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= see video at AcoustlcGultar.com = hear audio at AcoustlcGultar.com
~
111•
departments 16 PRIVATE LESSON Clji Bluegrass Cross-Picking: Multi-instrumentalist Kathy Barwick shows how she uses her bluegrass banjo skills on guitar. With the Lick of the Month. By Scott Nygaard NEW GEAR Clji 22 Batson No. 5: Nashville-based custom maker introduces affordable new model with an innovative design. By Adam Perlmutter 26 Yamaha A3R: AU-solid-wood acoustic-electric cutaway dreadnought with a new electronics system that includes onboard mic modeling. By Mike Levine 30 Boss Micro BR BR-80: Battery-operated multitrack digital recorder offers simple twotrack and full-featured eight-track recording. By Doug Young 32 IN THE STORES
46 Songwriting and the Guitar Twenty-one tips from Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and m ore on m aking the m ost of your instrument when writing songs.
By Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Clji
52 Pat Metheny Th e j azz virtuoso talks about baritone guitars, the beauty of pop standards, a nd his all-acoustic a lbum, Whats It All About.
By Mark Small
63 Gig Rig What to put in your gig bag in order to m ak e sure you're covered when Murphy's Law strikes. By
Stevie Coyle
songs to play 12
"Hey, That's No Way to Say Good-Bye" Leonard Cohen
14 "See See Rider" Traditional, arr.
58
34 PLAYER SPOTLIGHT Carolina Chocolate Drops: After losing a founding member, the Grammy-winning North Carolina group rebuilds its lineup and records a new album with guitarist and producer Buddy Miller. By Kenny Berkowitz 38 HERE'S HOW Poeny and Melody: How Sam Phillips creates her evocative and melodic pop songs. By Adam Levy 4 2 THE BASICS Clji String Bending: Learn to bend strings so you can make your solos sing. By Orville Johnson 70 SHOPTALK Clji Effects for Acoustic Guitars: A look at the three most common effects used by acoustic guitarists to enhance their amplified soundreverb, delay, and chorus. By Doug Young 72 PLAYLIST 74 WOODSHED Clji Controlling Note Duration: Learn to control the ringing of strings with your picking-hand fingers. By Alex de Grassi 86 GREAT ACOUSTICS Larry Pogreba Resonator. By Baker Rorick
by Orville Johnson Clji
in every issue
"And I Love Her" The Beatles, arr. by Pat Metheny
78 Minuet In D Minor BWV Anh. 132 Johann Sebastian Bach, arr. by Teja Gerken
80 "Fair and Tender Ladles" Traditional, arr. by Jody Stecher Clji January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUfll\R
8 10 76 82 85
Editor's Note Music Notation Key Essential Gear Marketplace Ad Index AcousticGuitar.com 7
EDITOR'S NOTE
HERE AT ACOUSTIC GUITAR, we are always looking for
better ways to help our readers increase their enjoyment and knowledge of the guitar and the music they play on it. With that in mind we recently launched a new digital-learning service: Acoustic Guitar U, where you'll find audio and video instruction on a variety of styles and topics, at levels from total beginner to advanced. Enrolling at Acoustic Guitar U gets you access to all the material on the site, and we've organized all the lessons into easy-to-follow courses, complete with audio or video instruction and musical notation and tab. So, for example, you can take the 12-lesson Roots and Blues Fingerstyle course from Steve James, the 12-lesson Acoustic Rock Basics course from Andrew DuBreck, or the Legends of Flatpicking series from yours truly. Or you may want to work on adding new songs to your repertoire with Danny Carnahan's Irish Songs for Guitar or David Hamburger's Early Jazz and Swing Songs for Guitar. New lessons and songs will be added weekly; and we're in production on several brand-new courses right now, so you'll be able to get the latest chapter of Alex de Grassi's Fingerstyle Guitar Method or learn the latest song in Traditional Songs with Jody Stecher (the first of which, "Fair and Tender Ladies," can be found in this issue on page 80), as soon as they appear. And because Acoustic Guitar U is optimized for mobile devices, you can access your favorite courses at any time, from your desktop, laptop, or tablet. The best part about enrolling now, of course, is that you get to be "in at the top" of what promises to be a long, evolving, and "unlimited" multimedia guitar-learning experience. We're all excited to see how Acoustic Guitar U grows in the coming months and years, and since it's easy to give immediate feedback on what you do and don't like about Acoustic Guitar U, you can be part of our startup team yourself. Hope to see you there: AcousticGuitarU.com. Enjoy the issue, SCOTT NYGAARD CORRECTIONS In the December 2011 issue's Jerry Garcia lesson, some notes in the fourth measure of Example 4 were wrong. The corrected music can be found online at AcousticGuitar.com/garcia.
In the November 2011 issue's "Classical Quintet" article, we misidentified the nationality of luthier Jim Norris, who is American. GOT A QUESTION or comment for Acoustic Guitar"s editors? Please send an e-mail at
[email protected] or snal -mal Acoustic Guitar E(!nor1al, PO Box 767, San Anselmo, CA 94979. We regularly print reader letters In our Mailbag column. TO SUBSCRIBE to Acoustic Guitar magazine, call (800) 827-6837 or vlslt us onl ne at AcoustlcGunar.com. As a subsalber, you enjoy the convenience of home delivery and you never miss an Issue. Sign ~ or renew your own sdlsc:rtpUon now and you can also purchase a gift subsalpUon for a friend A single Issue costs $6.99; an lndlvtwal subscrtpllon Is $39.95 per year; Institutional sOOsc:rtpUons are $39.95 per year. Foreign subscribers must order airmail deliver~ Add $15 per year for canada,/Pan Am, $30 elsewhere, payable In US funds on US bank. ONLINE If youte a subscriber to Acousuccunar.com or a member of the Acoustic Guitar Club, you already have access to our exclusive online content. Don' Know If yOII" subscrlpllon alloWs you access to AcoustlcGultar.com? Get In toudl wnh us at
[email protected]. BUY MUSIC Buy songs featured In Acoustic Guitar at AcoustlcGultar.comj MuslclnAG. ACOUsnc GUITAR NOTES All subscribers are eligible to receive our tree dally online newsletter, Acoustic Guitar Notes. TO ADVERTISE In Acoustic Guitar, the only publication of Its Kind read by 150,000 gunar players and maKers every month, call Sarah Hasselberg at (415) 48~946, ext. 643, or e-mail her at
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EDITORIAL Group Publisher and Editorial Director Editor Managing Editor Senior Editor Education Editor Copy Editor Editorial Assistant Contributing Editors
DESIGN/ PRODUCTION Director of Design and Production Senior Designer Production Manager Production Designers Production Assistant
Dan Gabel Scott Nygaard Mark Smith Teja Gerken Dan Apczynskl Jan Perry Sarah Welsh Kenny Berkowitz, Andrew DuBrock, David Hamburger, Steve James, Orville Johnson, Richard Johnston, Sean McGowan, Adam Perlmutter, Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, Rick Tumer, Doug Young
Barbara Summer Timothy lang Hugh O' Connor Andy Djohan, Emily Fisher Sam Lynch
ADMINISTRATION Publisher David A. Lusterman Office and Systems Manager Peter Penhallow ADVERTISING Adverijsing Managers (West) (East) (Central) Advertising Operaijons Manager Ad\lertising Assistant FINANCE Director of Accounting and Operaijons BookKeeper Accounting ClerK Office Assistant MARKETING Audience Development Manager Digital Development Director Digital Publishing Manager Subscripijons Single Copy Sales
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CORRESPONDENCE Mail PO Box 767 San Anselmo, CA 94979 Shipping 255 West End Ave. San Rafael, CA 94901 Editorial E-mail
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RETAILERS To find out how you can cany Acoustic Guitar magazine In yOII" store, contact Alfred Publishing at (BOO) 292-6122. Excepl Where otherwise noted, al contents e 2012 Strlngletter, Davtd A. Lusterman, Publisher.
PR INTED IN USA 8 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
NOTATION
music notation key
Dropped-D Tuning:
gA D G B E
D Guitar tunlngs are given from the lowest (sixth) string to the highest (first) str1ng; standard tunIng Is written as E AD G B E. Arrows underneath tuning notes Indicate strings that are altered from standard tuning and whether they are tuned up or down. In standard notation, small symbols next to notes refer to fretting-hand fingers: 1 for the Index finger, 2 the middle, 3 the ring, 4 the little finger, and T the thumb. Plckln~hand fingering Is Indicated by I for the Index finger, m the middle, a the r1ng, c the little finger, and p the thumb.
1'\ t.
II
II -
r m
p
A7 1/ 4
3J J
J .l'
r
r
r
~
i p
m
m
p
p
,.,
1/4
z::=::o ')
0
I
I
l
v
,.,
v
,.,
v
,.,
v
1/ 4
3-J-31..__ 0 3
2
0-j-/-/-/-/-1-1-
0
1-\
1/ 4
31
0
2- 2
0
In tablature, the horizontal lines represent the six strings, with the first string on top and the sixth on the bottom. The numbers refer to frets on the giVen string. Slur markings Indicate hammer-ens, pulf..Offs, and slides; Indicates a bend. The number next to the bend symbol shows how much the bend raises the pitch: 1.4 for a slight bend, 11.! for a half step, 1 for a Whole step. Pick and strum direction are shown below the staff (l"'=downstroke, V=upstroke), and slashes In the notation and tablature (..-) Indicate a strum through the previously played chord.
.J
C
X320 10
G
320004
1111
A7
1312 11
Dm7
X1312 1
~~5 fr. ~~5 fr.
Chord diagrams show where the fingers go on the fretboard. Frets are shown horizontally. The top horizontal line represents the nut, unless a numeral to the right of the diagram marks a higher position ( • 5 fr." means fifth fret) . Str1ngs are shown as vertical lines. The line on the far left represents the sixth (lowest) string, and the line on the far r1ght represents the first (highest) str1ng. Dots show Where the fingers go, and thick hor1zontar lines Indicate barres. Numbers above the diagram are frettln~hand finger numbers. X Indicates a str1ng that should be muted or not played; 0 Indicates an open string. Vocal tunes are sometimes wr1tten with a fully tabbed-out Introduction and a vocal melody with chord diagrams for the rest of the piece. The tab lntro Is usually your Indication of Which strum or fingerplcklng pattern to use In the rest of the piece. AC
Want to Know More About
•
•• •
To receive a complete guide to Acoustic Guitar music by mall, send a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to Music Editor. Acoustic Guitar. PO Box 767. San Anselmo, CA 94979-0767. The complete guide can also be round online at AcoustlcGultar com; notatrongulde.
10 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
ACOUSTIC CLASSIC
Hey, That's No Way to Say Good-Bye
his thumb as he plays melodic chord embellishments with his fingers. The picking patterns below show what he plays for the A, Flm, D, and E chords as well as the sus chord embellishments he plays throughout. For chords that change quickly, like the final A chord in each verse and the repeating E chord at the beginning of the song, simply play the first measure of each pattern. You may find that the F1m pattern is difficult to play if you fret a complete Flm barre chord. Since you don't need to play the fifth string, you can barre with your index finger, fret the fourth string at the fourth fret with your ring finger, and use your little finger to play the sus4 embellishment on the third string at the beginning of the second F1m measure.
Words and music by Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen was already a respected songwriter before he released his first recording, Songs of Leonard Cohen, in 1968. Judy Collins's 1966 release, In My Life, featured two of Cohen's songs, one of which, "Suzanne," became a hit. Cohen kicked off his debut album with his own version of "Suzanne," but the record was strong from start to finish and included other top-notch tracks such as "Hey, That's No Way to Say Good-Bye," which had also been recorded by Collins (for 1967's Wildflowers). Cohen plays a nylon-string guitar on "Hey, That's No Way to Say Good-Bye," capoing at the first fret and picking out the bass notes with
-ANDREW DuBROCK
Picking Patterns Chords, Capo I
E
1341 11
F~us4F~m
A sus4 A A sus2 A
D
A
II F~m
A
r
r
D XX0132
r-r
r
1111 E A 1.
D sus4
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm
11
F~m
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy, golden storm
t.
D Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new
A In city and in forest they smiled like me and you
2.
D D sus2 D
II hiTJ1 n11 r· 3- 20
""'
2-
E
r rr rr
2-
30 0- 2 0
0
1
2-
22
20
E
-
:
--
-
0
E sus4
,...,.__
f
:
--
rr 1_____.:
.:._2- 1 2 .,-----2- 2.:.._2 2-
1-
20
F#m But now it's come to distances and both of us must try
A It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea
D Your eyes are soft with sorrow
F#m But let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie
E A E Hey, that's no way to say good-bye
D Your eyes are soft with sorrow
A I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time
2-: 2____.:
E A E Hey, that's no way to say good-bye
F~m
12
Walk me to the comer, our steps will always rhyme
Repeat Vetse 1; substitute following line from Vetse 2
D You know my love goes with you as your love stays with me
F#m But let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie
AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
ACOUSTI C CLASSIC
See See Rider Traditional, arranged by Orville Johnson With its endless lyrical and structural variations, and recordings in just about every key imaginable, you can listen to versions of "See See Rider" from now "till fall" and never hear the exact same arrangement twice. Of particular note are the different forms you're likely to encounter: while many versions follow the tried-and-true 12-bar blues format, many more (including the version shown here) feature an interesting 16-bar pattern. In a 12-bar blues, it's typical to hear a line sung twice (once over the I chord and then repeated over theN chord) that sets up the vers-«ten presenting a problem or the beginning of a joke that the listener expects will resolve in the verse's final four bars. The 16-bar form shown here (which appears in Acoustic Guitar contributing editor Orville Johnson's
~ See video at AcousticGuitar.com/ seeseerider
Acoustic Blues Guitar Basics) starts in a similar way; but returns to the N chord (G7) in measure 9, signaling a third time through therepeated line. Measures 13-16 function similarly to measures 9- 12 of a 12-bar blues, with a brief step up to the V chord (A7), followed by a measure of the N and a two-measure tumaround that leads back to the top of the form. Uke everything else about the song, its title has also been subject to varying interpretations, including "See See Rider Blues," "C.C. Rider," and "C.C. Rider Blues." Look for great recordings by the Animals, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Elvis Presley; jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee; and a host of legendary blues artists including Big Bill Broonzy; Mississippi John Hurt, Leadbelly; and Lightnin' Hopkins. -DAN APCZYNSKI
r 3,
Rhythm Examples Swing IJJ=J ) ) D 'I
G1
•
~
•
•
:;
:;
3- -3- -3- -3- -3- -3- -3- -3 1-\
r-
3 ~T
~
II
2--2--4- -4--2--2--4- -4-- r-o-
o
3-
3-
0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0 rh
Swing
(fJ=J )l)
l'*i i
jl
:;
:;
:;
:;
3-
3-
1-
1
:;
~
0
3-
3-
3-
~
~
see
rid-er __
. - - 3 ---,
see what you _ done done _
D
I! ;lffl~n l !~~ijfijJ J J ~ ~ w J
see what you done done _
See __ see rid-er
G1
G7
ltd·
-J
I "~ ti J
you _
but
3
see _____ what you done ___
D
)
J
J J_jj
now your man D
has come ___
G1
D
I'm goin' away baby, I'm goin' away I won't be back till fall
D
D G7 Goin' away baby, I won't be back till fall
See see rider, see what you done done
D
G7
See see rider, see what you done G7
See see rid-er
G1
-
JJ
You know you made me love D See see rider, see what you done done
~
0- -0--0- -G--0- -0- -0- -0--
3
6
12
~
2 ~ 2--------:;>2--------:;>2
~qg~~~ ~lfJ_J I, J ~J
, J J J IJ
~
p3 ______,.. 3------;:>' 3______,.. 3
3 3-
~
G1
D
A7
0-
~
0
3
Well, see _ _ _ _ _ __
G7
I
D
I'm goin' away baby, I won't be back till fall D G7 D A7
You know you made me love you, but now your man has come
A7
G7
D G7 D A7
If I find myself a new girl, I might not be back at all Repeat first verse
14 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
PRIVATE LESSON
expressed by Barwick's consummate crosspicking guitar technique as well as her banjo and dobro playing. Barwick initially picked up guitar and banjo at Girl Scout camp and discovered bluegrass through banjo lessons. After deciding to delve into the guitar's possibilities in bluegrass, Barwick used her banjo skills to develop a cross-picking technique featured on In My Life (notably on Earl Scruggs's "Nashville Blues," Maybelle Carter's "My Native Home," and the trad.itional "Red-Haired Boy''). We talked to Barwick recently about her cross-picking technique, playing up the neck, and the difference between down-down-up cross-picking and alternate picking.
Bluegrass Cross-Picking Multi-Instrumentalist Kathy Barwick shows how she uses her bluegrass banjo skills on guitar.
By Scott Nygaard
Yo u play a lot of instruments on the new record. Which instru ment d id you learn first? I started playing guitar first . I was a folkie and I fingerpicked the guitar, because of Girl Scout camp. And then when I was a camp counselor, another counselor had a banjo, so I thought, "I can fingerpick the guitar, I could fingerpick the banjo." She taught me how to play "Cripple Creek," which was really challenging because my fingerpicking on guitar was square, kind of Travis-style, and fingerpicking on banjo was rolls, which I had never heard. I tried to learn banjo from the [Earl] Scruggs book, but I'd never listened to bluegrass, and I d.iscovered that if you don't know what you' re trying to learn sounds like, it's really hard to learn it. So I started taking banjo lessons.
A LOOK AT THE TITLES on Northern California guitarist Kathy Barwick's debut solo a lbum In My Life may not make it clear what kind of music you' ll find inside. With songs by Lennon and McCartney, Maybelle Carter, and Swedish guitarist Roger Tallroth nestled among trad.itional Irish tunes and Southern fiddle classics, and with instrumental credits for Barwick t hat include guitar, dobro, banjo, mandolin, and bass, as well as vocals, you might mistakenly come to the conclusion that Barwick is a musical d.ilettante. But a listen to the album reveals a deep grounding in American roots music tradit ion, bluegrass in particular, as
..
How did you get into bluegrass? By playing the banjo. I was learning things like "Old Home Place" at my lessons and I would go and look them up and send off to County Sales, and a big, flat, square package [of LPs] would come in the mail every three or four weeks. I got into it that way, and like a lot of people, I got into more modern stuff first, and worked my way back.
-
LICK OF THE MONTH
measure 2. she plays a syncoJlated melodic
by a couJlle of sixth intervals ('"yodel shapes as she calls them} that JlUt the melody on tOJl (the F: and A notes}. and ends on a '"backward roll on a C chord UJl at the eighth fret.
c •
fl
tJ
-
F
• • ~
""""'-J
35
3- -3- 3r-=s- -5-
3 3
3- 3 5
35
3
c
.,.
• •
•
•
-
6 7- -h="t0-
•
•
. 10-
8 10
9
8
9- -1010- - - 1 0
8
- 9 10
-16 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
tune better.
introducing the NS-mini headstock tuner leave one on every guitar I planetwaves.com/minituner
PLaneT waues-
D'Addario and Planet Waves are registered trademarks or trademarks o f D'Addario & Compaf'l'y, Inc . or its affihates in the US and /or other c ountries. C 2011 0 ' Addario & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
PRI VATE LESSON
When did your banjo technique start getting transferred to guitar? I taught banjo for a living for five years, and I decided I really wanted to help my students learn how to improvise and that I needed to play rhythm behind them, so I started playing rhythm guitar. And, of course, then I wanted to play lead guitar. I took some guitar lessons from Steve Pottier and he taught me how to play "Home Sweet Home" and some other things where you set up a pattern [in your picking hand] and you make some changes for the melody [Example 1]. I realized recently how important learning how to do that was, for accenting an upstroke. Now I don't have to play the whole pattern, I can pick out that upstroke melody note and it pops out. It's similar to banjo playing in that when you play the banjo you set up a pattern in your right hand and your left hand starts searching out the melody notes. When you're working on cross-picking arrangements, do you usually start with the melody? Yes, the simplest, barest melody I can. And then I start hanging ornaments on it as I go along. Do you have favorite keys for cross-picking? I tend to favor C and G. C is where I start because it puts the melody right in the middle of the guitar, most of the time. A lot of times in G you have to go way down [to the bass strings] or up an octave. I've recently been working on playing in D, and I1l often arrange something in a number of keys and positions before I figure out which one is best for me. Some positions will put the melody up the neck, and then you have to figure out a way to do that. Sometimes I'll work on stuff and say, "I'm going to keep practicing until I get it," but then maybe it's just not coming. So I think "Is there another way to do this?" You learn the neck that way. If you have to do your own arranging you learn where things are. You do a lot of cross-picking up the neck as opposed to sticking to first position. How do you think of connecting those positions? Let's see, I'll play "My Old Kentucky Home" [Example 2] on an open C chord; that's where everybody learns how to do that. But I can also play it up here [Example 3]. I'll start with a C shape that I finger with the ring and little fingers on the same [fifth] fret and I barre at the third fret, so I can go from the I to the V [Example 4]. This is actually kind of difficult to do, so I make my students start it early, because it's such a valuable position to play out of. I look for the melody in that position, and then it goes to the IV [F) chord, so I have a bunch of choices. I can go to first position, or I can go here [Example 5]. I can 18 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
-
Ex.1 C
~II
~
t-
'"'
-
... >
~II
... >
0 0 1-1---1-1 0 0 2 2 3
3
~
...
~0-0
0
'"'
3
Ex.2
c
I I
n
-
11
-
r
... >
I I
0 1-1 0
-
Ill
...
-
0 0 1-1---1-1 0 0 2--0-2
I
-
-
I
L l..J
o0 1-1--1-12 2 3 3
~
71 ..
~
>
2
0 1-1 0-0 2
F r""T""1""1 r-r-T""1
L l..J
G
..
~
..,j
I
3 0-0 0
0
0
0-0 0
2
i""'o.
r'"'1""'T"1
.. ..,.,._.., v ,., ,., v ..,., v ,., ,., v ..,.,,., v ,., v ,., v ,.,,., v ,., 1--1 1--1 0--0 0-~ 2-0- ~-2--0- f-----2-0--2- 3 - 3 3
January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
-
I
3
0 0 0 1-1 1-1 1-1 0--0-2-2- 0-0
..
F
~II
• >
0 0 1-1---1-1 0-0 0 2-0 2
r T ~
-
>
I
1--1 0--0
n
-
-
r""T""1""1 r-r-T""1
t-
I'""'"
0 0 1-1---1-1 0 0 0 2 3 3
>
0 1-1 f-
~II
... >
I 6t-
-
c
_.,...., _.,....,
..._..,
....
3
..
71..
..
G ..
,., v ,., v ,., v ,., ,., v ,., v ,., v ,., ,., v ,., ,., v ,., v ,., 1--1 1 0--0-0 0 0 1--0--0-0 3 - ~--0-2- f-----2--0 3 - r-3--2--3
o-
Acoust icGuitar.com 19
PRIVATE LESSON
cross-pick over that, and the melody is on top ("old") but then "Kentucky" is going to go up higher, so I either have to go here [Example 6] or into this inversion [Example 7].
moving shapes around. My favorite lick right now is [Example 8]. It's not cross-picking, but so what.
Your picking hand wrist seems very loose. Yeah, I've been thinking lately about how important it is to loosen your grip on the pick. With cross-picking, if you're doing the downdown-up pattern, the first "down" is a rest
You're cross-picking but it's not all the same pattern. Yeah, I'm not necessarily going to cross-pick all the way through a tune, especially as I'm
Ex.3 ~
c ...--..
-
~
,., 5
...
...
-v ,., ,., v ,.,
v
,.,
3-
3- -3 :r-s- -5- 3 5
F
...
-
,., v ,., v
,., ,., v
3 :r-s 5- -5
c ...
:-.,.~.,.
...--..
10-10
,.,
v ,.,
8 !f-'1'0-1 0- 8 9
1-\
Ex.4
Ex.5
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stroke, the second one is not, and then you scoop up underneath the string [on the upstroke], so if you try to hold the pick tight, and you push, it's just going to push back. If you let go of it a bit, then your thumb has control of the pick and your index knuckle is just keeping it from falling down. So it feels like I'm punching down with my thumb [on the first note] and then I glide over the string instead of pushing through it on the second note. You really need to use a heavy flatpick for this kind of cross-picking. You don't want to use a lighter pick because it'll wrap around your thumb and you won't have any control over when it goes through the strings.
You do down-down-up picking as well as alternating picking. Does the one you choose depend on what you're playing? It depends very much on what I'm playing. For a down-down-up to work for me, the first note needs to be a melody note [Example 9] . If you play that melody ["You Are My Sunshine"] in a higher octave, it's just gone. If you want to accent the first [lower] note, the best way to do it is down-down-up, but if you want to accent the middle string or high strings, you need to use alternating [Example 10]. Down-downup's natural characteristic is to make the first note really pop out. It's a really great entry into cross-picking. Once you get the technique right you're really just focusing on the first note of the roll. And I think what people will find is that after a while your ear wants to hear a different note, and your hand will AC follow.
cont simile
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• ACOUSTIC GUITAR: 1994 Martin HD-28 LSH Grand Marquis with Indian rosewood back and sides. 'It was one of Martin's Guitar of
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very resonant; there's a lot of complexity in this guitar. Clarity is not its middle name.
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But when I made my recent record, I took a bunch of gu itars into the studio, and this is the one my engineer wanted to hear.' • STRINGS: Elixir medium-gauge. ' I do so much sliding, so I like the coating~ • FLATPICKS: Heavy.gauge. • C'APO: Shubb.
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• AMPLIFICATION: K&K Pure Western pickup. ' I use it when I need to. It's really hard to mic this gu itar. I get a lot of boom out of it. So I prefer to use a mix of the K&K and a mic.·
20 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
NEW GEAR
Batson No.5 Nashville-based custom maker Introduces affordable new model with an Innovative design.
By Adam Perlmutter
WHEN CORY AND GRANT BATSON were teenagers, their father engiAcousticGuitar.comj neered a 3o-foot carport that he built to withstand the fierce winds newgear of central Texas. Years later, this Invention would Inspire the brothers to rethink the structural elements of traditional stee~strlng guitars-particularly the bracing. Like the carport, which flexed In the wind, Batson's trademark lattice bracing moves with a guitar's vibrations to provide excellent resonance and tone. This bracing can be found In all the guitars the Batson brothers make by hand In their Nashville, Tennessee, workshop. Their line of fine Instruments Includes parlor, grand concert, auditorium, and jumbo size guitars, all customlzable with a range of options In tonewoods, appointments, and electronics. We checked out Batson's new No. 5 model, part of a new line that Is considerably more affordable than Batson's other guitars, because It Is made by a team of builders, rather than just the Batson brothers, and features a limited number of options and less premium hardWare. Oi Seethe video review at
Nonstandard Construction The concert-size No. 5 Is available with African mahogany or East Indian rosewood back and sides (the latter commanding a $100 surcharge) and a Sitka spruce or western red cedar top. Our review model's rosewood and spruce body, which Includes an optional Venetian cutaway ($250), Is particularly attractive: the rosewood has handsomely variegated stripes of brown and the spruce a warm, reddish hue with tight, uniform grain. Like all Batson guitars, the No. 5 Includes a number of nonstandard structural features. It eschews a staltdard top soundhole In favor of one on the side of the upper left bout, giVIng the soundboard a greater vibrating area while also directing sound toward the player's ear. And while the guitar's bridge Is glued to the top like a standard flattop bridge, the strings are anchored on a separate tailpiece (which Is affixed through the top to the tall-block by a mortise and tenon) and travel through holes In the bridge prior to passing over the saddle.
22 AcousticGuitar.com
Our reVIew No. 5 Is aesthetically pleasing, to say the least. The focus Is clearly on the beauty of the woods and not fancy ornamentation. In fact, the only embellishments on this Spartan guitar Include lvorold body binding and heel cap and a mother-of-pearl Batson logo on the headstock. The sculpturally asymmetric bridge and tailpiece lend a clean, modern
The guitar's C-shaped neck is substantial but not overly full.
sensibility to the design, as does the curved end of the fingerboard, which extends above the top from the 15th to the 21st fret. An ebony headstock overlay and truss-rod cover proVIde an organic touch. Craftsmanship on the No. 5 Is very good. The 21 medium jumbo frets are perfectly polished and seated and the nut and saddle slots appear to have been cut with great care and precision. The binding Is tight and flush and there are no Imperfections In the satin polyester finish. A peek Inside the soundhole betrays a hint
AT A GLANCE THE SPECS: Concert-size body. Solid Sitka spruce top. Solid East Indian rosewood back and sides. Lattice bracing. Mahogany neck. Ebony fingerboard, bridge, and tailpiece. Bone nut and saddle. 25.5-inch scale. 1%-inch nut width. 2'14-inch string spacing at saddle. Polyester satin finish. Chrome Gotoh SG381 tuners. D'Addario EXP medium-gauge strings. Made in USA. THIS IS COOL: Smartly designed modern steelstring at home in a range of settings. WATCH FOR: Strap pin is a $25 option. PRICE: $2,800 base/ $3,150 as reviewed. MAKER: Batson Guitar Co.: (615) 649-0033; batsonguitars.com.
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
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NfW GfAR of untidiness- some glue squeeze-out at the heel block and In some areas of the kerflng.
Extremely Pl ayable and Fine-Sounding Removing the No. 5 from Its Included TKL Pro Arch-Top case, I was struck by how comfortable It felt to crad le and how play. able It was . The guitar's C-shaped neck Is substantial but not overly full and Invites barre chords In all registers. The medium· low action makes the neck feel smooth and easy, hospitable to some swift single-note work. I could even pull off some electricstyle string bends; It might be that the extra
string length behind the bridge Imparts a little slinkiness to the feel. Hitting some basic open chords,! was Impressed 1:Yf the guitar's volume, Which Is probably a result of the location of the soundhole and the added real estate of the uninterrupted soundboard. I proceeded to flngerplck some ragtime-style lmprovlsa· tlons as well as standard country.J)Iues fare and found the guitar to be super-responsive and weii.J)alanced, with an articulate, rumbling bass and smooth, singing trebles from open position to the highest frets. It also had uncommonly long sustain and a pronounced natural reverb-attributes perhaps owing to the guitar's fine solid
tonewoods as well as Its bracing and tai lpiece. The overall tone Is somewhat unusual , slightly hollow with "scooped mlds," and because of the guitar's cons· tructlon, It sounds more Immediate to the player than to the listener. With Its 1 %-Inch nut and lack of a pick· guard, the No. 5 Is clearly designed with the flngerplcker In mind. The guitar does excel In this capacity, maintaining a colorful lively voice even When tuned way down to open c. However, I found that the Batson responded just as nicely to brisk strumming In standard and alternate tunlngs like open G and D A D G A D. While the No. 5 doesn't have the power of a dreadnought or jumbo, It does have a substantial presence In this context. And It sounds robust, with a wide dynamic range, when subjected to f lat· picked bluegrass runs and bebop licks as well as modal meanderlngs In slackened tunlngs.
Small-Shop Value Whi le not cheap at $2,800, the Batson No. 5 represents an Incredible value In an all -solld·WOod steel-string that Is handmade In the United States and receives the attention to detail that Is only possible In a small shop. Its f lattop design, with lattice bracing, bass-side soundhole, and bridgeand-tailpiece solution, strikes an excellent
The Batson's lattice bracing is visible through its large soundport.
balance between tradition and Innovation. The guitar Is eminently playable and super· responsive. It shines In contexts ranging from folk and blues to jazz and beyond In nearly any tuning, flngerplcked or strummed, making It an Ideal companion for the well-rounded acoustic guitarist. AC
Contributing editor Adam Perlmutter transcribes, arranges, and engraves music for numerous publications.
24 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
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NEW GEAR
YamahaA3R All-solid-wood acoustic-electric cutaway dreadnought with a new electronics system that Includes onboard mlc modeling.
By Mike Levine
YAMAHA'S ACOUSTIC GUITARS have long been known for their excellent, affordable value. The guitars In the AcousticGuitar.comj company's new A ser1es are designed newgear as working musicians' Instrumentsdurable and versatile enough to proVIde good resu lts In both acoustic and amplified applications. There are two lines within the A ser1es, the less-expensive Al and the tOJX>f ·the-line A3. Each offers acoustlc-electr1c, cutaway Instruments In concert or dreadnought sizes with mahogany or rosewood bodies, but the A3 guitars feature Yamaha's System 63 SRT electronics system. This full-featured electronics package combines an undersaddle pickup with digital signal processing (DSP) that emulates the sound of the guitar when mlked by classic microphones. We took a look at the A3R, the rosewoodbodied dreadnought In the line. CillO See the video review at
Rosewood and Spruce Dreadnought
Onboard Mic Modeling
The A3R's dreadnought body has a Venetian-style (rounded) cutaway and Is constructed with a solid Sitka spruce top and solid rosewood back and sides. The rosette consists of an elegant, lnterweaved rosewood-and-mahogany pattern. The binding Is also mahogany, and three thin black purfllng str1ps surround the guitar's top. The unusuaHooklng plckguard comes to a point In two places, a throwback to a design used on Yamaha's NlOOO guitar, which was first released In 1975.
Yamaha's new SRT (Studio Response Teet}. nology) electronics system Is the A3R's most versatile and Impressive feature. sound Is picked up I:Yf the undersaddle SRT pickup, which Is outfitted with Individual plezo elements for each str1ng. The signal Is then routed through the onboard preamp, which contains the DSP modeling
Action Hero One of the noteworthy aspects of the A3R Is Its playability. Our review guitar arrived strung with light-gauge strings that feel as close to the ebony fingerboard as the str1ngs do on a typical electric guitar. I found the mahogany neck to be very playable In all positions and It was easy to bend strings. The tradeoff for the low action was some occasional fret buzzing, mainly on the third str1ng. But I was pleasantly surprised that the action was not too low for slide play1ng, which 1do a lot of. There was a tad more fret noise with a slide than on my Martin D-28, but not as much as 1 expected, considering the A3R's low action. And the Intonation Is spot on.
Bright, Balanced Acoustic Tones Acoustically, the A3R's tone Is br1ght and not particularly bassy. considering that this guitar Is
26 AcousticGuitar.com
prlmar11y designed for acoustlc-electr1c use, Its tonal signature makes sense. There's less bottom end to resonate and potentially cause feedback, and plenty of treble for cutting through a band mix. The acoustic tone Is well balanced, and the bass notes r1ng cleanly and without mudd~ ness. I tried out the A3R In a variety of play1ng styles. For flngerstyle guitar, It was warm and pleasant, and for flatplcked bluegrass It was crisp and concise. In both Instances, the A3R's lack of bottom was the only negative. The guitar's tone was also satisfying for Intense, rock-sty1e acoustic strumming on open and barre chords (In standard and dropped-D tuning).
AT A GLANCE THE SPECS: Cutaway dreadnought body. Solid Sitka spruce top. Solid rosewood back and sides. MahoganY neck. Ebony fingerboard and bridge. Urea nut. X·bracing. 25.61·inch scale (650 mm). 11 'lu•inch nut width. 2'1s-inch string spacing at saddle. Chrome die-cast tuners. Natural gloss finish. Yamaha System 63 SRT electron lcs with mic modeling. Light.gauge Yamaha FS50BT strings. Made in Ch ina.
THIS IS COOL: Electronics include models of three classic mics, feedback e limination, and a chromatic tuner.
WATCH FOR: Acoustic sound lacking in bottom end.
PRICE: $1,350 list/$899.99 street. MAKER: Yamaha: (714) 522·9000; usa.yamaha.com.
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
Experience Breedlove
NEW GfAR chips and circuitry. The preamp's Blend dial mixes the pickup signal with one of the six modeled mlc alger rlthms, rather than between a plezo and an actual mlc, as some systems do. From a practical standpoint, this presents less potential for feedback, since there Is no open microphone Inside the guitar. To construct the modeling algorithms, Yamaha recorded the guitar acoustically at
The Yamaha SRT preamp includes a builtin tuner and controls for its microphone emulation functions. several commercial studios through three classic microphones- a Neumann U67 large-diaphragm tube condenser, a Neumann KM56 small-diaphragm tut>e condenser, and a Royer R-122 r1t>t>on mlc. The Idea was to emulate how the guitar sounded through
11~ lbmP~~t cd ttl~ o~.j1lim~s .. "'Jiie Net~ J!aJII'fl S(JtJJ.Iis. SignatureJ Mndid Blum;itlg~ ®wltB1
n the mld-1 960s Ralph and Carter Stanley saw something In a boy from Lebanon, Ohio. From those early days with the Stanley Brothers, Larry Sparks has developed his own dynamic style while staying true to the traditions of that good old-time oountry music. Those powerful lead guitar breaks, paired/ with soulful vocals have endeared him to Bluegrass Music Lovers everywhere. The Larry Sparks Signature Model Bluendge Is based on / the uniQue design elements of the guitar that Is so closely ldentlRed with his career. The power and tradition are built in and the guitar, like Larry Sparks himself, Is already being called "The Youngest of the Old-11mersl"
I
Versatile, Full Featured Acoustic-Electric If you're looking for a guitar that wi ll give you excellent playat>lllty, decent acoustic tone, and versatile and fully featured electronics, the A3R Is a good choice, especially If you're planning to use It primarily as an onstage Instrument. AC
BR-3060 Larry Sparks Signature Guitar: • Full -size black pickguard • Vintage 50s style waffle-back tuners • certificate of Authenticity
~SAGA,
'e'the source. 28 AcousticGuitar.com
Saga Musical Instruments
~~;i ~·.~~;.~~~~~;~:"n':cisco, CA 94oao
these mlcs In a good studio and Impart that sonic signature to the sound of the preamp. A selector switch on the control panel lets you choose a mlc type, and a two-position push-button lets you further modify that t>y selecting Focus or Wide mode. Focus gives you a close-mlked version of the selected mlc model (recorded eight to 12 Inches from the guitar) and Wide mode gives you one recorded farther back (four to five feet) . A Resonance knot> adjusts how much body resonance Is In the modeled sound. I got the best tone with the Blend knot> turned mostly toward the modeled mlc side, with a little t>lt of the straight pickup signal thrown ln. I liked the Royer model best, because It was a little rounder and warmer (as Is character1stlc of a rlt>t>on mlc), t>ut all three sounded good. I also preferred the presence of the Focus (close-mlked) mode. This was especially helpful for flngerplcklng and single-note flatplcklng. overall, the A3R's mlc modeling does a good jot> of simulating the sound of a mlked acoustic guitar. For sound reinforcement situations, especially In a band context, It wil l be quite convincing. For recording, unless the guitar Is burled In the mix, It still sounds like a guitar with a pickup. But In recording situations where there's a lot of leakage from other Instruments, going direct through the A3R's electronics would t>e a good solution. In addition to the mlc modeling, you can also shape the pickup's sound with standard bass, middle, and treble preamp controls. Each of these has a center detent to Indicate when It's set flat. That makes It easy to set them t>y feel, which Is good conslder1ng they're tiny knobs with nearly Invisible Indicator lines. A larger volume control knot> controls the overall output. The electronic system Includes an Impressive chromatic tuner, which mutes the guitar's output when activated, and Its AFR feature (Automatic Feedback Reduction) Is an effective one-button feedback detectorj ellmlnator.
BR-3060
Mike Levine (mikelevine.com) is a New York City-area music journalist and the former editor of Electronic Musician.
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
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THREE ways to enjoy Acoustic Guitar. Acoustic Guitar Magazine The original. Get the No.1 magazine for every player in any style delivered right to your door every month. You save time and money at the newsstand.
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NEW GEAR
Boss Micro BR BR-80 Battery-operated multitrack digital recorder offers simple two-track and full-featured eight-track recording.
By Doug Young
It's now possible to put what once would have been a room full of recording gear In a device so small you can carry It In your pocket. Boss, a division of the Roland corporation AcousticGuitar.com; that focuses on electronic musical devices from stompbox newgear effects to recorders, has an excellent track record of building creative and high-quality deVIces at affordable prices. The new Boss Micro BR BR80 recorder updates an earlier version of the Micro BR, doubling the number of tracks, adding new effects, and more. Boss makes several recorders, Including larger units that support 16 tracks and CD burning, but even In the crowded field of small recorders, the Micro BR BR-80 Is at least a contender for the title of smallest fuHeatured multitrack recorder. ~Seethe
video review at
Three Recording Modes There are enough features In the tiny new Boss to keep you busy exploring the device for a long time, but It Is also easy to get started recording quickly. The recorder has three distinct modes that act almost like three separate recorders: Uve Rec, eBand, and MultiTrack Record (MTR). In Live Rec mode, the unit Is a simple stereo recorder with built-In mlcs. Simply press the record button to arm the device, check levels, and press record again to start recording. Each time you record, the Micro BR BR-80 creates a new file, so you'll never accidently erase previous recordings. The unit Includes a guitar tuner and a looping phrase; trainer, which are available In all modes. A rhythm button activates a metronome In Live Rec and eBand modes and a drum machine In MTR mode. Although the Live Rec mode Is nearly foolproof, the eBand and MTR modes are a bit more complicated, and as you use them you begin to appreciate how much functionality Boss has packed Into this tiny box. The eBand mode Is Intended to let you jam along with prerecorded loops-€lther the supplied backing tracks or your own loops, which can be loaded Into the Micro BR BR-80 via the USB port and softWare provided by Roland. In this mode, you can use the built-In mlcs or plug a pickup-equipped guitar Into the guitar jack and apply a full suite of Roland's well-known COSM effects- reverb, chorus, overdrive, and more-to your sound. You can also vary the speed of the playback or use the looping feature to repeat a short section, turning the Micro BR BR-80 Into a phrase trainer. In MTR mode, the Micro BR BR-80 Is a full-featured eight-track recorder. You can record two tracks at a time, overdub, and punch In to fix mistakes. The built-In drum machine can be used to assemble rhythm tracks from a collection of fixed patterns, which you can extend by loading standard MIDI flies that you create elsewhere, and you can use the COSM effects for amp simulations and effects. Although there
30 AcousticGuitar.com
are only eight tracks available at any one time, each track supports up to eight virtual tracks, which allows you, for example, to record multiple takes of a solo, and then choose the best one later. In both eBand and MTR modes, the Boss offers mix-down capabilities that allow you to edit, add effects, and master your tracks to produce a finished tune. Regardless of the recording mode, the Micro BR BR-80 records to standard SD cards, and a 2 GB card Is Included. There are a few limitations, Including a 2 GB limit on the size of a single song, no more than 1,000 songs In Live Rec mode and 100 In MTR mode, but most people are unlikely to run Into these limits.
Easy Two-Track Recording To see how the Micro BR BR-80 performed, I started with Uve Rec mode. It proved
AT A GLANCE THE SPECS: Records CD.quality 16·blt, 44.1 kHz WAV or MP3 (up to 320 Kbps) files. Up to eight tracks (64 virtual tracks), recordable two at a time. Built·in stereo mics, mono %-inch guitar or line-in jack, plus 'AI-inch stereo line in. Headphone output. USB port for transferring files to computer, with included software, or for use as a computer audio interface. Built·i n metronome, tuner, drum machine, backing tracks, COSM amp simul ator, mastering effects. 2 GB SD card included, supports up to 32 GB on an SDHC card. Powered by two AA batteries or power adapter (not included). 5%6 x 3%6 x 'is inches. 5 ounces. Made in Chin a.
THIS IS COOL: Full·featu red multitrack recorder that fits in your pocket.
WATCH FOR: No phantom power for external condenser mics. Multitrack mode records in proprietary format.
PRICE: $400 list/$280 street. MAKER: Roland Corp: (323) 890-3700; bossus.com.
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
easy to use without referr1ng to the wellwritten manual, and my first pass- sitting on the couch, guitar In hand and recorder In my lap-produced a perfectly respectable home recording, completely adequate for sharing with fr1ends, posting to the web, etc. I also took the recorder to a live show at a local all-acoustic coffeehouse and, placed on a table four or five feet from the musicians, the unit did a fine job of capturing the performances. One small Issue with this Is that the BR80 Is designed to sit on a tabletop. There Is no mount that would allow you, for example, to attach It to a mlc stand for better positioning when recording acoustic guitar. You can plug an externa 1mlc Into the 1/8-lnch mlcj llne jack In eBand or MTR mode, but not In Live Rec mode. There are no mixing options In Live Rec mode, but plugging the unit Into the USB port on my Mac all owed me to drag the WAV flies to my computer, where I was able to edit and add effects easily.
Miniature Multitracker The fun, however, really starts when you put the Micro BR BR-80 In MTR mode. It's easy to select and record a track (via buttons on the front of the unit) and then, using head-
phones for monltor1ng, switch to a new track and overdub. I soon found myself sitting on a bench In the backyard with a pair of ear buds, happily exper1mentlng with Ideas for tunes . MTR mode Is where you'll find most of the recorder's complexity, and It's where I encountered a few Issues. As with all small devices like this, to access features you need to scroll through a lot of menus. The basic recording steps require very little of this, but functions like applying effects and mixing aren't as easy as on a computer-based system or a full-size recorder. I also found that the effects- both those available for mlxdown and the COSM simulator effects that can be applied while recording-are designed more for electr1c guitar and not as pristine as I would like for acoustic guitar. Although the Micro BR BR-80 stores Live Rec mode fl ies as WAVs or MP3s, In MTR mode they are stored In a proprietary format. Boss provides conversion software for PC and Mac that can extract the Individual flies from the unit and convert them to WAV fl ies for use on a computer. Once the flies are converted, they can be loaded Into the audio editor of your choice for editing and mixing, a much easier option
than dealing with the menu Interface on the Micro BR BR-80.
Songwriter's Delight The Micro BR BR-80 has an Impressive mix of portability and features. Although It's sma ll enough to fit In a guitar case or even your pocket, It feels sturdy and pleasantly substantial. The solid-feeling buttons provide direct access to the most-needed functionality, although I found the cursor dial a bit awkward. The limitations of Hl-blt recording, along with the Inability to use high-quality external microphones probably prevent the unit from being used to create serious recordings. But as both a simple, easy-to-operate stereo recorder and complete multitrack recorder, the Boss Is perfect not on ly for captur1ng live events but as an audio sketch pad for songwriters, a practice system for jamming with loops, or an Introduction to multitrack recording. And Its convenient size means It can go with you anyWhere, so you can be ready to record whenever Inspiration strikes. AC Doug Young (dougyoungguitar.com) is a San Francisco Bay Area fingerstyle guitarist and contributing editor to Acoustic Guitar.
1decision
gold
January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
or
silver
AcousticGuitar.com 31
NEW GEAR
D Taylor 414ce
THE STORES
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Fa ll Li mited edition of Taylor's 400-series cutaway grand auditorium. Solid Sitka spruce top. Solid Indian rosewood back and sides. Taylor Expression System electronics. AIso ava ilable in dreadnought, grand concert, and grand symphony sizes. $2,898. taylorguitars.com.
Ukulele pickup system. Includes custom
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Element undersaddle pickup, miniature
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lSI Fishman Loudbox Artist
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32 AcousticGuitar.com
Ill L.R. Baggs FIVE.O
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padding. $39.95. g7th.com.
$499 street. fishman.com.
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
PLAYER SPOTLIGHT
Carolina Chocolate Drops After losing a founding member, the Grammy-wlnnlng North Carolina group rebuilds Its lineup and records a new album with guitarist and producer Buddy Miller.
By Kenny Berkowitz
BY THE TIME THE CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, the group was coming apart. Justin Robinson, who'd founded the trio five years earlier at the first Black Banjo Gathering, had grown tired of touring and quit the band to attend grad school. That left multi-instrumentalists Dom Flemons and Rhiannon Giddens with a loyal fan base but without a band to back them up. In the months since, they've expanded into a quartet, delved deeper into early-20th-century string band music, and worked hard to rediscover themselves. "The new lineup definitely feels different," says guitarist/banjoist Flemons, unwinding after a rousing, foot-stomping set at the GrassRoots Festival in Trumansburg, New York, this past July. 'When we started, the focus was on Justin and Rhiannon, and I was an auxiliary player. Now, she and I are the main people, which has really changed the sound. Adam Matta's beat-boxing has given us a whole 'nether bass instrument, and with Hubby Jenkins, we have a mandolin player and second guitarist, which has freed me up to do things I couldn't do before. Rhiannon is taking the lead more on fiddle, bringing a lot of Canadian and Scottish tunes, and Adam and Hubby are coming up with new ideas from jazz and hip-hop. There's a natural chemistry between all four of us, and it's like starting with a clean slate. We're still in the early stages of evolving as a group, dipping our toes here and there, and finding out where we're going to go."
Go Back and Fetch It They've already surpassed any goals they might have had at the start, when the original three came together at the home of 86-year-old (now 92) Piedmont fiddler Joe Thompson, who became their mentor. Hoping to bring Thompson's music back to life, they soon found themselves building a repertoire to fit their vision of 21stcentury string band music, which includes originals, country blues, Civil War- era minstrel songs, Gaelic a cappella, and R&B hits like Blu Cantrelrs "Hit 'Em Up Style," 34 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
PLAYER SPOTLIGHT which has become their signature. As a group, they've released five albums, Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind (2006), Coloured Aristocracy (2007), Heritage (2008), Carolina Chocolate Drops and Joe Thompson (2009), and the Grammy-winning Genuine Negro Jig (2010)plus two solo albums by Flemons, Dance Tunes, BaUads, and Blues (2007) and American Songster (2009)-each with a strong, underlying emphasis on African-American rhythms. 'We're trying to make people drop whatever they're doing and dance uncontrollably," Flemons says. «Every facet of this group is based around rhythm, fitting right in the pocket, with a strong pulse in everything we do. We're a dance band, and we're not con-
fined to making this music sound old. So if Rhiannon is playing fiddle and I'm playing bones, we can take the rhythmic ideas we've learned in our own journeys and combine them with what we know from the sheet music to give the material a new shape. It's all about sankofa, which is an Ashanti term for 'go back and fetch it,' taking an idea out of the past and bringing it into the present. It's about reaching into the future and being as inventive as we can." During this rebuilding year, the Drops have recorded material for a new album that's being produced by Buddy Miller and is expected to be released in early 2012. Alongside
a new song by Giddens, there's one from Hazel Dickens, one from the first Sonny Boy Williamson, and a couple of fiddle tunes. They've rearranged their older songs for quartet, with Giddens spending more time on five-string banjo and Flemons creating new parts on slide guitar, harmonica, fife and drum, jug, and panpipes. Last spring, they published The Carolina Chocolate Drops Songbook, released an EP of their 2009 sessions with New York City's Luminescent Orchestrii, and collaborated with ragtime pianist Reginald R. Robinson, tap dancer Reggio «ne Hoofer" McLaughlin, and Po' Girl's Allison Russell on Keep a Song in Your Soul: The Black Roots of Vaudeville, about the 1930s Chitlin' Circuit. 'We've been working on so many things, there hasn't really been time to ask ourselves, What's the next step?"' says Flemons. 'We've already won a Grammy. We've been on Prairie Home Companion and the Grand Ole Opry. We've played the Newport Folk Festival. We've toured Europe several times. We've done the straight traditional for years, which gives us the freedom to keep pulling out more repertoire as we go. And we've just barely scratched the surface of this music." AC Kenny Berkowitz is an Acoustic Guitar contributing editor. He lives in Ithaca, New York.
OOM FLEMONS • ACOUSTIC GUITAR: Fraulini Angelina model by Todd Cambio, based on an early20th-century Oscar Schmidt design and built with a red spruce top, mahogany back and sides, 26.5-inch scale length, 14%~nch upper bout, 10'12-inch lower bout, 12 frets to the body, and ladder bracing. • BANJO: Four-string Deering Sierra Plectrum. • OTHER INSTRUMENTS: Pentatonic panpipes in G and A by Edmond Badoux. Osage orange wood bones {playdembones.com). Cow rib bones by Stephen Gara. Hohner Marine Band harmonica. Hohner kazoo. Thick-bottom, large-mouth ceramic jug by Pete McWhirter. • STRINGS: D'Addario medium.gauge for the Fraulini. D'Addario tenor for the banjo. • THUMBPICK: Dunlop. • SLIDE: Dunlop Brass.
HUBBY JENKINS • ACOUSTIC GUITAR: Fraulini Annunziata model with a red spruce top, birch back and sides, 24.625~nch scale length, 9%-inch upper bout, 13'12-inch lower bout, X-bracing, and 12 frets to the body.
36 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
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HERE'S HOW
Guitar-Driven Melodies
Poetry and Melody How Sam Phillips creates her evocative and melodic pop songs.
By Adam Levy
Getting a song started from scratch is something every songwriter seems to do differently. Some writers begin with a wordless melody or guitar riff, while others will write a complete lyric first-away from their instrument- then set the words to music afterward. "Usually I have an undeniable urge to write one," Phillips says of her impulse to begin a new song. Other times, she says, she'll make herself write just to write, with no progress required. PhiUips's process is most often melody driven, with guitar in tow. "I sometimes have ideas for a title or a first line," she says, "but I usually have guitar in hand as I write a melody. Then there are the days, months, and years of figuring out what the music has to say and if it is being said to me, to someone else, and so on."
Tone Is King SO FAR IN THESE SONGWRITING COLUMNS, I've largely written about my own experiences as a writer- sharing lessons that have helped me in my own work and using classic song examples to illustrate key points. For this month's installment, I decided to talk with another songwriter about her songs and writing process. With her well-honed melodic sensibilities and haunting lyrics, Sam Phillips has long been one of my favorite songwriters. Evocative imagery and emotional candor are haUmarks of PhiUips's writing. Some of her murkier tales read like pages torn from a noir-fiction novel, while her love songs can be disarmingly tender. And although she takes the craft of songwriting seriously; she's not afraid to have a little come-as-you-are fun, as reflected in the chorus of "Magic for Everybody'' from her 2009 EP of the same name: "Oh, don't let perfect make you blind I Oh, to this beautiful world I Oh, don't erase your crooked lines I Take your mistakes and come with me." Magic for Everybody was part "It Is much more of a of Phillips's yearlong project, challenge to perform Long Play, a subscription-based, a song than to record It, online-only enterprise that offered five EPs and a full-length because In the studio album-as weD as Phillips's silent you have all kinds of movies, collage art, the "Drum white-out and erasers Fill of the Week," and other unique media. The project was a to make It presentable:· boon for her fans-used to expecting new music from PhiUips only every two or three years-and working at this pace stoked her creativity: Long Play included over 40 new tracks when it was completed. Phillips's latest album, Solid State, is built from 13 of those, remastered for physical release.
Some songwriting guitarists accumulate instruments, on the theory that every guitar has some good songs in it-sounds and stories that can only come from that particular box. Other writers will stay true to just one instrument-like a bottomless well that they can keep dipping into for fresh inspiration. For Phillips, tone is the thing that makes for a good writing instrument. "It is very important to me," she says. "Bad tone is irritating and distracting, so any guitar that has a good ton~ark or bright, big or small-is best."
The Rhythm of Poetry On her website for Long Play, PhiUips enthuses about poets Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, and T.S. Eliot, so I asked her about the relationship between poetry and songwriting. "I love melody so much that I am usuaUy trying to interpret what the music is saying," PhiUips says. "There is rhythm in poetry; but no melody to consider. If it's a good song or poem you are listening to, both will slide around the mind to reach a deeper place in you. Melody, for me, is like having a little sugar to make words go down a little easier." 38 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
HERE'S HOW
Plano Inspiration While guitar is Phillips's main writing instrument, she also composes on piano. Different instruments, she says, may inspire different sorts of songs. "I sometimes write on piano," Phillips says, "and it does lead me down different roads. It was the first instrument I learned to play, so maybe that is why." She cites "Flowers Up" from her 2008 Don't Do Anything album as an example of her pianodriven songwriting. The song's chords (Example 1) take some surprising turns beneath the compelling melody; here and there evoking late-period Beatles or Hunky Doryera David Bowie. But it's not just the chord changes that set "Flowers Up" apart from Phillips's guitar-based songs. Writing on piano, she says, affects the feel and rhythm of a song even more. 'When I attempt to play guitar, I am more of a drummer than a guitar player."
Natural Evolution Phillips has been writing and recording for more than 25 years. Though she has grown steadily as a songwriter over the years, her approach to writing has remained more or less the same. "My process has not changed very much," she says, "but my interests have. I'm less interested in creating layers of sound and more interested in becoming a better singer and guitar player." She cites her 2004 album A Boot and a Shoe as a milestone in her development. Phillips recorded most of the album's songs playing live in the studio with Jim Keltner and Carla Azar-two great drummers. "I must have played a little better with those two. If not, it was sure fun trying."
Edit and Polish Even as her focus changes and her guitar skills develop further, some parts of the songwriting process always need tending t~diting, for example. "I try to make my songs user-friendly; but a lot of personal stuff pops up when I am writing. Even though you may be interesting or entertaining, there are going to be some of your thoughts that are not. This sounds like dumb and obvious advice, but a good editor is always an asset. It is always good to consider that someone else is going to be listening to your song." AC Adam Levy lives in New York City, where he plays-and writes-well with others. His latest album is The Heart Collector. 40 AcousticGuitar.com
ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
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January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
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AcousticGuitar.com 41
THE BASICS
Guilar
Gallerg
·~s?l)
String Bending Learn to bend strings so you can make your solos sing In the style of Albert King, Eric Clapton, and Duane Allman.
By Orville Johnson
Oii See video of the music examples at AcousticGuitar.com/ bending
Guitars in th11 Classroom trf"s0nsp!T950lnd'gqellp clif.sroom t11ach9rs to m~kll and l~~ad music that trt nsforms l~~arning into a cr11ativ9, 9ff9Ctiv9, and j ul 9Xp9ri9nc9 for k·12 st d11nts from coast to t and lxlyond.
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42 AcousticGuitar.com
WHEN YOU TAKE A GUITAR SOLO in a band you fill the spot usually occupied by the lead singer. You become the focus of attention and the other players support you, creating a solid rhythm that you can play against. Wouldn't you like to be able to get the same kinds of sliding, slurring, sensuous sounds out of your guitar that a vocalist can get from his or her voice? You want your guitar to sing! But singers can get pitches that are in between the notes you're limited to by the guitar's frets. That's where string bending comes in. It's a technique that gives you access to those in-between tones and lets you phrase your melodies more like a vocalist.
Get In Position
On acoustic guitar you'll do most of your bending on the unwound first and second strings. To get ready to bend, use your ring finger to fret the note you want to bend. Place your index and middle fingers on the same string behind your ring finger so you have three fingers touching the string (see photo). This adds a lot of strength and control to your bending technique. Bring your thumb up over the neck so your hand is in a gripping position. When you bend the string your hand should feel like you're squeezing the guitar neck. One key to good-sounding bends is intonation. It's essential to play in tune! Here's a way to work on that: start with a half-step bend at the tenth fret of the second string (Example la). Before you bend the string, play the note you are aiming for (B~, at the 11th fret) by fretting it normally; and get the sound of this target note in your ears. Now bend the A note a half step up. Do the same with a whole step, from A to B. Play the B note at the 12th fret to get it in your ears, and when you bend, try to make it reach that pitch (Example lb). If your strings are light enough, try for a step and a half (Example lc). That won't be easy with typical acoustic string gauges, but it's worth a try. The important thing is to play your target note, get the sound in your ears, and then bend to the note and get it exactly in tune. Try to notice how much strength it takes to go a half step, then a whole step. Have you heard the terms "kinetic memory'' or "muscle memory''? When you repeat a motion enough times, you get a feel for the amount of force you need to exert to make it happen. ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
Drop Bends Muscle memory will be important for the next technique, the drop bend. Here, instead of raising the note, we start with the string already bent, then pick it and lower the note. You still want to play in tune even though we can't hear if the note is pushed up far enough before we pick it. If you practice the targetnot e intonat ion exercise ment ioned in Example 1 and notice how your hand and wrist feel when you do it, the drop bends will come pretty easily. Let's learn a couple of licks that use these techniques. like Example 1, Example 2 starts with your ring finger on the B string at the tenth fret. Make sure you've got your index and middle finger on the string as well and bend this A note up a whole step to B. Keep it bent as you move your index finger over to the eighth fret of the first string. Play that note and then put your little finger on fret ten and pick that note. Then pick the note you're still holding on the second string and dropbend it down to the starting A note. As you do that, move your index back to the eighth fret of the second string and finish the lick there, lifting your ring and middle finger off to uncover the index finger note. The big challenge of this lick will be getting used to holding a bent note while moving your
other fingers to play notes on an adjacent string. The key is to keep your thumb over the neck so you can maintain the squeezing leverage between your thumb and bending finger as your other fingers move. The next lick (Example 3) starts with your
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middle finger on the third string at fret 12. Pick that G note, then play the second string at fret 11 (W) with your index finger. Put your ring finger on the second string at fret 13 and in the same motion bring your middle finger over so you have three fingers on the second
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available on campus. A service of Luthiers M ercantile International, Inc. • www.lmil.com
January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
AcousticGuitar.com 43
THE BASICS
string to support the upcoming bend. Pick the C note at the 13th fret and bend it up a whole step and hold it there. Fret the first string at fret 13 with your little finger and then dropbend the second string back down to fret 13. To complete the lick, pick the 11th fret of the second string and the 12th fret of the third string with your index and middle fingers, respectively.
Blues Bends
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Let's examine the notes we're using in these two licks and how they affect the sound of the bends. In Example 2, the notes are G, A, B, C, and D, with the bend moving theA note up to B. Speaking in terms of intervals, we're bending the second note of the scale up to the major third. In Example 3, we're playing G, B~, C, D, and F, with the bend pushing the C up to D-the fourth up to the fifth. Play these two licks a few times and notice which sounds more bluesy. The first lick uses the first five notes of a G-major scale and the note we're bending isn't considered a bluesy note. In the second lick, howeve~; we've included the minor third and minor seventh of the scale and the bent note moves the fourth up to the fifth. Much bluesier! If we were to assign genre classifications to these two licks, we might say the first one is kind of country while the second is definitely blues. Could we make the first lick a little bluesier? Of course we could! Instead of bending up a whole step from A to B, just go up a half step to B~ (Example 4). Play everything else in the lick the same as before. Notice that by just changing the major third (B) to the minor third (B~), the lick suddenly becomes more tangy. Generally speaking, the notes in the blues scale that lend themselves to bending are the second (bent up to the minor third), the flat five (bent up to the fifth, and the flatted seventh (bent up to the root). Play around with these sounds, bending up to them or drop-bending down from them and you'll discover a lot of sounds you've heard from the likes of Albert King, Eric Clapton, or Duane Allman. All of the licks here work in the key of G, but since they haven't used any open strings you can move them to any key as long as you remember where the root note is. These licks end on the root of the key; so look for that spot in whatever key you'd like to play them in and let it rip! Example 5 uses these licks and some variations over a 12-bar blues progression. Go for a liquid, sensuous sound and make your guitar sing. AC Learn more about blues techniques in Orville Johnson's Acoustic Blues Guitar Basics series, available at AcousticGuitar.com/bluesbasics. Includes video. ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
Ex. 5
Swing
aslc controls: level, delay time, and causes a tonal shift. Varying this shift with t>lt or create a slap effect sometimes reminiscent of country music from feedback or repeat. The delay-time control time creates a subtle • swoosh." the '50s or rockat>ll ly sounds. Choosing the simply determines the length of time Most chorus effects have at least two right setting Is a matter of expenmentatlon controls: one that varies the speed of the between the Input and When the sound Is effect and another that controls the depth. and taste. Long revert> times tend to blur repeated. Relatively short delays can create anything from a slapt>ack effect to a revertr the sound, especially on fast tunes, t>ut Faster speeds combined with greater depths will create a warbling sound, somewhat like might t>e exactly the effect you need to like sound, while longer settings create a distinct echo. The level control determines add drama to a slow, expressive tune. a Leslie speaker on an organ, while slow some reverbs allow you to set a the volume of the delayed sound relative speeds and shallower depths add a subtle to the original. For a revertrllke effect, set sense of motion to your sound. Used In predelay, which Increases the time between the level fairly low, so the delayed sound Is your notes and the Initial revert> sound. moderation, chorus can add a sense of animation to your sound, mimicking some of Longer settings simulate the sound of barely audible. For more dramatic effects, a larger room, where the sound takes try raising the level, even to the point that the natural acoustic properties of the Instruthe echoed notes sound at the same level anywhere from a few milliseconds to ment that tend to get lost In the direct a few seconds to reach the wall of the pickup sound. A stereo chorus can t>e room and bounce back. It helps to even more compelling, although the remember that sound travels about effect requires two amplifiers or a 1,000 feet per second, or one millistereo PA system, which Is rarely pracsecond per foot, so setting a predelay tical and usually doesn't convey the effect to all members of your audiof 25 ms would help simulate the sound of playing In a room with a wall ence. There are some amplifiers that support stereo-for example, several 25 feet away. In general, there Is a tradeoff Roland amps use a pair of speakers between the length of the revert> and a stereo circuit In a single effect and Its level. You can create a cabinet, with stereo chorus t>ullt ln. more spacious sound t>y Increasing the amount of revert>, lengthening the Choose Your Weapon decay time, or Increasing the predelay For many gultar1sts, revert> Is an With longer revert> times, you may find essential tool that makes the guitar It useful to reduce the revert> level. sound richer and fuller, so for your first Unless you are going for an ot>V1ous foray Into effects, a simple revert> effect, you probably want to add just Individual effects and processors can be mounted to a single unit- or an amp with t>ullt In reverbenough revert> to create a full sound, would t>e a good place to start. pedal board A logical next step wou ld be to try t>ut not so much that the revert> Itself a chorus effect, especially If you are looking can be heard. In most venues, there wil l t>e as the original. The feedback or repeat control determines how many delays you for a slightly more ot>V1ously affected sound. some natural revert> In the room, so any artiA delay unit can replace revert> for some ficial revert> you use will be added to the hear. At Its lowest setting each note will t>e room's sound. repeated just once. As you Increase this styles- from a rockat>llly slap to the lush control, you will hear multiple repeats. On sounds of slack key- and can t>e compe~ Delay some delay units, at maximum settings, the ling for adding some space to single note lead lines, or as a dramatic effect with clear Another effect related to revert> Is digital delay repeats almost Infinitely. delay, or echo. Delays can t>e used to add Many delays have a "tap tempo• feature, echoes. And of course, a programmable a subtle sense of space to the sound, multi-effects device can simplify your setup a button or switch you can tap repeatedly to set the delay time. This can be a convenient If you find yourself haV1ng so much fun you much like revert>, t>ut you can also create longer and louder delays that make It sound hands-free method of changing the delay want to use them all! AC like your notes are bouncing off a wall or time, t>ut It can also t>e used to synchronize even like you are playing every note twice. delay times with the tempo of the tune Excerptedfrom the upcoming "Equalization some delay pedals offer extremely long you're play1ng. Most delays with tap tempo and Effects Processing" download available at allow you to enter the t>aslc tempo of a delays, to the point that they can be used AcousticGuitar.com.
January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
AcousticGuitarcom
71
PLAYLIST More reviews available at AcousticGuitar.com/playlist
John Doyle Shadow and Light As a founding member of Solas, John Doyle burst onto the scene with a startling vision of Irish guitar, combining a powerful, driving sense of rhythm and an incomparable harmonic complexity. Since going solo in 2001, his work has grown much quieter, subtler, with an increasing focus on simply accompanying the voice, and on Shadow and Light, he’s taken on a new role, writing or co-writing all but one of these songs. They’re all deeply steeped in Irish and IrishAmerican tradition, whether he’s singing about his daughter (“Little Sparrow”); recounting a dream (“Selkie”); or telling stories about the Civil War (“Clear the Way”), the First World War (“Farewell to All That”), the Alaska Gold Rush (“Wheel of Fortune”), the settling of Australia (“Bound for Botany Bay”), and emigration (“The Arabic” and “Liberty’s Sweet Shore”). As a singer, he’s more comfortable and self-assured, and as an instrumentalist—on sixstring guitar, eight-string guitar/bouzouki, and ten-string guitar/bouzouki, backed by fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Todd Phillips, and accordionist John Williams—Doyle remains at the top of his game. His music has never sounded more beautiful, and given the chance to stretch out on the album’s two instrumentals, the lilting “Killoran’s Church/Swedishish” and the elegiac “Tribute to Donal Ward/The Currachman,” the playing is perfection itself. (Compass) —KENNY BERKOWITZ
Mary Flower Misery Loves Company With her warm contralto and dazzling skills as an instrumentalist and arranger, Mary Flower has cemented her status as one of the most dynamic performers on the acoustic blues circuit. Though she often appears solo in her stage act, on her ninth solo release, Misery Loves Company, Flower does the studio equivalent of announcing to the audience: “And now, I’d like to bring up to the stage my good friend . . . ” The 11 duets (and one solo piece) on the album feature artists ranging from blues harpist Curtis Salgado and guitarist Colin Linden to soul singer LaRhonda Steele. Flower sets the groove, fingerpicking a 1934 Gibson L-00 in a fluid, highly personalized version of the ragtimey Piedmont style or playing lap slide on a square-neck 1950s Gibson HG-2. Her accompanists don’t greatly alter the trajectory of these songs, but they do 72 AcousticGuitar.com
help bring out the inherent swing in Flower’s music. Mark Vehrencamp’s tuba adds a bit of whimsy to “Jitters,” an original rag, while Dave Frishberg’s jazz piano provides just the right amount of pathos to Flower’s Tin Pan Alley–inspired minor blues, “I’m Dreaming of Your Demise.” And Flower’s son Jesse Withers’s rock-solid bass lets Flower go to town lapstyle on Tampa Red’s “Boogie Woogie Dance” in open-D tuning. Flower, who started her career as a folkie, is now deep in the pocket of the country blues, and there are few musicians in the genre bringing as much creative spark and low-key mojo to this century-old music. (Yellow Dog) —IAN ZACK
Bonnie “Prince” Billy Wolfroy Goes to Town Known over his long career as Palace, Palace Songs, and Palace Brothers, Will Oldham has mostly used the moniker Bonnie “Prince” Billy for the past decade or so. This is not an artist changing names in order to run from artistic missteps— on the contrary, Oldham has steadily built a huge catalog of lovely work that has unfolded slowly and carefully, much like the arrangements of his characteristically hushed songs. On the opening track, the languid “No Match,” Oldham sings in his unhurried tenor, “I’m no match for those who love the Lord / And they’re no match for me,” lines that are easy to imagine Willie Nelson singing (Oldham’s delicate strummed accompaniment is a dead ringer for the red-headed stranger’s). Wolfroy Goes to Town mines traditional country and western and folk, though the album occasionally tacks directly into an eccentric headwind, as in “Time to Be Clear,” which features a beautiful, eerie vocal solo by Angel Olsen, backed by Oldham’s Spanish-tinged guitar flourishes. This string of wordless vocalizations brings to mind the otherworldly strangeness of Antony and the Johnsons, and given American music’s long and storied history of weirdness, that might be the most traditional move of all. (Drag City) —MARK SMITH
Glenn Jones The Wanting After 20 years playing postrock with the Boston-based Cul de Sac, Glenn Jones went solo in 2004, reinventing himself as a guitarist in the American Primitive mold, with John Fahey and Robbie Basho as his primary inspirations. Four albums later, he’s still getting better, and his technique on five-string, open-back banjo has grown strong enough to stand next to his best work on six- and ten-string guitar. The 11 instrumentals here, all performed in open tunings, range from
wistful (“A Snapshot of Mom, Scotland, 1957”) to pastoral (“The Great Pacific Northwest”) to dissonant (“The Great Swamp Way Rout”), but each is elegantly constructed, melodically rich, and gently played. They can be as languid as the bottleneck “Even to Win Is to Fail,” with its debt to the Takoma school, or as haunting as the solo banjo “Menotomy River Blues,” which gains intensity with each repetition of its theme. On The Wanting’s most ambitious track, an elegiac nod to Fahey called “The Orca Grande Cement Factory at Victorville,” Jones finds the perfect accompanist in drummer Chris Corsano, who adds bells, whistles, banging metal, and the sounds of the ocean, gently falling in and out of rhythm as the piece evolves over the course of 17 minutes. A gem. (Thrill Jockey) —KENNY BERKOWITZ
Kris Delmhorst Cars As a music-hungry 13-year-old in Brooklyn during the summer of 1984, Kris Delmhorst experienced a jolt of lasting resonance from a copy of the Cars’ Heartbeat City that she purchased at Tower Records with a fistful of babysitting money. Nearly 30 years later, the Massachusettsbased Delmhorst, one of the contemporary folk scene’s most abundantly gifted singersongwriters and multi-instrumentalists, relives the revelation with a collection of skillfully rendered Cars covers that redefines labor of love. Ably assisted by a handpicked studio crew of players (including guitarists Mark Erelli and Jefferson Hamer) and vocalists who nailed the 11 tracks mostly live during a whirlwind two-day session, Delmhorst revisits the hits and then some. While her Americana-style arrangements (heavy on the acoustic guitars, fiddles, mandolins, banjos, and such) buff off the metallic, New Wave edge of classics such as “You Might Think,” “Shake It Up,” and “My Best Friend’s Girl,” never does Delmhorst lose the kinetic thrill of the originals. Perhaps the album’s greatest triumph is how the altered sonic context reaffirms the wit, humor, and impeccable pop craftsmanship of Ric Ocasek’s enduring songs, providing a memorable kick not unlike the one savored by a young musician-in-the-making back in the day. (Signature Sounds) —MIKE THOMAS
Kenny Smith Return From his groundbreaking lead guitar work with the bluegrass supergroup Lonesome River Band to his breakout interpretations of classic and original material on his landmark solo album, Studebaker, Kenny Smith has emerged as one ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
of the most exciting and original voices in flatpicking. On Return, Smith soars to even greater heights across a spectrum of tunes ancient and contemporary. A true master of the Three T's- tone, touch, and timingSmith's playing seems to induce, rather than extract, notes from his guitars. Playing three superb vintage instruments, including the very first 1935 Gibson Advanced Jumbo ever made and a slothead sunburst 1933 Martin D-28 used by Norman Blake, Smith brings alive new originals like "Rising Fawn" and his jaunty "Model A" with cliche-exterminating class and style. Backed by acoustic luminaries including Adam Steffey, Barry Bales, Aubrey Haynie, and clawhamrner banjo star Adam Hurt, Smith also returns to his roots here with thoughtful, inventive revisions to classic bluegrass flatpicking tunes like "Black Mountain Rag," "Billy in the Lowground," and "Arkansas Traveler," among others. Buoyed by inventive arrangements and inspired instrumental interplay, Kenny Smith makes the most of this Return. (kenny-amandasmith.com) -DAVID McCARTY
Noam Plkelny Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail What do you do for an encore after you've won the inaugural Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass and appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman with your banjo-playing benefactor to accept the $50,000 award and play an over-the-top version of "Dueling Banjos"? When you' re Punch Brothers banjo genius Noam Pikelny, you hook up with ace acoustic musicians Tim O'Brien, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, David Grier, Jerry Douglas, Aoife O'Donovan, and several Punch Brothers band mates to release one of the most invigorating and innovative acoustic albums of the year. Ranging from old-time tunes like his delicate recasting of "Cluck Old Hen," played as a duet with Martin, and "Pineywoods," done as a banjo/ fiddle duet with Duncan, to the ethereal original "The Broken Drought," where Pikelny's banjo intertwines perfectly with Chris Eldridge's moody, arpeggiated guitar lines, Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail shows a remarkably broad range of technical ability. There's even a breathy, highly personal vocal from O'Donovan on the Tom Waits tune "Fish and Bird" that Pikelny expertly matches in lyricism and dynamics. As another young banjo star, Chris Pandolfi, noted in his 2011 International Bluegrass Music Association keynote address, bluegrass music is expanding and outgrowing old constraints as new converts flock to its resilient sound. This exceptional recording proves his -DAVID McCARTY point. (Compass) January 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
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WOODSHED
Controlling Note Duration Learn to control the ringing of strings with your picking-hand fingers.
By Alex de Grassi
~
THERE ARE TWO FUNDAMENTAL WAYS of controlling a note's duration. The first, releasing the note, is used with fretted notes, and the second- stopping the string with the picking hand-can be used with both open strings and fretted notes. In this lesson we will look at controlling note duration using the picking hand.
See video of the
music examples at AcousticGuitar.com/ duration
Experiment with Ringing Strings Rest your picking-hand thumb (p) on the fourth string and your index (i), middle (m), and ring (a) fingers on the third, second, and first strings respectively. Play the open first string using a. Let the note vibrate tiD it can no longer be heard. Pluck the string again, let it ring for a second, and then put a back down on the string so it stops vibrating. Repeat the process with m and i on the open (unfretted) second and third strings. Try to keep the thumb and other fingers resting on their respective strings as you do so. Next, with the thumb and fingers on the same strings, play Example 1 and allow the notes to ring. Play it a second time and stop each string as you pluck the next one in the sequence. The first three strings are stopped by placing the picking-hand finger back on the string, and the fourth string is stopped by releasing the string with the fretting-hand finger. (Alternatively, the fourth string can be stopped by replacing the thumb on the fourth string for the half-note rest.) Play the line several times each way, with the notes ringing and with them stopped, and listen to the difference. The first way has a fuller, more resonant sound, but the second way has more clarity. The choice w ill depend on the musical context. Now try Example 1 again and let the notes continue to sound until you reach the fourth string in measure 4 . As you play the fourth string with the thumb, replace a, m, and i on the strings. Played this way, the phrase sounds very open with aU the notes connected or legato, but by stopping the top three strings as you play the final note, the phrase has a sense of completion because the only note continuing to ring is the last note.
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Kaufman University
Picking-hand thumb and fingers stopping all six strings.
To make a complete rest in the last two beats of the final measure, place the side of your thumb across strings four, five, and six so that it stops the lower three strings simultaneously (see photo). With your fingers remaining on the top three strings, the guitar should now be completely silent.
the thumb comes to rest on the adjacent string, it stops any note played on that string from sounding. Play Example 2 using only the thumb to play a series of rest strokes. While the first three notes are stopped by releasing the fretted note E and then refretting theE to stop the D, the D played on the open fourth string on the first beat of measure 3 is stopped by the rest stroke playing the C on the adjacent fifth string. Likewise, the open-string note A later in the measure is stopped by playing a rest stroke on the sixth string. Then, after two beats, place the thumb back down to stop the open sixth string and mute any resonance on strings four and five for the final half-note rest. Play the line again using free strokes Oifting your finger clear of the adjacent string), and try to avoid stopping any vibrating open strings with fretting-hand fingers as shown in Example 3. The open fourth, fifth, and sixth strings continue to ring through the end of the example, creating a chord with the notes E, A, and D in the final measure. Compare that sound with the example using rest strokes. There might be situations where it is desirable to let one or more of those bass notes ring, but generally speaking, allowing too many low notes to ring beyond their written values makes the music sound muddy, especially where there are changes in the chords or the harmony. AC
Muting with Rest Strokes
Learn more in Alex de Grassi's complete "Controlling Note Duration" download available at AcousticGuitar.com/ degrassifingerstyle. Includes video.
Sometimes a musical line falls such that it is convenient to control the note durations just by using rest strokes (see Woodshed, Dec. 2011). This works particularly well for stopping open strings in descending bass lines. As
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SONGBOOK
the 2011 Healdsburg Guitar Festival. I discovered that while DAD G A D didn't really free up any more useful open strings (as alternate tunings often do), the tuning did allow for more economy of motion, leading to a more fluid sound that works well with the added sustain of a steel-string guitar. If you're used to more pattern-based fingerstyle techniques, this will be a good introduction to developing greater finger freedom. This arrangement leans heavily on the contrasting melody and bass lines, with just enough harmony thrown in (as in measures 3, 5, and 11) to give a sense of Bach's magic. It isn't meant to be the ultimate in accurate readings of the piece, but it is a fun introduction to Bach's works that's playable without much classical training- and enjoyable to listen to! - lEJA GERKEN
Minuet in D Minor BWV Anh.132 Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, arranged by Teja Gerken video of Bach's Minuet in D Minor at AcousticGuitar.com/ dadgadbach ~See
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Every guitarist should learn to play a little Bach. Considered one of the greatest composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685--1750) defines the Baroque style, and his contrapuntal and motivic writing was revolutionary at the time. Bach wrote the Minuet in D minor as part of a collection of compositions known as Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. Originally written for harpsichord, the piece has frequently been t ranscribed for guitar, and I first came across it arranged in dropped-D tuning. I began experimenting with this D A D G A D arrangement for a workshop titled "Classical Guitar for Steel-String Players" that I taught at
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:II ACOUSTIC GUITAR January 2012
ACOUSTIC
GUITAR
GUIDES ACOUS"ICGUIT~R
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Download Acoustic Guitar Songbooks Expand and enliven your repertoire with detailed written and audio or video Instruction for songs arranged for acoustic guitar.
Roots and Blues Flngerstyle Guitar
Fiddle Tunes and Folk Songs
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(video and tab) $3.99 each, $29.95 for 10 songs • Down in the Valley to Pray • Eighth of January • Man of Constant Sorrow • OVer the Waterfall • And 6 morel
Traditional Songs for Beginning Guitar
Flngerstyle Blues Songbook
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(audio and tab) $1.99 each, $9.99 for 15 songs • Betty and Dupree • Bye Bye Baby Blues • Lonesome Weary Blues • Make Me a Pallet on Your Roor • And 11 morel
Irish Songs for Guitar
Early Jazz and Swing Songs for Guitar
(audio and tab) $1.99 each, $9.99 for 15 songs • A Kiss in the Morning Early • Heather on the Moor • Rosemary Fair • Star of the County Down • And 11 morel
(audio and tab) $1.99 each, $9.99 for 15 songs • Avalon • Limehouse Blues • St. James Infirmary • St. Louis Blues • And 11 morel
SONGBOOK
Fair and Tender Ladies Traditional, arranged by J ody Stecher
Cecil Sharp was an Englishman who came to Appalachia in the early 20th century looking for English songs in the southern Appalachians. He fotmd 18 versions of the song "Fair and Tender Ladies." I got the idea for my version from hearing a recording of a banjo-picking member of the Kentucky legislature named Banjo Bill Cornett. He was a fabulous songste.; the way that he combined banjo and voice. I've taken his basic banj o idea, which was to echo the vocal, and I put it on the guitar in D G D G A D tuning. I pick the melody on the high strings with one of my fingers and on the middle strings with my thumb. My thumb also plays the bass strings.
"00 See video at AcousticGuitar.com/ tender
I play a basic oom-pah rhythm with thumb for "oom" and "pah" with my second finger. I also do a lot of pull-offs with the little finger of my left hand to give it a banj o echo. The pull-offs come between "oom" and "pah." Sometimes I'll get a rolling rhythm of fours by picking down on a bass string with my thumb on the downbeat, following it with a pull-off on the highest string. The third stroke is a downward motion of the middle finger across several of the higher strings together. The fourth stroke is an upstroke by the index. "Fair and Tender Ladies" is set in a pentatonic mode. It's got only five notes, ascending and descending; it's got no third and no seventh: D EGA B D. It gets its beauty from that. - JODY STECHER
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For beauty's a thing that'll soon decay
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And tied it down with a silver line
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I'd a locked my heart with a key of golden
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