Michael Hedges

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Michael Hedges (born December 31, 1953 in Enid (Oklahoma) , † December 2, 1997 in Mendocino County ) was an American musician. He became known in the early 1980s for playing the steel-string guitar . Several guitarists consider Hedges an important inspiration for their own work.

Life

Michael Hedges was born in 1953 in Enid, Oklahoma, to Thayne and Ruth Hedges. The family of six lived in the McCristy-Knox Mansion in Enid during the 1960s and 1970s. His father was a professor of speech therapy at Phillips University in Enid. Michael Hedges came into contact with music at an early age: his father played the piccolo , his mother the cornet . During his school education he learned various instruments ( piano , clarinet , cello and guitar ). At 14, Hedges formed his first band and played in the school orchestra at Enid High School. He went to university once a week to deepen his knowledge of music theory. There he met his future mentor, the composer EJ Ulrich, who had a great influence on his further musical work.

After graduating from high school, Hedges won a scholarship to attend Stan Kenton Jazz Camp and then attended the eight-week National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan . A short time later he enrolled at Phillips University in Enid to study transverse flute . He began to compose his own pieces and played in various band projects. These activities consumed more and more time and came into conflict with his studies. After two years, Hedges left the graduate program and took private lessons with Ulrich. During this time he regularly attended the National Music Camp in Interlochen.

In 1976 he applied to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore to study classical guitar and took courses in modern composition. Hedges began performing in the local bars two or three nights a week. During his main studies, he switched from guitar to electronic music. After graduating, Hedges applied for a place in the postgraduate program at Peabody Conservatory, but was not accepted there due to his hippie lifestyle and appearance. Hedges moved to Palo Alto , California in 1980 and took a computer music course at Stanford University .

In Palo Alto, Hedges appeared regularly at the New Varsity Theater. There the co-founder of the Windham Hill record label, Will Ackerman, heard him and immediately hired him by writing a contract on a napkin and having him signed.

In 1981 Hedges moved to San Francisco and married his girlfriend Mindy Rosenfeld. In the same year he released his first album Breakfast In The Field . In 1984 his son Mischa was born, and Hedges released his second album, Aerial Boundaries .

Since 1985 Hedges lived in Mendocino , California. This is where his son Jasper was born, and over the next few years he built his own studio here, the Naked Ear Music Studio. This year Hedges toured for the first time with Leo Kottke . In 1986 and 1987 his next two albums, Watching My Life Go By and Live On The Double Planet were released . In 1988 Hedges toured the United States again with Leo Kottke. In 1990 his fifth album Taproot was released .

Hedges was already well known at the time, his face appeared on the covers of guitar magazines. He had won the American magazine Guitar Player's readers' award five times in a row . He started looking for new ways. Since 1992, Hedges' studies of Qigong with Master Paulie Zink led him to study various aspects of Eastern philosophy and spirituality. These studies led him to the work of Sogyal Rinpoche , The Tibetan Book of Life and Death , which is based on the teachings of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and exerted a great influence on him. He studied yoga techniques and changed his diet. He divorced his wife Mindy.

The sixth album The Road To Return was released in 1994 and was completely self-produced. Two years later he released his seventh album, Oracle .

In early December 1997, Michael Hedges died at the age of 43 in a car accident on California State Route 128 in Mendocino County, west of Fish Rock Road near Boonville (about 100 miles northwest of San Francisco). He was on his way home from San Francisco International Airport , after flying in from a visit to his girlfriend in Long Island , New York. His 1986 BMW had been carried out of the curve in a wet S-bend, possibly it was driving too fast and the tires were worn out. The car tumbled down the 40-meter-deep embankment, Michael Hedges was thrown out of his car and was apparently dead immediately. His body was only discovered by road workers after a day or two on December 2nd.

His last album, Torched , was released posthumously in 1999.

Publications

His first release Breakfast In The Field (1981) was a purely instrumental album. Here are many of the characteristics that make Hedges so unique as a guitarist and composer. Already on this first album, the bassist Michael Manring played a role, who also appeared on many later Michael Hedges records.

The second, Grammy-nominated album, Aerial Boundaries , was released in 1984 and can be described as a milestone in the field of acoustic guitar. The tone, technique, compositional finesse and dynamic range of the compositions on this recording were revolutionary. Here you can find Hedges classics such as Aerial Boundaries , Bensusan , Ragamuffin , Rickover's Dream and the ode to the IBM typewriter, Hot Type . The piece Spare Change is a composition recorded in the Peabody Electronic Music Studio (Baltimore), in which Hedges impressively combines guitars recorded forwards and backwards.

In 1986 his third album Watching My Life Go By was released . With the participation of Michael Manring as well as Hilleary Burgess , John Hanes and Bobby McFerrin , this was a vocal-oriented album. It presented an aspect of his musicality that was strongly evident in his live concerts. With his own voice and his typical style of playing, his cover versions allowed new perspectives on well-known songs. Here on Watching My Life Go By this was about the song All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan . Above all, however, this album showed his singer-songwriter qualities, for example with the songs Face Yourself , Watching My Life Go By and The Streamlined Man .

The fourth album Live On The Double Planet , released in 1987, combined tracks that were put together from live recordings of around 40 concerts in Canada and the USA. This album also followed in parts the same path as the previous one. Around half of the titles are vocal pieces, original compositions such as Ready or Not or Cover, such as Come Together by the Beatles or A Love Bizarre by Sheila E. and Prince . In addition to the vocal pieces, there are also some instrumental pieces on the album, mostly pieces from his first album. Because It's There , a piece on the guitar harp and Rikki's Shuffle , a duet with Michael Manring , were published here for the first time .

The fifth album Taproot was released in 1990. Also nominated for a Grammy, the album has a mystical, dense atmosphere. Hedges called it an "autobiographical myth", composed after events and people in his life. The pieces are almost all instrumental and with a larger cast: Michael Manring on bass, Michael Moore on clarinet and saxophone, Bryan Lanser on drums. David Crosby and Graham Nash sing in the background on the album's only vocal piece, I carry your heart , with lyrics by EE Cummings . But the solo guitar also has a new reputation. The piece Rootwitch consists only of tapped and slapped notes, and Ritual Dance is a wild, karate moderate pick -Stück.

His next, fully self-produced sixth album, The Road To Return, from 1994 has a more pop-oriented sound. Percussion and synthesizer appear as accompaniment to almost exclusively originally composed vocal pieces. The two instrumental pieces on the album are fully orchestrated, there was not a single solo guitar piece. With this album Hedges shocked the guitar aficionados . In doing so, however, he consistently pursued his path, as he did not want to be reduced to just the guitar. More than ever it was the lyrics of his songs that mattered, the instrumental music stepped back a little to enable a unity.

Oracle was released in 1996 as the seventh album . Oracle was again a solo acoustic album, only with Michael Manring on bass. Except for a Beatles cover, there were again a lot of pure guitar pieces, from the almost classic Baal T'suvah to the groovy Jitterbogie . An exemplary piece for his ability to arrange pieces by other artists for the guitar is Sofa # 1 by Frank Zappa , which he was able to play for him shortly before his death. The album posthumously won a Grammy for Best New Age Album in 1998.

While working for Oracle , he was already working on his next album. It should be a mix of instrumentals and vocal pieces. He had had the layout of the album in mind for a long time. His last album, Torched , was released in 1999, almost two years after his death, based on existing material. It shows the long-planned mix of instrumentals and vocal pieces. In addition to classic Hedges guitar pieces such as Java Man , Fusion of the Five Elements or Arrowhead , typical songs such as Shell Shock Venus , Free Swinging Soul and Rough Wind in Oklahoma (with David Crosby and Graham Nash) are represented on the CD.

Since then, various compilations have come out, making various selections of Hedges' music. The focus is certainly on the instrumental solo guitar, but some of his vocal pieces have also been republished.

Musical influences and background

Hedges possessed a solid classical playing technique and applied his classical skills in combination with various unusual techniques to the steel string guitar. He covered a wide range of musical styles and was known as a very dynamic player in concerts. Typical of his pieces is the almost exclusive use of open , often rather dissonant moods. Of the approximately 150 known pieces, only two are in standard tuning.

Hedges was influenced by many contemporary players, the most important of which were Leo Kottke, Michael Gulezian , Pat Metheny , Pat Martino , Ralph Towner , Ian Anderson , Joni Mitchell , Todd Rundgren , David Crosby, Martin Carthy , John Martyn and the Beatles. Classical composers such as Stravinsky , Varèse , Webern and Reich as well as composers of experimental music such as Morton Feldman also had a major influence on his compositions . Some sources attribute a central influence on Hedge's game to Fernando Sor . Many of Sor's pieces deal with overlapping voices and the duration of notes, a central theme for Hedges in terms of both composition and playing technique.

He saw himself as a guitar-playing composer rather than a composing guitarist. Because of his association with the Windham Hill label, he was often referred to as a "New Age musician". He himself described his music as “Heavy Mental”, “New Edge”, “Thrash Acoustic”, “Deep Tissue Gladiator Guitar” or “Savage Myth Guitar”.

Playing technique

Hedges was believed to be left-handed , but played the guitar like a right-handed. In addition to the guitar, he played the piano, various percussion instruments, tin whistle , harmonica and flute.

A trademark of Hedges' style are the rhythmic percussive elements that he created by striking the guitar body or the strings including the fingerboard. In addition, the right hand was used to generate tones ("right hand tapping") and the left hand was used to strike notes or entire chords without plucking with the right hand, by hammering and tapping the tones with his fingers ("hammer -on "," pull-off "). For this purpose, he reached in some pieces with one or both hands over the guitar neck from above. Another characteristic is the frequent use of flageolets - plucked, struck ("slap harmonics") or combined with other elements. Finally, typical of his pieces is the care that Hedges applied to the duration of notes and rests. He used all these stylistic elements in combination with the techniques derived from his classical training such as tremolo , apoyando and rasgueado , which are not referred to as such in the transcriptions of his music.

Hedges was obsessed with sound engineering down to the last detail. His total control over a sound check was legendary. He knew in his head the frequency of every note on the fretboard. So if there was a problem with the sound, he would hear the problematic note, know its frequency, and fix the problem by weakening or amplifying that frequency.

Instruments and technical equipment

In addition to various six-string guitars, Hedges played guitar variants such as the harp guitar , which gave him the opportunity to expand the pitch range with its additional bass strings. For some pieces he used the trans-trem guitar, which was equipped with a special tremolo system, which allows the pitch of all strings to be changed at the same time without the individual strings becoming out of tune with one another.

He used a 3D piezoelectric transducer pickup for the middle and higher frequencies of the guitar signal and a magnetic pickup for the lower frequencies. He did not try to set the individual signals optimally, but looked at the overall signal. The transducer in particular only produced a thin, rough tone on its own. The network of signals, however, was full and lively. He was also innovative in other areas, such as signal transmission to the amplifier system. He used a radio system, which, however, bothered him in the classic position on the back of his belt, as he regularly moved a lot. So he constructed a kind of helmet from a row of lettuce, to which he attached the system. Later, when more modern systems were no longer so heavy, he attached them to a hat.

Hedges regularly used the following guitars:

  • Martin D-28 , built in 1971, nicknamed "Barbara" because she was so often in bars with him, equipped with Sunrise S-1 magnetic pickup / FRAP contact pickup for the treble strings
  • Custom Takamine , built in 1980, with his name on the headstock
  • Lowden L-250
  • Martin J-65M
  • Dyer Harp-Guitar, built in 1920, picked up using a FRAP / autoharp pickup combination, reconfigured with Sunrise S-1 and two Barcus-Berry magnetic pickups for the deep bass strings, glued directly to the body
  • Steve Klein, electric harp guitar with trans-trem system
  • black Dyer harp guitar, picked up via a FRAP / autoharp pickup combination - and a rattlesnake tail that was clamped on the headstock under the low bass strings

Discography

Compiled from the sources

solo

  • 1981 Breakfast In The Field , with Michael Manring, George Winston (Windham Hill)
  • 1984 Aerial Boundaries , with Michael Manring, Mindy Rosenfeld Hedges (Windham Hill)
  • 1986 Watching My Life Go By , with Hilleary Burgess, John Hanes, Michael Manring, Bobby McFerrin (Open Air)
  • 1987 Live On The Double Planet , with Michael Manring (Windham Hill)
  • 1990 Taproot , with David Crosby, Bryan Lanser, Michael Manring, Michael Moore, Graham Nash (Windham Hill)
  • 1994 The Road To Return , with Pipa Pinon, Janeen Rae Heller (High Street)
  • 1996 Oracle , with Michael Manring (Windham Hill)
  • 1999 Torched , with Michael Manring (Windham Hill)

Compilations

  • 1982 An Evening with Windham Hill Live (Windham Hill)
  • 1982 Various Artists Windham Hill Sampler '82 (Windham Hill)
  • 1985 Various Artists Windham Hill Sampler '84 (Windham Hill)
  • 1985 Windham Hill: Water's Path (Windham Hill)
  • 1986 The Shape of the Land (Windham Hill)
  • 1988 A Winter's Solstice II (Windham Hill)
  • 1988 Various Artists Windham Hill Sampler '88 (Windham Hill)
  • 1990 Various Artists Windham Hill: The First Ten Years (Windham Hill)
  • 1990 A Winter's Solstice III (Windham Hill)
  • 1990 Various Artists Restore the Shore
  • 1991 Various Artists Windham Hill Records Guitar (Windham Hill)
  • 1991 Windham Hill Guitar Sampler II (Windham Hill)
  • 1993 Strings of Steel (Windham Hill)
  • 1995 Mike Mainieri - Come Together: Guitar Tribute to the Beatles
  • 1996 Sanctuary: 20 Years of Windham Hill (Windham Hill)
  • 1996 Carols of Christmas (Windham Hill)
  • 1997 Various Artists Sanctuary: 20 Years of Windham Hill (Windham Hill)
  • 1997 Various Artists Redbook Relaxers: Between Friends
  • 1997 Various Artists Redbook Relaxers: Dinner Party
  • 1997 Various Artists Redbook Relaxers: Lullabies
  • 1997 A Winter's Solstice VI (Windham Hill)
  • 1997 Summer Solstice (Windham Hill)
  • 1997 Various Artists Candlelight Moments: Dreamscape
  • 1998 Sounds of Wood and Steel (Windham Hill)
  • 1998 The Renaissance Album (Windham Hill)
  • 1998 Various Artists Yoga Zone: Music for Yoga Practice
  • 1999 Here, There and Everywhere: The Songs of the Beatles (Windham Hill)
  • 1999 Winter Solstice on Ice (Windham Hill)
  • 1999 Various Artists Live Two
  • 2000 Windham Hill Classics: Romance (Windham Hill)
  • 2000 Windham Hill Classics: Harvest (Windham Hill)
  • 2000 The Best Of Michael Hedges (Windham Hill)
  • 2001 Touch 25 Years of Guitar on Windham Hill (Windham Hill)
  • 2001 Beyond Boundaries: Guitar Solos (Windham Hill)
  • 2003 Platinum & Gold Collection (RCA Victor)
  • 2006 Pure Michael Hedges (RCA)

Guest appearances

Videos

  • 1986 Windham Hill in Concert (video)
  • 1988 Home & Away Video ( Leo Kottke , video)
  • 1999 The Artist's Profile Michael Hedges (video)

Others

  • 1986 Santabear's First Christmas (soundtrack)
  • 1994 Princess Scargo & The Birthday Pumpkin (soundtrack)

literature

  • New Age Musicians: From the Pages of Guitar Player, Keyboard, and Frets Magazines (1989). Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, ISBN 978-0-88188-909-3
  • Secrets from the Masters (1992). GPI Publications, ISBN 978-0-87930-260-3
  • Rhythm, Sonority, Silence . Michael Hedges & John Stropes (1995). Stropes ed., Racine WI. ISBN 0-9608512-1-6
  • Guitar Revolution: Lessons from the Groundbreakers and Innovators . Jesse Gress (2005). Backbeat Books, ISBN 978-0-87930-868-1

swell

Most of the information in this article is taken from Michael Hedges & John Stropes (1995) and www.nomadland.com; the following sources are also cited:

  1. ↑ a b Michael Hedges biography on Musicianguide (en.) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  2. ↑ A Moment In Time. Article on Enid Buzz Blog, August 6, 2007 ( January 6, 2009 memento on the Internet Archive ). Retrieved June 9, 2008
  3. ↑ a b c d e Michael Hedges biography on Nomadland (en.) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  4. ↑ a b Remembering Michael Hedges (en.) ( Memento of March 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved November 4, 2007
  5. ↑ a b c Press article from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, December 5, 1997, on the death of Michael Hedges (en.) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  6. ↑ a b Savage mythology by Anil Prasad at Innerviews (en.) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  7. ^ Obituary for Michael Hedges (en.) Retrieved November 4, 2007
  8. ↑ Interview with Michael Hedges on October 10, 1995 (en.) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  9. ↑ Michael Hedges guitar tunings, compiled by John Stropes. Retrieved November 4, 2007
  10. ↑ Multi-part video on Youtube in which you can see him writing with his left hand. See also the comments on it. Retrieved November 4, 2007
  11. ↑ a b Michael Hedges , obituary by John Stropes (en., PDF 53 kB) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  12. ↑ Michael Hedges stage guitars (en.) . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  13. ↑ Michael Hedges discography at Nomadland . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  14. ^ Discography, Phil Brodie Band . Retrieved November 4, 2007
  15. ↑ The Elusive Randy Bernsen album from the Nomadland discography ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved November 4, 2007

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hedges, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Enid, Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 1997
Place of death Mendocino County