May 28, 2024
Ella Rae Feingold is a guitar player, composer, orchestrator,
educator and content creator.
She has spent three decades devoted to the soulful side of the
electric guitar, and has worked with an impressive list of artists,
including Bruno Mars, Erykah Badu and Common, The Roots, Jay-Z,
Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys, Jill Scott, Queen Latifah and many
more. On her Instagram and TikTok she is a rhythm ambassador,
focussing on the importance of groove, pocket and feel in her
playing and demonstrating various techniques and traditions in
rhythm guitar.
Hearing Ella play and talk about music, it’s clear that she has
thought deeply about her craft for a long time. Guitarist Charlie
Hunter recently referred to her as “one of the baddest, greasiest
guitar players on the planet.” (Of course in this context “bad” and
“greasy” are two of the highest compliments one can pay.) And yet
she is also very much a new arrival.
Feingold has been hiding in plain sight for years - both
figuratively and literally - standing in the shadow of giants, just
out of the spotlight and not attracting too much attention. This
may have been partly a musical disposition, but it was also a
function of feeling that she was simply in the wrong body.
Ella is transgender, and after transitioning several years
ago, she began to share more of herself online including regular
musical dispatches which have exposed her to a steadily growing
audience of students, fans, followers and collaborators.
She describes the process of transitioning as less an act of
creation and more one of excavation. We spoke recently about her
personal and musical rebirth, the importance of rhythm - she tells
me “I don’t want to impress anyone I just want to make people feel
good,” discovering inverted tuning, orchestration, transfobia, and
why she hopes to be the Mister Rogers of funk guitar.
www.third-story.com
www.leosidran.substack.com
www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story