8/11/2019 Alex de Grassi Style
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L E S S O NA C O U S T I CON THE CD . Tracks 53-5
Alex De GrassThis month Stuart Ryan uncovers the lush, dreamy,
ambient
style of one of America's greatest exponents of
fingerpickedacoustic guitar, the great Alex De Grassi...
A BI L I T Y R TING
Moderate
Will improve your:19 P ercussive playing
Use of alternative unings
Ambient feel
AMERICAN INSTRUMENTALISTAlex De Grassi is one of the
finestpurveyors of acoustic guitar musicyou are likely to hear.
Rightfullyacknowledged as one of theacoustic guitar world's
top-flightplayers, D e Grassi first came toprominence in the 1980s
as part
of the Windham Hill record label,which gave rise to several
othergreat acoustic artists includingMchael Hedges.
De Grassi is my favouritetype of musician, the guitaristas a
composer; h is writing issimply stunning and he has hisown voice on
the guitar. Thebeauty of De G rassi s writing isin its subtlety;
perhaps his mostplayed piece, The Water Gardencan seem quite simple
on firstlisten but sit down to play it andyou will find awkward
stretches,tricky syncopations and variouspercussive devices that
can behard to execute.
Combine great writing with
GET THE TONE Alex is a Lowden man, an F35to be precise. You are
dealingwith a lot of low, altered tuningshere so the thickest
possiblestrings are best, both for theguitar itself and or the
tone. Iused a Nick Benjamin 00 - this isa tiny guitar but still
sounds greattuned all the way down I used1 2 - 5 3 gauge
strings.
that other essential tool, tone,and you have an artist who
iswell worth studying. De Grassi swriting eschews theatrics
andinstead comes across a s musicthat could have been writtenfor
any instrument, which is oneof the greatest achievements acomposer
can aim for.
In this month's piece I
have aimed for some typical DeGrassi trademarks - a low
alteredtuning to give the guitar addedresonance, deep sustained
chordsand a percussive string slap togive the music a sense o f
forwardmotion. Like De Grassi, I haveaimed for subtlety and
melody.There are some passages herethat may be a little trickier
thanthey at first appear. Studyinga slow piece like this can
reallyimprove you as a player.
PRO TIP Altered tunings can be a greatway of coming up with new
ideas- make sure you have a goodworking knowledge of chordvoicings
so you can figure ou twhat you want to play anywhereon the
fretboard.
At workshops I always
encounter great players whocan tear through complex,
fastmaterial but then struggle withslower pieces where every
singlenote is exposed
Alex makes music thatappeals beyond the guitarplaying audience
alone, one ofthe greatest achievements of anyinstrumentalist. Check
him outand be dazzled
Percussive muted strings canreally add to a piece but they
are
quite hard to sound correctly.In order to do this you need
toslap the string so your thumbstops dead on it - if your
thumbbounces off the string you willsimply sound the note, so
youare trying to effectively 'kill' thenote by stopping it with
yourthumb. It's a great technique thatwith practice will give an
extra
dimension to your playing andwriting. GT
T R A C K R E C O R D
8 The WaterGarden isa beautiful
album full ofAlex s signature
compositions and chord voicings,but it's also worth checking
out
everything else recorded by the
great man
I encounter great players who can tear through complex,
fastmaterial but then struggle with slower pieces
uitarTechniques ecember 2 7
8/11/2019 Alex de Grassi Style
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ON THE CD = Tracks5?54
XAMPLE ...CONTINUEDBarapp
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ON THE CD ft^ack54 19 - Previous page] Watch out for the fretted
strings and the muted, [Bar 27] There's a brief use of harp
harmonics here - use an artificialed bass notes here - it can be d
fficult mov ing between the two. harmonic technique to sound the
harmonics up at the 14th fret whilst22 ] There's another slightly
awkw ard slide on the fourth f nger here so plucking th e strings
at the sam e time. I suggest using th e first finger on theup to
this slowly. picking hand to fret the artificial harmonic at the
14th fret whilst picking with
the thumb, and use the third finger to pluck the open
strings.
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