Question: What do you wish you practiced more when you were younger?
Patrick Turner (Brown Horse)
Patrick Turner, second from left, with his alt-country band Brown Horse. Their new record, Total Dive, arrives April 10 via Loose Music.
Patrick Turner, second from left, with his alt-country band Brown Horse. Their new record, Total Dive, arrives April 10 via Loose Music.
A: As a kid, I played bass for years before I ever picked up a 6-string. When I finally got hold of one, suddenly I found that I could sing over the top of a few chords and it would actually sound like a standalone song, and not just some accompanying part. With that discovery, any interest I’d had in practicing scales and working on my technique was completely blown out of the water. I kinda wish I’d managed to keep practicing that more technical stuff, but luckily I’ve surrounded myself with bandmates who did, and they’re more or less happy for me to keep on singing, chugging the chords, and faking it through the occasional guitar solo.
Obsession: I happened to see a folk duo called the Carrivick Sisters at a free, outdoor show in Norwich last summer, and they were playing these amazing dobro guitar parts. Now I’m into anything with dobro. Check out Lloyd Maines’ playing on Richard Buckner’s 1994 album, Bloomed.
Ward Powell, Reader
Reader Ward Powell, with a heavily modded Framus acoustic.
A: I wish I had focused more on songwriting and less on technique. I practiced endless scales and arpeggios, studied classical, and learned to read music for the entire fretboard. But I was so focused on the technical aspect of guitar and being a great soloist, that I spent far less time on songwriting. Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, I realized that practising and creating aren’t the same thing. Music is art: It should be about the creation of something that expresses yourself, and if you’re lucky, other people will enjoy it, too. It’s never too late, so now my entire focus is on just creating, making up chords by using my ear, not trying to fit into a genre, and writing music for myself.
Powell in his EVH-worship days, looking every bit the ’80s guitar hero. The hair might be gone, but as you can see in the first picture, the Carvin’s still around.
Obsession: I have a couple. One, weirdly, is the ukulele. I bought one used on a whim for $20 and loved it. It’s just so fun to play and it seems to help improve my ear training. The other obsession is building guitars, and modding amps and pedals. That goes back to my EVH fanboy days. I had stopped for decades, but now I’m completely obsessed with it again.
Luke Ottenhof, Associate Editor
A: Joining the chorus of “scales and related stuff” in response to this question. All I wanted to do when I was younger was learn songs, and I developed a good ear thanks to that focus, but I completely neglected the more technical and theoretical sides of the instrument. Now, I find myself longing to stretch out on the guitar and find new and different sounds, but without the know-how to do so. I don’t necessarily regret all the time I spent figuring out how to play basic classic-rock tunes, but I do wish I’d had a more balanced practice diet.
Obsession: The 5E3 Deluxe sound. I got a 1x15" clone combo a few months back and loved the tonal profile, so I picked up the Origin Effects Deluxe55 to run into my ’73 Super Reverb and effectively turn it into a 4x10" tweed Deluxe. It mellows out the icy highs and creates a nicely balanced EQ for nasty-ass distortion and fuzz.
