Alex de Grassi Style

LESSON: ACOUSTIC

ON THE CD £. Tracks 53-54

Alex De Grass! This month Stuart Ryan uncovers the lush, dreamy, ambient style of one of America's greatest exponents of fingerpicked acoustic guitar, the great Alex De Grassi... ABILITY RATING

Moderate

Will improve your: 19 Percussive playing B Use of alternative tunings B Ambient feel

AMERICAN INSTRUMENTALIST Alex De Grassi is one of the finest purveyors of acoustic guitar music you are likely to hear. Rightfully acknowledged as one of the acoustic guitar world's top-flight players, De Grassi first came to prominence in the 1980s as part of the Windham Hill record label, which gave rise to several other great acoustic artists including Michael Hedges. De Grassi is my favourite type of musician, the guitarist as a composer; his writing is simply stunning and he has his own voice on the guitar. The beauty of De Grassi's writing is in its subtlety; perhaps his most played piece, The Water Garden can seem quite simple on first listen but sit down to play it and you will find awkward stretches, tricky syncopations and various percussive devices that can be hard to execute. Combine great writing with

GET THE TONE • Alex is a Lowden man, an F35 to be precise. You are dealing with a lot of low, altered tunings here so the thickest possible strings are best, both for the guitar itself and for the tone. I used a Nick Benjamin 00 - this is a tiny guitar but still sounds great tuned all the way down! I used 1 2 - 5 3 gauge strings.

that other essential tool, tone, and you have an artist who is well worth studying. De Grassi's writing eschews theatrics and instead comes across as music that could have been written for any instrument, which is one of the greatest achievements a composer can aim for. In this month's piece I have aimed for some typical De Grassi trademarks - a low altered tuning to give the guitar added resonance, deep sustained chords and a percussive string slap to give the music a sense of forward motion. Like De Grassi, I have aimed for subtlety and melody. There are some passages here that may be a little trickier than they at first appear. Studying a slow piece like this can really improve you as a player.

PRO TIP • Altered tunings can be a great way of coming up with new ideas - make sure you have a good working knowledge of chord voicings so you can figure out what you want to play anywhere on the fretboard. At workshops I always encounter great players who can tear through complex, fast material but then struggle with slower pieces where every single note is exposed! Alex makes music that appeals beyond the guitar playing audience alone, one of the greatest achievements of any instrumentalist. Check him out and be dazzled! Percussive muted strings can really add to a piece but they are

quite hard to sound correctly. In order to do this you need to slap the string so your thumb stops dead on it - if your thumb bounces off the string you will simply sound the note, so you are trying to effectively 'kill' the note by stopping it with your thumb. It's a great technique that with practice will give an extra dimension to your playing and writing. GT

TRACK RECORD 8 The Water Garden is a beautiful

album full of Alex's signature compositions and chord voicings, but it's also worth checking out everything else recorded by the

great man!

I encounter great players who can tear through complex, fast material but then struggle with slower pieces 82 GuitarTechniques December 2007

LESSON: ACOUSTIC ON THE CD ft Track 54 Bar 1] Hallmarks of De Grassi's style include deep, low tuning and esonant chord voicings as found here. In addition, the percussive muted pings (indicated by an X) often appear. This is quite a hard technique - you lave to 'slap' the string with the picking hand thumb so it gives a dead, jercussive sound without actually ringing out. This is a feature throughout he piece so spend some time on it before progressing. Bar 3] Here's a potentially tricky fingering - fret the sixth string with the irst finger at the 5th fret then the second string with the fourth finger at Cadd9

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5th fret - keep the first finger in place whilst sliding the fourth finger up to the 7th fret, second string. Good luck! [Bar 6] The natural harmonic at the 5th fret can be hard to get sounding clear. If that is the case, you can achieve the same harmonic (an octave lower) at the 12th fret, and much easier to sound. [Bar 11] Long, sustained chords are another feature of Alex's style, so your playing technique must be very clean in order to keep movement on the bass notes whilst the chord rings out.

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EXAMPLE ...CONTINUED [Bar 19 - Previous page] Watch out for the fretted strings and the muted, slapp ed bass notes here - it can be d fficult moving between the two. [Bar 22] There's another slightly awkward slide on the fourth f nger here so build up to this slowly.

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