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How do you like to get different sounds out of your guitar/bass/stringer instrument?

I like using a glass slide in a couple different ways:
-rocking it across the strings, like a see-saw, can get some really cool "plinky" sounds using the bridge pickup.
-rubbing it over a fret on the low string to get a nice drone (works best with gain + verb)

I also have a ring on my right hand that I like rubbing/hitting against the first string for some high pitched noises.
I need to get a hair tie that's tight enough to act as a mute.
& messing with magnets seems like it could be fun...

i like the Daevid Allen "glissando guitar" technique, which involves using a metallic object--often a phillips-head screwdriver--to bow notes out of the guitar's strings by rubbing the object across the string. this technique is perhaps most apparent in Gong's work on the jam out of "Oily Way" and the atmospherics on "A Sprinkling of Clouds," and has subsequently been used by everyone from Fred Frith to gybe! (the keening lead on "Deathkamp Drone"). this is particularly delightful with a looper, where you can build up whole choirs of singing treble drones. after going through several found objects i've settled on an old aluminum X-Acto knife handle which has a little texture to it so the friction brings the note out.

Pickup over the nut makes open strings really loud but gives anything fretted a fully wet reverb-kinda sound. I haven't tried muting the open strings with anything yet but they would go well together.
For noise wanking and whale sounds I turn the tone control down, wrap my thumb over the top 3 strings (to keep it from getting ultra muddy) and strum behind the bridge while fucking around with the vibrato arm. Smacking the back of the neck works too.
I've tried puttings things on or between the strings but it's always turns out kinda lame for me. I'd rather tune two strings to the same note but with one slightly off or somethin' like that.
You could always point TV remotes at the pickups or hold electronics in front of them. Don't do this with anything you definitely don't want magnet-fucked though.

Achtane wrote:... Don't do this with anything you definitely don't want magnet-fucked though.

TWSS

copying people isnt something you should strive for, but if you start by watching Keith Rowe, you are off to a great start:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnUVpiFHhmM[/youtube]

if you have a certain kind of 5 string bass, you can pinch the low B string, and press it between the two pickups, and it makes this nice staccato-y synth sound

I was using one of these for a while like an ebow, you just hold it horizontally and it spins and strikes the strings really fast. Sounds pretty cool.
And when you're not doing that you can use it to make milk frothy

if in the mood... whatever is in reach...