My string gauge see-saw: in search of 1,000 lb. tone.

Back in 1994 I wrote my first grad school paper on the pioneering 1920s jazz guitarist Eddie Lang, and I really went to town on the research.  I interviewed several record collectors and Lang enthusiasts in person, scoured the libraries for any material that I could find, and at one point even restrung my long-suffering Yamaha acoustic with Lang's favored gauges, .015, .018, .030, .036, .048 and .075.  This was an extremely heavy set of strings, a far cry from my usual acoustic gauges, starting at .013.  This set of strings used a wound second string (!) and a bass string for the low E. I've never forgotten the robust rumble that emanated from that plywood box for those few weeks, though. Lang used heavy strings to get more volume from his acoustic L-5, his only chance to be heard over the din of the dance bands that he regularly played with. It's reputed that Gibson supplied him with new guitars every couple of years because of the increased tension of those draconian strings, and I don't doubt it. But there was something in that tone for which I'll always pine.

Stevie Ray Vaughan certainly understood the value of a stout set of wires.  .013, .015, .019 (unwound), .028, .038 and .058 were his usual poison, though he experimented with a .018 to .075 set at one point.  He certainly had a huge tone, thanks in no small part to his giant strings and his penchant for tuning down a half step. I've strung up a few Strats with heavies in my time in short-lived attempts to get Stevie's Texas-sized tone, but always slunk back to my mainstay .010-.046 sets. To play strings of that tension and thickness on a regular basis required a commitment that I was not ready to make. I keep my Epiphone archtop strung with .013-.058 flatwounds, but let's face it, bending strings more than a half-step in jazz is basically illegal. Acoustic guitar - the same.  But on the solidbody electrics, it's .010 all the way.

In the other direction, I used .009s and even .008s for a time when I was young and dumb.  Even in the fog of adolescence I knew that my tone was mealy-mouthed, though. Thus the compromise of string gauges. Lighter gauges are easier to press down, bend and pick but heavier gauges have the sturdy tone that can't be simulated with electronics. As I love to say, physics doesn't lie. A thicker string sends a stronger signal to the pickups and thus begins a toneful journey through the signal chain, just as Lang's heavy gauges drove the arched top of his L-5 in the pre-electric days.

Counterfeit guitar buyers: duped or knowing?

 For a few years now, Gibson has been waging a legal and PR campaign against counterfeit guitars being manufactured and sold out of China.  An article on the Gibson website in 2007 aroused much interest and commentary, and a followup on the arrest of counterfeiter Li Dan and her mother has similarly spawned a flurry of righteous indignation in the comments on the articles, many of them semi-literate and a few of them even racist. If you can get through the patriotic rhetoric and serial comma abuse, have a look through the comments on both articles. One commenter goes so far as to accuse Gibson of secretly manufacturing 90% of their "USA-made" guitars in China through a Gibson-China backroom agreement.

Gibson offers helpful suggestions on how to discern a real Gibson from a fake and suggests that prospective customers buy only from authorized Gibson dealers. They and others, like George Gruhn, offer that if an online guitar price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

 In spite of these efforts, DHGate.com and TradeTang.com continue to operate, selling badly copied Les Pauls with Gibson logos for around $200-$300 USD. Ibanez, Fender and Gretsch guitars are also common targets. Ed Roman reports that Mosrites, especially the Ventures model, have been heavily counterfeited for years. Cheap Chinese labor and computer-assisting manufacturing make the mass counterfeiting of guitars possible, along with the widespread popularity of Ebay and the willingness of many to buy guitars through the mail.

My own experience with counterfeit guitars has taken place not in the Chinglish-laden precincts of fake-guitar cyberspace, but in local vintage guitar boutiques around Toronto. Nash Guitars makes strikingly accurate copies of vintage Fenders, even copying the now-popular 'relic' process of finish wear and hardware rust. The Strats and Teles that I saw at Capsule Music even had Fender decals on the headstocks. While these were not claimed as vintage Fenders in the store, they certainly could be claimed as such to fellow musicians, friends and curious onlookers once the guitar was purchased.  About ten years ago I saw beautiful copies of sunburst Les Pauls, complete with inlaid Gibson logo, being manufactured and sold out of the now-defunct Guitar Clinic in Hamilton, Ontario. Again, these were not being sold explicitly as Gibsons (and they were not cheap, selling in the $1500-$2000 range) but the buyer for all appearances was the proud owner of a '59 Les Paul.

What seems to be missing from the discourse around fake guitars is the realization that many buyers KNOW that they are buying a counterfeit. For these buyers, a name brand represents bragging rights and credibility more than build quality or tone. If the prestige of a Gibson can be purchased for a fraction of the price of an authentic Gibson guitar, all the better. Women who buy knockoff Gucci bags on the streets of New York City know that they are knockoffs, but they won't necessarily correct their friends when they ooh and aah. The fact is that owning a prestigious guitar bestows a certain aura on the owner - to other musicians, it can give a guitarist a certain legitimacy. I have certainly experienced peer pressure to own 'cool gear'. So I understand the desire on the part of some buyers to take part in the aura of expensive instruments for a cheaper price, and that is why counterfeiting will never be completely eradicated by 'educating' the buyer.

Interview: Matt Beck of Matchbox 20, Rod Stewart and Lisa Loeb

Matt Beck is one of the busiest sidemen around, backing up the likes of Matchbox 20, Lisa Loeb, Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas (for whom he also serves as musical director) and Rod Stewart.  In addition to keyboards, mandolin, banjo, lap steel, dobro, bass, cavaquinho and vocals, Matt plays a mean guitar upside down and left-handed.  Beach Boys guitarist Scott Totten (interviewed at Gitbox Culture here) hipped me to Matt's unusual approach after reading my recent blog post about the upside-down lefties Gurrumul, Albert King and Elizabeth Cotten.  Matt generously answered my questions via email.

How is that you started to play upside-down? Were there other guitar players around when you first started? Do you remember the moment that you realized that you were playing in the 'wrong' way?

I started playing that way because I started playing piano at an early age and there happened to be a guitar in the house. I never thought anything about it much until I discovered I liked playing the guitar more than piano. By the time I realized I was playing it backwards (and upside-down), I thought about switching the strings to the normal way, but was already used to my style so I just stuck with it. I think someone who played guitar actually saw me playing once and said "you know you're doing it the wrong way". I didn't care because I was just having fun with it so it didn't matter to me if it was "right" or "wrong".

What are the advantages and disadvantages of playing this way?

The advantages are that everything sounds slightly unique. Whether it's a strumming thing or a finger-picking thing, it sounds different. I can play some chords that are really difficult or impossible for righties to play too. Also, bending is easier as I bend notes down toward the floor so the hand motion is easier because I'm like pulling my fingers into a fist as opposed to bending my finger tips away from my palm. It's an easier motion and I have more control doing that way. The disadvantages are that certain things are harder for me to play. It's harder for me to play really high on the guitar as I have to bring my hand all the way up and over the strings to reach those notes. I'm used to doing it but technically it's harder for me than doing it the normal way. Also, voicings and riffs that use the lower strings "open" or as drones can be harder too.

You mention in your bio that by the time you realized that you were playing upside-down you had already come up with some unique voicings. Can you elaborate on this for the guitarists out there?

Yes, after a while I learned to exploit my upside-down technique to do things that laid easier on the neck for me. I found some chords that only I could play. I found that if I work along the diagonal of the neck that goes from the highest note on the low E string to the lowest note on the high E string, that I could play some chords that are difficult (or impossible) to play with the strings the normal way. Here are a couple:

Bsus13 = 0
                2
                2
                6
                2
                x

Fdim =  x
             3
             4
             6
             x
             1

There are a lot of others too that just lay easy for me so I gravitate towards them more than some normal voicings you might hear from a regular strung guitar.

Do you feel that you are part of a lefty guitarist community in any way? If so, how does this community manifest itself?

I feel a part of the community a little bit from time to time. I was contacted a few years back by an author by the name of John Engel. He was putting together a book about left-handed guitarists. He really did a thorough job of interviewing a ton of lefty guitarists. He even split everyone up into 3 sections (lefties who play normal, lefties who play righty-strung and lefties who play right-handed). A wonderful read if you're into lefty guitarists.

Has being a lefty presented any problems for finding guitars?

Ha! Well the good news is I can walk into any store and play any righty guitar. A lot of the guitars I own are actually rightys that I just flip over. Usually symmetrical body shapes like 335s and SGs and non-cutaway acoustics. When I DO desire a lefty body though, I'm in the same boat as lefties who play lefty-strung. I wind up paying on average 15% more and they're harder to come by. I also have to have the nut switched around to a righty nut and recompensate the bridge if its angled.

How did the Matchbox 20 and Lisa Loeb gigs come about?

I'd been gigging around NYC for a while and wound up doing a bunch of gigs with Lisa Loeb's bassist Joe Quigley. He thought I'd be a good fit for Lisa's upcoming tour at the time and he recommended me for the gig. After doing Lisa's gig for a while I wound up meeting a couple of the guys from Matchbox 20. Actually, the other guitar player in Lisa's band at the time was Dweezil Zappa and Dweezil's sister Moon Unit was married to Paul Doucette of Matchbox at the time so I wound up meeting the Matchbox guys that way and eventually was asked to join them for their upcoming tour at the time. That was 8 years ago and I'm still around with them to this day! It's a good fit.

Can you describe your role as music director for Rob Thomas? What are some of your duties and responsibilities?

Yes, my duties as Rob Thomas' musical director are basically to be responsible that the music being played every night is up to snuff. That basically entails making sure that everyone is playing the right parts with the right sounds. I'm also called upon to help with live arrangements and setlists and hiring of musicians too.

You played in the bands for Tommy and Rent.  How did those jobs compare to your present work with Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas and Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories?

Well, those were basically Broadway show gigs and those are different than recording artist/band gigs. Broadway gigs have the main focus on the cast on stage. So the bands role is to support them in the best way possible. It's not just the music that has to get across, but the whole story line and plot. With bands, the focal point is the song. How can we get this song across in the best way possible in a live situation?

What kind of gear do you bring on the road?

Tough to give you an answer there as each tour is vastly unique from the next. Usually for band tours I will bring 1 (sometimes 2) amps, many guitars and usually a fairly big pedal board to achieve all the tones needed to recreate the songs.

What kind of music do you make on your own time?

I describe my music as powerpop/rock with singer/songwriter leanings :-) You can get my recording "Anything Which Gives You Pleasure" on iTunes or CDBaby.

Any career highlights that you'd like to report?

I spent all of 2007 in Rod Stewart's band. I don't think it get's much bigger than that. :-) He's a living icon! Right now I'm working with Bono and Edge on their forthcoming Spider Man show too. That's been quite a thrill as well. I definitely don't want to downplay my work with Matchbox 20 and Rob Thomas though as those two projects are the closest to my heart. It's just hard not to get a little gushy when you get to work with the idols you grew up on.

Thanks very much to Matt Beck for taking the time to answer my questions.

Interview: David Barrett

David Barrett has played with such diverse acts as Platinum Blonde and Amanda Marshall and has carved out a niche on the web with a series of popular YouTube clips. As well as self-producing a series of solo guitar albums, including The Atomsmasher's Noisy Trade and Music For Acoustic Guitar, David holds the position of Director of Special Events with Fingerstyleguitar.ca, and is a faculty member of League Of Rock (a Toronto-based 'rock school' for amateur musicians). David has composed music for film, and was also commissioned to create music for The Tube, a US music television network. Currently, David is conducting guitar workshops and playing solo concerts in Canada.  He kindly agreed to answer a few questions via email.

You have posted quite a few striking videos of your playing on YouTube and have generated some strong interest.  How did you get into doing this, and how has the experience been for you?

At some point I think I had posted about 80 videos. Everything from older footage of rock stuff, to newer content I created just for YouTube, being either performance or educational material. I took about half of it down to try and manage some quality control, I didn’t want to just post anything.
Basically after playing rock guitar and recording and touring for 20 years I came to the realization that I had become a pop guitar player and was relying on singers as a foundation for my musical work, even though I had hours of recorded guitar music at home that no one had ever heard. I decided I was only going to play guitar music and YouTube was an easy and obvious choice to get my material out there and try some things that were initially way outside of my comfort zone. I wanted to get really specific and do things that I wasn’t seeing much of, like talk with Steve Howe for an hour and cover topics outside but not unrelated to guitar. Or I’d post a mini movie shot by photographer Edward Pond featuring an hours worth of soundscapes. Where else could I post this stuff and have an audience?!



What's your sense of the YouTube guitar community? Anything about it that surprised you at first?

Yes, what surprised me most was how many guitar players and fans there are out there that have interests outside the mainstream. Something like YouTube comes along and provides an outlet for content that a lot of music fans crave. In the last decade, if you’d see an interview on TV or in print it was usually reduced to a sound bite, and more recently popular music is being reduced to a ring tone. On YouTube you can post anything, so I tried to give really in-depth stuff, and people seem to respond. I can get feedback from YouTube every day, a lot of positive comments, as well as guitar questions. Out of every 100,000 views I might get only one or two really terrible comments, so it’s really cool.

What guitars and amps do you use most?

For electric guitar, I only play my 1968 Gibson ES175D; I’ve had it since 1982.  I use my Gibson Console a lot in the studio too, it’s a twin neck 8 string from 1956. For acoustics which I use all the time, there’s my Takamine C134S classical, Gibson Hummingbird, Gibson B25 12 string, Alhambra 12 string laud, Trinity College mandolin, and a Regal resophonic guitar.
I’ve been using a pair of Fender Champs for years. They’re the Champ II models designed by Paul Rivera 30 years ago, I’ve got Celestions in both. I like my Pignose too. I’m a big fan of Line 6 and Roland for direct.

Effects?

Line 6 M13 and Boss ME 50, nothing else except an Ernie Ball volume pedal, all the vintage stuff is long gone!

You're involved with Fingerstyleguitar.ca - what kind of work do you do with them?

Initially I helped Randy Finney out a lot in the early days when he started it back in 2005. I ran open stages, created podcasts, and produced a compilation CD for the association that featured Toronto area guitar players. I was also able to consult on certain logistics of touring and technical support, and refer Randy to some friends that have backgrounds in design, photography, media and sound engineering. Fingerstyleguitar.ca has become a hub in Canada to promote mostly international guitarists. Randy is able to bring the biggest names in guitar to Canada for some very successful single concerts and tours. There is less emphasis on the local scene, but that’s fine with me, I prefer that it has grown - it’s up to someone else at this point to keep the local thing going.

Have you noticed any changes in guitar trends over the course of your career?

Yes, and it’s a big one. There isn’t really any guitar on the radio, not like there used to be. Guitar has become popular with Rock Band and Guitar Hero and there is still a huge interest in other areas of guitar. But, the demand for good guitar intros and solos in pop music just isn’t there, so there is less work. A lot of good recording engineers can play guitar well enough for what is required in some pop music, so I’d say why bother to call a guitar player for a session?

The goal for me is to create a brand or franchise for my own music. Playing the music of other people has never been very satisfying for me, but I appreciate others who do it well.

Any career highlights that you'd like to share?

Jamming "Xanadu" with Alex Lifeson in his basement!

Thanks to David Barrett for taking the time to answer my questions. Check out David's website for more information.

The upside-down lefty: lonely and listening.

I just became aware this week of Gurrumul, a blind aboriginal singer from Australia who is touring the US in June and July.

Growing up on a remote island, isolated from the larger society, Gurrumul learned to play on a right-handed guitar without turning the strings around. While this way of playing is rare, it is not unheard of, though less frequently today, with the ready availability of guitars worldwide.  Gurrumul's playing style is a gentle fingerpick, though with a less regimented pattern than American folk fingerpicking.

I can only think of two guitarists that I've seen that play 'upside-down' lefty - Elizabeth Cotten and Albert King.  Albert King is best known as a sixties/seventies urban bluesman, playing highly expressive, bent-string-laden blues licks, but pulling down the thin strings, which are at the top of the neck:



There's a close up of King's hands at 1:07, and I have to say that it's strange to watch, as someone who's been intently watching people play guitar in the regular way for 28 years.  Even odder to watch, for me, is Elizabeth Cotten, who played a version of Travis picking upside-down, with the thumb playing the melody and the fingers playing alternating bass notes.


I'm not sure why Albert King played the way he did, but Elizabeth Cotten learned to play on a guitar borrowed from her brother, and she was not allowed to rearrange the strings.  I would guess that Gurrumul was borrowing the guitar from a family member, or perhaps the guitar was just around and nobody knew to 'correct' the strings. Cultural isolation cuts off this kind of information, which can sometimes fuel innovation.  Jeff Healey, another blind guitarist who played in an unusual way, said that nobody corrected him when he began to play the guitar overhand on his lap as a child.

Was upside-down left-handed playing more prevalent in the past, when communities were more isolated and guitars were less common? I really don't know, though I'd like to. I can't say that I've personally known anyone who played that way.  I, like Jeff, started playing guitar lap-style, because it was easier to see what I was doing.  My first guitar lesson took care of that.  Did guitar lessons kill this particular mutation of guitar culture?

I think that in the cases of Gurrumul, Elizabeth Cotten, and Jeff Healey, playing 'the wrong way' came mostly out of social isolation. For Gurrumul and Jeff, I would speculate that it was blindness that set them outside of the larger guitar community.  So much of guitar knowledge is traded through the eyes - look at the YouTube guitar community.  For Elizabeth Cotten, it was being a young African-American woman at the turn of the century - there were strictures on the behaviour of young black women at that time that would have limited Elizabeth's inclusion in the local musical discourse.

This is not to say that these musicians were isolated from oral and aural culture.  Gurrumul's favorite band is Dire Straits. Albert King must have grown up with blues recordings to study, based on his sure knowledge of the conventions of blues improvisation and stage performance.  I'm not sure how many recordings Elizabeth Cotten was exposed to growing up, but her playing style is very much a piece with southern musicians who recorded in the 1920s, including Mississippi John Hurt, Bayless Rose and Geeshie Wiley.

An unusual technique can put a fresh spin on traditional styles like blues, folk and Australian aboriginal.  All of the musicians that I've mentioned here play in traditional styles but have something different - a strange turn of phrase, an oddly quick string bend - that give them a distinctive musical identity.  I submit that their 'wrong' ways of playing, borne of social isolation, form a large part of what makes these musicians distinctive and intriguing in their own ways.

Article first published as Gurrumul: the Upside-down Lefty, Lonely, Listening. on Technorati.

Big Country, Jimi and "secret gadgets".

Back in 1983 when "In A Big Country" by the Scottish band Big Country became a pop (and more importantly for me at the time, video) hit, I was in Grade 9.  I had a little group of guitar-playing friends and we would exchange licks and knowledge about the world of guitars, amps and pedals.  The scuttlebutt was that Big Country owned rare and coveted pedals (I remember a "Japanese distortion pedal" being mooted) that allowed them to achieve their trademark 'bagpipe' sound.

What was the source of the bagpipe tone? We're still speculating, it seems. According to this blog, they were using the MXR M-129 Pitch Transposer, a rackmounted device.  It certainly is rare.
 Another guitar gadget of legend was Jimi Hendrix's "secret switch", which I heard bandied about for a few years. It's now claimed that this switch really did exist, possibly installed by Dan Armstrong.  A Hendrix guitar with the switch, has, in any case, never been found.

The velvet icepick: favorite Telecaster moments.

I was watching this YouTube of Merle Haggard singing "Branded Man" when out of nowhere at 1:43 into the track, a burst of beautiful Telecaster licks appeared.  I had forgotten they were there, so it was a nice surprise.


It got me thinking about some of my favorite Tele moments - the recordings that made me love the Tele.  I've played a Tele for about twelve years now.  I think that I've become a 'Tele player' in the process - I tend to play things on it that the guitar seems to want to do.  I think that the Tele has a clear, human voice, and that is part of what makes it a less forgiving guitar than say a Strat or a Les Paul.  Danny Gatton, Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan are three guitarists who have been strongly associated with the Telecaster. All three were masters of the trademark Tele tone - searing, trebly attack and gain, usually bathed in spring reverb.  Danny Gatton especially mastered the various tricks that play on the architecture of the Tele - behind-the-nut bends and the like.


Mike Bloomfield was associated with the 1959 Les Paul guitar in his later work with Paul Butterfield and the Electric Flag, but on his New York sessions with Bob Dylan in 1965, it was a Telecaster all the way.  Al Kooper recounts the story of his first meeting with Bloomfield at the "Like A Rolling Stone" session in '65, where Bloomfield apparently comes in to the studio carrying a Tele without a case, and knocking it against the wall to get the snow off.  It's a great story, but since the "Like A Rolling Stone" sessions took place on June 15 and 16, 1965, I can't see how snowy it could have been.  But no matter.  The guitar breaks in "Tombstone Blues" are my favorite Bloomfield bits on Highway 61 Revisited.
Hear here.

Dylan's other lead player of the sixties, Robbie Robertson, is another guitarist who is not necessarily connected to the Tele in the public imagination because he didn't use one in The Last Waltz.  But in early sessions with Dylan and on the road in 1966, Leo Fender's primordial plank was the go-to.  Here's a YouTube of Robbie's Tele reverberating off the walls of some old English music hall in Eat The Document, D.A. Pennebaker's documentary of Dylan's '66 UK tour.

Some others are more obvious.  Albert Collins? Even David Letterman calls him the "Master of the Telecaster":



This live video of Ricky Skaggs performing "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'" was on high rotation on the country music video channel when I was an idle youth.  Ray Flacke's solo at 1:29 is astounding.


 But the true "Master of the Telecaster" in my heart will always be Roy Buchanan, a guitarist's guitarist who not only is inextricably associated with the Tele, but with one specific Tele, a butterscotch beauty from 1952: