Jonathan Pearce of the Beths joins us in discussing our most beloved acoustic strummers. Plus, musical obsessions!
Q:Ā Whatās your favorite song to play on an acoustic and why?
Jonathan Pearce (The Beths) ā Guest Picker
Photo by Erza Simmons
A: I love the Kenyan guitarist Henry Makobi, and Iāve tried hard to learn his song āLikuta Bibi.ā Iāll never be able to play it just like him; itās just too idiosyncratic. But I can kind of get the gist of it and itās a wickedly clever line.
Likuta Bibi
The trick I learned from this song is to harmonize a melody in sixths, with a top line melody thatās nicely āin the chords,ā but a bottom line that can sneak out, and back in, harmonically. Itās a finger twister, tooāyou have to fully commit to have any hope of landing it. I learned about Makobi from an interview with another musical hero of mine, the Newcastle songwriter Richard Dawson.
Jonathan Pearce'sĀ āCurrent Obsession:
Uilleann pipe music from Ireland. This segment is making my listening seem way more diverse than it really is, but truthfully this is my current obsession. Uilleann pipes are so rock ānā roll to me. Like a heavily distorted electric guitar, they scream, sustain, and squawk, like theyāre on the edge of feedback. The drone element is so relevant to guitar music, too, and Iām trying to get my head around the way pipers adorn melodies with grace notes and turns. The repertoire is just so great, full of dexterous and rousing melodies. Iām trying to learn to play the tin whistle, with the hope of graduating to a set of pipes one day.
Mike Blue ā Reader of the Month
Mike Blue
A: āSpainā by Chick Corea.
Spain
I worked on learning that song harder than I worked on any song in 50 years. So, I only play it for me.
Mike Blue'sĀ Current Obsession:
My obsession is easy: being able to make music. Not just play notes, but make some sort of musical contribution, whatever that may be.
Ted Drozdowski ā Senior Editor
A: Big Mama Thorntonās āBall and Chainā in open Dm. I came to the song through Big Brother and Cheap Thrills but backtracked to Big Mamaāan astounding person.
Big Mama Thornton 1970
She was a great musician, an out gay woman writing hits and leading a band of men around the world in the ā50s, ā60s, and ā70s. Powerful! Itās also a gateway. Down a half-step and Iām in Bentonia tuning.
Ted DrozdowskiĀ Current Obsession:
My new stereo Carr amp rig blows my mind. See my most recent Love and Sockets column.
Jason Shadrick ā Associate Editor
A: Iāve been getting deeper and deeper into learning fiddle tunes and love to use the classic āBlackberry Blossomā as a good warm-up to center my mind with both hands.
Tony Rice ~ Blackberry Blossom
The fact that these tunes are eighth-note based and use pretty strict alternate picking allows me to go into an almost meditative state while working on them.
Jason Shadrick'sĀ Current Obsession:
Hands down, itās The Rehearsal on HBO. Itās one of the most mind-bending shows Iāve ever seen, and Nathan Fielder is an absolute genius. I hesitate to say much more about it, but I guarantee there are at least a half-dozen times in the first episode where I had to pause and go, āWTF?ā
The happy reunion of Mark O'Connor and his old Martin resulted in a sequel to his foundational 1978 acoustic guitar album, Markology. Back then, he was already a star violinist and a mandolin player of note. Photo by Maggie O'Connor
When an injury sidelined his 6-stringing 20 years ago, he committed to violin superstardom. Now, O'Connor returns to his 1945 Martin D-28 for the rapturous, virtuosic Markology II.
In 1997, Mark O'Connor faced every guitarist's worst fear. He was teaching at his O'Connor Method String Camp that summer when he developed a debilitating case of bursitis in his right elbow. "Doctor's advice was that I limit or discontinue some of the activity that caused the bursitis, as the condition wasn't going to disappear entirely," O'Connor explains. As a multi-instrumentalist with a high-level violin career, he had a choice to make. "I sacrificed the guitar and mandolin to preserve my violin playing. I was very sad to see it go, but I needed to preserve my ability to play the violin, because it was the thrust of my career."
By that time, O'Connor had taken violin playing to groundbreaking new places. He'd released a string of solo records on major labels, including 1991's The New Nashville Cats, which took stock of the contemporary Nashville session scene by featuring more than 50 collaborators. His new trio with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer had released their much-lauded debut record, Appalachia Waltz, in 1996, and he'd recently composed and recorded a violin concerto, a string quartet, and a soundtrack for the PBS series Liberty!,which featured Yo-Yo Ma, James Taylor, and Wynton Marsalis.
"It became too much about technique and not as much about what drew me to the guitar in the first place, which was its beautiful sound."
As far as career ambitions go, O'Connor's violin playing overshadowed his guitar playing, but his early accomplishments on 6-strings were also extraordinary. O'Connor started early, studying classical guitar starting at age 6 and soon moving into flamenco. He took on classical violin as a way to perform more recitals, and it was his interest in violin that helped him discover bluegrass. He explains, "I heard the fiddle on the Johnny Cash show, and it was the fiddle and fiddling I got into that led me into bluegrass guitar. I would've never known that existed in my surroundings in Seattle, if it weren't for the fiddle."
Once O'Connor fell in love with bluegrass, things started happening quickly. By age 11, he'd stopped playing classical and flamenco guitar and focused solely on flatpicking. "When I got into bluegrass and started with a flat pick, for me, that was rock 'n' roll rebellion. I was going down this path and there was no return," he says. And he soon began winning bluegrass guitar competitions, including the National Guitar Flat-Picking Championships.
Surrounded by his inspirations Tony Rice (center) and Dan Crary (left), O'Conner cuts "Fluid Drive" for the first Markology album, in 1978. Flatpicking doesn't get any finer.
At 13, O'Connor met Tony Rice, and by the time he'd turned 15, the elder guitarist had taken him under wing. When O'Connor recorded his landmark album, Markology, in 1978, Rice played alongside the 16-year-old and helped him mix it as well. Markology was a remarkable feat that found the young prodigy holding his own amongst elders like Rice, David Grisman, and Sam Bush. It was the first recorded evidence that he'd aligned himself with the jazz-inspired ways of his collaborators and was creating his own original and imaginative voice in bluegrass, setting the world on fire with his 1945 Herringbone Martin D-28. Two years later, at only 18, he stepped into his mentor's shoes, replacing Rice in the David Grisman Quintet for their Quintet '80 album.
O'Connor's guitar and fiddle playing co-existed on equal footing for quite a while. "Throughout my childhood, it was neck and neck," he says. "The distinctions could include that there were more big fiddle contests than big guitar contests, so I found myself going to three times as many major fiddle championships. That would automatically suggest that I'm spending more time on that instrument." When he joined the Dregs, playing violin on 1982's Industry Standard, Steve Morse insisted that O'Connor play both instruments in concert, though he began to notice how hard it was becoming to maintain his technique on both, and notes, "It was just so hard to keep up everything, especially with the kind of touring that we were doing, it was just nonstop."
Mark O'Connor's Gear
On Mondays this year, Mark O'Connor and Maggie, his wife, have been livestreaming concerts from their home. She is part of the Mark O'Connor Band, which includes his son Forrest and daughter-in-law Kate Lee.
Strings & Picks
- BlueChip CT55
- D'Addario EJ18 Phosphor Bronze (.014ā.059)
It wasn't long before Chet Atkins encouraged him to move to Nashville at the age of 22, imagining he'd find a career as a session guitarist, that O'Connor committed to the violin as his principal instrument. He explains, "I found myself on a Glen Campbell album playing guitar, mostly, and doing an occasional fiddle solo. Something just clicked in my mind where I thought, 'There's so many guitar players in Nashville and there's hardly any fiddle going on.' That was 1983, '84. I just took it upon myself to be the person that brought back fiddling into country music, and I became known as the top fiddler."
He quickly began playing top-tier sessions as well as making a string of major label records under his own name, and his guitar playing took on a more background role. By the time he suffered his injury in 1997, he admits, "I was kind of a little bit burnt out about it. Maybe that's what led to my injuries. Sometimes when you're not completely focused on what you're doing, that's the time that you get injured. I was going through the motions a little bit and maybe over-practicing, trying to overachieve, pushing myself maybe for the wrong reasons. It became too much about technique and not as much about what drew me to the guitar in the first place, which was its beautiful sound."
"Music is a gift, I think, to us all."
Setting aside his guitar and mandolin, O'Connor found that he could continue playing violin, and for the next two decades fiddling took over his musical life completely. He didn't touch a guitar. "I never thought I would play guitar again, and I had grown accustomed to that fact. I had other bouts of bursitis in both my hip and my knee since then, so I knew I was prone to it. I just never wanted to take the chance," he says.
In 2017ā20 years after his injuryāhe was busy focusing on his Mark O'Connor Band, with his wife Maggie on violin and vocals, his son Forrest on mandolin, guitar, and vocals, and his daughter-in-law Kate Lee on violin and vocals. While reminiscing about his multi-instrumentalist past, his family encouraged him to give the guitar another try. "I was wondering how I could add some variety to the instrumentation for our group," O'Connor says. "My family was encouraging me to try the guitars out, maybe play some easy-going strums on one of our songs, and, carefully, I started to try out some guitar stuff."
In his early years as a bluegrass fiddle trailblazer, O'Connor, at left, performs at a festival with (left to right) Eddie Adcock on banjo, Peter Rowan on guitar, and Jerry Douglas on dobro.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
As he began testing his limits, O'Connor realized that he could do a lot more than strum some chords, and one thing soon led to another. "It was not too long before I began to take a lead line on one of the easy songs on stage," he says. "That led to my taking my old Herringbone off the wall back home and experimenting. Over two or three months, I started building up calluses, and as soon as I got my calluses, then my right hand seemed to start to coordinate a lot better. The strumming came back pretty quickly. It was just coordinating mainly crosspicking and lead stuff. And when that started coming back, the whole thing just opened up and I was inspired."
It's hard to imagine the thrill of revisiting the guitar after such a long hiatus. O'Connor describes the feeling: "It felt like a gift. All of a sudden it just felt like it was meant to beāthat it was my time to play the guitar again. Music is a gift, I think, to us all. I thought about Tony right away. His sound was in my mind the whole time, and his tone, the way he projected on the guitar, the way he held the guitar and the physicality of it."
"The strumming came back pretty quickly. It was just coordinating mainly crosspicking and lead stuff. And when that started coming back, the whole thing just opened up and I was inspired."
O'Connor decided to document his progress on the guitar, creating arrangements of tunes and recording them once they were ready. "It dawned on me that I had been storing up guitar ideas this whole time, and maybe they were held in my subconscious all along, never having an outlet for them, and then they were kind of spilling out onto the guitar."
Those recordings slowly coalesced into Markology II, a title that suggests not only a sequel to his debut album, but also a renewal or rebirth of his relationship with the instrument. Much like on his debut, Markology II once again shows that O'Connor possesses one of the most unique and versatile voices in modern acoustic guitar playing. Like his fiddle playing, his approach to the guitar now transcends the more bluegrass-focused playing of his youth, and he shows off a versatility and virtuosity that is stunning.
The strings O'Connor had on his Martin D-45 when he put it aside 20 years ago were still on the guitar when he recorded the first two songs for his new album. Nonetheless, "On Top of the World" and "Ease With the Breeze" ring with beauty and precision.
From "On Top of the World" and "Ease With the Breeze"āthe first tracks recorded for Markology II,using his D-28 with the same strings that had been on it since he put it down in 1997āto awe-inspiring, fleet-fingered arrangements of "Beaumont Rag" and "Salt Creek," O'Connor proves that not only has he not lost anything with regards to his technique and musicality, but he's continued to grow well beyond the already highly developed playing we last heard from his flat-top box in the '90s. This makes Markology II not only a unique entry in his large discography, but a unique entry into the canon of solo acoustic guitar records that demand close study.
While he once again plays with rare speed and dexterity, O'Connor brings a lot of awareness to his physical approach to guitar. At 59, he knows he has to take care, listen to his body, and follow its cues in order to avoid another injury. "I have a template of how to approach playing with injury now," he assures. "The main thing is that you have to just discontinue playing the moment you feel pain in the arm or hand area. I mean, literally, as soon as you feel the twinge of pain for 5 seconds, you have to discontinue. I'm very hyper-aware of my limitations in that way." With this thoughtful and focused awareness, it will be thrilling to hear where Mark O'Connor takes his guitar playing for years to come.
Alabama Jubilee | Mark O'Connor | "Markology II" (Official Video)
Mark O'Connor takes a relaxed and efficient approach to picking while he sets his JC Baxendale-built dreadnought on fire with this version of "Alabama Jubilee." His creative and melodic solo guitar arrangement leaves lots of space for clever chording and hyper-fast licks while maintaining a casual and airy feel.
A deep dive into the unique flatpicking language of the late bluegrass legend Tony Rice.
Intermediate
Intermediate
ā Explore Tony Rice's unique voice on the acoustic guitar.
ā Understand the basic theory of bluegrass guitar.
ā Level up your phrasing with hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides.
In December of last year, Tony Rice passed away. He was/is my all-time favorite guitarist. Like many of his fans, my love of his playing has likely transcended obsession. In fact, at the time of writing this, I have transcribed over 100 Tony Rice solos. That puts me in a unique position to share with you not only my favorite Tony Rice licks but what I think might be Rice's favorite licks, if the frequency with which he played them is any indication.
These examples can be found in almost every Tony Rice break. They are integral to his sound and they can become part of your sound too. This comes with one small warning though: These licks are not meant to be parroted off this page. A big hallmark of this sound is to use these phrases but to vary them, and create your own versions of them. Let's remember Rice by innovating on his past achievements the same way he innovated on the achievements of the players that came before him.
How to End a Bluegrass Song
One of the most famous and enduring Tony Rice licks is this signature tag. A tag is a common way to end a bluegrass fiddle tune or vocal song, the most generic tag being the ubiquitous "shave and a haircut." In Ex.1, you can see what's called a "double" tag. The first tag ends on beat 3 of measure two, before the open 3rd string on beat 3. The remainder of the lick forms the second tag, which eventually morphs into a variation of the Lester Flatt "G run."
Rice's note choice is predominantly major pentatonic but includes an occasional b3 that always resolve down to the 2 or up to the 3. As I say to my students, "Blue notes need buddies." Playing these pairs of notes with articulations like slides and pull-offs that cross bar lines is an important part of Rice's style.
Tony Rice Ex. 1
Use Your Chords
If you're familiar with triads on the D, G, and B strings, you can turn those into bluegrass licks as well. Rice has used the triads in Ex. 2 in a handful of different and interesting ways. He's used the last two chord shapes to form the main riff for "Me and My Guitar," and employed those same shapes to punctuate the end of his "Cold on the Shoulder" kick-off. Sometimes you can see him expand this idea by using even more chord shapes to descend the neck. He would use something like Ex. 2 in a G major context but would be heavily implying G Mixolydian mode by using the F major and D minor triads.
Tony Rice Ex. 2
That One Lick
I've seen this passage referred to multiple times as "that one Tony Rice lick." He uses variations of this passage to finish breaks in "Your Love Is Like a Flower," "Ain't Nobody Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone," and "Gold Rush." It serves the function of a statement piece to assert his personal voice on the instrument before handing off the spotlight to the next instrumental break or verse of a song with vocals.
As you play Ex. 3 be mindful of how you use your pinky. Every note on the 10th fret is played with the pinky, including a brief pinky barre on the 10th fret of the 3rd and 4th strings.
Tony Rice Ex. 3
Pull-Off Central
This lick has been featured in recordings, but I associate it much more with Rice's live sound. Whenever Rice needs a second to think about what to play next, Ex. 4 seems to come to his fingers first. The note choice here lands firmly in the minor pentatonic camp but he manages to create a little bit of an outside sound with the third iteration of the pattern that brings in the b5 at the 6th fret of the G string.
Tony Rice Ex. 4
Escape Notes
Have you ever been stuck up the neck improvising with no idea how to get back down to something more familiar? Me too! So, let me introduce you to escape notes. Sometimes you can find an open string that will continue your line in a linear fashion while freeing up your hand to shift down the neck. Take a look at the F, E, and D eighth-notes in the first measure of Ex. 5. Rather than playing those three notes in position, Rice is using the open 1st string so he has time to shift his hand while continuing his eighth-note line.
There are examples of Rice using variations of licks like this in "Blue Railroad Train," "A Hundred Years from Now," and "Likes of Me." You can use this in a D major context or in a G major context over a D chord.
Tony Rice Ex. 5
Acoustic Bends
It can be done, and in a situation like this we're not necessarily shooting for something perfectly in tune. In Ex. 6 you can see that pulling down on the 4th string at the 3rd fret will bring the note closer to F#, the 3 of the chord, but in practice Rice usually doesn't get all the way there.
Tony Rice Ex. 6
Phrasing
If you asked a random flatpicker at a bluegrass festival to play a Tony Rice lick, they would probably play something like Ex. 7. These types of phrases have endless variations and demonstrate Rice's long-standing influence on bluegrass music. These licks are built from a G minor pentatonic (GāBbāCāDāF) bone structure but always feature a pull-off from the 2nd fret to the 1st fret on the B string and a slide from 3rd to 4th fret on the G string. This pull-off and slide are great reminders that blue notes need buddies.
Tony Rice Ex. 7
True Minor
Bluegrass isn't all major tunes though. There are standards in minor keys. We're talking about tunes that are actually minorānot just playing minor pentatonic licks over major chords. With that in mind, it would be wrong of me to not mention Ex. 8, one of Rice's favorite improvisational ideas to employ over minor tunes. This kind of lick is all over Rice's original compositions in minor keys and the recordings he made with David Grisman. The idea is framed in a slightly ambiguous way, so you can find Rice using it in A minor and D minor.
Tony Rice Ex. 8
It's an impossible task to completely distill Tony Rice's playing into a single lesson. I would point you to nearly any album in his discography to get the essence of modern bluegrass guitar right from the source. His touch, feel, tone, and vibe forever changed acoustic music and we all will be eternally grateful.
Essential Tony Rice Videos
Tony Rice liked to perform "Me and My Guitar" with an extended jam in the middle. Many licks from this lesson appear in his guitar break at 6:00.
Tony Rice's "Church Street Blues"
There's very little footage of Tony Rice performing his iconic interpretation of Norman Blake's "Church Street Blues." This arrangement may be one of the most difficult to replicate from Rice's catalogue.
Tony Rice's "Old Home Place"
Tony Rice performs on the definitive recordings of multiple bluegrass standards but "Old Home Place" may be the most important. JD Crowe & The New South's self-titled release is considered by many to be a near perfect bluegrass record.
Tony Rice "Shenandoah"
Most folks talk about Tony Rice's hot-style playing but his melodic chord melody approach to guitar is equally impressive. I doubt we'll ever see an accurate transcription or performance of this era of Tony Rice.