ON SONGWRITING
In fact, I never realized that people grew their
nails out or used false nails for many years.
These days, I grow my thumbnail out for a bit
of extra attack on the bass. Otherwise, I tend
to keep my fingernails short so that they don’t
interfere with any tapping techniques that I use
on the fretboard.”
As a musician who’s on the road for months
on end, Andy often gets asked for playing tips.
Here’s one of his top choices: “It’s always a bit
of a tricky question, as you never know how
advanced the guitarist who’s asking is. One
thing that I think is good for any musician to
work on is picking up tunes by ear. It can be
tempting to look on YouTube and elsewhere for
lessons or TAB, but if you want to develop your
ear, it’s a good idea to just listen to the track
and pick out the chords and notes. Try it.”
“Some of the first
tunes I learned were
fingerpicking tunes
like ‘Fade to Black,’
‘Unforgiven,’ and
‘Nothing Else Matters’
by Metallica.”
GEAR TIPS
If you’re ever playing acoustic-electric guitar,
you know how hard it is to make it sound like
an unplugged acoustic guitar - especially when
using the ubiquitous piezo-ribbon transducer.
Let’s ask Dr. McKee for his prognosis.
“Tone is always a matter of personal preference;
but I like to try and get an amplified sound
that is as close to a natural acoustic guitar
sound as possible. Sticking a microphone in
front of the guitar would be the best way to get
a natural sound, but if you move much at all
you will affect the tone and/or volume so that
doesn’t really work for me. I’ve been using the
K&K Pure Mini system for many years now and
am really happy with the tone. I did recently
change my preamp—I switched over to the
FELiX by Grace Designs out of Colorado. I used
two of those floor units on a recent tour in
Italy and the Netherlands, and I gotta say that
I love the control that it affords for dialing out
problem frequencies, as well as its clarityand
functionality.”
“For guitars, I have a Greenfield G4.2 and a
G2B. The G4.2 is a Macassar ebony, standardpitch guitar with some extra bells and whistles,
such as a bevel at the rib and forearm areas for
comfort, and a secondary side port that helps
46
GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
balance the internal body resonance. The G2B
is a maple baritone guitar. Its standard-pitch
tuning is BEADF#B, but of course I’m always
changing that around. It also has the side port,
which helps articulate the lowest fundamental,
or root note.”
“I also have a Lance McCollum baritone. It
was purchased and delivered to me by a
very generous and kind fan. It has Brazilian
rosewood back and sides and I wrote the tune
‘Ebon Coast’ on that guitar. The Ron Spillers
harp-guitar was an instrument that I acquired
from my good friend and brilliant guitarist,
Stephen Bennett. It was built in 1998 and I
actually saw Stephen perform with it back in
2000. We became good friends and eventually
Stephen offered to sell it to me. I was honored
as I had always wanted one since I heard
Michael Hedges playing ‘Because It’s There.’ I
also now have a Greenfield harp-guitar. It’s a
DECEMBER SPECIAL