Twang 101: Scotty Anderson’s Double-Stop Sorcery - Sep. '18 Ex. 2
Learn how Adrian Belew's BEAT Tour came together to include Tony Levin, Danny Carey, and Steve Vai—plus King Crimson, Bowie, Zappa, Talking Heads, and more.
The BEAT Tour, featuring a superband of Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai, and Tool’s Danny Carey, begins on September 12 in San Jose, California, and continues into December, playing repertoire from King Crimson’s highly influential ’80s albums Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pear. PG’s editorial director Ted Drozdowski sat down with Adrian in his home studio to talk about how these four great players came together, Adrian’s decades in Crimson, and Robert Fripp, Bowie, Zappa, Talking Heads, and more. Also, stay tuned for our exclusive Rig Rundown, coming soon!
A rare Honey Happening that survived the era of the Happening.
Our columnist’s musings on honey bring him back to a forgotten little guitar company in Japanese history that didn’t last very long, but produced some interesting models.
One of the guys I work with is such an interesting fella. Dylan has an opinion on literally every topic, and I take amusement by asking him all sorts of probing questions.
For instance, he only wears t-shirts made from a certain blend (I’ll wear anything), and he likes smoke-infused whiskey (I drink mine straight), and he can go into great detail about an array of things like infusers, griddles, recording software, artificial intelligence, and the list just goes on and on. It seems like I, on the other hand, only have a certain amount of brain bandwidth and I don’t really ponder things of the material world, unless it’s guitar-related.
Recently, he was telling me about the rise of hot honey! He’s always telling me about recipes and how he uses it, but I have to say, anything that’s hot always turns me off. I used to love heat and spice and I could really eat anything. Yours truly even won a chicken-wing-eating contest (101 wings, baby!) with scorching hot sauce. I can even remember working at a restaurant back in the day, and the cooks were always challenging me with hot-sauce concoctions. Even the Jamaican dudes there couldn’t believe how I could inhale heat without a tear. Alas, all the years of trashing my body eventually caught up with me, and now if I eat anything that’s spicy, my belly and bowels just give up the ghost.
So, all this talk with Dylan about hot sauces and hot honey got me thinking about the old guitar brand, Honey. Looking back, I can’t believe I’ve never written about the little company before, but it was just a blip in guitar history—albeit a cool blip.
The story goes that in 1965 the Japanese guitar company Kawai had purchased the Teisco company. Teisco had its headquarters in Tokyo and made mostly electronics there. The wood production was done at a plant called Teisco Gen Gakki, which was located near Matsumoto City. Within a year or so, Kawai brought all-wood production to its own plant and Teisco Gen Gakki went idle.
Some former Teisco employees, who had mostly lost their jobs in this production shift, decided to make a go of their own at the guitar business. From this time, we see the brands Firstman, Idol, and Honey. The Honey Company made all sorts of products, including amps and guitars, and the company only sold in the Japanese market. Honey had a few wild designs, but mostly the guitars were copies of Rickenbacker, Gibson, and Höfner. But then there were these crazy one-off models, like this Honey Happening guitar from 1968. I’ve never seen another one and the only photos I can find online are all of this same guitar! One of my good Japanese friends gifted this to me.
The Happening takes its name from common terminology of the time, like, “It’s what’s happening,” meaning “hip” or “cool,” but this one is one of the coolest, with that elongated upper bout contrasting a super-short lower one. It has a Bigsby copy resting on the beveled-out section at the butt, which is another detail that’s rarely seen. If you check out the pickguard, there’s a cute little bumblebee there with “happening” written across in an old typeface. The headstock design is also noteworthy, featuring an extra-large truss-rod cover with two little diamond-shaped accents.
This solidbody is powered by two sizzling pickups that are Mosrite copies. It has a stinging sound—sorry—and sets up well with the adjustable bridge. Electronics round out with simple volume/tone knobs and a 3-way pickup selector switch. The only part I personally dislike on this guitar is the tuners, which can be finicky. But the guitar itself is surprisingly well-balanced and is a joy to play.
The Honey Company started business in early 1967 but was bankrupt in March of 1969. All Honey guitars and amps are extremely hard to find today, and if you have a good example, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. So instead of hot honey, let’s give a little props to a cool Honey.
1968 Honey Happening Guitar Demo
Frank’s friend Mike Dugan demos the Honey Happening 6-string.
With a few minor fingering adjustments another world of musical expression can be unlocked.
Beginner
Beginner
- Look at the pentatonic scale in a new light.
- Understand how to navigate diagonally across the fretboard.
- Use this newfound knowledge to create more musical phrases.
Likely the first melodic device any improvising musician learns is the pentatonic scale. It’s a simple pattern to learn on guitar, it’s easy to play, and it always sounds “correct.” It contains mostly the “good” notes and usually you don’t need to think too much about which notes to avoid. What’s not to love? After a while, however, a certain sameness begins to emerge, and one begins to wonder, “Is there something more here?” Well, it has much more to offer than what you see on the surface.
How do you play a pentatonic scale?
One of the first shapes that guitarists learn when starting to explore the pentatonic scale is the ubiquitous box in Ex. 1. And why not? It’s a simple pattern to memorize, it’s easy to play, and you can get musical sounding results almost immediately. In fact, if you play these notes in just about any order, play in time, and exercise some logical phrasing, you can’t really mess it up.
There is a wealth of guitar vocabulary in this simple device. Eric Johnson, Eric Clapton, Eric Gales, and other legendary guitarists not named Eric have demonstrated this for decades. However, the two-note-per-string nature of the pattern can limit your phrasing. Let’s dive into a few simple things we can do to inject some articulations into an otherwise choppy march across the fretboard.
This isn’t a “Stop doing this and start doing that” proposition but rather a supplement to your bag of badassery that you’ve accumulated. Let’s remap some of the notes found in Ex. 1 to other strings to elongate the scale along the neck rather than simply march across it (Ex. 2).
Notice that we alternate between two notes on a string and three notes on a string. Add some strategic slides into the mix and our little fretboard square dance gets a welcome dose of swagger. Naturally, we will need to practice this descending pattern (Ex. 3) as well. These fingerings have a certain hipness that the box lacks.
Ex. 4 features a nice blues gesture that exemplifies the articulations that this fingering invites. Judicious use of bends, slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs make the magic happen.
Double-Stop the Presses
The slippery fourths found on adjacent strings combined with an eighth-note delay summon an early ’80s funk/pop feeling. Play Ex. 5 with long legato notes and have a glass of chardonnay on hand for a funky smooth-jazz vibe.
Two often-used tricks are the sliding fourths/hammer-on double-stop phrases in Ex. 6. Once again, it’s the strategic use of slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs that make the slinky goodness happen. These tasty double-stop licks are useful chordal accents in your solos or R&B-style rhythm parts. Even though Ex. 6 is a bucket of pentatonic scale phrases over a I–VIm–IIm–V chord progression, the double-stops provide a harmonically informed sound. Think Mateus Asato, Stevie Ray Vaughan, or Jimi Hendrix.
Get Louder … Without Turning Up
Did you know that two notes are louder than one? How ’bout that? Next time you’re playing at your local blues jam and the well-intentioned but way-too-loud rhythm player tempts you to turn up your amp, don’t do it. You’ll just add to the problem. Instead try some double-stops (Ex. 7). It transforms otherwise basic melodies into majestic, purposeful, and yes, louder statements without adding to a never-ending volume war.
Peace, Love, and Understanding
Play some nice rhythm guitar without banging out all those barre chords. Yes, barre chords are useful but sometimes it’s just way too much. Guitarists already have to deal with the stigma of being eye-rolling loud. Why is that? The bottom portion of the chord (the power chord part) is an essential sound if you’re in a rock band. But in a blues, R&B, jazz, or country setting, it can sound muddy (and kinda stupid). The low-register notes are getting in your bass player’s way and the keyboard player, by default, is already annoyed at you. Let’s be friends with these folks and sound better in the process.
Reimagining the pentatonic box will add depth and vibe to your playing. And using smaller double-stops versus banging out giant fists-full of notes not only tends to make the band sound better but they’re easier to play too. As a bonus you just may find that your solos sound fuller and more interesting. Don’t forget to acknowledge the perceptive audience that applauds your tasty masterpiece.