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GUTHRIE
THOMAS
Q About 25 years ago
I purchased a great album by Guthrie Thomas—half live material with
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and half studio tracks. I have not seen or
heard anything about Thomas in years. Any idea what he’s been doing
since the ’70s?
Chuck Bouscaren
Riverside, California
A Guthrie Thomas may have drifted from
the limelight a bit, but he has been as busy as a beaver. Over the
years he has recorded 31 albums and appeared in five motion pictures,
including the Woody Guthrie bio pic Bound for Glory. As if
songwriting, performing, recording, producing, and acting weren’t
enough, he is also a registered pharmacist, a psychologist, a teacher
of cardiopulmonary pharmacology and alternative medicines, an alcohol
and drug abuse counselor, an author, and a gallery artist. He also
runs the Main Street record label (www.mainstreetcd.com,
[702] 876-7454) and sells a line of guitar strings and personalized
flatpicks.
Guthrie Thomas personalized
on one of his own picks.
The recording you are remembering is probably Dear Ginny, Dear
Ginny. That album has long been out of print, but Japan’s Vivid
Sound label is reissuing it and Thomas’ first recording, Sitting
Crooked on a single CD. That compilation and other recent
releases, including Ghost Town and Yesterdays and Tomorrows,
are available from Main Street, and a new recording entitled Poet,
Painter, Medicine Man is slated for release in 2001. You can
buy Guthrie’s CDs and check out his various ventures at www.dnira.com/GuthrieThomas.htm.
—Paul Kotapish
EFFECTS
PEDALS
Q Can
I use the same effects pedals designed for electric guitars with
an acoustic guitar run through a Fishman blender system?
Mathew Jacob
Port Louis, Mauritius
A You can pretty much use any effect pedal
or stomp box with your blender-powered acoustic guitar. If you’re
using a stereo cable, you’ll have to use the effect send and returns
on your blender; otherwise you can run the pedals in-line with your
guitar signal. Some effects will lend themselves more toward use with
acoustic sounds than others. Chorus, reverb, and delay are probably
the most popular, but there is no reason why you couldn’t experiment
with distortion and other more radical effects. An octave pedal can
be particularly effective with an acoustic guitar for making single-note
lines sound fat or for imitating a bass guitar.
Some stomp box–type effects are pretty lo-fi and might add some
noise to your sound or diminish certain frequencies. For this reason,
most acoustic players who are into effects rely on rack-mounted
effects units for superior audio quality.
—Teja Gerken
JONI
MITCHELL'S STAGE AX
QDoes Joni Mitchell still
play Martin guitars live on stage?
Gus Di Bella
Buenos Aires, Argentina
 ![]()
The Roland VG-8 has
replaced Mitchell's Martin.
A The acoustic Martin rarely
joins Joni Mitchell on stage these days. She plays in a profusion
of alternate tunings—as many as 90 different variations. Many of
these tunings work great in the controlled environment of the recording
studio but fail miserably under the rigors of touring. Extra-low
tunings are particularly hard to manage on stage. Add to that the
hassle of trying to tune an acoustic guitar between every number
and you have a formula for public frustration. For several years
now Mitchell has solved her on-stage tuning dilemma by using modern
digital processing technology. With the Roland VG-8 Virtual Guitar
she is able to change tunings at the flick of a switch. The strings
themselves stay in standard tuning, but the tuning coming out of
the speakers varies according to her needs. To accommodate the Roland
unit Mitchell uses either a Parker Fly or custom electric guitar
built by Fred Walecki. For more information on the Roland guitar
processor, go to www.rolandus.com.
—Paul Kotapish
HARMONIC-MINOR
SCALE
Q What is a harmonic-minor
scale?
John Bauman
Warsaw, Indiana
A The harmonic-minor scale
developed as a way to create stronger resolutions in compositions
in minor keys. For example, when you play in the key of A minor
and go to the V chord (E minor) and resolve back to the A-minor
chord, it doesn’t sound as strong as when you go from A minor to
E major and then back to A minor. Play through those turnarounds
and you will hear the difference. The A-minor scale contains all
natural notes—A B C D E F G A. When you substitute the E-major chord
for the E minor, the Gn of the A-minor scale sounds terrible against
the G# in the E-major chord. Over the years composers dealt with
this sonic clash by changing the seventh degree of the scale in
these instances to a G# instead of a Gn. The resulting scale is
A B C D E F G# A. For more examples and exercises in music theory
for the guitarist, check out Dan Smith’s Web site at www.dreamscape.com/esmith/dansm/.
—Andrew DuBrock
Excerpted
from Acoustic
Guitar magazine, November 2000,
No. 95.
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