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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN The River

PATTY GRIFFIN Go Wherever You Wanna Go

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features

38 21 Tips for Better Accompaniment

Learn to make your solo guitar parts more distinctive and

deepen the impact of your songs. By Jeff rey Pepper Rodgers

46 Patty Griffi nAfter digging into gospel and touring with Robert Plants

Band of Joy, the singer-songwriter returns with the

all-original American Kid. By Derk Richardson

56 Michael GurianFrom his days as a luthier in the 1960s and 70s to running

a successful parts factory, Michael Gurian has had a long

and in uential life in the guitar trade. By Orville Johnson

songs to play

12 The River Bruce Springsteen

53 Go Wherever You Wanna GoPatty Griffi n

70 Behind Blue Eyes The Who

74 Wayfaring StrangerTraditional, arr. by Al Petteway

departments

14 PRIVATE LESSON Traditional Folk Song Accompaniment:

Jefferson Hamer on the flatpicking and

hybrid-picking styles he uses to accompany

folk ballads. By Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

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28 PLAYER SPOTLIGHT Aoife ODonovan: The voice of Crooked Still

and the Goat Rodeo Sessions steps out solo.

By Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

30 SONGCRAFT Painting Pictures: Ellis Paul shares tips and

exercises that can help you sharpen your lyrics.


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minor, dominant, and other seventh chords.

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64 PLAYLIST

66 WEEKLY WORKOUT Ascending and Descending Slurs:

These hammer-on and pull-off exercises

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82 GREAT ACOUSTICS1965 Goya T-18. By Teja Gerken

AcousticGuitar.com 7October 2013 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

in every issue 8 AG Online

10 Music Notation Key 78 Marketplace 80 Ad Index

OCTOBER 2013, ISSUE 250 VOL. 24, NO. 4

= video at AcousticGuitar.com

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8 AcousticGuitar.com ACOUSTIC GUITAR October 2013

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NOTATION

music notation key

Guitar tunings are given from the lowest (sixth) string to the highest (first) string; standard tun-ing is written as E A D G B E. Arrows underneath tuning notes indicate strings that are altered from standard tuning and whether they are tuned up or down.

In standard notation, small symbols next to notes refer to fretting-hand fingers: 1 for the index finger, 2 the middle, 3 the ring, 4 the little finger, and T the thumb. Picking-hand fingering is indicated by i for the index finger, m the middle, a the ring, c the little finger, and p the thumb.

C32 1x 0 0

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Dropped-D Tuning: D A D G B E

02020

1/4 1/4

1/4 1/4

In tablature, the horizontal lines represent the six strings, with the first string on top and the sixth on the bottom. The numbers refer to frets on the given string. Slur markings indicate hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides;

1/2

indicates a bend. The number next to the bend symbol shows how much the bend raises the pitch: for a slight bend, 12 for a half step, 1 for a whole step. Pick and strum direction are shown below the staff (=downstroke, =upstroke), and slashes in the notation and tablature (!) in dicate a strum through the previously played chord.

Chord diagrams show where the fingers go on the fretboard. Frets are shown horizontally. The top horizontal line represents the nut, unless a numeral to the right of the diagram marks a higher position (5 fr. means fifth fret). Strings are shown as vertical lines. The line on the far left represents the sixth (lowest) string, and the line on the far right represents the first (highest) string. Dots show where the fingers go, and thick horizontal lines indicate barres. Num-bers above the diagram are fretting-hand finger numbers. X indicates a string that should be muted or not played; 0 indicates an open string.

Vocal tunes are sometimes written with a fully tabbed-out introduction and a vocal melody with chord diagrams for the rest of the piece. The tab intro is usually your indication of which strum or ngerpicking pattern to use in the rest of the piece. ag

Want to Know More About Acoustic Guitar Notation?

To receive a complete guide to Acoustic Guitar music by mail, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Music Editor, Acoustic Guitar, 501 Canal Blvd., Suite J, Richmond, CA 94804-3505. The complete guide can also be found online at AcousticGuitar.com/notationguide.

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ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

The River

Words and music by Bruce Springsteen

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN first performed the title track of his fifth studio album, The River (1980), a year before its release, at a 1979 No Nukes

benefit in Madison Square Garden. The rhythm part of The River is

held down by a 12-string acoustic guitar, with individual notes of chords

and their embellishments played with a flatpick. Try the flatpicking pat-

tern shown below, which is similar to much of the songs backup. This

pattern is adapted and embellished for each chord and, while you could

use the straight pattern throughout the tune, it will have more of an

organic sound if you vary the strings you pick as you go. This is illus-

trated in the intro figure shown below, right.

While all these patterns translate perfectly

to a six-string guitar, keep in mind that they

wont sound quite the same as they do on a

12-string, because the paired octaves on the

lower four strings can make some notes sound

like theyre played an octave higher than they

really are. When the song builds momentum

in the choruses and later sections, the 12-string

occasionally breaks into full-chord strumming.

Throughout the original recording, youll hear

small chord embellishments, like a walkup

between Em and G chords, a Gsus4 resolving

to G over the word coat in the second verse,

or the Am chords embellished by hammering

on to the first-fret C note of the chord with

your index finger. ANDREW DuBROCK

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Em G 1. I come from down in the valley

D Cadd9 Where, mister, when youre young

Em G C G They bring you up to do like your daddy done

C Me and Mary, we met in high school

G G/F# Em When she was just seventeen

Am G C

Wed ride out of this valley down to where the elds were green

Chorus

Em C D G Wed go down to the river and into the river wed dive

Em C D Cadd9 Oh, down to the river wed ride

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Em G 2. Then I got Mary pregnant

D Cadd9 And, man, that was all she wrote

Em G C G And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat

C We went down to the courthouse

G G/F# Em And the judge put it all to rest

Am No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle

G C

No owers, no wedding dress

Chorus

Em C D G At night we went down to the river and into the river wed dive

Em C D Cadd9 Oh, down to the river we did ride

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012-013.250_AClassic.indd 12 8/6/13 1:10 PM


Harmonica Solo (over verse progression)

Em G D Cadd9 3. I got a job working construction for the Johnstown company

Em G C G But lately there aint been much work on account of the economy

C Now all them things that seemed so important

G G/F# Em Well, mister, they vanished right into the air

Am

Now I just act like I dont remember

G C

And Mary acts like she dont care

Em G 4. But I remember us riding in my brothers car

D Cadd9 Her body tanned and wet, down at the reservoir

Em G At night on them banks Id lie awake

C G And pull her close just to feel each breath shed take

C Now those memories come back to haunt me

G G/F# Em They haunt me like a curse

Am Is the dream a lie if it dont come true

G C

Or is it something worse

Chorus

Em C That sends me down to the river

D G Though I know the river is dry

Em C D Cadd9 It sends me down to the river tonight

Em C D G Down to the river, my baby and I

Em C D Cadd9 Oh, down to the river we ride

Em C D G Em C D Cadd9 Ooh,__ ooh, ooh,__________ (repeat, ad-lib, and fade)

012-013.250_AClassic.indd 13 8/6/13 1:10 PM


PRIVATE LESSON

THE COLLECTION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH folk songs known as the Child Ballads have been cir-

culating for centuries. During the last 50 years,

they have been interpreted and performed by

such artists as Martin Carthy, Fairport Conven-

tion, and Joan Baez. Recently, singer-songwriter

Anas Mitchell (see Player Spotlight, October

2012) teamed up with multi-instrumentalist/

singer Jeff erson Hamer to join this venerable

tradition, releasing the duo album Child Ballads

(Wilderland).

Hamer, who also performs traditional Irish

and American music with Eamon OLeary in the

Murphy Beds, was a natural partner for this bal-

lads project with Mitchell. A gifted guitarist and

singer, Hamer is able to hit close harmonies with

Mitchells high voice and weave gorgeous instru-

mental lines around her fi ngerstyle guitar. Hamer is also steeped in bluegrass and

plays in the roots/country collective Session Americana, and he and Mitchell steer

their Child Ballads gently in the direction of old-time country duets. During a spring

tour stop with Mitchell at upstate New Yorks Hamilton College, Hamer sat down

with his Collings dreadnought to talk about and demonstrate the intricate guitar

work behind the ballads.

Traditional Folk Song

Accompaniment

Jefferson Hamer on the flatpicking and hybrid-picking styles

he uses to accompany folk ballads.


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Given how long the Child Ballads have been

played and adapted, how did you approach

making them your own?

HAMER Well, it all starts with the melodythat dictates the approach I take. With a song

thats more up-tempo, Id probably play with

a fl atpick. For something mid or slower tem-

po, I might use pick-and-fi ngers technique.

And then really you tackle each song one at

a time and fi nd a style that seems to suit it.

Did you tune out other guitarists interpre-

tations of these songs to fi nd your own?

HAMER Thats a great question. In the case of the two songs on this record that came

from Martin CarthyGeordie and Willies

LadyI very much had his versions in mind.

But I didnt just replicate his parts; one, be-

cause I dont know how to play exactly what

he doeshes an amazing guitar player. I

kind of simulated his style on Geordie as

I heard it. I didnt sit there with the Slow

Downer [software] and listen to every little

nuance of his playing, and Im not in the

same tuning he uses on that song. Im in a

C-modal tuning, and I actually got the idea

for that tuning from Nic Jones.

A lot of these melodies are modal and could

be harmonized in so many ways. How did

you decide which chords you use?

HAMER That was one of the joys of working with Anas on the musical side of the arrange-

ments. We spent a lot of time working with

the lyrics, and then after we had a text we

were happy with, the big challenge was, how

do we want to treat the music? We wanted

to keep it fairly simple, because there are

so many words and we wanted to keep the

spotlight on the text. But we did have a few

simple devices. Like in Willies Lady, the

melody is all over an E chord, but its not re-

This lick shows one way that Jefferson Hamer embellishes a midtempo melody, like Clyde Waters, by adding triplets.

Try substituting this variation for the last four measures of Example 5 (p 17), leading in with the quick atpicked triplet in the pickup measure.

LICK OF THE MONTH

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01-01.250_PUiY/ess.indd 1 8/8/13 12:11 PM


B

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See video of the music examples at AcousticGuitar.com

01-01.250_PUiY/ess.indd 15 8/6/13 1:11 PM


PRIVATE LESSON

ally major or minor until I add my vocal har-

monythen it becomes major. I could have

sung a harmony that was minor, or I could

have avoided the third, but I liked that major

third sound, so I did it that way.

Then we added some substitute chords.

The [second] part of that song is over the E,

but you can sing it over the VII chord, the D.

So we would sometimes substitute that VII

chord as a way to interject some excitement

into the arrangement. Theres also the IV: a

lot of that song is IIV.

Listening to the record, its often hard to

tell whos playing what. Your guitar parts,

like your voices, are so closely entwined.

HAMER That was a goal, for sure. Theres very little soloing on the record, where Anas

holds down a rhythm and I take a lead. Most

of the album is two interlocking guitar parts.

What I play in Willies Lady sounds like this

[Example 1].

So that would be one pass through the in-

strumental. If I were playing it solo, without

Anas guitar, I would probably do things a

little diff erently. Shes giving it a drive, so Im

a little freer to fl oat on top.

Youre using your middle fi nger to pick

some of those upper notes, right?

HAMER Yeah. There are a few ways to go at it. One is just a pure fl atpicked approach. Some-

times I like to get some fi nger in there, because

to my ear it creates this clawhammer-banjo

eff ect. You get a little syncopation and a little

more lilt to the rhythm, and also a little more

dynamics in the tone. If every note is picked

with the fl atpick, sometimes, at least in my

own playing, it can sound a little monotone.

If you mix it up with the pick and fi ngers a

little bit, you can get diff erent sounds and

timbres coming from the guitar, and that can

be exciting.

It sounds like youre using a lot of dropped-

D tuning on the record.

HAMER My dropped-D songs are Clyde Wa-ters, Willies Lady, and Sir Patrick Spens.

When we recorded Sir Patrick Spens I did

it in D A D G A D tuning, but now when we

play it live I do it in dropped D. It saves some

time in the tuning. But I will say, the melody

for Sir Patrick Spens, which is one that we

came up with, very much revolved around

the D A D G A D sound. Theres something to

be said for trying a tuning and seeing what

you come up with; it might inspire you me-

lodically in a way that if you were in standard

you wouldnt have gotten to.

Would you share a bit of your part on Sir

Patrick Spens?

HAMER This is a good illustration of the hy-

brid style. I like to play out of dropped D and

capo high up the neck to shrink the scale of

the guitar a bit. I fi nd that dropped D, be-

cause you have these two open drone strings,

helps me get a fuller sound. So if I were going

to play in the key of A, well, obviously I could

use the open A position, or I might capo at

the second fret and play out of G. But doing it

this way [with D shapes, capo on the seventh

fret] gives me a pretty full bass register, and

then I have an octave to work with for the

melody [Example 2].

I try to maintain as much of a bass pulse as

I can. Martin Carthy is a master of thathis

thumb is just infallible with that bass pulse.

The way I just played it is sort of articulating

the single notes of the melody. I could also

play it with a little more of the pick and less

of my fi ngers and strum more than one string

at a time.

What is the C-modal tuning on Geordie?

HAMER Its C G C G C D. One of the nice things about C modal is all the strings are

slackened, and if youre playing with your

fi ngers they get snappy in a nice way, espe-

cially if youre using medium-gauge strings.

So heres Geordie [Example 3].

Does your background in bluegrass shape

how you play these songs?

HAMER Very much so, especially when it

comes to pick technique. Really all I mean by

that is I put the downbeats on the downstroke

and the syncopated off beats on the upstroke.

With my students, I try to make sure theyre

doing that when theyre playing a melody.

Sometimes the temptation is to just go up and

down regardless of whether youre playing a

quarter note or an eighth note or a 16th or

whatever. Trying to maintain the [pulse] is al-

ways going to be the foundation of your right-

hand technique, and it helps you play in time

if you syncopate a melody.

A song like Clyde Waters is probably the

closest I come to a bluegrass approach. Anas

starts the song with this rolling fi nger line. Its

kind of midtempo. It feels funny to call that

bluegrass, because it doesnt have a bluegrass

feel, but what I correlate with the bluegrass

approach is this: You fi gure out where your

boom-chuck would lie [Example 4]. Thats

the foundation of the tempo. Those are go-

ing to be my downstrokes, and most of the

melody can be played with downstrokes [Ex-

ample 5]. Of course you have the upstrokes

here and there. So thats the melody that I

play in the instrumental breaks.

Your guitar comes in and out in that

arrangement.

HAMER The trick in that song is to stay out of the way of Anas. The whole song is built

around a front half and a back half. The way

we structured that is she takes the front half

almost soloI hardly even touch the guitar

and then I come in with the harmony and my

guitar on the back half to give it a lift. Each

verse is propelled forward that way. So that

was an example of, what are we going to do

for 20 verses thats going to keep this inter-

esting? Our approach was to give it this kind

of rolling waves type of arrangement.

With these ballads, are you conscious of

making sure you dont play too much?

HAMER Well, yeah, youre trying to respect the song and let the song speak for itself. When

youve done a lot of work on the lyrics, you

want to let those express themselves. Plus the

harmony singing was a big part of the record.

Everyone has their own way of coming

up with the right guitar part, and mine is

very much trial and error in the studio. I try

things, and then when I listen back I usually

get a better idea of whether Im on the right

track, if it sounds kind of noodley and unde-

fi ned, or if it lacks a real decisive purpose. I

want the part that goes on the record to feel

like it had to be there. ag

JEFFREY PEPPER RODGERS (jeffreypepperrodgers.com), the founding editor of Acoustic Guitar, is author of the Homespun video series Learn Seven Grateful Dead Classics for Acoustic Guitar.

WHAT HE PLAYSACOUSTIC GUITAR: Collings D2H with a sunburst finish. Part of the guitars top was smashed by an airline (despite being in a flight case), and New Hampshire luthier Pat DiBurro worked miracles to bring the guitar back to life, Hamer says. This guitar has a real promi-nent midrange. Its not a big, booming dread-nought. It has plenty of bass, but I feel like it has enough presence and crispness that it articulates single notes really well.

AMPLIFICATION: K&K Pure Mini soundboard transducer into a Radial JDI passive DI and then a Grace Design m101 mic preamp. Onstage, Hamer adds a little breath to the sound by stepping up to a Shure SM57 external microphone.

RECORDING: For the Child Ballads album, engineer Gary Paczosa recorded both Hamers and Anas Mitchells guitars with pairs of Neumann KM 54s in an X/Y pattern.

STRINGS: Medium gauge, phosphor bronze or 80/20, no particular brand.

ACCESSORIES: Wegen TF 120 triangular flat-pick. Shubb capo. Korg Pitchblack tuner pedal.

01-01.250_PUiY/ess.indd 16 8/6/13 1:11 PM


See video of the music examples at AcousticGuitar.com

B

00

Tuning: C G C G C D Ex. 3

00 4

2

00 0

2 4 2 0

40

5 0 0

00

0 20

0

0 0

4

0

4

0 0

00

0 20

0

0 0

24 0 0

0 00 4

B

7

2 0

4 0 4

5

0

0

00

20

4 5

0

032

0

032

Dropped-D Tuning: D A D G B E (Ex. 45)Ex. 4 Capo I

4

32

32

4

3

Ex. 5

05

00

2 0 2

B

3

4

02

02

4

0

2

00

00

0

4 0

02

0 40

2 4 00 2

00

0

0 20 4 2 0

42

0

320

01-01.250_PUiY/ess.indd 1 8/6/13 1:11 PM


NEW GEAR

GIBSON ISSUED ITS FIRST J-35 MODEL in 1936. The curva-ceous flattop delivered rich sound, bore a clean look with a minimum of cosmetic frills, and its initial $35 price tag was an appealing selling point. Compared to Gibsons similarly propor-tioned Jumbo model, priced at $60, the J-35 was a budget-wise buy. (Remember, the Great Depression was in full swing by the mid 30s.) The J-35 became one of Gibsons most popular prewar flattops and remained in production until 1942, when it was replaced by the J-45. The company recently reintroduced the J-35 to its Gibson Acoustic line, which is built in Bozeman, Montana, and todays J-35 has all the sonic and aesthetic charm of its ancestor, and is once again priced competitively.

Historic DesignWhile the current J-35 has its roots in the classic 1936 design, its not intended to be an exact spec-for-spec replica of the original model or its subsequent refinements. Its more an amalgam of vintage details. Perhaps inspired by the 1939

edition, the neck and heel of the new J-35 have rounded profilesunlike the V-shaped neck and pointier

French heel on the first J-35s. The mahogany back and sides of the J-35 we received for review are a pale reddish-brown, like those of the earliest modelswhereas the back and sides were typically stained a darker brown on later examples. One particularly interesting design detail of this modern J-35 is the Only a Gibson Is Good Enough banner emblazoned on the headstock beneath the old-style script Gibson logo. No prewar J-35s would have had this banner, though it was featured on the 1942 J-45, and some other Gibson flattops,

through 1945. It may not be historically correct, but it adds a touch of class.

In the original J-35 construction, the rectangular bridge was affixed with two small screws that went through the topand the interior bridge plateon either side of the E-string bridge pins. These screws were then covered with mother-of-pearl dots. Though no screws are used in the bridge assem-

blage of the new J-35, pearloid dots remain as a nod to the look of the orig-

inal. The white/black/white rosette is another remnant of the first J-35s, as is the

unique pickguard shape. The back is bound in a

Gibson J-35

Gibson brings back a classic slope-shoulder dreadnought.

By Adam Levy

See the video review at

AcousticGuitar.com

single plya feature Gibson first added to its 1937 edition. Todays top has multi-ply binding, while original models were single-ply bound.

The build quality was very high on the review guitar. Each element looked good, and the whole had been assembled tightly and cleanly. The finish on the unbound fingerboard appeared a little inconsistent at the endwhere it overlays the guitars top. Other than that, I could find no cosmetic hitches.

Full-Bodied and DynamicAfter giving the new J-35 a proper look-see, it was time to start kicking the tires, so to speak. The guitar seemed to be a natural-born strummer, so I improvised a folky Neil Youngstyle chord progression, experi-menting with different picks (nylon, Delrin, and faux-tortoiseshell celluloid, in various gauges). Each pick brought out a subtle variation of the J-35s voice, but its inherent warmth always came across. The sound was full-bodied with plenty of harmonic detail across the dynamic spec-

AT A GLANCE

SPECS: Slope-shoulder 16-inch-wide attop with 14-fret neck. Solid Sitka spruce top with

scalloped X-bracing. Solid mahogany back and

sides. Mahogany neck. Dovetail neck joint

bonded with hide glue. Unbound rosewood

ngerboard with 12-inch radius. Tusq nut and

compensated Tusq saddle. 25.75-inch scale

length. 1.725-inch nut width. 2732-inch string

spacing at saddle. Nitrocellulose lacquer

nish. Vintage-style nickel-plated tuners, 15:1

ratio, with white plastic buttons. Active L.R.

Baggs Element pickup system. Gibson light-

gauge strings. Made in USA.

PRICE: $2,190 list/$1,699 street.

MAKER: Gibson Acoustic: 1-800-4GIBSON; gibson.com.

018-021.*eaU1_*iEsRn.indd 18 8/6/13 1:12 PM

018-021.Gear1_Gibson.indd 19 8/7/13 11:13 AM


NEW GEAR

trumfrom murmur quiet to cannon loud. To explore the J-35s tender side, I finger-

picked renditions of James Taylors Shower the People and Fire and Rain. (Taylor favored a Gibson J-50 early in his career.) This led me to second-guess my initial impression of the guitar. Its great for strum-ming, yes, but its a righteous fingerpicker, too. In open position or capoed anywhere up the neck, it sounded like a record. That is, it seemed to be benefiting from a touch of top-quality EQ and compression when played acoustically. Playing JT-style hammer-ons and pull-offs within chord shapes felt luxu-rious, thanks to the J-35s remarkable sustain.

Stage-Ready SoundThe J-35 comes equipped with an L.R. Baggs Element undersaddle pickup and preamp system, which includes a small, soundhole-mounted volume control and is powered by a single nine-volt battery affixed to the neck block. I plugged the guitar into a few small amps and was pleased to find that its natural sonorities were well represented in the resulting amplified sound with no major EQ tweaks. Then I plugged the Gibson into my laptopvia an Apogee Jam interfaceto see how it fared for direct recording. As is, with no

EQ or other effects added, the sound was reasonably balanced and clear. There was more low-end rumble than would be usable on most recordings, so I applied a high-pass filter to quell the big bottom (with a rolloff at 150 Hz) and a parametric EQ to focus the low mids (175 Hz, -4 dB). EQ is highly subjective, of course. Choices will depend upon the voice of the guitar, the other instruments in the mix, and the desired quality of sound overall. Suffice it to say, the Elements direct sound would be a useful recording resource alone or in conjunction with an external studio-quality microphone.

A Classic RedefinedWith its attractive prewar styling and period-inspired construction, the Gibson J-35 is easy to love. It would make a great choice for a modern-day troubadour, old-time reviv-alist, or anyone else who likes their guitars with broad curves and lavish tones. It cant be bought for $35 anymore, but with a street price at about $500 less than Gibsons comparable J-45 Standard, its still a relative bargain. ag

ADAM LEVY is an itinerant guitarist and performing songwriter based in Los Angeles. Read more of his writings and hear his music at adamlevy.com.

TEJA GERKEN: This J-35 shows why

Gibsons short-scale slope-shoulder

dreadnoughts have been popular with

players of all stripes for almost eight decades. Its

responsive enough to sound great when played

ngerstyle (yielding an excellent country-blues

type ngerpicking tone), but not so delicate that

it cant take a heavy pick attack. The guitar pro-

duces the classic dry Gibson sound when

strummed, and it has the uncomplicated clarity

you hope for in a mahogany dreadnought.

SCOTT NYGAARD: Gibsons J-35

may have once been an affordable

model, but vintage specimens these

days can run up to ve gures. The importance

of the Gibson slope-shoulder dreadnought

sound and style, however, is proven by how

many small manufacturers and luthiers offer

their own versions. What impressed me most

about Gibsons reissue was its clarity and live-

liness. Our review instrument did not sound like

a typical new guitar: atpicked melodies across

its entire range leaped out of the instrument,

tonally balanced but with impressive power,

and open-position strumming and bass lines

were crisp, bright, and muscular.

EDITORS IMPRESSIONS

Turns out love CAN be bought.

Martin, Taylor, McPherson, Larrivee, and Cole Clark guitars. Custom instruments and premium used guitars always in stock.

(860) 444-2112 107 State Street, New London CT 06320 spindriftguitars.com

018-021.Gear1_Gibson.indd 20 8/8/13 11:10 AM

018-021.*eaU1_*iEsRn.indd 21 8/6/13 :2 PM


NEW GEAR

Boulder Creek ECGC-7VB

Stylish, affordable acoustic-electric with a contemporary design.

By Adam Perlmutter

See the video review at

AcousticGuitar.com

be found that would affect the playability or the sound. And the super cial rough spots, like a few internal glue gobs, can absolutely be forgiven on a $500 guitar.

Impressive Voice and ResponsivenessAlthough the ECGC-7VB is a bit heavy, it sits nicely on the lap, and the neck has a medium C-shape pro le and 11116-inch nut that will appeal to a broad selection of players. Its factory-set low action was comfortable and buzz-free and the notes rang clear and true at all 20 frets. Despite some jagged fret edges and a heel-mount-ed strap button that rubbed against the fretting hand in the higher positions, the guitar was a pleasure to play.

Overall the ECGC-7VB had an attrac-tive voiceclear and bright, owing likely to its maple build, with impressive sustain, volume, and projection. The low end was sturdy and the highs well de ned, while the mids were a bit assertive, and the soundport did, indeed, seem to provide a detailed listening experience for the player.

The ECGC-7VB excelled in a range of settings. It was great for strumming ap-proaches, from boom-chuck to Carter-style to even four-to-the-bar jazz, and chords of

MODERN FEATURES LIKE offset soundholes, side soundports, and wood binding typically have been found on costly, bespoke guitars. But these construction attributes are being seen with increasing regularity on guitars at all levels, including the line of smartly modern attops designed in California by Boulder Creek Guitars. Boulder Creek builds a full complement of instruments, from nylon-string models to 12-strings, and OMs to jumbos. We auditioned the Gold Series ECGC-7VB, a grand concertsize cutaway model with a maple body and a built-in electronics system.

Classy StylingThe ECGC-7VB is built from an attractive medley of tonewoods. The spruce soundboard on our review instrument was nely grained, and the quartersawn amed maple back (which was perfectly book-matched) and sides had impressive grain and guring, offering a nice contrast to the plain maple used for the neck. The rosewood headstock cap is a smart touch.

In addition to traditional wood X-bracing, the ECGC-7VB boasts Boulders Suspended Bracing System. Developed by Mike Shellhammer, this system incorporates a pair of light-weight aluminum tone bars mounted to plastic brackets that are glued to the top and designed to provide extra strength to the soundboard while allowing the top to vibrate freely,

enhancing the guitars sustain and resonance. Meanwhile, the upper-bout soundhole is intended to make the guitar louder and create a more pronounced bottom end than a centrally located soundhole does, while the side soundport directs the sound to the players ear.

Finished in a glowing, violin-inspired sunburst, the ECGC-7VB has an elegant appearance, made

even more so by the natural plain maple used for the body and headstock binding as well as

the heel cap, back strip, and end strip, all with twin black de nition lines. The nger-boards binding, which has no black lines, is gracefully thin. A pearl rosette around the soundhole adds a subtle sparkle, as do the iridescent dot markers inlaid on the ngerboard and Boulder Creek logo on the headstock. And the gold sealed tuners have handsome ebony-like buttons.

The ECGC-7VB we reviewed is decently crafted overall, a solidly built guitar that

should hold up well with years of use. Aside from the frets needing a bit more polishinga

situation that could be addressed easily enough by a trusted techthere were no anomalies to

SPECS: Grand concert body size. Solid spruce top with wood X-brace and aluminum

Suspended Bracing System. Laminated

amed maple back and sides. Maple neck.

Rosewood ngerboard and bridge. Synthetic

bone nut and saddle. 25.624-inch scale.

11116-inch nut width. 2316-inch string spacing

at saddle. Violin Burst gloss nish. Gold tuners

with 18:1 ratio. Proprietary undersaddle pickup

and AB4-T preamp. DAddario EXP (.012.053)

strings. Made in China.

PRICE: $699 list/$489 street.

MAKER: Boulder Creek Guitars: (408) 779-3845; bouldercreekguitars.com.

AT A GLANCE

022-025.*eaU2_%RXOdeU&.indd 22 8//13 2:1 PM

022-025.*eaU2_%RXOdeU&.indd 23 8/6/13 1:13 PM


all sorts had good note separation and balance on the instrument. Articulated with a atpick, single-note lines in any style sounded robust.

Despite a relatively narrow nut width of 11116 inches, the guitars string spacing didnt feel at all cramped for ngerpicking. The guitar rang sweetly when placed in alter-nate tunings like open G or D A D G A D and subjected to ngerpicked improvisations.

Flexible ElectronicsLike many Boulder Creek acoustic-electric guitars, the ECGC-7VB comes equipped with the companys AB4-T preamp and undersaddle piezo pickup. The preamp in-cludes a chromatic tuner, which bypasses the output when it is engaged; four-band EQ (brilliance, treble, mid, and bass) with sliding controls; a volume knob; and a phase switch. While typical acoustic guitar electronics include a single 14-inch output, the AB4-T has both a 14-inch unbalanced jack and balanced XLR. Though the guitar had a natural sound when ampli ed with the EQ set at, its nice to have the sound-shaping exibility it offers. Running the guitar through a Fender Acoustasonic, I found it easy to dial in dark jazz tones or shimmering, bright timbres.

Overall, the ECGC-7VB is an attractively voiced and extremely playable instrument, an acoustic-electric that sounds good plugged in or not. As a bonus, the guitar is styled in the manner of a ne boutique instrument, but costs a mere fraction of one, and can therefore be enjoyed without anxiety. ag

ADAM PERLMUTTER is an Acoustic Guitar contrib-uting editor who transcribes, engraves, and arranges music for numerous publications.

TEJA GERKEN: The Boulder Creek

ECGC-7VB continues the companys

concept of delivering designs and

features found on high-end, luthier-built guitars

to entry-level price regions. But how does it

play and sound? Our review guitar featured an

ultralow action setup that would have made

most electric guitars proud. As such, playability

was very easy, though at the cost of some buzz-

ing with a heavy picking hand. Due to the large

side soundport, the Boulder Creeks impressive

bass sound was more audible to the player

than to a listener. But even with this caveat,

the guitar offered a lovely, rich voice that, while

not as dynamic and complex as some, made

the guitar very satisfying to play.

EDITORS IMPRESSION

NEW GEAR

Private Lessons andMaster Classes

Chamber Music Performance

Guitar History and Literature

Fretboard Harmony

Scholarship and cost-of-livingassistance availableJuilliard.edu/guitar

Classical GuitarStudies at JuilliardSharon IsbinDepartment Chair

Joseph W. Polisi, President

Apply by December 1

Juilliard.edu/apply

Photo: J Hen

ry Fair

022-025.*eaU2_%RXOdeU&.indd 2 8//13 2:18 PM

(800) 222-4700 Sweetwater.com

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022-025.*eaU2_%RXOdeU&.indd 25 8/6/13 1:1 PM


NEW GEAR

Zoom A3

Clean, compact preamp provides myriad effects, modeling, and EQ

to help you color and perfect your amplified sound.

By Doug Young

lies in the software, accessed via the LED screen and controlled by three combina-tion push-button/knobs. The LED screen presents a virtual pedal board with three slots. Slot one is always occupied by the modeler, which well explore in a minute. The other two slots can be loaded with

any two of a large collection of effects, which include reverbs, delays, chorus, phaser, anger, compres-sors, auto-wah, exciters, and graphic and parametric EQs.

Pushing the buttons steps through the available effects, while turning them takes you inside the controls of the selected effect. Patches can be saved to memory so you can recall different selections as you need them.

Exploring the effects could take a long time, and there is certainly something here for everyone. I quickly found some subtle chorus sounds I especially liked. Overall, the effect quality is on par with other stompbox effects, but the sheer number and tweakability makes it very likely that you can ne-tune one to get a sound you

ACOUSTIC GUITARISTS usually depend on effects much less than electric players, but given the chance, the list of devices

you might wish to use can be fairly long. String together a preamp, DI, EQ, tuners, and footswitches for muting and

boosting, reverb, chorus, delay, modeler, and a few more and before you know it youll have an acoustic pedal

board that rivals those of its electric cousins. Or you could have all of those in a single small

pedal, which is what Zoom has tried to provide with its latest acoustic preamp and effects unit, the A3.

Zoom is a Japanese company with a long history of turning out impressive and

useful devices for musicians, including handheld audio and video recorders, guitar stompboxes, multi-

track recorders, and more. Its A2 multi-effects pedal is popular with acoustic guitarists, and Zoom has packed even

more functionality into the new A3.

Small and PowerfulAt just 414 inches wide and 6 inches long, the Zoom A3 is small enough to t in the accessory compartment of most guitar cases, but Zoom has still managed to pack in a lot of functionality. You get a rough sense of the devices complexity just from looking at the controls. The top of the A3 includes three footswitches (Effect On/Off, Volume Boost, and Anti-Feedback), 14 other controls, and a small LED screen. The controls fall into several categories. Three knobs cover EQ: Bass, Midrange, and Treble. Two provide level adjustments for the separate Mic and Pickup inputs. Another pair provides balance between dry and effected signals and master volume. Three more controls serve double duty as both knobs and pushable switches and are used to navigate the LED screen. There are also three LEDs that serve as both status indicators and pushable buttons that let you control a related setting. The nal control allows you to select the body type of the guitar you are using, to allow the modeling features to work optimally.

The A3 also includes stereo 14-inch outputs and a 14-inch mono input jack for a pickup, along with a switch that allows you to choose settings to complement your pickup: at, magnetic, or piezo. The manual does not state exactly what these switches do, and I found the function to be extremely subtle. It appears that the Magnetic switch boosts the bass a bit, while the Piezo position rolls off some highs. The manual specs the input impedance at a constant 1 megohm. The back of the unit contains an XLR mic input (24 or 48 volts of phantom power can be selected via software), a jack for using a nine-volt power adaptor (the unit can also be powered via USB), a ground-lift switch, and an XLR DI out.

Software Effects and ControlsThe A3s hardware features are impressive enough, but its real power

AT A GLANCE

SPECS: Compact oor preamp with effects and modeling. 14-inch guitar and XLR mic

inputs. XLR DI and stereo unbalanced

outputs. Bass, midrange, and treble tone

controls. Pickup and mic levels. Master

volume control. Footswitches for mute/tuner,

boost, and anti-feedback control. Large

collection of effects, including reverb, chorus,

phaser, compression, EQ. Full suite of

modeling effects. Runs on internal nine-volt

battery, external power, or USB. Made in

China.

PRICE: $335 list/$199 street.

MAKER: Zoom Corp: zoom.co.jp (US distributor: Samson Tech, samsontech.com/

zoom, [631] 784-2200)

See video of the gear review at

AcousticGuitar.com

026-02.*eaU3_=RRP.indd 26 8//13 2:18 PM


like. With 12 reverb algorithms alone, there are nearly endless options.

Extensive Modeling PossibilitiesWith all of the effects and features, its easy to forget one of the most powerful features of the A3: a full-featured modeler. The mod-eling is easy to use. First you select the type of guitar you are using with the body-type selector knob on top, and your pickup type from a selector on the side. The body selec-tor provides 16 guitar types to choose from, including nylon-string, OM, dreadnought, and even upright bass. Once you have con gured the A3 for the type of guitar and pickup you are using, you can choose one of 36 model types from a software menu to alter the way the A3 transforms your sound. So, at least in theory, you can set up the Zoom A3 to match your Martin OM with an undersaddle pickup, and then make it sound like a Gibson J-200 by choosing the appropriate model.

Test DriveWith all of the features included in this complex unit, it was hard to know where to begin in checking it out, so I began with the basics. You can easily ignore all of the exotic features and just plug in a guitar, run the unbalanced or DI output to an amp or PA, and adjust the sound with the three tone

controls. I was immediately pleased with the results of this simple test. Plugging in a Martin OM with a K&K soundboard trans-ducer, I found the sound to be clean and clear through my small PA system. The tone controls were effective. The Zoom manual doesnt specify the frequencies of the tone controls, but I measured them to be, roughly, bass, centered around 80 Hz; mid, centered around 600 Hz; and treble, a shelf starting at about 2 kHz.

The next logical feature to try is the modeling, and again, I found plenty of good sounds to use. Its dif cult to say whether the modeled sounds really reproduce their targeted instruments, but each model does seem to have the appropriate characteris-tics. For example, switching to a D-28 model

added a more beefy low end to my OM, while selecting an 0 model produced less bass and more mids. Some modeling options were less useful than othersthe upright bass model certainly didnt work well with my OM, but transforming an OM into an upright bass seemed too much to ask, and most models produced interesting and useful sounds. In a live gig I tried the A3 with both the guitar selector and model set to OM-28 and the mix control at 50 percent, and it produced a very nice sound with a little more resonance than the dry pickup.

The A3s strengths and weaknesses are both products of its massive set of features. The unit seemingly provides everything you would ever need, but only if you can gure out which of the 14 knobs to push to operate it. The most basic operationsmuting/tuning, activating or bypassing effects, and signal boostare easily available via footswitch. The anti-feedback feature is also very effec-tive, and readily available. Just step on the

footswitch and the A3 will automati-cally seek out and eliminate up to three problem frequencies. Unfor-tunately some of the A3s features require bending over and twiddling the tiny knobs. Even changing be-tween saved presets involves turning knobs that may be hard to reach and see onstage.

However, I suspect with a bit of time exploring the unit, most guitar-ists will settle on a small set of fea-tures they actually use, making the

need for live adjustments fairly rare.

Self-Contained PowerhouseZoom has set a high bar for features in the A3its hard to think of anything sig-ni cant theyve left out, and the A3 could easily replace an entire row of stompboxes. Many guitarists will nd it attractive just for its clean sound, musically useful EQ, and modeling options. The effects are limited to two at a time, but the large range of options allows you to explore at your leisure and nd subtle or dramatic colors to add to your sonic palette. ag

DOUG YOUNG (dougyoungguitar.com) is a San Fran-cisco Bay Areabased fingerstyle guitarist and contrib-uting editor to Acoustic Guitar.

026-027.Gear3_Zoom.indd 27 8/7/13 9:48 AM


PLAYER SPOTLIGHT

OVER THE LAST DOZEN YEARS,Aoife ODonovan has emerged

as one of the most distinctive

young singers in contemporary

folk. Her pure, silky voice has

been heard with the neo-tradi-

tional string band Crooked Still,

the folk noir trio Sometymes

Why with Ruth Merenda and

Kristin Andreassen, and the all-

star Goat Rodeo Sessions band

with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer,

Stuart Duncan, and Chris Thile.

Along the way Aoife (pro-

nounced EE-fah) has recorded/

performed some of her original

tunes with various combos, and

her song Lay My

Burden Down was notably covered by Alison Krauss on her 2011

album, Paper Airplane. But until this year, ODonovan has never fully

launched herself as a solo artist.

ODonovans solo album Fossils, released in June by Yep Roc, was

worth the wait. The record opens with Lay My Burden Down and

proceeds through a set of richly textured original songs, with acoustic-

electric band arrangements centered around ODonovans serene voice

and guitar. ODonovans songwriting style is tough to pigeonhole, re-

flecting her deep roots in traditional music (her father was born in

Ireland and hosts A Celtic Sojourn on Bostons WGBH), her training at

the New England Conservatory, and her love of the jazzy syncopation of Joni Mitch-

ell. Like her voice itself, the music on Fossils is gently understated yet sneaks up on

you with its emotional intensity.

In the spring, as ODonovan was gearing up to hit the road with her own band,

followed by tour dates with Garrison Keillors A Prairie Home Companion and with

the Goat Rodeo Sessions, she spoke with me from her home in Brooklyn about this

new phase in her busy musical life.

The banner on your website says your name and singer. Does releasing a solo

album of all original tunes suggest its time to update that tag?

ODONOVAN It says singer there because I feel like that is definitely my identity. If I were to update my website to say Aoife ODonovan, singer-songwriter, it immedi-

Aoife ODonovan

The voice of Crooked Still and the Goat Rodeo Sessions

steps out solo.


ately puts me in this one box, and I think I

dont just live in that box. I would say I am a

singer and a songwriter, but when you put the

two together its its own genre. My friends

and I often joke that I should call myself a

songer-singwriter.

How far back does songwriting go for you?

ODONOVAN The songwriting goes back to the beginning really. Back when I was a college

student at New England Conservatory I was

writing a ton, and performing original music

at my recitals as well as with classmates of

mine at NEC. And songwriting even predates

that. When I was 12, my best friend, Sara

Heatonwho is now an accomplished opera

singer actuallyhad a band called Faerie

Mist. We wrote two songs that we recorded,

and I still like em.

Were you always writing on guitar?

ODONOVAN Its been on guitar and piano. A bunch of my earlier tunes were actually piano

based. Thinking about myself as a guitar

player is a pretty new thing. I took guitar les-

sons in high school and Ive always played the

guitar, but about a year and a half ago, when

I was getting ready to go on my first solo tour,

opening for Punch Brothers, I was like, man,

Ive got to get better on the guitar if Im going

to go onstage and play in front of 600 people

every night. So I got the metronome and actu-

ally practiced the guitar, and Im continuing to

practice the guitar. Its amazing what a metro-

nome will do to your guitar playing.

What do you practice?

ODONOVAN What I practice is being able to accompany myself in a style thats distinctive.

One of the things that Ive always done on gui-

tar is fingerpicking, but my

style is based around a two-

finger pattern I like to call the

clawI use my thumbnail and

my index finger. Ive recently

incorporated a third finger into

it, which is sort of more like a

banjo roll, and sometimes a

fourth finger as well. But be-

fore last year I was pretty un-

comfortable playing with a

pick, so practicing picking patterns with a met-

ronome, with an actual pick, is something that

Ive been working on.

Are there particular players who inspired

your approach to guitar?

ODONOVAN I dont know. I feel like the direc-tion I took with the guitar kind of happened

out of poor training. Neil Young and Joan

Baez, I guess, were people I was listening to a

lot when I was learning to play the guitar, and

they both do a fingerpicking kind of thing. But PHO

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by no means was it thought outmy style just

came to be because it was what I started

doing naturally.

Youve covered Joni Mitchells Amelia,

and a few of your new songs, like Pearls,

have Joni-esque chord voicings. The chords

may not be in an alternate tuning, but have

that open, ringing quality.

ODONOVAN Pearls is actually standard tun-ing. That song started out with a quarter-notey

fingerpicking pattern, and I changed it to the

syncopated strumming pattern that ended up

on the record. But yeah, of course, Ive listened

to a ton of Joni Mitchell and think shes just

really unbelievable and would never try to

deny the influence in any way.

Your song Beekeeper has a cool rhythm

in seven, I believe. How did that come

about?

ODONOVAN That just came from me messing around on the guitar and then realizing that

I was playing a pattern in 7/4. I was hum-

ming a melody to myself, and there are a

bunch of early demos where I was singing all

kinds of random words with a pretty similar

melody and chord progression. I really love

playing that song because it is in an odd

meter, but when Im in the song it doesnt

seem odd to me. Im not counting it out or

struggling to keep time because the words

themselves fit with the rhythm. Theres noth-

ing oddly spaced.

When I brought that song to the people I

recorded it with, we came up with those two

interlocking guitar partsthe electric guitar

and the acoustic guitarand then the drum-

beat is pretty much 4/4 with a dropped beat.

Theres no syncopated jazz stuff going on. Its

pretty straight, but then if you try to tap your

feet to it, its like, oh weirdI cant really tap

my feet to this.

Did the existence of Alison Krausss version

of your song Lay My Burden Down aff ect

how you recorded that song yourself?

ODONOVAN Possibly subliminally it did. Initially I was like, Im not going to record that

song because Alison already recorded it. In a

lot of ways, even for me, her version has be-

come the definitive version. Its so beautiful. I

feel like her singing that song brought it to life

for me. But theres a lot of emotion in that

song. There are a couple of different ways you

can interpret the lyrics, and my version, I

think, pulls out some of the joy in it. Its a little

more upbeat, its got more of a country lean-

ing, theres the steel, theres that really amaz-

ing baritone electric guitar solo, which is one

of my favorite points in the record, and there

are harmony vocals, which is the one thing I

missed from her versionI wished that [Union

Stations Dan] Tyminski had jumped in on the

harmony there. So I got Annalisa Tornfelt from

Black Prairie to sing this really beautiful low

harmony, and I love the way that came out.

When I was getting ready to go on my

first solo tour, opening for Punch Brothers,

I was like, man, Ive got to get better

on the guitar.

How does it feel to switch gears from col-

laborating with so many other musicians,

to working with your own band, to playing

solo?

ODONOVAN Whats been really great about the last 12 years of my life as a musician is

all the different things that Ive done. To get

to spend one week doing one thing and an-

other week a totally different thing keeps your

creative chops engaged and always keeps you

inspired. Touring with Crooked Still was in-

credible, and Im looking forward to really hit-

ting the road with my band. But right now Im

on the road solo with the Milk Carton Kids,

and thats really fun.

The main difference in playing solo and

doing a band set is that you have to pace your

set really differently when its just you. You

cant rely on the tricks and the sounds of a

band. But the pros are that you dont ever have

to make a set list and you can do whatever you

want. If you want to do a song in a different

key, you can do that. You can add beats, you

can add choruses . . . its very free. ag

WHAT SHE PLAYSACOUSTIC GUITAR: 1934 Martin 0-17. ODonovan came across the guitar at Ithaca Guitar Works in 2006 while on tour with Chris Thile and notes that its not all originala previous owner had the guitar refinished and the pickguard and tuners replaced. On her guitar wish list is a hollow-body electric similar to a Gibson ES-125 she had on loan recently from Rob Moose of Bon Iver.

AMPLIFICATION: K&K Pure Western Mini pickup installed by Bob (Yukon) Stubblebine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

ACCESSORIES: DAddario phosphor-bronze light strings, Shubb capo, Boss pedal tuner (for use onstage), and Snark tuner (for unplugged use).

028-029.250_POa\eU6SRt.indd 29 8/6/13 1:1 PM


SONGCRAFT

She fell to the mattress with the grace of an actress

Youre falling like a thief from a roof

Shes asking for proof, Are you staying?

Outside you hear mission bells

Welcome to Marias beautiful mess

In a cluttered apartment on the West Side

Ellis Paul, Marias Beautiful Mess

PERHAPS THE GREATEST MAGIC OF SONGWRITING is how, with just a few notes and words, a song can transport a listener to a faraway time and place, and even into

the head of another person. Ellis Paul is one songwriter who has been accomplishing

this for more than 20 years, rising from the Boston coff eehouses to become a big

draw around the country on the strength of his sharply observant, hooky folk-rock

songs. One measure of the passion of Pauls fans is that they contributed $100,000 to

support the release of his 2010 album, The Day Everything Changedat this writing,

Pauls current fan-funding campaign is closing in on an equal amount for his next

studio release, due this fall.

Along the way, Paul has written many memorable character songs, from the

travelogue 3,000 Miles and the Katrina story Hurricane Angel to the songs

on his recent kids album, The Hero in You, for which he wrote musical profi les of

such fi gures as Thomas Edison, Rosa Parks, Albert Einstein, and Georgia OKeefe.

On tour, Paul shares his passion for songwriting in workshops (see Sketching a

Character, page 33 for one of the writing exercises he uses). In a conversation

from his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, he shared these thoughts on how to

sharpen your lyrics.

As a songwriter, have you always been drawn to telling other peoples stories in

addition to writing about your own life?

PAUL Well, folk music embraces every kind of song you can think ofthere are childrens songs, character songs, singer-songwriter bare your heart and your love

life wide open kind of songs. One reason I like folk music so much is I can get away

with anything I want. I dont have to worry about singles; I just have to worry about

content and believability.

When youre chasing down a song, do you think much about what category it

might fall into?

PAUL When Im building an album, sometimes Ill try to get some sort of a ballpark

Painting Pictures

Ellis Paul shares tips and exercises that can help you

sharpen your lyrics


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for all of the songs to live in. Im like any other

songwriter: sometimes the personal life takes

over the songwriting, and then I do an album

more like [Joni Mitchells] Blue and less like

a John Prine record. But, for the most part,

Im just writing the songs that come to me. I

never know what form theyre going to take,

even if Im painting a picture thats outside of

my own life.

Is painting a picture ultimately what

youre trying to do with your lyrics?

PAUL Yeah, youre trying to show. You can think of a character as being frustrated and depressed;

these are conceptual things. But in order to

write the character in a song, you cant tell the

audience hes depressedyou have to show it.

Thats something all of my favorite songs have

and something I aspire to in all of my songs is

creating a little bit of a snow globe, so people

are looking into it and then suddenly theyre

inside ittheyre part of the song. Theyve es-

caped from their life into the songs life.

WHAT HE PLAYSACOUSTIC GUITAR: Custom Taylor jumbo built for Oklahoma Vintage Guitars in El Reno, Oklahoma. This one-of-a-kind Taylor, which has an Adirondack spruce top and cocobolo back and sides, is a phenomenal guitar, Paul says. Its changing how I play. He calls the guitar Guinness because of the cocobolos resem-blance to a glass of the Irish stout. A falling speaker once punched a fist-sized hole in the guitars side, which was meticulously repaired by Virginia luthier John Hamlett. When the Guinness beer company heard about the acci-dent, Paul says, they sent me an enormous care package filled with company paraphernalia and beer.

Along with standard tuning, Pauls alternate tunings include open C (open D down a half step), C G D G B D (which he calls open Joni), and D A D D A D (with the third string tuned way down, in unison with the fourth string). Paul says he learned a lot about open Dand about creating rhythms with his right handfrom some informal backstage lessons with the late, great Richie Havens.

AMPLIFICATION: Fishman Matrix Infinity pickup/preamp, with soundhole volume and tone controls, and Fishman Aura Spectrum DI.

STRINGS: DAddario phosphor-bronze mediums.

ACCESSORIES: Kyser capos. Intellitouch tuners. Paul strums with a Clayton .80-mm flatpick or fingerpicks with the pads of his fingers.

030-033.250_6RnJFUaIt.indd 30 8//13 2:19 PM


What allows that to happen?

PAUL Its details of the persons life. Those details work best when they trigger sensory

experiences in the listeners mind. You know,

like the fi rst line of any great song, like [the

Eagles] Peaceful Easy Feeling: I like the

way your sparkling earrings lay / Against

your skin so brown / And I want to sleep with

you in the desert tonight / With a billion stars

all around. All of that is laying out a detailed

picture that is a sensory experience for the

listener.

Is it the same sort of process when you write

from your own experience? In a way, you

are creating yourself as a character.

PAUL It is. With all of my songs, I write as much as I can in 48 hours. And then after 48

hours, if you have a rough draft of the song,

you go back and you sharpen your pencil and

get your eraser, because the editing is where

a song goes from being a B or C song to being

an A song. You ask yourself, whats the mis-

sion statement of the song? Even if its a per-

sonal song, even if youre writing about isola-

tion or loneliness or longing or love, what is

the song trying to say? You put that on the

top of the paper, and then you have to weigh

how you can support the mission statement

by improving every line.

Do you ever spend time collecting assorted

details that you may or may not use in a

song?

PAUL I wait until the subject comes to me. For example, I have a new record coming out, and

theres a song written from the perspective of

the Empire State Building. The Empire State

Building is actually the thing thats talking. I

wanted to write about something historical in

the vein of City of New Orleans, by Steve

Goodman. The thing I love about that song,

its a character song that was written from the

perspective of the train. So I decided maybe

the Empire State Building would work.

Whats cool about the Empire State Build-

ing is that it was built during the Great De-

pression, but its this monument of capitalism

at the same time. It was funded by DuPont,

but it was built by immigrants from every

walk of lifeItalians and Russians and Irish.

So I did all this research and started collect-

ing.

The mission statement of this song is about

the importance of the symboland its rich

and poor, capitalism and socialism. I looked

for historical details of the building that could

fi ll in the gaps.

Theres another new song where Im writ-

ing about a guy named Jimmy Angel, who

was a barnstorming airplane pilot in the

1930s and 40s. Theres not a lot of historical

documentation of his life, but the stuff that I

030-033.250_Songcraft.indd 31 8/8/13 11:36 AM


SONGCRAFT

found was fascinating. He discovered Angel

Falls in Venezuela. He was a World War I pilot

and barnstormed from point to point to point,

so he had this kind of restless life. Im trying

to build a song about that restlessness. Its a

relationship song about someone hes aban-

donedmaybe a kid or a girlfriend. I havent

gotten all the details squared away yet. But

the metaphor of fl ying and escaping and be-

ing in constant motion is the mission state-

ment of that song.

Do you like singing a character song in fi rst

person, as in your song 3,000 Miles?

PAUL I do. I think it provides authenticity, the closer to the source you get. There are still

great songs written in third person, but you

lose a certain amount of presence and vulner-

ability. First-person songs tend to be a little

bit more powerful. But when youre writing

characters, you have to weigh each line for

believability, and thats why all those details

are important. If youre just sort of glossing

over the details and youre telling the story

rather than showing the story, you lose believ-

ability, and a lot of the sizzle of the song will

disappear.

Do you have to identify somehow with a

character youre writing?

PAUL I do. Otherwise, there is no inspiration. If you dont have a personal connection, you

cant assume the body of that person when

youre talking.

I understand this barnstormer guy because

Im living that kind of lifeIm leaving my

children every week to hit the road, going to

these foreign environments, a completely rest-

less kind of lifestyle. I can connect to the

Empire State Building because Im a history

buff, and its the story of our country in one

fell swoop.

Is Woody Guthrie an inspiration for writing

songs about characters and history?

PAUL Hes absolutely the best lyricist of this kind of writing whos ever been born to it.

Hes brilliant with the words, and he doesnt

go out of his way to be complicated or heady.

The wordplay, the internal rhymes . . . the

writing is so beautiful. Even when you just

say the words out loud, its shocking how

great the poetry is. And then he understood

the importance of sensory involvement in the

song. He uses colors a lot. He talks about na-

ture a lothes always pinpointing fi elds and

orchards and peaches and grain and trees

and forests and mountains. He just had a re-

ally great paintbrush, and he knew how to

do it.

He sang like a rusty door hinge, and what

often happens is people who are limited in

their range and their vocal presentation end

Escape the expected. Experience graphite.

articulate

www.rainsong.com1.800.788.5828

030-033.250_Songcraft.indd 32 8/8/13 9:07 AM


Sketching a CharacterWhen teaching workshops on songwrit-ing, Ellis Paul uses an exercise that he compares to writing a characters back story for a novel. He asks students to think of a historical character and make the following list of attributes (afterwards without knowing the name, the other students try to guess the iden-tity based on the list). As an example here, he uses Charlie Chaplin.

1. List five things youd find in his bedroom. A black bowler hat. A cane with a curled handle. An open script at his bedside. An open jar of white clown

makeup. A red violin on his bed.

2. List five things he sees when he looks in the mirror. A headful of black tousled hair. Just a patch of a mustache

twitching beneath his nose. A hint of unwashed white makeup

on his cheek. Hes practicing expressions

and posing with posture like a dancer.

His pants are too big and baggy but flow with his movements.

3. Describe the character as a color. He lives in a black-and-white world.

4. Describe the character as a nonhuman or inanimate object. He walked like a penguin, but held

his space like a bird of paradise when standing still.

5. Give the character a voicea one-sentence quote. Every movement, every expression

must tell the inner workings of the characters mind.

This example, says Paul, reveals that physical dancer side of Chaplins personality. I would perhaps focus on that in a songthe awareness of movement, a dance in a silent picture . . . interesting opposites there. Black and white would have a presence in the songopposites as wellwhen describing the word on the page of a script, perhaps a description of his clothing, or as a metaphor for his life.

up using the written word to become these

great lyricistslike Dylan, John Prine, Sam

Baker, and Bill Morrissey, some of my favorite

writers.

As youre working on lyrics, what role does

your guitar play?

PAUL The guitar is sort of your dance partner. Its the color part. I feel like the lyrics are the

black-and-white movie and the guitar throws

color in. Instead of being in that house in that

tornado with Dorothy spinning around, when

the guitar is working at its best, youll open

the door and its the Land of Ozsuddenly its

colors and munchkins and witches and drama

in a diff erent way.

Does the guitar lead you to the characters

or subject to write about?

PAUL Yeah, most often the song will start as a piece of guitar music that will tell me the

mood before the subject. Ill do free verse

over the guitar until I come up with a catch-

phrase that I like, and then Ill ask myself

what the catchphrase is about. Ill set the

guitar down and take a piece of paper and

start writing, and Ill go back and forth be-

tween guitar and paper at that point.

Sometimes, like the Empire State song, I

know what its going to be about. Sometimes

Im halfway through a song before I know

what its about. Its not a precise science. They

can come on any surfboard they choose. ag

CourtneyHartman

Hear

and

Della Maewith

dellamae.combourgeoisguitars.com This World Oft Can BeProduced by Bryan Sutton

030-033.250_6RnJFUaIt.indd 33 8//13 2:19 PM


THE BASICS

THE TERM SEVENTH CHORD is one that may come up in your fi rst week of guitar lessons, but many players arent aware that it en-

compasses a wider range of chords beyond dominant-seventh

chords, like D7, G7, and C7. Chords like C major seventh and D

minor seventh are also types of seventh chords, as are more exotic

ones, like G minor-major seventh.

In this lesson, well take a close look at three of th

acoustic guitar - 2013-10

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