Talk:Wah-wah (music)

Formant filtering

Trumpet and electronic wah-wah are formant filtering, not pitch bending -- the electronic wah-wah pedal is a tunable filter. Electric guitar pitch bending is done mechanically with the 'whammy bar'.

Please 213.253.40.3, if you know more, please add to and fix the article. I'm not sure what "formant filtering" is. I think distinguishing the wah-wah pedal from the whammy bar is worth doing. I started this article because I came across the name of the King Oliver song and thought it ought to be noted somewhere.Ortolan88

Guitar pitch bending isn't just a whammy bar thing; we have fingers, you know. Deltabeignet 00:47, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and that's the bizarre thing... we all call finger vibrato by its correct name, but have for decades followed Leo Fender's lead in reversing the meanings of vibrato and tremolo when it comes to electric guitar hardware. There are signs this may be changing. One of these is the use of the term whammy bar in preference to tremolo arm. Andrewa 21:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Technology

Could somebody explain how it works? For wikipedia.

Notation

How is a wah-wah written in sheet music? -- ke4roh 16:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it is. It might perhaps be indicated in guitar tablature, but I've never seen it there either. There is lots that isn't on a music sheet! Andrewa 21:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

wah pedals?

wah wah pedals for guitars definitely need their own article. people do not think of wah wah as an effect for a trumpet, but an electronic guitar device. this article could be extremely confusing to someone doing research on the latter. -Joeyramoney 22:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

agreed, wah is a technique for playing brass instruments. the pedal is a device. -some ip, 13 Feb

i agree, when i came to search about wah-wah pedals, it came up with trumpet wah effects BEFORE guitar, and i think that for most people, if you say wah-wah, they think of the guuitar wah pedal.

Please sign your posts on talk pages. TIA. Andrewa 18:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

probably tomorrow or later today i plan on splitting the pedal section into its' own article, perhaps giving the other two sections a separate article, a subsection in the new article, or adding the trumpet bit into the article about trumpets. any feedback, comments or suggestions would be appreciated.Joeyramoney 18:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Foo Fighters and Wah

The song "Generator" was not created using a Wah. It was actually a talk box. I saw a television performance wherein Dave used the talk box for the song; he also made some funny Frampton jokes about the talk box. Listening to the song, its clearly a talkbox. Maybe we should add something about the talk box to the main page about the wah pedal?

nah talk boxes shouldn't be with wah pedals.

Please sign your posts on talk pages. TIA. Andrewa 18:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

wah pedals now split

new article at Wah wah pedal. as this is my first split article, there may be a few loose ends and redirects to clean up. any comments etc. would be appreciated. -Joeyramoney 19:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

A really good start IMO. I've added a little on fuzz-wah. Andrewa 16:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Harmon mute

Harmon mute redirects here but the article says nothing about it and I don't know enough to make such a change. So if you're reading this and you know then please add something about it! :) Cburnett 13:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Harmon Mute Con't

That is true. We cannot have a word redirecting to an article that makes no mention of it, it makes no sense, and is probably creating confusion. Measures must be taken to rectify this! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.34.0.92 (talk) 23:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Kinda leaving one out

The minor-key pair of trombone notes to denote failure or sadness in a comedy sketch. That's what led me to this article (the Debbie Downer article). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 23:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Miles Davis

Shouldn't there be a link to Miles Davis somewhere in this article? The article on him links to this article, and even says that he made extensive use of the "wah-wah sound". APerson241 (talk) 01:53, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Reading over the article, I get the impression that, after the 1930s, practically every jazz trumpet and trombone player employed wah-wah as a normal part of the instrument's technique. If that is so, then why should Miles be named in particular? Did his use of the technique in some way stand out as unusual, or was he more skilled at its use than other players? On the other hand, this article doesn't look particularly well researched. Did the technique have a slow start catching on in jazz, and was Miles a pioneer of its use whose example propelled it to prominence in the 1950s? If any of these things prove to be the case, there will of course need to be a reliable source.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Reading the article again, it was clear that it was not so much a disaster as a catastrophe. It did not take long to find a suitable source and, in the process, I learned why Miles Davis should be particularly mentioned in this article. I have accordingly expanded and rewritten to address this issue. Thanks to APerson241 for raising this question.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

References and reference style

I've changed the article to use the common reference style, rather than parenthesis. Previously there was only two refs. Hope this is fine.

@Jerome Kohl: Did you try to find citations before deleting content. References for CN content was easily to find with google search, and the information about Tricky Sam Nanton and wa-wa was already referenced on his Wikipedia page.Jonpatterns (talk) 14:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

That's OK, I can easily return the references to the established style. The style you seem to prefer is far from being "common" on wikipedia, and in any case "commonality" is not a valid reason for changing styles, per WP:CITEVAR. (See also the global instruction for referencing in this article.) To answer your question, no, when I find challenged claims dating back three years or more, I assume that others have made the effort and failed to find references. Thanks for your additions, although they do leave the impression that Tricky Sam Nanton was the first trombonist to imply the technique. This does not appear to be the case, but further investigation is required.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:42, 10 August 2017 (UTC)