One of the fascinating things about acoustic fingerstyle guitar is the variety of individual styles possible. For this reason I created the ‘Fingerstyle at FARwest 2009–Six Approaches‘ video, which captures intimate performances by six different fingerstyle players filmed at the the annual Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West) last November. Of the six guitarists presented, Walter Strauss has the most unique style. With strong compositional skills at his command, Walter makes use of techniques he has developed based on West-African music. Performing frequently with Malian harp player, Mamadou Sidibe, Walter has thoroughly absorbed the feel of this music and informed it with his own feel for modern fingerstyle.

I wrote about Walter previously in a post about Stevie Coyle’s ‘Ten-in-One’ CD. Walter was involved both as producer and accompanist. I was impressed with his playing on the CD and onstage with Stevie’s ‘Ten-in-One’ band at the CD release shows. At the FAR-West conference in 2009, Walter was a featured performer. His impassioned and masterful performance of original material earned him a standing ovation–not that common an occurrence, given the sophistication of the audience of fellow musicians. These were not the easily impressed. But with pieces like the one he played for my camera, the sublime ‘Ishi‘, Walter overcomes the ’seen-it-all-before’ attitude, and amazes with powerful rhythms and intricate picking, with no need for flashy pyro-technics. I’ve posted my video of Walter on my YouTube page.

Playing on an Oneida Guitar also gives Walter a special sound. His model of this decidedly modern instrument made by violin makers Ithaca Stringed Instruments, is a closed-top guitar, with no sound hole–an ‘un-holy’ instrument as Walter likes to joke. This Oneida acoustic/electric is made to be played amplified, but un-plugged it has a certain, woody, muted resonance that is suited to Walter’s style. The drier sound of this instrument allows his complex rhythms and flowing cascades of notes to be clearly heard without the guitar sounding over-driven.

The song, ‘Ishi‘ has a 6/8 feel, and Walter makes good use of triplets, executed with guitar rolls, either adapted from Malian guitar, or of his own creation. The thumb gives the first note and then two fingers for the remaining notes of the triplet. There is a staccato feel to these rolls, especially on the theme. But, since this could get too predictable, he switches things up on the more open feeling B section, which then gives the theme more power when he returns to it. For a long piece, over five minutes, he manages to maintain interest with variation, energetic playing, and a strong compositional element. 6/8, a common meter in African music, is a great for fingerstyle, but few ever attempt it. Our western 4/4 feel prevents most of us from hearing this time-signature outside of the Irish jig cadence we most commonly associate with it.

With the guitar tuned in DADGCD, Walter also makes use of certain ‘harp effects‘, playing melodic lines by alternating fretted notes with notes on adjacent open strings and allowing the open string notes to wash over the fretted notes. He also creates the distinctive mood of the piece by playing in G minor, not the most obvious choice in that tuning, then emphasizing the D minor and the low D string on the B part. This helps keep the piece from sounding too droning or modal.

Walter is touring nationally and has a busy performance schedule. His shows are intense, while his music is imbued with a certain spirituality. It comes across in ‘Ishi’, a piece dedicated to the man who was last member of the Yahi Indian tribe. Songs from his CD ‘Pulling Shadows‘ are on his website. That project includes Malian artist Mamadou Diabate on kora, as well as bassist Rich DePaolo and drummer Bill King. He has another collection of songs which should appear in 2010.

I’ve known San Francisco based singer-songwriter Garrin Benfield for some time. In the mid ‘oughties’ (this century has turned out sucky for decade names so far,) we were booked on the same bill at a local SF acoustic music showcase night. At the end of the evening, Garrin and I jumped onstage for an impromptu jam. The experience was to play with someone extremely talented at improv, but who listened and adapted to other players. I was impressed. After a subsequent showcase night, we ended up back at Garrin’s with another player. The three of us amused friends (until they fell asleep) trading songs until dawn. At that point I realized Garrin was the real deal–a musician who loves to play, no matter the circumstances, and who had plenty of energy for making music,  simply for the pleasure of doing it.

To say Garrin is extremely talented is not an exaggeration. His songwriting is top-notch, both from a composition and a lyrical viewpoint.  His songs are intimate, revelatory and moving. No BS here–Garrin cares too much to fake it. His voice is flawless, sweet and rich, not too sugary, and always moving, as Garrin wears the emotion of the song vulnerably; caught up in his music, he’s truly moved by what he’s conveying. With three studio albums and a live CD to his credit, there’s plenty of evidence of his songwriting and vocal skills. But a big part of the Garrin Benfield story is his guitar technique. Most singer-songwriters are happy to provide an interesting guitar part as back up to a song, but Garrin enriches the mix by adding improvisational riffs and a sense of taking risks in the moment as the mood strikes him. Beyond the arrangements of his guitar parts, which are always virtuosic, he extends his pieces into ad-libbed solo ‘jams’, often with the aid of a looper. He has an uncanny ability (and the pedal board to enable it) that allows him to change the sound, EQ, reverb and delay of his instrument from moment to moment, creating rhythm tracks, powerful bass lines, rocking percussion parts and then launching into stratospheric lead improvisations that leave audiences slack-jawed. Using a Sunrise pick-up in his Martin dreadnought, he can pull-off these guitar heroics without a guitar amp, going from warm, chunky wooden sounds to screaming lead sustain and feedback. All this allows him to play solo in places like loud bars and large festival stages, such as the prestigious High Sierra Festival in Quincy, CA.

Garrin and I rode down to the annual Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West) conference in Irvine together last November. While there, I took video of several Fingerstyle Guitarists. I have presented them together in a half-hour video “Fingerstyle at FARwest 2009“. Although Garrin specializes in fancy work with the flatpick, I knew him to be a solid fingerpicker, and asked for the song ‘Unbound’ specifically. I’ve posted the results to my MokaiMusic YouTube page.

I think ‘Unbound‘ is an excellent introduction to Garrin’s music. The overall effect of his singing, playing and the evocative mood of the lyrics create a spell-binding experience. I heard him play this piece several times over the weekend (including the time when I thought I was recording and I wasn’t,) and each time he threw himself into the song as deeply. I also think this is a textbook example of how to arrange an original song for fingerstyle. He uses the guitar to support and underscore the melody and the mood, not really calling attention to the guitar part to leave the vocal forefront. As a bass player, Garrin knows how much movement to put in the bass line. His alternating bass is smooth and even, with a slight lilt, gently driving the song. The sliding chord riffs on 5ths and 3rds on the middle strings give the song that open feeling, and embellish the story nicely. It’s interesting to compare the use of these partial chord positions to how the same ones are used on Shaun Cromwell’s piece, also in drop D tuning and posted on my YouTube page from the same series of videos. Really shows you how much individual technique and artistic choices changes how the same fingerings sound.

In creating an interesting guitar accompaniment to a song, especially for solo performance, there’s a bit of a balancing act between how much you should do and how much you might want to do. Most will have to forgo some of the more difficult single-string runs Garrin adds. That stuff can distract from the song if it’s not pulled off. In Garrin’s case, he slides it in there so gracefully, you almost don’t realize how technically difficult it is, and it ends up enhancing rather than detracting. But there’s also plenty of places where he just lets the song be carried by his rhythmic pulse.

Late breaking update: just saw Garrin give a triumphant headline performance to a packed house at Yoshi’s in SF. He started off his set with this tune, and held people mesmerized. Garrin is a touring musician who gets around, so check his schedule to see if he’s showing up in your area.

Through performing and being involved in the acoustic music community, I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many excellent pickers. More importantly, I’ve been able to experience the incredibly variety of individual expression within the format of folk, folk blues, fingerpicking and independent songwriting. I stress independent, because the heart of music culture today is not on the hit parade, but in the small venues and house concerts across the land. There, independent and self sustaining musicians are offering their wonderfully original take on our cultural heritage of folk, blues, jazz and pop.

I want to portray as many of the good fingerpickers I meet as possible on this blog, and when I can, present exclusive video of their performances. While in Irvine recently for the annual Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West), I took video of several Fingerstyle Guitarists. I have presented them together in a half-hour video “Fingerstyle at FARwest 2009“.

One of the guitarists I was lucky enough to meet is Shaun Cromwell. I’ve posted the clip of Shaun playing his very cool song “The Rise and the Fall of It All” to my YouTube page.

Shaun was a featured performer at the FAR-West conference, and his show proved to be one of the most enjoyable for someone like me, who loves good songwriting combined with great fingerpicking. About the fingerpicking in a minute–but first the songwriting. For non-pickers, the first thing you’d notice about Shaun might be his compelling vocal style, or the funny way his face scrunches up when he sings–more evidence of just how fully he puts himself into his songs. Then, as you listen, it dawns on you that the lyrical content is really intriguing, and surprises with unexpected meaning and rich, literary references. Even after multiple listening, songs on his CD “The Turning Of Clocks” reveal new depth and choice poetics, making obvious why Shaun has been a finalist in such prestigious songwriting competitions as the Mountain Stage Newsong Contest, Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest, and the Acoustic Blues Competition at the Telluride Blues Festival. A comparison to Paul Simon is appropriate, given the quality of of Shaun’s vocals, lyrics and guitar work, as well as a comparison to Kelly Joe Phelps, given the way Shaun’s music cleaves to the roots. When it comes to picking, a tune like “Cholla Cactus Rag” is a case study of the kind of clean, vibrant picking I always want to hear more of.

On the video of “The Rise and the Fall of It All“, Shaun does an excellent job of balancing a tranquil mood, skillful rhyming, cool, complex picking and an off-the-cuff feel. This is of course the mark of a good performer, to make it all seem effortless, and despite the degree of complexity (which he makes seem deceptively casual) Shaun really doesn’t work too hard. His hands (and body) are incredibly relaxed. His right hand hardly travels at all, and his fingers are gentle and relaxed as he lightly plucks the strings, without sacrificing tone and feel. A wonderful example of all-too-rare 3/4 time fingerpicking, his arrangement includes arpeggios and fluid single string runs (played with his index and forefinger.) The bass line is sparse, and bass notes are irregularly placed, just where needed. This gives the piece an open, breathy feel. A lot of this mood is due to a conscious choice on Shaun’s part to take a page from Bahamanian guitarist Joseph Spence. Shaun’s ability to incorporate and extrapolate on traditional roots sounds is one of the keys to the authenticity of his playing.

For those who have a weakness for luthier-made guitars (remind you of anyone?), Shaun is playing a sweet little John How Grand Concert model. John How is a custom builder, specializing in guitars modeled on the early, hand-made Stella Guitars from the Oscar Schmidt era, which he makes as traditional ladder braced and his own style of X-braced guitars like Shaun’s. He also has a unique take on what a modern fingerstyle guitar should be. Shaun’s instrument has a full voice, even at low volume, and a special shimmer to the sound it produces–perhaps owing to the Madagascar rosewood used on the back. Shaun worked together with John How to get the look of the guitar, and the detail and craftsmanship are evident–the reddish tint to the spruce top and the oddly shaped John How bridge makes it apparent at a glance that it is a very special piece.

I’m looking forward to more music from Shaun. At this point he’s released one CD and this tune isn’t even on it, so I assume he’s got more interesting material up his sleeve.

I took video of several Fingerstyle Guitarists while in Irvine last November for the annual Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West). I am presenting them together in a half-hour video “Fingerstyle at FARwest 2009“.

Here’s the link to the High Resolution Video:
(large file, needs fast connection, stream or download)

Here’s the link to the Low Resolution version:
(not as good video quality, good for slower connections, plays full screen)

The video includes songs by six different performers playing their original material, including three of this year’s featured showcase performers, Walter Strauss, Shaun Cromwell and Ernest Troost.

One of the things that makes this video interesting is the juxtaposition of six experienced players, who have developed different sets of skills and created original styles within the context of fingerpicking, and of both traditional and world music. With six different guitarists, we get six different approaches, completely distinct use of right and left hand techniques, and, most importantly, the differing ‘touch’ each player has on the instrument, based on their own inner sensibilities and the clear conveyance of the values that they bring to their music. Not to get all high-fallutin’ or anything, but, in particular with this group of musicians who are based on the west coast of California, we get a glimpse of the kind of talent lurking on the fringes of mainstream music, and of the authenticity of artists within the FAR-West community.

Walter Strauss, does an energetic version of his gorgeous composition “Ishi”, displaying his advanced technique and both the influence of West African music on his style and his own original ideas, about composition and modern fingerstyle. Shaun Cromwell plays a note perfect version his sublime tune “The Rise and the Fall of It All”, made more sublime by the influence of Bahamanian guitarist Joseph Spence, and Shaun’s lyrics and vocal stylings.

There’s plenty of good guitar music and expert fingerpicking on this video. Ernest Troost sings and plays “By and By”, a sweet tune with a lilting guitar part.  Another highlight of the video is Garrin Benfield’s stunning voice and guitar work on his beautiful song “Unbound”. David Siegler contributes an example of his clean and precise picking on his instrumental piece “Walking the Round”; Bruce Victor offers up a rousing rendition of his tribute to Michael Hedges, and I (Mokai,) add a little guitar madness on my number “Holy Guacamole”.

A little more about the video: no jittery camera, we had a tripod! Excellent use of available light and a glorious hotel room setting! Performers playing  incredibly despite having not slept in days! The audio was recorded separately to an external recorder, so it has some extra sparkle. I’ve made a high resolution version available for guitar geeks who want to see the fingers clearly.

It’s a beautiful collections of songs–leave it on as a soundtrack as you make dinner or make love, or both! The only thing wrong with this video is the absence of female artists. Attribute this to the vagaries of hallway encounters, not to my skill at charming people up to my hotel room (something I am not a novice at).

During this wild weekend at the conference, I played several showcases, and attended many more, as well as workshops and jam sessions ’til late at night. When I ran into someone I knew is a picker, I would cajole them into coming up to the room and playing a tune. It was great fun and a great way to see some good picking up close, as well as see an impressive collection of guitars. Serious guitar obsession satiation! In the context of the overall conference, it was a fun adventure.

FAR-West, as a regional association of members of the national Folk Alliance, is a bit of an upstart, as far as having it’s own flavor and personality befitting the iconoclastic region it encompasses. The annual conference is a full blown affair, with hundreds of musicians, promoters and concert presenters, as well as writers, producers,and DJs–all dedicated to Folk music, descending on a hotel, and in the manner of the national Folk Alliance conference, they take over the conference rooms and most of the hotel rooms, just like any massing of shriners. Only here you’ve got guys with banjos wandering the halls, and ladies lugging contrabasses in the elevators; jams breaking out in the lobby and a huge convention hall full of people purveying the business of Folk.

It’s worth noting that the definition of ‘Folk’ here encompasses everything in acoustic music, including original music, singer-songwriter, traditional and world music. FAR-West and Folk Alliance are involved in networking independent musicians and lovers of acoustic music, and doing a pretty good job of it, too.

The funnest part of the conference is having a whole floor of the hotel where the rooms are turned into listening rooms and dozens of performers are playing at once for several hours each night. You can stroll the hallways, running into friends, meeting new people and dropping in on performances. Most importantly, it really is a zone where not a discouraging word is heard–everyone is enjoying themselves and each other, and it’s all about the music.

Please watch the video and let me know what you think. Over the coming weeks I will be posting the individual songs as clips on my youTube page, and posting to this blog, with more information on the individual players, their guitars and their songs.

Notes about streaming:

1) The blip tv channel plays a ‘tube’ version (.flv for geeks) which should stream for everybody. Notice the little button on the lower right that lets you play it full screen. This version is much lower quality video, but the sound is still pretty good.

2) The high quality (Mp4) version will stream for those with a fast internet connection, so you can play it straight through at that size. If it is not streaming smoothly, then leave it load until the bar on the bottom is full (could take some time.) At that point you can play it through.

Any comments and feedback are welcome….

Since I often talk about right hand technique on this Blog, you might think ‘Thumbs of Fury’ refers to the right hand thumb.* Yes, the fingerpicker’s Jedi force surely resides in the right hand thumb, but in the case of long-time fingerstyle master Duck Baker, there’s a lot going on with the left hand thumb. Baker uses that thumb to fret notes on the low E string by reaching over the top of the neck, while simultaneously fretting notes on the treble strings in the normal fashion with his other fingers.

Baker’s ‘thumb over‘ technique is certainly powerful (hmm, your kung fu is pretty good,) but he really takes the technique to the extreme, virtually replacing any use of the other left hand fingers on the lowest guitar string. In today’s world, venerable techniques like the ‘thumb over’ have all but disappeared. It has been kept alive mostly by boomer generation players who had direct contact with the early fingerpickers–or learned from those who did. These players of the earlier generation who survived into the 1960s inspired the fingerstyle renaissance that caught up many seminal guitarists of the era like Dave Van Ronk, Jorma Kaukonen and Stephan Grossman.

At that time, the thumb over was pretty much de rigueur, used to create classic arrangements by older players like Doc Watson. Perhaps the main proponent of the technique was the Piedmont style guitar master Reverend Gary Davis, who directly taught many folkies of the boomer generation like Jorma and Van Ronk. Many of the Reverend’s arrangements are impossible to reproduce without using the thumb on the fretboard. I caught a workshop by Duck Baker when he came through the Bay Area recently, and got to see how he uses it up close, as well as gain some insight into his overall approach to the complex fingerstyle he plays.

The workshop was focused on Celtic fingerstyle playing, but Baker employs the same left hand techniques on Ragtime, Folk Blues and Jazz. I was a little intimidated, because I realized as soon as we began that Baker’s approach revolves entirely around the use of the left hand thumb to fret notes. In fact a lot of what he was teaching is impossible without it. I had been introduced to the technique as a youth when I first started picking–like I said, it was considered standard operating procedure for the 60s folkies I was learning from, but, having smaller hands, it is virtually undo-able for me, so I’ve never relied on it. I looked at Baker’s gigantic hands, and then at my dinky things, and resolved to get as much as could out of the class. I have developed what I consider an admirable ability to ‘fake’ the chords I know are made using the thumb, but I was pretty much hitting a wall right away as Baker’s style takes such thorough advantage of the reach afforded by thumb over playing. And reach is what it’s all about.

For those unfamiliar, imagine a standard barre chord (E shape.) You are barring with your index finger, and using the three remaining fingers for the ‘E’ shape, using up all your fingers. In thumb over, you barre only the top two treble strings (or the four top strings) and then fret the lowest note of the chord with your thumb by bringing it over the top of the neck. Commonly, pickers will then abandon the note on the fifth string. This is where thumb over starts to take off. By losing the fifth string note you have freed up the pinky, which is now able to play melody notes over the chord. In the case of Duck Baker, you have done a lot more, especially since, for Duck, the index is the “smartest” finger, which he considers too important to waste on barring all the time. In ‘G’ position, Baker can play alternating bass on a G note on the bass string fretted with his thumb, and an open D on the third string, and achieve an already full sounding accompaniment, leaving all four fingers free to play melody. He can play above the third fret all the way to the high B, and below the third fret as well. Here’s a video of Duck Baker explaining how this is so powerful. Ironically this lesson hosted on the Guitar Workshop’s YouTube page is called  “The guitar is not your friend“, and no, he’s not referring to the pain of guitar player’s wives watching their future vacation disappear into their husband’s guitar collection. He’s referring to the aspect of the guitar which requires strategic planning to be able to produce a certain chord or riff, especially in the face of where on the neck one is coming from and where one is going to next. Fingering on the fretboard is all important in fingerstyle (to the point where afficionados get enjoyment from watching good fingering choices that civilians would not even notice.) Thumb over is a strategic response to the problem of confusing fingering possibilities. It provides certain solutions, and opens up some different possibilities. In the above excerpt from Duck’s DVD “Guitar Aerobics Exercises For The Advanced Contemporary & Traditional Fingerpicking Guitarist” he explains some of how he developed his left hand to be able to get his incredible reach. He shows how he can pick a melody while maintaining a moving bass line with his thumb fretting over the neck. The example at the end the clip shows a neat little fingerpicking riff over a III7, II7, V7 change that is of interest to any picker wanting to bring in more jazzy harmonization. I can easily play it without using the thumb over, but it becomes a real workout using my fretting hand thumb over the neck. A word of caution here, as with any new technique, it is important to bring it online slowly over time to avoid injury. Here’s more from “Guitar Aerobics” with Duck showing some finger stretches to help you get there.

As with any strategic choice, thumb over is only another option and carries with it it’s own limitations. Of course, once the desired bass note is not on the low E string, game over (though some do fret with the thumb on other strings, mostly in open tuning). In many cases the fretting thumb will need to hang all the way over to mute the fifth string, a function normally carried out by the side of the index finger when playing partial chords. (Or, as Rev. Gary dealt with this problem, his fingers were so huge, he would just do a ‘double-stop’ and fret the fourth and fifth strings with one finger, leaving two fingers free for riffing.) Often, I’ll have to discourage a beginner from lazily hanging their thumb over the top of the neck and kind of dangling their hand from it, because it’s causing them to not clear the strings correctly when fretting. Also, that habit can really slow a player down when playing solos up the neck. In any case, making sure you’re not unintentionally damping strings while attempting thumb over is important.

Yet, if you want to play a classic Mississippi John Hurt C blues and play the riff on the F chord, you’re going to be doing some pretty fancy math to make it happen without the thumb fretting the low note. Barring the chord and trying to riff will mean a hard to mute Bb will be resonating in the bass (the reason for the Reverend’s double-stop). Here’s another clip of Duck Baker from his DVD “Classic American Folk Blues” showing how it’s really done, going off on a John Hurt tune in first position. Now that’s some ‘Thumbs of Fury’.

* When I refer to right hand I mean the picking hand and left hand refers to the fretting hand; southpaws will have to deal.