Closing Out Rhythm & Grooves

And here are two more of my Premier Guitar lessons … the final ones in the Rhythm & Grooves series. Counting the lessons in my previous two posts, that’s a total of 14.

December 2011 Exercise Your Independence

November 2011 Picking on the Ring Finger

If you explore these, I hope you enjoy them and get some new ideas. Writing Rhythm & Grooves has led me into new concepts that have expanded my own playing, which is cool.

The longer I play guitar (48 years and counting), the more I find myself drawn to harmony and arranging. Creating a driving rhythm part for a song now feels more rewarding than playing a blazing solo. This is probably because when I play out, I’m accompanying singers who naturally have very little tolerance for noodling. And I always play these writer’s gigs on baritone guitar, which is less about string bending or fast lines and more about laying down burly riffs and cunning voicings. Now that I think about it, I’m reaching for a sound like a fretted piano …

More lesson links …

All right! Here are links to another six months worth of lessons I’ve written for Premier Guitar. If you play guitar, you might enjoy them. 

October 2011 Spin the Wheel, Map the Fretboard

September 2011 Running in Circles

August 2011 Guitar George

July 2011 Sparkle Voicings

June 2011 Stealth Quartal Colors

May 2011 Crazy Quartal Comping

Looking for the Next Breakthrough?

There are several wonderful benefits to hosting The Guitar Show radio program. As an avid guitarist, perhaps the most exciting for me is getting first-hand knowledge and instruction from a slew of world-class players in the process of doing the interviews for the show. These musicians freely share a wealth of tips and techniques, and inspire me to study music theory and the fretboard to improve my own playing. I’m able to pass along much of this information within The Guitar Show‘s feature interviews, but some of the more technical or theoretical knowledge doesn’t lend itself to a radio format. I’m keenly aware that not everyone in the audience is an active guitarist who cares about the specifics of, say, chord voicings.

Recently, I started an ongoing series of instructional columns called Rhythm & Grooves for Premier Guitar—a digital and print magazine where I also work as Senior Editor. Rhythm & Grooves provides an outlet for very technical concepts and ideas that would appeal to the dedicated player, but not be relevant to aficionados and guitar fans … hardcore instructional material.

A cool thing: Premier Guitar provides free and unrestricted access to the digital edition of each monthly issue, which means my lessons are available 24/7 to guitarists anywhere in the world. If you’re a player and enjoy exploring the fretboard and music theory, check ‘em out. Perhaps you’ll find an idea or concept that will trigger the next breakthrough. All this material has been passed along to me in one way or another, so I’m just happy to be able to share it. Some of the knowledge rubs off in that sharing process, and that’s what keeps me going.

Here are links to my PG lessons:

April 2011 Exploring Quartal Harmony

March 2011 Open for Business

February 2011 Going Up?

January 2011 Hybrid-Picking Pals

December 2010 The Bead Game

November 2010 Wheels Within Wheels

My First Film Score

Somehow, between my new gig as senior editor at Premier Guitar and doing weekly episodes of The Guitar Show, I felt I could squeeze in a little hobby time and get involved with the Nashville edition of the 48 Hour Film Project. Okay, maybe I was delusional. But, as my friends will tell you, that’s nothing new.

So I joined up with Chris Hollo of H2 Creative Productions to compete in this “film rally.”

The 48HFP competition—which is held in cities across the US and around the world—works like this: At 7:00p on a Friday night, all the team directors are given a line of dialog, a character, and a prop that everyone has to incorporate into a film. The directors draw a genre (we drew silent film) and then everyone scampers off to write, shoot, and edit a 4-7 minute film that has to be turned in by 7:00p that Sunday. You can use music that has been recorded earlier, but otherwise everything (tiles and credits included) has to be generated during the 48-hour period.

It’s very intense … more than 50 teams competed in Nashville. For the lowdown on this year’s event, visit 48HFP Nashville.

And here’s a link to the film we managed to complete within the stringent time constraints: Move.

I provided the soundtrack. The music comes from medieval vocal scores, but I play the parts on baritone, bass VI, 12-string, eBow Telecaster, and resonator guitar. I also co-edited the film and had a small role. All the contestants got to see their films screened at the Belcourt Theater, a historic art theater and concert hall in Nashville. What a thrill!

Here’s a still from Move, in which I have a lipstick mishap …

 

Andy's lipstick mishap.

 

The whole experience of making a short movie virtually overnight was amazing. And guess what? We won Best Silent Film. The award looks like this:

 

Our team's award. We worked hard for this!

 

I’m very excited because this is my first soundtrack … and in a silent film, no less.

Composed between 1200-1250 AD at the school in Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral, the pieces are among the earliest examples of polyphonic music. I’m simply playing the vocal score as written so long ago. Sonic time travel. When I recorded these pieces, my goal was to explore roots music. I figure, if you’re going to go back, why not go way back?

If you want to hear the three pieces individually, separate from the movie, here they are. But fair warning—it’s pretty strange music. ♦

Continua Project: Hec Dies Motet

Continua Project: Psallite Motet

Continua Project: Pucelete Motet

***

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.

Jimi Hendrix (A Slight Return)

I saw Hendrix twice: The first time at the Boston Garden in 1967, headlining a show with Cat Mother And The All Night Newsboys and The McCoys, and the second time on January 13, 1968, at the Sporthalle in Köln, West Germany.

It really bugs me that I can’t locate the Boston date in any Hendrix tour itineraries. This was a big moment for me, one I remember for several reasons. For one thing, I somehow—miraculously—convinced the headmaster for the boarding school I was attending in Concord, MA, that it would be a great idea to charter a bus and drag a bunch of blazer clad prep-school boys into Boston to see the show.

And we did it!  And it was fabulous for me as a 10th-grader to witness Hendrix play music from Are You Experienced, which I’d discovered in the summer of ’67.

Later, the headmaster—who attended the show as one of our chaperones—summoned me to his dining table to explain how he felt Hendrix obviously played guitar well, but the gymnastics and sexual overtones of humping his instrument were vulgar and unnecessary, and, in fact, detracted from the music. Of course, I thought the opposite, but I kept my opinions mostly to myself. After all, I was a new boy in an unfamiliar school.

Hendrix was—and still remains—my all-time favorite guitarist and musician. I know his records inside out and have spent many, many hours in indescribable states climbing deeply into his tones.

But guess what? There’s new Hendrix music coming our way. The album, Valleys Of Neptune, will be officially released on March 9. You want to hear two tracks in advance of the release? I thought so. Here ya go …

First up, the radio edit of the title track, “Valleys Of Neptune.”

Now another radio edit, Jimi’s version of “Bleeding Heart” by Elmore James …

This is cool stuff. Here’s the album artwork, which features a photo shot by Linda McCartney:

The cover is derived from a watercolor Hendrix painted in high school, called “Seattle Waterfront.”

Oh yeah: We’re planning a special edition of The Guitar Show to celebrate the new Hendrix album, so stay tuned.  Meanwhile, enjoy this music! ♦

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.

The Case for D-Standard Guitar Tuning

The superb British fingerstyle guitarist Martin Simpson first introduced me to the concept of keeping a guitar tuned a whole-step below standard pitch. Tuned this way, the guitar’s open strings are D, G, C, F, A, D (low to high), rather than the normal E, A, D, G, B, E. Because the intervals remain the same between strings, the fretboard stays completely familiar—the only change is that everything sounds a whole-step lower.

Simpson uses a lot of open and altered tunings, and, as we’ll explore in a moment, it makes sense to use “D-standard” tuning as the platform to shift into DADGAD, open D, and open G. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate other benefits of D standard too. I’m not proposing that D standard replace standard tuning, but I believe it makes sense to keep an instrument appropriately strung, set up, and tuned a whole-step lower than your other guitars. Ideally, you’d have both an electric and an acoustic configured this way.

Here’s why …

D standard allows you to use heavier strings—which offer more volume and sustain—without a significant increase in tension. On an acoustic flattop, try a medium set (.013-.056) turned a whole-step down. It sounds huge, yet doesn’t feel stiff.

With a set of stout electric strings—I like a .012-.052 set with a plain 3rd—you get more nickel or steel vibrating over your pickup pole-pieces than with regular light-gauge strings. Again, you get a bigger, bolder sound without losing playability or sacrificing your favorite string-bending techniques.

Transposition is fairly painless when you’re playing in D standard with another guitarist or an ensemble. Mentally raise the key by a whole-step and you’re good to go.

For example, let’s say another guitarist is playing Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” in the key of G in standard tuning, and you’re wielding a guitar tuned to D standard. You’d simply snap into the key of A and follow the I-V-IIm harmonic structure. You’ll both be playing in the same key—G—yet using fingerings from different keys. This offers a tremendous sonic payoff: The mixed grips create a powerful, shifting texture of open and fretted strings that’s much more exciting than hearing two guitarists playing identical voicings throughout a song. If you’ve ever used a capo when playing with other guitarists to shift your voicings away from theirs, you know how cool this sounds. I like to think of D standard as a “minus capo,” where you’re essentially lengthening the fretboard rather than shortening it, as you do with a capo.

And speaking of capos: To convert D standard back to normal tuning—E, A, D, G, B, E—simply slap a capo on the second fret. Now all your voicings and fingerings line up with regular guitar, yet you still have the enhanced projection and fatter tone of heavier strings.

Consider D standard in the context of open and altered tunings: Dropping light-gauge strings to enter an open tuning typically results in fret buzz, poor intonation, and a wimpy tone. Thin strings just don’t sound good when they’re slackened, and they’re also harder to keep in tune. It’s a mess.

As you can see in this chart, moving from standard tuning to open G, open D, or DADGAD requires dropping three or four strings a whole-step or half-step:

 

Tuning comparison chart

 

But when your guitar is tuned to D standard, you wind up raising three strings to enter open G, open D, or DADGAD. This slight increase in tension works well to support a slide or bottleneck, and you’ll find it easier to get open tunings in tune. The added tension is small enough you won’t need to worry about breaking strings or stressing your guitar.

I keep several guitars permanently strung and tuned to D standard, including a Fender Telecaster, a rockin’ ’81 Dean V, a Taylor 512c, a custom Wechter roundneck resonator, and a great ’72 D20-12 Martin 12-string. The 6-string acoustics sport .015-.056 sets, and the electrics have .012-.052 or even .013.-.056 sets (the heavier strings are for slide).

Most guitarists who play 12-string in standard tuning opt for the recommended .010-.047 extra-light set, but thanks to D-standard tuning, I can string my D20-12 with a Martin set gauged .012-.054 and not worry about playability or pulling the guitar apart. Wow—does that sound great. Huge and spangly. (Lead Belly tuned his 12-string even lower, which helps explain his immense sound.)

If you haven’t explored this tuning, give it a shot. Most nut slots are big enough to accommodate slightly thicker strings, so you can jump right into the D-standard world. You might have to make a small trussrod adjustment—this can occur whenever you change string gauges up or down—and you might want to lower your pickup height a tad, but these mods are reversible. ♦

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.

One Year Into The Adventure …

Though it’s hard for me to believe, The Guitar Show is now a year old. This week, as I prepare a special program to mark this first anniversary, I’ve been reflecting on my dream of having a weekly radio show, and where my efforts have led thus far.

It all started in fall 2008, when my producer, John Haring, offered to “loan” me his two-hour, Thursday night slot on Radio Free Nashville. I’d already visited the station’s website several times and toyed with the idea of pitching a guitar-centric show, but had never taken any action. Having a time slot dangled in front of me was all it took to get things rolling.

After discussions with the station’s program director, Beau Hunter (who also hosts several intriguing shows of his own, including a psychedelic beauty called “Strange Daze” that precedes mine each Thursday night), I was given the green light to launch my program.

Originally, I called it Guitarmania, and this moniker lasted for 32 shows. When John Haring was alert enough to grab the domain name theguitarshow.com when it came up for renewal, we decided that The Guitar Show better reflected the diversity of the music I was playing and would have less of a shred-fest, monster truck rally, or professional wrestling vibe. To differentiate my show from other events, such as vintage guitar conventions or TV programs in other countries, we tacked my name onto the program title and The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis was born.

Right from the start I’ve included interviews with guitarists along with eclectic music. At first, the interview clips came from my personal archives, recordings I’d made during my 15+ years at Guitar Player magazine. As the show gained momentum, I began recording new interviews specifically for each week’s program.

In addition to being exciting for me—I’m an active guitarist and have an insatiable curiosity about all things guitar—interviewing guitarists provides a way for their music and ideas to be heard in an increasingly restrictive radio environment. As commercial radio becomes more rigid and conservative, it falls to community stations—as small as they are—to provide a forum for creative musicians to be heard. I want to know what Kelly Joe Phelps or Mike Keneally is thinking, and how such adventurous players approach music in the early 21st century. I know I’m not the only one out there who enjoys exploring music that crosses stylistic borders and eras. If the big girls and boys aren’t going to let this happen, then indie broadcasters are going to step up to the plate and do the job. I’m honored to count myself among them.

There have been several milestones in this broadcast year. The first was a Q&A that Guitar Player published in their March ’09 issue about my show (which was still called Guitarmania when the article was written), called “On-Air Guitar.” You can download a PDF of this piece at our site. The article expanded my audience tremendously—thanks GP!

We passed another milestone when a second station picked up my weekly program. Broadcasting out of San Antonio, Texas, Dewberry Jam also increased my audience by broadcasting the program on Friday and Saturday nights. Between Radio Free Nashville and Dewberry Jam—both of which stream online—The Guitar Show can currently be heard three nights a week, around the planet via the web. Like Radio Free Nashville, Dewberry Jam is an indie operation with a big soul. Click here for their program schedule.

Over the course of 52+ shows, I’ve slowly discovered my voice and refined my programming instincts. Of course, I’ve got a long way to go before I’m satisfied, but, just like playing in a band, you get better the more you step up to the mic.

I’ll let you decide if I’m going forward or backward in my hosting skills. Here’s my intro to show 01, broadcast on October 23, 2008.

And this is my intro to show 53, broadcast a year later on October 22, 2009.

Okay, I don’t possess that “big DJ” voice. (Frankly, I abhor that hyped-up sound.) But nerdiness aside, one thing I’m proud of: Each week I play music that stretches back to Blind Blake and Charley Patton and forward to Explosions in the Sky and Russian Circles. No barriers!

I’m also happy that amazing players like Shane Theriot, Cindy Cashdollar, and Monte Montgomery, who don’t get much love from commercial radio, get equal time on my show with such legends as Wes Montgomery, Andrés Segovia, and Django Reinhardt.

Coming up in The Guitar Show‘s second year are several new features, including “New Faces”—a segment designed to spotlight up-and-coming guitarists—and various special programs modeled after our Les Paul Tribute, which remains the most popular show we’ve done so far and ranks as another milestone in our brief history. We’ll also keep expanding our interview archive. Here you can stream at your leisure the conversations I’ve had with a wide variety of guitarists.

If you’ve been tuning in online to The Guitar Show, thanks for listening, and I hope you continue to enjoy the interviews and music. And please tell your friends about the program. If you haven’t heard my show, I invite you to check it out (the broadcast times and streaming links are below).

With a little luck and several gallons of midnight oil, I’ll get to do this for another year. Cool! ♦

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.

Bottleneck Basics

To play slide well, you need to master three skills: touch, intonation, and damping. Here are some tips to get you started on the road to bottleneck nirvana.

Touch. There’s no “right” slide-wielding finger. Duane Allman favored his 3rd finger, as did the great Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Bonnie Raitt uses her 2nd. To leave strong digits free for chording and riffing, however, many players—including Sonny Landreth and Ry Cooder—wear their slide on the 4th finger. It a good idea to experiment before deciding which finger you prefer.

Press your slide against the strings hard enough to keep it from rattling or bouncing when you pick or strum, but not hard enough to stretch the strings sharp or push them against the frets. This calls for a light, firm touch. If you’re regularly crashing into the frets, try a lighter slide (for instance, instead of a burly glass bottleneck or brass slide, try a Duane Allman-style medicine bottle) or switch to a heavier string gauge.

Intonation. To play a note in tune, park the slide parallel to and directly above the corresponding fret. Trust your ears—not your eyes—for fine tuning, and add vibrato after you’ve zeroed in on a note. When practicing, frequently reference and calibrate your intonation to open strings. For instance, when playing blues in A, use your open A, D, and E strings as pitch guides.

Damping. Use both hands to mute strings. To tame those “behind-the-slide” sounds, lightly trail your 1st finger along the strings (see Photo 1). However, those whirring noises can add character to your picked notes, so don’t feel obliged to always mute with your slide hand.

 

Photo 1. To mute spurious string noise, lightly trail your 1st finger along the strings behind the slide.

 

Muting with your picking hand is another matter. If you don’t acquire this skill, you’ll be doomed to sonic chaos. Most great slide guitarists play fingerstyle so they can mute selected strings with their fingertips while simultaneously plucking others. The basic playing position is the “all notes off” clamp (Photo 2). Lay the side of your thumb across the bass strings and press the tips of your index, middle, and ring fingers onto the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings, respectively. Unless a string is being plucked, it stays muted.

 

Photo 2. Use a picking-hand "clamp" for serious string damping.

 

In Photo 3, I’m plucking the first string while keeping the others damped. This selective plucking takes a lot of finger independence, so be patient. When thumbing bass notes, you can also mute the treble strings with the karate-chop edge of your picking hand. Notice how the slide is tipped in this shot. When playing along on the first string—which is most often used for bottleneck melodies—tilt your slide to prevent it from scraping unused strings. Photo 4 shows another view of this essential technique. ♦

 

Photo 3. Here's the clamp in action—I've plucked the first string while muting the others.

 

 

Photo 4. Tilting the slide when playing along the 1st string eliminates scraping sounds on strings 2-6.

 

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.

DIY Acoustic Lap-Slide Conversion

Do you have an underutilized flattop lurking in your closet? If so, here’s how you can convert it into a lap-slide guitar that’s perfect for open-tuned riffage. Requiring only a few basic hand tools, it’s a fairly easy project that costs less than 20 bucks, including a fresh set of strings. Toss in a grooved tonebar (the Stevens slide is a classic, and modern versions, such as Dunlop’s Ergo and Lap Dawg, or Shubb GS Steel are well worth the investment) and you’ll be in business.

If you decide the world of Hawaiian-style overhand slide isn’t for you, the conversion is quickly reversible. Chances are, however, you’ll dig having an instrument that opens the door to funky licks and grooves you can’t duplicate with bottleneck technique.

The photo below shows the slotted, arched extension nut and bone saddle blank you’ll need for this project. If your local shop doesn’t stock these items, you can get them from online luthier supply outfits, eBay, or folk-music stores. Prices vary—at stewmac.com, the arched metal nut costs less than $4 and the bone saddle blank is about $6. A bone saddle blank provides excellent tone, yet is easy to cut and shape. Bone blanks have a straight top, which puts the strings on a flat plane to correctly match the playing surface of your tonebar, and are almost a half-inch tall. Before you go dashing off to acquire these parts, a little homework is in order.

Arched metal nut and bone saddle blank.

Bone blanks generally come in two thicknesses—1/8″ and 3/32″—so you’ll need to determine which size fits your guitar. First remove the strings and put the bridgepins somewhere safe. Next, carefully remove the original saddle. With a little coaxing, it should pop out, but if the saddle acts stubborn, pad your guitar top with a few hand towels, and use a pair of pliers to gently rock the saddle out of its slot. If the fit is really snug, use an object with a narrow, pointed metal tip (like a dental tool) to slowly pry the saddle up from one end of the slot. Save the original saddle in case you want to reconfigure your guitar for fretting.

Now measure the saddle slot width (see photo below). If the gap falls between 1/8″ and 3/32″, buy the thicker 1/8″ saddle, and plan to shave off a little width by rubbing the blank lengthwise along a piece of fine sandpaper.

Measuring the saddle slot width.

Once you’ve got your saddle blank, you have to trim it lengthwise. Measure the saddle slot, mark the saddle accordingly, and use a small hobby saw to remove the excess length. Take your time and watch your fingers.

Trimming the saddle blank.

Saddle shaping comes next: To prevent the string windings from separating and the plain strings from snapping, you’ll need to put a gentle slope in the saddle’s rear (bridgepin) side. Start rounding the back edge with a small, flat file (an automotive ignition file is perfect for the job), and then smooth your work with fine sandpaper. You don’t have to remove much. The goal is to keep the saddle’s top perfectly flat and maintain a crisp right angle on the leading edge (which faces the soundhole).

While you’re at it, round off the two upper corners so they won’t poke your picking hand. The photo below shows a finished saddle: The strings climb across the slope and then leave the saddle precisely at its leading edge. These angles resemble the top of a capital “D”—perpendicular on the front and curved on the back.

The finished saddle.

Hey, we’re almost done. Now slap a set of medium-gauge (typically .056, .045, .035, .026, .017, .013) acoustic strings on your guitar. Tighten them a bit so they’re basically aligned, but leave enough slack so you can lift them up to slip the extension nut over the guitar nut. The metal nut will hang over the sides of the neck—that’s okay. Center the extension nut, drop the strings in their respective slots, and then add tension to both outside strings to hold the new nut in place.

The arched nut extends beyond the fretboard edges.

Finally, tune up the guitar. Most lap sliders use open-D tuning (D, A, D, F#, A, D, low to high), but open G (D, G, D, G, B, D) is another sweet option. Don’t worry if string tension shifts the arched nut slightly to one side or the other, that’s normal. Gently tap one side or the other of the extension nut so the strings run parallel to the fretboard.

After your guitar settles in and you sense it can handle a little extra tension, try increasing the gauges of the second and first strings—the two plain ones—to .018 and .014, respectively. This increased girth helps support the tonebar and adds more booty to your melody notes.

Need inspiration to tackle this project? Listen to these excerpts from two amazing lap-slide players—Ben Harper and Kelly Joe Phelps.

Here’s the intro to Harper’s version of “Whipping Boy.” Harper is playing lap slide on a vintage Weissenborn hollowneck 6-string:

And here’s the intro to Phelps’ “Hobo’s Son.” You’re hearing him play a regular flattop converted to a lap-slide guitar. Very different from the sound of a squareneck resonator guitar—the most common choice for lap-slide. The tone is sweet and woody, without the nasal “holler” of an aluminum cone.

Happy lap sliding! ♦

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.

Baby Blue

Late summer 1964, Köln, West Germany.

I was taking a Friday evening stroll through the city streets when I saw it: a blue sparkle electric guitar calling my name from behind a music store window. As a 13-year-old boy, I’d seen electric guitars played onstage and been thrilled by their reverb-drenched twang, but this was the first time I’d come face to face with one. It was the most beautiful instrument I’d ever seen. A blue guitar that sparkled. Mouth slack, I stared until my parents dragged me away.

That weekend I walked around in a trance. I already owned a nylon-string acoustic and was making headway with my chords and fingerpicking—this was the folk era, so I was listening to Pete Seeger, the Weavers, and Lead Belly, and learning songs like “In The Pines” and “Nine Pound Hammer”—but until encountering that blue guitar glinting in the window, it never occurred to me that I could actually go electric.

After brooding for two days, I finally came clean to my folks: I wanted an electric guitar. I couldn’t think of anything else.

Okay, we have to put this in the context of the times. No one in my school had an electric guitar. I’d briefly met a guy in his early 20s who purportedly had one, but that was it. Electric guitars were rare in the early ’60s. And adults suspected—rightly so, it turned out—that the electric guitar was about to transform society in ways they didn’t want to contemplate. Electric guitars spelled trouble. I might as well have announced a desire to join the circus or sweep floors in a brothel. (Learning to play “The House Of The Rising Sun” had already given me that idea.)

After a long discussion that involved me making elaborate promises about my grades and attitude, we agreed that Andy could get an electric guitar. When we returned to the music store, the blue sparkle beauty was gone. (At that time, I had no knowledge of makes and models, so the only way I could identify the instrument was by its color.)

I was crushed.

No worry—we’d find another blue guitar, my parents assured me. And we soon did, a baby blue Kent. True, the color didn’t have the wicked allure of blue sparkle, but I saw the opportunity to get an electric guitar, so I ran with it. That turned out to be a wise decision because I didn’t see another blue sparkle guitar for many, many years.

Here’s a picture of a Kent just like mine, which I now know was a PB-24-G model made by Hagström, a Swedish company.

Photo credit: Haskin’s Hagstroms.

Mine was identical to the guitar on the left. Covered with blue vinyl and topped with a molded lucite pickguard, my Kent sported a cheese-grater “soundhole” grille, two pickups, four switches, a volume knob, and a vibrato bar.

Here’s a crisp photo of a red 1963 PB-24-G:

Photo credit:  Vintage Guitars of Stockholm, Sweden.

I didn’t know electric guitars required an amp. When I got home gripping the new baby blue 6-string, I managed to figure out how to plug it into my old Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder—which had a tiny built-in speaker—and start making noise. It was glorious. Flatwound strings and glowing tubes … my fate was sealed.

Photo credit: Bassboy.com.

I used that Kent/Grundig rig when I demonstrated electric guitar to my seventh-grade classmates in a show-and-tell. Luckily for me, the Kinks had just made distortion cool with “You Really Got Me.” (In Germany, circa 1964, we got a weekly dose of English music via the BBC Top 20 and heard cutting-edge invasion music before it was released in the US.)

Eventually, I joined a band and got a real guitar amp, a Dynacord Jazz 2×10 combo. So cool—20 watts of tube power! Wish I still had it.

Photo credit:  Orchester Electronic.

As I trawl the data stream, fishing for images from these early days of my musical odyssey, I’m happy to see I’m not the only one who still has fond memories of discovering guitar. Many others remain inspired by the sounds and sights of their first encounters. Motivated by a passion for the instrument, rather than financial reward, they build elaborate temples to the goddess of twang.

For example, here’s a wonderful site devoted to guitar tunings—dozens and dozens of ‘em, including tunings used by Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, and Sonic Youth. The site is created and maintained by Warren Allen, a guitarist whose passion for tunings is so great, he needs to share it with the world. Cool!

Warren Allen’s Encyclopedia of Alternate Guitar Tunings

Another amazing find is the Atlas of Plucked Instruments. The level of historical detail about plucked instruments from around the world, ancient and modern, is truly mindblowing. This too is a labor of love from another guitarist, Henny de Bruin.

Atlas of Plucked Instruments

The other day, I heard Badfinger’s “Baby Blue” and thought about my old Kent, and how completely and irrevocably it changed my life.  Still making music, Baby Blue? ♦

The Guitar Show with Andy Ellis streams online four times a week. For our weekly broadcast schedule, playlists, archived audio interviews, and beaucoup guitar lore, visit theguitarshow.com.

• Follow The Guitar Show on Twitter … our name is theguitarshow.
• My Twitter name is twangmon.