AG_230

5 SONGS TO PLAY

HANK WILLIAMS

“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” GILLIAN WELCH “Scarlet Town” TRADITIONAL “The Parting Glass” ...and more

FOR EVERY PLAYER IN ANY STYLE

GILLIAN WELCH RETURNS

with the Album of the Year

19

GUITARSHOPPING TIPS

How to Use EQ Effectively

THE BEST

ACOUSTIC ALBUMS

OF 2011

Gear Reviews MARTIN 0-28VS TRAYNOR Acoustic Amp

LESSONS Creative Chord Voicings Slide Guitar Basics Walking Bass Lines

FEBRUARY 2012 AcousticGuitar.com

We Challenged what guitar players know about coated strings (dull tone, thick coating). We asked professional guitar players who hated coated strings to see if they could tell the difference between Cleartone and premium un-coated strings. Not only did they have an impossible time discerning the difference in feel, they actually said Cleartones sounded louder and brighter. In fact, Cleartone strings are scientifically proven to be up to 10% louder than un-coated strings, according to an independent sound lab. Don't believe us? Scan the bar code at the bottom with your smartphone to watch the full video. Or just go to Cleartonestrings.com and click on Cleartone Challenge.

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Monte Montgomery

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= see video at AcousticGuitar.com = hear audio at AcousticGuitar.com

departments

VOL. 22, NO. 8, ISSUE 230

16 PRIVATE LESSON Creative Chord Voicings: Sideman extraordinaire Mark Goldenberg on using open-string drones and reharmonization to spice up chord voicings. With the Lick of the Month. By Teja Gerken

NEW GEAR 22 Martin 0-28VS: A reissue of Martin’s classic

GEAR

rosewood small-body impresses with vintage vibe, modern features, and muscular tone. By Stevie Coyle 26 Traynor AM Custom Amp: Powerful, featureladen, multiple-input amp with woody and warm sound. By Adam Perlmutter

SHOWCASE page 72

COVER: GIllian Welch and David Rawlings. Photo by Thomas Alleman THIS PAGE: Inside Gryphon Stringed Instruments. Photo by Grant Groberg

66

44 The Long Harvest

30 IN THE STORES 32 PLAYER SPOTLIGHT Sidi Touré: No relation to Ali Farka Touré, but no less of a talent, Sidi Touré contributes his own style to a long tradition of brilliant Malian guitarists. By Sarah Welsh

After eight years of stops and starts, Gillian Welch and partner

36 HERE’S HOW

David Rawlings return with a starkly beautiful set of songs.

Effective EQ: How to use graphic and parametric EQs to adjust your guitar’s amplified sound. By Doug Young

By Derk Richardson

55 Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 The albums released in 2011 that Acoustic Guitar’s editors and contributors found themselves returning to time and time again.

66 19 Shopping Tips Smart guitar-buying ideas from five well-known guitar shop proprietors. By Jason Borisoff

songs to play 12 “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” Hank Williams 14 “The Parting Glass” Traditional, arr. by Danny Carnahan

40 THE BASICS Accuracy and Tone for Slide Guitar: Get started on slide guitar with these simple note-targeting exercises. By Orville Johnson

SHOPTALK 80 Charles Freeborn Guitars: Portland, Oregon, luthier fuses innovative designs with traditional building techniques to create sleek, unusual shapes and sizes. By Andrew DuBrock 82 Goin’ to Woodstock: North America’s finest guitar makers gather for the 2011 Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase. By Teja Gerken

84 WOODSHED Building Bass Lines: Learn to craft jazzy walking bass lines and work them into your solo fingerstyle accompaniment. By Sean McGowan

98 GREAT ACOUSTICS 2001 Andersen SilverLine. By Baker Rorick

50 “Scarlet Town” Gillian Welch

in every issue

88 “Blues in the Kitchen” Sean McGowan

8 Editor’s Note 10 Music Notation Key 94 Marketplace 97 Ad Index

90 “Spanish Harlem” Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector, arr. by Kinloch Nelson February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

AcousticGuitar.com 7

EDITOR’S NOTE

THE RECORD INDUSTRY may still be trying to figure out how to adapt to life in the

EDITORIAL Group Publisher and Editorial Director Dan Gabel Editor Scott Nygaard Managing Editor Mark Smith Senior Editor Teja Gerken Education Editor Dan Apczynski Copy Editor Jan Perry Editorial Assistant Sarah Welsh Contributing Editors Kenny Berkowitz, Andrew DuBrock, David Hamburger, Steve James, Orville Johnson, Richard Johnston, Sean McGowan, Adam Perlmutter, Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, Rick Turner, Doug Young DESIGN/PRODUCTION

cloud, but if our list of Essential CDs of 2011 is any indication, musicians have certainly not let the uncertainties of delivery and distribution deter them from the creative endeavor of assembling a clutch of songs into a 40–75 minute program of recorded music. Whether you download MP3s, purchase physical CDs (or even vinyl), or stream your music online, there is more great new recorded acoustic music to enjoy than ever. The list of “don’t miss” albums that begins on page 55 was gleaned from Acoustic Guitar editors and regular reviewers, who have picked the best (or at least their favorites) of what was a bumper crop this year. And while there are numerous artists in a variety of styles to choose from, one did stand out, appearing on eight of ten reviewers’ Top Ten lists. So it’s safe to say that Gillian Welch, who also graces our cover this month, produced the Album of the Year in 2011. Welch and partner David Rawlings have been Acoustic Guitar favorites since their debut, Revival, appeared in 1996, and The Harrow and the Harvest proved well worth the eight-year wait since their last release. (Revival was itself highly anticipated by many who’d seen Welch and Rawlings onstage or heard Emmylou Harris’s 1995 recording of Welch’s “Orphan Girl.”) Many of you will be reading this issue for the first time as 2011 wanes and 2012 waxes, so for those who are thinking that a new guitar might be a good way to kick off the new year, we’ve elicited some guitar-buying advice from those who’ve seen it all: the shop owners themselves (“19 Shopping Tips,” page 66). Enjoy the issue, SCOTT NYGAARD

GOT A QUESTION or comment for Acoustic Guitar’s editors? Please send an e-mail at [email protected] or snail-mail Acoustic Guitar Editorial, 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 visit us online at AcousticGuitar.com. As a subscriber, you enjoy the convenience of home delivery and you never miss an issue. Sign up or renew your own subscription now and you can also purchase a gift subscription for a friend. A single issue costs $6.99; an individual subscription is $39.95 per year; institutional subscriptions are $39.95 per year. Foreign subscribers must order airmail delivery. Add $15 per year for Canada/Pan Am, $30 elsewhere, payable in US funds on US bank. ONLINE If you’re a subscriber to AcousticGuitar.com or a member of the Acoustic Guitar Club, you already have access to our exclusive online content. Don’t know if your subscription allows you access to AcousticGuitar.com? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. BUY MUSIC Buy songs featured in Acoustic Guitar at AcousticGuitar.com/MusicInAG. ACOUSTIC GUITAR NOTES All subscribers are eligible to receive our free daily online newsletter, Acoustic Guitar Notes. TO ADVERTISE in Acoustic Guitar, the only publication of its kind read by 150,000 guitar players and makers every month, call Sarah Hasselberg at (415) 485-6946, ext. 643, or e-mail her at [email protected].

Director of Design and Production Barbara Summer Senior Designer Timothy Jang Production Manager Hugh O’Connor Production Designers Andy Djohan, Emily Fisher Production Assistant Sam Lynch ADMINISTRATION Publisher David A. Lusterman Office and Systems Manager Peter Penhallow ADVERTISING Advertising Managers (West) Adrianne Serna (East) Cindi Kazarian (Central) Claudia Campazzo Advertising Operations Manager Sarah Hasselberg Advertising Assistant Kimberly Gleaves FINANCE Director of Accounting and Operations Anita Evans Bookkeeper Geneva Thompson Accounting Clerk Susan Gleason Office Assistant Naia Nakai MARKETING Digital Development Director Lyzy Lusterman Digital Publishing Manager Jason Sheen Subscriptions Jan Edwards-Pullin Single Copy Sales Tom Ferruggia CORRESPONDENCE Mail PO Box 767 San Anselmo, CA 94979 Shipping 255 West End Ave. San Rafael, CA 94901 Editorial E-mail [email protected] Subscriptions E-mail [email protected] Customer Service (800) 827-6837 Website AcousticGuitar.com Telephone (415) 485-6946 Fax (415) 485-0831

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AG SUBSCRIBERS Take care of all your subscription needs at our online Subscriber Services page (AcousticGuitar.com): pay your bill, renew, give a gift, change your address, and get answers to any questions you may have about your subscription. RETAILERS To find out how you can carry Acoustic Guitar magazine in your store, contact Alfred Publishing at (800) 292-6122. Except where otherwise noted, all contents © 2012 Stringletter, David A. Lusterman, Publisher.

PRINTED IN USA 8 AcousticGuitar.com

ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

NOTATION

music notation key Guitar tunings are given from the lowest (sixth) string to the highest (first) string; standard tuning is written as E A D 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. Picking-hand fingering is indicated by i for the indexSparks finger, m the a Blueridge Larry Ad middle, 5/4/09 the ring, c the little finger, and p the thumb.

Dropped-D Tuning: D A D G B E

ˇ

D

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i p

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The Youngest of the Old-Timers...

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m i m m p p p horizontal p In tablature, the lines≥ represent ≥ 1/4string on top and the six strings, with1/4 the first on the bottom. The 2 the sixth 0 3 3 numbers 0 refer to 3 given string. Slur markings 2 indicate frets on the 1/2 0 0 pull-offs, and 2slides; 2indicates a hammer-ons, 0 0 0 bend. The number next to the bend symbol A7 D m7 how much the bend raises the pitch: 1⁄4 shows x1 3 1 2 1 1 3 1 2 11 5 fr. for a slight 5 fr. bend, 1⁄2 for a half step, 1 for a whole step. Pick and strum direction are shown below the staff ( ≥ =downstroke, =upstroke), and slashes in the notation and tablature (!) indicate a strum through the previously played chord.

≤

C

G

3 20004

A7

1 3 1 2 11

D m7

5 fr.

x1 3 1 2 1

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). Strings are shown as vertical lines. The line on the far left represents the sixth (lowest) string, and the line on the far right represents the first (highest) string. Dots show where the fingers go, and thick horizontal lines indicate barres. Num bers above the diagram are fretting-hand finger numbers. X indicates a string that should be muted or not played; 0 indicates an open string. Vocal tunes are sometimes written with a fully tabbed-out introduction and a vocal melody with chord diagrams for the rest of the piece. The tab intro is usually your indication of which strum or fingerpicking pattern to use in the rest of the piece. ag

n the mid-1960s Ralph and Carter Stanley saw something in a IStanley boy from Lebanon, Ohio. From those early days with the Brothers, Larry Sparks has developed his own dynamic style while staying true to the traditions of that good old-time country music. Those powerful lead guitar breaks, paired with soulful vocals have endeared him to Bluegrass Music Lovers everywhere. The Larry Sparks Signature Model Blueridge is based on the unique design elements of the guitar that is so closely identified 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-Timers!” BR-3060 Larry Sparks Signature Guitar: • Full-size black pickguard • Vintage 50s style waffle-back tuners • Certificate of Authenticity

Want to Know More About Acoustic Guitar Notation?

BR-3060

≤

À À À

x 32 0 1 0

10 AcousticGuitar.com

≥

≤

The New Larry Sparks Signature Model Blueridge Guitar!

Saga Musical Instruments P.O. Box 2841 • South San Francisco, CA 94080 Visit us at www.sagamusic.com

ˇ

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2

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3

To receive a complete guide to Acoustic Guitar music by mail, send a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to Music Editor, Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo, CA 94979-0767. The complete guide can also be found online at AcousticGuitar.com/notationguide.


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ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

Williams adds a percussive bounce to his accompaniment by strumming through muted strings on beats two and three, shown as X’s in the strum patterns below. He varies his strum pattern throughout the song, and you can too. For a busier strum, try the pattern shown at left—which alternates the scratch rhythm on beats two and three with upstroke strums on the high strings. When you want to lay back behind the vocals, play the simpler pattern shown at right. In each verse, Williams inserts a quick E7 chord between the E and A chords by adding his little finger to the standard E shape (shown below in measure 4). He closes the song with a different E7 shape by simply lifting his ring finger off a standard E shape.

Words and music by Hank Williams

Hank Williams had an amazing number of hits in his short career, and while some were upbeat (like “Hey, Good Lookin’” and “Jambalaya”), many others, like “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and “Cold, Cold Heart,” were decidedly downtrodden. None captured the iconic country image of a loner cowboy down on his luck better than “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Originally recorded in 1949, the track has been covered by a who’s who of singers over the years, including Willie Nelson, Al Green, Cassandra Wilson, and Johnny Cash. With just three chords (the two E7 chords are just E-chord embellishments), “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” proves that great songs can be simple.

“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”

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—ANDREW DUBROCK

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1. Hear that lonesome whippoorwill

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Did you ever see a robin weep

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That means he’s lost the will to live

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I’m so lonesome I could cry

I’m so lonesome I could cry

E

(Fiddle solo)

2. I’ve never seen a night so long E7

When time goes crawling by A

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4.

The silence of a falling star

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The moon just went behind the clouds B7

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To hide its face and cry

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Lights up a purple sky A

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And as I wonder where you are B7

(Pedal steel solo) 12 AcousticGuitar.com

E

(2)

E7

I’m so lonesome I could cry ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

© 1949 SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC. COPYRIGHT RENEWED. ALL RIGHTS ADMINISTERED BY SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, 8 MUSIC SQUARE WEST, NASHVILLE, TN 37203. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD CORP.

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Chords

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ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

picking a steady stream of eighth notes throughout (while watching out for the occasional half- or dotted-quarter-note chord) and you’ll be fine. The third line (measures 9–12) features a few key differences that set it apart from the rest of the song. Measures 9, 10, and 12 echo the Dsus2–D movement that first shows up in measure 4. Measure 11 includes a quick fifthstring walk down from C to A against droning C and G notes in the upper voices—the pinch patterns required to pull this off are not difficult, but they can come as a bit of a surprise amid the rolling arpeggios in the rest of the arrangement. —DAN APCZYNSKI

Traditional, arranged by Danny Carnahan

A humble suggestion for your next acoustic guitar concert: Close your set with “The Parting Glass,” a traditional Irish tune that has over the centuries (yes, centuries) marked the end of countless performances. The music shown below, borrowed from Danny Carnahan’s Irish Songs for Guitar, follows a single verse from beginning to end. To save room, we’ve omitted the guitar part for the second and fourth lines (measures 5–8 and 13–16), which can be easily played by adapting the eighth-note pattern from measures 1–4 to the chord diagrams shown above the lyrics. Keep an eye on the third measure in each line. This measure has two extra beats, which can take a second to wrap your ear around. Continue

See video at AcousticGuitar.com/ partingglass

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February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR


PRIVATE LESSON

to ten years of studies with legendary guitar teacher Ted Greene and, more recently, to studying classical guitar with Emre Sabuncuoglu at the Los Angeles Guitar Academy. I talked with Goldenberg last August prior to a gig at the Sleeping Lady Café in Fairfax, California.

Creative Chord Voicings Sideman extraordinaire Mark Goldenberg on using openstring drones and reharmonization to spice up chord voicings. By Teja Gerken

See video of the music examples at AcousticGuitar.com/ privatelesson

GROWING UP IN THE CHICAGO AREA, guitarist Mark Goldenberg learned piano and French horn as a child, studied composition at the Chicago Musical College, and eventually moved to Los Angeles in the mid-’70s, where he got gigs in the ensuing years playing with Al Stewart, Peter Frampton, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson, and Bonnie Raitt, among others. Since 1994, he’s been a regular member of Jackson Browne’s band, and at the time of this interview, he was getting ready to hit the road with Madeleine Peyroux. Though Goldenberg’s main focus is on his work as a sideman, he is also a solo fingerstyle performer whose self-released album of original guitar tunes (Mark Goldenberg, markgoldenberg.com) hovers somewhere between the work of Ralph Towner and Marc Ribot in its quirky beauty, and it could serve as a study of how to use engaging chords in a solo fingerstyle context. His endless appetite for musical knowledge led

You have a great way of combining melodic lines with interesting chords that include open strings. Could you demonstrate some of the voicings you use? I like to use open strings, but not in the traditional way. I would use an open string that wasn’t the root or the fifth. For example, I might use E if I was playing in the key of C [Example 1]. I like to use non-consonant drones when I can. There you’re putting the drone on the top, rather than the bottom. You can put it anywhere you like. It’s a great sound if you have it on the bottom [Example 2], and you can put it in the middle, like I’m doing here with an A note [Example 3]. A lot of times I’ll ignore what the drone is doing, and I’ll play other harmonies. Whether the note fits in the chord or not is not that important to me, especially if I’m moving through [chords]. Let’s say E is the drone note, and I play a C and then a Bb [Example 4]. You could say that’s Lydian, so it’s not a particularly bad choice, but then [G#] doesn’t fit, but it does fit if I’m going here [G]. I like to find drones, inner, external, bottom, top; it’s part of my playing. It can be like the glue that holds everything together, especially because my pieces are designed to have improv sections in them. Sometimes I’ll go out on a limb, and I’ll use a drone to take me out and bring me back in. Another key element to your tunes is that you’re constantly revoicing the chords. I have a restless mind. Here’s an example

lick of the month

This excerpt from the opening of Mark Goldenberg’s tune “Unanswered” is an example of his use of # moving chord voicings. Goldenberg frets the F on the first string in[Lick the second measure with the upper of the Month] part of his index finger, which also plays the C in the bass. Some of the close-interval chords have wide stretches and may take a bit of practice.

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5

7


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PRIVATE LESSON

time around, I play the melody with a G pedal as much as I can. So that’s an example of using the same melodic material and finding new ways to harmonize beneath it.

[Example 5]. I wrote this tune that’s all variations. The first time, it’s an E triad over a C bass, but it really comes from an A melodicminor sound [Example 6]. The second time I play through it, I add this [Example 7]; you can’t give this chord a name. Then there is a third variation of the same melody where I add a low E as a pedal [Example 8], and then instead of Am, I use Fmaj7 [measure 2]. Next

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Pete Huttlinger and Collings Guitars.

Pete Huttlinger and his 1997 Collings OM1C

Serious Guitars | www.CollingsGuitars.com | (1) -777

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PRIVATE LESSON

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n FLATTOP STEEL-STRINGS: Takamine TF740FS with stock Cool Tube electronics (live). Late ’40s just harmony. I had a lesson once where he wrote out “major seventh, minor seventh, Gibson J-45 (studio). 0 0 minor 0 seventh 0 4 5 7 5 4 5 5 5Hill5 Signature 5 7 8 Series 7 5 with Indian rosewood back and sides and sandwich top n NYLON-STRINGS: dominant seventh, flat 5, 4di-4 4 4 4 Kenny 5 3 4 3 5 5 minished, augmented,” (cedar, Nomex, and 5 3 5the main 4 chord quali4 5 spruce). 1968 José Ramírez flamenco. 1966 Gibson Richard Pick model. 5 “Here’s your n ARCHTOPS: 20104 ties that we5use.3Then6he said, Erich Solomon Phidelity (European spruce top, mahogany back and sides). 1933 6 5 3 lesson, Mark: go from the closest voicing to Gibson L-5. the widest voicings E /C on each of3 these qualities, A m9 Ex.n 6AMPLIFICATION: Schertler Unico amp. Ex.L.R.7 Baggs Venue DI. Strymon blueSky reverb. Malekko analog on every inversion of the chord, in every key.” delay. Electro-Harmonix Freeze pedals. n STRINGS: D’Addario light-gauge (.012–.053) on the steel-strings. Hard-tension Pro Arté on the nylonI came back in a year; it took forever to do it! But it was a really great way to learn how you strings. can build chords. For example, here’s a gar3 den variety Gmaj7 [Example 9]. Ted was big chord scales with this inversion [Example 12], one of the voices and take an 5 octave,” on the idea of 4“voice 4 4 4 displacement.” 4 4 5 7 5 4 When 0 5 7 it down 8 5 like that, he wouldn’t1 say 5 7 this 9 chord [Example 5 10]. which brings you back to reharmonizing so now you have he’d play a chord 4 4 4 5 7 5 chords, which is invaluable when you start to Or “that’s a chord,” he’d say “that’s four voices 2 6 7you could play it [with open strings] 6 3 0 [Example 11]. Then you could learn your playing a chord.” He’d say “OK, Mark, take work on melodies. ag

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NEW GEAR

Martin 0-28VS A reissue of Martin’s classic rosewood small-body impresses with vintage vibe, modern features, and muscular tone.

By Stevie Coyle

C.F. MARTIN AND CO. is arguably the best-known steel-string guitar manufacturer in the world. But it’s a fair guess that when most folks picture a Martin, it’s not the diminutive 0 size that springs to mind. Truth be told, however, these little guitars hold a special place in the company’s history. First introduced in the 1850s, the 0 was Martin’s first true concert-size instrument, despite the fact that it is so small by today’s standards that it is often misidentified as a “parlor” guitar. That term, however, more accurately belongs to instruments of the period that were even smaller than the 0 and that have shorter scales. In its day, the 0-size was considered a big guitar. The times, they have a-changed, eh? But the mighty little 0 has always had its devotees, most notably, perhaps, in recent years Joan Baez and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. Martin didn’t offer its original 12-fret 0-size models for many years, but recently the company updated and reissued the design as part of its Vintage series in the form of an 0-28VS, which we had a chance to check out. See the video review at AcousticGuitar.com/ newgear

12-Fret Style 28 With a 12-fret body that measures 131⁄2 inches across the lower bout, the 0-28VS is over two inches narrower than a standard, 14-fret dreadnought. But the body is only a fraction of an inch shorter than a dread, and the placement of the bridge—in the middle of the lower bout rather than toward the waist of the guitar—is often considered to be the best position for producing a loud, clear, and highly articulate voice. With their wide fingerboard and string spacing, 12-fret Martins have been perennial favorites of fingerstyle players, and the 0-28VS offers true vintage-style dimensions in its 17⁄8-inch nut and 25⁄16-inch string spacing at the saddle. Of course the number “28” in the Martin model designation indicates that the guitar is built with rosewood back and sides and a spruce top. Other typical style-28 features include herringbone top purfling and a distinctive “5-9-5 band” rosette. And, do you want to hear a fun fact that is truly heartbreaking? When it hit the stores in the 1850s it was called a “28” because it cost $28.


A Thing of Beauty The russet-hued solid East Indian rosewood back and sides and gold-toned solid Sitka spruce top of this 0-28VS are finished in “polished gloss,” but the neck is satin-finished. That’s the best of all possible worlds, by my lights. The wood grain on the back and sides is wide and quite straight, while the top has quite a lot of cross-grain and a bit of a dark spot above the soundhole, which might have been considered a flaw in previous decades. But then again, we all wanted narrow-grain “pound cake” spruce tops back then, too. Thankfully, these days sonic superiority generally trumps visual perfection. The V in the guitar’s model name is for “vintage,” of course, and while this guitar doesn’t have the über-retro features of Martin’s Authentic line (such as hide-glue construction and a non-adjustable neck) the 0-28VS does have a lovely old-style pyramid bridge. What looks like a by-thebook glued-in saddle, however, is actually a drop-in, an improvement that allows for easy adjustments and the installation of UST pickups. And unlike its forebears, it has an adjustable truss rod.

Chunky Neck, Muscular Tones Our review 0-28VS arrived set up with light-gauge phosphor-bronze strings and

at a glance SPECS: 12-fret 0-size body. Solid Sitka spruce top. Solid East Indian rosewood back and sides. Scalloped X-bracing. Select hardwood neck with dovetail joint. Ebony fingerboard and bridge. Bone nut and saddle. 24.9-inch scale. 17⁄8-inch nut width. 25⁄16-inch string spacing at saddle. Polished gloss body finish. Satin neck finish. Slotted headstock with nickel Waverly tuners. Light-gauge Martin Lifespan strings. Made in USA. Available in left-handed version.

PRICE: $4,699 list/$3,599 street. MAKER: C.F. Martin and Co.: (800) 633-2060; martinguitar.com.


NEW GEAR medium-low action. Having the action just slightly higher than dead low made sense to me, considering that it’s a short-scale guitar with a rather soft fretting-hand feel already, and that many players will want to get full tone and volume out of a box this small. The modified V-style neck will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found that little extra bit of angle gave my left hand some added mechanical advantage, especially on a neck that starts wide at the nut and gets even wider as you march up the fingerboard. Small-body, 12-fret guitars have always been a favorite of fingerstylers, and in that realm the 0-28VS truly shines. While biggerbodied guitars excel in single-string play and

really light up under the sonic saturation of strumming, this sweet little guitar has such precise articulation that it felt downright impolite to strum it with a flatpick.

Martin Mojo It’s probably a ridiculous thing to say, but this 0-28VS is a very Martiny Martin. It’s got that Martin mojo, even at HO scale. The distinctive overtone stack that is typical of the brand infuses this guitar in spades. (I wish I could concisely articulate better what the devil that means, but I’m certain Martin aficionados will catch my drift.) There’s not a lot of hard science to back up claims about how guitars sound to indi-

a mellow blend

vidual players. It’s a very subjective subject, if you’ll pardon the tortured syntax. But it’s always been my largely unscientific vibe that on a slot-head guitar the steep break angle over the nut contributes considerable downward pressure and improves the overall energy transfer of vibrating strings to the top. Ditto with a neck that’s got some heft and mass to it. For its size, this is one heavy little puppy. Even though the 0 model itself is scaled-down, the body woods are the same thickness as you’ll find on dreadnoughts.

Raw Power, Rich Harmonics The 0-28VS is remarkably loud, with belllike overtones even in the bass registers. In fact, on first meeting I felt that the combination of ringy-ness and massive sustain made this a bit of a runaway guitar. But that’s the kind of problem I like. I vastly prefer a guitar that gives you too much of any important sonic feature to one where there’s just no “there” there. While fingerpicking, I found that judicious application of palm-muting and left-hand damping helped rein things in, but while flatpicking or strumming, this guitar was sort of “stuck on 11.” With this kind of raw firepower and such a rich harmonic stack available, there was nothing for it but to swing the 0-28VS into a whole slew of alternate tunings. Even though I’d normally tune a short-scale guitar up instead of down (for example, to E A E A C# E rather then D G D G B D, or to E B E A B E instead of D A D G A D), this guitar handled dropped tunings with much less flabbiness on the bass strings than I would have ever guessed. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note, however, that as clear as the trebles are, and as rich and surprisingly deep as the tones are, in any tuning, capoed on any fret, played fingerstyle or with a flatpick, the sound of this little Martin has a sort of small-bodied tankiness, an attenuation of the extreme low end, that some folks will find immensely appealing, but that others might find too far from their expectations of what a steel-string flattop should sound like.

12-Fret Heaven It’s really small. It’s a 12-fret. It’s loaded with character, and IMHO, it’s a jewel. Tone, volume, vintage vibe, herringbone, and heritage, all in a guitar you don’t have to stand on an apple crate to play. ag 1.800.788.5828 www.rainsong.com

Escape the expected. Experience graphite. 24 AcousticGuitar.com

Stevie Coyle (steviecoyle.com) is a San Francisco Bay Area–based guitarist, vocalist, and teacher. He tours nationally and internationally.


W E N

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DRAGON SKIN strings have a proprietary patent pending coating from K3 Technology Coating that makes them the first coated strings that “sound as good or beeer than uncoated strings.” TM

TM

Players comments include: “the first coated string that sounds louder than uncoated strings” “I’m not complaining, I just dont understand how a coated string can sound beeer, and louder than my uncoated strings. Doesn’t that violate some law of nature? ”you managed to make the first coated strings that definitely do not sound muddy.” All six (6) strings are coated for improved performance and corrosion resistance.

NEW GEAR

Traynor AM Custom Amp Powerful, feature-laden, multiple-input amp with woody and warm sound.

By Adam Perlmutter

IT USED TO BE that electric guitarists had all the fun when it came to amps and effects while acoustic guitarists had a paucity of amplification options. However, acoustic amplification has become as sophisticated as electric, and there is now some awesome equipment designed for the acoustic guitarist who wants to shape his or her sound or be heard above the din of an electric band. An example of that is the AM Custom by Traynor, a Canadian company that has been in the business of making fine amps for nearly 40 years. The flagship of Traynor’s acoustic series, this 225-watt all-in-one powerhouse has the brawn and versatility for nearly any context, is easy to cart around, and, most importantly, possesses a very fine sound.

See the video review at AcousticGuitar.com/ newgear

Impressive Construction, Outstanding Sound When I removed the AM Custom from its shipping box I was pleased not only by its compactness relative to its power—at 121⁄2 by 20 by 13 inches, the amp weighs 35 pounds—but by its handsome looks. The oxblood cabinet covering, golden control panel, and crème and black knobs are very nice cosmetic touches. And with a metal speaker grille and ample corner bumpers, the amp feels solid and roadworthy. Containing high-grade glass epoxy circuit boards, low-noise metal film resistors, and gold-plated jack contacts, the innards are similarly top-notch. At first blush, the top-mounted control panel, which contains more than two dozen knobs and about half as many plugs, was overwhelming. But once I plugged a Martin DC-28E with Fishman Aura electronics in to the 1⁄4-inch jack of the first channel, operating the amp was intuitive—perfect for operating on the fly in a live context. With the AM Custom’s tone controls—bass, lo-mid, hi-mid, and treble—set flat and its master volume at three, the sound is instantly rewarding, clean and clear, thanks in part to the eight-inch woofer and dual neodymium dome tweeters. The basic tone is woody and warm and the amp does an excellent job of capturing picking- and fretting-hand nuances on everything from delicate fingerpicking to forceful strumming; it sounds just as good for Nick Drake–style fingerpicking in alternate tunings and Neil Young– approved bashing in E minor. And the EQ section allows for maximum tonal versatility. By boosting the highs I was able to add a stridency-free shimmering quality to some ringing open arpeggios and got a laser-like edge on some single-note lines in the upper register while retaining


some woodiness in the sound. By minimizing the highs I got a sound befitting more subdued accompaniment styles and even coaxed from the Martin an almost archtop-like sound perfect for jazz soloing. Like any acoustic amp, the AM Custom is not without certain limitations. It has a wide spectrum and a realistic acoustic sound yet doesn’t quite sound 100 percent pure. And it is no stranger to feedback at higher volumes. But I found this problem could be attenuated easily enough by adjusting the feedback notch on each channel, lowering the bass, or simply positioning the Martin farther from the amp. Feedback notwithstanding, it was clear that the amp will deliver ample volume for contexts ranging from a solo appearance in subway station to an electric band setting in a large club.

Versatile Effects and Input Capabilities The AM Custom boasts 16 different built-in 24-bit digital effects, from a hall reverb to a compressor, handily configured in two separate units—one for channels one and two and the other for channel three. These effects will not suit every player, but a judicious application of one of the three types of reverb—hall, room, or plate—can add a

at a glance SPECS: Three input channels with separate four-band equalizers and feedback notch filter controls. 225 watts. Additional auxiliary RCA CD/ MP3 input. 48 volts phantom power. Eight-inch woofer with two-inch voice coil. Two two-inch neodymium dome tweeters. 24-bit digital effects with footswitch. XLR pre-EQ DI output with ground lift. Post-EQ line output. Solid plywood cabinet with all-metal grille. 35 pounds. Made in Canada.

PRICE: $1,399 list/$1,119 street. MAKER: Traynor: (716) 297-2920; traynoramps.com.


NEW GEAR nice hint of depth in even the most traditional setting. More radical effects include a harmonizer, which adds intervals of an octave or a fifth, down or up, and a rotary speaker, which re-creates an electric– organ–like pitch-shifting effect. While all of the effects sound lush and natural, more intrepid guitarists will wish they had more control over them. Each effect is adjustable only in terms of wetness and, via the modify knob, a single parameter— for example, decay time on the reverb. Also, it would be nice if a footswitch were included for the effects. While the AM Custom has a low-noise balanced XLR out for sending your amplified sound to a PA system, singersongwriters will appreciate that the amp itself can function as a PA system, able to amplify guitar and vocals at the same time. Channel three contains the 48 volts of phantom power required to use a condenser microphone. Vocals sound very good with a Shure SM58 mic plugged into this channel, especially when glazed with a touch of reverb, and the EQ and gain controls help achieve a perfect blend with the guitar signal. For performers who incorporate prerecorded material in live performances, the AM Custom has an RCA input independent of the three channels that can be used to plug in a device like a CD or MP3 player, with the signal arriving at the amp directly before the master volume control. I tried this largely noiseless feature in conjunction with an iPod (and the required cable converter) and found that it makes a handy and fun practice tool for jamming with recordings.

Powerful, Feature-Laden Amp Not every acoustic guitarist has complex needs when it comes to amplification, but for those who do, Traynor’s AM Custom has a boatload of features: three separate channels with dedicated EQ sections, two digital effects processors, phantom power, and much more. At 225 watts, the amp has an ample amount of headroom for medium-size clubs, and it can even be used as a PA system in smaller venues. Its super-solid construction and premium components will ensure that it survives the rigors of the road, and its outstanding sound will please musician and audience alike. ag

Contributing editor Adam Perlmutter transcribes, arranges, and engraves music for numerous publications as well as Jammit, a new music app.



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NEW GEAR IN THE STORES

1

2

1 Veillette

Cutaway Acoustic Bass

Acoustic-electric bass guitar. 34-inch scale. D-Tar electronics. Many custom wood options (spruce top and maple back and sides shown). Available in four-and five-string versions. Starts at $4,380. veilletteguitars.com.

2 Recording

King ROM-06-CFE4

Acoustic-electric OM guitar. Solid Sitka spruce top with scalloped bracing. Mahogany back and sides. 25.4-inch scale. Fishman electronics with onboard tuner. $359.99 street. recordingking.com.

3 Peavey

3

XPort

4

USB audio interface. Converts ¼-inch guitar output to USB signal for computer recording. Includes Reaper and audio recording software and Peavey ReValver amp modeling software. Headphone and line outputs. $60. peavey.com.

4 Fostex

AR-4i

Audio interface for Apple iPhone. Three inputs for external microphones (two cardioid mics included). LED meters for input level monitoring. Input gain control. Powered by two AAA batteries for up to ten hours of use. Tripod mount allows use for video. $120 street. fostexinternational.com.

5 Planet Waves Ultimate Support Bundle Several popular guitar accessories in one package. Includes Ultimate Support GS-55 guitar stand, Planet Waves Mini Headstock Tuner, tenpack of picks, and one set of D’Addario EJ-16 strings. $79.99. planetwaves.com.


5


All Solid Wood!

Boutique Quality, Stunning Value Whether you’re playing to a half-empty coffeehouse or a sold-out stadium, your guitar is part of who you are as an artist. It has to respond to your musical commands with articulate tone, balance, and power. Add a touch of vintage beauty and you have the new Wechter Dreadnought Select Rosewood.

DN-8142 Dreadnought Select Rosewood Series DN-8142 guitars come with deluxe paddedSelect gig bags.Rosewood The* Travel Wechter Dreadnought combines a solid spruce top with solid rosewood back and sides, providing a rich, acoustic voice that’s perfect for almost any musical style. Solid tonewoods and boutique-quality craftsmanship give you a classic sound and feel that inspires. Also available with solid mahogany back and sides.

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PLAYER SPOTLIGHT

Sidi Touré Al Petteway, Tony McManus, Doug Smith, Adam Rafferty, Mike Dowling, Greg Ruby, Jack Lawrence, Rolly Brown, Scott Ainslie, Steve Baughman, Folk Arts Workshops at Sean McGowan, Warren Wilson College Patrick Landeza, PO Box 9000 Robin Bullock, Asheville NC 28815 828.298.3434 Mark Hanson, www.swangathering.com Marcy Marxer, Vicki Genfan, Ed Dodson, several top luthiers & more.

• Trad. Song Week, July 8-14 • Celtic Week, July 15-21 • Old-Time Week, July 22-28 • Contemporary Folk Week, July 29- Aug. 4 • Mando & Banjo Week, August 5-11 • Fiddle Week, August 5-11

No relation to Ali Farka Touré, but no less of a talent, Sidi Touré contributes his own style to a long tradition of brilliant Malian guitarists. By Sarah Welsh

YEARS AGO, in the town of Gao, Mali, a budding singer-songwriter was making tuners for his first guitar out of motorcycle nuts. Now, just like the simple instrument that got him started, Sidi Touré has developed a compelling acoustic style that reflects his humble beginnings. Often called “Songhai blues” in the United States, Touré’s style is rooted in African folklore, with blue notes and subtle call-and-response dynamics pointing to the beginnings of the Mississippi blues. On his latest album, Sahel Folk, Touré strips his acoustic sound down to the bones, singing in his native Songhai on a simple acoustic-electric guitar (he’s been seen playing Washburn and Ibanez models, as well as an “XP” guitar based on a bowl-back Ovation design). While his first CD, Hoga, was recorded with a band in 1996, his latest album is a series of duets, recorded in only two takes at his sister’s house. This time, despite the rawness of the recording, Sahel Folk sets Touré’s seemingly effortless fingerpicking front and center. He plucks each string fluently with a delicate precision, rolling with the rhythm of traditional Malian instruments in each duet. This past fall, Touré traveled to North America for the first time, where he played concerts in Canada and the United States. “I’ve wanted to play there for a long time, not only to play, but also to meet people and musicians,” he says. “Every good musician dreams of playing in the US—it’s a country where people don’t understand what you sing but they feel you through your music.” Before he began his concert tour, the guitarist talked to Acoustic Guitar about his songwriting process and the Malian musical tradition that has had a deep influence on his playing style. On Sahel Folk, you took a very simple, straightforward approach to recording. Why did you choose to limit each song to two takes? TOURÉ We recorded two takes to keep the spontaneity. We’re used to playing like that, it’s the way we feel the music—we look for chords, we talk about the accompaniment, and we play. It’s a kind of improvisation; songs are never really the same. I’ve played with the musicians on Sahel Folk for a long time. On the first day we met around a glass of tea, we listened to songs, we sang them, and on the following day we recorded.



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PLAYER SPOTLIGHT

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You’ve said in the past that your family didn’t want you to pursue a career as a musician and that your brother would break the guitars you made. When did you acquire your first real guitar, and what was the learning process like? TOURÉ There was a music competition in our district—my band won. As a sign of appreciation, a man gave us a five-string guitar. But there were no strings or tuning keys, so we used metallic cables and motorbike nuts. Of course, we needed a solid pair of pliers to tune the guitar. There was no music theory, no music school, nothing. The first song I learned was “Ancien Combatant” by [Malian folk musician] Idrissa Soumaoro. We saw this man in Gao, alone with his acoustic guitar, playing and singing, and this helped improve my style. What kind of guitar do you play, and who are some of your influences? TOURÉ I play an acoustic-electric XP guitar. Unfortunately, I don’t know the brand. If I had to mention only one influence, I would say the late Ibrahim Hamma Dicko, one of the greatest musicians of Mali. He taught me all I know. Because none of his children became singers, he left me his repertoire, which I still play. Are there any Western guitarists who have influenced your style? TOURÉ When I was young, I didn’t know Western music, it was Makossa [an African rhythmic style] and Zairian music. Now I have some tapes in my cupboard—John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, but it’s quite recent. The musical traditions of Mali are very diverse. Which ones have the biggest influence on your music? In the United States, we refer to your music as “Songhai blues”— would you say that’s a correct term? TOURÉ “Songhai blues” is more of a Western term. I draw my music from the history of Gao’s music, from Songhai folklore. In my mind, this term is used because of the link that exists between blues from Mississippi and Africa.

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What is your songwriting process like? Do your compositions begin with a guitar part or a vocal? TOURÉ Most of the time, I take my guitar, then I look for a good melody. When you’ve got a good melody, everything is easier. I also have a handheld recorder I carry with me. Inspiration can come at any moment. Recently I was quite angry to see that, despite a lot of good things coming from Africa, peace is still a distant idea. So I took my guitar, I looked for a melody, and I composed a song. ag ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

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HERE’S HOW

Understanding Guitar Frequencies

Effective EQ How to use graphic and parametric EQs to adjust your guitar’s amplified sound. By Doug Young

GETTING THE BEST AMPLIFIED SOUND from your guitar often involves more than just plugging in to an amplifier or a PA. At a minimum, most guitarists find that they need to make some simple tone adjustments to make their guitar sound good to an audience. The most basic way to alter your guitar’s amplified sound is with equalization (EQ). You can use a graphic EQ or the controls on your guitar or amp to make broad general changes to your tone, to create a warmer or brighter tone, for example, or you can use a parametric EQ or notch filter to make more precise changes, such as reducing a boomy note or even eliminating feedback. Learning to use EQ well takes practice, experimentation, and an understanding of your guitar’s frequency range and even room acoustics. If you’re playing in a room with good acoustics, you have no problem with feedback, and you are basically happy with your sound, fine-tuning your tone can be as simple as turning the knobs on the treble, bass, and midrange until you find a sound you like. But understanding a few fundamentals can help solve bigger problems and make any EQ process easier.

See video at AcousticGuitar.com/ effectiveEQ

Basic Tone Controls The simplest type of EQ is found in the tone controls on your amplifier, guitar, or preamp. You may have a single tone knob or three controls—bass, midrange, and treble are common. These affect broad frequency ranges and are useful for making fairly simple adjustments to the sound of your guitar.

Graphic EQ Graphic equalizers get their name from the way the controls tend to form the shape of a graph. Usually anywhere from three to 31 vertical sliders control different

A graphic EQ, such as this ART EQ351, allows cutting and boosting of preset frequencies.

frequency bands and allow you to cut or boost each frequency range. Units with more sliders allow finer-grained control. Graphic equalizers are often referred to by the width of the frequency range of the bands, or by the number of controls they offer. A simple ten-band equalizer offers ten controls, each controlling a one-octave range of frequencies. With a 1⁄3-octave, 31-band equalizer, each control affects a narrower range of frequencies.

Parametric EQ Parametric equalizers offer just a few bands of boost or cut but allow you to choose both the frequency affected by the level control and the width of the band affected by each control. This is useful for dialing in precise adjustments at specific frequencies.


People can theoretically hear sounds between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz (20,000 Hz). To put these ranges in musical context, the lowest note on a full-size piano is 32.7 Hz, while the highest is 4.18 kHz. The guitar has a much narrower range of frequencies, from 82.4 Hz (low E) in standard tuning to 659.2 Hz for the high E at the first string, 12th fret. Moving a note up by an octave doubles the frequency. So if the open sixth string is a low E at 82.4 Hz, the E on the fourth string, second fret, is 164.8 Hz, and the open first string E is 329.6 Hz. These frequencies refer to the fundamental tone of each note, but the sound of a vibrating guitar string includes overtones, multiples of the fundamental frequency. The tone of the guitar comes from the way each string vibrates not only at its fundamental frequency, but also at the frequency (and volume) of its various overtones. For example, the low sixth string open E vibrates at 82.4 Hz and creates an overtone at 164.8 Hz, another at 247.2 Hz (3 times 82.4), 329.6 Hz (4 times 82.4), 412 Hz, and so on. Generally, each of these multiples of the fundamental frequency gets softer as they go up, but the combination and the relative volume of each defines the tone of the note. When you alter the relative balance of these frequencies, you change the tone. So, for example, even though an open low E string has a fundamental pitch of 82.4 Hz, a midrange control that affects 300–400 Hz will alter the sound of that string. Generally, boosting frequencies below about 250 Hz creates power, warmth, and body, but too much sound at these frequencies can sound boomy. Boosting the range of about 300–800 Hz can add punch, and guitars with too much in this range can sound muddy. Boosting frequencies around 1 to 3 kHz adds presence and clarity, while too much sound in this range can sound harsh. Boosting frequencies above 5 kHz adds sparkle and brilliance.

Using a Graphic EQ The process of using a graphic EQ is similar to that of using basic amplifier controls. Unless you have enough experience to predict the EQ you need in advance, you should start with all controls flat, then make broad changes to alter your tone. For example, if your guitar needs some presence, you might boost the range of controls around 1 kHz. When adjusting for tone, it’s best to create smooth patterns, moving multiple controls around the center frequency you are working with. Remember that you can also cut complementary frequencies—lacking presence might also be interpreted as being too muddy, in which case you can try cutting some low midrange. ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

HERE’S HOW

The graphic equalizer also allows you to selectively address problem frequencies with less impact on the overall sound. For example, you could fix a boomy low G (98 Hz) by using a single slider at 100 Hz to cut that frequency. In this case, you might not use a smooth curve, but just cut the offending frequency.

Many graphic equalizers have an in/out switch that allows you to activate and deactivate the EQ. You can use this feature to compare the original tone with your adjusted sound. It’s easy to keep tweaking tone controls in the belief that you are improving the sound, only to find that you have created something worse than what you started with.

Using Parametric EQ

Parametric EQ, such as this Taylor K4, allows users to adjust specific frequencies.

Most fully parametric EQs have only one to three adjustable frequency bands, but for each band, you can control how much the band is boosted or cut and also change the center frequency of the band. In addition, you can control the “Q,” or the width of the band. Since

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all three controls—cut/boost, frequency, and Q—interact, adjusting them takes patience. Always start with the controls flat. One easy way to get started with a parametric EQ is to simulate a simple three-band tone control. For example, to simulate the effect of the tone controls on a typical combo amp, set one band’s frequency control to 60 Hz, the next to 400 Hz, and the third control to 13 kHz. Set all of the Q controls to their broadest settings. The primary benefit of a parametric EQ, however, comes when you find that these starting frequencies aren’t quite what you need. Maybe you are using alternate tunings or a baritone guitar and need the bass control to be centered at a lower frequency. Just change the first band of controls to a lower frequency. Or perhaps your guitar seems a bit muddy, and neither cutting the bass at 60 Hz nor the midrange at 400 Hz fixes the problem. Try cutting the second band, which you’re using as a midrange control, and then vary the frequency control slightly above and below 400 Hz to find the best sound. The most challenging control to master is the Q control. When set to its widest setting, the EQ band affects a wide range of frequencies. At its narrowest setting, the control may affect as little as a single note. If you can’t get the effect you want with the Q control set wide, try reducing it gradually and keep adjusting the other controls. A parametric EQ really shines at controlling problem frequencies. For example, assume that you have a low G at 98 Hz that tends to feedback. Simply set the frequency control of one of the bands to 98 Hz, cut the gain, and adjust the Q control as narrow as you can. You may need to fine-tune the frequency control as well as the cut/boost control as you alter the Q.

Cut or Boost? Remember that you can either boost frequencies that seem lacking or cut those that are too strong. For example, you might feel that your guitar lacks both warmth and presence. You could turn up the bass and treble controls, or get a similar result by cutting the midrange. If your guitar sounds too thin, you could boost the bass and midrange to warm up the sound, or you could cut the trebles. In most cases, cutting is preferable to boosting, since boosting frequencies tends to increase the potential for feedback. However, your main guide should always be your ears. ag Equalization and Effects

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THE BASICS

finger down on the string to stop it from ringing. This is called pick blocking and is a damping effect you perform with your picking hand. Now move the slide to the next note in the scale with your picking finger down on the string, so there’s no sound, and pick the next note. Your motion for each note will be pick the note, pick block, move the slide, pick again. Make sure every note is in tune.

Accuracy and Tone for Slide Guitar

Bring On the Slides

Get started on slide guitar with these simple note-targeting exercises. By Orville Johnson

IT’S HARD TO SAY WHO FIRST GOT THE IDEA to break the neck off a bottle and slide it along a guitar’s strings to make music. We know of a primitive instrument made by African American slaves called the diddley bow that was played with a slide. It was sometimes made by attaching a string or wire to the side of a one-room house, pushing a couple of rocks under either end of the string to act as bridges to give it tension, and using an implement of some sort to slide along the string, essentially using the house itself as a resonating chamber. Composer and music See video of the publisher W.C. Handy (“St. Louis Blues,” “Memphis music examples at Blues”) credited his introduction to the blues to a guiAcousticGuitar.com/ tarist he heard in 1903 at a train station in Tutwiler, Slidetone Mississippi, who “ . . . pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian musicians who used steel bars.” Though its origin is mysterious, the singing sound of slide guitar has long been an essential part of the blues, from early practitioners Tampa Red and Son House to modern sliders such as Sonny Landreth, Derek Trucks, and Ry Cooder.

Now let’s do the same exercise but add slides (Example 2). You’ll pick your note, then slide to the next note, and pick block to stop the note. Make sure you don’t pick and slide at the exact same moment. You want to hear the attack of the note, then the slide, then a clean ending—pick, slide, stop. Example 3 shows another exercise that uses the same scale. This time, pick the open string, touch the slide to the string near the nut, and slide all the way to the 12th fret. Make sure the timing of your slide sounds even and you stop it right in tune at fret 12, then pick block to end the note. Repeat this move, stopping at frets 11, nine, seven, and so on down the major scale. This will be challenging at first because you’ll more than likely slide past the note or sound jerky and/or

Choosing and Using a Slide Nowadays, musicians have a lot of choices with regard to materials and styles of slides. Glass is still very popular, brass and steel have their advocates, and you can get ceramic and stoneware slides as well. They all produce different tonal qualities, so the choice is up to you. If you’re wondering which finger should you put the slide on, I prefer the slide on my little finger so my other fingers can still grab chord shapes, but there are excellent players who use their ring or middle fingers. The slide shouldn’t be longer than your finger. Ideally, just the tip of your finger should be visible. It should also fit snugly on your finger so you don’t have to exert energy to hold it in place while sliding.

Damping and Pick Blocking Now that you have your slide in place, let’s play an exercise using an E-major scale on the first string (Example 1). First, place your hand so the tip of the slide is touching the first string and your other fingers are touching all the other strings as if you’d just laid your hand flat across them. Those fingers are going to be damping the string noises that come from sliding, especially those on the wound strings—if you want to play clean melodic passages, damping becomes pretty important. We’re going to play this first exercise without sliding so that we can concentrate on intonation. Pick your note with any picking-hand finger and then place that same 40 AcousticGuitar.com

halting as you slide up. Work on getting your slide to sound smooth and make sure each note you land on is in tune. After you’ve practiced these exercises with the major scale, let’s change a couple of notes to add some blues mojo. Lower the third and the seventh one half step (one fret) each. This gives you the minor third and minor seventh of the scale—the “blue notes” of the scale. Run through the same exercises with this scale (Examples 4a–4c). ag Learn more about playing blues slide guitar in Orville Johnson’s complete “Slide Guitar” download available at AcousticGuitar.com/bluesbasics. Includes video. ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

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THE BASICS

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THE LONG HARVEST



After eight years of stops and starts, GILLIAN WELCH and partner DAVID RAWLINGS return with a starkly beautiful set of songs. DERK RICHARDSON

THOMAS ALLEMAN

When Gillian Welch issued her fifth album, The Harrow and the Harvest, in June 2011, eight years had passed since the release of its predecessor. As is the case with every album, starting with her 1996 debut, Revival, Welch gets singular billing as the recording artist. But as has always been the case, from Revival through 1998’s Hell Among the Yearlings, 2001’s Time (The Revelator), and 2003’s Soul Journey, the latest project is a collaboration through and through with her longtime partner David Rawlings. Together, Welch and Rawlings have created a unique body of work that is rooted in Southern musical traditions but defies easy definition beyond the broad category of Americana. Welch has garnered two Grammy nominations in the Contemporary Folk genre, but her “folk music” embraces bluegrass, country, old-time Appalachian music, and early rock ’n’ roll. It’s an interesting mix for someone who was born in New York City in 1967 and spent a lot of time in California before meeting Rawlings at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in the early 1980s. “I’d been singing folk music since I was a little kid,” Welch says, “and I had always gravitated toward acoustic records—folk and folk-rock: Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor,


Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson. Then I went to Santa Cruz, and I bumped into bluegrass. I lived in a house with a mandolin player and deejay named Mike McKinley and had access to his record collection. That’s when I started hearing the Carter Family records, the Stanley Brothers records, the Monroe Brothers records, the Delmore Brothers records, and that’s really when it was all over. It was a freaky wild experience, because they were singing songs I’d grown up singing. I knew all the songs, but I’d never heard the records. When I heard how gritty


THE LONG HARVEST and gnarly and beautiful and eviscerating they were, it was like your skin coming off. When I heard those bluegrass harmonies, I just lost my mind. And I also recognized that it was something I could do, which is a wonderful feeling. I thought, that’s how I play guitar, that’s what I do!” So that is what Welch has done ever since, and with ever more enthralling results after encountering Rawlings at a country band audition at Berklee. Welch gained tremendous exposure when she sang two songs—“I’ll Fly Away” with Alison Krauss, and “Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby” with Krauss and Emmylou Harris— on the multiplatinum soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the 2001 Grammy winner for Album of the Year. Although she and Rawlings haven’t been exactly prolific—five Welch albums and one David Rawlings Machine album, 2009’s A Friend of a Friend, in the past 15 years—they have found a devoted audience for their finely crafted, often enigmatic songs, which are increasingly rooted in their observations of Southern life and typically probe the darkest shades of human experience. Rawlings has characterized the temperament of The Harrow and the Harvest as “ten different kinds of sad.” Sure enough, the album begins in a foreboding place called “Scarlet Town,” moves through a “Dark Turn of Mind,” speculates on “The Way It Will Be” after “you took all the glory that you just

couldn’t share,” tells how “Becky Johnson bought the farm, put a needle in her arm” in “The Way It Goes,” and gets barely brighter in “Tennessee” (“Your affront to my virtue was a touch too much / But you left a little twinkle in my eye”). Four more songs spin by on nothing more than the gossamer threads of Welch’s and Rawlings’s guitars, banjos, and close vocal harmonies until listeners are left puzzling the cryptic couplets that signal “The Way the Whole Thing Ends.” This may be the stuff of niche music, but Welch’s slice of Americana includes everyone from Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and the late Solomon Burke (who all recorded Welch/ Rawlings songs) to Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), Fleet Foxes, and Mumford and Sons, who’ve all become compatriots on the road. “Dave and I felt like such freaks making our first record,” Welch recalled in a phone conversation from Vancouver this past summer, early in the North American tour to support the release of The Harrow and the Harvest. “I could not have felt more like a Martian back then. In the studio next to us is Céline Dion, and she’s cutting the vocal for the song for Titanic. That’s what was around us in the music world. But I’m really happy now. I feel like we have so many more comrades out here in the acoustic wilderness, and I’m so flattered and honored that a bunch of these people point to us and say that we’ve

david rawlings on the “feel”

been inspirational to them. It’s a little weird to feel like veterans in the scene. I’m not really used to that, but I’ll take it. I feel like we’ve staked out some really good ground where now there are a lot of people. It’s kind of a party.” In a 70-minute conversation, frequently punctuated by her easy, self-deprecating laugh, Welch talked about how the music she makes with Rawlings resonates with their audience, how she and Rawlings work together as songwriters and guitarists, why it took so long to come up with the ten songs that comprise The Harrow and the Harvest, and how they broke through “writer’s dissatisfaction” in hotel rooms across America. When you played the Warfield in San Francisco in July, people seemed to hang on every note and every word. WELCH We have the reputation, happily at this point, of being a band that you come to listen to. We’re not a party band, which is OK. Our shows are something different. Each person comes to have this musical experience, this moment with us, where they get to sink into our world for a little while. It’s this very unhurried world. It’s fairly quiet, it’s contemplative, but it can be quite panoramic. I think people think interesting thoughts at our shows, and they go rather deeply into some personal experience of their own. I’m really proud that our music seems to connect, because it’s not for everybody. But for the people that our music works for, it really gets down pretty deep in there.

David Rawlings has been playing guitar and singing with Gillian Welch for nearly 30 years. After bonding at the Berklee College of Music, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1992. By the time they recorded Welch’s 1996 debut album, Revival, Rawlings had acquired the 1935 Epiphone Olympic archtop that has been his main instrument ever since (for more about Rawlings’s Epiphone, see the March 2010 issue). While his distinct tone and phrasing are a huge part of the pair’s acoustic sound, the duo acquires much of its musical and emotional power from the empathetic way Rawlings entwines his

Do your fans tell you how your music touches them? WELCH I had a lot of interesting conversations with people after Time (The Revelator) came out. For some reason, that record combined for a lot of people with the strangeness they were feeling after 9/11. They said it was very comforting, and really, what more could you ask for as an artist?

Epiphone with Welch’s Gibson. “It is a very specific feel that you only get from putting in a lot of time playing with someone,” he says. “You hear it with fiddle players and banjo players who’ve played together for a long time or who grew up together. You’ll hear a particular lilt or a particular rhythmic feeling, an emotion will be created that only those two people have. Some of that has crept into our playing.” Although The Harrow and the Harvest is an intimate, relatively slow and quiet record, it rewards close listening with subtle variations in texture and tempo. “We’ve probably become more versatile in terms of feel and different kinds of songs,” Rawlings says. “We definitely play more dynamically now. There are songs on the new record that are very, very quiet, maybe quieter than anything we’ve done before, and that have a more stately feel. There have also been some songs that we’ve added over the years that have more tempo and more drive to them since we started. The way that we play a song like ‘I’ll Fly Away’ now is a sort of supercharged version of what we would have done on our first couple tours.”


What do you think the new songs are touching in your audience in 2011? WELCH It’s funny, because I work in a pretty interior way. I wouldn’t call myself a social writer. I’m basically just trying to get through my own experiences. When we put a record there out into the world, it’s always interesting to see what the more macro view is of it. I’m getting a sense that the record seems to be addressing a sense of loss that people are feeling as Americans right now. They feel our star fading a bit. They see the economic hard times. The record deals a lot with time passing, and things changing and deteriorating and eroding. For a lot of people it’s more of a national commentary than I necessarily intended, but that’s ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

a good thing. That’s a beautiful thing about art: it doesn’t make it any less true that I didn’t necessarily know it was in there. I’m often oblivious to the larger message of my own work. I’m too close to it. But Dave probably could have told you back in October, when most of these songs were getting written, that that feeling was in there. Were these songs crafted over the entire interval between Soul Journey and The Harrow and the Harvest? WELCH Absolutely not. I say that really explicitly because I’m so happy that they were not spread out over this huge chunk of time. There’s one old song, which is “The Way It Will Be.” It was the first song after Soul Journey that we recognized as our next thing. We wrote it and knew it had this new flavor. There was kind of a new narrator. Then [we] had to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for the rest of the songs that would accompany it.

trust the song to remember itself

When Gillian Welch feels a song coming on, she doesn’t run for her recorder. She relies on that old-fashioned hard drive: her own memory. But she counts on the song to cooperate in the effort, and she rarely records her early efforts on

When did you write most of the songs for The Harrow and the Harvest? WELCH The bulk of this record got written in the fall and winter of 2010. The switch really flipped in October, and it was disgust that finally did it. We were just so sick of not having a new record. It wasn’t that we had writer’s block, we had writer’s dissatisfaction, which I don’t think is the same thing. Our songs walk this funny line between being modern and traditional, country and rock, confessional and narrative. They’re hard to pigeonhole. They’re not exactly bluegrass, they’re not exactly anything. It’s one of the things that holds our interest in this funny path that we’re on. I guess every artist feels that no one else really does what they do, but I certainly feel like if we don’t do this, it’s not gonna exist anywhere. When we were kind of silent for those half dozen years, a couple of artist friends took me aside and said, as a way of being creative cheerleaders, “You just have to make another record, you just have to do it.” Conor Oberst basically said as much. He said, “The world is waiting, and they’re not gonna get it anywhere else, and they need it.” It meant a lot to me that he felt that way. Eventually all this encouragement ganged up on us, and we pushed through our dissatisfaction. Was there one song that came along and opened the floodgates? WELCH The song “Hard Times” felt like it was a bit of a linchpin on the record, that narrative about the man and his mule. Like most of the songs on the record, it’s about a certain kind of loss—and perseverance in the face of it. February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

tape. “I’ve only done that when I wasn’t working well,” she says. “Usually I find that if a song is worth remembering, I can remember it. So I kind of leave it up to the song to save itself.” Not that she doesn’t take notes now and then. “I have a spiral-bound notebook,” she says. “It’s top-bound, it’s college ruled, I work in pencil, and I’ve got a pretty good system at this point. I tried to work on the computer for a little while; it

effort to focus on the writing of this record, started just driving around the country, crisscrossing it back and forth. I think we made ten cross-country trips in the course of writing this record. Many of the songs were written in hotel rooms all around the United States. The chorus for “Hard Times” [“Hard times ain’t gonna rule my mind no more”] was written in a hotel room in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It was part of our reconnecting with the language and the history of this country. It’s one of the reasons we love driving. You never forget, when you drive around, to keep your eyes open and read the signs and historical markers. You read the things that are going by you, and you’re basically awash in poetry. The place names in this country are ridiculous. How has the way you and Dave work on a song changed over time? WELCH We’re more of an honest-to-god songwriting team now, fully metabolized. At the very beginning, I used to start all the songs, and Dave basically finished them. And we would work through the middle part together. That’s not always the case now. Sometimes Dave starts them, sometimes I finish them. Sometimes Dave writes the music, sometimes I write the music. Sometimes he works on the lyrics, sometimes I work on the lyrics. Every way you can write a song, we’ve done it, including the way we did “The Way the Whole Thing Ends.”

was a complete and utter failure. There was no room for all the subtleties of notation I do with alternate words and things. When I’m working well, each work sheet is a collage of words.” What if she gets caught short-penciled, so to speak? “I heard an interview with Townes [Van Zandt],” Welch says, “and he was saying that he would just make up the whole song in the car—no paper, no anything—and then when he finally got it done, he would stop and call somebody, and he would sing it to them. That’s pretty good. I’ve actually done that. Long ago, out at a show, when I got the idea for ‘Stillhouse’ [“Tear My Stillhouse Down”], a song on our first record, Dave was at the show with me. I had the whole idea for the chorus, and so I turned to Dave and I basically shouted it into his ear, ‘Dave! When I die, tear my stillhouse down! Don’t let me forget, OK?’ He’s like, ‘OK.’ So, occasionally you have to resort to team effort, but I’m pretty good at remembering.”

In a way, it’s the most optimistic song on the album. WELCH It kind of is. It’s very sad. We don’t know if the Camptown man works it out. But our narrator got into a place where there’s no way he’s gonna be stopped. I started the narrative in Nashville, and then Dave and I, in an

What was the process on that song? WELCH I’d heard about songwriters literally sitting down and just singing the song, just making it up and spitting it out. For the first time ever, that’s what happened with “Ends.” We were sitting on the sofa and Dave started making up chords. He was kind of making fun of what an understated singer I am, and how I have a penchant for very simple melodies. So, almost as a joke, he started this melody that was incredibly simple. Then I started spontaneously saying words, almost nonsense words. The only other time I’d done that was the chorus for “Miss Ohio,” when I just kind of blathered out a little nursery rhyme, and that was it. We wrote most of “Ends” sitting there in 15 or 20 minutes, and we had so much fun with it. We wrote about 30 verses. Then we employed our own folk process and whittled it down, although not to verses that were the most linear or logical. We treated it like an old folk song, where you just sing the verses you like. They don’t even necessarily have to make sense. You just sing the ones you can remember, the ones you like, and the song has some kind of emotional truth to it because of that. The more you sing the verses, the more there seems to be an implied connection between them. AcousticGuitar.com 47

THE LONG HARVEST A bunch of the songs on this record were that way—we overwrote, and had four or five times too many verses. “Goes”—same thing, we just whittled them down the way 40 or 50 decades will sort out a folk song. It gives them an interesting quality, don’t you think? They’re almost like some of those songs on [Bob Dylan’s] The Basement Tapes. Maybe you don’t know exactly what the factual part of the story is, but you get the gist of it. I’ve always liked songs like that. I never want it to be spelled out. One of my favorite surprising lyric fragments is, “You tell Musso, I’ll tell Frank” in “The Way It Goes.” It does sound like something from The Basement Tapes. Some people will recognize it as a reference to a legendary restaurant in Hollywood. WELCH Yeah, in certain quarters that elicits a big laugh. I actually think this is our most humorous album, though some people think it’s super dark. Who says it can’t be dark and humorous at the same time? I’m a big supporter of gallows humor and wry humor. I love Woody Guthrie’s humor in the face of total personal dispossession. In the face of personal destruction, there’s plenty of room for humor. Was there any song that was particularly challenging to finish, that you found yourselves working on for a long time? WELCH “Tennessee” was pretty tricky. We logged a lot of hours and a lot of miles and a lot of states and a lot of hotel rooms working on that one. The real breakthrough with that one came once we were back in Nashville, in the studio. We still didn’t have it figured out completely when we tried to cut it in the studio. We got some passable versions, but it was really late at night, and Dave came in with a guitar and he said, “Listen to this.” He had completely recast the music. The cadences were the same, the melody was largely the same, but he had substantially reharmonized the thing and just richened the music by a ton. We both immediately recognized that although it was a wild change, we both liked it. So we went in the next day and cut it with this new music, and that was that. How different was that from the way you’ve completed songs in the past? WELCH We’re both really verbal people, and if something’s not working, we immediately look at the lyric, scrutinize it, tear it apart. We always assume that it’s the fault of the lyric. But lately we’ve been realizing that that’s not always the case. A lot of times the lyric is OK, and it’s the music that’s not pulling its weight. That was a bit of revelation on this record. That’s what happened with “Tennessee.” We were kind of down on it, we were about to 48 AcousticGuitar.com

throw it out, and Dave just completely revitalized the music, and then, boom, there it was. How much do you change a song while recording different takes in the studio? WELCH Most of the songs on this record are first or second takes. One of the things I’m so happy about is that we weren’t tight when we actually got around to recording this thing. It would be so easy to be scared or precious when you’ve gone so long between records. While the record doesn’t sound rollicking, it’s very spontaneous, for us. This is highly improvised stuff. Does it ever throw you as a singer to have everything going on that Dave is doing over there? WELCH No, Dave is a consummate soloist and accompanist, and when he’s playing, he’s focused, as far as I can tell, on two things: He’s focused at all times on the song—he’s playing the song, you know what I mean? Dave’s not just playing, he’s playing the song. And to say he’s listening to my vocal would be an understatement. In the 20 years we’ve been playing together, I don’t feel that Dave has ever once stepped on my vocal. As wild and mercurial and facile and just explosive as he can be, he’s incredibly sensitive. The interweaving of your guitars and vocals, on the new record and in concert, seems more of one piece than ever before. WELCH I agree. You know how there are people that pretty much spend 24 hours a day together, and when you ask them a question, one of them starts a sentence and the other one finishes it? We’ve gotten to that level, where musically, I hear Dave start a line and I finish it. Like on the guitars, I hear it more than ever as being completely symbiotic on this record. Dave would tell you that the way we play has developed because of the way I play guitar—if he didn’t play with me, he wouldn’t play the way he does.

to be able to hold down the whole thing. Like so many singer-songwriters, my guitar was the whole sound. But we’ve truly accepted that we are a team, we’re a duet, and what matters is the sum. The way you recorded The Harrow and the Harvest and the way you mic yourselves onstage really emphasizes the natural sound of your guitars. WELCH I love and respect the sound of acoustic guitars, as does Dave, and at this point we’ve pretty much devoted our lives to that sound. Our entire studio in Nashville is designed to capture the sound of two guitars and two voices in a room, recorded live into microphones onto analog tape, because that’s the most beautiful way to record acoustic instruments. We’re an analog shop, stem to stern, all the way out the door. I don’t care what the industry is doing. I just don’t care. People are talking about how it’s so much easier with digital now. Whoever said any part of the artistic process was supposed to be easy? ag Derk Richardson is former managing editor of Acoustic Guitar and currently is senior editor at Afar magazine (afar.com). He hosts a weekly music program, “The Hear and Now,” on KPFAFM 94.1.

what she plays n

ACOUSTIC GUITAR: 1956 Gibson J-50. “I’ve played it exclusively since 1998. I’ve recorded with some other guitars also, but it’s all over this record.”

n BANJO:

1925 Vega Whyte Laydie.

n AMPLIFICATION:

“Neither of our guitars

have ever had pickups. I don’t want to be the person who drills a hole in a guitar and puts a pickup in it.” Onstage, Welch plays guitar into a Shure SM57 microphone. In the studio, she sings into a Neumann M49 and plays guitar into a Neumann M582.

I was surprised that on some songs I was reminded of the way Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia interacted on American Beauty or Workingman’s Dead. WELCH I can hear that. There’s a greater quietness on this record, and we had greater confidence in the completeness of our duet sound. We were both comfortable playing less because we’re more confident that when you combine our two things, it’s a satisfying whole. Some of my guitar parts became more impressionistic on this album than they’ve ever been, because they’re completed by what Dave is doing. I grew up with this staunch sense of musical independence. Because I was playing guitar by myself in my bedroom, I had

n STRINGS:

D’Addario phosphor-bronze,

medium gauge. “I started with lights at age eight and switched to mediums about the time I moved to Nashville, about 20 years ago.” n PICKS:

“I have one tortoiseshell pick, and if

I lose it I will sob uncontrollably. I’m just about to retire one, and I’m breaking in a new one. My tortoiseshell picks last me about seven years. I’m pretty easy on them. I get very attached to them. I still have the pick from Revelator. People give them to me because they know that I use them.” n CAPO:

Kyser.


“I’m on a CD with Amy Winehouse Because I Joined TAXI.” Anj Granieri – TAXI Member www.anjmusiconline.com

My name is Anj and I’m 26

years old. Thanks to TAXI, I’ve recently signed a 5-year contract to compose for a publisher that supplies music for the #1 highestrated daytime talk show in American television history.

Myth: Living in N.Y. or L.A. is a Must

I moved to NYC when I was 23 to “make it big” in the music business. I ended up living in a shoebox-sized apartment with broken windows and cockroaches all over the place. Not quite as glamorous as the movies make it out to be. I was frustrated and deflated. That’s when a friend told me about TAXI. She said it would provide me with the ability to make valuable connections that would advance my career. I was so intrigued that I called and signed up that day.

the song a trusted source sent, or one from the pile of unsolicited stuff from people you don’t know? I used to spend countless hours trying to make connections, let alone the right connections! With TAXI, when my music is on-target and great, it’s placed in the hands of people who need exactly what I have to offer. The results have been nothing short of amazing. My music has been sent to more than 15 major record labels by TAXI, and my single, Former Stranger was released on a Universal Records compilation with Amy Winehouse and Duffy in Europe and Asia. It’s also been placed in a prominent publishing

catalog that features music on the CW network. All because I joined TAXI.

Myth: All Music Executives Are Cutthroat

My biggest success yet came from TAXI’s annual free, membersonly convention, the Road Rally. I met the decision-maker from a prominent publishing company that provides music for the #1 highest rated, day-time talk show on the air. I performed for him at TAXI’s openmic and he signed me on the spot. The Road Rally is loaded with insightful seminars and the nicest executives you could ever meet. It’s the only convention I’ve ever been to with a true “family feel.”

Reality: Dreams Can Come True!

There are two types of people in the world: those who dream of what could be, and those who make what could be into their reality! So which are you? Call TAXI and do something with your music!

Myth: Cold Calls Work

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THE LONG HARVEST F—the b3rd—in measures 2, 6, and 7), or keeping things open by holding the underlying Dsus2 shape. She continues this way throughout the song, generally parking in the Dsus2 position but occasionally playing embellishments throughout (like her most common move to Dsus4 by lifting her index finger; shown in the pickup measure and measures 2, 3, 5, and 8). She adds another nice touch in the chorus by grabbing that bluesy b3rd F note down an octave (the third fret of the sixth string), which happens on the last beat of each G/D chord. Rawlings weaves mesmerizing leads over the top of Welch’s open backdrop by working out of the minor-sounding D Dorian scale (D E F G A B C). This is the same scale that Welch’s vocal melody comes from and the only difference between this scale and a straight minor sound is the inclusion of the B-natural note (instead of Bb). —ANDREW DUBROCK

Scarlet Town Music and lyrics by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch

“Scarlet Town” kicks off The Harrow and the Harvest with a haunting tale, as Gillian Welch transports you to a town so dark that it has no rival. This harrowing tale is perfectly matched by the eerie tone of the music, all created by the ambiguously swirling sound of a suspended chord and the mournful tones of Dorian-mode melodies. Welch and David Rawlings both strap capos onto the seventh fret for “Scarlet Town,” and Welch drops her sixth string a whole step to get into Dropped-D tuning (D A D G B E). Throughout the intro, shown below in notation and tablature, Welch riffs primarily around a Dsus2 shape—an ambiguous sound that hints at neither major nor minor. Welch skillfully plays with this ambiguity in her riffing by occasionally hinting at major sounds (the D major chord strummed in the first half of measure 5), touching minor notes (like the

Capo VII (both guitars) Dropped-D Tuning: D A D G B E (Guitar 1 only)

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© 2011 3RD REVISION (BMI)/ADMINISTERED BY BUG MUSIC AND ACONY PUBLISHING (BMI). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD CORP.

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2.

2 0

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Dsus2

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I spent some time in New Orleans and in Cairo on a bend But Scarlet Town brought me down, low as I ever been


Now you may hide in Scarlet Town for a hundred years or more But the man who knows what time it is is knockin’ at the door

grave

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Dsus2

So fare you well my own true love, if you ever see me around I’ll be looking through a telescope from hell to Scarlet Town Repeat Chorus ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

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Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 For all the doom and gloom associated with the music industry—to be sure, it’s been a rough decade for labels and artists—it’s easy to overlook the fact that it’s also been a pretty stellar time for acoustic music. Whether you’re a fully digital consumer who listens on a mobile phone or a dyed-in-thewool vinyl loyalist, the choices for great guitar music in 2011 were rich and plentiful. The heavyweight champions of acoustic music returned in force, including well-worth-the-wait releases from Gillian Welch, Joe Henry, Paul Simon, and Steve Earle, and younger artists such as Sarah Jarosz, Julian Lage, and Pieta Brown made their case for musical immortality. Here are the albums released in 2011 that Acoustic Guitar’s editors and contributors found themselves returning to time and time again.

DAN GABEL, GROUP PUBLISHER AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Chris Thile and Michael Daves, Sleep with One Eye Open This hard-driving album of guitar and mandolin duets on traditional tunes and bluegrass songs by Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, and others captures Chris Thile and Michael Daves’s instrumental virtuosity and brother-vocal blending in a raw setting that brings classics like “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” and the title track to life. The pairing stems from a meeting at a regular bluegrass jam at New York City’s Baggot Inn—that must be one serious jam. (Nonesuch) Frank Fairfield, Out On the Open West Frank Fairfield plays old-time fiddle, banjo, and guitar in a ragged, authentic style, with stirring changes in tempo, plaintive singing, and many a mid-tune holler. His alternating-bass fingerpicking on “Turkey in the Straw/Arkansas Traveler” is all about the melody, occasionally breaking out a Leo Kottke–like staccato thumb pattern. This 25-year-old sounds more like a weathered traveler from Appalachia than a young California native. (Tompkins Square) The Decemberists, The King Is Dead In a departure from their operatic concept albums, the Decemberists wrap acoustic guitars, accordions, and harmonicas around literary lyrics on this roots-rock turn. Who other than Colin Meloy can get away with weaving a hook out of lines like “Once upon it / The yellow bonnets / Garland on the lawn / You were waking / The day was breaking / A panoply of song.” (Rough Trade)


Various Artists, This One’s for Him—A Tribute to Guy Clark Rodney Crowell introduces this set by saying, “Let’s give ’er a good go and make ol’ Guy proud of us,” then launches into a wrenching version of “That Old Time Feeling.” Followed by excellent takes on many of Clark’s masterpieces by Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Rosanne Cash, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Patty Griffin, Kris Kristofferson, and 22 other legendary songwriters, the two-disc set easily delivers on Crowell’s hope. (Icehouse Music) Ollabelle, Neon Blue Bird After a long hiatus, this fivepiece roots band from New York’s East Village releases a collection of songs that alternately reflects hope (the original “One More Time”) and reminds us of the darkness of current times (the traditional “Butcher Boy”). Great harmonies from vocalist Amy Helm and guitarist Fiona McBain are matched by tasteful arrangements of guitar, drums, bass, banjo, and piano. A compelling version of Chris Whitley’s “Dirt Floor” anchors this welcome return from Ollabelle. (Ollabelle) John Prine, The Singing Mailman Delivers These unadorned versions of Prine classics were recorded in 1970 when he was in his early 20s, before the release of his incredible debut album. Some songs on the two discs (one recorded in a radio studio and the other during Prine’s regular club gig at Chicago’s Fifth Peg) are repeated, but even those give a glimpse into how Prine was honing enduring tracks like “Hello in There,” “Illegal Smile,” and “Paradise.” (Oh Boy)

Sarah Jarosz, Follow Me Down The follow-up to Jarosz’s stellar debut album is equally engaging, more diverse, and a clear step in the evolution of one of our best young talents in roots music. The instrumental tracks (“Old Smitty” and “Peace”) highlight Jarosz’s composition and playing chops, but the focus here is on her songwriting, with seven new songs delivered in her increasingly mature voice. (Sugar Hill) Hayes Carll, KMAG YOYO (and other American Stones) Modern-day honky-tonk country from the bar-stool philosopher who brought us “She Left Me for Jesus.” Electric guitar and full-band songs split the set with songs backed by fingerpicked guitar (“The Letter,” “Chances Are”), banjo (“Bye Bye Baby”), and Hammond B3 (“Hide Me”). Carll’s wit is present and spot-on throughout, particularly in the title cut and the campy duet “Another Like You.” (Lost Highway) Steve Earle, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive Naming an album and novel after the last song released by Hank Williams would be a bold move if it were done by anyone other than Steve Earle. Williams defined the country sound for his time, and Earle has done more than most to evolve the genre while paying homage to his roots. Another great song cycle by one of the best writers around. (New West)

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Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest Ten spare, haunting songs written by Welch and Rawlings make the wait for new Welch material worth it. Gone is the full-band sound of 2004’s Soul Journey, leaving Rawlings’s dancing ’30s Epiphone accompaniment and lead lines as the central instrumental focus, as much an integral part of the duo’s sound as Welch’s dusty vocal drawl. (Acony)

SCOTT NYGAARD, EDITOR Sarah Jarosz, Follow Me Down On her sophomore recording, Sarah Jarosz takes a huge leap even from her astonishing debut, seamlessly synthesizing all her influences (Gillian Welch, Tim O’Brien, Radiohead, among others) into a personal, heartfelt songwriting style that transcends and corrals the obvious instrumental virtuosity on display. (Sugar Hill) Steve Earle, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive Steve Earle released his first album 25 years ago. Since then he’s produced just one clunker among 15 studio albums that have helped define the Americana genre. He may be roots music’s most consistently satisfying singer/songwriter/ guitarist/bandleader/rabble rouser, and this is one of his best collections. (New West) John Doyle, Shadow and Light You will be forgiven for thinking that John Doyle’s second solo album is another collection of unwarrantedly obscure traditional songs and tunes, but Doyle wrote or co-wrote everything on Shadow and Light, from the Civil War soldier’s story “Clear the Way” to the lovely lullaby for Doyle’s daughter Rossagh (“Little Sparrow”) to the poignant emigrant’s tale “Liberty’s Sweet Shore” to the rockin’ solo guitar tour de force “The Arabic.” (Compass) Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest It may have been eight years since the duo known as Gillian Welch (Welch and musical soul mate David Rawlings) made its last recording, but anyone who has seen Welch and Rawlings perform during that time knows that they have not been inactive. Their duo interplay has gotten more telepathic, creating an uncanny joined-at-the-hip guitarand-voice sound that does indeed sound as if it is the product of a single consciousness. (Acony)


Julian Lage, Gladwell Julian Lage’s ability to play the guitar has not been in doubt since the documentary about him, Jules at Eight, was produced when the now 23-year-old jazz virtuoso was, yes, eight years old. Lage has been deepening his musical skills at Berklee College of Music and with the Gary Burton Quartet, and Gladwell is the culmination, a melodic, cohesive concept album (a musical portrait of the imaginary town of Gladwell) that features Lage on unamplified archtop with a band of tenor sax, cello, bass, and drums. While Lage’s mind-blowing chops are certainly not kept under wraps, his lyricism and harmonically complex compositions make Gladwell a very welcoming and multifaceted place to spend some time. (Emarcy) Joy Kills Sorrow, This Unknown Science If it looks like a bluegrass band, it must be a bluegrass band, right? Not necessarily. Despite its banjo-mandolin-guitar-bass instrumental foundation, Joy Kills Sorrow’s contemporary alt-folk-pop only occasionally resembles the music of Bill Monroe. If the band’s second album of adventurous acoustic arrangements of original songs, written primarily by bassist Bridget Kearney and sung by the stunningly emotive Emma Beaton, is an indication, a new genre name may soon need to be coined. (Signature Sounds) Kenny Smith, Return One of the most creative and widely imitated flatpickers in the bluegrass business, Kenny Smith has made just two solo albums in a 20-plus-year career. Return will thrill those who’ve been waiting for a follow-up to 1997’s Studebaker. It’s exhilarating to hear Smith’s silky smooth, fat-toned dreadnought rip through these traditional fiddle tunes and original instrumentals with an abandon not often heard among the current crop of bluegrass pickers. (Gat3) Jake Schepps, An Evening in the Village: The Music of Béla Bartók This delightful concept album (Bartók compositions played by a contemporary bluegrass-oriented string band) succeeds by unabashedly digging into Bartók’s tunes, returning them to their rough-and-tumble roots, albeit a few thousand miles and an oceancrossing away from the composer’s native Hungary. Guitarists Ross Martin and Grant Gordy (a member of the banjo-playing Schepps’s Expedition Quartet) are featured here, along with mandolinist Matt Flinner and other like-minded stringsters. (Fine Mighty)

Tinariwen, Tassili The North African nomad band of Tuareg revolutionaries replace the electric guitars with acoustics and repair to the desert (literally; Tassili was recorded outdoors in south Algeria) for its fifth album, and the results are haunting, atmospheric, and soulful, even if you don’t know what lead singer/songwriter Ibrahim Ag Alhabib is singing about. Seamless guest appearances by Nels Cline of Wilco, Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, and New Orleans’s Dirty Dozen Brass Band subtly broaden Tinariwen’s otherworldly sound. (Anti-) Erik Friedlander, Bonebridge Jazz cellist Erik Friedlander’s chamber folk/jazz tone poem features the metal-bodied slide guitar of acoustic jazz guitarist Doug Wamble, creating a sound somewhat reminiscent of Bill Frisell’s early quartet recordings with cellist Hank Roberts, but with an earthier, sultry Southern flavor that seems born of the confluence of Delta blues intonation, Appalachian folk melodies, New Orleans mambo rhythms, and the freewheeling harmonic sense of Texas saxophonist Ornette Coleman. (SkipStone)

MARK SMITH, MANAGING EDITOR Joe Henry, Reverie Increasingly busy as a producer—like Daniel Lanois, he possesses the rare ability to elevate or restore artists to greatness—Henry could be forgiven if his own solo work suffered a bit. Yet Reverie is a stunning document of a master songwriter who uses vintage acoustic guitars and clanking percussion to illuminate his captivating stories of existential confusion and loss. (Anti-) Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, Middle of Everywhere On Middle of Everywhere, Pokey LaFarge calls forth the ghosts of American roots music—Blind Boy Fuller, Jimmie Rodgers, and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys—and manages to channel their iconic styles while avoiding slavish imitation. Throughout, LaFarge lays down a rock-steady rhythm on his parlor guitar with a business-like picking-hand—a deceptively simple approach that gives archtop guitarist Adam Hoskins plenty of room for his Gypsy jazz–influenced lead lines. (Free Dirt)


Richard Buckner, Our Blood Intimate, intensely moving, and possessing a chilling beauty, Our Blood is the sound of an artist who brooks no compromise. Buckner’s husky, almost-whispered vocals and sparse acoustic guitar playing are the perfect accompaniment for his songs of failing love, wavering faith, and fading light. (Merge) Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest Almost a decade had passed since their previous album, but Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were anything but fallow—they were simply not content to release an album that didn’t meet their standards. That perfectionism bore rich fruit—The Harrow and the Harvest is flawless from start to finish. (Acony) Sarah Jarosz, Follow Me Down Unfazed by a Grammy nomination and accolades from the press and fellow musicians, Sarah Jarosz found time between her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music to record an album that builds on the beauty and poise of her debut. It’s an impressive set of songs from a multi-instrumentalist (mandolin, banjo, and guitar) who is utterly fearless. (Sugar Hill) Wooden Birds, Two Matchsticks The second full-length album from Andrew Kenny’s side project (his main band being American Analog Set) traffics in the same hushed and intimate tones as its predecessor, Magnolia, as might be expected from a recording made in a makeshift bedroom studio. From that comfortable setting Kenny has crafted another affecting gem that features palm-muted acoustic guitar opposite simple, unhurried embellishments on electric and acoustic guitars. (Barsuk) Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Wolfroy Goes to Town Trying to figure out Will Oldham— a man with as many monikers as a fugitive from justice—is to play a loser’s game. The best bet is to simply take his slightly weird Americana as it is—his unhurried tenor, his Willie Nelson–like guitar playing, and best of all, his clever and beautiful songs. (Drag City)


Pieta Brown, Mercury The progeny of rock and folk royalty always face the same issue—how does one transcend a famous parent to the point where the bloodline becomes merely a footnote? Like Rufus Wainwright and Teddy Thompson, Pieta (daughter of Greg Brown) did it by developing her own style and writing smart, affecting songs. (Red House) Release the Sunbird, Come Back to Us Zach Rogue (Rogue Wave) might have changed the name of his project, but the essence of his music remains fundamentally unchanged. Come Back to Us is another slice of perfect Northern California pop, with rich vocal harmonies matched with strummed acoustic guitars and ethereal organ flourishes. (Brushfire) Meg Baird, Seasons on Earth Seasons on Earth sounds like it was recorded in Northern California in 1971—from the fingerpicked acoustic guitar to the sweeping pedal steel accompaniment, it’s easy to imagine David Crosby, Joni Mitchell, and Gram Parsons watching from the control room. (Drag City)

TEJA GERKEN, SENIOR EDITOR Leuchter-Melrose, Kein Schöner Land The second release by the duo of Scottish fingerstyle guitarist Ian Melrose and German accordionist Manfred Leuchter is an unclassifiable journey through the world of steel strings and bellows. Blending European folk melodies with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences, the duo delivers virtuoso performances and even tackles excerpts from J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. (Acoustic Music) Jon Mendle, L’Infidele Co-produced by Sérgio Assad, this is a stunning album of 18th-century music played on 11-string classical guitar. Mendle performs with incredible confidence, producing great tone and effortlessly making use of his instrument’s extended range. (In a Circle)

William Coulter and Benjamin Verdery, Happy Here It’s been said that the only thing prettier than the guitar is two guitars. Steel-stringer William Coulter and classical guitarist Ben Verdery certainly understand this, blending their different sounds and musical backgrounds on a beautiful collection of tunes. With the exception of a piece each by J.S. Bach and François Couperin, the album leans heavily toward originals and Celtic tunes, with Cream’s “White Room” a surprise. (Mushkatweek) John Renbourn, Palermo Snow In his fifth decade as recording artist, John Renbourn delivers one of his finest works. Originals, folk tunes, and pieces by Erik Satie and Randy Weston benefit from Renbourn’s singular arranging style and touch, resulting in an album that continues his selfdescribed “folk-Baroque” tradition. (Shanachie) Sean McGowan, Sphere Arranging the music of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk for solo guitar is no walk in the park, yet Sean McGowan has produced one of the finest of such efforts on Sphere (Monk’s middle name). Played on archtop guitar, the album features McGowan’s creative twohanded fretting while remaining true to the spirit of this hallowed repertoire. (CDBaby) Adam Levy, The Heart Collector A sparsely produced, all-acoustic outing of original songs by former Norah Jones and Tracy Chapman sideman Adam Levy. Tin Hat’s Mark Orton and Rob Burger make appearances on various instruments, as does the Real Vocal String Quartet. (Lost Wax) John Doyle, Shadow and Light A great set of originals by the rhythm guitar powerhouse. Doyle’s hard-driving signature guitar style is prominent throughout, and the virtuoso all-star string band featured on many tracks includes Tim O’Brien on mandolin and Pete Grant on lap steel. (Compass)


Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 Bill Frisell and Vinicius Cantuária, Lágrimas Mexicanas If you’re wondering what Brazilian-style nylon-string guitar would sound like in an intimate duo with Bill Frisell’s singularly identifiable electric, look no further. Lágrimas Mexicanas, which also includes Cantuária’s percussion and Portuguese and Spanish vocals, is not the first collaboration by the two tone-shaping masters, but it’s the most distilled glimpse into their ultra-complementary playing. (Entertainment One) Martin Simpson, Purpose + Grace Martin Simpson is perhaps the contemporary master of the British folk tradition. For the most part, Purpose + Grace continues the band sound of his previous four albums, with guests that include Richard Thompson, Dick Gaughan, and June Tabor. Shades of Fairport Convention abound, and Simpson’s gorgeous fingerstyle and slide playing take center stage throughout. (Topic) Marc Teicholz, Valseana Creating a great program of 18 waltzes by classical and contemporary composers and playing it incredibly well would be enough to make Marc Teicholz’s Valseana highly enjoyable. But the fact that each piece was recorded on a different historically significant guitar puts it over the top. (GSI)

DAN APCZYNSKI, EDUCATION EDITOR The Decemberists, The King Is Dead Moving far afield of 2009’s underappreciated fantasy rock opera The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists (along with guests Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck) turn in a sing-along acoustic record. Mid-set highlight “Rox in the Box” comes across like the Beatles’ “Run for Your Life” reimagined as a fiddle tune, and “January Hymn” is as sweet an ode to shoveling snow as one could ever hope to hear. (Rough Trade) Sarah Jarosz, Follow Me Down While one look at the roster of musicians on Sarah Jarosz’s latest (Shawn Colvin, Béla Fleck, Dan Tyminski, and Jerry Douglas, to name a few) should be enough to sell the album, it’s Jarosz’s triple-threat performance as lead songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist that makes Follow Me Down one of 2011’s best listening experiences. (Sugar Hill)


Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest Nimbly walking the line between sweetness and melancholy, The Harrow and the Harvest proves once again that there are few things in this world as dependable as the quality of a new album from Gillian Welch. It might take eight years to arrive, but when it does one can expect a collection of instant classics, outstanding lead guitar work from the ever-innovative David Rawlings, and a nearly unanimous inclusion on Acoustic Guitar’s year-end best-of list. (Acony) Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What Still capable of producing fantastic work at age 70, Paul Simon returns with a nevertheless unexpected gem. The African music–inspired pop/rock that Simon pioneered is a welcome presence on “The Afterlife” and “Love Is Eternal Sacred Light,” but it’s the starry introspection heard on tracks like “Questions for the Angels” that gives the album its consciousness and context. (Hear Music) Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi, Rome Following up last year’s fantastic Broken Bells collaboration with Shins front man James Mercer, Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) unites with Italian film composer Daniele Luppi to produce another collection of gorgeously layered, melodic songs. Nine of the album’s 15 tracks are instrumentals; Norah Jones and Jack White contribute guest vocals to the rest. (Capitol) Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues If you give a Fleet Foxes record a spin and don’t immediately hear the stringed instruments, they’re probably just obscured by the cascading backup vocal performances that color each track like instruments all their own. Helplessness Blues continues a long tradition of beardfriendly acoustic indie music from the Pacific Northwest, but dodges the clichés by being so damn good. (Sub Pop)

Various Artists, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams If the primary goal in creating any kind of tribute album is to avoid crossing the line into novelty, then The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams is as successful an homage as one could hope for. Pieced together from previously unrecorded Hank Williams lyrics and set to new music by an unbelievable list of artists (including Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Lucinda Williams, Merle Haggard, and more), this collection at once gives a sweeping bow to Hank Williams’s musical legacy and offers listeners the best album Hank Williams never recorded. (Columbia) Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan in Concert: Brandeis University 1963 It’s hard to imagine a world before The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but that’s just what you’ll hear on Live at Brandeis University—recorded in 1963 just two weeks before the album that would make Dylan a sensation. Discovered on a poorly marked tape in the collection of late Rolling Stone co-founder Ralph Gleason, Live at Brandeis provides a timecapsule glimpse of a young “Bobby” Dylan, whose impeccable comic timing is on full display. (Sony Legacy) Ryan Adams, Ashes and Fire Since one rarely knows which Ryan Adams is going to show up—tender acoustic songwriter (“La Cienega Just Smiled,” “Two”) or alt-country brawler (“Love Is Hell,” “To Be Young [Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High]”)—it’s worth mentioning that his 2011 release is more a whisper than a shout. It’s rare enough to find a new album in the pop/rock bin that features a prominent acoustic guitar throughout; Ashes and Fire’s guitar parts are even interesting enough to want to learn. (PAX-AM/Capitol) The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow The debut recording from Nashville balladeers Joy Williams and John Paul White, Barton Hollow is a series of beautifully composed duets. The pair’s impressive vocal performances are bolstered throughout by White’s restrained guitar accompaniment—not a single note is wasted. (Sensibility)

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KENNY BERKOWITZ, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Hayes Carll, KMAG YOYO (and Other American Stories) Always drunk on language, Carll has become a first-rate storyteller, reaching for laughs in the title track (army slang for “Kiss My Ass Guys, You’re On Your Own); tears in “Chances Are,” a barroom confessional worthy of Merle Haggard; and a mixture of both in the talking blues “Grateful for Christmas.” (Lost Highway) Guy Clark, Songs and Stories Every Guy Clark album is reason for celebration, and the live Songs and Stories is no exception. The setting is Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre, and the mood is so relaxed it sounds as though Clark is just picking at home. (Dualtone) Bruce Cockburn, Small Source of Comfort Travel has always brought out the best in Bruce Cockburn, sharpening his perspective, expanding his palette, and sparking his writing. Here, on his first studio album in six years, a visit to Afghanistan serves as the catalyst for a set of songs that are full of surprises, consistently engaging heart, mind, and soul. (True North) Glenn Jones, The Wanting Playing solo acoustic guitar and banjo, with John Fahey as his primary inspiration, Glenn Jones just keeps getting better. The 11 instrumentals here, all performed in open tunings, cover a range from wistful to pastoral to dissonant, but each is elegantly constructed, melodically rich, and gently played. (Thrill Jockey) Joe Henry, Reverie Like much of Joe Henry’s best work, the ragged, all-acoustic Reverie is difficult, uncompromising, and ultimately rewarding, with a startlingly minimalist guest turn by guitarist Marc Ribot on three tracks. (Anti-) Sarah Jarosz, Follow Me Down Jarosz’s sophomore album is even more adventurous and wide-ranging than her first, with a new maturity in her voice, depth in her writing, and complexity in her playing. (Sugar Hill)


Joy Kills Sorrow, This Unknown Science The five members of Boston’s Joy Kills Sorrow are virtuoso musicians, and it shows in every note. It’s not just that their technique is impeccable, although it is. It’s that their choices are so deliberate, so thoughtful, so precise; all the pieces fit together perfectly in these spare, understated songs about death, disappointment, and unmet desire. (Signature Sounds) Jim Lauderdale, Reason and Rhyme: Bluegrass Songs by Robert Hunter and Jim Lauderdale When Jim Lauderdale and Robert Hunter started co-writing, their songs were comfortably within the conventions of bluegrass. A decade later, the 11 tracks on Reason and Rhyme sound like no one else’s, gaining power from their color, the outrageousness of their characters, and a refusal to be twisted into a logical narrative. (Sugar Hill) Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Drive Time Sporting a new lineup, Lawson and company power through the 27-minute Drive Time at top speed. The performances are stunning, and though some fans have taken offense to the album’s snare drum, at heart Drive Time is pure bluegrass traditionalism kicked into high gear. (Mountain Home) Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What In another career milestone, Paul Simon samples Sonny Terry, Reverend J.M. Gates, and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet to construct ten songs of timeless beauty, some wry and some profound, and all asking the unanswerable questions about God, love, and the meaning of art. (Hear Music)

Al Di Meola, Pursuit of Radical Rhapsody The legendary guitar virtuoso delivers a highly original, complex mix of jazz-leaning original compositions that display a haunting lyricism as well as amazing technical feats on both acoustic and electric guitars, placing this recording among Di Meola’s very best. (Telarc) John Doyle, Shadow and Light This collection of original songs from one of the foremost guitarists in Irish traditional music is nothing short of stunning. Doyle’s playing will take your breath away. (Compass) The Duke and the King, The Duke and the King This brilliant debut album from Simone Felice (formerly of the Felice Brothers) and Bobbie Bird Burke, with Nowell Haskins and Simi Stone, features striking lyrics and an utterly original sound located where country and soul meet, all wrapped around Felice’s unmistakable, arresting vocals. (Silva America) Jeffrey Foucault, Horse Latitudes Melancholy alert: Foucault’s latest is a masterpiece of brilliantly moody lyrics and heartbreaking melodies. Although his deep affecting voice would be more than enough to satisfy, Foucault uses artful acoustic and sinewy electric guitars to drive his points home. (Signature Sounds) The Greencards, The Brick Album The fifth release from the popular “newgrass” group has a bigger, more expansive sound yet retains their glorious three-part harmonies and artful, energetic instrumentation. With guests Sam Bush, Vince Gill, and Casey Driessen, this is arguably the Greencard’s best album yet. (Darling Street)

CÉLINE KEATING, CONTRIBUTOR Steve Dawson, Nightshade Bluesy, inventive, and highly charged, Steve Dawson’s fifth solo release is a feast of acoustic, electric, slide, National steel, 12-string, baritone, Weissenborn, and pedal steel guitars. (Black Hen)

Over the Rhine, The Long Surrender Linford Detweiler and Karin Berquist create stripped-down beauty from piano, guitars, and Berquist’s astonishingly chameleonic voice. Producer Joe Henry widened the sonic landscape while retaining the raw honesty and intimacy that has made the duo long-time favorites. (Great Speckled Dog)


Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 Tinariwen, Tassili The music of this Algerian group draws from Arab, Berber, African, and American styles, interpreted on guitars. This latest release (with a guest appearance by Nels Cline of Wilco) was recorded outdoors to help transport listeners to the canyons and arches of the refugee settlements where the founding members, political exiles, first picked up a guitar and passed it around the campfire. (Anti-) Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest These ten new songs show Welch returning to the more elemental roots music of her earlier recordings. As always, David Rawlings brings glorious harmonies and intuitive guitar to cradle Welch’s earthy vocals and dark, brooding lyrics. (Acony) Antoine Dufour, Sound Pictures The Canadian Fingerstyle Guitar Championship winner’s fifth solo album showcases his signature percussive tapping and harmonics; clean, crystalline sound; and rich, complex compositions. (CandyRat)

Dennis Griggs

DAVID MCCARTY, CONTRIBUTOR Chris Thile and Michael Daves, Sleep with One Eye Open Reinventing the classic brother duet in the same way he’s reinvented every other genre he’s tackled, mandolin maestro Chris Thile teams with guitar/vocal phenom Michael Daves for a record that sounds rough around the edges in all the right ways. Matching Thile’s fret-blistering runs would intimidate any player, but Daves gives as good as he gets on guitar in an old-school, roughhewn flatpick style reminiscent of Larry Sparks, Jimmy Martin, and Doc Watson. (Nonesuch)

Known for pure tone, played for pure pleasure.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, The Harrow and the Harvest Gillian Welch fans had their dreams fulfilled this year when Welch and musical partner David Rawlings released The Harrow and the Harvest. Standout tracks include “The Way It Goes,” which lays down a New Depression–era vibe that singes away pretense and irony like a steam train headlamp piercing the frigid darkness. (Acony)

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Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 Sarah Jarosz, Follow Me Down Peppered with lyrical playing, deep emotional content, and an original artistic voice, Follow Me Down advances Sarah Jarosz to the pinnacle of contemporary acoustic singersongwriters. (Sugar Hill) Blue Highway, Sounds of Home On the band’s first album of original music in years, Blue Highway once again sets the standard to which all modern bluegrass bands aspire. Powered by brilliant songwriting, passionate playing, and inspired instrumentalism, Blue Highway shows why we treasure the honest, authentic sounds of home. (Rounder) Kenny Smith, Return After reinventing modern bluegrass guitar with his complex flatpicking and propulsive rhythm playing with Lonesome River Band and on his brilliant solo debut, Studebaker, Kenny Smith makes one of the great flatpicking guitar records of recent years with the aptly titled Return. Blending originals and classics like “Black Mountain Rag” and “Billy in the Lowground,” Smith plays with such precision and control he seems to induce, rather than extract, wondrous tones from the three vintage guitars heard here. (Gat3) Ry Cooder, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down Channeling the ghosts of Woody Guthrie, Will Rogers, and early Bob Dylan as if they were the house band at the Purple Valley Roadhouse, Cooder takes the anger of the American underclass—and who doesn’t fit that bill these days—to create a powerhouse protest record. (Nonesuch) Angelo Debarre, Live in Paris Angelo Debarre plays heavenly Gypsy jazz guitar that brings the venerable style vividly into the 21st century. On Live in Paris, recorded at a gathering of the giants of the genre, Debarre demonstrates that the acoustic guitar music of Django Reinhardt lives on in the Gypsy spirit of a modern generation of musical titans. (Le Chant du Monde) Sierra Hull, Daybreak On the opening cut of Daybreak, former mandolin/vocal bluegrass prodigy Sierra Hull sings, “I’m not a child anymore.” And over the rest of this 12-track album, which includes flatpicker extraordinaire Clay Hess, the 19-year-old proves it, redefining herself instrumentally and vocally with a strength and maturity that belies her age. (Rounder)


Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, The Goat Rodeo Sessions As Strength in Numbers’ Telluride Sessions and the Meyer/ Douglas/Barenberg classic Skip, Hop, and Wobble did for instrumental music way back in the old millennium, The Goat Rodeo Sessions will open eyes and ears to unimagined horizons in progressive acoustic music for a new era. Merging the nearly limitless instrumental skills of four of today’s preeminent string musicians, the music finds graceful common ground despite the strikingly disparate backgrounds of the players. (Sony Masterworks) Noam Pikelny, Beat the Devil and Carry A Rail A departure from the typical “banjo player’s album” of hot instrumentals and flashy licks, Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail creates a diverse and compelling musical landscape for banjo ace Noam Pikelny and friends to explore. Joined by hot guitarists David Grier, Bryan Sutton, and Chris Eldridge, Pikelny tells funny stories and cracks bad puns on his instrument as he flows through 12 broadly differentiated tunes. With vocals by Tim O’Brien and Aoife O’Donovan, this is one “banjo album” that avoids the trap of trying to outScruggs Earl Scruggs. (Compass)

DERK RICHARDSON, CONTRIBUTOR Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest More than ever before, Welch and her joined-at-the-soul partner David Rawlings achieve orchestral oneness—in their tight vocal harmonies and their indelibly entwined acoustic guitars and banjos—on a set of devastatingly slow, dark, and peculiarly humorous songs steeped in Southern hollows. (Acony) Bill Callahan, Apocalypse His voice is more Nick Cave than Van Morrison, but the artist formerly known as Smog has given us his Astral Weeks: something mythic and mysterious, cryptic and cosmic, spacious and spooky, cleverly composed and ingeniously improvisational. (Drag City)

Guitars in the Classroom trains, inspires, and equips classroom teachers to make and lead music that transforms learning into a creative, effective, and joyful experience for k-12 students from coast to coast and beyond.

Thanks to Martin Guitars and the C.F. Martin Foundation, Oriolo Guitars, the Bill Graham Foundation, and D'Addario & Co. for helping us launch the latest round of GITC programs!

Please visit Think the editors missed a great album released in 2011? Tell us at facebook.com/ AcousticGuitarMagazine

to learn more and check out GITC's first publication: The Green Songbook Available now from Alfred Music Publishing at www.GreenSongBook.com.


Essential Acoustic Albums of 2011 Joe Henry, Reverie For Reverie, Joe Henry stuck to acoustic guitar (and brought in Marc Ribot for three tracks); used the Duke Ellington/Max Roach/Charles Mingus classic Money Jungle as a model for what collaboration should sound like (with drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist David Piltch, and pianist Keefus Ciancia); opened the windows of his home studio to let neighborhood sounds seep in; and consequently produced his most sonically spare and emotionally complex album. (Anti-)

Glenn Jones, The Wanting This captivating album ends with a 17-minute tribute to John Fahey, a dense duet with drummer Chris Corsano. The ecstatic moments leading up to that are solo acoustic fingerstyle gems (and three banjo pieces) that demonstrate the former Cul de Sac guitarist’s sculptural approach to technique, open tunings, and composition. (Thrill Jockey)

Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts Collaborating with Beck (synths, bass, vocals), Thurston Moore came up with more than a “Sonic Youth unplugged” (despite the dissonance) or even a chamber folk (despite the harp and violin) album. His six- and 12-string acoustic guitars drive the anxiousness of lyrics worth deep pondering. (Matador) Michael Chapman, Fully Qualified Survivor The reissue of this 1970 British folk-rock masterpiece from an overlooked contemporary of Bert Jansch, John Martyn, and Nick Drake coincided with (and should be heard in tandem with) Michael Chapman’s brilliant new double-CD set Trainsong: Guitar Compositions 1967–2010 (Tompkins Square). (Light in the Attic) Parkington Sisters, Till Voices Wake Us Rose, Nora, Sarah, and Ariel (plus cellist Lydia on this record) play violins and acoustic guitars and sing like a celestial Cape Cod extrapolation of the McGarrigles and the Roches. Gray, misty seascapes influence the introspective Joni-by-wayof-Leonard subject matter of their songs. (Parkington Sisters) Diana Jones, High Atmosphere Diana Jones grew up in the northeast and discovered her Smoky Mountain birth family in her late 20s, but the Nashvillebased songwriter sounds like she’s been playing country roots music forever. The assured throaty twang, deep lyrics, and solid band (augmented by Jim Lauderdale) allow Jones to keep up with the Lucindas and Emmylous. (Proper American)

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William Tyler, Behold the Spirit This Nashville guitarist’s penchant for collaboration—he’s played with Lambchop and Silver Jews—inspires atmospheric arrangements with brass, strings, steel guitar, piano, drums, and electronic effects. All that gives his already trancelike, echo-laden acoustic and electric fingerstyle meditations an even dreamier bent, more akin to James Blackshaw than John Fahey. (Tompkins Square)

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Meg Baird, Seasons on Earth As she’s shown in the Philadelphia band Espers and various side and solo projects, Meg Baird has sublime command of the supple nuances of psychedelic folk music, especially the British and West Coast varieties circa 1970. Here, to magical effect, she accents her delicate voice and spare acoustic fingerpicking and strumming with electric and steel guitars and diaphanous veils of harmony. (Drag City)

Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest At this point it’s reasonable to proclaim Gillian Welch and David Rawlings a genre unto themselves. These ten elegantly understated gems take the duo’s signature seamless vocal harmonies, delicate guitar and banjo interplay, and timeless, tradition-steeped storytelling to a new level of intimacy. (Acony)

Chris Isaak, Beyond the Sun Recorded primarily at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, this is the collection of vintage classics that fans of nuevo rockabilly cat Chris Isaak have been craving for years. It takes a load of talent and brass to tackle an album’s worth of songs rendered iconic by Elvis (“Now or Never,” “Can’t Help Falling In Love”), Johnny Cash (“Ring of Fire,” “I Walk the Line”) and company, but Isaak nails the assignment cold. (Vanguard)

MIKE THOMAS, CONTRIBUTOR Alison Krauss and Union Station, Paper Airplane Anytime this extraordinary group of musicians gathers in the same room it’s an event, and whenever they release a new record it’s cause for celebration. Incomparable lead singers Dan Tyminski and Alison Krauss shine brightly at opposite ends of the dynamic spectrum, with the former growling high ’n’ lonesome on rollicking numbers such as Peter Rowan’s “Dust Bowl Children,” and the bandleader waxing angelic on a host of delicate ballads, including the title track and “Lay My Burden Down.” (Rounder)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan in Concert: Brandeis University 1963 Within weeks of this performance, which features future classics such as “The Ballad of Hollis Brown” and “Masters of War,” Dylan issued The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. New York City folkies would soon be obliged to share his bountiful gifts with a waiting world. (Columbia/Legacy) Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What It’s strange how little attention was paid to a long-awaited release from one of the most brilliant songwriters ever, but snoozers were definitely losers on that score. Rhythm-savvy and rife with eloquent observations about the human condition in our times, new tracks such as the title cut, “Getting Ready for Christmas Day,” “The Afterlife,” and “Love Is Eternal Sacred Light” stand alongside Simon’s best. (Hear Music)


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Ray Bonneville, Bad Man’s Blood One of our finest contemporary bluesmen proves once again that less can indeed be more with this bare-bones collection of simmering grooves and bayou noir. At turns soulful and warm (“Good Times,” “Funny ’bout Love”) and menacing (the title track, “Mississippi”), these 11 songs linger in the air like July heat along the riverbank. (Red House)

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Pieta Brown, Mercury Ever since she emerged on the Americana stage four years ago, Pieta Brown has possessed the presence, poetic spirit, and vocal and guitar chops to command widespread attention. With the release of Mercury, coproduced by the artist and Bo Ramsey and featuring guitar hotshots Richard Bennett and Mark Knopfler, Brown adds a sturdy batch of alternately earthy and ethereal songs to match. (Red House)

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Kasey Chambers, Little Bird The endearing vulnerability and girlish hiccup are still there in Kasey Chambers’s voice, but Australia’s most treasured contribution to the alt-country scene delivers her most grounded and confident set to date. Whether riding a surge of roots-rock exhilaration or gently reflecting on people and places now relegated to the realm of memory, Chambers exudes authenticity and an unmistakable air of newfound comfort in her own skin. (Sugar Hill) Robbie Robertson, How to Become Clairvoyant The first solo release in 13 years from an Americana trailblazer simmers Southern style from sweet and soulful (“When the Night Was Young” and the title track ) to lowdown and bluesy (“Straight Down the Line,” “He Don’t Live Here No More”), with a few noteworthy detours into jazzy atmospherics (“Madame X,” “Tango for Django”) along the way. Robertson’s most personal record to date features significant contributions from Eric Clapton, pedal steel ace Robert Randolph, and former Rage Against the Machine shredder Tom Morello. (Fontana)

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Steve Earle, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive Steve Earle’s collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett confronts mortality in typically thoughtful and gritty style, with a bit more hard country twang than the singer’s let loose in years. The album’s handful of essential cuts include a pair of rough-hewn chuggers (“Waitin’ on the Sky” and “The Gulf of Mexico”) and “Every Part of Me,” a beautiful love ballad performed with Earle’s wife, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer. (New West)


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Shopping Tips 1 5 9 13 17

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4 8 12 16 by Jason Borisoff



TOP: INTERIOR OF SEATTLE’S DUSTY STRINGS, COURTESY DUSTY STRINGS

Smart guitar-buying ideas from five well-known guitar shop proprietors.

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TOP: PHOTO COURTESY DUSTY STRINGS; BOTTOM: PHOTO COURTESY ELDERLY INSTRUMENTS

ven on the busiest of days, it’s nearly impossible to walk by a guitar shop without at least looking in the window for a few moments. There is an intangible attraction to a well-stocked shop, with each instrument representing new and unimaginable musical possibilities. It’s fun to get lost in them, pulling down one after the other to listen, feel, and play. For us guitar nuts, it doesn’t get much better than that. But when you make a decision to buy a new instrument, that carefree flirting becomes a directed effort to find the best possible instrument for your budget and playing style. Suddenly, there are specific factors to take into consideration, as well as a huge variety of instruments to choose from. It can be a bit daunting to sift through all the information available on different body sizes, tonewoods, finishes, and myriad features and options. At that point, it’s important to gather some wisdom on the art of intelligent guitar shopping, and who better to ask than the guitar shop proprietors themselves. With that in mind we elicited some guitar-buying advice from the owners or managers of five highly respected acoustic instrument shops: Gary Davidson, of Dusty Strings in Seattle, Washington; Stan Werbin, of Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan; George Gruhn, of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee; Richard Johnston, of Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, California; and Rudy Pensa, of Rudy’s Music in New York City. With their tips, tricks, and advice you should be able to confidently explore the acoustic guitar market and find an instrument you’re going to be happy with, for a price you can afford.

guitar with a solid top. The top is the most critical element in tone production, and a guitar with a solid top will be richer and louder, even if the back and sides are laminates. Davidson cites instruments with solid tops and laminate back and sides, which usually range from $300– $1,000, as offering a lot of bang for the buck.

Pick a Body Size

DUSTY STRINGS Seattle’s Dusty Strings was founded in 1979 by Ray and Sue Mooers, who started by building hammered dulcimers and then branched out to

After settling on a budget, Davidson suggests narrowing your options based on body size, which is a prime factor in how a guitar sounds and feels. “Fingerstyle guitarists tend to migrate toward smaller body instruments, like OM, 000, and grand concerts,” Davidson says. Someone looking for more bass response and volume for aggressive styles of music, like country and bluegrass, will most likely be drawn to dreadnoughts and jumbos.

Tonewoods: Listen to the Guitar, Not the Rhetoric With so many adjectives about tonewoods floating around on Internet discussion sites, it can be tempting to fill up on second-hand knowledge about the different sounds various woods can give you. Mahogany, for example, generally

acoustic instrument sales. Today, Dusty Strings has 40 employees, a full repair shop, and a music school and continues to manufacture hammered dulcimers and other folk instruments. Seattle, Washington; dustystrings.com.

has a bright, dry tone as opposed to rosewood, which is more reverberant and dark. As Davidson points out, however, these are only words until you gain an aural perspective from actually hearing and comparing guitars firsthand. “I’m a fan of helping people experience what these sounds are and helping them develop their own terminology,” he says.

To Buy Online, Find a Reputable Dealer While online guitar purchases are generally

Determine Your Price Range “The first thing is to get a little bit of the lay of the land in terms of what you get for different prices, irrespective of brands,” says Dusty Strings manager Gary Davidson. Below about $250, you can expect to get an all-laminatewood instrument, which can be fine for players on a tight budget. Laminated woods, which are essentially fine plies of tonewoods, are less expensive and generally more resistant to cracking and climate-related damage. Their main drawback is that they do not vibrate as freely as solid pieces of wood and can therefore be limited in terms of tone production.

Get a Solid Top If You Can Afford It If you’re shopping for a guitar in the lower price ranges, spend a little extra, if you can, for a February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

ELDERLY INSTRUMENTS Elderly Instruments stands at a unique place in the guitar-shop landscape. What started out as a hobby venture in the ’70s has blossomed into a full-on acoustic instrument shop. In addition to its physical shop, Elderly branched out into the mail-order business in 1975 and has been selling through the Internet since the mid’90s. The shop employs ten full-time guitar techs who set up new inventory and do restoration and repair work for vintage instruments. Elderly carries many makes and models of new and vintage guitars, mandolins, and banjos, as well a large stock of instruction books and videos and independent-label music. Lansing, Michigan; elderly.com.


19 SHOPPING TIPS

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Changing the tuning of your guitar has a magical effect – making your guitar sound almost like a new instrument. Alternate tunings make sounds become available to you that you couldn’t play in standard tuning: deep bass notes, evocative jazzy chords, new melodic patterns. Familiar fingerings produce strange and surprising results, sparking new song and arrangement ideas. In nine lessons, the book/CD pack Explore Alternate Tunings will help you get oriented in an array of alternate tunings used in many styles of contemporary music. Get started by retuning only one string. Proceed with the popular open-G, open-D, and D A D G A D tunings. Dig deeper into D A D G A D as well as tunings used in Hawaiian slack-key guitar, Celtic music, and Nashville studio sessions. Play 12 songs, including the slack-key classic “Hi’ilawe,” the old-time favorite “Old Joe Clark,” and a beautiful arrangement of a prelude from Bach’s cello suite. $19.99, Book/CD, 72 pp., HL00696573

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19 SHOPPING TIPS

considered to be higher risk than in-store transactions, a lack of trustworthy shops in your area, or shops that don’t carry what you need, might mean that mail order is your most viable option. Regardless of whether you buy from a physical shop or an online retailer, Elderly Instruments owner Stan Werbin believes that you need to do plenty of research to find a reputable dealer. Most of the time, you can do this by taking suggestions from friends and happy customers, but make sure that you verify this trust yourself along the way. “We like to suggest that if you don’t know the store, you should call them,” Werbin says. “You can size up the person you’re talking to, and determine whether they are selling you a bill of goods or genuinely trying to fill your needs.” From there, the experience of buying through the mail can be very similar to buying from a physical shop, as long as the shop has helpful salespersons. As Werbin points out, it may take a few calls before you find a mail-order or online retailer you’re satisfied with. All mail transactions, of course, must have a reasonable, no-questionsasked return policy, provided you ship the guitar back in as-new condition.

Develop a Keen Eye for Quality Control When checking out an instrument you’ve found online, even the most basic evaluation skills can be very helpful, just to make sure you’re buying an instrument without any serious problems. “At any price point, a guitar should play well,” Werbin says. “It shouldn’t buzz, and there shouldn’t be any obvious flaws, like open seams or cracks.” Also, look for lifting bridges and warped necks. Make sure that you weigh the price point with the overall quality; it may be unreasonable to judge an imperfect finish on an inexpensive guitar that is solid otherwise. When buying expensive instruments through the mail (or from a store without a skilled repair staff), some customers have their local, trusty repairperson check for less obvious flaws, like loose braces and botched repairs.

PHOTO COURTESY GRUHN GUITARS

Treat Online Auctions with Caution It’s important to make a distinction between buying from a trusted online shop and an anonymous eBay dealer. While eBay often has what may seem like fantastic deals, Werbin considers these transactions to be a gamble, even for the most experienced buyers. “I think eBay is a place where you can expect to see ‘as is’ instruments that should only be bought by someone with experience, or someone looking to learn how to repair instruments themselves,” he says. Treat these transactions with caution, February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

GRUHN GUITARS George Gruhn is considered by many to be the preeminent authority on all things vintage guitar. He literally wrote the book on instrument collecting (Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars) and went so far as to adapt to used instruments the method of species classifications used by biologists. Since 1970, Gruhn Guitars has been the go-to spot for everyone from Eric Clapton and Lyle Lovett to guitar enthusiasts who want to benefit from Gruhn’s sharp eye for great instruments. The store occupies four floors of a building on Nashville’s historic Broadway, and includes a complete showroom filled with new and vintage instruments from the likes of National, Martin, and Gibson, as well as contemporary brands and builders like Collings, Bourgeois, and Goodall, just to name a few. The store also has a complete repair and restoration department that meticulously ensures that every instrument leaves the shop in top condition. Nashville, Tennessee; gruhn.com.

or avoid them altogether—what appears to be a great deal might end up putting you in the hole after adding the cost of repairs.

Get a Playable Instrument and Start Playing Gruhn Guitars owner and namesake George Gruhn has some great advice for beginning players: get a pleasant-sounding, playable, solid-top instrument and start practicing! “There’s a limit to how good a guitar you need,” he says. “After you have some experience playing, you will be in a much better position to gauge how an instrument sounds and feels. For instance, when you pick it up and play it, you will be able to feel that it has soul and personality. A beginner has no ability to sense that.” When Gruhn began selling guitars in the ’70s, the only options for entry-level instruments, like those made by Harmony and Kay, were practically unplayable. He points out that, nowadays, imported instruments from companies like the Music Link (Recording King, Loar, and other brands) and Saga (Blueridge, Durango, and others) are significant improvements.

Shop for Value, Not a “Deal” A common blunder made by first-time buyers is to shop for the least expensive guitar. “If you’re only looking for the cheapest guitar, you probably won’t end up with a good guitar,”

Gruhn says. However, if you already have a decent instrument in mind that will suit your needs, there’s nothing wrong with shopping around for the best price, as long as you’re also considering the after-sales services you’re likely to get. “Chances are, a new Martin or Taylor, for example, will be very similar regardless of where you buy it from,” Gruhn says.

Only Buy Used from a Reputable Dealer This advice does not transfer to the used market, however. Just because one 1970s Martin is cheaper than another doesn’t mean that it is a better deal when you factor in possible repair costs, like a fret job and neck reset. Unless you have the knowledge to evaluate an instrument’s overall quality, only buy used instruments from respected shops that have a skilled and honest repair staff. For example, Gruhn’s full-time repair staff documents all repairs made on-site, as well as known repairs that have been made in the past. That way, customers know exactly what they are buying.

Brand Names Provide Better Resale Value When buying a new guitar, factor in the resale or trade-in value of the instrument. Paying a little extra for a respected brand can pay off down the road when it’s time to trade up. “It’s one of the AcousticGuitar.com 69

19 SHOPPING TIPS

better investments you can make,” Gruhn says. “The used value is a percentage of the new value, and these companies often raise their prices yearly. If you buy the guitar at a discount, it’s possible to get every penny you paid back.”

Don’t Try to Invent a New Instrument When Ordering Custom For many players who don’t find what they’re looking for on the market, or want something truly unique, a custom guitar might be the way to go. While this can work out well for many customers, Richard Johnston of Gryphon Stringed Instruments warns about some potential mistakes people make when ordering custom guitars. “The problems come when people think they can take the characteristics of two or three guitars and synthesize them into one instrument in a custom order,” he says. Trying to get the best features of every guitar you try by combining elements (like mixing and matching tonewoods and body sizes) in one custom order is not a good idea. There are simply too many variables at play, and chances are, you won’t end up with anything close to what you originally had in mind. “Custom guitar orders work when the customer has a guitar in mind, but they just want certain things to be different about it,” says Johnston, who is also a contributing editor to Acoustic Guitar. Decorative elements, like headstock inlays and bindings, as well as neck profile and width, are easily cus-

tomizable and will not drastically change the overall sound and vibe of an instrument.

Bring a Friend of Similar Ability Bringing a musician friend to the guitar store is a common strategy for inexperienced shoppers. It makes sense to have an ally who can give you a second opinion, play guitars to give you a listener’s perspective of the sound, and offer support against pushy salesmen. Keep in mind, however, that this plan can backfire. For instance, novice players who bring along a professional-level musician to demo guitars for them are probably not going to get an accurate representation of what the instrument will sound like in their hands. “There isn’t going to be much relation between what you hear when a professional plays the guitar and what you’re going to hear when you’re playing that same instrument,” Johnston says. While it may seem like a good idea to bring along a more advanced player than yourself, Johnston suggests that you bring along a guitarist closer to your skill level and style. Their opinions will be much more relevant and helpful to you than someone light years ahead of you in playing ability.

Get a Pickup If You’ve Got a Gig If you see open mics and gigs in your near future (or you want to play in a band with drums and/or electric instruments), getting a pickup

with your guitar is probably a good idea. Most places expect you to plug in to the house system, so without one, you might as well be strumming a broomstick. But, if you’re going to remain a bedroom act for the foreseeable future, it’s wise to hold off on a pickup installation until you need one. Pickup technology is always improving, so it’s safe to say that you’ll be able to get a better sound if you wait to get a pickup until you’re ready to hit the stage. “It really depends on how soon you’re going to need it and how intrusive it is to install,” Johnston says. “Pickups are constantly changing. The person who bought a pickup ten years ago and is only now using it may be using a pickup that is obsolete.”

Buy Local for Better Service Though there are many deals available on the Internet, Rudy Pensa, of Rudy’s Music, feels that the best buying experiences can be found in a local shop. “The problems you get from buying off the premises is they only offer repair services through the mail,” Pensa says. “You may buy the guitar a little cheaper, but when it doesn’t play, you have to send the guitar back. A local store probably has beautiful service. They will take the guitar, and if they think they need to go to the dealer, they will send it to the dealer for you; if they think they can fix it on the premises, they will do that.” Pensa is not a fan of shipping guitars, especially for something as minor as a truss-rod adjustment. “Guitars don’t like to travel,” he says. “They don’t like to be in trucks, in the cold, and bouncing around.” It’s worth checking around your area to find a reputable dealer with a repair staff before buying online. “You’re going to save a lot of aggravation, and you’re going to relax, because if anything happens you can bring it to the shop,” Pensa says.

GRYPHON STRINGED INSTRUMENTS Gryphon Stringed Instruments owners Richard Johnston and Frank Ford have come a long way since starting to build guitars and banjo necks in a garage in 1969. Since opening a storefront in 1973, Gryphon Stringed Instruments has become the San Francisco Bay Area’s go-to acoustic guitar resource, with a top-notch selection of acoustics (and more recently, electric guitars), an experienced staff of luthiers who can perform everything from minor adjustments to the most ambitious of restoration projects, and a comprehensive lesson program that includes instrument rentals, private and group lessons, and visiting artist workshops. Palo Alto, California; gryphonstrings.com.


About the question of whether you should know what you want before you enter the store or let a salesman help you decide what’s best for you, Pensa says that a lot depends on the sales staff and how knowledgeable they are, not only about guitars, but the style of music you play and the sound you’re going for. “We always like to hear what people have to say, what they like to play, and what they listen to,” he says. “You not only have to know about guitars, but you have to know what’s happening in the music world.” It helps, of course, to have an idea of what instrument you want, based on the kind of music you play and your individual style, but you should be open to a salesperson’s recommendations; it would be foolish not to take advantage of an experienced salesperson’s knowledge of a wide range of instruments. ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

PHOTO COURTESY GRYPHON STRINGED INSTRUMENTS

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RUDY’S MUSIC As a young rock ’n’ roll fanatic from Argentina, Rudy Pensa, along with his wife, Fran, opened Rudy’s Music on New York City’s 48th Street in 1978. Pensa brings a sense of romanticism to the buying experience, and customers have remarked on the intangible “glow” of his inventory. Perhaps that has to do with Pensa’s eye for guitars—the walls of his shop are lined with some of the finest high-end instruments available, from golden-era Martins to vintage D’Angelico archtops and established contemporary brands like Collings and Huss and Dalton to the latest generation of boutique builders like Froggy Bottom and Solomon. Rudy’s also produces its own Pensa line of acoustic instruments, building about 80 units a year, and has a complete repair and amplifier shop. Two years ago, Rudy’s opened a second location in SoHo. New York, New York;

schenkguitars.com

rudysmusic.com.

Court Your Instrument “Your first instrument is like your first love,” Pensa says. “You want to be happy with it.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be the most expensive instrument or one that you’re going to still love in 20 years. Pensa suggests finding a guitar that you like the sound of now. In a few years, your tastes may change, and at that point you can consider shopping for a new instrument that suits you better. Pensa also advises against being impulsive—take your time, even play hard to get: “Get familiar with it, play the guitar, and go back a second time to make sure you still love it, because sometimes you hear one thing one day, and something else the next.”

PHOTO COURTESY RUDY’S MUSIC

Get a Guitar That Sounds Good Now Commodities like cars and computers are at peak value and performance when they are brand new. After that, they slowly depreciate. Fine stringed instruments, on the other hand, tend to get better over time and use. They gain tonal depth and roundness as you play them. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should buy a guitar that isn’t completely satisfying, with the notion that someday the sound will open up. “You would be surprised how much a fine instrument will open up if you play it every day,” Pensa says. “All my D’Angelicos from the February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

’30s and ’40s have such maturity it’s incredible. But it’s hard to gauge how much better they’re going to get. A plywood instrument with no solid woods will probably not do anything for you over the years.” Buy something you like the sound of now, and take satisfaction from knowing that it will continually sound better with time.

Keep an Open Mind There is no best or worst way of shopping for a guitar, and there are many different approaches. Your exploration may lead to some unexpected places, so while you may have your heart set on a certain tonewood or body shape, for instance, you may benefit from looking deeper into the motivations behind those choices. “If I can find out what has drawn someone to a particular kind of guitar, I may lead them to something they’ve never thought about,” Davidson says. “Sometimes people find very cool things if they’re open to having a conversation and open to exploring a little.” Remember that what is best for you is subjective, and in the end, you should keep an open mind, play a lot of instruments, and trust your own judgment. ag Jason Borisoff lives in the Hudson Valley, where he plays guitar and writes freelance music articles while finishing his undergraduate degree.

Master Music Theory with Music Basics For Guitarists Learn the basics of music theory in these 13 easy-to-follow lessons designed specifically for guitarists. Lessons with standard notation, tablature, and chord diagrams. l CD with all music examples and songs. l Complete music theory course for guitarists. l

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$19.99, 72 pp, Book with CD Published by String Letter Publishing Order Online at: acousticGuitar.com/books For dealer inquiries, please contact


INSTRUMENTS GEAR SHOWCASE Benedetto Guitars

Premier jazz guitarmaker Robert Benedetto making archtop guitars since 1968, currently in Savannah, GA. Tours available. Starting Price: $2,475

Bischoff Guitars Benedetto Guitars, Inc.

Direct customer contact allows us to incorporate your requests into our designs. Offering Traditional, artist and Innovative series guitar since 1975. Price: $3,800.

912-692-1400 www.benedettoguitars.com

Bischoff Guitars, 715-834-3751, www.bischoffguitars.com

Bourgeois Guitars

Crafter USA

Built by Dana Bourgeois and his small crew in Lewiston, Maine. 2008 Gold Medal Winner for “Best Small Shop under 400 Guitars per Year!” Starting Price: $3,895.

Their great variety of shapes, versatility in sound, and quality of craftsmanship make Crafter guitars the instruments that can cover any sound and style.

Bourgeois Guitars 410-254-4433 www.pantheonguitars.com

Dana Bourgeois at his bench

Crafter USA, 804-798-2006, www.crafterusa.com

Deering Banjo Co, Inc.

Handcrafted quality American made 4, 5, 6, & 12-string banjos. Makers of Deering, Vega, Tenbrooks and Goodtime banjos. Celebrating our 37th year! Played by artists such as Taylor Swift, Mumford & Sons, Bela Fleck, Taj Mahal, and more!

Deering Banjo Co, Inc., 800-845-7791, www.deeringbanjos.com

Martin® Performing Artist Series

Experience all of the very popular and innovative Performing Artist Series acoustic-electric cutaway models at your authorized Martin dealer.

Lowden O22 American Mahogany & Cedar

This model, first designed in 1976–1977, is sweet and clear– deep and resonant, not at all heavy or muddy even though the O is a jumbo size guitar. Great for strumming and picking alike. Simply superb! $4,575.

Gary Zimnicki

Handcrafted instruments of unsurpassed quality and value, each built to your unique specifications. Over 30 years’ experience.

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc.

George Lowden Guitars

www.martinguitar.com

www.georgelowden.com


Gary Zimnicki, 313-381-2817, www.zimnicki.com

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT


INSTRUMENTS GEAR SHOWCASE Guild Guitars

An historic American guitar brand with a rich history of building high-quality instruments for players of all styles. Made to be played since 1953!

Goodall Guitars

James and Luke Goodall build to inspire with legendary tone, craftsmanship, and playability. Beautiful woods, elegant appointments, since 1972. Starting Price: $5,000.

Goodall Guitars, Inc.

707-962-1620 www.goodallguitars.com

Guild Guitars 480-596-7195 www.guildguitars.com

Hoffman Guitars

Kathy Wingert Guitars

Hoffman Guitars, 612-338-1079, www.hoffmanguitars.com

Kathy Wingert Guitars, 310-522-9596, www.wingertguitars.com

Since 1971 Hoffman Guitars has built fine steel-string guitars in a variety of (largely) traditional shapes. We delight in custom work.

Winner of the 2011 silver Player’s Choice Awards, Kathy focuses on 12 or fewer guitars a year for discriminating customers with a focus on fine materials and individual voicing for each instrument.

Kinnaird Guitars

Kinnaird Guitars builds a dozen or so steel strings a year. We work closely with each client to bring their dreams to fruition.

Kinnaird Guitars, 936-560-5342, www.stephenkinnaird.com

H&D Model DS/DS-12

The H&D Model DS and DS-12 slope shouldered guitar is a powerhouse and a nod to the trad. slope shouldered guitars of the 30’s and 40’s. Standard woods are Sitka Spruce top with Indian Rosewood or Mahogany back and sides. Available in 12-fret or 14. DS: $4,283. DS-12: $3,933.

Karol Guitars

Karol Guitars builds custom acoustic and electric guitars from the finest materials, working closely with the client to deliver the guitar of their dreams. Specialties include baritone, multiscale and harp guitars. Starting from CDN$3900.

MacCubbin Guitars

Huss & Dalton

Karol Guitars

540-887-2313 www.hussanddalton.com

905-607-9397 www.karol-guitars.com


Handcrafted steel-string fingerstyle guitars, available in concert, orchestra and dreadnought models. Wood bindings, Waverly tuners, UV finish.

MacCubbin Guitars, LLC, 443-564-2616, www.maccubbinguitars.com



INSTRUMENTS GEAR SHOWCASE McConnell Guitars

McPherson Guitars

“Jordan McConnell is to me the most exciting builder to come on the scene in some time . . . From the strongest strumming to the most sublime fingerstyle, a McConnell is a tool for the serious musician.”—Paul Heumiller, owner of Dream Guitars and a McConnell fan. Commissions starting at $6,200.

The famous McPherson guitars feature revolutionary Offset Soundhole Technology™, state-ofthe-art bracing, and cantilevered neck. Starting Price: $5,800.

McPherson Guitars

McConnell Guitars

608-366-1407 www.mcphersonguitars.com

www.mcconnellguitars.com

Running Dog Guitars

Running Dog Guitars have been the discerning musician’s choice for two decades. Using only the finest materials and painstaking craftmanship, I create 12–15 Running Dogs each year. Each is a collaboration between player and builder, inspired by the lutherie tradition while incorporating modern designs and materials.

The Jazz has a 25.5" scale length and a 13⁄4" nut width. The pickup is a passive EMG neck position humbucker, along with an onboard headphone amplifier. The frame disassembles for travel. The Jazz has many fingerboard and body wood options available. $1,450.

206-547-1407 www.vtguitars.com

SoloEtte, 541-343-0872, www.soloette.com

Taylor Guitars

Washburn® Rosewood Series WD20SCE

The renowned American manufacturer offers award-winning acoustics and electrics, plus a robust Build-to-Order program.

Competitive pricing, pro-level electronics featuring the Fishman® Isys+ and rosewood back/sides are just a couple of the highlights that make this an unbeatable instrument. The solid spruce top provides the ultimate soundboard for projection, clarity, and resonance—lending itself to all styles of music and playing types. Street $299.

Taylor Guitars, 800-943-6782, www.taylorguitars.com

Washburn Guitars, 800-877-6863, www.washburn.com

SoloEtte SongBird Jazz Electric Guitar

Running Dog Guitars

Find these great products and more on the Acoustic Guitar Gear Showcase! Visit us online at

GearShowcase.AcousticGuitar.com 74 AcousticGuitar.com



ACCESSORIES GEAR SHOWCASE Martin® 12-String SP Lifespan 7600

No compromises. Enjoy legendary Martin tone and long life without fuzzy strings and broken G’s. All 12 strings are treated so you can play longer and change less. SP Lifespan treated with Cleartone. Heart | Tone | Legend

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc. www.martinstrings.com

Ameritage

GWW Group has been bringing quality carrying cases to the music industry since 1957. We pride ourselves in creating a specific solution to your carrying case needs. One case or thousands, we will serve you and meet your needs. Check out our website or our custom design center at www.ameritage.com to build your dream case today.

Humidification

BAM Hightech Guitar Case

Ultra lightweight case made of 3-ply structure, offering excellent protection of the instrument. Strong and rigid, with a stylish design, this case comes in several looks, and features two comfortable backpack straps and an accessory pocket. Coming soon: Made to measure guitar case program! $695.

Protect valuable instruments from humidity damage. The highly accurate Habitat Monitor systems provide precision humidity control in any size space, from small cabinets to large rooms. Temperature control systems are available as well. Call or visit our website today!

Ameritage Carrying Cases

Bam Cases

CMT, Inc.

866-669-8932 www.ameritage.com

201-342-7700 www.bamcases.com

978-768-2555 www.habitatmonitor.com

Hundreds of Open String Tunings Without De-tuning Your Guitar!

Give It a Rest!

Check out our exciting new HARMONIK GLOVES!

Sit back and chill-AXE! The Planet Waves Guitar Rest turns any flat surface into a guitar stand. Simply lay the Guitar Rest over the edge of any level surface and lean your instrument against the “neck pocket.” Leans against tables, desks, amps, etc., and fits easily in any case or gig bag. The Guitar Rest is also safe on lacquer and urethane finishes. MSRP: $12.99.

www.spidercapo.com, 845-679-3391

Planet Waves, 800-DADDARIO, www.planetwaves.com

F its all Guitar Fingerboards: Electric, Acoustic, Classical... ● For all Music Styles ● + Full Capo + “Flip-Fingers” ● Soft leather protects the neck ● Weighs an ounce! ●

“. . . the fun doesn’t stop . . !” —Acoustic Guitar Magazine

Tune Better

Blackstack Passive Soundhole Pickup

Be heard in even the loudest rock band with Fishman’s new Blackstack passive soundhole pickup. Now, that vintage sound of a humbucking magnetic pickup is available in a heavy-duty, battery-free design. Adjustable pole pieces allow for perfect string balance. Integrated TA4 mini-XLR connector to 1⁄4" for easy installation and removal. MSRP: $384.54. Street: $249.95

The Planet Waves’ NS MiniHeadstock Tuner securely clamps onto your headstock and is virtually invisible to the audience. Half the size of most “clip-on” tuners, the NS Mini’s ultra-bright display illuminates red when out of tune, green when in tune, and swivels 360 degrees for perfect right- and left-handed viewing angles. Leave one on every guitar! MSRP: $29.99

Fishman Transducers, Inc., www.fishman.com

Planet Waves, 800-DADDARIO, www.planetwaves.com




ACCESSORIES GEAR SHOWCASE Hoffee Carbon Fiber Cases Protection. Style. Service. Carbon Fiber Guitar Case. $1,050.

Gator Cases

Gator Cases is the leading case manufacturer in the Musical Instrument industry, focused on designing, manufacturing, & selling innovative solution oriented products. We offer a variety of hard, soft, & flight style cases for almost any instrument.

Gator Cases, Inc.

813-221-4191 www.gatorcases.com

Hoffee Cases, Inc. 312-560-8259 www.hoffeecases.com

The String Cleaner

Guitar Humidor

The only display case with curves! Handcrafted, fully lined, and humidified case is beautifully finished, wonderfully displays your valued instrument while protecting your guitar from damaging dry air. Models for acoustic or electric guitars, floor standing or wall mounted. Keep your guitar protected, convenient, and accessible!

Revolutionary design provides 360 degrees of string cleaning action. Extends the life and preserves the tone of guitar strings. Cleanable microfiber pads for long-term, low-maintenance use. Version for bass guitar, which also cleans the fretboard, is now available! “Cleaning strings has NEVER been this easy”—Gibson MSRP $9.99

Guitar Humidor

Tonegear

847-382-8656 www.guitarhumidor.com

888-258-0898 www.thestringcleaner.com

Fender® Passport® 500 PRO

PERFORMING AND RECORDING GEAR SHOWCASE Loudbox Artist

120W of ultra-clean, bi-amped acoustic power in an incredibly lightweight, portable package. Two versatile channels with Fishman’s legendary tone and feedback-fighting controls. All for under $500. Street: $499.95.

Fishman Transducers, Inc. www.fishman.com


Fender Passport PRO models are the latest step in the ongoing evolution of Passport into the very finest in portable PA solutions; keeping the best of previous Passport generations and adding new features and improved functionality so that Passport systems are ideal for whatever your application may be. MSRP $1,399.99.

Fender www.fender.com

L.R. Baggs M 80

The M 80 has more body response than any singlesource pickup ever created. Tap on the top, back and sides of your guitar and you’ll swear that there’s a full range mic inside—but it’s all coming from this allin-one pickup. $359.

L.R. Baggs 805-929-3545 www.lrbaggs.com



MORE GREAT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES GEAR SHOWCASE

Jingle-Jangle

The USA’s TOP Rickenbacker specialist in repair, restoration, refinishing of electric and acoustic models. Sole licensed builder of Rickenbacker acoustic guitars. I use factory parts and methods only. Worldwide service, 100% customer satisfaction.

Paul Wilczynski, LLC., 415-846-3213, studiocalifornia.rickbeat.com

Martin® Gear

Check out great new clothing items at the Martin 1833 Shop! Choose from an assortment of new t-shirts, jackets, ladies and children’s wear.

Become a Guitar Apprentice!

C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.

Guitar Apprentice is a new and easy way to learn hit songs on guitar! 15 levels of play in this rhythm game format allow you to learn songs gradually. You’ll supply a chord or two at first then advance through the levels until you’re playing the entire song. Grab a real guitar, pop in the DVD, and you’re ready to rock—even if it’s your first time playing! Available online and in retail stores.

www.martinguitar.com/1833

www.guitarapprentice.com

Learn Pentatonic Scales

Place a pattern guide on the fretboard chart, play in any key, even past the 12th fret! Change “Minor Blues” to “Major Country” sound. Includes five scale guides, fretboard chart, book and CD with easy examples and play-alongs. Kids to seniors learn with it in our recreation classes. Great for instructors, too! Watch the demo and try it out!

Rick Molindo Publishing www.PentatonicScaleGuitarSoloTrainer.com www.RickMollindoPublishing.com

WD Music Products, Inc.

Acoustic Rock Basics

WD Music Products, Inc., 800-449-9348, www.wdmusic.com

www.AcousticGuitar.com/guides

Founded in 1978, WD MUSIC carries a complete line of fretted instrument parts and hardware including: necks, bodies, pickups, bridges, tuning machines, pickguards, nuts, knobs, switches, electronics, accessories, and tools. All name brands in stock.

Play in the styles of acoustic rock icons like the Beatles, Paul Simon, and James Taylor. This twelve-lesson series of video and tab downloads is perfect for those just starting out or anyone who needs a refresher on fundamentals.

Now There’s No Limit To What You Can Learn On Guitar— Or Where You Can Learn It. Be the guitarist you want to be. Start your free trial subscription today at

AcousticGuitarU.com February 2012 ACOUSTIC GUITAR



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1200 E. Burlington Ave., Fairfield, IA 52556

SHOPTALK

Charles Freeborn Guitars Portland, Oregon, luthier fuses innovative designs with traditional building techniques to create sleek, unusual shapes and sizes.

THE SWEEPING ASYMMETRICAL SHAPES, half-slotted headstocks, and angled soundholes of Charles Freeborn’s guitars suggest a guitar in motion. And while these sleek instruments may look like they’ve left tradition in the dust, Freeborn says, “In spite of the look, my construction is very traditional.” Coupling triedand-true techniques like dovetail neck joints and X-bracing with unusual design elements, Freeborn strives to simply build better guitars, although he clearly has no desire to follow the mainstream. “When everybody says ‘look right,’ I look left,” he says. There are hundreds of builders crafting OM’s, 000’s, and dreadnoughts, and Freeborn didn’t want to “jump into that pool.” Freeborn’s shop is in Portland, Oregon, but his roots go back to Wilmington, Delaware, where he grew up playing in garage bands and briefly worked at a music store as a stock boy, which led to his first guitar-building experience. “I’d get old necks and pickups— parts that the repair guy was throwing away off of old guitars—and I would either cut out bodies at home with my coping saw or go to the wood shop at school and cut out the bodies and chisel the pickup cavities and Frankenstein electric guitars together.” In the mid-’80s, Freeborn bought a Martin kit, which he still hasn’t put together. “I was really more interested in seeing the parts,” he says. Once he saw what went into the guitar, Freeborn didn’t need to build the kit; he crafted his own.


over the top than on other large-bodied guitars. Offsetting the upper bout in the other direction not only balances the lower bout aesthetically, but it also provides access to another fret, since the upper bout joins the neck one fret higher (on the side near the first string). Freeborn also created a hybrid headstock that features three standard tuning pegs on top (the lowest strings) and three slotted tuning pegs below. This way, all the tuners face the player. The ones on top point upward, of course, while the lower ones (which would usually point toward the floor), point back, making them all easily accessible.

An Expanding Line Freeborn has started applying his concepts to more sizes, recently building a parlorsize guitar with the Freestyle shape. When I visited his shop, he showed me one that sports a Manzer wedge as well as what Freeborn calls the “Freeborn bevel.” This functions like a standard armrest bevel

Freestyle Body Shape Freeborn says he is always “looking for the better mousetrap,” which led to the unique look of his guitars, although he emphasizes that the look is “not just for the sake of being unique. There has to be a function to the form.” His Freestyle guitar was born from a desire to make a large guitar more playable. He started with a dreadnought shape “and just moved the lower bout down,” creating an instrument with a big voice that feels like a smaller-bodied guitar. Imagine a standard dreadnought sitting on your lap and visualize the lower bout dropping toward the floor and you can see how the Freestyle design makes it easier to get your arm

PHOTOS COURTESY CHARLES FREEBORN

Above: The Freeborn Quatre model. Right: Charles Freeborn works on a body in his shop.

By Andrew DuBrock


except that the top is bent to create a slight curve where it meets the side of the guitar, instead of adding an extra piece, as in other armrest bevels. Along with the Freestyle, Freeborn’s two other main designs are the Po’Boy and the Quatre. The Quatre is based on Martin’s 0000 (or M) guitars, which are similar to a dreadnought in size, but with a shallower body and tighter waist. “I think they’re one of the best designs they ever had for a large

The Freestyle design makes it easier to get your arm over the top than on other large-bodied guitars. box,” Freeborn says. One difference between his Quatre and Martin’s M-series is that Freeborn’s guitars are available with a slightly longer scale length of 25.7 inches. “I originally designed it as a D A D G A D guitar,” says Freeborn, who points out that the longer scale length retains string tension on detuned guitars, but the guitar works equally well in standard tuning. The Po’Boy is based on early Gibson L-00 guitars, complete with rough-sawn interior wood, but with a slightly longer scale length (24.9 inches as opposed to the L-00’s 24.75).

Alto and Soprano Sometimes innovation and demand arise when you least expect it, and such is the case with Freeborn’s new Alto model. Guitarist Woody Mann came to Freeborn with a problem: he wanted to be able to back up singer Susanne Vogt, but found that his guitar was often in the range of her voice, and the two were getting in each other’s way. Mann wanted a lower sound, but he didn’t want a baritone guitar, so Freeborn took a Quatre body and put on a different neck, lengthening the scale to 25.9 inches. He compensated the sixth string to keep it in better tune, and to bring the high end out, he introduced a little arch to the top and braced it slightly differently. “You sacrifice a bit of bass for that, but these things are so big and rich anyway,” Freeborn says. Mann wanted the instrument to feel and play like a guitar, so they opted for strings gauged from .060 to .015, tuning the guitar down two whole steps from standard (C F Bb Eb G C). “I expected the Alto to be a one-off,” says Freeborn. “Oddly enough, that’s the one I’ve had the most interest in.” Having found a new market, Freeborn now intends to introduce a guitar on the other end of the spectrum, the Soprano, which will be tuned one


The asymmetrical Freestyle model.

and a half steps higher than standard tuning (from G to G).

R uth Custom acoustic guitars

In the Works Other upcoming guitars Freeborn is working on include a nod to Martin’s 1800s Renaissance guitar, which will be called the New Renaissance. Based on a 12-fret 000, the guitar features fine woodworking details like a diamond volute and ice-cream-cone heel. And he’s developing the Stage, a Freestyle model that will come equipped with a pickup system and an adjustable neck that will not only move up and down, but also rotate side-to-side, so gigging musicians can quickly iron out neck issues on the road. ag

Looking for Inspiration Introducing the new Ascent Series

Andrew DuBrock (andrewdubrock.com), former Acoustic Guitar music editor, transcribes, edits, and engraves music for print and multimedia publications.

Charles Freeborn Guitars (503) 235-5283 freebornguitars.com


SHOPTALK

Goin’ to Woodstock North America’s finest guitar makers gather for the 2011 Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase.

THERE ARE VARIOUS REASONS that the last decade can rightfully be claimed as a golden era of custom guitar making. An ever-increasing level of craftsmanship, innovation, and tonal refinement has led to incredible pieces of functional art. But this elevation of the form has only been possible through the help of enablers and educators such as the suppliers of instrument-building materials; books, magazines, and websites that feature the instruments; and finally, the festivals that provide a venue for players to sample guitars, meet their builders, and socialize with like-minded aficionados. California’s Healdsburg Guitar Festival is the grandfather of all contemporary luthier festivals with its emphasis on showcasing the work of acoustic guitar luthiers, and shows such as the Montreal Guitar Show and the now-defunct Newport Guitar

Festival have helped build a community of builders, players, and fans of individually crafted guitars. The Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase provides East Coasters with a similar experience. Located in the upstate New York town of Woodstock (yes, that Woodstock!), the festival was held for the third time during the weekend of October 22–23. Featuring about 40 luthiers and several tonewood dealers, plus representatives from D’Addario and La Bella strings, Fishman

PHOTOS BY TEJA GERKEN, EXCEPT SEBASTIAN, CAMPBELL, TRAUM, BY DAN GABEL

Top: The exhibitor area. Bottom left: John Sebastian, Larry Campbell, and Happy Traum. Bottom right: Mandolin Brothers’ Stan Jay (middle) is flanked by luthiers Steve Grimes (left), Linda Manzer, and John Monteleone.

By Teja Gerken



Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamps amplification, the C.F. Martin and Co. custom shop, and a few accessory manufacturers, the Woodstock Invitational is less than half the size of some of the more established events. But in many ways, this compact format creates a more relaxed atmosphere conducive to sampling fine guitars. The festival, held in the beautiful Bearsville Theater and the adjoining Utopia Soundstage and Peterson House, is far less overwhelming than its larger relatives, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t afford an opportunity to rub elbows with star luthiers such

Look at this unbelievable 2012 Instructor Line-Up!

Specially Designed for the True Beginner through Professional

On The Campus of Maryville College in Maryville, TN - 17 mi. So. of Knoxville, TN.

Old Time-Traditional Week -June 10-16: Flatpicking: Rolly Brown, Mark Cosgrove, Chris Newman Dan Crary, Steve Kaufman, Eric Thompson; Fingerpicking: Pat Kirtley, Harvey Reid, Richard Smith; Old Time Fiddle: Brad Leftwich, Suze Thompson; Mountain Dulcimer: Joe Collins; Songwriting: Steve Spurgin; Bass: Rusty Holloway; Old Time Banjo: Evie Ladin; Celtic Harp: Máire Ní Chathasaigh

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A table full of Bernie Lehmann instruments.

as Linda Manzer, Michi Matsuda, John Monteleone, Bruce Petros, Bruce Sexauer, Ervin Somogyi, and others. And as this short list of names makes clear, the Woodstock Invitational is not just a regional show; builders travel to the event from throughout North America. Another fun and interesting exhibit at the festival featured some of collector Jeff Doctorow’s instruments, including some unusual, rarely seen pieces, such as a Romanek 16-string, Fred Carlson harp guitar, and Steve Klein flattop. Of course, any festival held in Woodstock has to include live music, and the Invitational is no exception. The weekend kicked off with a show at the local Colony Café featuring fingerstylists Peter Janson and Larry Pattis, the Frank Vignola/Vinny Raniolo duo, and Ugandan kora master Kinobe. During the day, mini-concerts by players such as Paul Asbell, Kinloch Nelson, Sharon Klein, and Doug Wamble demonstrated the instruments on display. And an all-star lineup of Larry Campbell, John Sebastian, Happy Traum, and Teresa Williams closed out the festivities. In addition, attendees who wanted to improve their guitar playing could choose from a half dozen hands-on workshops featuring a variety of topics and levels of difficulty. Overall, the 2011 Woodstock Invitational was a great event. Kudos to organizer (and Acoustic Guitar contributor) Baker Rorick, his staff, and all the exhibitors and musicians who made the festival almost as memorable as that famous one in 1969. ag


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Building Bass Lines Learn to craft jazzy walking bass lines and work them into your solo fingerstyle accompaniment. By Sean McGowan

See video of the music examples at AcousticGuitar.com/ buildingbasslines

WHILE MANY DIFFERENT STYLES OF MUSIC allow guitarists to strum chords with little regard for the lower voices, jazz guitarists are often called upon to play bass lines with the same level of harmonic ingenuity and rhythmic acuity as professional jazz bassists. Because this is especially typical during solo guitar gigs or when performing as a duo with a singer, horn player, pianist, or another guitarist, it’s a given that at one time or another, every jazz guitarist will eventually be put in a situation where he or she needs to supply the chord changes, rhythmic propulsion, and a bass line. In this lesson we’ll learn some different ways to construct bass lines, eventually adding guide tone chord voicings on the treble strings for a full-sounding solo jazz arrangement.

Approach Notes As we start building bass lines, we’re going to focus on basic 4/4 time, but once you’ve learned the techniques in this lesson, you’ll find that they can easily be adapted to work in any time signature. For now, let’s agree to play the root of the chord on the first beat of each measure—this will ensure that we are stating the harmony of the song. The next few examples are going to focus on the fourth beat of the measure, the second-most important beat of a bass line because it often includes an approach note that leads to the next chord. The notes on beats two and three will ultimately be determined by how you want to approach that fourth beat and shape the arc of your bass line. The first type of approach note we’re going to examine—the scale tone approach— involves playing a scale tone a single step above or below the note you’re going to be playing on the downbeat of the following measure. For instance, Example 1a shows a bass line underneath a basic ii–V–I in the key of C. The line begins with a D on beat one (the root of the Dm7 chord). Since we know we’re going to play a G root on the downbeat of measure 2, by the rules of this scale-tone approach, the fourth beat of measure 1 should either be an A or an F—one scale tone above or below G. This example shows an A note, approaching that G target note from above—a move that is repeated at the end of measure 2, where a D note approaches the subsequent C root. Most often the scale tone will be a whole step above or below the target note, but at times it will be a half step away. Example 1b illustrates this approach applied to the first three bars of an F-blues progression (I–IV–I). As you can see, the approach is the same regardless of the chords involved. Examples 2a and 2b show the same progressions using a scale tone approach below the target notes. The second type of approach is called a chromatic approach, in which we move toward our target note from a half step above or below, as shown in Examples 3 and 4. 84 AcousticGuitar.com


that the scale tone method outlined in Examples 1 and 2 will sometimes yield an approach note a half step away from the target— meaning that occasionally, the scale tone and chromatic approach notes will be the same thing. Finally, a third type of approach note is called the dominant approach. This technique approaches the target note from its

Chromatic approach notes provide very smooth transitions between chords and can at times add a bluesy flavor to your sound. It doesn’t matter if a chromatic approach note is neither a scale tone nor a chord tone (like the F# on the last beat of the Dm7 in Example 4a); the chromaticism creates a strong forward motion to the next chord as well as a little tension and resolution while getting there. It’s worth noting

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LEARN TO FLATPICK TRADITIONAL MELODIES Perfect the old-time and bluegrass boom-chuck rhythm, with bass runs Complete Edition

Fiddle Tunes and Folk Songs

Get simple melodic variations and performance tips for 10 songs with standard notation, tab, and video. Songs include: Down in the Valley to Pray, Eighth of January, Golden Slippers, John Brown’s Dream, Little Liza Jane, Man of Constant Sorrow, New River Train, and 3 more!

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Learn to flatpick the melodies to ten traditional fiddle tunes and songs, with simple melodic variations and performance tips

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fifth interval, as shown in Example 5. This creates a similar sense of “gravitational pull” as can be heard in a V7–I cadence, a sound different from the more linear scale tone and chromatic approaches. To use this approach, simply play the fifth of the chord you’re moving to on the fourth beat of the measure.

Adding Guide Tone Voicings to Walking Bass Lines Now we’re ready to add some chords on top! The technique of a walking bass line plus chords is a wonderful way to create a very rich and full-sounding accompaniment or arrangement, and it even creates the illusion that more than one guitarist is playing. Example 6 is an F blues with extended guide tone voicings on top of a walking bass line. Notice that the bass maintains a consistent quarter-note rhythm, while the chords sort of “jab” in and out. The chords that fall on upbeats create the same type of syncopation and

Chromatic approaches provide smooth transitions between chords and can add a bluesy flavor to your sound.

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forward motion created by the different articulations in previous examples. In this example, the chords function like snare drum fills, adding a joyful swing when played against the steady bass line. This example requires some fairly quick chord switching, so start with a slow tempo and focus on being fluid with your fingerings. Finally, we have an F blues arrangement that includes everything but the kitchen sink! “Blues in the Kitchen” on page 88 uses bass line articulations and triplet fills, plus lots of guide tone chord voicings in the chorus. If you are playing a blues tune with several repeating choruses, you may want to build up to a fullsounding arrangement like this. For example, you could play the first couple of choruses with a bass line in two, work up to a walking four, and finally to a walking bass line with chords. Layering elements in a manner such as this will add a great sense of motion, density, and sophistication to your solo guitar arrangements, and also make you an in-demand accompanist! ag Learn more about bass lines for solo fingerstyle jazz in Sean McGowan’s complete “Building Bass Lines” download available at AcousticGuitar .com/jazzessentials. Includes additional examples and video. ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2012

Ex. 6

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WOODSHED

Blues in the Kitchen Music by Sean McGowan

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© 2011 SEAN MCGOWAN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION.

Music by Sean McGowan

Download Acoustic Guitar Songbooks

VIDEO INSTRUCTION

Expand and enliven your repertoire with detailed written and audio or video instruction for songs arranged for acoustic guitar.

Pray Down in the Valley toSongs

Diamonds Guitar Jack O’Blues Fingerstyle

Fiddle Tunes and Folk

Roots and

LEARN TO PLAY THE SLIDE-GUITAR ARRANGEMENT OF “JACK O’ DIAMONDS” IN OPEN-D TUNING

By Steve James

10 minutes of video instruction and detailed notation and tab

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Includes 6 minutes of video

the traditional song Learn to play and sing Pray,” with a complete “Down in the Valley to flatpicking solo bluegrass boom-chuck Perfect the old-time and rhythm, with bass runs By Scott Nygaard

Roots and Blues Fingerstyle Guitar

Fiddle Tunes and Folk Songs

(video and tab) $3.99 each, $29.95 for 12 songs ● Milwaukee Blues ● Railroad Bill ● Things About Comin’ My Way ● Way Out on the Desert ● And 8 more!

(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 more! OH, MARY DON’T YOU WEEP

OH, mary d dOn’t yOu Weep T

he melody is that of an old spiritual. It’s included here for

ing: in bars 1 and 7 you move the index finger of your fretting

sentimental reasons; it’s the first song I ever learned to play

hand over to the first string from the second, while maintain-

consid fingerstyle. My teacher was Joseph Williams, a man of consid-

ing the C chord shape, to fret the F note in the melody. In bar

erable musical skill (and even more notable patience) who

5, form the F chord by fretting the sixth string with your

trav played for church services, ran a small music store, and trav-

thumb. Use your fourth finger to add the D note on the second

eled to the homes of his students in an old Cadillac.

string. This treatment of an F chord shape is frequently used

alternat The arrangement is simple and melodic, with an alternat-

by fingerpickers and can be moved up the neck to make other

follow ing bass line. Everything should be familiar except the follow-

DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE

OH, MARY DON’T _ YOU WEEP

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played slowly and up-to-speed.

Includes audio for complete

song.

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arrangement, with this fingerstyle guitar Learn to play the blues and chord diagrams. . 0 with tab, standard notation, 3

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Traditional Songs for Beginning Guitar (audio and tab) $1.99 each, $9.99 for 15 songs ● Michael Row Your Boat Ashore ● Home on the Range ● Kumbaya ● This Little Light of Mine ● And 11 more! TRADITIONAL SONGS FOR BEGINNING GUITAR

© 2011 String Letter Publishing

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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 Floor ● And 11 more! œ

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1. OH MARY DON’T YOU WEEP DON’T YOU MOURN OH MARY DON’T YOU WEEP DON’T YOU MOURN PHAROAH’S ARMY GOT DROWNDED OH MARY DON’T YOU WEEP 2. IF I COULD I SURELY WOULD STAND ON THE ROCK WHERE MOSES STOOD PHAROAH’S ARMY GOT DROWNDED OH MARY DON’T YOU WEEP

3. ONE OF THESE MORNIN’S ‘BOUT TWELVE O’CLOCK THIS OLD WORLD GONNA REEL AND ROCK PHAROAH’S ARMY GOT DROWNDED OH MARY DON’T YOU WEEP

4. WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN GONNA TELL YOU WHAT I’LL DO TELL EVERYBODY THAT YOU’RE COMIN’ TOO PHAROAH’S ARMY GOT DROWNDED OH MARY DON’T YOU WEEP

E A R LY J A Z Z A N D S W I N G S O N G S F O R G U I TA R

T’AIN’T NOBODY’S BUSINESS IF I DO Words and music by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins

a rebel song? A tale of the 1798 Irish rising, “The Rising

through the chord changes, even when it isn’t part of the

of the Moon” was written about the time of the American Civil

chord. I do this deliberately to add uneasy suspension to the

War by a Mullingar Fenian named J. K. Casey, who died at the

with the high F # (second fret, first string). I also try to main-

L

ike “St. James Infirmary,” “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business” is

chord progression and to avoid the overly sweet B7 chord

of the Green,” which is attributed to the 18th century blind

tain a strong pulse on the downbeat of each bar while picking

harper Turlough O’Carolan. A classic version of this song can

fifth fret of the same string. You can use a similar trick to

get from F7 back to Bb6. You’ll be sliding back two frets with

an eight-bar blues. Billie Holiday did one of the

definitive versions (included on Billie Holiday’s Greatest Hits,

your index and middle fingers, and this time, remove your

GRP 653), as did one of her great inspirations, blues diva

ring finger from the eighth fret of the third string and

this song, even though I’m hitting most of the second beats

Bessie Smith (The Essential Bessie Smith, Columbia/Legacy

replace it with your pinkie at the seventh fret.

be heard on the Clancy Brothers’ 1959 The Rising of the Moon:

with the sharp, downward snapping motion on the backs of

64922).

Irish Songs of Rebellion (Tradition 1066). In pub sessions these

my index and middle fingernails. I find this gives the arrange-

Here’s a tip for switching among the three chord

days you don’t hear as many rollicking songs of revolution

ment a marching momentum that really suits the lyrics.

in measure 4 and the Bb/D in measure 5. As with “St. James

down the same shape on the sixth and fourth strings with

once you’ve worked through a few more of the following

THE RISING OF THE MOON

Infirmary,” you may want to check back in with this version

your middle and index fingers. So to switch, say, from Bb6

tunes. The Eb in particular is a bit of a stretch but will get

T’AIN’T NOBODY’S I DO BUSINESS IF

so plentiful and singable that they’re not likely to fade away entirely.

to D7, just slide back one fret with your middle and index

easier the more you use it.

fingers; as you do so, lift your pinkie off the seventh fret of the third string and replace it with your ring finger on the

Instrumental

Played Slowly

# # E & # # 44

IRISH SONGS FOR GUITAR tab, standard notation,

Version 2 includes two new major chord shapes, the Eb

shapes in Version 1: Bb6, D7, Eb7, and F7 all involve holding

THE RISING OF THE MOON

Includes audio for song

3 0

3

Fingerstyle Blues Songbook

and gumption, but the tradition is so deep and the songs are

Learn an Irish classic, with and complete lyrics.

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age of 24. Casey borrowed the melody from the air “Wearing

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THE RISING OF THE MOON hat collection of Irish songs would be complete without

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Arranged by Steve James

Arranged by Peter Penhallow

AUDIO INSTRUCTION

Played at tempo

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SONGBOOK FINGERSTYLE BLUES

notation, song, with tab, standard Learn an American folk lyrics. chord diagrams, and complete

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ORDER NOW AT ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM/GUIDES Paperback songbooks including CDs are also available for these titles at AcousticGuitar.com/books

EARLY JAZZ AND SWING SONGS FOR GUITAR

1

SONGBOOK

Spanish Harlem

steady stream of eighth notes provided by the percussion instruments on the original recording. To fatten the arrangement I chose a root– fifth–third bass line in the key of Bb (made possible by the Bb tuning indicated below) over the original root–fifth–fifth line, recorded a few cents above the key of D. The somewhat unorthodox “first/second time only” markings in measures 22–23 and 24–25 help distinguish the song’s first two verses. To further develop the second verse, try adding parallel thirds to the 16th-note trills found in the vocal line on beat one of measures 7 and 11. Watch for the harmonics at measures 28, 45, and 53—they are ornamental but also provide punctuation and symmetry. The song’s repeat-and-fade ending begins in measure 67. Try sliding the chord on beat three of measure 68 into the chord on beat four—the repeat should give you an opportunity to experiment with different ideas.

Music by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector, arranged by Kinloch Nelson

Ben E. King’s recording of “Spanish Harlem” entered the charts in the late fall of 1960 and cracked the Top 10 by mid-January of the following year. After half a century of popularity, and still in rotation on oldies radio, it has long since passed the test of time. A classic example of a simple melody married to expert arranging and tasteful instrumentation, a number of things made this song memorable, including King’s soulful vocal performance, a floating marimba line entwined with a simple bass line, a gorgeous orchestral break, and a tender fadeout ending. I recorded an arrangement of “Spanish Harlem” for my album Kinloch Plays Tunnel 13 and Other Petros Guitars (available at kinlochnelson .com). Translating all these distinct voices to solo guitar required playing each with its own texture and dynamics, so while arranging the piece, I took some liberties. The marimba lines—represented with double-stops on the first and second strings (as in measures 3 and 4)—overlap with the vocal melody at certain points. I’ve placed glissandos on the occasionally abbreviated marimba lines to help set them apart and imply the

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© 1960, 1961 SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC AND MOTHER BERTHA MUSIC, INC. COPYRIGHTS RENEWED. ALL RIGHTS ON BEHALF OF SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC ADMINISTERED BY SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, 8 MUSIC SQUARE WEST, NASHVILLE, TN 37203. ALL RIGHTS ON BEHALF OF MOTHER BERTHA MUSIC, INC. CONTROLLED AND ADMINISTERED BY EMI APRIL MUSIC INC. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD CORP.

Tuning: B b F D G B E

—KINLOCH NELSON

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m a r k e t p l ac e ACOUSTIC CONNECTIONS. Microphones and pickups for guitars, violins, mandolins, banjos, and other stringed instruments. Brands include: GHS Soundhole mics; McIntyre, L.R. Baggs, and B-Band pickups; Elixir strings and Homepsun Tapes. International orders are welcome. On the Web at www.acousticon.com

WILLIAM“GRIT”LASKIN Guitarmaker since 1971 • Originator of the “Armrest” body-bevel • Originator of the Sideport Soundhole • Original AwardWinning Inlay Art

(416) 536-2135 www.williamlaskin.com AG Mag, Feb, 2012 NAMM MUSIC INSTRUCTION Issue

LUTHERIE INSTRUCTION

MUSIC THEORY COURSE FOR GUITAR. Correspondence, complete curriculums, (skills, ear, theory), certificates. Jim Sutton Institute of Guitar 23014 Quail Shute, Spring TX 77389-3944, USA. (800) 621-7669. [email protected] www.guitar-jimsuttoninst.com

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ACCESSORIES

BULK GUITAR STRING SETS Phosphor Bronze $2.30 80/20 Bronze or Electric $2.13 Details www.hotworship.com/euphonon or call 1-888-517-4678 Euphonon Co. Luthier Supplies Orford NH

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GUITAR BUILDING AND REPAIR SCHOOL Comprehensive courses in acoustic, electric and bass guitar construction and repair, finishing and guitar electronics. For occupational training since 1974. Accredited member ACCSCT. Financial aid available for those who qualify. Inquire about our amplifier-building course and other workshops. Please contact us at:

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ADVERTISER INDEX Acoustic Guitar Books, AcousticGuitar.com . . . . . 68, 71

GHS Strings, ghsstrings.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Olympus America, getolympus.com/audio . . . . . . . . 11

Acoustic Guitar Guides, AcousticGuitar.com. . . . . . . . 86

Graph Tech Guitar Labs, graphtech.com . . . . . . . . . . 64

Original Guitar Chair, originalguitarchair.com. . . . . . . 84

Acoustic Guitar Songbooks, AcousticGuitar.com. . . . . 89

Grimes Guitars, grimesguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Paul Reed Smith Guitars, prsguitars.com . . . . . . . . . 33

Acoustic Guitar Subscription, AcousticGuitar.com. . . . 93

Guild Acoustics, guildguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Perfect PItch Ear Training, perfectpitch.com. . . . . . . . 78

Acoustic Guitar U, AcousticGuitarU.com . . . . . . . . . . 65

Guitar Gallery, guitargal.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Petros Guitars, petrosguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Acoustic Remedy Cases, acousticremedycases.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Guitar Salon International, guitarsalon.com. . . . . . . . 39

Alfred Publishing, alfredpublishing.com. . . . . . . . . . 35 Ameritage Case, ameritage.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 L.R. Baggs, lrbaggs.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 BAM Cases, bamcases.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Breedlove Guitars, breedlovemusic.com . . . . . . . . . . 13 Bourgeois Guitars, pantheonguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . 60 Bread & Roses, breadandroses.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Breezy Ridge Instruments, Ltd., jpstrings.com . . . . . . 84 Collings Guitars, collingsguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Guitars in the ClassRoom, guitarsintheclassroom.org. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Phoenix Guitar Company, phoenixguitarco.com . . . . . 62 Planet Waves, planetwaves.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Podium, thepodium.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Hearts’ Home Acoustics, heartshomeacoustics.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Radial Engineering, radialeng.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Hill Guitar Company, hillguitar.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

RS Muth Guitars, rsmuthguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Homespun, homespun.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Saga Musical Instruments, sagamusic.com. . . . . . . . 10

Huss & Dalton Guitar Company, hussanddalton.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Santa Cruz Guitar Company, santacruzguitar.com. . . . 21

Juststrings.com, juststrings.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 81, 86 KMC Music, Inc., kmcmusic.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

RainSong Graphite Guitars, rainsong.com. . . . . . . . . 24

Schenk Guitars, schenkguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Shubb Capos, shubb.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Stewart MacDonald’s Guitar Shop, stewmac.com. . . . 61

Composite Acoustics, caguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Steven Kaufman Enterprises, Inc, flatpik.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 85

Córdoba Guitars, cordobamusicgroup.com . . . . . . . . . 9

Levy’s Leathers, levysleathers.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Donnell Enterprises, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

George Lowden Guitars, georgelowden.com. . . . . . . . 23

DR Music, drstrings.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Luthier Music Corp., luthiermusic.com. . . . . . . . . . . 28

Everly Music Company, redguitarstrings.com. . . . . . . . .

Luthiers Mercantile, lmii.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Taxi, taxi.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Fender Acoustic Guitars, fender.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Mandolin Bros., Ltd., mandoweb.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

TNC Enterprises, tncenterprises.net/agm. . . . . . . . . 86

Fishman Transducers, fishman.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc., martinguitar.com . . . . . . . . . 100

Wechter Guitars, wechterguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . 31

G7th, Ltd., g7th.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

McPherson Guitars, mcphersonguitars.com. . . . . . . . . 2

Yamaha Corporation of America, yamaha.com. . . . . . 99


String Swing MFG., stringswing.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 The Swannanoa Gathering, swangathering.com. . . . . 32 Sweetwater Sound, sweetwater.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Sylvan Music, sylvanmusic.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Tanglewood Guitar Co., tanglewoodguitars.com. . . . . 38


GREAT ACOUSTICS

GREAT ACOUSTICS

2001 Andersen SilverLine By Baker Rorick

PHOTOS BY DION OGUST; INSTRUMENT COURTESY JEFF DOCTOROW

THIS ONE-OF-A-KIND SILVERLINE archtop is a significant benchmark in guitar maker Steve Andersen’s career. As such, it served as the inspiration and prototype for his top-of-the-line Gold Standard series, and it is his only collaborative effort with another luthier during his 35 years as a solo builder. From time to time, Andersen (andersenguitars.com) builds special instruments without an order on hand, which he sees as opportunities to experiment with new designs, techniques, and materials. He calls them “Fresh Fish,” and the SilverLine is the sixth of them. Andersen often works in his Seattle, Washington, shop with American timber from the Pacific Northwest coast, but for this SilverLine, he used highly figured German maple for the neck, sides, and two-piece hand-carved back and German spruce for the carved top, which features the first examples of his uniquely shaped soundholes. The 17-inch-wide instrument takes its name from its most distinctive design element: an elegantly flowing curved line of sterling silver wire that separates the contrasting black and figured Macassar ebony of the headstock veneer, fingerboard, and tailpiece and outlines the Macassar ebony pickguard. Andersen says that he first drew the concept, then decided to “give it to someone else to see what they would do with it,” in this case the noted flattop builder John Walker, an alumni of Gibson Acoustics’ Bozeman, Montana, custom shop. Walker refined the design and executed the complicated construction of the headstock veneer, fingerboard, pickguard, and tailpiece. He also inlaid the pearl logo on the tailpiece instead of the headstock. Signed and stamped #285 on the inside of the back, the SilverLine was completed February 6, 2001. Andersen thought the silver wire used for the decorative line too narrow and indistinct, so for his subsequent Gold Standard instruments, he uses a wider line of 14-karat-gold wire. “The SilverLine was the basic framework. I get to play with materials for my flagship instruments, but I want to avoid making what I call ‘Circus Wagons,’” he says, citing the influence of James D’Aquisto in his goal of building well-executed, understated, simple-but-elegant designs. ag

Acoustic Guitar (ISSN 1049-9261) is published monthly by Stringletter, Inc., 255 West End Ave., San Rafael, CA 94901. Periodical postage paid at San Rafael, CA 94901 and additional mailing offices. Printed in USA. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Pitney Bowes International Mail Services, P.O. Box 32229, Hartford, CT 06150-2229. Postmaster: Please make changes online at AcousticGuitar.com or send to Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 469120, Escondido, CA 92046-9020.


ACOUSTIC GUITAR

February 2012

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