American Fingerstyle Guitar

Hi,

Two new songs are available in TAB thanks to Mark Grover’s great transcribing: Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s classic Edelweiss from my album WinterNight, and one of my fans’ favorites Ella’s Labor Day Blues from my duo album with Joe Ebel, Kadotume. Edelweiss is performed in CGDGAD tuning and Ella’s Labor Day Blues is in open G minor tuning. Both are a blast to play, and the TAB is only $4!

To buy the TAB for Edelweiss click on the buy button directly below

To buy the TAB for Ella’s Labor Day Blues click on the buy button directly below.

You can watch a solo version of Ella’s that I recorded at my home studio here!

If you’re interested in buying CDs make sure to go to my CD Page, or if you’re a digital purveyor of music stop by the MP3 Page. There are great deals to be had at both places.

As is typical for me, I stayed close to home for the first quarter and I’ve got a bunch of new material on the harp guitar, baritone guitar and standard guitar, as well as some new takes on old material on all my guitars. I can’t wait to share it with you when I start touring again in April. Check out the side bar to the right-I keep adding new dates every week. If you’re in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Colorado or points in between and you want to host a house concert contact me at music at kenbonfield dot com.

As you may remember; Alan Carruth is building me a guitar of entirely domestic North American woods that are not endangered, can be sustainalbly harvested, are just as good as the tropical hardwoods and aren’t tainted by some of the questionable harvesting and importation issues now becoming associated with Brazillian Rosewood and others. I’ll be very proud to play and promote this guitar. Luthiers are more than willing to build with non-endangered hardwoods-its the players who need to be educated. Al has built gorgeous intstruments in the past with oak and cherry. Most players aren’t that adventurous.

As many of you know, I name my guitars. And she has a name. Officially she is Big Red. And here’s why; she’s gonna be big!. I just heard from Alan the other day and he’s made all his design decisions. The guitar will have a longer than usual 26″ scale, a 16″ lower bout commonly called a Small Jumbo with a deep body. The size of the body and the longer scale will allow me to tune it lower than a standard guitar: D-D in standard intervals instead of E-E, as well as play in a multitude of alternate tunings that employ lower than normal pitches.

The top will be Redwood salvaged from stump wood. Redwood is noted for having a big bottom end, but with a lot of clarity. The back and sides will be made from Walnut. Walnut is noted for having a lot of clarity, crisp but beautiful trebles, and lots of detail in the bottom end. Both woods should be perfect for the alternate and slack-key tunings I use, as well as playing it as a baritone guitar tuned in standard intervals a whole step lower-this is increasingly a voice I’m coming to enjoy on the guitar. The body will be deeper than normal, 4 & 3/4″ at it’s deepest, but it will have a wedge shape-the treble side will be 1/2″ deeper than the bass side which will be 4 & 1/4″ in depth. The wedge is an ergonimic design that will allow me to play this relatively large guitar in safety and comfort. The depth and larger body are designed specifically to deal with providing enough oomph to the drive low end I’ll need for the tunings I rely on.

The guitar will also employ two other ergonomic features: cherry bevels. One to create an arm rest and one to create a cutaway allowing me easy access to the upper frets. Al’s bevels have become a trademark work of art, and aside from allowing me to play the guitar more effeciently and more comfortably, they are beautiful appointments that speak to a modern influence on what is in so many other ways a very traditional design.

I continue to have a blast with the harp guitar. It’s the instrument I spend the most time with, and I’m writing with it almost constantly now. Here’s a piece I wrote while thinking about how fractured our political climate has become, and I’m “Longing for the Day” we can get back to a civil discourse regardless of whether or not we agree or disagree. Enjoy.

I’ve finally got things figured out on YouTube and have my own channel. These are ‘home’ videos I record at my studio in Gloucester, and some are quite raw, shortly after I’ve written them. Check it out here. For more polished video click here, you can see individual songs recorded for a TV show in Salt Lake City, Brewin’ Bistro this summer. Please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel-you’ll be notified as soon as I post something new. Enjoy.

If you’re a guitarist, please consider a private workshop with me while I’m on the road.  Or if I’m not near you, consider scheduling a guitar lesson on Skype-we can use today’s technology to get you on down the road with your own playing.  I love doing 2-3 hour intensive lessons; just send me an e-mail at music AT kenbonfield.com and we can set something up.

Cheers, kb

So, about a month ago I posted some thoughts regarding the importance of strings to a guitar’s overall sound. As you may know,I’ve been playing Thomastik-Infeld strings on my guitars for over 15 years and have only used two other sets of strings out of necessity when I ran out while I was on the road. I’ve always loved them, they were perfect for my sound, and up until very recently they covered all the gauges I needed to do my work. And they take such great care of me, always getting me strings well ahead of my touring schedule.

But in last month’s Guitar Diaries blog I encouraged all guitarists to experiment with strings and I decided that I had to follow the same advice. What really tripped me into experimentation mode was a set of strings on one of Jeff Bamburg’s guitars on exhibit at the Montreal Guitar festival July 2-4. This guitar had been played by dozens upon dozens of folks in very humid conditions, and I’d played part of a mini-concert with that guitar under stage lights in extremely humid conditions. Death for most strings, especially for me, but when I got back home and played that guitar on July 6th they sounded rich in the low end with really nice sparkly highs; not quite brand new, but I’d have had no qualms performing with them. The strings in question are called Newtone, they’re hand-made in the UK by an ex-coal miner named Malcolm Newton. (continue reading…)