I’m exactly half way through reading Life, an autobiography by Keith Richards.
Growing up two favorite rock bands dominated my vinyl collection. The Who and the Stones.
This book by Keith is absolutely fucking fantastic. All the stories behind the music. How he met Mick. The drugs. The first tour. How he learned the guitar.
One of the coolest parts is when he discovered open tuning and removing the 6th string so his guitar only had five strings.
In various chapters of the book Keith references his 5 string guitar set up as something where having less strings gave him more space and more creativity.
A great line from the book:
“with five strings you can be sparse; that’s your frame, that’s what you work on. "Start Me Up,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” “Honky Tonk Woman” all leave gaps between the chords". …..“it made me realize that silence was the canvas”.
Silence was the canvas. What a powerful concept.
I think the same powerful concept exists when you see a beautiful web site that respects and embraces the white space instead of trying to fill it up. I think 140 characters is a five string guitar as well. Or the single purpose post type in Tumblr. Less is more.
This is an amazing book.
(pls excuse the typos and lack of links. wrote this on my iPad )