Here is my arrangement of Si Bheag, Si Mhor (Little Fairy, Big Fairy), reportedly the first song composed by famous 17th century bard Turlough O’Carolan. This version of the song is played a little on the slower side of what you normally hear, but I may record a slightly more uptempo version later on. I think the song works well both ways to be honest, one of the many interesting things about it. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, Gotoh 510 tuners, strings are Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Banyan (a/k/a “Banyans,” or “Banyan Tree Slack Key”) is a slack key style song I wrote about 10 or 12 years ago on nylon string guitar. I used to play my gut string ‘beach’ guitar around beaches and surf spots in Kona like Magic Sands, Banyans, and Old Airport. For one, the nylon strings aren’t as affected by the salt air, and for two, it was less expensive than my other guitar at the time, a Taylor 310ce that I didn’t want to take to the beach. So I guess this song is partially named after the surf spot, but also after some banyan trees near Magic Sands – some of which have since been cut down – or even those mystical banyan trees in general. Shortly after writing this song, I sold that nylon – an Ibanez, sort of crossover model – though I continued to rotate this and a few other related songs in and out of my set. Until recently though, it had really been a while since I played this song. Once more, owning a nylon string guitar again inspired me to go back and revisit some older material. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 414ce-NR (Rosewood/Spruce nylon string) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.)
All rights reserved to this song, however students may perform the song in public.
Today’s song is a cover of the Ray Kane classic “Keiki Slack Key” (not to be confused with the Sonny Chillingworth song of the same name). To me, Ray Kane is probably the best example of an ‘old style’ slack key player, and his tracks are always nahenahe. I never got to take a lesson from Ray, though I did get to speak to him and his wife Elodia on the phone once, not long before he passed – a cherished memory. Keiki Slack Key is one of the first slack key songs I transcribed, and has stayed on my setlists ever since. This arrangement was inspired by my recent purchase of a nylon string guitar; I really think this song works well on nylon for a number of reasons. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 414ce-NR (Rosewood/Spruce nylon string) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Appearing as a sort of interlude on the Pink Moon album, Horn is a fascinating little study of a song in its own right. I love the simple melody and the atmosphere created by the space between the notes. I also really like the way this song works on nylon string guitar. (Apologies for the intonation in places – still getting a feel for this guitar and nylon again.) Of course, Drake apparently used really old, beat up steel strings, so his guitar work translates well to nylon. I don’t know what it is about the deceptively simple genius of his guitar parts, but they get me every time. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 414ce-NR (Rosewood/Spruce nylon string) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Here is a video featuring a couple of relatively recent purchases for me – a Taylor 414ce-NR (nylon string, rosewood/sitka) and a Fishman Loudbox Artist. This is meant to serve as a sound demo for what the Loudbox sounds like with a nylon string guitar and what the Taylor nylon pick-up (ES-N, not the ES2) sounds like. I close miked the amp to get a truer representation, but you get a little bit more open sound when you hear it from across the room.
Recorded with a Taylor 414ce-NR (Rosewood/Spruce nylon string) into a Fishman Loudbox Artist amp miked with a Sennheiser e906 dynamic microphone. Reverb is from the amp, not an added effect.
Up until now, you’ve mostly heard me play steel string acoustic guitar. “Tranquility” is a song I recorded a years back on nylon string guitar. It’s a mellow, contemplative, and relaxing song. My friend Chris in Kona (no slouch on guitar himself) says it’s his favorite thing he’s heard me do. With that vote, I thought I would dig this out from the vaults for you.
Anyway, I haven’t had a nylon string guitar for going on 10 years… up until recently that is. I’ve made several recordings with it so far, and I hope to have them edited and posted before long. Meanwhile, please enjoy this song.
All rights reserved to this song, however students may perform it in public.
From the vaults, here is a demo of a tune I wrote some years back called Blue Bells. I think this might be the only recording I have of this song, and although it’s not fully finished there’s something I love about this take that made me want to stop working on it for a while. Sometimes you capture a feeling – for yourself alone even – well enough to leave a song be – to come back to it later, or not at all.
Recorded with a late 90’s Olympic White Jimmie Vaughan Stratocaster and a ’68 Fender Vibro Champ with some sort of Boss delay pedal in Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i, 6/18/06.
All rights reserved to this song, however students may perform the song in public.
Iris has a lot of harmonics, which creates a light, chimey atmosphere. A thunderstorm rolled in while I was recording and gave some interesting punctuation to the take. I’ll probably try to record another version of this song, but thought the lightness of the song coupled with the thunderstorm left an interesting contrast. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, Gotoh 510 tuners, strings are Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
All rights reserved to this song, however students may perform the song in public.
Not long ago I picked up the Polytune Clip from TC Electronic and have since been very pleased with the way it works on acoustic guitar in particular. (Of course it also works on electric guitar and other instruments as well.) I do a lot of open and altered tunings and this tuner handles them like a champ. In addition to latching on to notes quickly and accurately in chromatic mode, the Polytune picks up the low 6th string bass notes well (I tune down as low as Bb). Tracking is great and you can see the note steadily move into tune as you turn the tuning pegs. Of course the polytune mode doesn’t really work with open / altered tunings, but the Polytune Clip works so well as a chromatic tuner that it’s worthwhile for that alone. Highly recommended.
While a lot of people use more common open tunings like Open D and Open G, this C6 tuning (C-A-C-G-C-E) is most often associated with Jimmy Page. Page used the tuning on the Led Zeppelin songs “Friends” (Led Zeppelin III), “Bron-Yr-Aur” (Physical Graffiti), and “Poor Tom” (Coda). It sounds great on acoustic guitar, providing you with lots of drones in the key of C. (The tuning may not easily work on electric, depending on your set-up.) I find the tuning tends to work well where you’re mostly on the I chord and vi chord, with a little IV and V chords thrown in. While I’m sure someone somewhere will figure out Giant Steps in the tuning, I try to play to the tuning’s natural strengths and focus on chords that are easy to play and make use of the open strings. I hope you enjoy using this tuning. You may also want to check out my covers of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” and Page / Zeppelin’s “Bron-Yr-Aur,” links below.