$4.00
Magazine Volume 3, Number 3
March/April 1999
John Carlini John Chapman, Steinegger Guitars, Rob Pearcy, Cary Fridley
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
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CONTENTS
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Volume 3, Number 3 March/April 1999
John Carlini Flatpick Prole: John Chapman Bluegrass and Blackboards Steinegger Guitars Jam Tunes: “St. Anne’s Reel Masters of Rhythm Guitar: Cary Fridley Flatpicking and the Internet By Request: David Grier’s “Cascade” Guitar Highlight: Lucas Kenny Smith Model
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COLUMNS
Published bi-monthly by: High View Publications P.O. Box 2160 Pulaski, VA 24301 Phone: (540) 980-0338 Fax: (540) 980-0557 Orders: (800) 413-8296 E-mail: highview@atpick.com Web Site: http://www.atpick.com ISSN: 1089-9855 Dan Miller - Publisher and Editor Mariann Miller - Sales and Advertising Connie Miller - Administration Contributing Editors: Dave McCarty Bryan Kimsey Subscription Rate ($US): US $22.00 Canada/Mexico $27.00 Other Foreign $32.00 All contents Copyright © 1999 by High View Publications unless otherwise indicated Reproduction of material appearing in the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine is forbidden without written permission
Don’t Let Your Guard Guard Down Craig Vance Beginner’s Page: Harmony Harmony Singing Dan Huckabee Flatpicking & Folk/Acoustic Folk/Acoustic Rock John Tindel Kaufman’s Corner: Corner: “Blue Ridge Mountain Mountain Blues” Steve Kaufman Nashville Flat Top: “Signal Hill” Brad Davis Break Time: The Turnaround Turnaround Chris Jones The O-Zone: Musical Interaction Orrin Star Dawg’s Pause Pause Dix Bruce Music Theory: Mastering Mastering the Fingerboard Mike Maddux Flatpicking Fiddle Tunes: Tunes: Leather Britches Adam Granger Exploring Bluegrass Bluegrass Guitar: Improvisation Improvisation VI Steve Pottier Eclectic Acoustic: Smokey’s Foghorn Foghorn Strathspey Strathspey John McGann
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DEPARTMENTS
Printed in the USA
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
FEATURES
March/April 1999
New Release Highlight: Rob Pearcy Reviews
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EDITOR'S PAGE John Carlini Issue It is with great great pleasure pleasure that that we present John Carlini Carlini on the cover cover of this issue. When I approached John several months ago about about being featured in in the magazine, he was happy to participate. participate. When I told him that I wanted to put him on the cover, cover, I think he was a little surprised. surprised. However, when a guy like Tony Rice says, “My main inuence outside Clarence White would be John Carlini,” I think the man deserves deserves some attention. John has always been behind the scenes in the bluegrass world, however, he has had a great impact on the music through his relationships with both Tony Rice and David Grisman. Although John may not be a household name in bluegrass circles, I think that all atpickers will enjoy reading John’s story in Rolly Brown feature article.
Merlefest ‘99 We are currently gearing up for Merlefest and we hope that all of the readers who attend the event will come by our booth in the sponsor’s tent and visit with us. Randy Lucas will be co-located with us and will be happy to talk to anyone about his guitars. He will also have at least one model along with with him. So come by and pick! Also, Brad Davis will be hanging out with us and I’m sure he would love to demonstrate his double-down-up technique to anyone who comes by to visit. visit. See you at Merlefest! Merlefest!
Dan Miller Editor and Publisher
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John Carlini: Musical Renaissance Man by Rolly Brown
John Carlini is not your average “knuckledraggin’ flatpicker,” and yet, in his own behind-the-scenes way, he’s had a huge effect on the course of modern atpicking. Consider this eclectic resume: On one hand, you have a Berklee graduate, guitarist in the Navy Show Band, a composer and arranger whose work has been heard in the movie King Of The Gypsies and the off-Broadway show Song Of Singapore, the musical director for the Ice Capades for eight years, and a frequent pit band guitarist for Broadway shows. On the other hand, you have a guy who grew up listening to Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs; spent his youth playing bluegrass banjo and guitar; became friends with legendary ddler Tex Logan, gaining access to much bluegrass experience; was sought out by David Grisman to help produce and rehearse the original David Grisman Quintet (and thereby have a large inuence on the likes of Tony Rice, Darol Anger, and Todd Phillips); went on to arrange the awardwinning Nashville Mandolin Ensemble CD Plectrasonics ; recorded, along with Tony Rice, the critically acclaimed CD River Suite For Two Guitars; was the featured guitarist on Grisman’s Grammy-nominated Dawg ‘90 CD; and currently is just starting to come out from behind the scenes with various new acoustic music projects. To say that Carlini is a musical renaissance man whose pallette includes jazz, bluegrass, classical, and other musical colors, is not putting too ne a point on it. When one hears his playing and arranging, it is evident that his musical voice grows out of a willingness to put aside ego and hot licks in a quest for a rich, spacious musical sound that is pleasing to musicians and non-players alike. I recently played River Suite for veteran bluegrass player Betsy Rome, whose response was, “How come these guys got the 64-crayon box and the rest of us atpickers just have the 8-crayon box?” The answer may lie in the fact that in a eld where many players proudly announce, “I’m self-taught,” John is quick to acknowledge the many teachers who nourished his musical development. He 4
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also values the importance of understanding the written language of music as well as the aural tradition. Despite all of his technical and theoretical knowledge and capabilities, John Carlini has remained a crusader for the simple, beautifully woody sound of acoustic guitar. His involvement in acoustic music, through his influence on Tony Rice and the Grisman group, has musically enriched us all. As he steps into the spotlight himself, this enrichment promises to increase.
Tell me a bit about your background and what led you into music originally. Both my parents were classical musicians. My dad, Luigi Carlini, was a violinist with the New York Philharmonic for 25 years. My mom, Phyllis Manseld Carlini, is a classical pianist. They’re both Juilliardtrained musicians, so I was probably predisposed to music prenatally. Were you actively encouraged to study classical right from the beginning? Yes. My mom was my rst teacher, on the piano. When I was in grade school, I was playing Beethoven, a little Bach, a
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little Mozart . . . even won some student awards in state contests.
When and how did you “stray” from classical and . . . ? (Laughs) When did I fall under the inuence of the dark side of the force? I remember sitting in front of a TV test screen—you know, the black and white thing with the lines and numbers—and hearing some kind of ethnic music and just being hypnotized by that. It must have been some kind of improvisational form. I remember distinctly sitting there for a long time and listening to it. I was probably eight or nine then. I was sort of drawn to fretted instruments, and I got a ukelele when I was in third or fourth grade. My mother used to have musical parties with friends. A lot of people would perform, and one of our family friends was a priest named Father John Mee. He played the ukelele, and was very talented. He taught me a lot of chords on the ukelele and the rst tune I really learned from him was “It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie.” (Laughs) In any event, the chords on the uke came to me pretty easily. I felt right at home. So I begged my mother to get me a guitar for Christmas, and she did, and I snuck in the closet and saw it. I was ten years old. What was the rst music that you learned to play on it? I think I learned to play “The Auctioneer.” You know, “There was a boy in Arkansas. . .”? I learned those chords, and then I became a big Kingston Trio fan. In my early teens, I was in a group, and the name of it was “The Rolling Stones” (laughs). I was introduced to bluegrass banjo by hearing Earl Scruggs on the Wheeling, West Virginia, Jamboree on the radio. My friend Bernie Coveney and I would go out to the car in the driveway. It was the only place we could pick up the station. We’d sit in the car at one in the morning listening to bluegrass music coming from Wheeling, West Virginia, along with all the hiss and the crackle. We were in high school. So I got bitten by the banjo bug, and decided I had to learn the three nger style. I got deep into it and ended up playing in a group and taking lessons. Then I signed up to take lessons with Bill Keith. There’s a lot of history there. I used to go down to Sunset Park with Bernie and see the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs—all of ‘em. Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
Tex Logan was, and has been, a very good friend and inuence on me for many years, and Tex taught me the true expression of bluegrass. I went to some of Tex’s legendary parties and saw people like Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Bill Keith, and the Greenbriar Boys right there in his parlor. It was absolutely amazing! So I came up with a deep love of bluegrass music, and I’m still very active with it. I listen to it alot, and I love it, although I don’t always get to play it as much as I’d like. Gradually, I got back to emphasizing the guitar, joined the Navy, and became a Navy guitar player for four years, as luck would have it. Then I got out, and, as I’d planned, got the GI bill and went to Berklee.
Was there ever a time in your life when you thought you were going to be a high school teacher or an accountant, or did you always know that you’d be a musician? Well, I always knew I was a musician, but making a conscious decision to pursue it—that was the scary part in those early days. I know lots of great musicians who, for one reason or another, were not able to make a living out of it. That’s why I went to Berklee—to develop the skills I needed to be a competent musician in many areas. I realized I wasn’t going to try to earn a living playing bluegrass music, because only a few people can do that! I also knew that bluegrass music couldn’t be my only medium of expression. There’s a whole
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world of jazz out there, and I wanted to be involved with that as well. Another reason I went to Berklee was to become literate, harmonically and compositionally. I worked hard at that.
Who were the big inuences on you at Berklee? From a guitar standpoint, there were two people: Bill Leavitt and Mick Goodrick. I was very fortunate in that I was able to study with both of those great inuences simultaneously for four or ve years. Bill was a dear friend, an incredible teacher and a master of the ngerboard. Not what I would call a performer-player, but a real teacher. He taught me how to read. He unlocked many of the mysteries of the ngerboard and gave me the tools to unlock others. Mick was the other side of the coin. He was the Zen master of the guitar. He exposed me to improvisational techniques, modal awareness as it applies to the guitar. I don’t know of anyone else who has accomplished what Mick has in that area. From what I’ve heard you say before, it sounds like he also involved you in much more experiential exercises and mind games about the guitar. Denitely! Mick was mystical about the guitar—spiritual, Eastern philosophical—that’s why I refer to him as a kind of Zen master of the guitar. He really is! He was always challenging me to dig very deep
A young Carlini (1968) rehearsing the Navy Band show with guitarist Jerry Boyd 5
to come up with the unexpected, and he’d throw the unexpected at me to make me respond. I’d go out of those lessons overwhelmed. Each lesson had its own theme. I remember one lesson where Mick talked about playing in a group. He compared the group sound to a painting. The sound of each member of the group represented a different theme or color within that painting. The entire group together produced a painting in tone colors. He discussed that for an hour, then we listened to the Miles Davis Quintet, or the John Coltrane Quintet, with that perspective in mind, and it gave me a new way to perform within a group and to listen to a group. Then, the next lesson, he might make you play with one nger for an hour! He is a very unique teacher.
What about Bill Leavitt? His instructional materials are justiably revered by so many players. What was he like as a teacher? With all the responsibilities Bill had as the chairman of a guitar department with over a thousand students, he was never too busy for you as a student. If you had a question, he’d make time to answer it. He was a master instuctor, a mentor, and a friend, all at the same time. He took time to give me private instruction before I started Berklee. Bill and Mick were my assigned teachers for my entire time at Berklee.
Bill was one of the original students of musical theorist and philosopher Joseph Shillinger, when Berklee was still called The Shillinger House of Music. Many of the early Berklee teachers were Shillinger students. As chairman of the guitar department, Bill wrote all of the instructional material for guitar at Berklee. Every guitar student who came through Berklee had his life affected by Bill Leavitt. His lessons were only a half hour, but you always went out knowing a lot more than when you went in. He was an unsung hero of the guitar, and I owe a lot of my playing and teaching approach to Bill, who was a funny, friendly, jolly guy who cared about you and gave you his undivided attention. From the writing standpoint, there was Herb Pomeroy. I was really lucky in that I was able to take all three of Herb’s courses: line writing, writing in the style of Duke Ellington, and jazz composition. These were the pinnacle of the writing thing at Berklee at that time. You’d get four semesters of theory and harmony, then you’d get into Herb’s course and start all over again from a whole new perspective. I had courses with Phil Wilson, Charlie Mariano, Gary Burton, and other great teachers. I was very fortunate. Every minute I spent at Berklee was a learning intensity.
Carlini and his wife, Terry, with David Grisman. Carlini was the musical director for Grisman’s original Quintet and played guitar on the Grammy-nominated Dawg ‘90. 6
When you came out of Berklee, what kind of music did you want to play? Well, I’ve always wanted to play improvisational music, but mostly I wanted a gig. I wanted a job, and, thanks to a referral from Bill Leavitt, I got a job, as guitarist with the road company of Grease , which was not the kind of music I wanted to play, but I was working! I was earning a living playing the guitar, doing a big Broadway show. The musicians in the band were great players, and it was a very good experience. It led me back to David Grisman (when the show hit the Bay area) and acoustic music, which always was my rst and primary musical medium. Many of our readers will know of you primarily because of your involvement with Grisman and Tony Rice. Tell us a little about how you originally met David and started playing music with him. My friend Bernie and I went to Sunset Park in Pennsylvania to see Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. I was a big Earl Scruggs fan, and I’d never seen him live, so it was a big trip. Well, we waited for the show to start, and they announced, “Due to illness, Earl Scruggs couldn’t make the trip, so sitting in for him is . . . .” So, what a bummer! I just walked away. We were walking out in the eld, having something to eat, and the band started playing. And then I heard this banjo, and it snapped my head around, and I made a bee line for that banjo, and found the best seat possible and watched the whole thing, and, of course, it was Bill Keith! From then on I was a Bill Keith follower. We used to go see the New York Ramblers and the Kentucky Colonels when they came around, and sometimes Bill Keith would be playing. One time Bill, David Grisman, Jim Rooney, and Gene Lowinger were going to play at Gerde’s Folk City, and I heard Bill was going to be giving lessons at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center that Friday. I signed up for a lesson and got the last slot of the day. I went in and met Bill, and we sat down and got right into it. It was an incredible lesson. He corrected many things in my playing. Bill Keith is yet another great teacher. I guess it was apparent to him that I was a musician and receptive to what he was showing me, so he extended the lesson, and after about two hours, he said, “Do you play the guitar?” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Are you working tonight?”, and I said, “Uhhh, no.” (laughs) He hired me on the spot because Jim Rooney was ill and couldn’t do the gig. And that’s how I met David.
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So what was the deal when you reconnected with David in California? David brought me on-board in the original quintet as a musical director. David had these guys that he had collected: He had Daryl and Tony—these virtuosic players and most of them had come up through the bluegrass ranks. He was developing his own style of music, Dawg music, and he might want them to play a samba or a ballad style, or be a little more adventurous with the harmony, so part of my job was to work with the other band members, individually and in group rehearsals, and give them the harmonic and rhythmic training they needed to function within those styles. I was already very familiar with David’s concept having replaced Jerry Garcia several years earlier as guitarist in the Great American Music Band, which was really the rst Dawg music experiment. When I rst met and heard Tony Rice, he had just left the J.D. Crowe Band, and he was an absolute “gun” on the guitar! I thought, “This is something really different. This is a super player!” That’s how Tony and I began our relationship. We would jam a lot together, and we wou ld help each other out. I’d help Tony with learning jazz-type changes and things that David needed him to play, like “Dawg’s Rag,” or “Thailand,” or some the more extended Dawg works: “16/16” samba-type changes, major 7ths, minor 7 b5 chords—things he wouldn’t normally come across as a bluegrass player. Tony, in return, would help me with my tone and melodic expression, and we both worked on eliminating some of the “jive” notes in our playing, which is a process we all go through. Tony and I became fast friends and started developing the body of music that later became River Suite For Two Guitars. When you look back now, what players, besides Tony, do you see as having been very inuential on your music? Well, Segovia . . . John Coltrane . . . You’ve told me that in the early DGQ days you were all listening to a lot of Bill Monroe and John Coltrane. Yeah, everybody in the group was just blowing their minds on the John Coltrane Quartet! Let me say something about this. The Bill Monroe/John Coltrane connection is something that I’ve always believed in. I tend to think that Bill Monroe and John Coltrane are somewhere jamming together Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
Carlini toasting a cup of Joe with the “Big Mang” Tony Rice even as we speak, and that there’s a lot of common ground in these two musicians’ compositional and playing styles. In the CD that Butch Baldassari and I just completed, we incorporated John Coltrane’s “Spiritual” and Bill Monroe’s “Evening Prayer” into one improvisational piece. (Interviewer’s Note: John later played this cut for me and I found it amazing in its simplicity and power.) I love that direction and want to explore it further. It all stems back to the early DGQ involvement with that idea.
Other inuences? Miles (Davis), too. You know, in my case, the best bluegrass players and the best jazz players and the best classical players have always been my inuences, so it’s hard to single someone out. Bill Evans. I’m throwing out the names of people who were strong inuences on me, and now Glenn Gould is having a big influence on me. It seems to me that you’re not a guy who is big into vintage instruments. What makes you decide what kind of guitars you want to use? Comfort. Comfort of playing and getting the ideas out. I’m denitely not an authority on vintage instruments, strings, picks and such. I just use ‘em, and I have good advisors, like my friend Peter Becker, who is on the repair staff at Mandolin Brothers. I have a mid-50’s Gibson ES-175. It’s kind of a Jim Hall vintage, single pickup, all purpose jazz guitar. I’ve been
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playing it now for 20 years. I love that guitar! It’s my mainstay working instrument. Basically, it’s a simple instrument, and extremely comfortable to play. Kind of a short scale neck. I can play it for hours with no sign of fatigue. With attops, it’s different. Even though I’ve been involved with bluegrass music all my life, I had never really found the perfect attop guitar, but I guess it’s just a matter of timing. Recently Peter Becker, who does all the work on my guitars, called me up and said, “You better get down here ‘cause there’s a guitar here that you need to play.” So I went to Mandolin Brothers and played this Martin MC-28 with a Buzzy Feiten split saddle arrangement. And I swear, since I played Tony’s Martin, I have not played a guitar that was this comfortable. It just felt like it was made for me. I sat there and played it for three hours and knew that was it. I’ve had it for six months, and it’s been great. I’ve already recorded two CDs with it and played a ton of gigs, and I love it. My other guitar is a Django-style copy, made by Saga. It has a totally different character. It’s curly maple with a very punchy sound, and I can get that 30’s and 40’s Django-esque kind of punch with it. David Grisman picked that guitar out for me after trying a whole bunch of them. My banjo is an RB-250 which I bought brand new, right out of the window, in Newark, Delaware, in 1963. It drove me crazy for about 12 years, and then it settled down, and I’ll hold onto it forever. 7
our recent Christmas CD includes Earl May on acoustic bass. Earl recorded with Coltrane and was in the Cab Calloway Band. He’s a wonderful player. And when Earl plays, a very special groove happens. It makes me play differently and it makes everybody happy, and we swing really hard. There’s also a new CD coming out soon on Butch Baldassari’s Sound Arts label. Butch and I have been working together for about ve years, and this CD features an acoustic trio of guitar, mandolin, and bass. It includes some original tunes, some traditional tunes, and a few other things, including a John Carlini with jazz vocalist Bill Robinson Gershwin prelude and the aforementioned Coltrane/ Monroe connection. I’d like to have a nice classical, too. I’ve I’m focusing now on my quartet (the been playing a lot of Bach and transcribing John Carlini Quartet), which has Josh more and more classical material, which Rubin and myself on guitars, Brian GlassI’d like to record. Most of this material man on acoustic bass, and Steve Holloway is music that I heard my mother play on on drums and percussion. I’m very proud the piano from early childhood. Now I can of this group. We’ll be releasing a CD this hear how it would t on the guitar, and I’m year from a live performance at The Turngoing through the process of adapting it to ing Point in Piermont, N ew York, and we’ll plectrum-style guitar. be doing concerts and club appearances as well. You wouldn’t do it ngerstyle? We are playing original acoustic music (laughs) No! I’m not gonna compete that I’ve been developing for years. I with those classical guys out there—Julian mean, we use Fishman Blenders and other Bream and so many others! I do a lot of technical equipment to help project the ngerstyle jazz playing on both the Martin sound; you have to be real about it. But I’ve and the ES 175, but I want to use a pick on found a home in acoustic music. I love the this classical material. sound of wooden instruments, and that’s something that Tony taught me—how to What guitars did you and Tony use on get that wood to sing. River Suite? I used Tony’s Santa Cruz, and he used his Martin. I used Tony’s Ovation on “Nardis.”
How would you describe what you’re going after musically now? My publishing company, Garden St. Music, which has now become a record company, is committed to recording great acoustic music from great players in many idioms. It may not fall into one convenient little marketing niche. For example, 8
Could you say something about your ideas regarding practice? You’ve told me that you enjoy playing scales and exercises. Does a student need to learn to love the act of practicing? Develop a practice routine! I don’t think that you can learn to love practicing. It would be like learning to love to use an exercise machine. You may not love it, but you do it because it’s good for you! If you spend 20 minutes of quality time
with the instrument each day, working at something specic, you’ll go away after that 20 minutes knowing something more than you did before. You’ll get another little piece of the puzzle, even though you may not even realize it right then. Over time, it’ll become something!
What other advice would you give to players who are looking to improve their atpicking skills? Use a metronome to improve your sense of time. Listen to your favorite artists. Transcribe! Transcribing is a form of ear training. Use the tools that are out there. If you have a computer, there’s “The Bluegrass Band” plug in for “Band In A Box”. And realize that, like anything in life, there are cycles. They rise and they fall. Don’t let the down times discourage you. Just ride it out because it’s going to come back up again. Follow your heart. To contact John Carlini for bookings or for guitar/5-string banjo instruction, please write to: PO Box 416, Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922 or call 908 508-1757 FAX 908-508-1791 or email:
[email protected] John also invites you to visit his website at johncarlini.com. Here you will nd performance information as well as a question and answer forum, newsletter, and product line for Garden Street Music.
John Carlini’s notes on “Big Mang” “Big Mang” is a bluegrass/jazz tune I wrote for my good friend Tony Rice. Regarding the title, I certainly did not mean any disrespect or play on words. We call each other “mang” as in “How ya doin’, mang?” or “Hey mang.” So Tony is Big Mang! The B section should be improvised, making it a real “fusion” of jazz and bluegrass. Just play whatever C and G ideas you want. I’ve included some ngering suggestions for the A part. Hope you enjoy it.
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Big Mang
b ‰ œ b œ œ # œ œ b œ n œ b œ œ n œ# œ œ œ# œ œ
As played by John Carlini on the Tony Rice and John Carlini release River Suite for Two Guitars (SHCD-3837)
# & C ‰ œ #œ œ œ œ nœ œ w
Fast Bluegrass
A
Suggested Fingerings
1
2
0
3
4
B
1
3 0
b # b w &
3
3
3
0
0
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2
3
5
b# œ œ # œ œ œ
B
1
4
1
1
8
10
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# & w 13
G 2
0
2
8
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1
2 3
2
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œ œ # œ œ œn œ œ œ œ# œ œ w 4
2
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G 1
1
0 7
10
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3
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2
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1 3
1
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C
1
C
1
1
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b œ b˙ b œ . œ œ n œ # œ œ J œ # œ ‰ . J ‰
6
7
3
B
2
3 4
&
3
G
3
1
9
C
n w œ œ # œ Ó
E 9
4
G
2
2
8
9
3
9
2
8
1
2
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11 12
2
4
11
11
‰ œ #œ œ œ œ nœ bœ .
0 7
0
0
3
4
3 0
3
3
Improvise Entire B Section
‰ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ‰ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’
# & ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ 19
G
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Big Mang (Con’t)
# & ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ # & ’ ’ ’ ’ ‰ œ #œ œ œ œ nœ œ ’ ’ ’ ’ G
24
(Melody Pick-ups)
28
0
10
3
4
3
0
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Whiskey Before Breakfast in Drop D by Craig Vance If any of you read my last column, you’d know that I injured my little nger on the left hand. That prevented me from tabbing out anything for you last time. Well, I’m back! The finger has recovered almost fully, so I was able to provide you with more tablature in this issue. After receiving several requests for ddle tune tab, I thought I’d start off with “Whiskey Before Breakfast.” “Whiskey Before Breakfast” has been a favorite of mine for many years. There are several great recordings of this available. My personal favorite is Norman Blake’s version recorded back in the mid-70’s on a
Rounder recording by the same title. That is about the time I decided to learn this tune, and did so playing it in the key of C. Since then I’ve discovered that playing it in the key of D using the drop D (low E down to D) tuning gave the tune a much richer sound. The arrangement I have transcribed here is the basic format of the tune with a few embellishments for texture. There are many different approaches to the second half of the tune, much more than there are to the rst half. If you play this version against another guitar capoed on the second fret, I think
Flatpicking ‘98
you’ll notice how much fuller the sound is on your guitar. This theory holds water for most two-guitar pieces. It is a good exercise to try playing the tune in both positions. Try it in D, then capo up two frets and try it in C. If you nd the transition difcult, try taping it in D, and then while playing the tape back, try the capoed version in C. This method is also very helpful for guring out harmonies for two guitars. This format works with other ddle tunes as well “Arkansas Traveler,” “Billy in the Lowground,” Fiddler’s Dram,” “St. Anne’s Reel,” etc. Experiment with it, be creative, but most of all . . . have fun!
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Presents:
Flatpicking ‘98 Featuring 20 of today’s best atpicking guitarists: • James Alan Shelton • Dan DeLancey • Charles Sawtelle • Richard Bennett • • Russ Barenberg • Dan Crary • Sean Watkins • Larry Sparks • Richard Starkey • • Luke Bulla • Craig Vance • Adam Granger • Jimmy Haley • Orrin Star • • Mike Maddox • Jim Nunally and Dix Bruce • Chris Jones • • Jeff Autry • John McGann • Joe Carr •
Featuring 20 tunes that have been transcribed and presented in the second volume of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
A Great Flatpicking Guitar Sampler! Send a check or money order for $15 (includes postage costs) to: Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, PO Box 2160, Pulaski, VA 24301 or call 800-413-8296
Listen to Want You Have Been Reading! Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
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Beginner’s Page
Harmony Singing
Editor’s Note: Over the past several months we have had a number of subscribers request transcriptions to twin guitar solos of standard atpicking tunes. Instead of simply providing twin guitar tablature, I thought it would be best if one of our columnists describe the theory behind twin guitar solos and explain how you can gure them out on your own. Dan Huckabee agreed to tackle this subject and will provide this information in his column over the course of the next several issues. In this issue he begins by rst explaining a little about harmony singing to give you a foundation of knowledge for this series on twin guitar.
play a basic G chord in rst position on the guitar, from low to high, you have these notes: G, B, D, G, B, G. As you can see, there is a bunch of repeating going on around here! If you heard vocal parts being referred to as: melody, tenor, baritone, and bass, then you heard the right names. If you heard a part being referred to as “alto,” then you heard a wrong name. Actually “alto” refers to a person’s vocal range rather than a “harmony part.” Formal classical music has a name for each vocal range, and “alto” refers to one of these ranges, not to a specic relationship to the melody. This can be confusing so I’ll give some examples as we go along.
Learning to sing harmony parts will help you learn atpicking! It will also give people one more reason to want you to join their band, and besides, most people rst pick up the guitar because they want to sing songs. There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings associated with harmony singing, and there really shouldn’t be, because harmony singing is just simple music theory, which you need to know for your guitar or your voice. First of all, there are three notes in a triad chord, so there are three harmony parts in harmony singing. For example, the G chord is made up of rst, third, and fth notes of the G scale: G, B, and D. So then why does gospel harmony have four parts and why does a “G” chord have six notes on the guitar (when using all six strings). Answer: Because there are notes that are repeated. Mr. Bass-man in a gospel quartet is repeating one of the other voices, but an octave lower. For example, Mr. Bass-man is singing a “low-G” when one of the other singers is hitting a “high-G”. A major, minor, diminished, or augmented chord consists of only 3 notes, and a “G” chord on the guitar has a low, middle, and high “G” in it, as well as a low and high “B” and a “D.” In other words, when you
Three and Four Part Harmony In bluegrass music, the “tenor” refers to the next possible harmonizing part above the melody. Now there are lots of notes above the melody that would harmonize, but I’m talking about the “next-door neighbor,” not someone who lives 3 houses down. Conversely, the next harmonizing part (directly) below the melody is called the “baritone.” Now it gets interesting. We can jumble these three parts in any order. We can put the melody in the middle, which would be the most common harmony conguration. But if we wanted, we could put the melody at the top, with the other two harmony parts below it, or we could put the melody at the bottom—you guessed it— with the other two parts above it. Interesting! So if we had the melody, with a tenor above it, then we’d stack another (even higher) part above the tenor. This part would then be called “high baritone.” In fact, it would be the exact same part as the “regular” baritone, but sung an “octave” higher. Very interesting! So if we had a melody with a baritone below—you guessed it again—we could put another part “below” the baritone and it would be called “low tenor.”
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
It’s a very logical process, and understanding it allows you to communicate with other bluegrass musicians. Let’s say you have female lead singer with a really high voice. Think you’d be able to sing tenor above her? If you’re squeamish about surgery, you’d just sing the baritone below her, and then a “low-tenor” below the baritone. If you are a lead-singer-dad in a family band, and your wife and daughter sing harmony with you, what are you gonna do? Put your wife on tenor above you, and daughter on “high baritone” above Mom. Now you’ve solved a major family dispute! So to summarize we’ve got three choices: melody with tenor above and baritone below, melody on the bottom with tenor above and high baritone above the tenor, or melody on the top with baritone below and low tenor below the baritone. Now back to Mr. Bass-man. The bass part is fun. It’s independent. It’s easy. Bass doesn’t follow along with the melody trying to be harmonious to every note that the lead singer sings. The bass singer just sings a line that’s similar to what a bass ddle or the bass notes of the guitar would do. He sings the “low-G” note when the chord to the song is on “G,” the “low-C” note when the chord is on “C,” and the “low-D” note when the chord of the song is on “D.” In other words, the guitar will tell you the bass part if you don’t know it. Now the spicy part of bass singing is when you sing the “walk-ups” from chord to chord. That’s right, same as the walk-ups you’d do on guitar or bass ddle.
Two-Part Harmony The nal stylistic concept in harmony singing is “two-part-harmony.” Now this is a very interesting artistic format. It doesn’t sound like it would have anything special about it, but it does. The reason is that when only two people are singing harmony together, there is much more room for 13
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choice and original expression. In “twopart harmony” there is one person singing the melody and the other person can select from a choice of two notes at each point in the song. In other words, the person harmonizing can create a hybrid from the baritone and tenor parts. If you took a liberty like this in three-part harmony, the parts wouldn’t t and you would nd “doublings” at various places in the song. In three-part harmony the baritone and tenor singers are required to “follow” the melody singer and strictly stay on the note that is the “next” harmonious note to the melody at all times. Any deviation from this rule would result in doubling of parts, and the result would be an arrangement where the three notes of the triad wouldn’t be represented consistently throughout the song. In two-part harmony, because there’s no one whose “toes you might step on,” you can take a few liberties. As a result, sometimes an existing harmonious note,
between the lead singer and the harmony singer, in two-part arrangements is not sung. The term for this is “open position.” This would be the same thing as playing your 4th string (D) and your 2nd string (B) in your “G-chord.” There is a note between them (G, which is your 3rd string), but you just didn’t play it. The result is a more spread-out kind of a sound which has a texture all its own. Further, the harmony singer in two-part-harmony can sing above or below the lead singer, or can jump around singing above the lead singer at one point in the song and then below the lead singer at another point in the song. Now that you know the basic structure and lingo, we’ll be able to get into more details in the next issue. For now I just want you to know that twin guitar playing, twin ddle playing, or twinning on any instrument, is exactly the same as harmony singing. Learning to harmonize on vocal parts before you learn to harmonize on instruments makes a lot of sense, because vocal melodies are simpler than instrumental melodies. We produce a series of cassette tapes called “How to Sing Harmony.” You can choose from bluegrass, gospel, country, and pop and the tapes give you many songs and the theory to help you gure out your own parts. They are ideal for getting some ear training and practice when you are otherwise accomplishing nothing while driving (alone) in your car. If you are interested in nding out more details about these products, you can give us a call at: Musician’s Workshop (800-543-6125).
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Flatpick Prole John Chapman: Growing Up in a Bluegrass Band by Michel Maddux
The Arkansas River ows through the dam at Pueblo, Colorado, and winds through a grove of tall, oldgrowth cottonwood trees. In June the cottonwood seeds oat through the air and collect on the tents and windshields of the campers and on the shoulders of the pickers who are in Pueblo to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the Fiesta Del Rio, the annual bluegrass party at the river. Last June I caught up with a band that has been a perennial favorite at the festival. For most of the past nine years the organizers have featured the Missouri-based Chapman Family band. The Chapmans, originally from Denver, feature original and traditional bluegrass music, and perform with Dad (Bill) on the banjo, and sons John, Jeremy, and Jason on guitar, mandolin, and bass, respectively. Mom (Patti) no longer performs on the bass but travels with the band and takes care of the business and her brood. Gone are the blue wigs that the boys wore during the rock-a-billy part of the show in years past; gone are the rapid guitar string changes during the show, necessitated by John’s habit of breaking one or more per set. Gone are the frequent key changes of the tunes to keep pace with changes in the boys’ voices. In their place is a musical organization that in the past year won the SPBGMA International Bluegrass Band Championship, secured a recording agreement with Pinecastle records, became one of 18 bands (out of over 100 applicants) selected to showcase at IBMA last fall, and completed a tour of Vienna, Austria. Now 21, John was just 12 years old when we happened to camp next to them at the Loveland, Colorado, bluegrass festival. He won the Colorado State Bluegrass Fiddle Championship that year at Loveland, but he was already starting to pick up the guitar. John said, “I think I started playing (ddle) when I was 10 years old; I guess that was Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
11 years ago. We were just hanging out, doing ddle contests and stuff like that. I think that I did my rst ddle contest when I was 11.” Today John is focused on the guitar. About the ddle he says with a laugh: “ It’s kind of taken a back seat. That last album, we had Tim Crouch in there, and after listening to him play it almost was discouraging enough that I didn’t want to touch it no more.” When asked about the decision to play the guitar, he replied: “I always wanted to play the guitar. In fact when I rst started, I wasn’t even supposed to be playing the guitar. It was Dad’s guitar and every once in a while he’d catch me taking it out of the case and playing it and I’d get in trouble. He was worried that it would actually destroy my ddle playing, which I guess in the end
March/April 1999
it did. I just felt like that was something that I wanted to play.” John cites his early inuences as Dan Crary and the local Colorado area pickers. “When I rst started to play the guitar, I wasn’t very big into Tony Rice at all. I didn’t care for him too much. I listened to a lot of Dan Crary and a bunch of players hanging around the area. I would hear all of these guitar players, and then I would go home and see if I could gure out what they were playing.” John later began to play more of the Tony Rice style, but after receiving criticism for being imitative started to search for his own approach. The search lead him through George Shufer, Larry Sparks and Clarence White. A combination of study with multi-instrumentalist Peter Schwimmer, use of a Marantz variable speed recorder, and copies of Frets magazines that his dad kept around the house helped him work out breaks to songs. “Basically, I was trying to learn every break that I could come up with. If I found a lick that was in this one particular break, I would put that in my little bag of licks and try to use it sometime. That’s basically what I did to try to learn to play—was just learn as many breaks and things as I could nd.” When he’s working out a break today, John uses mainly an improvisational approach. “Usually when I’m working something out, it starts out real slowly. I grab some licks that I’ve got and kind of string ‘em together to make a break. As we play the tune out more, it becomes more rened. I come up with things that I really like in the tune that really seem to work.” The art of playing rhythm, working on timing and “getting feeling out of rhythm” have been the goals of his study recently. “Instead of your basic pickstrum-pick-strum thing. If you’re playing something that’s real bluesy you’ve got to get a type of backup that emphasizes that; 15
fty percent of his life on the road, John said that he still loves it. “I’m having a blast; I think it’s great. I’ve been having a lot of fun picking with people like Kenny Smith. Coolest thing I ever did was when I got to hang out with Dan Crary. Doc Watson was great to sit and talk to; he’s a super great guy.” On contests John commented: ”I don’t see me as a contest player. The only (guitar) thing I ever did was the ProSound Guitar Wars contest. It was an open acoustic division. Anybody who played guitar was in that division. It John Chapman (left) and the band warm-up was everything from before a show at the Pueblo Festival, 1998 flamenco to classical really bouncy, or slightly different variaplayers.” Though John was the only attions in rhythm depending upon the type of picker in the contest, and was awarded top song it is. I was really paying attention to honors. Despite that success, he commented that, trying to create drive or whatever that with a laugh, “There isn’t too much more particular song needs, to really work on a that we’ll do in contests. Besides, they scare rhythm that would t. I was also sitting and me to death.” paying attention to my timing. Lately I’ve The band is getting ready to go into the been getting to a sound that’s a lot like Dan studio to produce their next CD which will Tymnski has been doing just lately, but it be their fifth recorded project but their wasn’t intentional. It’s not really like his, rst on the Pinecastle label. They hope to but it’s that same kind of sound, and I think have it ready by June or July. About plans that I came to it in different ways. It wasn’t for the future, John said, “We’re looking that I was listening to him to get it, but I forward to playing as much as we can.” ended up somehow developing that same Over the years I’ve enjoyed watching the sort of sound.” musical growth of the band and of John in With the band practicing three or four particular. John has grown musically into times a week and playing full time (every a great singer, and a great rhythm and lead weekend is booked from February through guitarist. His ideas are musical, tasteful, the end of November), John has a guitar in hot, smooth and powerful. The family’s his hands most of the time. Jeremy (his recent CD is a testament to their abundant brother on mandolin) has been introducing talent and features John’s excellent atpickhim to the music of David Grisman, Chris ing and lead vocals. Bluegrass music Thile and other sources that are helping his has always been proud to feature young musical growth. “In the last three or four musicians; Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitely years I’ve really started to understand some were only 15 when they played w ith Ralph of the Grisman stuff and some of the newer Stanley; Mark O’Connor was only 14 when acoustic jazz type things. Jeremy fell into he won the National Flatpick, Mandolin, it real heavy and that spurred me on that and Fiddle championships. The Chapman much more to learn.” Family Band has been performing for nine John primarily plays by ear; he laughed years, through ve recordings, and John is when he said that he nds the right chords the oldest son at 21. Everytime I’ve heard to the tunes through “a lot of hunting.” this band, they’ve improved, and I am eager Even though he has already spent nearly 16
to hear the music they will produce in years to come. Equipment: John divides his playing between a Santa Cruz Tony Rice model and a Martin D16M. He prefers to use an SM81 microphone for sound reinforcement, and plays and endorses GHS strings. For more information about the Chapman family band, visit their web page at: http://www.chapmanfamilyband.com/
About the Tablature: The tablature on the next page is John’s ride on “El Cumbenchero,” released on the Chapman Family Band CD (1997). This tune is in the AABA form, which means that you play the “head” the A part through twice (indicated as A1 and A2 in the transcription) and then play the B part, which is sometimes called the bridge, followed by the A part again (in this transcription A2 is played again after the B part). All of that is one time through the tune. There are several things to watch out for. When you get to the end of A2, play the rst A2 ending (measure 33) and then skip measure 34 and begin playing the B part (measure 35). The repeat sign at the end of the B part directs you to return to the repeat sign at the beginning of A2 (measure 18). Play A2 again, ending A2 with the second ending (measure 34). In other words, the break should be played as A1, A2, B, A2. This tune really moves; work it up slowly until you’ve got it down, and then keep trying to speed it up until you can catch up with John on the recording.
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Bluegrass and Blackboards A Music City Classroom Bluegrass and Performance Art For An Extraordinary Learning Experience By Andrienne Haston With musical charts and diagrams scrawled across the chalkboard and with black metal music stands scattered about the room, the Music Careers class at Hunters Lane High School might appear to be a typical music class. But it sounds a whole lot different. Banjos, ddles and dobros—instruments most high school kids know nothing abouthave become the norm in this small but hectic classroom in Nashville. Since the program started in 1987, the class has combined instrumental techniques, bluegrass music and performance art to give high school kids with aspirations of making it big in the music business a solid foundation. While most teachers are asked for extra pencils, Music Careers instructor Rob Pearcy loans out guitar picks. With his long, bushy goatee and wearing his trademark bolo tie, he’s quick to describe the unique nature of the class. “It’s a very creative atmosphere,” Pearcy replies as he brushes out his goatee, “and sometimes quite chaotic.” Pearcy teaches students one-on-one to play instruments like mandolin, dobro, guitar, bass, ddle, dulcimer, and harmonica. The emphasis of the class is bluegrass music, to give students an historical perspective on other popular forms of music more prevalent today such as blues, jazz, and, of course, rock n’ roll. At the age of 13, Rob Pearcy ordered a copy of Learn to Play Guitar in Seven Days form an advertisement in the back of a comic book. That summer, he scraped up enough money to buy a cheap electric guitar. “In the sixties,” Pearcy recalls, “if you had a guitar and knew how to play it, you were in a band almost immediately.” While he was 17 and still in high school, his band got a job playing six nights a week at Skull’s Rainbow Club on Printer’s Alley in Nashville. Though Pearcy succeeded musically in those years, his experience was limited to electric guitar and rock n’ roll. Then in 1979 he entered the World Invitational Pick-A-Thon, a guitar picking contest to see who could play for the longest time. Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
After 106 hours and 20 minutes, Pearcy came in first place and won the much coveted prize: an Alvarez 50th Anniversary DY85 acoustic guitar. After winning the Alvarez, Pearcy became more acoustically inclined, getting more and more involved in bluegrass music. In the mid-eighties John Ed Garrett and Jim Knowles began developing what was to become the Music Careers program and Pearcy was asked to be on the Advisory Committee. He played a large part in nding musical styles and material that would be used in the classroom, and when Knowles stepped down as instructor a year later, Pearcy gladly stepped up to the challenge. The class was originally named Instrumental Techniques of Folk and Country Music. It was taught jointly by Pearcy and Dr. James Satterwhite. Together, Satterwhite and Pearcy co-taught the class in two separate sections: Satterwhite formed the Instrumental Techniques class, and Pearcy took over the Music Careers class. Though Satterwhite had always been a large contributor to the program, when he left Hunters Lane three years ago, Pearcy stayed on as the course’s sole instructor. In order to be able to provide students with fresh techniques and ideas, Pearcy annually attends the Flatpick Guitar Camp, a guitar workshop at Maryville College in East Tennessee, where he learns from
seasoned guitarists such as Steve Kaufman and Beppe Gambetta. As one might guess, there is no textbook designed for this type of hands-on class. As a result, most of the class curriculum is pulled straight from bluegrass roots. Along with studying the music of bluegrass greats like Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs, students get a chance to study more contemporary artists like Kaufman, Doc Watson, Dan Crary and Robin Kessinger. Music Careers, however, offers something more. It moves students from inside of a classroom to the spotlight of a stage. The Hunters Lane String Band is a bluegrass band sponsored by Pearcy and made up entirely of Music Careers students who perform at a professional level for audiences not only in Nashville, but all over the world. The string band has played international folk festivals in Greece, Italy, Ireland, and most recently, in 1997, France. Of the 70 students enrolled in the program, a class of 17 is set aside as understudies to the eight students who regularly perform as the Hunters Lane String Band. Members of the band agree that along with learning teamwork, the experience also provides a sense of stage presence. “Having to get up in front of people and play helps a lot,” remarks senior mandolin player Kevin Friedberg. Dobro player Mikey Alexander agrees. “It gives you
Music Careers instructor Rob Pearcy teaches one of his classes at Hunter’s Lane High School in Nashville, Tennessee
March/April 1999
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more courage.” Membership in the band gives students individual opportunities to prove their talents in other ways as well. Every year the band takes a school-sponsored eld trip to the National Flatpicking Guitar Championships in Wineld, Kansas, so that students can compete in contests against amateurs and professionals alike. Some former students, like ddler Heather Brown, have placed as nalists in this prestigious contest. Such experience has proven helpful for students in pursuing professional music careers after high school. Take former student Troy Graves, for example. During a performance with the string band at Middle Tennessee State University’s Murphy Center, Troy played dobro for nearly the entire show with his sunglasses on. He didn’t realize this until another band member introduced him on-stage as “Troy ‘Ray Charles’ Graves.” Troy has since done quite a bit as a professional musician. As well as touring
with his own band, which has released albums in Switzerland and Germany, Troy has worked on collaborative instrumental albums like CMH’s Pickin’ on the Eagles and Pickin’ the Beatles. Another former student, guitarist Adam Wright, has had several occasions to show off the skills he acquired in Music Careers. Besides placing as a nalist several times at Wineld, Adam has played guitar on the Grand Ole Opry with famed banjo player and comedian Mike Snyder. He now works at Gibson Musical Instruments and studies music education at Volunteer State Community College. Likewise, former student Suzie Knight (fiddle) has just finished her bachelor’s degree in music at Belmont University and is working on her master’s degree in Music education. Back in the little classroom at Hunter’s Lane High School, however, the students of the current string band look to their futures as a distant reality. When asked, most of the young talents shrug lightly,
not knowing what the future might hold for them. Sophomore Sarah Twilley condently says she’d like to go into music production as she gently places her ddle back into its velvet-lined case. Mikey Alexander declares that he’d rather go into computers so that if he does decide to pursue music later, he’ll have something to “fall back on.” Bass player Robbie Amburgey just grins and simply says “I’m gonna be a rock star!” Looking on quietly, Kevin Friedberg holds his mandolin closely to his side and speaks up honestly. “I don’t know if I’ll pursue music after school,” he shyly admits, “but even if I don’t, I’ll play just for fun.”
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Steinegger Guitars by Bill Bush
Mention the word “collectible” to any vintage guitar nut and immediately they think old Martins or old Gibsons. Baloney. There are a small number of independent luthiers today whose instruments rival anything that ever came out of Nazareth or Kalamazoo. One such builder is Robert A. Steinegger of Portland, Oregon. (P.O. Box 25304, Portland, OR 97298) If you’re an Everly Brothers fan, Steinegger’s guitars should be well known to you already. Since 1981, Bob has built most of the guitars used by the Everly Brothers in their recording and concert appearances (If you saw the brothers’ HBO reunion concert at the Albert Hall in 1983, you saw them playing Steinegger guitars). “I think he’s one of the premier acoustic guitar builders in the United States, if not the world,” says Phil Everly. “What a master. His art is very close to that of a painter — every guitar has a personality. I don’t know who’s better than him — there might be somebody — and if there is, I’d sure as hell like to meet him.” Such praise is well earned. Steinegger’s craftsmanship is extraordinary even among top luthiers — and worth the two-year wait (if you’re lucky) to own one of his guitars. Born in Palo Alto, California, and raised in Paradise, Steinegger “fooled around” with dulcimers in high school while working at a local music store. It wasn’t until he got out of the Air Force after Vietnam, however, that Bob seriously considered lutherie as a career. “I worked with Arthur Overholtzer, the classical guitar builder, who helped me build my rst two guitars in 1969. A year later I enrolled at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and got a job repairing guitars part-time. In Salt Lake City, I met up with the guys at Intermountain Guitar and Banjo, which is where I really got involved in building. But I also learned a lot about guitar construction by doing repairs, especially Martins.” In 1973, the Everly Brothers played Salt Lake City and Bob was introduced to Phil 22
Everly by Sam McCue, the Everly’s lead guitarist. “Phil had an early Gibson Everly Brothers model at home that had been poorly repaired and asked if I could undo the ‘repair’ and do it right. He later shipped me the guitar and was pleased with my work.” The Everly Brothers would soon break up, and it wasn’t until Phil played a solo gig in Portland nearly ten years later that he and Steinegger would become re-acquainted. Luthier Robert A. Steinegger with the one-of-a“Bob showed up at kind “D-50” model commisioned by Phil Everly a show in Oregon with a bridge pins. I had spoken to mandolin he had built that was so beautiful,” my father about it, and he thought it would recalls Everly. “I mean it was absolutely work on a (steel string) acoustic guitar. So immaculate, and it had beautiful inlays; I when we went to Gibson to do the Everly wish I owned it. I don’t know who he had Brothers model, that was a meaningful feabuilt it for [author’s note: David Grisman]. ture they wanted to incorporate. Up until that I asked him ‘Did you ever build a guitar?’ point, pinless bridges weren’t used acoustic I think he had built a few by that time, so I guitars, but now it’s on Ovations and several asked him to build a pair of guitars for me others. I’m very proud of that fact. because his work was so good.” The impetus for Everly’s pinless bridge, Steinegger says that Phil wanted an however, came from a need to solve a updated version of the Gibson Everly working problem on stage. “I got the idea Brothers model. “The two guitars I built for that bridge back when we were playing might look like Gibson Everly Brothers those J-200s. If you broke a string the peg guitars, but they’re quite different.” would sometimes pop and shoot out across “Steinegger’s guitar is proportionately the stage oor. So I thought if we had a different,” says Everly. “It spreads as it bridge that the pegs couldn’t pop out of, progresses back to the tail; it’s wider. The you wouldn’t have to worry about losing a Gibson Everly Brothers model is thinner peg and it would be much more convenient. at the tail than these guitars. The geometry When Donald would break a string, I’d — which is all Steinegger’s — gives it take his guitar and re-string it while he did a deeper tone than the Gibson Everly a verse, and it was much faster (with the Brothers guitars.” new bridge) to just slip the string through Phil also wanted to incorporate a pinless a bridge hole.” bridge design developed by him and his Other Everly-inspired features include father, Ike. pearl stars in the ngerboard, and the clas“The bridge that is on the Gibson Everly sic double “tail n” pickguards. “Donald Brothers model is an idea I had come up designed those pickguards,” says Everly. with. It’s based a little on Fender guitars and “They served a purpose because we were a little on classical guitars. You know how swinging wildly across the strings, and classical guitars have gut strings wrapped we’d scratch both the top and bottom of the around a bridge, and Fenders have strings guitar; it’s funny how well they caught on. running through the body? There are no Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
h t e b a z i l E y b o t o h P
What’s even more interesting is the fact of a black guitar. When we brought that idea up to Gibson, they said, ‘No, no, black guitars don’t sell,’ and now black is a standard color — I love that fact; there’s nothing sweeter than being right!” When asked about the sound dampening caused by oversized guards, Phil says “Steinegger controls the sound of those instruments because he changes the bracing. The rst guitars he built for us didn’t have guards, but we added them because it just made aesthetic sense. Aesthetically, Donald’s pickguard design is very beautiful; it’s like looking at a Ferrari. One of the ideas Steinegger and I have been working on for the last few years is using a replaceable material for pickguards. We’re thinking about using some kind of paper — which is a wood product— because it deadens less and can be easily replaced as you scratch through the guard.” Steinegger uses master-grade Sitka or Englemann spruce for the tops of these guitars (which are braced with the traditional scalloped X-pattern), highly gured Oregon maple for the backs and sides, mahogany necks, African Blackwood faceplates (inlaid with Phil’s “Everly” signature in pearl), and Brazilian rosewood bridges inlaid with miniature stars. The guitars are appropriately named the “Ike Everly Model” in honor of the elder Everly patriarch who was himself a legendary nger-picking guitarist. Only 50 or so of these exquisite guitars have been built over the years, including those made for Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pat Alger and others. Phil also commissioned Steinegger to build a stunning one-of-a-kind “D-50” model as a gift for brother Don’s ftieth birthday. The D-50 has the same dimensions as the Ike Everly model, but utilizes ebony for the back, sides and pickguards. The frets, star inlays and binding are made of gold (almost a pound in all), with lots of pearl ornamentation. “That guitar is something to behold,” says Phil. “Steinegger sent it to me and then I sent it to Donald, so I had it for two days and played it. Had I kept it another day, it would have been like somebody in the Wild West sending you to pick up their mail-order bride, and you saying, “Oh my God, I’m in love with this woman” after being on a two-day ride with her before you get to town. Had it been a three-day ride, he’d have never gotten the guitar!” Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
Bob Steinegger has made many other types of guitars, of course, including 00’s; big fancy pearl-bound dreadnoughts; herringbone dreadnoughts; and a lovely “Tropic Bird” guitar which is the same size as the Ike Everly model but with a longer scale neck. As with his Everly guitars, wood selection is meticulous—and often spectacular. “Brazilian rosewood is my favorite body wood,” he says. “But Madagascar Kingwood can be really beautiful, too, and it’s one-tenth the price. I’m real fussy about wood; I won’t buy any wood sight unseen, including bracing stock. It’s got to be light, stiff, perfectly vertical grain, with no run-out.” Steinegger has experimented with various top woods over the years, rejecting some (“red cedar and redwood just aren’t strong enough and they splinter very easily”) and praising others (“Alaskan yellow cedar is great wood. It’s the tightest grained conifer I’ve ever seen; it’s very strong, fairly light and sounds wonderful”). He also favors master-grade Englemann, Sitka and Adirondack spruce. Other materials used include Spanish cedar linings, yellow cedar at braces (“I sometimes use those just for the aroma; they give the guitar a nice spicey aroma, they
smell just like a wood pencil), solid handcut pearl or abalone, and nitrocellulose lacquer. Perhaps the best testament for Steinegger’s work — or any luthier’s work, for that matter — is summed up by Phil Everly: “The most important aspect of a guitar is what it inspires internally. If it inspires music in your soul, then that’s the perfect guitar for you.” Considering how many Steinegger guitars Phil and Don have commisioned, they must be very inspired, indeed. Contact: Robert A. Steinegger P.O. Box 25304 P ortland, OR 97298
Bill Bush is an advertising writer/producer and music journalist whose articles have appeared in Guitar Player magazine, Frets magazine, The Guitar Player Book (Grove Press), Artists Of American Folk Music (Quill Books), and liner notes for EMI/Capitol Records, Folk Era, and Bear Family Records.
d r a s s o B l e s r a M : o t o h P
Don and Phil Everly perform with their Steinegger guitars at a HBO reunion concert at the Albert Hall in 1983
March/April 1999
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Flatpicking Flatpicking & & Folk/Acoustic Folk/Acoustic Rock Rock by byJohn JohnTindel Tindel
Hot Rod Lincoln
conversations with me. If each one of you out there would select just one other guitar player to enlighten about atpicking, we could double our ranks in one fell swoop! How many others like him are out there? I can visualize a growing tide of us, so many that Billboard Magazine has to add a chart right between “Alternative Country” and “Americana” just for us flatpickers. Grammy nominations and product endorsements—the skies the limit! So let’s get out there! Spread the gospel and pass me that yellow Tortex pick; I’ve got a tune I want to show you. Way back about 1972, a guy named Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen had a hit song called “Hot Rod Lincoln.” This smokin’ little toe-tapper features a guitar intro and ending that embodies the very essence of a atpicked-style guitar solo in a folk/acoustic rock context. While the original was recorded on an electric guitar, it sounds great on acoustic as well. It is played over a chord progression starting on G for two measures, C for two measures and D for two measures, then back to G, or the basic
A buddy of mine has played electric guitar in blues/rock bands on and off for probably 20 years. Believe me, he knows all the Keith Richards, Muddy Waters, Duane Allman licks and more. What began six months ago as an urge to shop for a good acoustic guitar has blossomed into a fulledged discovery of traditional bluegrass music, atpicked guitar music, old-time string band music, etc. Seeing his renewed excitement for this music reminded me of my similar feelings back when I rst discovered atpicking. It also made me realize that too many people don’t know about this style of guitar playing. When asked by the general public about the magazine I write for, more often than not I am faced with a blank, quizzical look that implies “Flatpicking? What’s that? Never heard of it.” My above-mentioned friend, who is even involved in the music business, had simply never been exposed to this style of music until his interest was aroused by
I,IV,V,I or 1,4,5,1 in the Nashville number system. It is meant to be played as fast as you can do it cleanly, so learn it nice and slow rst and gradually crank up the speed. Of course, learning the million and a half rapid-re words in the song is a little tougher. I am sure you remember the last line: “Daddy said, ‘Son you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that hot . . . rod . . . Lincoln!” (Play solo as fast as you can.) Enjoy this blast from the past. Those of you under 30 probably won’t remember the tune, but it’s a “good’un” and will reward your interest. So, remember, go ye forth and spread the gospel of the atpick and when all else fails, play more guitar. http://members.aol.com/Johnny10dl/ for John’s home page.
Hot Rod Lincoln Intro
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D AN DEL ANCEY F L A T P I C K
G U I T A R “
Listening to him play, it is certainly evident that arrangement is something Dan does very well. His arrangements are interesting, exciting, tasteful and well performed.
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Learn the tunes and solos of your choice, in any format. The Original Custom Transcription Service All styles and instruments: atpicking, ngerstyle, chord solos, melody, improvisation; other instruments (horns, woodwinds, piano, etc.) transcribed for guitar, mandolin, etc. I can also create custom arrangements. Private lessons via U.S. mail. Berklee graduate, professional recording and performing artist. Tab and/or standard notation. Details and tips on the Web:
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Steve Kaufman
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
Liner Notes— “A Few Favorites” by Dan DeLancey “From the rst note of “The Girl I left Behind Me” to the last lick in “Clarinet Polka” you can tell that Dan DeLancey is a powerhouse guitar player. His playing is up-lifting and soulful. The song selection is splendid! Dan is backed by a group of super musicians who know how to make a recording work. A nicely thought out project that will remain a favorite of mine as I know it will be of yours. The only down side— and it was hard to nd one—is that the recording is over too soon for me. I t only means that I’ll have to hit re-play all day!! Enjoy “A Few Favorites” as I have.
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Kaufman’s Corner by Blue Ridge Mountain Blues Happy New Year!, and welcome back to my part of the world at Flatpik Central. Last year we focused in on learning to play banjo tunes and melodies on the guitar. I hope it was a useful column for you all. This year we will direct our focus on learning to play guitar in an entertaining way either for yourself or for others. Playing solo guitar is a tricky beast. I have been playing solo primarily for the past 7 years. It’s always a welcome break to play with a band or another performer for a few tunes during the set. The hardest part about playing solo is the focus that it takes to played streams of notes, back yourself up, keep the back-up interesting and then not play too much in the leads that they get lost in the soleness of one instrument’s voice. I’ve started off this year with this great ballad–”Blue Ridge Mountain Blues.” I thought we would look at a song or tune for a few issues and look at the possibilities of different ways of playing the tune. I have included the melody line–this is the line that you would sing. You will also nd the words to the rst verse and the chorus. Then under that is one way that I would play the back-up parts while singing. I learned to use little ll runs and walking bass lines early on from listening to Doc Watson and Norman Blake. Which runs do you use in your own arrangement? You have to feel it. When you get more comfortable with the songs and when you know several runs and lls (see my Parking Lot Picker’s Series) you will be able to unconsciously plug the runs into the back-up work. If I was going to learn this back-up arrangement I would pick through the melody line first and the back-up parts second. Then when comfortable (and no
one was around) I would SLOWLY start to play the back-up part while singing the verse and chorus. Do this over and over until you can reproduce the bass walks and the longer eighth note runs while singing and holding and sustaining the vocal notes. Have fun with this, the start of a new topic. Let me know how this one goes and next time we will work on a lead break and maybe another back-up version. Have a safe and enjoyable 1999! I hope to see you somewhere down the road. Best always Steve Kaufman steve@atpik.com www.Flatpik.com
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Blueridge Mountain Blues Arr. by Steve Kaufman
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© Sleeping Bear Productions 1-800-FLATPIK 1999
Our first guitar book, for flatpicking monster Tim Stafford. Learn Tim’s solos from all 3 Blue Highway albums plus Alison Krauss’ Every Time You Say Goodbye. Tab and standard notation for 23 tunes all carefully proofed by Tim for accuracy. Lots of photos as well.
$20.00 (US)
l ine! o r de r on com u t a b. w w w. ac
Slow down those tricky licks using your Windows or Macintosh computer. With Transkriber, you can reduce the speed of any prerecorded music up to 1/26 speed without changing the pitch. Also features looping and EQ options.
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AcuTab Publications • P.O. Box 21061 • Roanoke, VA • 24018
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
29
Flatpicking Mercantile We’ve made some recent additions to our Flatpicking Mercantile catalog. Please enjoy the selections listed below:
For a free copy of our catalog, call 800-413-8296
How to Sing Bluegrass Harmony taught by Dan Huckabee Get ready for the festival season with these great instructional tapes from Dan Huckabee. Each of the three volumes contains 20 bluegrass standards. You will hear the chorus of each song sung with all parts, then Dan breaks down each part and teaches you how to sing the lead, tenor, baritone, and bass parts separately. Dan not only teaches you the parts, but also teaches you the theory behind guring out the harmony parts so that you can learn to do it yourself.
Single Volume: $19.95
Entire Set: $49.95
(shipping cost not included)
String Band Classics for Guitar The Fuzzy Mountain String Band transcribed by Dix Bruce This transcription book offers 33 old-time standards presented in both standard music notation and tablature. Included with the book is The Fuzzy Mountain String Band CD (Rounder 11571) from which all of the tunes were transcribed. The recordings of The Fuzzy Mountain String Band show old-time music at its best: full of energy and ne musicianship. The collections makes a wonderful primer on American old-time music and presents a diversity of sounds and moods. In the book, the melodies for these tunes are arranged especially for the guitar.
Book/CD: $19.95( shipping cost not included)
Call 800-413-8296 to Order 30
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
CHECK OUT OUR NEW WEB SIGHT @ BDM PUBLISHING.COM
Brad davis is endorsed by: SIT Strings, Collings guitars, Fender, Martin, Peavey, Gretsch, Ernie Ball, Thunderfunk, Gibson, Wilkins
Signal Hill I wrote this song some two years back and recorded it on my most recent CD titled Climbin' Cole Hill. This song was writen using the "double-down-up" technique, but still it flavors the ear with a very realistic, traditional melody. There are traditional down-up-downs mixed in with the double-down-ups. The song is played in the key of C and for the most part is played down the
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
neck on the first, second and third frets. It should be played at a moderate tempo, yet sometimes that is hard to do when you have a technique which provides you with as much speed as the doubledown-up. It's like having a super fast hot rod. Thank goodness I didn't have it when I was real young, I'd have hurt myself!!! Keep in mind that if you don't know the d-d-up technique this song will
March/April 1999
seem difficult. Hearing the companion tape can make it all come clear. To order a companion tape for this lesson, send check or money order to: bdm Publishing / Box 890 / Madisson, TN./ 37116. NOTE! you can use your visa/mastercard and order at our new web page - bdm publishing.com where you'll find all of our up-and-coming lesson courses, strings and cool flattop stuff!
31
Break Time
by Chris Jones
The Turnaround
A much overlooke d, maligned and sometimes abused form of the guitar break is the turnaround. The turnaround is a short break that is almost always based on the last line of the chorus of a song (as in, “...in our little cabin home on the hill,” or “. . . honey let me be your salty dog”). Short as it is, it’s a compact musical summary of the song that is very useful in certain situations. Guitar players do well, then, to become familiar with. Legend has it that a trombone player in a 1920s dixieland band was called upon to play a full solo to a song. Misunderstanding his assignment, he just played the last four measures of the tune, then turned around to signal that he was through playing, thus playing the first “turnaround.” He was immediately red. Actually I just made that story up, but it sounded authentic, didn’t it? The point is, though, that sometimes the last four bars is all that’s needed at that musical moment. On the other hand, the turnaround needs to come at a time when the rest of the band is expecting it as part of the arrangement. Hot pickers dislike this form because it’s hard to t every lick you know into such a compact space. In fact, the turnaround
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is the one place above all others where maximum lick insertion should not be the primary goal, particularly when the turnaround serves as the intro to the song. Every turnaround needs a clearly dened melody line to keep it suggestive of the tune. For interest’s sake, however, you don’t want to oversimplify them either. I think that it’s best to sing the melody of the line to yourself, noting how the melody moves and what makes it distinctive from other songs, then incorporate that into your turnaround, embellishing it as much as you feel is appropriate for the song. You might be wondering, “When is it a good idea to play a turnaround?” Well, obviously not when this ctitious trombone player played his. Seriously, though, a turnaround will t in any song but is used more often in slow songs, where a break over an entire verse or chorus may push the song into that “Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” length, without the gripping storyline. It can also work in uptempo songs, however, as a change of pace in the arrangement or perhaps when there are several verses and full breaks between each one would become a little repetitive. Gospel songs sometimes contain nothing but turnarounds, partly because that’s a standard gospel song form, but also because it helps to give greater emphasis to the
vocals. Remember that when arranging, there’s nothing wrong with combining full breaks with turnarounds. One terminology note: Some people will play the second half of a verse or chorus (lines 3 and 4 of a 4 line verse, for example) and refer to it as a turnaround. It isn’t. In the bluegrass world it is usually called a “half break”. As noted earlier, it’s important in a performance situation to play a turnaround as part of an arrangement and not simply when you don’t feel like playing a full break. If the band is playing an unarranged song (i.e., winging it), and you feel that a turnaround is needed when it’s time for your break, simply say (or yell, if banjo and/or ddle are present), “turnaround” to the other band members as a warning. If any member physically turns around, make that person buy everyone else lunch. The turnaround will not be a showcase of your arsenal of atpicking talent, but if played with feeling and authority it can be fun and will also make a very important musical contribution to the song. The following tablature is a turnaround for the Flatt and Scruggs standard, “I’m Head Over Heels In Love With You.” It remains very faithful to the melody, which helps establish that this is “Head Over Heels . . .” and not just a generic bluegrass turnaround.
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Turnaround Example for “Head Over Heels In Love With You”
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J A M T U N NE S “St. Anne’s Reel” by Tim Stafford Welcome to our newest column, “Jam Tunes.” As the title implies, this column will feature jam session favorites. In each issue a guest columnist will give us their break to one of their favorite jamming tunes. In addition to our guest columnist’s break, we will also present a basic version of the tune so beginners can build up their jamming repertoire as well. We kick off this column with Tim Stafford’s arrangement to “St. Anne’s Reel.” This is one of the tunes that Tim taught attendees of Steve Kaufman’s atpicking camp last summer.
fret slide is played with the left hand only. You can still hear it—this just provides a different effect, as well as giving your right hand time to play the other notes smoothly. The “B” part of the song uses what’s known as “oating” technique in conjunction with slides and pull-offs. “Floating” works best when the open string that’s played (rst note of the rst measure of the “B” part) is allowed to ring as long as possible. The Second “A” part is also a “floating” type break in the second position. This type of arrangement seems especially well suited to a tune like this, but it can be used in almost any kind of jam session standard. Stay tuned and we’ll look at some others in the future.
Here are some notes from Tim regarding his arrangement of this tune (which follows the basic version written below): A beautiful French Canadian reel, this has become a standard atpicking tune. My approach is a little different, with lots of ringing and sustained notes, arpeggio-like sequences, and hammer-ons and pull-offs. For example, at the beginning of the tune in the pick-up lines, hammer the 1 to the 3 then hold the second-string third-fret note (a D) at least until after the fth-string third-fret (C) in the rst measure. Then let that note (the C) ring as long as possible. The arpeggio-like sequence in F in the third measure works best with a rolling pick motion to sustain all the notes. (Tip: try doing consecutive downstrokes.) In the the seventh measure, the third-string 2-4
St. Anne’s Reel:
Basic Version
Capo 2 C
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March/April 1999
THE
O
- ZONE by Orrin Star
The Prod of Regular Musical Interaction A few months ago I started having a regular Friday picking session with a friend who lives near me (a former student who plays excellent rhythm guitar and sings good harmonies). The impetus was frustration: I felt I simply wasn’t playing enough. What I craved (and which, for various reasons, the members of my trio weren’t then able to provide) was regular musical interaction. Working new stuff up. Watching arrangements and nuances evolve. It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. I found myself delving into tunes I liked but hadn’t really ever learned (“Alabama Jubilee”), rediscovering some that I had back-burnered (“Done Gone” on the banjo), and starting to feel sustained by music in a way that I had been missing. I was reminded again of the importance of playing with others—an obvious yet sometimes forgotten pillar of musical growth. Flatpicking, like most artistic pursuits, is largely self-directed. YOU decide that you want to take it up, which players to copy, who you will study with, your practice habits and goals, which publications devoted exclusively to the eld you
will subscribe to, etc. And the fact that your development as a player will indeed depend more on the time you spend alone with your instrument than on anything else is so widely recognized that we have a cool word for it— woodshedding. But playing regularly with others provides an essential leavening that you just don’t get otherwise. The most common form of regular interplay is a band. Bands are important because they provide structure and discipline to our otherwise entirely selfdirected existences. In this era of personal coaches—people hired by achievementoriented types to help them focus on their goals, and whose ongoing work mostly consists of weekly follow-up phone calls—a band is the biggest coach of all for your own musical growth. First, there is regularity and focus. Knowing that you have a rehearsal (or better yet, a show) coming up is by itself a wonderful prod. The fact that others are depending on your energy and participation—as well as your own realization that solo X isn’t really cutting it or that you are getting bored with solo Y—will push you to improve. When you sit down to practice by yourself,
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
you won’t have to wonder what you should be working on. Then there is the music of your fellow bandmates: they will need you to work up breaks for songs that you would never have thought about playing. And third, you will have an opportunity to really learn to play rhythm. I suspect that it’s easier for atpickers than for players of other instruments to put off playing with others, since the guitar can more readily hold its own as a solo instrument. But don’t succumb to the siren call of isolation, friends—it is not the way. String band music is an interactive art form. If you are to succeed in it you must eventually learn to put your pick on the block. Granted there needs to be musical chemistry and interpersonal compatibility for any kind of band to work. And if you are a novice player, you may not nd yourself exactly in demand. But there are people at all levels who are looking to play. And—like me and my Friday friend—you don’t need more than one other kindred spirit to get something going. You just need to start, and—if it feels right—to make it a regular thing.
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Masters of Rhythm Guitar:
Cary Fridley by Joe Carr
One of the hottest groups on the acoustic music scene today is the dynamic Freight Hoppers. Their energetic presentation of old-time mountain string band music has won fans of all musical persuasions. The Freight Hopper’s audience includes a surprising group of young people who are not country or bluegrass music fans. Even bluegrass fans, who are often cool to old-time music, have embraced the Freight Hoppers as one of their own. The Freight Hoppers’ infectious abandon on ddle breakdowns rivals the best of the string bands of the 1920s. Their renderings of old time mountain ballads recalls the pure music of the original Carter Family. At the core of the music is the rhythm guitar of Cary Fridley. Upon rst hearing the Freight Hoppers, one is struck by the drive and forward momentum of the band sound. Cary explains about the “groove” the band is striving for: “I try to be on the front edge of the beat, right on the front half of the beat. Not necessarily speeding anything up, but just getting there as soon as that beat happens. Not in the middle. I think in classical music you get there right in the middle of the beat. I try to get right on the front edge of it.” Cary’s understanding of classical music comes from years of study as a utist. The old time music “feel” is very different. “I didn’t used to do it. Frank (Frank Lee, banjo player) really coached me on it. And I think it has to do with him playing in bluegrass so much. . . is just be precise about where the downbeat and the off-beat. It’s something we all know about and are consciously trying to do. We’ve been through six different bass players and it’s probably because of this beat thing. Jim (Jim bass, ddle) and I have had to work a lot to consciously try to get there. I just try to really concentrate on the ddle when he gets to each beat and be there as soon as he’s there, if not a little before. And as far as the offbeat, I can really concentrate on Frank’s hand on his clawhammer. I think the offbeat is a little ahead too. The Skillet Lickers, they were doing it; they were really on the ball.” Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers is one of the bands who have inspired the Freight Hoppers. During the late 1920s and the early 40
1930s, they were one of the most popular bands in country music. This inuential band made over 500 records for Columbia and performed on radio throughout the South. The band included the great Riley Puckett on vocals and guitar. Cary’s powerful rhythm guitar style was inspired by Puckett and other great guitarists of the early days of recorded country music. Her rhythm strums and bass notes are all downstokes. At times she will drop all bass runs and concentrate on strong rhythm chords to drive the music along. “When I do different runs, I’m listening to the banjo. You don’t want too many lead things distracting from the unity of the whole sound. If he’s (banjo) doing a rhythmic chordal thing, I can put some notes in.” Cary ’s first stringed instrument was bluegrass banjo, which she took up during high school. She asked her banjo teacher to show her a few guitar chords and she started accompanying her singing with guitar. Her rst guitar was a Goya steel string with very high action. She continued to play banjo and guitar though college and graduate school while majoring in classical ute. When a local oldtime band needed a guitar player, she answered the call. It was in that band that she learned the basics of rhythm guitar and began to understand the nature of old-time string band music. “Once I got passed the rudiments of it, I really learned the beauty of just play-
ing the rhythm and playing, sometimes, just one chord through a whole song. And sometimes never putting any bass runs in it at all—just nding where you could t in with all the instruments and having this momentum. It’s like meditating . Its a wonderful thing when it really works.” Cary played as much as she could in small all-night sessions. These sessions helped her build the strength and stamina required to play with a group like the Freight Hoppers. “I was just hooked on it. I played the guitar any chance I could get with anybody who would play this old-time music with me until my ngers were bloody.” When Cary joined the Freight Hoppers, the group played three shows a day, seven days a week at a scenic railroad train near Asheville, North Carolina. This daily practice helped Cary develop impressive rhythm chops in a short time. It was Frank Lee who rst encouraged Cary to study the playing of Riley Puckett and other early country guitarists. Cary listened closely to the playing of Puckett with the Skillet Lick-
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
ers and to others such as Red Henderson with Earl Johnson and the Clodhoppers. “You would think that there are only so many runs you could do in old-time guitar, but there’s some really creative folks playing the guitar back then, [playing] things you’d never think of.” Cary continues to study old recordings for ideas: “Just this week I’ve discovered these folks from Mississippi, the Carter Brothers. The guitar player [Jimmy C arter] is just doing simple, straight-forward things that never give up anything for the rhythm, but [he plays] these neat bass lines that don’t detract from the tune. It’s just beautiful to me.” Cary lists Maybelle Carter as another inuence although Maybelle used ngers rather than a flatpick. She also credits many musical friends around Mount Airy and Asheville who took time to show her things. Cary’s style is a combination of all these inuences shaped by her own musical sense of what a given tune needs from the guitar. In one of Cary’s early bands, she played a borrowed 1940s vintage Gibson J-45. She liked that guitar so much that she had a local music store search for the same kind of instrument. They found her a 1939 Gibson J-45 which is now her main guitar. Cary also has a Kay from the 1930s which she found in a junk shop. After a lot of repair work, it rivals her J-45. Cary plays hard and as a result breaks a lot of strings. “I break sixth, fth and fourth strings. I went through a time where I’d break three a set. [Now] I break at least one in a set. I don’t break as many as I used to.” Cary uses medium-guage John Pearse phosphor-bronze strings. She says she has broken fewer strings since she switched to the Pearse. Her favorite atpick is a Martin heavy which has a brown tortise-shell look. At one time, she used these interchangeably with Fender heavies, which look identical. Cary uses a Mini-ex microphone which attaches to the outside of the guitar and can be aimed at the soundhole. Some traditionalists are confused by this setup and think she is using an electric pickup. On stage the band has stopped using monitors. They prefer to stand really close to each other and hear the acoustic sound of the band. They also direct the adjustment of the house sound from the stage. Cary’s playing continues to grow and she feels her playing on the second record shows a lot of growth since the rst. “On the second record, I’d come a long way and Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
I tried to use a lot of stuff I’d learned. One of the tunes I remember trying to put stuff in was ‘Fort Smith Breakdown.’ ” Cary feels there are special qualities that make for good old time guitar rhythm. “The actual notes I’m playing and what I’m doing is really simple, but I think it has to do with really getting into the tune and following the ddle player and nding that hypnotic space right there. There are a lot of people who can play the notes and do the rhythm and do everything I can do, but there’s a lot more to it.” The excitement, drive and pure energy that Cary puts into her playing is certainly something all rhythm guitarists should seek to emulate.
Author’s note: Old-timey, old-time or mountain music is generally described as the music of the American South documented in recordings made between the early 1920s until around 1940. These recordings include commercial recordings made for record companies and field recordings made by folklorists for archival purposes. Music from this period is considered to be a relatively pure expression of rural music in the early part of this century. Old-timey music fans consider it a “Golden Age” of country music. More commercially oriented musical forms which developed before and after WWII, including Bluegrass, are of less interest to old-time music fans. Old-time music has a unique esthetic. Just as Irish, Cajun, blues and bluegrass have dening characteristics, so, too, does old-time have its own set of unspoken rules and attitudes. Since bluegrass grew out of old-time, we sometimes mistakenly assume that they are more closely related than they actually are. A notable difference is the old-time tendency for several lead instruments to play the melody in unison throughout a performance. To many
March/April 1999
bluegrassers, Bill Monroe’s innovation of having a instrumentalist play lead while the other players provide accompaniment is a sophisticated improvement over the previous mountain styles. Old-time fans may see Monroe’s approach as a big step down in terms of energy. After three minutes of playing a simple ddle tune, some guitarists might start thinking, “When is this going to be over?” The old-time guitarist, by contrast, might be thinking “Ah, we are nally starting to lock into a groove. I hope this goes on forever!” The joys of old-time music are there for anyone willing to put aside rigid attitudes and preconceptions and just surrender themselves to the music.
Ft. Smith Breakdown: The transcription on the following page is Cary’s back-up to “Ft. Smith Breakdown” as played on The Freight Hoppers Waiting On The Gravy TrainC D (Rounder 11661-0433-2).
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41
Fort Smith Breakdown A
Arrranged by Cary Fridley Transcribed by Joe Carr
œœ œ œœ
œœ œ œœ
œœ œ œœ
œœ œ œœ
œœ œ œœ
œœ œœ œ œ œ
œœ œ
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
# 4 & 4 .œ œ . # & œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœ œ 1
G
0 2 3
0 2 3
0 2 3
0 2 3
0 2 3
D
0 2 3
2 3 2
0
5
P
0
0
2
B
# & 9
0
2
œœ œœ œ œœœ œ
œœ œ 0 1 0 2
0 1 0
2
H
0 2
# œ œ 4 & 4œ œ œ œ œ 13
G
C
0 1 0 2
3
Alternate measure 12
C
3
42
0 1 0
2
3
# & 24 œ 24
0
œœ
2
0
2
3
œœ œœ 24 œ œ œ œ œ 24
œœ œ
G
2 3 2 0
0
3
2
0
2
œœ œ
3 0 0 0
œœ œ œ
0
œœ 24 œ œ œ œ 24
D
3 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
0
2
œœ œ œ
G
C
3
0
0
2
D
3 0 0 0
0
2 3 2
2
3 0 0 0
3
G
0
G
3
œœ . œ . 3 0 0 0
44 44
3 0 0 0
3
G
0 1 0 2
Transcriber’s Notes: This is a simple two part tune with some really deceptive complex parts. In the A section, Cary plays four strums to the measure with very few bass notes. Measures 5-8 show a bass note variation that complements the ddle rhythm. The B sectioon contains two 2/4 measures. While old time musicians play this “crooked” music by feel, newcomers may have to count until it seems natural. Ocassionally, Cary uses a characteristic anticipation in measure 12. The “early” C chord really drives the music. Remember—all down strokes. This little breakdown cooks along at 140 bpm (4 clicks a measure). Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Flatpicking and t he I nt ernet By Bryan K imsey How would you like to nd a place where you could chat with serious atpickers like yourself, several of whom are professional players or journalists, and do it right from the comfort of your own home (or ofce, if you can get away with it!) at any hour of the day? Ask questions about obscure guitar details, album song lists, lyrics, chord theory, guitar setup, musicianship, and more, and get answers within minutes? Get advice or opinions on a guitar you’re thinking of buying, or maybe even nd your dream guitar? There are three such places on the Internet, and if you have a computer, a modem, and an Internet Service Provider, you can participate. The rst and most atpicking-oriented place is “Flatpick-L.” Flatpick-L (pronounced “flat-pickle”) is a mailing list. This means that members subscribe to the list, which runs on a server owned by North Dakota State University (THANKS!!!). Whenever someone sends an e-mail message to the list, the software distributes that message to all subscribers, which currently run about 750-800 members. Flatpick-L is a relatively high-volume list, generating about 100 messages a day. Messages may be received either as individual e-mails as they’re sent, or as a single, large volume known as a “digest” which is sent out once a day. Replies are made by anyone interested in the topic and sent either “off-list” to the individual who made the original post or to the entire list if the responding writer thinks the reply is appropriate for all the subscribers. No matter what your question, someone on the list will probably know the answer, and that answer may further prompt someone else to expand on the topic, and pretty soon you’ll know just about everything there is to know about the topic! Most of Flatpick-L’s subscribers readily jump into discussions, which have included pros and cons of various tonewoods, pick direction, cross-picking, strings, brands Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
of guitars, where to get good prices on flatpicking gear, essential flatpicking albums, music theory, concert appearances and much more. Flatpick-L has given signicant exposure to many small luthiers, with Lynn Dudenbostel, Randy Lucas, Randy Allen, and Roy Noble receiving a fair share of discussion. All but Noble are contributing members of the list, making it easy to discuss things directly with them. Although purely commercial posts are forbidden, there’s a fair amount of guitarswapping among individual members, with a Collings CW, Dudenbostel OM, and numerous Martins and Taylors showing up for sale recently. “Heads-up” on particularly good buys on instruments are frequently given, and many members have purchased that special instrument because of a tip on Flatpick-L. We also discuss playing tips ranging from pick direction to on-stage jitters, and with professionals such as Jack Lawrence, Allen Shadd, Steve Kaufman, Jim Hurst, Gary Cook and others on-line, you can bet there’s some good advice being given. And nally, all Flatpick-L trafc is “archived” which means that members can search the archives to see if a topic has been previously discussed. This sort of mailing list can be abused with off-topic replies, non-flatpicking chit-chat, high-pressure salespeople and so on, and a few members have become discouraged and unsubscribed. Fortunately, Flatpick-L has a charter which denes its purpose and two enforcers. Bo Parker is the co-founder and policy-maker of the list, and I’m the “sheriff” of the list, taking care of bounced messages, helping people subscribe or unsubscribe, kicking off people who ignore the rules, and taking care of general list maintenance. Flatpick-L will never be everything for everybody, but we try hard to keep topics focused on atpicking guitar and to keep the wheat-tochaff ratio high. Our suggestion to those disillusioned with the list is always “start a
March/April 1999
topic you’d like to discuss if you don’t like what we’re discussing.” Most members seem to be pretty happy with the list and it’s frequently cited as a valuable source of information. Flatpick-L members have even produced three projects, called “Plectrology,” for which members were invited to submit 1-4 songs. Chifuru “Chief” Noda graciously accepted the position as “Tape Czar” and complied all submissions into two fulllength high quality cassettes complete with graphics and a detailed booklet created by Bo Parker. Plectrology I immediately sold out and was followed the next year by Plectrology II, which was even bigger and took three 90-minute tapes! It too was produced by Chief Noda, with Dave Guertin handling the booklet. As you can tell, Plectrology has become a tradition and Plectrology III was compiled and released this past fall on three CDs, again with Noda at the helm as CD Czar and with Dave Guertin and Harry Moore handling the booklet. By the time you read this, list members will be busy recording their submissions for the fourth Plectrology. In addition to Plectrology, Flatpick-L member Dave Bradley supports a web page at http://www.adelphi.edu/~bradley/ Flatpickle/#photo s. Charlie Bryant has the official “picture” page at http:// www.vni.net/~cbryant/plectrology/, and member John Moran hosts a page at http:// www.baraboo.com/bus/jmoran/atpickle/ with full instructions on signing on and off of Flatpick-L. To subscribe to Flatpick-L , use an e-mail program such as Eudora, Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Communicator, Pegasus or other. Send a message to:
[email protected] that says in both the subject and body of the message “subscribe flatpick-l
” where <rst name> is your rst name and is your last name. You’ll get a conrmation message and a list 43
of instructions- READ them! Most newer mail programs have “lters” and you can send Flatpick-L mail into its own mailbox, which is very handy for keeping it under control. If you have any questions about getting on-list, e-mail me or Bo Parker at [email protected] or [email protected] respectively. Besides Flatpick-L, there are two other guitar-oriented Internet discussion groups worth mentioning: rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic (RMMGA) and rec.music.makers.builders (RMMB). Both are Usenet “newsgroups” and function differently from a mailing list. A newsgroup functions more like a bulletin board with messages being posted on a server. You use a newsgroup reader such as Microsoft Outlook ’98, Netscape Communicator, Free Agent, or News Express to choose which topics you’re interested in and then read only those posts. Unlike Flatpick-L, these two newsgroups are usually not moderated and there is a much more chaff among the wheat. RMMGA, in particular, has a lot of discussion and “aming” among some distinctly non-atpicking topics. If you’re interested in lutherie or guitar setup, RMMB is a good newsgroup and folks there are usually more civilized than those on RMMGA. Topics range from highly sophisticated repair techniques to questions from rank beginners. Neither newsgroup is specifically flatpicking-o riented. In fact, Flatpick-L was born out of frustration with RMMGA. Both groups, however, can be good sources of information and can certainly provide good contacts for personal e-mail correspondence. All of these Internet resources mark a new era in communication. No longer do you have to write a letter to the editor and wait months hoping for a reply, or ask one or two individuals for advice. You can ask 800 avid atpickers and get a very rapid response with varied answers. Living over 150 miles from the nearest music store of any kind, I use the ‘net resources constantly to keep in touch with what’s going on and to toss ideas around with list members. And I know I’m not the only one like that. Stop by and see us sometime!
44
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Dawg’s Pause by Dix Bruce I wrote “Dawg’s Pause” in the early 1980s when I was most deeply immersed in the music of David Grisman. You can hear “Dawg’s Pause” on my new Tuxedo Blues: String Swing & JazzC D. It includes several of my own compositions, instrumental and vocal, and features the late great Bob Alekno on mandolin (the genius of swinging rhythm mandolin); Dave Balakrishnan (of the Turtle Island String Quartet) on violin; and one of my oldest picking buddies Mike Wollenberg, on bass. We call the music “string swing & jazz,” and I think of it as a mixture of Americana, Count Basie, Dan Hicks, B.B. King and Little Richard. There’s a lot of atpicking in a variety of styles on the CD. (Available to Flatpicking Guitar readers for $14.00 postage paid from Musix, PO Box 231005, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. For a complete song list and more info, e-mail: [email protected]) I had known about David Grisman’s music for years and my rst exposure to him was from an early 1960s LP by The Even Dozen Jug Band. I was a true fan by the time I heard him in modern bluegrass bands like Old and In the Way and the Muleskinner Band with Richard Green, Clarence White, Bill Keith, and others. But it was his “dawg music” with the David Grisman Quintet from the mid- and late1970s that really nailed me. His compositions were wonderful, challenging, interesting, and I marveled at the creative ways he arranged both his own tunes and other traditional American and jazz music. I can still remember the rst time I heard him play “Spain,” “Fish Scale,” and “Dawg’s Rag.” They made me shiver. They were such dramatic and imagistic pieces that they actually scared me! David’s unique knack of using the ve voices in his band (two mandolins, guitar, violin, and string bass) in beautiful combinations and arrangements gave the group its trademark sound. His co-composition “Richochet,” with its striking use of multiple mandolins, was the direct inspiration for “Dawg’s Pause.” I know he had lots of help from his unbelievably ne band: Tony Rice on guitar; Darol Anger on violin; Todd Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
Phillips on mandolin; and Bill Amatneek on bass. It was Darol who introduced me to David in 1977 and in early 1978 I began working for Grisman as editor of his magazine, Mandolin World News. Just to hang out with these guys was inspirational. David was especially generous with his time, music, and ideas, and I consider him one of my main musical mentors. I can’t count the many times he said, “Hey man, check this out!” as he played me a new composition, handed me a new recording, or let me test his latest instrument acquisition. “Dawg’s Pause” came about as I tried to gure out David’s music. I spent many hours learning the forms of his songs, analyzing the chord progressions, and studying the different scales one could play over them. Of course this led me to write compositions of my own. Some of my tunes from that era are quite dawg-derivitive and any fan of David’s will hear at least some of his inuence in “Dawg’s Pause.” The rst part of the melody is based on an E pentatonic scale that encompasses four octaves on the guitar. I wanted to use the whole tonal range of the instrument, from high up the neck to the lowest E, the open sixth string. Pentatonic scales are quite popular in several types of music, especially for improvisers. Blues musicians are particularly fond of the minor pentatonic scale, as is Tony Rice. In “Dawg’s Pause” I’m using the major pentatonic which is a ve note scale (“pent” = ve) derived from the major scale. See the examples below. Start with the familiar C major scale. If we leave out the 4 th (fa) and the 7th (ti) notes, we can change the C major scale (C D E F G A B C) to a C major pentatonic (C D E G A C). (We only count the C note one time.) See Example 1. Now here are the same scales in the key of E, the key “Dawg’s Pause” is written in. See Example 2. The following E pentatonic scale shows the four octave range and ngerboard position that the rst eight bars of the melody to “Dawg’s Pause” use. See Example 3. After the rst sixteen bars (eight played twice), I wanted a change of mood and in M 9-12 I wrote a melody that is comprised
March/April 1999
of chord arpeggios moving up in fourths from E to A to D to G and then back to the home chord / key of E major. In M 14, the accompaniment stops on a ringing E chord and the lead continues with the four octave E pentatonic scale based lick which runs from the top of the ngerboard all the way to the lowest E on the guitar. In M 18 the accompaniment returns and the tune modulates to the key of C / Am. The melody at this point uses the A natural minor scale, which has the same notes as the C major scale. In M 22 I modulated back to the key of E major. Think of the F#m7 as a ii chord moving toward the V chord (B7) of the key of E. The sus4 chord in M 27 is a typical substitution for the B7, or any dominant chord, that’s especially useful when you have several measures of the same chord. From M 30 onward, the melody simply repeats the rst eight bars of the tune. The tune moves stylistically from a hot flatpicking / bluegrass type of tune in the first part to a kind of swing/jazz feel in the minor section (M18-29). The accompaniment changes accordingly. If there’s a trick to playing “Dawg’s Pause,” it’s probably in learning to comfortably play the four octave E major pentatonic scale. You’ll use all your ngers and the fourth will get a special workout. Obviously you can move the closed-position portions of the scale to most other frets and keys up and down the neck. The other nger moves are fairly routine. In M 8 and 37, you’ll need to play a harmonic on the twelfth fret of the sixth string. In M 24 there’s a rst string bend. Though I haven’t transcribed it here, the recording has an introduction where two guitars play the lick from M 14-17 three times as a round. The rest of the intro is simply the minor part from M 18. Also on the recording, I used two guitars in harmony on the last sixteen bars of the melody. I’ve incuded that harmony part at the end of the transcription. 45
Ex. 1
C major scale
C pentatonic scale
4 & 4 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙. 1
do
3
Ex. 2
## 4 # # & 4 1
me
re
0
fa
2
3
so
la
0
2
do
ti
0
do
me
re
1 3
0
2
E major scale
so
la
0
2
do 1
E pentatonic scale
. ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
do
0
re
2
me
4
fa
so
la
0
2
4
do
ti
1
do
me
re
2 0
2
4
so
la
2
4
do
2
œ ## # 4 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ # & 4 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
Ex. 3
E pentatonic scale, four octaves, as used in "Dawg's Pause" melody
1
12
9
12
9
11
9
11
9
6
4
7
4
7
4
2
0
Flatpicking ‘97 CD and Transcriptions in One Package! This new Mel Bay Publications project provides the Flatpicking ‘97 CD packaged in a book which contains the solo transcriptions for each tune. Also included is a biographical sketch of each artist. High View Publications P.O. Box 2160
To order, send
Pulaski, VA 24301
$19.95 plus $3.00 Shipping and Handling to: 46
or call
1 (800) 413-8296 to order with Mastercard or Visa
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Music Theory: Mastering the Fingerboard Technical Studies for Flatpickers. Alternate and painful ngerings... by Michel A. Maddux Hello again, friends. By the time you read this it will be warming up a bit in some parts of the country. As the sounds and smells of early spring waft over muddy fields, it’s time to prepare for that first backyard barbecue and picking party. If you’ve been working through the technical studies of the past few columns you’ve got a pretty good grasp of the ngerboard by now, and are ready to wow them at the next jam session. In the last issue ( Flatpick Guitar Magazine, Jan/Feb 1999) we took a look at the blues scale and a couple of representative licks. Today I want to continue with that theme and take a look at the blues scale in three different keys. Flatpickers most often play in the keys of C, D, and G, so we’re going to use those keys for the basis of our study here. Review: The blues scale is based upon the I, bIII, IV, #IV, V, bVii, notes of the major scale. Remember that the notes of the major scale are numbered one through eight, beginning with the root, or rst note of the key signature. For the major scale in the key of C, we use C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. No ats or sharps. To make the blues scale work in the key of C, we modify the scale and play Eb (the bIII), F# (the #IV), and Bb (the bVII).
Last month we looked at the moveable form of the blues scale; today I want you to examine the blues scale in several keys in rst position because many bluegrass tunes are played out of rst position. Exercise 1 is a rst-position C that uses the normal, major scale, followed by the blues scale. After a few times through with the metronome you’ll be able to play that fairly easily. This next exercise (Exercise 2) combines the two forms and extends it beyond the 9th to use the notes available on all 6 strings without a hand position shift. Note that this exercise sounds a bit like some of the descending passages that you might have heard Mark O’Connor play. Experiment with places that you can do this sort of chromatic run, switching between blues and major scale. Don’t worry if it doesn’t sound very musical just yet; I want you to develop the technique to switch between forms during an exercise. Like always, play evenly, with a metronome, and get a good tone out of each note. Got it? OK, good. Now let’s transpose the same thing to G. Here is a similar exercise to the rst exercise but transposed
to rst position G (See Example 3). Next is a similar treatment in the key of D (see Exercise 4). Now I want you to see if you can transpose and play these exercise in other keys as well, e.g. A and F. Then make up your own exercises and runs. Have fun and keep on pickin’! About the Author: Mike Maddux lives in the mountains west of Colorado Springs where he practices, plays, and writes about atpicking the guitar. He frequently uses blues patterns in his music. He once played a solo show in which the band outnumbered the audience.
Correction to last issue’s column: In the Tony Rice lick example from my last column (Jan/Feb 99 issue), the lick should be in the key of G, and the changes are measure 1 and 2: G, measure 3: C. This might have been a bit confusing because it occurs at the beginning of Tony’s break to the tune; I ended it after the rst chord change because I wanted to analyze just that bit of the break, not show the whole thing.
Exercise 1: 1st position C Major and Blues Scale: Repeat 8-16 times without stopping:
œ b œ b œ 4 œ . œ œ œ œ b œ œ # œ n œ bœ . œ œ b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ bœ œ# œ œ &4 œœ œœ œœ . . 1
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March/April 1999
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1st position D Major and Blues Scale—Repeat 8-16 times without stopping
# œ 4 œ œœœœœœœ # . œ œ œ & 4 œœœœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ n œ œ# œ . 1
0 2 4
0 2
0 2 3
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3 2 0 2
3
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0 3
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œ # n œ œ w œ œ # n œ œ . œ# œ n œ n œ œ n œ # w & œ n œ œ œ# œ œ n œ œ# œ œ n œ w . 5
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By Request . . . David Grier’s “Cascade” This issue’s “By Request” tune is “Cascade” from David Grier’s newest Hootenany enany (Dreadnought 9801). release Hoot David says that he actually wrote this song six or seven years ago and put it on Hoot enan enanyy simply because “we needed another song and didn’t have one.” Prior to recording the tune, he had been playing it for audiences during his solo shows and it was well received. received. Recording it brought brought
the tune to a larger audience, and evidently it is one of the listeners’ favorties because we had several requests from readers for a transcription of this one. David said that his wife, Judy, came up with the name of the song, and after listening to the cascading melody, it is easy to see how she picked picked out the title. Please enjoy David Grier’s “Cascade.”
Cascade Written and Arranged by David Grier Transcribed Transcribe d by Matt Flinner Flinner
A C
FMaj7
j œ œ œ 4 œ œ œ & 4 œ œ œ œ œœ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ J œ œ
œœ œ œ œ œ
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œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ & œ œœ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œœ œ 6
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March/April 1999
PICKIN’ FIDDLE TUNES by Adam Granger
LEATHER BRITCHES Greetings, plectrumheads! We’re going to take a look at the old classic Leather Britches this time. I’m sorry to have to be the one to report it, but this tune has been around. In addition to being an extremely popular old-time and bluegrass tune, Leather Britchesi s also common in French-Canadian and Irish repertoires, where it’s known variously as John McDonald’s Reel, Lord MacDonald’s Reel, MacDonald’s Reela nd Slanty Gart . It’s the ultimate G tune, and a great guitar piece: it’s easy to play, it’s easy to play fast , and there’s a lot one can do with it (and, as we’re about to see, toi t). On a personal note, this tune is a relative rarity, in that I have “guitarized” it. My usual approach to a ddle tune is to keep it that: a ddle tune. If the melody is a bit hard to play on the guitar, I take it as a challenge rather than simplifying (guitarizing) it. My reasons for guitarizing this tune are twofold: One, it’s good to have fast versions of tunes you’re likely to nd yourself playing fast, and Two, the theme of this tune is played so many ways (because of its venerability and the aforementioned multiple citizenship papers it holds) that it’s easy to maintain fealty to that theme and simultaneously to cut yourself some slack. Leather Britchesi s our Model T Ford: Learn it and you’re almost certain to nd yourself playing it, no matter where and with whom in the ddle tune world you end up.
About Them Pesky Parts. . . And now, a quick word about the organization of these versions, and how to mixand-match them: A lot of folks consider this tune to be a standard 32-bar tune, but about half the people who play Leather Britches consider it to be a four-part (i.e., 64-bar) tune, with the third part being the rst part played an octave higher, and the second and fourth parts being identical. Note that this makes Leather Britches an ABCB tune instead of an ABCD tune. (Those of you with small children in the
house may want to discuss this concept after they’ve gone to bed, lest it interfere with their accurate learning of the alphabet). Well anyway, for purposes of versatility, I’m presenting this tune as a two-parter. (If you want to play the four-part version, play the version below, add the rst part of the high version, then repeat the standard second part.) Feel free to mix and match the various rst and second parts of the four versions presented here (Note, however, that the fourth version is in a minor setting, and makes a different type of statement).
LEATHER BRITCHES I G 0 0 •0 •0 0 0
II G 0 0 •4 •0 0 0
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As you do this, bear in mind that the second part of a ddle tune is usually higher than the rst. In fact, the rst and second parts of a ddle tune are often referred to as the low and high parts, respectively. It’s perfectly okay to violate this matrix; just be aware of its existence. In the rst variation, the rst part is an octave higher than the standard and the second part is an octave lower. The resulting contrast between the two parts is rather striking, and it’s always nice to know that it’s done on purpose.
KEY: G
D
G
C
D
G
0 0 • 0 0 0
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 01 • 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 • 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 • 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 • 4 0 2 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 •• 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0• 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 03 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 03 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 3 0 0 0 0
0 • 0 0 0 0
0 0 4 0 0 0
0 3 0 0 0 0
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0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
• 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0
7 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0
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•0000000230000000000000023•35753•3730030000000000 003•03•000031000003•03•0000000000000030030 0000000 0 4 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 • 4 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 • • •• 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 04 0 0 0 0• 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
March/April 1999
55
FIRS T VARIATION I
3 0 •0 •0 0 0
• 0 0 0 0 0
7 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
• 0 0 0 0 0
7 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
• 0 0 0 0 0
7 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
00 0 0 0 0 0 3 • 7 3 5 3 0 2 3 • 7 3 5 3 5 7 8 7 50 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 7 5 0 0 03 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 08 0 8 7 5 0 5 8 0 0 0 8 • 0 0 0 0 2 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0• • 000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 • 0 0
0 0 0 0 2 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 • 0 0
0 0 0 2 0 0
0 0 0 4 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 •• 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 0 0 • 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 0 0 • 2 4 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0• 0000000200200000003200020020000000000000000000000000000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 03 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
II 0 0 •0 •0 2 0
Below, I do a gentle variation of the rst part, followed by— check this out—a note-for-note cop of the standard second part, but played up the neck. It’s a great exercise, and one that offers all sorts of new variation opportunities. Just employ zone coverage for the seventh through tenth frets and it plays itsself. Honest!
. s e k o r t s p u e h t n o d e d u l c n i g n i e b , t s o m t a , B e h t h t i w , s e k o r t s n w o d r u o y n o s e t o n e n o r d e h t f o t s o m h c t a c o t g n i o g e r ’ u o Y . p u d e s n e t s ’ t i f i m r a r u o y t u o e k a h s o t y a w d o o g a s ’ t i d n a , e v i t c e f f e y r e v s ’ t I . e r o m e l t t i l a d n u o r a p o m r a t a h t t e l d n a m u r t s m r a t h g i r r u o y f o c r a e h t n e d a o r b t s u j : d e d d a s e n o r d g n i r t s - D n e v e e b y a m d n a - G , - B n e p o h t i w e v o b a t r a p t s r e h t g n i y a l p y r T : T I D E R C A R T X E
SECO ND VARIATION I
0 0 •0 •0 0 0
0 0 4 0 0 0
0 0 3 0 0 0
0 0 4 0 0 0
0 0 2 0 0 0
00 00 00 02 00 00
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3 4 2 0 0 0 0 4 3 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3 4 2 0 0 0 0 4 3 4 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 •• 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0• 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 03 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 03 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 7 0 0 0
0 0 • 0 0 0
0 0 0 9 0 0
0 0 7 0 0 0
0 0 • 0 0 0
0 7 0 0 0 0
II 0 0 •0 •9 0 0
0 0 9 0 0 0
0 8 0 0 0 0
0 • 0 0 0 0
0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 80 08•0000000780000000000000078•80 08•8080080000000000 10010 10010 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 • 0 7 • 9 0 0 9 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 • 0 7 • 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 7 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0• 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 010 0 9 7 0 0 9 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 010 0 9 0 7 0 0 0 0 0• 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 010 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 010 0 0 9 10 0••• 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Now we rock out! We shift to a minor perspective that invites either the standard backup chords or some sort of gonzo G minor business (perhaps employing an F chord). The second part is played out of third-through-sixth-fret zone coverage, and is pure pentatonicgnarly-rock-groove-funk-fusion boilerplate. To play the last two measures, just slide your left hand up three frets. WARNING: These types of shenanigans won’t y in all musical circles. Know your environment, and the sensibilities of your fellow musicians!
MINO R VARIATION I
0 0 •0 •0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 3 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 2 0 0 0
00 00 00 03 00 00
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 3 4 5 3 0 5 3 0 3 5 3 0 0 0 0 • • •• 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 0• 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 04 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 03 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 3 0 0 0 0
0 • 0 0 0 0
0 0 4 0 0 0
0 3 0 0 0 0
0 • 0 0 0 0
0 6 0 0 0 0
II 0 0 •4 •0 0 0
0 3 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
03 5 6 5 3 •0 0 0 0 0 0 0 030 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0303 5 6 5 3 • 8 608 606 8 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 600000003•03•360630000003•03•36060000000080080008678••• 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 5 3 0 • 4 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0• 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 • 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Okay, everybody; that’s the skinny from the ninny. Go fourth (or, if you’re really lucky, third) and sin no more. And while you’re busy not sinning, think about the exibility of parts and variations: experiment with new and fresh linkings. You might even try playing a minor rst part and a major second part Risky business, it’s true, but we only go around once. As a child actor, Adam Granger suffered from terrible stage fright; he once caused a delay in the start of The Lonely Scarecrow because he, in the lead role, refused to go on. He discovered, at age thirteen, that playing music on stage didn’t bother him at all. (It is apparently of little concern to him that it may bother others). Adam’s brother used to write for As the World Turns and both of his grandmothers lived with and painted the Blackfoot Indians in Montana in 1925 and 1926. Adam entered the rst Wineld atpicking contest (and didn’t place), used to write for the Recycled Greeting Card Company, is neurotically scared of big rocks under water, and has trouble throwing anything away. He is a 49-year-old Leo who likes small well-behaved animals, quiet walks and romantic evenings by a crackling re.
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Exploring Bluegrass Guitar Improvisation VI by Steve Pottier
# & 44 œ œ œ œ 1
“Okay, this is ‘Blue Moon Over Blue Water,’ key of A, straight 1-4-5 progression, banjo kicks it off. Steve, you take the rst break...” “Blue Moon Over Blue Water?!?” Never heard it before, now I’ve got the rst break. That means I’ll hear the melody twice—once from the banjo kickoff (hope fully) and once from the rst verse- before I have to play some kind of break that sounds like I know the tune . . .
0
0
0
3
In C position, it would be something like this:
& 44 œ œ œ œ 1
Sound familiar? This is a common situation in jams and in stage situations where you are the guest picker, and for me it is the heart of improvisation as I mentioned in the rst article in this series. Besides having a good ear, what kind of tools and tricks are available to help someone learn to do this?
1) Important melody notes are often held out—“It was in the spriiinnng one sunny daaaayyyy. ” Notice the few short notes followed by a long note. If you can get those long notes, they serve as guideposts, notes to aim for. If you get these important notes, you’ll have the contour of the tune even if you don’t get all of the melody notes. 2) Melody notes in bluegrass and country music are almost always in the chords you are playing. This is not strictly true (beware Stanley Brothers trios), but a good rule of thumb when you’re looking for melody notes. 3) The male lead voice in bluegrass has a fairly predictable range (let’s leave out the likes of Bobby Osborne for the moment). That means that about 90% of the bluegrass songs played out of the G position will have the rst held note starting on one of these notes:
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
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1
4)I f you get that rst held note, the melody is easier to pick out, as your instincts about going up and down will give you more “hits” of melody. A corollary to this is that when I’m trying to work out a harmony part, if I nd the lead note and go one chord tone below it, I’ve got the baritone, and the job then becomes less of guring out the baritone line by itself than of trying to stay “one below the lead.” 5) You can watch the positions that the other players use on their leads to help gure out where to start. The banjo can be very helpful in the rst position, as the 2nd 3rd and 4th strings are the same as guitar (assuming standard G-tuned banjo). That means a slide on the 4th string to the fth fret will work for you as well. If you work with a banjo player, get him to show you some of those basic licks, trying for the main thrust of the tone (G, B, or D) rather than worrying about the specic roll. Okay, how can I apply this stuff to playing that break on “Blue Moon Over
March/April 1999
Blue Water?” First of all, I want to get the chord progression. “Straight 1-4-5 progression” means I should be able to hear the changes in advance, with no surprise chords, and no unusual timings, so it will probably be a progression similar to one I’ve heard before, and I’ll have it by the end of the banjo kickoff. Like the banjo, I’ll capo on the second fret and play out of a G position. I’ve played a lot of tunes in G, and I’m familiar with the kinds of things that work out of a G position. The singer starts in “ There’s a Bluuuueee moon over bluuuuee water...” The two “blues” are my held-out notes. “Moon” is also held a bit. As he sings, I strum the chord and listen for which notes match his held notes. He’s started pretty high, so I’m really only thinking one of two notes:
#4œ œ & 4 1
or 0
3
The higher note matches the rst “blue”. The second “blue” is lower and in the C chord, so I try strumming the next 2 notes:
4 & 4œ œ 1
or
1 0
It’s the lower of the two. The whole phrase “blue moon over blue water” seems to go straight downward in pitch. Now I can begin thinking of how they can be played in a break: 57
# 4 & 4 1
G
w
Pick-up Measure
∑
∑
0
j œ œ œ œ # 4 œ & 4 Œ œ œ # œ ’’’’’##œ ˙ G
Pick-up Measure
there's 3 X 3 X 3 0 1 2
X = eighth note rest
a
blue 3 3 X
moon S
’’’’’ J 2 3
C
G
blue
water
œ œ œ ’’ œ ’’ œ ’’’’ œ œ ’’ ’’ ’’’’
o - ver
H
3X X X 4
3 1 4 X 2X
0X
0 2
2 X 0 X
This kind of connecting the dots is similar to the “50 variations on the opening phrase of Salt Creek” exercise in Vol. 2 Number 4. Start with an outline of notes to go to—guideposts—and ll in the blanks. It really helps to get that opening melody note, and worth working on.
Little Annie- Once more I must leave you Little Annie
Some songs out of G position that start on open 4th string: Two Dollar Bill- Lost a ll my money Precious Memories- Preciousm emories
On the 3rd string open: Thinkin Tonight of My Blue Eyes- Oh I’m Think -in Tonight of My Blue Eyes Wildwood Flower- I will twine and will mingle
On the open 3rd string: How Mt. Girls Can Love- Ridin’t he night 9 lb Hammer- This nine pound hammer Long Black Veil- Teny ears ago On the open 2nd string: You’re Love is Like a Flower- Oh they tell me your love Blue Ridge Cabin Home- There’s a well beaten path On the 2nd string 3rd fret: Sittin’ On Top of the World- It was in the spring
White House Blues- McKi nley hollered Tragic Romance- Nestled i n the heart For the C position, 5th string 3rd fret: Footprints in the Snow- Some folks like the summertime 58
∑
w
3
1
G
C
On the 4th string 2nd fret: You are my Sunshine- You are my Sunshine East Virginia Blues - I was born in East Virginia
On the 2nd string 1st fret: Prisoner’s Song- Oh if I had the wings of an angel Use these examples as a starting point; try to match your guitar tones to the lead voice on that rst note. If you have trouble matching notes, or seem to get the harmony note instead of the lead, get someone to help you practice nding the matching notes. Then expand it to other held notes. Like the “Ducks On a Pond” analogy (Vol. 2, Number 3), as you nail down some small pieces, the rest gets more familiar and easier. Once you can get these outlines—the guidepost notes—your breaks will sound more like the melody, and you’ll be able to do it on the y!
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
John McGann's Eclectic Acoustic Smokey’s Foghorn Strathspey Much of our American heritage in traditional music was developed from older forms from across the Atlantic. Many of our common flatpicked fiddle tunes are derived from Celtic dance forms such as reels and hornpipes. One of the common Celtic dance forms that didn’t ‘cross over’ to America is the Scottish Strathspey. This ddle tune form is characterized by a stately tempo and a syncopated ‘hiccup’ rhythm, occurring within the usual stream of eighth notes. Another feature of the strathspey is a series of triplets, often appearing at the end of a “B” section.
! Y H E
I first heard a set of strathspeys on an excellent Shanachie recording by ddlers Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds, with Paul Brady on guitar. I wrote this tune in Bb for the mandolin, a common key for strathspeys, which can have an almost “classical” mood. To simplify it as a guitar piece, I decided to play in G and capo at the 3rd fret. This allows more ringing open strings. You’ll notice some string skipping: wide-interval leaps of notes played on nonadjacent strings. I use my right hand middle nger on the higher notes, alternating with the pick on the lower notes, to make the
leaps easier and smoother. I use the pick and ngers when I want a “piano attack” on chords as well, to contrast the usual strumming sound. You can hear this tune on my CD “Upslide” on Green Linnet/Redbird, which is now out of print but still available for $15 (US postpaid) from me at PO Box 688, Jamaica Plain, Ma. 02130. Biographical info and tips for all atpickers at http://world.std.com/~jmcgann. Email: [email protected]
HERE’S A
GRANGER’S NEW FIDDLE CD TUNES from for ADAM GUITAR
GRANGER fourteen original guitar solos atpicked and fngerpicked on acoustic, electric and electric slide guitar
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
. . .CALL AND WE’LL SEND IT TO YOU
59
New Release Highlight
Rob Pearcy Hats Off Reviewed by Dan Miller
The name Rob Pearcy might not be one that you recognize right away, but take a look at the photo on the CD cover. If you’ve ever attended Steve Kaufman’s flatpick camp, or witnessed any of the atpicking guitar competitions anywhere from Merlefest all the way west to Wineld, you’ll undoubtedly say, “I remember that guy!” Rob is the kind of guy that you’ll tend to remember if you have ever seen him. His tall, lanky build, long goatee, lightning-bolt guitar strap, Dan Crary Model Taylor guitar and characteristic hat, complete with its long turkey feather, make him one of the most recognizable players on the atpicking guitar competition circuit. And although he has removed his hat and dressed up a bit for the cover of his debut solo CD, Hats Off , looking at that long goatee and Taylor Dan Crary model guitar will probably still bring back memories of Rob blazing through “Lime Rock” or sweetly gliding through his ne arrangement of “Kentucky Waltz” on a competition stage somewhere. Rob Pearcy is a bluegrass music teacher by profession (teaching guitar, mandolin, banjo, dobro, ddle, and mountain dulcimer). That statement, in and of itself, is not one to raise eyebrows. Many bluegrass musicians teach students how to play bluegrass instruments to supplement their income. The unique thing about Rob is that he teaches bluegrass music as a full-time member of the faculty at Hunters Lane High School in Nashville, Tennessee. Rob teaches about 70 students a semester at Hunters Lane. He runs three double length (an hour and forty minutes) classes a day, ve days a week. The classes are divided into three blocks—one for beginners, one for intermediate level players, and an ensemble class. There are about 25 kids per class ranging from the ninth through the twelfth grade. The majority of the students enter the program with little or no experience. Rob starts all beginners playing the guitar. By the time the students reach the ensemble class, many have gone on to learn other instruments and have become quite skilled. Rob’s ensemble class students are frequently called upon to perform at local hotels (like the Opry Land Hotel) and Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
various community functions and events. Among the highlights are sharing the stage with the likes of Bill Monroe and Ricky Skaggs, and trips to Europe to play their music. The school also sends kids on a eld trip to the Walnut Valley Festival in Wineld, Kansas, every year to enter the contests there. Rob also attends Steve Kaufman’s atpicking camp every summer to research new material for his program. By now you are asking, “How did this guy get such a great job?” Here’s his story. Rob began playing the guitar when he was about thirteen years old. Ironically, at about the same time Tony Rice was in southern California learning how to play bluegrass guitar under the influence of Clarence White and the Kentucky Colonels, Rob was in Nashville learning how to play the electric guitar having been inspired by southern California surf band guitarists such as Dick Dale, Lonny Mack and Link Ray. Rob says, “All of the bluegrass was happening all around me and I was kind of clueless as to what was happening with that. I was more into the electric guitar.” Rob earned the money for his rst electric guitar by doing odd jobs for a farmer who raised cows and pigs. After a full summer of saving money, Rob was ready to buy his rst guitar. Recalling that rst guitar purchase, Rob says, “It was one of the rst bad decisions that I ever made. I had the choice between a nice shiny red Kent guitar and an old beat-up early 50’s Telecaster. They were about the same price. Of course I took the shiny red guitar. You live and you learn.”
March/April 1999
When asked about his early learning experiences, Rob says, “I had a cousin out of Arkansas who taught me a basic kind of atpicking technique. He taught me ‘Wildwood Flower’ and ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ with an alternating pick technique.” Rob also ordered a book called Lea rn the Guitar in Seven Days which he saw advertised in the back of a comic book. From that book he learned “Down in the Valley” and “Clementine.” Within the rst year of owning his electric guitar, Rob was asked to join a band. He was in the eighth grade and some ninth graders, hearing that he had a guitar, wanted to know if he would be interested in joining their band. Rob says, “What they needed was a bass player, so I actually took two strings off of my guitar and played ‘bass’ on my guitar. I played with these guys for about a year at grand openings of grocery stores and stuff like that. We were playing pop cover tunes like ‘Walk Don’t Run,’ ‘Wipe Out,’ ‘Twist and Shout,’ and those kinds of things.” When he was fteen Rob got a job playing lead guitar with a group of nineteen and twenty-year-olds. Rob recalls, “There was an Air Force base here in Smyrna and we played the Friday and Saturday night dances there. After I got to doing it, my older brother saw I was having such a good time so he decided to get into it, too. He got a bass and started playing. We played all through our high school years at the Air Force base. When we started making money, it was a great incentive to keep playing.” At seventeen, Rob began to play guitar with his brother’s band just about the time the group landed a gig playing six nights a week at Printer’s Alley. In addition to playing in the dance bands, Rob also got freelance gigs playing with country bands who played at American Legion and VFW halls. Rob continued playing the electric guitar with success on into his late twenties. In fact, the band he formed while still in his early twenties toured the Southeast and opened for such big-name bands as Ted Nugent and Black Oak Arkansas. By now you’re asking yourself, “How does this guy go from being a successful rock-and-roll electric guitarist to a bluegrass 61
music teacher in high school?” The switch for Rob began in 1979 when he won a 50thanniversary edition Alvarez acoustic guitar in a guitar marathon sponsored by a local radio station. Get this, folks—in order to win that contest Rob played the guitar for 106 hours straight! Rob says, “There were twenty people who entered the contest. I really wanted to win this guitar and so my strategy was to play the least amount possible to still qualify and not move very much. I would sit and play a three note arpeggio of a chord over and over again. These other guys there were bashing and thrashing, playing everything they could play.” Regarding the beginning of his interest in atpicking, Rob says, “I would read Guitar Playerm agazine a lot and I keep seeing this name pop up—Doc Watson—and his acoustic atpicking. I had really never heard it. One of the local music stores that I did business with owed me some money in trade for something so I asked them to get me the Doc Watson albums so that I could see what this guy was all about. I got all of the old Vanguard Doc Watson albums and it really changed my life. I thought, ‘This is really something else!’ I thought it was the greatest guitar playing I had ever heard.” While Rob continued to play some electric guitar to make money, his attention and interest began to move more towards acoustic atpicking. He says, “Fretsm agazine started that same year and I got the rst issue. I read Dan Crary’s column and learned how to play ‘Salt Creek.’ When I had rst listened to Doc play, I thought no one else could learn to play like that. After I learned to play ‘Salt Creek’ reasonably well, I was excited.” Shortly after he obtained his acoustic guitar and began learning how to atpick, Rob came across an open air booth at a local shopping mall where a guy was selling dulcimers. Overhearing the owner interviewing a girl for a job, Rob decided to hang around. He met the owner, who happened to be Mark Taylor (of Rich and Taylor fame and the son of Tut Taylor), and after talking with him for a while ended up getting hired to watch the booth for them. He worked for Mark for the next year. In addition to dulcimers, guitars, mandolins, and banjos, they also sold record albums at the booth which featured Norman Blake and Tut Taylor. That experience not only introduced Rob to Norman Blake’s playing, it also allowed him time to sit at the booth day after day and teach himself how to play the banjo, mandolin, and mountain dulcimer. 62
Rob’s rst contest experience was at the Smithville Fiddler’s Jamboree. Of his rst trip to the Smithville event, Rob said, “They had been having the festival all through the seventies. I had heard about it but never had much interest in it. After I won the acoustic guitar and began atpicking, I thought, ‘Well I’ll go to that.’ I took my Alvarez and it was an amazing event. I was really impressed that the people that played there kind of took me in even though I was this strange hippy guitar player. I wound up jamming with the guys who were the top three guitar players at the contest that year. I was hooked from then on out.” After that rst experience at Smithville, Rob spent the next several years entering as many contests as he could nd, including the Tennessee State Championship sponsored by Gallagher Guitars. He says, “It was at Gallagher’s flatpicking championship that I started meeting the heavy duty atpickers. I ran into Steve Kaufman, Roy Curry, Danny Roberts, Fred Dugin, and Mike Whitehead. They were all real nice guys and would jam with you—I thought it was the greatest thing.” Rob became so enthused with festivals and contests that he found an electric guitar player that would sub for him in his blues/rock band whenever he had a conict. He said, “If I had a choice between a paying gig and a contest, I would call my friend up to come sub for me on the paying gig and I would go to the contest.” In addition to playing contests, Rob had also started teaching students at local music stores. One of Rob’s friends, formerly a bandmate in a few of the country bands Rob had worked with over the years and at that time was a teacher at Hunter’s Lane High School, brought Rob in on a new program the school was developing to teach kids bluegrass and acoustic music. Rob was rst asked to serve on the advisory committee to help choose teaching materials. A year later, when one of the teachers left the program, he was hired as a teaching assistant. He now has been working as a full-time member of the faculty for the past ten years. Having had ten years of experience teaching many students how to atpick, Rob had the following to offer when asked to talk about what he has learned about teaching the art of atpicking the acoustic guitar: “I see my main task as trying to teach them how to learn. As Dan Crary says in some of his instructional stuff, ‘Everyone
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
e n i l C n o R : o t o h P
Rob Pearcy teaches themselves.’ Someone else can show you how to do it, but you still have to get down to the task of doing it. I look at my job as like being a coach, and I show them the right things to do in order to learn. In atpicking, I think it is important to learn the alternating pick technique. If I can teach them to get the alternating pick direction correct, they seem to really smooth out. It is such a simple thing that students tend to think that it is not that important.” Hats Off
Rob Pearcy’s new solo release Hats Off is primarily a compilation of contest tunes he has used over the years. Do not equate that to a CD full of blazing fast ddle tunes, however, because Rob loves to play waltzes in the contest setting. There are certainly a fair share of great ddle tunes on this project, but those fast-paced tunes are very tastefully interspersed with ve beautifully arranged 3/4 time tunes (Kentucky Waltz, I’ll Be All Smiles Tonight, Festival Waltz, Midnight on the Water, and Canadian Waltz). When asked about the waltzes, Rob says, “I remember I was at a contest in north Georgia back in the early 1980’s and the guy that beat me had ended up playing a waltz in the contest. I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this is a guitar contest, it is all supposed to be about how many notes you can get in in a minute.’ But he had played
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
this beautiful waltz and won the contest. So I was kind of taken by that.” One of the rst things I noticed when I put this disc on was the incredible number of variations that Rob plays in his presentation of these tunes. If you are looking for some new ideas on standard ddle tunes like “Lime Rock,” “I Don’t Love Nobody,” “Flop Eared Mule,” “Katy Hill,” “Alabama Jubilee,” “Flowers of Edinburg,” “Grey Eagle,” or “Arkansas Traveler,” this is the place to look. With many of these cuts running over four minutes in length, Rob gives you plenty to chew on. “Lime Rock” is a six-minute-andthirteen-second guitar show with Rob trading licks with his star former student, Adam Wright. Adam also appears on “I Don’t Love Nobody.” Rob is also joined here by Craig Duncan on ddle; Terry Smith on bass; Waylon Wood on harmonica; and ddlers Heather Brown, Andy Leftwich and Dick Crawford. In addition to the guitar duties, Rob also adds his talent on mandolin, dulcimer, old time banjo and harmonica. Of special interest is Rob’s treatment of “Whiskey Before Breakfast” on mountain dulcimer where he employs a Jesse McReynolds cross-picking technique he invented for that instrument. For me, Rob’s tasteful mix of fast-paced fiddle tunes with beautifully arranged waltz tunes made this CD a very pleasant listening experience. As a flatpicker, I was captivated by the variety of interesting solos Rob presents on each of these tunes. The CD also inspired me to listen again and again to try to pick up some new licks for some great old standards. Highly recommended! On the following pages we present the rst break to Rob’s arrangement of “Kentucky Waltz.” This has been one of Rob’s favorite contest pieces over the past several years. If you hear Rob pick it, you’ll know why.
March/April 1999
63
Reviews CD Reviews Doc and Merle Watson Home Sweet Home
Sugar Hill SHCD 3889
Reviewed by Bryan Kimsey Song List: John Henry, Girl In The Blue Velvet Band, Lonesome Banjo, Listening To The Rain, Russian Grass, Worried Blues, Train That Carried My Girl From Town, Old Joe Clark, Down The Road, Big Spike Hammer, Reuben’s Train, Little Maggie, I Wonder How The Old Folks Are At Home, Home Sweet Home Although most of us remember Merle Watson as a guitar player, he also played a pretty good bluegrass banjo and this CD is a documentation of that talent. Originally recorded in a quick session by Doc and Merle alone in 1967, the master tapes were taken to the studio by T. Michael Coleman (Doc’s longtime bass player) for some overdub work during which the ddle of Sam Bush, mandolin of Marty Stuart, and bass of T. Michael Coleman were added with the aid of computer and recording wizardry. The end result is Doc and Merle “picking” with some friends. We’ve heard most of these tunes at one time or another, but rarely by Doc. And it’s always good to hear Doc play tunes! This doesn’t sound like a guitar album per se, but there is a lot of guitar on it. Even if he doesn’t take a break, you can always hear Doc’s rhythm loud and clear. The integration of the “new guys” is pretty 66
smooth, if not awless. I mostly hear some tonal differences with the older parts having a little bit of a scratchy feel and the newer ones being smoother and clearer. It’s very subtle, though, and doesn’t distract from the music at all. And the music, of course, is why we’re all gathered here around the old CD player. The album has a denite old-time music feel to it, with none of the polish and flash of modern albums. Everyone’s playing is very melodic and in support of the song, not to show off their latest hot lick. Every Doc Watson album is a little different and this one’s no exception. The focus doesn’t seem to be Doc as much as Merle. Doc seems pretty content to let Merle take most of the solos, although he puts in quite a few and sings all the lead. As you listen to this album, keep in mind that Merle had only been playing 5-string for 5-6 months when this was recorded! Overall, I’d say that avid fans of Doc probably already have this album and treasure it. More casual fans who are looking to delve a little deeper will probably also like Home Sweet Homeq uite a bit.
The Hot Club of Cowtown Swing Stampede Hightone Records
great album. The Hot Club of Cowtown consists of Austin, Texas-based guitarist Whit Smith, ddler Elana Fremerman and Billy Horton on bass. Fremerman and Smith exhibit almost telepathic interplay throughout the album as they toss off dazzling unison and harmony lines and solos, all supported by Horton’s solid rhythmic and harmonic underpinning. For fans of all types of flatpicked swing guitar, Smith’s playing offers an encyclopedic compilation of great guitar styles. On the CD cover, he’s shown playing a classic ’20s dot-neck L-5 Gibson archtop, and his playing reverberates with classic chord tones and soulful single-note playing. Never ashy or “Austintatious,” Smith puts on a textbook display of walking bass lines and sock-style Texas chord backup a’ la Eldon Shamblin, and clean, always melodic solo work that recalls such greats as Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker. “Snowake Reel,” a tune familiar to many atpickers, gets a great guitar/ddle treatment, followed by some simply terrific back-and-forth soloing between the two musicians. Swing Stampede doesn’t bowl the listener over with ashy licks or city-slicker arrangements. Instead, the CD has the feeling of an after-hours jam session at a small club in San Antonio by the best musicians in town. If swing’s your thing, sashay down to the local CD mart and round up a copy of this one.
Song List: I Had Someone Else, Silver Dew On The Bluegrass Tonight, Somebody Loves Me, My Confession, Snowake Reel, End Of The Line, T And J Waltz, Sweet Jenny Lee, Mission To Moscow, You Can’t Break My Heart, Red Bird, Chinatown, My Chinatown, Ida Red,
Review by David McCarty
Hightone Records, 220 4th St., #101 Oakland, CA 94607
Take three musicians obviously steeped in Western Swing, Gypsy jazz and honkytonk music, add legendary Texas ddler Johnny Gimble and a cast of other sidemen, turn them all loose on 14 classic Texas-style tunes and you’ve got the makings of a Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Butch Baldassari New Classics For Bluegrass Mandolin
allowing it to end on an upbeat note, as if to say that Big Mon is gone, but the music goes on. All in all, New Classics For Bluegrass Mand oli n is all its name says it is and much more. This is music of power and import, dignity and joy—music which reaches across stylistic barriers and musical generations alike. Strongly recommended.
Mac, Doc, & Del
Sugar Hill SHCD 3888
Review by David McCarty
the “incredibly tasty” mode. If you’ve ever seen him sitting with the Nashville Bluegrass Band, you know what I’m talking about. He sticks with the melody for the most part, but adds neat little syncopations and cross-picking fills to keep things interesting. That pretty much sums it up for the whole CD, actually. It’s not the CD you want to put on when you’re driving at 1 am and need some adrenaline to stay awake. Rather, it’s the one you put on when you’ve got a road-induced headache and need something mellow and soothing and pleasant. And, of course, if you’re a singer or a fan of any one of these three gentlemen, you’ll denitely want to pick up this CD. It’s just plain old good music.
Song List: Consider This, Minorsville, Boone County Kentucky, Perseverance Blues, Old Jericho Waltz, Wagons Ho, Sleepy Gap/Tucker, King Wilkie, Down City - Part 1, It’s Rainin’ The Blues . . . For Bill Monroe, Leaving Portland, A Place In The Sun Butch Baldassari is one of the great mandolin stylists of our day. Not only is he able to swing from Monroe-style to New Acoustic to straight classical styles with equal skill and enthusiasm, he’s also one of the few players capable of consistently writing memorable instrumental compositions. Many of his tunes like “Old Town” and “Waltz For Bill Monroe” already have become standards. Backed by guitar giants David Grier, Kenny Smith and Robert Bowlin, as well as musical luminaries such as Richard Greene, Aubrey Haynie, Randy Howard, Missy Raines and Mark Schatz, New Classics For Bluegrass Mandolin adds another CD to his catalog that will delight anyone who nds pleasure in clever melodic structure, tasty picking and insightful arrangement. The opening cut, “Consider This,” sets things off on a perfect music journey as Grier spins off one of his galaxy-class solos and Greene counters with a stellar break of his own. Further into the CD, we come to another powerful Baldassari original, “King Wilkie,” where this year’s IBMA Guitarist of the Year, Kenny Smith, contributes some excellent backup guitar work. The somber, processional “It’s Rainin’ The Blues . . . For Bill Monroe” drifts elegantly back and forth from major to minor, a compositional construction which gives the tune a sad-eyed refrain while Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
Reviewed by Bryan Kimsey Song List: Little Green Valley, The Old Account, Speak To Me Little Darlin’, New Moon Over My Shoulder, Beauty Of My Dreams, I’ll Sail My Ship Alone, When A Soldier Knocks, Live And Let Live, I’ve Endured, Talk Of The Town, Black Mountain Rag, I Wonder Where You Are Tonight, More Pretty Girls Than One I suppose this recorded event could be considered the bluegrass equivalent of opera’s “The Three Tenors”. Put three well-known singer/guitarists together and record some well-known tunes and some very obscure ones, and this is what you get. Some songs have just Mac Wiseman, Doc Watson, and Del McCoury by themselves, while others add various instruments all the way up to a full-tilt bluegrass band. Mac, Doc, and Del sing in every possible combination of lead, harmony, and duet. As you might guess, this CD is highly vocally oriented and this is Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, so what you’d like to know, probably, is “what’s in it for me?” Doc furnishes a guitar break on nearly every tune as well as numerous lead-in and lls. That right away should justify the CD for most atpickers. Doc’s playing here isn’t of the “ashy” mode, but is more of
March/April 1999
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800-413-8296 to Order 67
Performance Video Reviews Bluegrass Classic Video: J.D. Crowe and the New South, 1975
Reviewed by Bryan Kimsey Song List: Rock Salt and Nails Old Home Place Nine Pound Hammer Ten Degrees and Getting Colder Sin City Train 45 Interviews between songs I’ve got all the commercial videos of Tony Rice, and the only problem with them is the lack of historical depth—they’re all pretty much recorded in the same time frame. Thus, this video was a blast of fresh air from the past, with Tony Rice as a band member of one of the hottest modern bluegrass bands ever, J.D. Crowe and the New South. That’s right, the band that put “Old Home Place” on the map. J.D., Tony, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Bobby Sloan. I’ve heard about this video for years but have never been able to lay hands on it. Well, now I’ve got it and I’m not in the least disappointed. Tony sings lead on all the vocals and you can tell he was just beginning to make the climb to the full vocal maturity he achieved on his later albums. He looks pretty relaxed to me, with just an occasional sign of the strain that would later plague his voice. His guitar playing is surprisingly well developed and his right hand looks like it could have been cut and pasted from some 68
of the 1992 Vestapol footage. The camera zooms in appropriately on each soloist, giving you plenty of close-ups of both right and left hands. You can clearly see Rice using the multiple downstrokes and rakes which help dene his style. Tony stands right next to J.D. Crowe, and it’s easy to see how his left hand was inuenced by Crowe’s. Rice is also playing his famous herringbone in this video, and judging from the dates and timelines, he must have just gotten it. The only thing missing here is some extended solos, but Rice didn’t really start playing those anyway until he joined David Grisman’s band. I was surprised to see Crowe kicking off “Rock Salt and Nails” with fingerpicks; I thought Rice took all the solos, but evidently not. No wonder I’ve never been able to mimic that break with a atpick! When he’s not taking solos, Rice is, of course, playing rhythm. Watching his right hand weave in and out of the strings and punch in off-beat upstrokes made me dizzy with awe. Fans of the other players will nd plenty to enjoy here, too. As with Rice, there are similar close-ups of all the soloists. I expect that footage of Ricky Skaggs playing mandolin is fairly rare, but there’s plenty of it here. There are several close-ups of Crowe’s famous right hand, and banjo players will likely nd themselves glued to the screen, as will fans of Jerry Douglas. Recorded as it was in 1975, it’s also kind of amusing to see the boys’ long hair-do’s. I noticed that Skaggs dressed up in bellbottoms for the occasion. This would be funnier if it didn’t remind me of my own over-the-eyes hairstyle and funky jeans back then! In addition to the songs, there’s an interview segment between each tune in which the musicians talk about their influences, bluegrass music, and their instruments. This is really interesting stuff, too, although Tony doesn’t really say too much. I guess that was part of his Clarence White inuence. Skaggs and Crowe do most of the talking, and they’ve got some good things to say. I think the conclusion on this video is already a given. Fans of Tony Rice will be standing in line for it, fans of J.D. Crowe will be trying to cut that line, and fans of Ricky and Jerry will be forming another line to the sides in hopes of getting there rst. In short, this is a historically important, highly entertaining video that no atpicker should be without. Availability of the
video may be a problem, although Flatpicking Guitar is now distributing it (call 800-413-8296 to order). The only thing I want to know now is, “Who’s got footage of Rice with Grisman, and where does that line form”?
Instructional Book Reviews Orrin Star Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar
Oak Publications OK 64386
Reviewed by Bryan Kimsey I don’t like hot licks. I think melody should be rst and foremost in most solos and I subscribe to Granger’s First Law of Soloing, which is: when you enter a jam session or turn on the stereo in mid-solo, you should be able to gure out which tune is being played after hearing just a few measures of it. So I should rake this book over the coals, right? Well, not really. It’s actually an excellent book, and I suspect Orrin Star dislikes licks every bit as much as I do. Instead of just tossing out lick #1, lick #2, and lick #3 with no further qualications than “they sound neat,” he’s made a considerable effort to make sure you can relate the licks to a certain piece of music. And while this book is full of licks, there are quite a few complete tunes, too. In fact, the book starts off with the most melodic vehicle of all—a ddle tune. Star uses this tune to explain pick direction, accents and anticipation notes. From there, he dives into common chord progressions
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
and shows ways to link various chords together. Then he heads into straight G licks without even pausing for chord changes! This is pretty lick-oriented stuff indeed, and a complete solo of this stuff would leave me reaching for the “Down” volume. But wait … here’s a tune. Chapter 4 spends an entire 13 pages dissecting and reassembling “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down.” The solos start with a simple Carter-style melody-note/strum and then get more and more complex. As Orrin shows you how to use licks in-betweent he melody notes, the big picture starts to get clearer. The melody is clearly there, and yet there are all these cool licks whipping in and out and around the melody notes. So this is how it’s supposed to work! Along with “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down,” we also get snippets of other tunes. Orrin then switches to “Other Keys,” still using “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Dow n” as his vehicle. He introduces some great nuggets of information, including stating the melody indirectly and the essential “Jazz Kazoo” concept in which you scatsing a melody over the chords to help in developing your own licks. Even though I stumbled on it by myself, this was a crucial concept to my own flatpicking development, and I highly recommend paying attention to what Orrin says. After working mostly in G up to this point, Star spits out a whole section of C-based licks, followed by a section of “Bluesy Licks.” He’s always attribute a given lick to “Clarence White” or a “Doc Watson” or some other “heavyweight,” as appropriate. This helps fans of those styles concentrate on particular licks, should they so choose. The book closes with a section on “Celebrity Licks” featuring some nice things by Doc Watson, Dan Crary, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, and Mark O’Connor. I’m sure this section could be updated (the book was published in 1985) with more examples, but it still serves as a great introduction to these flatpicking foundations. Before the end, though, there is a chapter on crosspicking, double-stops, and other position based licks, and one on closed up-the-neck licks. Both of these chapters will open some doors to intermediate players. Well, that’s quite a write-up for a book I shouldn’t even like. Fact is, though, that there is a lot of excellent material here and as long as you use these licks both as starting points for your own ideas and as means for carrying a melody, I think there’s a tremen Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
dous amount to be learned from Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar. This book goes on the “Essential” shelf in my library.
Book Reviews How to Be Your Own Booking Agent
By Jeri Goldstein
Reviewed by Dix Bruce How to Be Your Own Booking Agent: And Save Thousands of Dollars by agent/
manager/promoter Jeri Goldstein is packed with useful tips for musicians of all styles and business levels. Whether you play one gig a year at your local coffeehouse or tour constantly, this book will provide invaluable information on how to get started, how to survive and prosper, and how to avoid or at least minimize the dead ends, detours and potholes that the marriage of music and business will inevitably throw in your pathway. As the title suggests, Goldstein’s book is aimed at musicians who want to be their own booking agent. I would argue that it is just as useful to artists in the middle and upper levels of the business who have dedicated managers and booking agents. Thousands of common problems and situations are analyzed. It’s enlightening, and quite entertaining, to read quotes from the famous and the unknown and learn how they dealt with a broken contract, missing luggage or the unreturned phone call. (“That happened to him too?!”) It’s reassuring to realize that after all is said and done, the local coffeehouse gig is pretty much the same as the Carnegie Hall date. Certainly the scale is different, but almost
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all the same rules and hassles apply. Both situations—in fact, any gig—can and should be handled by all concerned as a business. Along with all the information, anecdotes and sources, Goldstein provides a huge chapter of sample blank letters, contracts, riders, budgets, technical sheets, and the like, that the reader can photocopy, fill out, and use. They’re ready to go and can be especially helpful for newer artists who might have never seen a performance contract and don’t know what it should include. Beyond all the nuts and bolts of performing, touring and recording, How to Be Your Own Booking Agent does something rather unusual in books of this type. The author leads the artist down a path of self-examination by asking him or her to complete various lists (printed in the book) detailing personal desires and dreams. Goldstein goes on to help the artist use this information to create lists of long-term, ve-year, two-year, and one-year goals. The rest of the book follows from this beginning and puts all the subsequent suggestions into the context of these goals, breaking each down logically and chronologically. For example, if you want to have a nationally released CD in three years, you need to do this now, this over the next year, this withing two years, etc. Most of the musicians I know could make great use of this exercise. We tend to work hardest on our art and then wait around for someone else to bring us success. We have no specic plan and are usually terried to articulate our dreams. We’re oating around the musical world like so much plankton! We might get grabbed, we might not. How to Be Your Own Booking Agent systematically offers one the opportunity to look inside ourselves and articulate dreams and plans and to logically pursue a longterm course of action toward achieving these goals. It makes perfect sense: we ought to know where we want to go before we start the engine. Obviously there are no guarantees that our career goals will be met but there is a great advantage to have something formal and written that we can refer to and revise as time marches on. Kind of an “Oh yeah, that’s why I’m in this business!” reminder. And every business needs a plan. How to Be Your Own Booking Agent is the kind of book that can literally be worth its weight in gold. Call 800-413-8296 to order. 70
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
Gear Review
Hi-Tone Gets High Marks For High Quality and High Style
By David McCarty
As if we atpickers didn’t have enough choices in new guitars, we’re now inundated with top-quality new guitar cases to protect and transport our cherished possessions. The market for super-high-end custom cases just a few short years ago included only Mark Leaf and Calton but it now includes entrants such as Ameritage (reviewed in FGM, Vol. 2, No. 5), the Cedar Creek Case Company and this month’s subject, Hi-Tone Cases. Located in Lantana, Florida, Hi-Tone is an operation similar to a top-quality luthier’s shop. Owner and case craftsman Sam Mancuso believes that ne cases should be built like ne guitars—handmade and built to the individual specications of the customer. Customers who order a Hi-Tone case receive a mailing tube packed with brochures listing case options, sample fabric and leather swatches, a detailed set of instructions for tracing the outline of your guitar, plus several sheets of tracing paper to use. Mancuso encourages the buyer to be very careful and precise in this process to ensure the best t possible. The finished cases are exceptional. The exterior prole is a Coke-bottle shape somewhere between the rounded triangle of a Leaf case and the formed shape of a Calton, giving extra interior room which Mancusco has put to exceptional use even though the exterior length is actually about 1/2" shorter than a Calton. Top and sides are 6-ply laminated hardwood, and the top is stress-tested to resist 200 pounds of pressure. The back is three-ply Luan plywood. A high-impact bumper protects both the top and bottom case edges, much like the top and back binding on your guitar protects that wood from dings and impact fractures. Four heavy-duty nickel-plated steel latches secure the top, and reinforced rivets are used for all mounted hardware, which includes very beefy shoulder strap rings. Even the handle gets special attention, being a sewn leather handle curved perfectly to t the hand for comfort even if you’re carrying the case long distances through an airport or at a festival. Mancuso’s cases are available in three different coverings: a luxurious padded vinyl, pigskin leather, and 100% cowhide leather. The case covering is exception Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
ally well done, with no stretch marks or gaps anywhere. A handsome strip of what appears to be mahogany inlay accents the case exterior near the headstock latch. This clearly is the work of someone in love with his chosen craft. Open the top and the inside of the case looks like no other instrument case I’ve ever seen. The top seals, literally, with the side via a durable rubber valance that would certainly seal out any environmental hazards, including water. Hi-Tone uses crushed velvet for its case linings in four colors. The top back and sides are lined with 180-density expanded polyfoam which has a crush resistance of 90 pounds. It’s exceptionally nice, even compared with my Calton. Ever want to carry more than a capo, a few spare picks, a couple of string changing tools and a small electronic tuner in your accessory pocket? Well, the Hi-Tone case’s pocket has more space than the trunk of a ’98 Corvette. At more than 150 cubic inches, it’s so big Mancuso refers to it as an accessory cabinet. It gives you room here to include your strap (keeping it and any scratching hardware safely away from your Collings, Lucas or Dudenbostel) and anything else short of sheet music you might want to carry. Instead of using those imsy hinges found on most accesory pockets, HiTone uses brass piano hinges which should never fail during the case’s lifetime. Even nicer, the foam along the entire top of the “accessory cabinet” forms a continuous thermo-formed v-shaped contour which cradles the guitar’s neck from the nut to about the 8th fret for the ultimate in protec-
March/April 1999
tion. Behind the pocket, two large foam pads contact the guitar’s upper bout, keeping it well away from the sides to protect against any possible dings. While this level of custom craftsmanship and quality materials isn’t cheap, it’s actually quite reasonably priced. A dreadnought-size case in vinyl is $375, while the pigskin covering makes the price $425. The top-of-the-line cowhide-covered Hi-Tone is $550 for a dreadnought. Add $50 if you’re buying one for your 18” Gibson Super 400 archtop and subtract $25 if you’re getting one for a classical or 000-size guitar. Whether this case will endure brutal hardships as well as the berglass-shelled Calton does, I’m not sure. But like any case, picking up a collection of scratches and dings adds to its character and helps the owner relive those great moments on the road or at festivals. And I have no doubt the Hi-Tone would last for many, many years of dependable protection. The bottom-line, though, is should you trust your world-class guitar to this case. In every way, the answer is “yes” in my opinion. This is a case any musician would love to have, and priced at least $125 less than its competitors, Hi-Tone offers an exceptional value. For more information, contact: Hi-Tone Cases 3120 Seagrape Rd. Lantana, FL33462 800-973-6845 www.hi-tone.com 71
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Guitar Highlight:
Lucas “Kenny Smith” Model by David McCarty
The Mahogany Dreadnought Comes Of Age It’s only taken 65 years, but the 14-fret mahogany dreadnought guitar pioneered in 1934 by C.F. Martin with its versatile, value-priced D-18 is finally getting the respect it has always deserved. Collings makes a mahogany version of its top-of-theline Clarence White model; Santa Cruz is building a hot-rod mahogany dreadnought based on a 1943 D-18 design, and many other makers are discovering the unique combination of warmth, sweetness and punchy projection exhibited by the best mahogany guitars. If there’s one guitar out there that captures this trend nearly perfectly, it’s probably the newly introduced Kenny Smith (KS) model from Lucas Custom Instruments. “I think mahogany has been greatly under-appreciated as a tonewood,” states Randy Lucas, who operates his one-person custom instrument business from a large workshop next to his home outside Columbus, Indiana. The KS guitar duplicates many characteristics of the 1935 D-18 Kenny Smith, IBMA’s Guitarist of the Year for 1998 and the current guitarist with the Lonesome River Band, uses as his principle recording and performing instrument. Authentic details on the Lucas KS include the use of premium Adirondack spruce for the top and bracewood, 30-yearold top-grade mahogany purchased from Martin’s Mike Longworth for the back and sides, and even the inclusion of a beefy “C”-shape vintage neck with a real C.F. Martin steel T-bar instead of the modern, aluminum-channeled, stainless steel adjustable truss rod found in nearly every other guitar on the market today (including Martins). String spacing on the test guitar (which I must confess became my guitar when I had the chance to purchase it) is 2 11/32” at the bridge; the nut measures just a smidge wider than 1 3/4” and the neck at the 12th fret is 2 1/4” wide. This is physically bigger than the 1 3/4”-nut-width necks employed by Collings and other builders, much truer to an Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
authentic vintage neck. In fact, Kenny told me the neck on this guitar felt exactly like his ‘35 D-18. These changes are not just for show-and-tell. Most luthiers agree that a stiffer, heavier, denser neck provides a more stable platform that doesn’t deform or absorb as much vibration energy from the strings, leading to a louder guitar with more sustain. (Interestingly, Collings also now offers a “vintage” neck on its dreadnought models.) The wider string spacing also gives the player more room to plant the ngertip without touching an adjacent string and allows each string to vibrate more freely, also enhancing sustain. The optional fossil ivory nut, saddle and pins on the test guitar also contribute to these qualities. There’s no doubt the test guitar exhibits as much sustain and power as any dreadnought of any material I’ve ever examined. The wider and thicker neck on the KS does feel bulkier than even the V-shaped, 1 3/4” necks which have become the modern “standard” for atpicking. My left-hand mobility is hampered by a serious orthopedic injury to the bones of my left wrist, making me very aware of any instrument’s playability. However, I quickly adapted to this thicker neck and now feel that having more “meat” to hold onto may make it even easier to play. This is, however, one area that may be of concern to some players, and Lucas says he will modify the neck shape to a lowerprole if asked. Cosmetically, Lucas and Smith decided to “dress up” the somewhat dowdy old D-18 design to complement the KS model’s newfound status as a guitar equal to any pricey Brazilian rosewood guitar. Aging tone in the lacquer (not stained into the top) gives the guitar a warm, vintage patina right out of the box. Lucas says that as the guitar ages and is played outdoors, UV light will fade the toner as the top
March/April 1999
darkens naturally, so there shouldn’t be any unnatural streaking or odd discoloration. To add a little drama to the look, Lucas incorporates a thin ring of red dyed maple in the guitar’s rosette to set it off from just another plain-Jane D-18. The guitar sports an ebony ngerboard with no position dots or markers; just a tasteful pearl inlay of the Lucas logo in script at the 12th fret. A truly beautiful abalone “torch” inlay based on Martin’s Style 42 guitar appointments is inlaid into a Brazilian rosewood headstock overlay. Tortoiseshell colored binding goes around the headstock, and this is offset to a beautiful effect with a thin line of amberstained maple to set the binding apart from the rosewood. Another minor, but often neglected, change Lucas incorporates is a slight staggering of the tuning machines so the A string runs clear of the E string. On many vintage-style guitar pegheads, the A string runs right along the E string where it meets the tuning machine post, which could be a source of unwanted string buzz. It can also cause wear on the string and may result in some problems with changing the pitch of the A string as you tune the E. The KS model avoids that entirely. Other true-to73
vintage cosmetic features include a darker, ruddy mahogany stain which more closely resembles the stain on the ‘30s Martin mahogany guitars than the clearer nish employed by most makers today. Not a speck of wood ller shows under the nish of the test guitar, a rarity among mahogany guitars these days. Lucas also had John Greven’s Turtleworks shop precisely match Martin’s vintage mottled, darker colored tortoiseshell binding materials using the material on Kenny’s 1935 guitar as a guide. Even the pickguard’s hue and pattern are an exceptionally close match to the pickguards common to ‘30s Martins. Even subtle touches noticeable only to educated eyes, such as the contours of the wings and belly of the dark Brazilian rosewood bridge, the shape of the neck where it curves up to meet the ngerboard, and the detail where the neck and headstock join all reect Lucas’ passionate approach to getting the slightest detail right. Unlike many modern instruments, the Lucas KS guitars (and all of Lucas’ instruments) are made with hide glue. Lucas and Smith, who has himself worked building guitars for Gallagher Guitars, agreed that this glue crystallizes better than modern synthetic glues, and thus allows the guitar to vibrate better. Lucas says it is his opinion that because the newer adhesives never really harden as completely as hide glue, they create a “rubber gasket” effect that actually dampens sound vibrations instead of establishing a solid connection. The newer adhesives are also prone to creep or slip more easily when used on stressed joints like braces and bridge plates creating a bigger belly in the guitar top behind the bridge. Of course, building a virtual duplicate of a vintage guitar removes the creativity and
ingenuity that lead to exceptional musical instruments, and in this area the Kenny Smith model truly shines. By incorporating elements of the Martin x-bracing system from different eras, Lucas has created a dreadnought guitar with a unique mahogany sound. The KS bracing pattern starts out as the benchmark 1934-39-era Martin advanced X pattern with no “popsicle” brace under the ngerboard extension to needlessly dampen those delicate high-end frequencies. But unlike those guitars, Lucas does not scallop the braces on the KS. Martin discontinued scalloping the braces of its guitars in mid-1944, but by then they had shifted the X an inch backwards to position it closer to the bridge and had added the tongue brace under the ngerboard extension for added strength and rigidity. The Lucas KS bracing is a never-beforeused hybrid that avoids the microphoneoverwhelming bass tones of many vintage instruments while preserving the volume and sustain needed for flatpicking in a band or to be heard in a loud jam session. Kenny Smith also says he feels leaving the braces unscalloped accentuates the treble response. So much for any argument that every guitar ought to have scalloped bracing. However, like the bulkier neck, some buyers may feel uncomfortable with buying an unscalloped guitar, so Lucas will build the KS model with a scalloped-braced top upon request. As a atpicking guitar, the Lucas Kenny Smith model may set a new standard for mahogany dreadnoughts. Kenny says atly that his Lucas sounds closer to his gorgeous vintage D-18 than any other guitar he’s ever played. The Lucas Kenny Smith sound captures both the warmth and depth of a great old Martin and the punch and clarity of newer guitars like
the Collings and Santa Cruz. The straight bracing creates an even tone and projection all over the ngerboard. The player never feels that some strings or notes are louder or project stronger. The guitar stays in its “power zone” throughout the playable portions of the ngerboard. This is a guitar that will change many player’s minds about what a mahogany guitar can be. In my comparisons, it easily held its own with a monstrous 1945 D-18 I’m very familiar with, and was equally impressive when played against a variety of high-end Brazilian/Adirondack dreadnoughts. This is one of those guitars which improves your playing because it’s so responsive and dynamic, much like a great vintage dreadnought. The Lucas Kenny Smith model starts at $3,250 with a Geib-style TKL hardshell case. The fossil ivory pins, nut and saddle add $250 to the price, and Randy will substitute a ight case for an additional fee. Lucas has sold out his 1999 production, but may have a space or two left in 2000. By the time this article appears, he also should have his website up at: www.lucasguitars.com, so look for information there. For additional information and current prices, contact Randy Lucas Custom Instruments directly at 812-342-3093.
We Have the CDs You’re Looking For
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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
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CLASSIFIEDS Classied ads will be accepted for guitar and musical related items @ 40¢ a word, 50¢ a word for bold lower case type, 60¢ a word for bold upper case type. Please call (800) 413-8296 to order, or send ad to High View Publications, P.O. Box 2160, Pulaski, VA 24301
Instructional Material: VIRTUAL BAND BLUEGRASS METHOD. Matching and progressive arrangements, multiple tempos, backup, theory and technique for Guitar, Fiddle, Banjo or Mandolin. Book and play along CD $23.00 ppd. Specify instrument. Jay Buckey, 4017 N. Torrey Pines, Las Vegas, Nevada 89108 (702) 396-7824 GUITAR JAM: Play leads to “Blackberry Blossom,” plus 11 other classics with our back-up band. A fun way to develop timing. Tape and TAB booklet $16.95 ppd. Custom Practice Tapes now available! Choose from almost 400 songs and we’ll play them slow and fast for twice the jamming. Andy Cushing, 6534 Gowanda St. Rd., Hamburg NY 14075 MUSIC THEORY COURSE FOR GUITAR Correspondence Course. Certicate issued on completion. Beginning courses also available. Course outline and enrollment order form for this and other home study courses, write to: Jim Sutton Institute of Guitar, 23014 Quail Shute, Spring, TX 77389 E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://guitar-jimsuttoninst.com 800-621-7669 CUSTOM TRANSCRIPTION SPECIALIST Quick free estimates (large catalog/tons of Doc), exact, easy to read, song/solo tab (all styles), digital speed reductions. John Maier, 55 Williams St. Dept FG, Pleasantville, NY 10570, 914-741-6321. HAROLD STREETER CATALOG! Over 1,000 tablature/cassette atpick and fingerstyle listings - basic to advanced, most styles. Send $2.00 ($4.00 overseas) to LeWalt Publishing, 4950 East 20th Ave. Post Falls, ID 83854 USA Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
TEXAS MUSIC AND VIDEO PRESENTS SUPERCHARGED FLATPICKING! David Grier slows down Wheeling, Old Hotel Rag, Engagement Waltz, Bluegrass Itch, That’s Just Perfect, Eye of the Hurricane, Impulsive, Shadowbrook, Smith’s Chapel, Porkchops and Applesauce, and Lone Soldier - $29.95. Also videos from Joe Carr, “60 Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar” and “Bluegrass Flatpick Favorites,” $29.95 each or both for $49.95. Advanced Concepts, PO Box 830, Levelland, TX 79336, 1-800-874-8384, Fax 806-894-2580, Web: www.musicvideo.com GUITAR LICK CARDS: from standard to stellar, 81 licks are isolated on playing cards. Line them up with the same chord progression as your favorite song and voila! It’s a new arrangement! Rearrange the licks for endless variations. They’re inspiring! Available for mandolin and banjo too. $11.50 ppd. per set. Andrew Cushing, 6534 Gowanda St. Rd., Hamburg NY 14075.
Are the arrangements you are seeing too difcult? Try single note, melody only, in Tab. Learn the melody and do your own arrangements. Write for our Tab list. Ten songs for $5.00. Twenty-ve Christmas song package for $10.00, postage included. Melody Line, P.O. Box 104, Vero Beach, FL, 32961. Florida residents add 7% sales tax.
COLORADO MIDLAND DREAM: Cassette of 13 songs about this fabulous railroad. $10.00 plus $2.00 shipping. Tom Greco, 1555 Cedar Hill Place, Duncanville, TX 75137-3826
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CLASSIFIEDS continued Guitars, Strings, and Accesories: TONY RICE PROFESSIONAL model by Santa Cruz duplicates most closely the specications of Tony Rice’s personal Santa Cruz guitar. Four examples currently in stock, including one with rare vertical grain Brazilian Rosewood. Steve Swan Guitars (510) 527-1734, Fax (650) 401-7306, email [email protected], website www.steveswanguitars.com SANTA CRUZ TONY RICE model redened the modern bluegrass dreadnought. Eight new examples in stock in various combinations of Brazilian Rosewood, Indian Rosewood, Sitka Spruce, European Spruce, and Adirondack Spruce. Steve Swan Guitars (510) 527-1734, Fax (650) 401-7306, email [email protected], website steveswanguitars.com BLUEGRASS and VINTAGE ARTIST dreadnought Santa Cruz models give you a vintage sound with modern playability advantages. Seven new examples in stock in various combinations of gured Mahogany, Indian Rosewood, Brazilian Rosewood, European Spruce and Adirondack Spruce. Steve Swan guitars (510) 527-1734, Fax (650) 401-7306, email [email protected], website www.steveswanguitars.com
FOR A GOOD TIME try a free sample copy of The Vintage News, monthly review of the most special, superb sounding fretted instruments. Subscriptions: $15 a year for 12 issues ($20 overseas). Mandolin Brothers, 629 Forest Ave, Staten Island, NY 10310; tel 718-981-8585; fax 816-4416; website: www.mandoweb.com; email: [email protected]
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EUPHONON COMPANY STRINGS First quality major manufacturer strings in bulk at fantastic savings. Same strings you buy in music stores, without the expensive packaging. Acoustic guitar sets extralight, light, or medium: 80/20 bronze $24.50/dozen, $15/half dozen; phosphor bronze $26/dozen, $16/half dozen. All prices post paid. Twelve string, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, special gauges available. Write for String Catalog. Euphonon also offers guitar repair and building supplies; Write for Luthier’s Catalog, Euphonon Co. PO Box 100F, Orford, NH, 03777, 1-(888) 517-4678
GUITARS FOR SALE Gallagher Guitars, Santa Cruz Vintage Artist, stage and studio micorphones. For more information: Call or email Gary Gordon, [email protected], (618) 443-5051
MARTIN BRAZILIAN GUITARS WANTED: 1968-1969 D-45, 1969 D-41, 1987 D-45LE (A “Guitar of the Month” - 50 were made). DESIRABLE TRADES. Dennis Friedberg. Phone: (301) 246-4943 Guitars New and Used. Authorized Dealer for Santa Cruz, Huss-Dalton, Stelling and Gibson. Also banjos, mandolins and ddles. Discount prices. Call or write for current listing. The Bluegrass Connection, P.O Box 92, Birch River, WV, 26610. Phone: (304) 649-2012
Gallagher Ragtime Special Guitar , cut away, fishburn pickup, unplayed, new condition $1900. Call John Willis, (804) 776-9900
Gallagher Doc Watson model , bell-ower inlay, unplayed, new condition, $1800. Call John Willis, (804) 776-9900
WORLD OF STRINGS 1738 E 7th Street Long Beach Ca 80813 562/599-3913 *Specializing in Stringed Instruments* Martin, Santa Cruz, Gibson, Seagull, Ramirez, Electric & Acoustic Guitar & Bass, Mandolin, Banjo, Dulcimer & hammered Dulcimer (Violin, Cello, Harp and Guitar to Rent) Repairs, Accesories, Custom Building We are not mail order . . . come visit & have a cup of coffee, and share our appreciation and knowledge of instruments. Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
March/April 1999
