Twelve Strangs

My 12-string guitar came i the mail yesterday, an Epiphone DR-212 that looks like this:

And I love it.

This makes three guitars in the house, all Epiphones (in addition to the new 12-strang, I have a cherry sunburst Les Paul Special II and my wife has an acoustic, but I can’t remember the model).

It came with shitty strings that won’t hold a tune for long, so I’ll have to replace those of course. But when it is tuned up and I play it, it sounds like delicious, musical rain. I took it to my guitar class at the Old Town School of Folk Music last night, and had a ton of fun passing it around the class to give everyone a chance to strum on it.

12-String guitars have sets of strings in courses, like a mandolin. The higher sets are both tuned to the same note, and the lower sets are tuned an octave apart from each other, so it has this full, chorus sound. A lot of amazing songs have 12-string guitars in them, but here’s one where the instrument is prominent, so you can tell what it sounds like:

Read Full Post »

Townes In My Head

We’ve been playing some Townes Van Zandt songs in my Thursday night guitar class at the Old Town School of Folk Music: first “No Place To Fall,” which is just a gorgeous song in 3/4 time and fun to play with the ol’ capo on the second fret. Listen to it here (played by Townes, not played by me; I’m not nearly good enough to impose myself on you yet):

My guitar teacher also brought in “Pancho and Lefty” for us to play, which made my day. I have previously expressed my massive appreciation for that song.

So anyway, I have those two songs in my head now. And I’ve been practicing them. Seriously, if you have never listened hard to Townes Van Zandt, you are missing out like you have no idea.

Read Full Post »