The acoustic music discussion thread
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metascrawl wrote:Nice one, this'll be fun! Nick, if you PM me your email address then I'll be in touch with you and Yoss via email nearer the time to confirm and arrange a time on that day and give directions to mine and stuff. Anyone else reading this that would like to come and play stringed instruments with us (or even keyboards - I have a fully functioning bontempi electric organ that I found on the street that's actually quite a decent instrument) at my house in North London on the 25th is more than welcome to send me their email address too. No need to bring an instrument, as I have a house full of them - unless you want to play fiddle as I don't have one of those. I've spent the day playing my Dad's hand-made guitar (which is older than I am I think) tuned to open G. It's a great tuning in which to wistfully improvise whilst sounding much better than you actually are. I'll show you guys how easy it is to sound cool on guitar in open G. That will be especially useful to you, Nick, as it's essentially the same as bluegrass banjo tuning. If you spend some time playing guitar out of open G you'll get a bit of a head-start for if/when you do get a banjo. Standard tuning is indispensable of course, as it allows for lots of different keys, but if your coming round my gaff be prepared to have me foist some alternative tuning stuff on you, I'm a bit of fanatic about it - something I inherited through my Dad via John Fahey, as well as directly from Fahey (via recordings and writings obviously). 'Morning is the end of idealism. [Skip] James has no guitar. Bill Barth goes to the car and gets his... Tuned in standard tuning. He does know standard a little. But not much. Slowly, confidently, he changes the tuning. He's going back towards a - no, it can't be. He's headed for open D minor. Primarily a theoretical tuning that no one in their right mind uses. But there it is. And he knows chord shapes in it too. Beautiful, terribly intense, hitherto-unknown chord positions. He sings and plays "Cherry Ball Blues," "Illinois Blues," and "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues." A few others. James is a little rusty but that is all. And he shows me how to make the chords. Great Sphinx chords. I could never have found them. Then, abruptly, he shoves the guitar into me. "Show me." I have it all.' - John Fahey, How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life. 2000.
Awesome, will pm in a moment.
I use open G for any slide playing (or open D a little), but that's mainly just sliding around from open to 2, to 5, to 7 (or whatever the order is) rather than picking out notes and improvising. I stayed away from open tunings for years before seeing Seasick Steve at Hopp Farm a few years ago and figured hey, this open tuning business can't be that hard. Made myself a slide from a wine bottle and got stuck in. I love playing slide but don't really give it as much attention as I'd like - I rarely pick up my electric anymore and slide on a nylon string flamenco doesn't quite have the same feel as a resonator or something. Not that I've ever used a resonator.
But yeah, I'm all for mixing the tunings up a little. Love Skip James' stuff that I've heard, mostly Cherry Ball Blues and Devil Got My Woman. I heard he plays in open E minor? Definitely a minor something. There are a whole load of vids from Newport 66 on YT, including this one of James:
...and this one:
...yeah the dude's got a great sound. Plenty of great vids from Newport 66 to check out, anyone who's interested.
Here's a clip of RL Burnside for no reason other than it's a stomper of a track:
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Great vids dude, you are a man after my own heart. Although each tuning is limiting to the extent that it ties you in to one, or maybe two keys, each has it own unique sound that just can't quite be recreated in standard. And the more you use different tunings the easier it becomes to retune quickly.
I don't mean to brag about how (as I've mentioned before) there's a lot of guitars around at house - anyway none of them are expensive and I live with two other guitar players (my Dad and my brother) so I can get a few guitars into different tunings for when you come round. It's fun to jam with guitars tuned differently too - for example a guitar in standard backing a g tuned guitar, maybe playing slide. I like slide, but like you I've never put any real time into it. I've only ever learned two tunes properly (both Fahey) and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten them both.
I recorded something in open C today, as part of my new policy of not being too self-conscious to sing, despite my weak voice. It's an old spiritual I got from Blind Willie Mctell - by which I mean the melody, I can't play the guitar part that he does!
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Wow, fucking amazing - uncompromisingly harsh but beautiful, like a rugged mountain-scape. Puts me in mind of this Hobart Smith recording from '59, in terms of a kind of tightly controlled wildness.
http://research.culturalequity.org/rc-b2/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=5845
What Smith is doing is much simpler and less sophisticated in many ways of course, but the music just gives me the same kinds of feelings. -
Nice stuff Meta - I'm pretty darn self conscious about my singing ability as well (or more accurately lack of) although I can do reasonably okay-ish depending on the song, if push comes to shove. Main part I find incredibly difficult is keeping strum / picking time whilst singing, it's nigh on impossible for me. In fact scratch that, if we're just talking bashing away at chords strumming then yeah, is pretty easy, but any kind of fingerstyle playing whilst singing, nah, nightmare.
Feeling like I'm making some progress in my playing and *shock* actually got told I sounded alright by a mate, without prompting him. Was quite happy, although granted he was pretty high at the time. Still, progress! I may get a video up at some point just to show some solidarity
Krs your vid reminded me of oosanbashi from pop'n. I'd link it but it'd dirty the thread. -
Singing while picking is definitely a hurdle I remember having to overcome. But after the old muscle memory really takes hold in terms of picking it starts to seem as natural as strumming, then then it's just as easy to sing while picking as while strumming. As always, these things come with just spending time playing (I never really think of it as practicing).
How long have you been playing for Nick? On the musicians thread I asked Tempy the same thing, and that prompted me to think about how long it's been since I played my first chord, which I remember was A major, shown to me by my younger brother on his nylon string he was learning classical on at school (he switched to rock pretty quickly and got electric guitar lessons). I know my parents bought me my first steel string acoustic for my sixteenth birthday so I guess I started at fifteen. I'm thirty four now now so that makes it... nineteen years! Bloody hell. I don't feel old enough to have had a hobby for so long. -
Been playing since I was about 20 I think, some time when I was at uni in the... second year? Memory fades. I'm 30 now. First chord was probably a G major, was learning some Dylan (haha, oh god students). Wish I'd started a lot earlier, I kinda stopped playing for 5 years or so when I moved to London at the end of 05, had to leave all my mates, moved into a box room and just kind of immersed myself in my new job. It's only really been since January that I've been back playing every day. Feels like I'm making progress and getting better for the first time since uni.
Just ducked into the main musicians thread btw and saw the rest of your vids, don't think I was quite encouraging enough in my last post, your singing is pretty darn good man and the playing was great, much better than I can do I assure you! I usually just do some humming / crazy bluesman scat over what I'm playing if I feel like it needs lyrics, although I don't play other peoples stuff that much really, usually like to noodle with my own bits and pieces, find a simple thing I like, work on it, embellish it etc. That's not to say I don't like playing stuff I like by other people, but on the whole I just mess around with either a blues thing or some picking over a chord with a walking bass or something (well, trying to get the walking bass down better anyway). "do your thing", as they say -
Thanks for the kind words about my singing. I know I'm no Jeff Buckely but recently I've been thinking that I've been singing to myself for years and years, and I must like the sound of my own voice to keep on doing that that, so it's not inconceivable that others might think I sound alright too. I think I have a Thurston Moore type voice - very limited range and very rough, but in-tune and musical all the same. I'm more than happy to settle for that.
As for guitar playing, I reckon all I have over you is cumulative hours with the instrument. There's nothing more to it than muscle memory and practice. And as I said, the more comfortable you get with instrument the easier it will be to sing while playing if that's what you want to do.
I'm glad to say that my new banjo tuner arrived in the post today so I should be up and running banjo-wise by this Saturday. It sounds like we have very similar interests in terms of musical styles so I reckon it should be a great jam. I'm looking forward to showing you your first banjo lick! -
And it is fixed!
As it turns out I was sent a geared fifth string tuner rather than a planetary tuner, but as the bit I needed (ie. the plastic bit that you turn) is identical it didn't matter. Sure did take some elbow-grease to get the part off that I needed, but with some pliers and some help from my Dad I managed to sort it. Strung it all back up and played 'Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine' (AKA 'General Sherman's March to the Sea') in celebration, which does have an appropriately celebratory sound to it. I was going to post it on youtube, but it's too late to play it with the volume and gusto it deserves as people are in bed now. I'll stick it up tomorrow.
So Nick, if it's still good for you I am on it like a car bonnet to jam this coming Saturday. Yossarian, you are more than welcome too, naturally. -
This Saturday could work for me. We do have Londonstock on the Friday so there's a good chance I'll be hungover on Saturday, but yourself and Nick are both welcome to join for the drinks on Friday and the hangover the following day... -
Sounds good too me - I have a cheeky concoction that'd take the edge right off even the most vicious hangover. I am referring to Dickie's Downer of course, Yoss. On the other hand we could just get right to the hair of the dog that bites us, in true bluesman style. Either way I'm down. Nick?
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awesome, yeah should be good for Sat (will be around Soho Friday too so will try to catch up with the stock-ers). The lady friend is back from her hols this week also so that could potentially throw a spanner in the works, but she's used to being disappointed after many years with me so I think I can wrangle some banj'r time. Will get back to you over email for the deets.
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Cool man, no odds to me if you need to push it back another weekend to keep yourself out of the doghouse - my weekends are all free for for the foreseeable.
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Ok still a bit up in the air at the moment with the missus, she's being all, "I really don't care, if you want to go play banjo you go play banjo it's fine" when she clearly cares and it's not all fine. Pfft, I should take this to the love thread really but what's the point.
ANYWAY, if I can navigate my way around that little pitfall I'll let you know. Sunday should be free fo realz if that's on the cards, missus is busy on Sunday.
Unrelated - fingernails. Where do you guys stand on them? I fucking hate having long fingernails at all and keep mine very, very short. However, I've let my right hand nails grow a little and they're at the point where they just grace the strings when I'm playing, giving a really nice sound on the nylon strings. Tempted to keep them but hate looking and feeling like a grebby bastard and / or coke dealer. Dilemmas. -
So I got round to recording something just to give an idea of where I'm at - it's pretty rough, just recorded with my phone on my knee whilst playing. Guitar probably isn't all that in tune, and I mess around and fuck up plenty, but I quite like the sound I'm getting. Is an instrumental cover of Splash 1 by the Elevators.
https://soundcloud.com/#tumbleweed-6/splash-1-instrumental-cover -
Weren't you supposed to be joining us for a drink, nuhmuhduh?
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Still in work mate! Where abouts are ye? In fact I'll text, probably easier.
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Nick, that link doesn't work, but I found your tune - the link should be:
https://soundcloud.com/tumbleweed-6/splash-1-instrumental-cover
A '#' crept into your link before 'tumbleweed' somehow - they'll do that, sneaky bastards.
Sounds great mate, I think you've been too modest in what you've said about your playing here, you can really pick yourself some guitar! I love the sound of nylon strings - unfortunately none of the guitars in my house my have nylons, although there's the uke's of course. I was at a house party a few months ago and there were three guitars around that people where playing in the kitchen - one had nylons but nobody apart from me seemed to want to play it, even though it was much nicer than one of the steel stringed guitars, which had awful action. I had great fun with it, the wider fret boards classical guitars tend to have is cool, and they sound really different in a really nice way. People are funny.
As for fingernails, I definitely see it as part of my sound that they contact the strings, so I keep them long enough on my right hand for that. Playing clawhammer banjo makes that doubly important - but if you're going to go for bluegrass you'll be using finger picks so it won't matter to you.
I keep my nails no longer than absolutely necessary though, as that can get pretty gross as you say. Also I find that if they're too long they catch or scrape on the strings and throw off my timing. Particularly my thumbnail, I'm always having to shave bits off to keep it from catching on the bass strings, but if it's too short the bass notes are much softer than the treble which is unsatisfying to me
On my left hand I keep them super-short so they don't touch the fret board. When they find my mangled body with no ID the detectives will deduce that I'm a guitar player by the difference in nail length between my hands. -
Cheers Scrawl! Really appreciate the feedback, never really played for anyone except my housemate and my missus and they say fuck all, so hearing a fellow picker saying I'm not entirely shite is fantastic. Plenty of room for improvement but I at last feel like my thumb can keep some sort of bass rhythm by itself without being told what to do. I'll try to put up some more bluesy stuff at some point this week.
It's been so long since I played a steel string acoustic now that whenever I see one the frets always seem tiny, kinda worried I won't be able to play on them at this point but I worry too much about things in general so I'm sure it's nothing. Look forward to trying one out again, been so long, may even nip down to Denmark st some lunch time just to try some expensive ones out, and why not!
And as for fingernails, I guess it's something I'll have to live with. I used to keep both hands very short but the trade off for having even slightly longer nails on the right is great, in terms of sound from the strings. -
^ My pleasure! I'm sure you'll have no trouble with the smaller frets, you probably won't even notice after you get into it.
Dd you do alternating base picking at all? What some people call Travis picking (although Mississippi John Hurt among many others were doing it decades before Merle Travis). It's my favourite way to pick, because once you have the knack for it you never need to worry about what your thumb's doing, it unfailingly alternates between the sixth and forth or fifth and forth strings on every downbeat. It creates and impression of separate base and treble parts and makes things sound much more complicated than they are. My problem is I have to concentrate to not do it sometimes because it's such a default with me, which can be quite limiting. But it sure is fun. Case in point:
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Aye I'm sure I'm making a fuss over nothing with small-fret worry, I used to have a steel string guitar, in fact my first ever guitar was a shitty £80 acoustic. Some bell end broke one of the machine heads off at uni though and I couldn't be arsed repairing it so gave it to a mate who wanted to start playing several years ago as a fixer-uper. I'm sure I'll get right back in when I get my hands on another.
For picking I usually just try to do whatever sounds best for the song, wanky as that probably sounds. Sometimes that's alternating bass picking (do that on my Blowin' in the Wind, I think) whilst other times it's just kinda half picking the bass note, half strumming. I've certainly found as recently as the last couple of weeks though that my thumb is far more independent than it was, like yourself in fact I sometimes have to make a conscious effort not to pick how I do for most songs. Need to expand my pickin' pattern repertoir, in short.
Also, I'm in love with this girl:
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@Scrawl - just realised I said nothing of your fine fingerpicking, again! Please don't think I'm being a cunt, am just absent minded at times. Anyway, good stuff yet again, you seem to have that alternate picking pretty much mastered. Is that open G you're playing in? If not what kind of tuning is it? I stay pretty much exclusively around the first 3 frets when pickin' at the moment (not counting capo use obv) so seeing you move up and down the board is reminding me I've some way to go yet.
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You've said very nice things about my guitar playing in general, and that generally includes picking of some kind so don't worry about it. You've given me nothing praise in fact, so how could I thing you're being a cunt?
Yes, open G. It's much easier to get up the fret board in open tunings because you generally only need to fret two or three strings at a time. All those chords up the neck I'm doing in that last vid are just fretting the forth and fifth on the same fret. However, there's a really nice way to play in E major in standard tuning with chords that go up the neck while leaving the top two stings open rather than barring them, and I do that quite a lot, as it gives an open tuning feeling while in standard tuning. I'll show you when you come round (this weekend?).
Yeah, alternating base certainly isn't suitable for every song, and I do try not to do it as much as possible, because as I said, it's become so ingrained with me. Sometimes I find myself instinctively dropping my thumb to the forth string only to find a bum (or at least unwanted) note there, which is annoying. It's a great pattern to have in your arsenal, but unless you only want to play John Hurt style country blues and Merle Travis songs (which I don't think is the case for either of us) you have to have others.
Great video by the way, she's cool. -
Tom McManamon RIP
Barney McKenna - the maestro. When the music starts to speed up he doesn't look like he his moving his fingers any faster - alchemy at work. I saw him live once and he was accompanying himself at one point - it was fucking amazing.
Holding the wrong end of the stick since 2009. -
Great stuff Davy, I think I easily forget that the banjo doesn't begin and end with bluegrass, I imagine there's a wealth of Irish banj'r to get into. The start of that first track reminds me of the Rubber Bandit's He's in the Ra. Any more of that (or just general Irish recommendations) appreciated.
Scrawl - got your email mate, will get back to you, been mad busy here too.
Can't get enough of this at the moment, not least because of the awesome face he's pulling as the clip starts... now there's a man enjoying what he's playing!:
That first tune, daym, infectious. Been trying to get a good rhythm down on that E shuffle he's doing for the last few days but shit's not as easy as he makes it look. Easy enough to do, but to do well, aye there's the rub.
Also back listening to a lot of Lead Belly, he's one of the few guys I always revolve back to after a few months. Current favourite jam of his is Matchbox Blues, first track on this:
...and finally, for some non-famous person jams, I came across this looking for a good cover of Lead Belly's version of Poor Howard and got addicted to watching it, guy's got a serious stomp going:
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Got myself a uke over Xmas, now tempted to wear a suit and slick my hair in a side parting as well.
@gonzo you play the uke, right? What kinda shit you up to? I could use a few pointers. I've almost got the split-stroke down but the triple is a mystery to me. Being from Blackpool I feel it my duty to learn this instrument properly. Hit me up if you fancy a jam. Same goes for anyone else London-ways with a uke.
'ere, check this - -
Ah the double (split)'s pretty (reasonably)pish now, although granted I'm just fucking about with a g7, c, f progression, quite lazy at learning new stuff. The left hand is always the easy part in fingerstyle stuff; it's the right hand that does all the hard stuff.
Have been grinding the guitar hard for the last year so having to relearn chords on a new instrument is a ball ache, but I should put the effort in. Good news is that my guitar playing has come along pretty well, although I've always had an unauthodox style. I'll hit you up in a pm with my email anyway and aye do chuck any links youve got over. If you let me know what kind of guitar stuff you're interested in I could maybe return the favour and link you with some handy resources / pointers, that's assuming I have any knowledge you dont already know, which is somewhat of a large assumption.
Am busy as a cunt atm but we should jam at some point, although I said that to Scrawl for best part of 6 months and always flaked out, so be prepared to be let down
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Been loving this since seeing it on TV last week:
That's a nylon he's playing on, right?
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