Acoustic issue 46 oCToBEr 2010

32
Jim moray
Since he hit the scene a
few years ago Jim has done
everything on his own terms.
He talks to Acoustic.

AlSO aCousTIC
14 This month:
Corey Taylor
Retune
Your Ears
24 samantha 18 Have a listen
42 Paco Pena Gibb to something new
We take five with the Carving her own niche out of
legendary flamenco stylist. her father’s shadow.
38 Mark Chadwick
The Levellers front man goes solo and tells us
he’s still an angry young man at heart.

29 C W
stoneking
An Australian who plays
a mean blues.
26 Bombay 22 Nicky
Bicycle Club swann
We get the scoop on why With the likes of Phil Beer, and
the indie-rockers have gone Brooks Williams singing her
totally acoustic. praises Nicky is one to watch.

40 Los Lobos uK luthieR CorNEr

The multi-Grammy award
winning band are back and 80Nick Benjamin
stronger than ever. A luthier with an impressive list of players.

Contents 46_BC.indd 6 18/08/2010 15:45

 Guitar Techniques NEW Gear reviews
cHecK out ouR HuGe acoustic keeps you up
tecHNiQues sectioN! to date with what’s hot
and what’s not in our
With 18 pages of level specific techniques,
whether you’re a novice or an expert our col- gear reviews section.
umns have something for everyone.
46 Ehlers Parlor
Acoustic Techniques
Small body doesn’t have to mean small
volume and tone.
Biography
The Techniques

Cherokee
As well as being the UK’s
leading mandolinist, Skill Level
Simon is also a very Suitable for
accomplished musician. intermediate to

Shuffle 50 Lowden F Ltd.

If he’s not teaching, advanced
writing, composing or players
arranging, he - along
with his band The Acoustic Techniques
Simon Mandolinquents - will

mAYoR be playing at a venue A bluegrass standard to get to grips with

World renowned for quality guitars, is this limited

Mandolin Afficionado near you.

The Acoustic
Skill level: Advanced

of basic bluegrass improvisation so

Biography
within that idiom. acquainted yourself with scales and
One of the most interesting tunes of we can use the techniques elsewhere: Tennessee based Doyle
arpeggios. Many people have an

Guitar edition something special?

the bluegrass repertoire, the ‘Cherokee
Shuffle’, has the rather addictive quality
of sporting an uneven number of bars:
eight in the first half of the tune and
ten in the second. This really took me
by surprise the first time I heard it: just
when I expected it to end…oops…
another two bars!
Like most traditional tunes it has
Try the first version – the basic tune Dykes is one of the
instinctive feel for chord changes, suitable arpeggios over chords (bars
– noting that each half repeats. You world’s leading fingerstyle
particularly the common shifts from 5, 17, 19, 23, 31, 32), simple runs
can swing the melody a little; most acoustic guitarists who has
tonic (1st) to dominant (5th) and following the diatonic progression of been heavily influenced
players would. It’s all in first position
subdominant (4th). The more you play the scale (bars 27, 30, 35), the flattened by Chet Atkins and Duane
and has no real technical difficulties.
The most portable rock band
3rd note of the scale (bars 3, 6, 9, 11
The second version is a typical the easier this gets, and your musical Eddy. As a master clinician,
etc), and the flattened 7th (bars 11,
ear can be trained if you don’t have a
doyle
Doyle has performed
bluegrass improvisation, or at least
or orchestra in the world!
18, 28, 29, 30). Add to this left-hand workshops and concerts
natural feel. Unlike jazz, bluegrass uses
it was when I played it for the first
time. I touched upon this back in much simpler and often predictable dykes
techniques such as hammer-ons,
all begins to
slides and pull-offs and itGuitarist
with his trusty Taylor
Signature Model all over
harmonic progressions, and as an

54 Breedlove stage D25-sr

umpteen variants, and a brief search
around the Internet brought as many
versions as I found people playing it.
issue 22, and here we have a similar hope! the world.
improvisatory genre it offers a much sound quite authentic…I Skill level: Suitable for all
thing. Whole books have been written
on how to do it, but if you want to simpler framework within which to

Mine is dragged up from somewhere
in my youth, when I first got excited
about bluegrass and discovered how
embellish a tune, you absolutely must
know its harmonic progression – its
chord sequence. You must also have
done your boring homework and
take your first steps.
So with all that in mind, let’s glance
through the second version and note
some of the important building blocks
I
Try the MP3 at www.mandolin.co.uk/
pickin’!
acousticmag.html…and happy
t is widely known that the
to a different level. Before I played
acoustic guitar is now one acoustic as I do now I was primarily
www.mandolin.co.uk of the most popular musical
an electric player, but never got

American design. Korean manufacture. Top

many wonderful musicians lurked instruments in the world today,
with the guitar in general as the
most popular. This is largely due
The Cherokee Shuffle to its portability, as well as the fact
that it can be very percussive, giving
so much attention as I did when I
started playing the acoustic guitar.
Bob Taylor had a lot to do with that
because of the playability of his

quality? We find out.

you the ability to strike out drum
rolls and riffs, while all along having
actual notes, giving the singer or
musician a proper foundation with
which to support free expression. It
would stagger us to know how many or
songs have been created using
these 6-stringed boxes with their
delightful voicings. I once heard how
guitars. Today, there are even more
great acoustic guitar builders and
manufacturers than there were back
then. We have no excuses when it
comes to playing acoustic guitars,
because these days they’re as good
better than any time in history.
Something I’ve done differently
from the electric side was not only
picking out the bass notes with

58 simon and Patrick sP6

Harlan Howard, a famous songwriter
in Nashville, Tennessee, went into
a music store and said to Richard
Cotton, the owner, ‘Richard, I need
a guitar with some new songs in it!’
Sometimes even a new guitar will
perhaps inspire you in other ways
my thumb (I use a thumbpick)
selectively, but while framming the
daylights out of the thing playing
rhythm, I would control the notes,
like the tonic and subtonic in the
bass, using my left hand to mute
the notes I didn’t want to hear. This

Woodland spruce and Cedar

than you’ve been inspired before.
Recently I was onstage with a
way, you can have a ton of energy,
since your right hand is striking out
‘‘When it came to my turn to play in this
number of really fine electric players
such as James Burton, Brent Mason
on all the strings at once. I realise a sort of round-robin-style stage set-up, I
and Vince Gill. I’ll have to admit, I
lot of you probably already do this,
but a lot of people don’t. I can be
didn’t step back like I probably would’ve
love the sounds these guys get out
of their guitars with their ‘chicken
rocking out on the ‘U2 Medley’ and done a few years ago. I actually stepped up
hitting riffs on the higher strings and

A long-standing favourite guitar for many

pickin’’ and wailing solos. I have a
couple of these old Teles myself
and they’re fun to play. In fact, I
used one in my show last night on
a couple of tunes. But honestly, I
keeping my rhythm going at the
same time. In fact, I use a drop-D and
-G tuning on that particular piece, so
I can have my tonic and subtonic (or
and dug in with the rest of ’em!’’
which strings I’m picking (except,
far as dynamics are concerned.
well, just all of them). With my left
I would encourage you to try this
hand, I’m muting the 6th string with

generations of guitar players is now released with

the 1 and the 5 in the bass, being the
didn’t feel all that encouraged to
G on the 5th string and the D on the
pick up a guitar like that in front of
6th string) being D,G,D,G,B,E.
those boys that night, although I had
When I’m playing a song like
no problem playing my acoustic.
‘How Great Thou Art’, the big
on an open A chord in quarter notes
my thumb and then alternately
(1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4), and just strike all of
muting the 5th string by leaning my
the strings with your right hand and
hand and touching the 5th string
control the A and E strings being
and allowing the 6th string to ring
heard by muting them with your left

the aid of modern technology. Does the acoustic

114 When it came to my turn to play
in this sort of round-robin-style
stage set-up, I didn’t 17/08/2010
step back15:00
like I
probably would’ve done a few years
Simon Mayor_BC.indd 1
ago. I actually stepped up and dug
out. This is using the left hand and
crescendo at the end of the song hand. In other words, hearing the
the right hand together in a way that
is really created by using this same bass notes with the chord that is ‘not’
is all for the dynamics and expression
method of playing, except thinking muted with your left hand.
for the biggest sound you can
more ‘orchestra’ than ‘rock band’. In This is only one simple way of
achieve from the instrument.
expressing your music with bigger

spirit live on?

other words, I’m actually thinking
in with the rest of ’em! People have
timpani rolls and striking the A
complimented me on the fact that
chord using the open 5th and 6th
I brought the acoustic to a different
strings respectively in the 1-5-1-5-
level (in their eyes, that is!). I sincerely 1-5
pattern like the timpani would
appreciate that, but the fact is, the
do. While striking the strings firmly
acoustic guitar has brought me up
with my right hand, I’m not choosing
Well, this is one little trick that
dynamics that our favourite subject,
normally causes some attention
the acoustic guitar, can easily handle.
when I play. The only thing is, the
left hand is just as involved in the
Happy picking.
process of the dynamics. You can do
this on the electric guitar but, in my
Doyle Dykes
opinion, not with the same effect as

98 Lin Flanagan 108

Doyle Dykes_BC.indd 94

17/08/2010 16:42
64 aNue Nue ukuleles
A look at exam syllabuses
‘aNueNue’ is Hawaiian for ‘rainbow’. Are these all-
solid ukes a pot of gold?
100 David Price 108 Doyle Dykes
A piece inspired by The Beatles You can make the acoustic as
upfront as the electric.
70 ultrasound DsX amp
The Ultrasound may sound like a Mancunian
102 Keith Murray superlative, but is it really ‘sound’ enough to
How to learn the notes on the 110 Gordon Giltrap compete with the big brands?
fretboard Another slice of vintage Giltrap

104 stu Norman 114 simon Mayor 72 roland aC-33

Are you regularly cursing the weight of your PA
Delve into open G tuning for A bluegrass standard that every
system for live gigs? Is Roland’s latest offering a
better blues player should know one-stop solution?

106 Duck Baker 116 Maartin allcock 74 shadow NanoMaG

A traditional tune from North Three Irish reels to get your fingers
A new mandolin pickup from Shadow.
East England around

77 Lace acoustic Bronze

Subscribe - Details on Page 44 Huw Price continues his series of pickup tests

Special Features
16 Classic album 88 Glastonbury
Pink Moon by Nick Drake report
We report in from the UK’s
86 Legends of biggest festival
acoustic 90 acoustic Festival
The Blues Legends
of Great Britain
A dedicated festival with a
dedicated following

83 History of Guitar
© Getty Images

The emergence of the steel-

strung guitar.

Contents 46_BC.indd 7 18/08/2010 15:46