Strumble bum.

Twang. Ouch. Twang, twang, twaaaaaangg. Ouch! God damn it. Where did Marvin go, anyway?

If there's one thing I hate like fire (aside from fire), it's changing guitar strings, particularly on an acoustic guitar. Whenever I do it, my hands feel like big slabs of beef, like I'm threading a needle with a sledgehammer. Ham-fisted to say the least. (Think that's rough? You should see me PLAY guitar!) Ergo, I get Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to do it whenever possible. Not a bad outcome usually, unless he insists on testing it out afterwards. (Not Greensleeves again, Marvin, for chrissake! I hear it in my sleep as it is!)

The reason I'm changing the strings on my 17-year-old Martin D-1 (nearly college age!) is that we're currently producing the next raft of songs to be included in a future episode of Ned Trek, our Star Trek / Mr. Ed political parody. (Complicated enough for you? It's a satire! It's a polemic! It's a musical!) I have a folk-like song in 6/8 that needs an acoustic, and I'm not going to ask Matt to learn it because, hell, he's too busy and, hell x 2, he's got a head full of his own songs and doesn't need mine muddling up the works. It's like a mixmaster blender in there right now. Crazy man.

Is that the only song you know, Marvin?So here I am, strumming the old D-1, grinding my fingers to a raw nub. I don't use a flat pick. Nor any other kind of pick, actually. I just strum the strings with my thumb, forefinger and middle finger, mostly, and dud them out with the heel of my palm. It's a cheap bastardization of that Joni Mitchell / Neil Young technique - pretty much the only method of playing six-string that I ever bothered to learn. Limited, yes, but when I play something in three, it's pretty much useless, so I end up strumming like my fingers were a pick. (And by the time I'm finished, they pretty much WILL be a pick.)

Next week: Joe's banjo tips. Find out how I pulled off banjo parts in Big Green songs such as "Box of Crackers," "Limping Back to Texas", and other hits. (Hint: used my fingers again.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

R.I.P., uber rich lady atop killer empire

All the king’s robots and all the King’s pens

Stop hiding your light under that bushel.