the bass player also plays the keyboard, but let's face it, with Midi that isn't much of a trick anymore (though a few years back it certainly was).

I didn't say they were a quartet - I said "In a quartet, or a guitar/keyboard/drums trio". Rush is a guitar/keyboard/drums trio, that does some tunes as a guitar/bass/drums trio.

ELP isn't a quartet either - I didn't give specific examples of quartets, since there are so many of them. But trios that have keyboard work act more like quartets for the guitar parts, since you have a full harmony to play against.

Vic and I were talking way way way back in the day about being a guitarist/singer in trios and quartets. So I had a few questions about it. How do the roles of a guitarist/vocalist in a trio and a guitarist/vocalist differ? Is one harder than the other?

Speaking from experience, in a trio everyone needs to work harder to keep things interesting - you can't just bash power chords and thump the root note on the bass and expect to keep an audiences interest for long. Even The Band That Must Not Be Named has some pretty interesting things going on in the bass and guitar parts, as will most "power trio" type groups
Are their advantages to being in a trio or quartet?

Sure are! Bigger cut of the loot at the end of the night with a trio, less work with a quartet :lol:
And, how do you do that playing a scale over a chord progression with a single guitarist in a band?

Mostly you don't. That's where the bass player works harder - to keep a bass line going that implies the harmonic motion you need to solo over. That's where you work harder as a guitarist - chord melodies, double stops, anything that implies more harmonic content than aweedely weedly wank. Playing in a trio also drives home the lesson that silence can be an incredibly effective tool in your musical arsenal

Well, no harm meant, I was just wondering.

I have been in trios where I played guitar and did most of the singing, I have been in quartets where I mostly played guitar and sang backup, and now I am in a quartet where I play mostly rhythm and do all the singing.

I actually like the simple trio. You can get such a clear defined sound. The more instruments you have, the mushier the music becomes. As a singer/guitarist in a trio you have a lot of work to do. You have to play good rhythm while you sing and then play the solo without a rhythm guitar backing you. But I love the sound of a lead guitar against bass and drums.

In a trio the music is pretty simple. You cannot play every guitar in a cover with 20 guitar overdubs. So you have to pick the guitar part that is most important to the song.

Playing guitar only in a quartet was pretty easy. I mostly played lead, even during verses of songs. Two guitars playing rhythm at once can also get muddy. So while the other guitarist strummed chords, I tended to play a bass line, or very simple little riffs. You can play inversions of the chords the other guitarist is playing. You can arpeggio pick chords while the other guitarist strums. You have to experiment to find what works best.

You want to keep everything down during the verses. Let the singer sing and be heard. On the chorus you kick it up, go into distortion and get louder. And lead solos you get a little louder still.

What I am doing now is kinda inbetween those two. I mostly play chords for rhythm. You gotta keep it kinda simple so that you can concentrate on the singing. On some songs I do not play guitar at all, just sing. I like this in that I can really concentrate on the vocals and sing well.

So, a trio sounds very basic, but it is easier to get a good mix. A quartet is much fuller and allows you much greater expression, but it is much more difficult to get a good mix.