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.
This video gives you a brief introduction to using a “Drop D” partial capo, which leaves the 6th string open. This partial capo is often called a “Drop D” capo because you can get a tuning similar to Drop D by using it on the 2nd fret. This capo can also be used in other positions though, and people use these capos a lot on the 4th fret as well. This video offers a brief overview on using a “Drop D” capo, however I’ve decided to include a few more in-depth pointers below for those interested.
The following are some additional things to consider when using a “Drop D” capo, some of which are covered in the video:
Popular Keys – I mainly talk about playing in the key of E in the video, and this is logical since we have an E in the bass. With a partial capo, the key of E works well in both the 4th fret and 2nd fret capo positions. Of course there are other key options, and songs in a given “key” often contain non-diatonic chords. Experiment to find out if the chords in a given song sound good with a partial capo. For example, on the 4th fret you might also play in the Key of B; on the 2nd fret you might also play in the key of A. It depends on the chords involved. Something like a missing ‘E’ or ‘Em’ shape (see more below) may rule out a particular partial capo option.
Some chord shapes don’t change – Any voicing that doesn’t use the 6th string will be the same, although you may now be able to add the open 6th string in if it didn’t work before (see more below). Any shape that does use the 6th string will be the same as long as you’re fretting notes above the capo. (Chords that normally use the open 6th string probably won’t work, per below.)
The missing chords – any fist position chord that uses the open 6th string in the bass won’t work the same – notably the “E” and “Em” shapes. For example, if you’re playing in the key of B with the partial capo on the 4th fret, the vi chord – G#m – will be tough to grab unless you leave the 6th string out. One option here is to move the capo back further from the 4th fret so that you have space to fret that 6th string 4th fret note with your finger, but I’ve found this is not always practical – either the capo still gets in the way or the strings start to buzz because the capo isn’t close enough to the fret. So you may want to try another capo position &/or other chord voicings when you’re ‘missing’ these chords.
Deciding when to use the low E in the bass – while the open E bass string may not work with some chords (and can be left out), it may be usable for other chords – either in strumming the chord or as part of an alternating bass pattern. For example, with the partial capo on the 4th fret, the “D shape” gives us an F# Maj. We probably want to leave the low E bass out of this chord. (Note you could make it F#7 by adding the low E, but a voicing with the b7 in the bass may not work.) More examples – still with the partial capo on the 4th fret: we can play C#m using the “Am shape”, and of course E is the minor 3rd. Even though E is part of the chord, it may not sound good to play C#m with E in the bass when you’re strumming… however the low E could work as part of an alternating bass pattern when fingerpicking. Use your ear to decide in borderline cases like this. Playing the A (“F shape”) and B (“G shape”) chords with fingerpicking, you could try alternating the 6th string bass between a fretted note and the open string. You may find this works better for the A chord (where E is the 5th) than the B chord (where E is the 4th). Even if you don’t know all the theory, you should be able to figure out what sounds good for your song – experiment and use your ear.
Expanding your key options with a second capo – A second ‘normal’ capo (or one that can cover the 6th string) can be used to give you more key options using the partial capo either 2 or 4 frets above a normal capo. For example, put a regular capo on the 2nd fret – this gives you F# in the bass. Then use the “Drop D” partial capo on the 6th fret and it will work in F# similar to how the partial capo works by itself on the 4th fret in E. You could also play in F# with a normal capo on the 2nd fret and a partial capo on the 4th fret, giving you the Drop D style tuning. For the key of G, you could use a normal capo on the 3rd fret and a partial capo on either the 5th or 7th fret. Other options are around, so feel free to experiment.
Using a regular capo ‘off-center’ – if you don’t already have a partial capo, you may be able to experiment by using a regular capo ‘upside down’ and ‘off-center’ (as shown in the video) to see how the tuning sounds. You may decide you don’t need a partial capo, but if you like the sound you get and want to use it a lot, it’s probably good to go ahead and use a partial capo.
A final note – while you usually see partial capos used on acoustic guitars by fingerstyle players or singer-songwriters, you can of course use them on electric guitars and with different styles of music.
This video is about the new Gotoh 510 tuners I had installed on my Taylor. I had stock gold finish Taylor tuners on the guitar (no difference from the nickel ones except for the finish) and they were pretty nice, but they had a little more wear than normal and were starting to give me some trouble with all the alternate tunings I use. The stock tuners had probably an 18:1 ratio so I thought I’d try the Gotoh tuners, which are a bit heftier and have a 21:1 ratio. Pete (the guitar tech featured in the video) recommended I order the Delta Series version of the tuners, though I’m not sure how those differ from the normal ones. (Also note: this is not meant to be a do it yourself video – I recommend you go to an experienced luthier, as I did.) Overall, I’m pleased with how the tuners look and perform, and how the guitar sounds after installing the tuners.
You may also want to view my video for Lágrima, recorded after installing the Gotoh tuners – this is the kind of song that I think sounds better with the extra sustain from the tuners.