Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs
Published: Thu, 11/18/21
That's how I spent a good part of last Friday afternoon and into the early evening, having been notified around 2:30pm that a shipment from Hillsboro, North Carolina was "Arriving Soon!" Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother tracking, figuring whatever book, small piece of tech or marginally necessary fashion statement I'd ordered could easily hang out on the stoop until I got home. But this wasn't the usual thing, it was something I'd ordered back in the spring with a three-month building and shipping window, a window which had then been pushed back another few months. Delivery itself was then delayed 24 hours past its original arrival time. So by Friday afternoon I pretty much resembled Calvin during that Calvin and Hobbes story line about sending off Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs boxtops to get a propeller beanie in the mail.
Finally, around 7:30pm, the UPS truck rolled up and the driver put every guitarist's favorite delivery item in my hands – a big, heavy rectangular box with "Fragile" stickers all over it. I cut open the box, ripped off the bubble wrap, opened the case and picked up the guitar for the first time, only to realize I had nothing in the house to plug it into. Back to the studio once more to collect amplification, and then, getting everything plugged in, it was time to figure out "oh, hey, so which dial does what, anyway?"
When Duke Robillard was at the National Guitar Workshop in the '90s, everyone naturally wanted to know about his guitar, which was different every time. One summer it was some Strat-like thing with a flamed, book-matched top. Pretty wow, but then he explained it was some new process where the maker could basically Photoshop the image of a bookmatched top onto an ordinary piece of alder or ash to make the finish. Duke was totally casual about the whole thing. "I've had every kind of guitar," he explained. "I trade 'em like baseball cards, really." This has its ups and downs – he told a pretty great story about trading in his brother's old Strat for "a brand new one" in 1966, then wondering why the new one didn't sound nearly as good.
I'm pretty sure someone as historically-minded and tone-concerned as Duke still maintains a serious stash of vintage gear for recording. But around here, the stash is relatively finite, and new instruments only make an appearance every once in a great while. And when one does, it's usually because it does something an existing guitar doesn't – unlike friends of mine who have several telecasters on hand, or an assortment of prewar flattops, I tend to have more of a "one of each" approach, except for a few cases where I've eventually gotten a newer version of something to put pickups in and cart around to gigs so I could leave the more vintage version at home.
So the new beast is a guitar I've been speculating about for a while, a seven-string hybrid solidbody. Having this guitar show up reminds me of the time in my twenties when I ordered a vintage Emmons pedal steel in the mail, having conducting the whole transaction through a typewritten inventory list, a single Polaroid photo and a couple of phone calls. At least with the steel, I'd sat behind one a couple of times in my life before ordering one, but with this seven-string, while I saw more pictures than I ever did of the Emmons, I had yet to ever hold such a thing in my hands when I put down the deposit.
So Monday morning I went to the bookshelf and pulled out Ed Friedland's Bass Grooves, a book I picked up back when I was just starting to record in my own studio and figured I had a lot to learn about how real bass lines work. Back then, I tried a few of the bass lines out, realized I was not about to become a bass player overnight, and moved on. Turns out, however, Ed's book is all about groove. It opens with exercises about understanding how time and groove interact, suggestions for how to vocalize and internalize important rhythms, and an entire philosophy about deepening your understanding of groove through programming and playing along with drum parts.
As I was reading through the opening parts of Ed's book, I realized just about everything he has to say applies to playing fingerstyle blues as well. There is so much about getting the thumb to groove, and hearing and feeling how that relates to what your fingers are doing on top, that anything about heightening one's awareness of time and groove is going to be a huge help in terms of what I already do. So while I had some initial concerns that acquiring this guitar would be tangential distraction of monumental proportions, I'm already thinking otherwise – that it's an opportunity to hone some of the very things that always want honing when it comes to playing a six stringed acoustic instrument.
It's also going to be just a ridiculous, fun pursuit in its own right.
I want to thank the more than fifty readers who responded to last week's question, "What Youtube lesson on the channel have you gotten the most from?" Wouldn't you know, the most mentioned lessons had to do with groove – in particular, the first of the Six Steps To Playing Better Fingerstyle Blues lessons ("Playing The Groove"), and the recent "Blues Licks Over A Syncopated Bass In A." Meanwhile, over in the Fingerstyle Five membership, there have been several questions lately about how to turn a quarter note, steady bass groove into a shuffle bass, and of course, play over it.
So this morning I'll be doing a public live stream on Youtube all about groove. I'll start with some specifics about how to add a shuffle groove to your stash of fingerstyle moves, then answer your questions about groove generally. If you've got something specific you'd like me to address, drop me a line ahead of time. I'll get to as many questions as I can during the forty-five minute live stream. Just use the link below to take part:
Live Stream: Playing The Shuffle Groove
As usual, you can get the tab for today's lesson here:
Get The Tab
More soon,
David
P.S. It's come to my attention that a couple of people who recently signed up for The Fingerstyle Five membership have had trouble receiving their login information or getting access to the lessons. If that's happened to you, please drop me a line ASAP so I can make sure the problem gets solved right away.