American Fingerstyle Guitar

Day 8

I’m really happy with my progress. It’s been 7 weeks since I got the guitar, but because of my travel and gig schedule I’ve not really had a chance to truly focus on the guitar until now.  Even so, I’ve probably got close to a 100 hours on the Beastess, I’m feeling much more confident with my aim on the subs, and I’ve now got 8 songs with workable arrangements, the most recent being Nocturne (For Brendan). Yippeee!!!

By workable I mean that I know that the notes I’m trying to play work, they’re right for the song. I just have to memorize the new right and left hand parts I’ve created. It’s like learning a new dance routine to an old song. Not only have I added 5 new strings by using the subs-I’m playing all the songs in different tunings than I used to so sometimes my fingers want to go where they used to go instead of where they’re supposed to go, but that’s diminishing over time. I’m confident I’ll have at least 5 or 6 songs ready for concerts in the Southeast this January, and I’ll probably post updated versions of Lullaby (for the Harp Guitar) and The Passing this week.  It should prove just how far I’ve come in a month. And I know this work on the harp guitar will be great for my guitar brain, as well as making me more nimble on the fretboard in general, regardless of the guitar I’m playing.

Here are the songs, keys, and the tunings I’m now using to play the songs.  The notes and keys in question are in relation to the guitar, the concert pitch would be a whole step higher-it’s just way easier for me to think of notes in relationship to the chords I’m playing on the guitar. All tunings are low to hi

The Passing (C)  (guitar)DGDGBE  (subs)EFGAC

Nocturne (For Brendan) (C)   (guitar)DGDGBE  (subs)DFGAC

Lullaby for Harp Guitar (G)  (guitar)DGDGBE (subs)EF#GAC

Moonlight Music (G)  (guitar)DGDGBE  (subs)EF#GAC

Something Pretty For You (G)   (guitar)DGDGBE   (subs)EF#GAC

Silent Night (G)   (guitar)DGDGBE  (subs)DF#GAC

Farewell (G)    (guitar)DGDGAD   (subs)EGABC

The Water is Wide (D) (guitar)DGDGAD   subs)DGABC#

Day 4

I’m in Michigan for the holidays and of course brought the Beastess with me.

My biggest concern when I got the harp guitar is that I wouldn’t have anything to play on it.  I found that was the most difficult thing when I started playing slide-I had very little to practice in the beginning since I had little to no repertoire. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I needn’t have been worried about that with the harp guitar-so far I’ve written one piece, Lullaby, as well as working on arrangements for The Passing, Farewell, Moonlight Music, Nocturne (For Brendan), The Water is Wide, and possibly Something Pretty For You.

So far I’ve focused on pieces in major keys, but next week I’m going to start experimenting with minor keys, E minor, D minor and G minor.  Summer Rain is a definite possibility, but I’m intrigued to see what I can do with Requiem, Nightfall, and Hard Times.

Til next time, kb

Day 1

I realized this morning that I’ve had this incredible Alan Carruth Harp Guitar now for six weeks and I thought it might be fun to share my journey with you. So here’s day 1 of my Harp Guitar Diary.  I hope to add a little bit every day, but with travel I may miss a day or three.

Alan dropped off the instrument on Monday October 11th, a day before I needed to leave for Arkansas. It never even crossed my mind to not take it with me even though I didn’t, and still don’t have a case for it.  I got to play the guitar for about 2 hours that Monday, and for about 30 minutes Tuesday night in Bristol, TN, but once I got to Arkansas it was ‘gig city’ and I had to put her down.

About the guitar. This is a Harp-Terz with 5 sub-bass strings, and is the ‘offspring’ of Alan’s prototype Harp Guitar with two soundboards, commonly called the Beast, but on this guitar both soundboards are on the same plane and project sound out to the listener. You’ll notice in the picture that the harp strings have two bridges-one on the guitar top and one on the harp top. This gives tremendous projection and volume in the lower register, but for the guitarist it does something very magical; the guitarist really gets to hear all the sympathetic string movement due to the placement of the harp sound hole.  It’s like having great reverb in your headphone mix. Everyone who played the guitar at the 8th Annual Harp Guitar Gathering fell in love with this feature.

When Al and I talked about designing this instrument, I thought designing a short-scale instrument tuned a step to a step and a half higher would allow Al to build a smaller harp section allowing for easier traveling and encasement of the guitar.  I was both right and wrong.  The guitar body is the same size as a classical, or 00, but to get the sub bass strings to ring the way he wanted Al designed the harp section to have a 40″ vibrating string length, much longer than those found on ’standard’ Larson Bros. HG.  And while I was initially bummed that the guitar wouldn’t fit into any commercially available cases, I just love how efficient the subs operate, and allow me to use relatively standard strings. Upon delivery the largest diameter sub-bass string was a .052.  My sister-in-law Julie is a great seamstress and is making me a case for the Beastess; so she’ll be safe and sound when I start taking her on the road for real this January.

This instrument has just about every modern bell and whistle you can have; a wedge body that makes the lower bout bass side thinner than the lower bout treble side, there is an arm bevel on the lower bout bass side that makes my right forearm very comfortable while playing, the frets are fanned which allows for more natural position of my left-hand on the fretboard, and a sweeter treble sound, there’s also a bevel cutaway that allows me access to the highest notes while not removing much ‘air’ from the guitar as happens with a standard cutaway.  The tops are made from a 40+ year-old Sitka Spruce top with bear claw, the back and sides are made of Walnut, the bevels are all made of cherry, and the fingerboard is Walnut stained Persimmon; or as Al likes to call it, an American ebony.

I got to play all manner of harp guitars at the Gathering this year, and this was the MOST comfortable of all of them; by far. And that’s good news because I’m putting in 2-3 hours a day on just this guitar.

About the tuning. When Al delivered the guitar it was tuned up a step and a half from standard G, C, F, Bb, D, G low to high with the subs Bb, C, D, Eb, F also low to high. I almost immediately tuned everything down a half-step. The guitar really seemed to like that, the trebles had a sweeter, richer tone, and the bass notes still rang true.

Over the past few weeks I’ve tried my hand at a bunch of older songs I think will work on the HG as well as completing my first tune.  And I discovered something.  I was constrained by the tuning. The natural tuning for the HG really works well to play in the key of G, as it relates to the guitar, or concert pitch of A.  But I found I often wanted to get sub bass strings lower than the I, or G.  While at the Harp Guitar Gathering I noticed most HG had 6 subs, while some had 7, and a couple of older Gibsons had 10 or 12 subs.  I realized that if I was going to get the most out of this guitar I would need to make some changes in my approach.  And, thanks to a 15 hour drive from the Gathering to my home I was able to ‘invent’ a tuning that will allow me to get the most out of the guitar. I realized that on my six-string guitars I treat the 5th and 6th strings as bass strings, and thought that by doing that, I could basically turn my 5 sub-bass string HG into one with 7 subs. I now tune the subs (in relation to the guitar) E, F#, G, A, C and the guitar D, G, D, G, B, E when playing in G. I can tune the F# down to F to play in C with the guitar in the same tuning. In fact all the subs can be tuned up or down at least a step to accommodate the key I’m playing in. Just last night I started working on an arrangement of my song “Farewell” with the subs tuned D, G, A, B, C, and the guitar tuned D, G, D, G, A, D.  For “The Water is Wide” in the key of D I’ll tune the subs D, F#, G, A, B and the guitar D, G, D, G, A, D.  Thinking of the HG as having 7 subs has really opened it up for me.

Of course this lead to a need change in string diamater, I had taken too much tension off the strings and they sounded like garbage can lids. My current gauging is 64, 59, 54, 49, 44 for the subs and 54, 44, 34, 24, 16 and 12 for the guitar, and it sounds magical.

I didn’t think I was going to have this on stage with me until next spring, but I’ve just had such a blast with it, and the arrangement for “The Passing” has worked so well, that I included it in two Artistry of the Guitar concerts the weekend of November 19 and 20.  I don’t have a pickup system in it yet, but it sounded great through my GT33 mic through a tube mic-pre.  I am currently talking to a number of pickup manufacturers to design a system just for the HG.  I’ll let you know how that works. But if you’re going to see me in concert, you’ll see me playing the Beastess.

That’s it for Day 1.