The Handmade Guitar

The Handmade Guitar Ten Ways to Coax New Sounds From Your Axe Without Buying More Gear

by Curtis Perry

The Handmade Guitar Curtis Perry

The Handmade Guitar2

The Handmade Guitar

Copyright © 2013 by Curtis Perry singlynoted.net/handmade Self-Published through Perry Media ISBN 978-0-9920915-0-7 Audio recorded and edited by Curtis Perry Design by Curtis Perry Written and Recorded in Ottawa, Ontario

All rights reserved. Please enjoy, share what you learn, and pass along bits of inspiration. But please do not reproduce or redistribute significant parts of this book (written or recorded) aside from brief quotations for use in reviews, blog posts, tweets, or creative works of your own. Thank you.


Contents

5 IntroductionPlaying Differently

8 The Unruly Thumb 11 Tune it In 14 Get Bent 18 Pick it Apart 20 Use Both Hands

23 Coda: Approaching Differently


Introduction

Creativity comes from strictures. Even still, it’s amazing just how much as been achieved by enterprising guitarists over the past century. Formally speaking, these alternative methods are referred to in manuals of orchestration and in academic circles as “extended techniques.” While this is a fair description, I would rather the rather accounted for these techniques as both somewhat standard, and the result of ingenious thinking by those who applied it in a distinctly musical way. Here is an overview of some of the most vibrant alternative techniques that have sprung up, with just right amount of depth so as to be cogent and useful while allowing you to get to applying the concepts as soon as possible. Above all, I hope that what will come out of those who read this is a newfound state of mind and creative zeal. Who knows – maybe your newly invented technique will bring on the next wave of innovation in guitar playing.

This book is not necessarily for absolute beginners. A basic understanding of chords and scales would be ideal before taking on the fringes of playing guitar. This being said, I have seen many people learning the guitar approach it at first with the exact fresh and creative attitude this book will try to instill in anyone who reads it, only to lose that sense of curiosity as standard playing and repertoire in ingrained. So it could be advantageous to the beginner to explore this book, if not necessarily to immediately apply the concepts, then to retain the curiosity and willingness to experiment they already have.


The only rule in this book is that, apropos to the title, the sound has to technically originate from your hands directly manipulating the instrument. There are a litany of reasons for there being such a plethora of extended techniques for the guitar. For one thing, the guitar family is unique for offering a range of expression rivaling the voice thanks to such direct manipulation of the origin of the sound, the strings. John Cage had to resort to the “prepared piano,” literally placing nuts and bolts into the body of a baby grand in order to cull alien sounds from the instrument – whereas all a guitarist needs to do is intervene with a finger. And where other string instruments might have certain similarities in tone production, none match the polyphony of the guitar. Unsurprisingly, all of the guitarists referenced in this book also composed their own parts, and didn’t feel a need to conform to the standard set of technique that any session guitarist would be expected to know at the time of its composition. In other words, thinking imaginatively about the direct manipulation of the instrument led to sounds that would not be immediately obvious if approached principally through sheet music, or some other instrument such as the piano.

Most music an instrument produces is likely to be considered idiomatic to it, and over time the expectations of what is considered idiomatic is expanded as new ideas flourish and are considered validated thanks to popularization via esteemed artists. For example, brass typically play melodies in musical intervals 4th’s and 5th’s, while flutes tend to use trills far more than the inverse is true, because of the unique strengths and weaknesses germane to each instrument. The guitar is especially exciting because it is often both challenged and liberated to fulfill multiple roles,


especially in an environment such as a solo singer-songwriter, or as the lead in a trio flanked only by a bassist and drummer. The guitar is an orchestra unto itself, then, and as will be demonstrated many times in this book, that challenge has been undertaken time and again by various artists with great success.

Most of this book covers techniques that have been established in recent history, but typically haven’t been expressly talked about in most educational materials, to the detriment of guitarists everywhere: more basic things like using the thumb to fret bass notes, alternate tunings both esoteric and conventional, over-bending, alternatives to the plectrum and fingers, plucking strings in unconventional areas, using both hands to fret, partially muting strings with the left hand (or right, if you’re left-handed), right down to trickier techniques like harp harmonics.

The coda, Approaching Differently, doesn’t necessarily summarize the material but rather offers some starting points which may lead you to some discoveries of your own. This includes some notes about the unique tonal profile of every individual string, the chordal possibilities pairing open strings with chords beyond the first position, and an overall way of lateral thinking that has led various musicians to implement the innovations explored in the book, such as imitating other instruments. Above all, I hope you get inspired by the ideas!


Chapter One: The Unruly Thumb

Admittedly, we’re starting a bit tame. Or so it seems. Many would argue that wrapping your thumb around the back of the neck to mute or fret a bass string a very standard technique. While it is widespread, it remains controversial in educational circles. For many, the thumb is meant to remain in the centre of the neck, pitched in a thumb-up position to ergonomically facilitate barre chords and lateral stretch for the fingers to play single-note melodies with fairly equal effort on any string. The issue with this is that this is a position that is primarily well-suited to fingerstyle and/ or acoustic players, as bending notes or selectively muting bass strings while playing with a pick are not of concern.

For the many musicians, such as those engaging in blues and rock, who do tend to bend strings and selectively mute while holding a pick, it is more advantageous to support the neck with the base of the palm while extending the thumb to wrap around the top, reaching the lowest string, and in some cases one string further. This allows a different kind of


The Thumb in Classical Position

leverage that favours bending strings, and offers a different paradigm for muting or even fretting the bass strings.

The truth is that one can and should change the position of the thumb as appropriate, just as one moves the thumb up and down the neck depending on the range of notes to be

played. There isn’t really standard documentation for this (until now, I suppose).

More likely than not, music which calls for the thumb to wrap around the neck does not naturally reside in sheet music, simply as a consequence of the culture around electric guitar music that places improvisation above composition with sheet music.

What I mean by naturally residing is this: what do you think of when you visualize a Bach study for guitar? Most likely, you’re imagining the sheet music. That’s where the the artistic essence of the music resides for most people if they think of a tangible way of obtaining it. Now think of Little Wing, by Jimi Hendrix. What would you visualize? Probably the iconic guitar performances on stage, or the vinyl record. Not sheet music, which exists at best as an imperfect transcription of Hendrix’s intuitive playing. This being said, the example which follows, like every example in this book, is to


Using the Thumb to Play a Bass Note

be as just that: an example. Give it a shot, and take it from there, seeing where you can go with it. You know, like John Mayer did when he left Berklee to do his own thing.

What the use of the thumb allows is a freeing of the fingers to add ornamental flourishes to the chords. In a sense, this is not unlike organ pedaling, which subordinate the feet to playing the bass line, freeing the player’s hands to add even more melodic material to the arrangement.


Chapter Two: Tune it In

The second thing anyone ought to consider when expanding their tonal palette on the guitar is alternate tunings. In the classical world, this is referred to as scordatura – Italian for “mistuning”. Just as accidental notes are really quite intentional, so are alternate tunings. It’s like going for a walk in a part of town you’ve never been – you notice aspects of things you had previously taken for granted.

With alternate tuning, you can take on the tourist mindset and create something really fresh. It can start as simple as tuning the low E string down to a D, commonly referred to as a “Drop” tuning. This opens the door to using the bass strings as a drone, against which one may overlay some melodies in D (whether that’s major, minor, or some other mode). Additionally, many fingerstyle and slide guitarists have found opportunity in Open tunings, such as Open G (DGDGBD). Songwriters such as Joni Mitchell have combined these – Mitchell’s CGDGBD tuning combines Open G and a dropped sixth string (to C), for example, in her song Cold Blue Steel.


Example Two offers some melodic patterns inspired by the Open G tuning. Notice how a scalar melody is formed between the first, third and fourth strings (D, G and D in this tuning), through a seemingly disparate combination of open strings and the 10th fret. The A note sounded by the second string floats about it all, providing some cohesion. The bass line on the fifth and sixth strings provide a melody and lend movement. Of course, since we’re in an open tuning we can end with natural harmonics all along the 12th fret:


It gets even more interesting in the consideration of completely esoteric tunings such as those of Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), often employing tunings such as F#F#F#F#EB, effectively creating an octave/ chorus sort of effect, with many opportunities for both abrasive and beautifully colourful intervals of minor and major 2nd’s. See Example Three for some of the possibilities this has to offer.

Stumped for what to do with your next song, or looking for a challenge? Try tuning the strings to something you’ve never heard before, and play something as you would if you were in standard tuning. There is a caveat: strings will break if they are tuned much higher than a semitone above standard tuning, and depending on the gauge of strings and the instrument, even this might be pushing it. I would recommend using a capo instead in most cases, as this will be much safer while achieving the safe end result. Re-learn the fretboard and discover certain chords and riffs that become easier, or indeed possible, thanks to a little “mistuning.”


Chapter Three: Get Bent

Related to the previous technique, slack tuning (i.e., standard tuning with every string detuned by a semitone, or EbAbDbGbBbEb) enables some more leverage while bending strings. You could play the following examples in standard tuning, but slack tuning is recommended – especially when overbending, as you’ll see.

You might consider bending to be a fairly de rigeur aspect of playing, but there are a few things that, unless you’re a fairly experience blues musician or the like, you may not have considered.


Prebending

Your first foray into stretching your bending vocabulary is prebending. It’s simple: Bend the string first, then pluck and return to the original fretted note. You could also think even further ahead by prebending a string a couple of notes ahead of time in the melody.


Unison Bending

Next, there’s unison bending: Most often between the G and B strings, fret two notes an interval apart (most often a major 2nd), and bend the lower note’s string to meet the upper note at the interval of a unison. Sometimes entire melodies are played with grace-note unison bends, often in rock songs, and to great dramatic effect.


Overbending

Once you’re comfortable with those techniques, there’s a challenge to be had in overbending: Not a yoga move (ahem), but instead the practice of bending a string beyond a whole tone higher than the original fretted note. Sometimes small melodies can be played this way! It can be extremely difficult to hold precise pitches when employing this technique – but when it’s done successfully it’s nothing short of magical to your audience. In any case, it is a very dramatic move aided by a completely fluid, vocal, glissando tone.

All of these bending techniques taken together, add much in enhancing the guitar’s inherent melodic sensibilities, and ought to be considered especially in the composition and improvisation of solo material. A tasteful bend can go a long way.


Chapter Four: Pick it Apart

Take a Bow (Or a Coin, or...)

Sometimes, it’s not just how you use it, but also what you’ve got. In this spirit, you could do worse than to explore alternatives to the plectrum, aka your guitar pick. The the most popular alternative is likely your fingers, the most famous is undoubtedly the bow of a violin, as seen in the deft hands of Jimmy Page, and later, Sigur Ros’ Jonsi. This offers a radically expanded tonal palette, and is especially useful in generating rich, ambient sonic backgrounds.

What else could you use? A coin, the palm of your hand, perhaps a comb comes to mind – with due caution not to be too abrasive with the tougher plectrum alternatives.


Beyond the Bridge

Besides plectrum alternatives, where you choose to pick can have huge implications for your tone. The standard for this is a choice between picking near the bridge, which offers a more brittle tone, closer to the neck in a soft, pianistic tone, or somewhere in between.

However, who says you couldn’t pick on the neck, facilitating mandolin-like tremolo figures? Or how about the strings taut between the nut the the tuning pegs, or on some guitars, between the bridge and the body? This produces an atonal, ghostly effect which is been put to great use for decades, from songs like You Know You’re Right by Nirvana, Lucky by Radiohead, and Mistaken for Strangers by The National. It would be beneficial to investigate each of the aforementioned songs to see the variety of ways it has been successfully implemented; and so, there’s no saying you couldn’t do the same for this decade. Hear Example Seven to get a sense of this chilling effect in action.


Chapter Five: Use Both Hands

Ambidexterity involves being about to use either hand for a given task. In this spirit, the question is asked: what happens if we use the picking hand for fretting, and the fretting hand for picking?

Using Both Hands

Well, for one thing, there’s what we call two-handed technique. And no… I don’t necessarily mean the Eruption solo! Some pioneering guitarists, such as Stanley Jordan, have taken an entirely different, pianistic perspective on the guitar, using both hands almost exclusively in the playing of entire chord-melody arrangements. Indeed, it is such a distinctive style of playing that an entirely new instrument was borne of it, called the Chapman Stick, invented by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. Players who specialize in this style are known as touch soloists. In a sense, as the slide guitar is the natural conclusion of bending and sliding legato, so the touch soloist takes on the ultimate approach to hammer-on and pull-off legato technique.


Much like how is it beneficial to approach string bending beyond upward bends, there is a world of two-handed solos beyond Van Halen (as amazing as it was to hear it the first time). Refer to Example Eight for a demonstration.

Partial Mutes, Rhythmic Cues

Sometimes conventional barre chords can sound a bit thick for a song, and more rhythmic density is in order. It can be advantageous, then,

to mute some strings with the fret hand while still fretting others. One effective voicing involves a bass note paired with a 10th (i.e. a 3rd plus an octave in size), with the two strings between these notes muted by the finger fretting the bass note.

Acoustic guitarists such as Dave Matthews make great use of such voicings, which can really help outline the rhythm and enhances the clarity of complex strumming patterns. Listen to Example Nine for a typical use of this technique.

Tolling the Bells (Artificial/ Harp Harmonics)


Earlier in the book, we tried natural harmonics – e.g., placing your finger on a string just above where the 12th fret is inset, plucking it, and subsequently taking your finger off to allow a bell-like tone to chime, at a similar note as the corresponding fretted string, but very different with respect to timbre. What if you could do this with any note on the fretboard, effectively opening up a whole new textural effect for melodies? You can – these are called harp harmonics, the most famous example of which is probably Django Reinhardt’s solo on Nuages. Canadian jazz guitarist Lenny Breau also made very extensive use of the technique as a hallmark of his sound.

Coda: Approaching it Differently


This is really just the beginning. It’s not just about “playing differently” – it’s about approaching differently, and employing lateral thinking. I wanted to leave a few other thoughts that merit your consideration in the quest for adding to the pantheon of alt-guitar musicianship and, ultimately, finding and then further developing your own truly original musical aesthetic.

The first thing I want you to think about, is that every string is unique. Consider playing any the melody, the exact same notes and rhythm, multiple different ways before deciding on which way suits it best. Make what might seem to be a technical decision be an artistic one. Would you want to include open strings to make the notes overlap slightly, or do you choose to remain in the sweet spot in the middle of the fretboard? There is a startling difference, and it is worthwhile to keep yourself perennially aware of this.

Related to the previous point is the technique of playing higher notes on lower strings. What I mean by this is, for example, playing a E major chord with frets 14, 14, and 13 on the A, D, and G strings, respectively, while leaving the remaining strings open. This effectively doubles the open B and E strings on top, while remaining tonally differentiated, providing a beautiful, shimmering tonal effect. Of course, this is only the beginning of what could be a long period of experimentation with this strategy for chord voicings, and as mentioned, melodies.

A major theme you might have garnered throughout the book is the notion that you can try to imitate another instrument’s idiomatic traits for the purposes of extending the tonal range of the guitar, and that this


homage can often be a great starting point for discovering new techniques. Getting out of the idiomatic box is really crucial in the quest for trying something new.

Additionally, an exploration of rhythmic effects often brings great returns for exploratory playing. One need only peruse the repertoire of Don Ross and others on the Candy Rat record label, for example, to see how an emphasis on rhythm can bring about an entirely new school of playing. Just as another example – emulation of the effects DJs employ can give some fresh insight on the art of directly manipulating sounds. And pardon the pun, but this only scratches the surface.

I hope this short book has helped you in some small way towards getting more creative and inspired with your guitar playing, and more broadly speaking, your music.


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The Handmade Guitar