Stanley Jordan (July 31, 1959) is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist, best known for his development of the touch technique for playing guitar. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and he received a BA in digital music composition from Princeton University in 1981, studying under computer-music luminaries Paul Lansky and Milton Babbitt.
Normally, a guitarist must use two hands to play each note. One hand presses down a guitar string behind a chosen fret to prepare the note, and the other hand either plucks or strums the string to play that note. Jordan's touch technique is an advanced form of two-handed tapping. The guitarist produces a note using only one finger by quickly tapping (or hammering) his finger down behind the appropriate fret. The force of impact causes the string to vibrate enough to immediately sound the note, and Jordan executes tapping with both hands, and with more legato than is normally associated with guitar tapping. The note's volume can be controlled by varying the force of impact: tapping with greater force produces a louder note.
A helpful analogy to visualize this technique is the distinction between a harpsichord and a piano. A harpsichord produces sound by plucking its strings, and a piano produces sound by striking its strings with tiny hammers. However, while notes produced on a harpsichord or piano sustain after the hammer has struck or the pick has plucked, fingers must remain on a tapped note in order for the sound to continue. This similarity is what led Jordan to attempt such a technique in the first place; he was a classically trained pianist before playing guitar and wanted greater freedom in voicing chords on his guitar.
While the above analogy may have been Jordan's inspiration to employ a tapping technique, it is not a sound analogy. A piano's hammer leaves the string after hitting it, like a guitarist's pick would normally do. A more helpful analogy would be that of a clavichord; when a clavichord tangent (hammer) hits the string, it remains in contact with the string as long as the key is held, acting both like a guitar pick (the initiator of the sound) and a finger on a fret (becoming the clavichord's nut). The guitar tapping technique thus is almost identical to the method that clavichords have used for hundreds of years, with the guitarist's finger taking on the role of the tangent.
Jordan's two-handed tapping allows the guitarist to play melody and chords simultaneously. It is also possible, as Jordan has demonstrated, to play simultaneously on two different guitars. The technique generally requires a guitar with lower action and lighter-gauge strings. It is very difficult to use on a classical guitar, but possible on a steel string acoustic. The technique is the same as that employed by players of the Chapman Stick which was developed by Emmett Chapman in 1969, and later discovered by Jordan, independently.
Jimmie Webster is the earliest guitarist known to have tapped on strings seriously, but he didn't use the right-hand orientation used by Chapman and Jordan. Their approach allowed for full counterpoint with each hand as an equal element. Other guitarists have employed similar methods of playing at times, using the more conventional hand angles used by Webster: rock guitarists (though the emphasis tends to be on very fast lead guitar playing rather than polyphony) such as Steve Hackett, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Randy Rhoads, and Joe Satriani, and many acoustic guitarists following the lead of Michael Hedges and employing two-handed tapping to play rich, percussive pieces (Clive Carroll, Preston Reed, and Justin King are examples). Jazz-funk guitarist Charlie Hunter employs a similar technique using a custom-made 8-string guitar on which he simultaneously plays basslines, chords and melodies.
Another feature of Jordan's playing is the tuning he uses: from bass to treble EADGCF (all in fourths as on the Chapman Stick, compared with the standard EADGBE), so the patterns for chords are the same wherever they are played on the fretboard.
Stanley Jordan's main guitar was built by Vigier Guitars in 1982: it is an Arpege model on which Vigier made a flat fingerboard, allowing it to have a very low action (0.5/0.7mm). The low action facilitates the tapping technique.
Jordan was the first artist to be signed by Bruce Lundvall when the latter became president of Blue Note Records in 1985 and, consequently, Magic Touch was the first release (not reissue) of the rejuvenated label.
Personal Life
Jordan has one 24-year-old daughter from his brief marriage. Jordan's daughter, Julia Jordan, is a guitarist living in Los Angeles, California, and recently completed an album titled Urban Legacy. The album received very positive reviews in the DIY section of Performing Songwriter Magazine.
Stanley Jordan is currently a resident of Sedona, Arizona, where he owns Sedona Books and Music. He attends Arizona State University, working toward a master's degree in music therapy.
Discography
Touch Sensitive (1982) (As this album is not listed on Jordan's Web site, he may not consider it an official part of his recordings)
Magic Touch (1985)
Standards, Vol. 1 (1986)
Flying Home (1988)
Cornucopia (1990)
Stolen Moments (1991)
Bolero (1994)
The Best of Stanley Jordan (1995)
Stanley Jordan Live in New York (1998)
Relaxing Music for Difficult Situations, I (2003)
Ragas (2004)
Dreams of Peace (2004)
State of Nature (2008)
External links
StanleyJordan.com
Wilson & Alroy: Critical reviews of discography
Stanley Jordan at the Internet Movie Database
Stanley Jordan playing "Eleanor Rigby"
Stanley Jordan on the show Innovation
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 517/1000000
Post-expand include size: 5597/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 2137/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 2/500
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Jordan"
Categories: American jazz guitarists | African American guitarists | American buskers | Princeton University alumni | Arizona State University alumni | People from Sedona, Arizona | 1959 births | Living peopleHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since May 2007
Views
Article
Discussion
Edit this page
History
Personal tools
Log in / create account
if (window.isMSIE55) fixalpha();
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Search
Interaction
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact Wikipedia
Donate to Wikipedia
Help
Toolbox
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Printable version Permanent linkCite this page
Languages
Deutsch
Español
Français
Português
This page was last modified on 11 September 2008, at 13:55.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
if (window.runOnloadHook) runOnloadHook();
