Mr. Greenwood, you’re considered one of this generation’s greatest guitarists. Is the guitar still an exciting instrument to you, even after decades of playing it?
Well, I’m an instrument fan, really, more than a guitar fan. I’m conscious that playing the guitar is a very old-fashioned thing to do, it’s been 70 or 80 years of the guitar… They’re just the traditional instrument now, they’re on a par with violins and accordions and whatever else. There’s no rebellion in them or anything — which is fine, but you know, there are city brokers buying guitars and putting them on their walls. The faster it loses its image, the better for me.
Why is that?
Because I try to think of instruments in terms of the color of their sound rather than the connotations they have. If people hear a pedal style guitar, they’re going to instantly think of Country or Western, which frustrates me, because I just want to think of it in terms of the sound it makes and what it does to your emotions. When I look at a guitar, it’s an iconic thing that’s been played for decades, but more importantly, it’s just wires strung across these pickups and a physical piece of wood. That’s all. And thinking about instruments in that way is helpful to me so that there’s always new things to do with old instruments.
“I often say that all technology, whether it’s a drum or the latest laptop, it’s all just ideas that people had for making sound, and I’m very enthusiastic about all of them.”
You’re particularly adept at finding them. I’m thinking of the famed performance of Radiohead’s “Burn the Witch,” for example, where you played the guitar with a cello bow.
It’s sort of a cross fertilization, isn’t it? I can nearly play a cello in tune, so it’s kind of working within your limitations as well. I’ve also played the cello like a banjo for the soundtrack to Power of the Dog, but if you heard me play cello with a bow, it’d be gruesome. It’s not at the limit of what I can do, but I will steal techniques from one thing and happily put them onto another all the time. I’ll use the plectrum on things like violas and violins, copying the same strumming technique and the same way of muting strings with your right hand, like you do on a guitar… Stuff like that really appeals to me. I often say that all technology, whether it’s a drum or the latest laptop, it’s all just ideas that people had for making sound, and I’m very enthusiastic about all of them.
Apparently you also had to think about instrumentation very differently when recording 2015’s Junun, an album you made in collaboration with Shye Ben Tzur and The Rajasthan Express.
Yeah, it was about trying to get the balance right between adding chord changes and harmonic changes without ruining the song, without ruining what’s great about Indian music. It’s a very different mindset, because obviously things like major and minor, triads, and all of these things that we are so used to, they don’t mean anything in Indian music. So it was about accepting those new ways of thinking.
It’s kind of an unlearning process — but a pleasant one?
Yeah, for sure, and even on the new album we made this year, Ranjha, there were still moments that would drive me crazy because, you know, I’d feel like there was room to put some harmony into this, but we couldn’t. There’s this one song called “Shemesh,” which is written in this scale called todi, and when I was trying to write the guitar for that, I sat with Shye and he would occasionally say, “No, you can’t use that note, no, that note’s not allowed.” It’s challenging but it forces you into decisions that aren’t obvious to you.
It seems like you approach creativity with a very open mind.
Sure, you have to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
Are you more interested in challenging yourself than necessarily playing in a technically perfect way?
I don’t know. I’m kind of in awe of people who have mastered their instrument! I did a tour with some classical musicians, and every day they would just sit in their hotel room and do four or five hours of rehearsal. They’ve put in that dedication since they were teenagers. When I was in India, for example, I kept hearing these string players playing instruments and thinking it’s just amazing that they’ve devoted their life to this, and what a sound… It’s such amazing dedication, compared to when you see some layabout like me who can play a few chords on a guitar. That’s much less impressive.
Do you really think you’re not also a master of your own craft?
I mean, only through repetition. I would consider myself as comfortable playing the guitar, I feel quite fluent with it, and that’s a nice feeling, but I’d rather be challenged by playing something else. It’s nice to be struggling. I like the sound of people working things out while they’re playing, feeling their way through it. It’s that thing Tom Waits said, where he likes to sit down and play something every day, but it has to be a new thing. But this is so full of contradictions because I hate the idea that somehow music is more sincere if it’s done from a position of ignorance or naiveté. This American writer, Ted Joy, he writes about how all the early jazz musicians were praised for playing from their heart, but the reality is they could all sight read in 12 keys, and understood music theory very deeply, and if they couldn’t, they wouldn’t be able to kind of walk in and play sessions. Miles Davis was at Juilliard, all these people completely understood every aspect of music theory, but a lot of critics at the time wanted to believe this idea that they didn’t and they were simply playing from their heart.
“I feel quite fluent with the guitar, and that’s a nice feeling, but I’d rather be challenged by playing something else. It’s nice to be struggling.”
What does that mean for you and your classical training?
I’m happy I had classical training! I’m happy I know basic harmony and stuff, I use it all the time. But sometimes when I’m playing, when my fingers are high up the fretboard, I don’t know what notes I’m playing. I’m not that good, so there’s also a position of ignorance to it. If you think of the Radiohead song called “Paranoid Android,” the middle is a sort of rip off of Bach chorale style writing, which I learned at school, but the end is all these guitar solos and I don’t know what those notes are. I’m just kind of playing with it like a percussion instrument, kind of hitting the guitar, really. So I really feel like I wouldn’t want to be without either side of my education.
In what other ways are you trying to expand your musical education? Apparently you do a lot of research when you score a film, for instance.
Yeah, I mean, I like to start a film score with a set of restrictions, so for example, when I did Norwegian Wood, I wanted to use a lot of period technology. It was like, okay, let’s try recording with the technology of the 1960s and try to find the right guitar and the right reel-to-reel cassette recorder, and do it all like the characters in the book would have done. So that took a lot of research and then also imposed a lot of limitations. But I think limitations are a great way to be creative.
Is the fact that film scoring is a relatively solitary work for you also a kind of limitation?
Yeah, but then you’ve also got a director — and the director and the film and the characters are all part of the “band,” so to speak. For example, working with Paul Thomas Anderson has been endlessly fun and amusing. He has the music so loud in his films, and he lets it run on and on and on, which is rare. I’m conscious that I’m very lucky to have the chance to work with him because I think film scoring is very difficult for most composers. It can be a real nightmare. But for me, it’s been incredible. It’s definitely different for me compared to being in a band, but I like it. I like the tension of the deadline, and the hope that it’s going to work out.