Q&A: Strings & Strumming

Sorry I haven’t posted here in a bit folks, been rather busy trying to get that EP out, but now that I have, I’m back and I’m all yours.

Anyways, I have some important advice for... well any musician, really, but it’s something I know I struggled with a lot when I was first starting out and I wish someone had told me.

Now this may not be so prevalent in certain circles, but in the circles I started out in (and some I’m still in), gear seems like it’s everything. And honestly? “Good” gear, the gear people dream of, and the gear people really want, is expensive.

But more importantly, it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that whatever you’re playing, whatever your setup is, sounds good to you. Even if it doesn’t sound good to anyone else, the question is, do you like it? As long as the answer is yes, you don’t need to change a thing.

Some of, what to me, is the best sounding gear I own, is also some of the cheapest.

What got me thinking on this is I just watched a video of a guy playing a $100 guitar and a $10,000 guitar. 90% of the time, if I closed my eyes, I honestly couldn’t tell which was which. When I could, I actually personally preferred the $100 one’s sound.

I’ll probably follow this up with a quick little advice post on finding good gear for cheap as well, because I’ve discovered that quite often what you end up paying the big bucks for isn’t quality, it’s the brand name.

So I know there’s not a lot of you, but that could actually work well for this, but I was thinking of creating a Discord server for this blog where people could discuss music, get and give advice, and generally create a stronger more closely knit community.

One thing a lot of people don’t know is that there exist a type of guitar amplifier (well I mean you could theoretically plug in just about any electric instrument to them, but they’re designed to work with electric guitars) called mini-amps.

This is because most of them, if not all of them, are at most, about half the size of a shoebox (and some are even smaller than my hand). They virtually all run off of 9-volt batteries (and have surprisingly long battery life), and most have some way of attaching them to your person.

They also all have your basic headphone jack compatible with even your iPhone/iWhatever earbuds. Most are absurdly affordable as well.

These traits make them ideal not just for practice amps, but for travel, and even busking. (A word on this: check your local laws and whatnot to see what the rule is on amplified live music in public spaces. Most places allow it so long as it doesn’t exceed a certain decibel level which you likely won’t have to worry about as very few mini-amps can even come close to being too loud.)

Now I’m a bit of a collector of these things, but there’s a lot more out there than what I currently own, but I’m going to limit myself to talking about just the models I have experience with. I’ll be working my way from worst to best, but you’d be surprised how good they all are. Anyways, let’s get started.

5. Roland Micro Cube GX

So there’s actually some disagreement on whether or not this one even counts as a mini-amp as it’s... not exactly super mini. It’s closer to a combo amp size than what I’d call mini-amp size.

That’s because, well, it is a combo amp. What that means is it’s got a lot of controls on it giving you a lot of versatility.

It’s a 3-watt amp which, trust me, may not sound like a lot, but is plenty for practice purposes and I wouldn’t even advise cranking it all the way up if you live in an apartment for instance.

One nice feature is it has a built in chromatic tuner.

So why is this only #5? Well frankly, it comes down to what you’re getting for your money. These guys typically retail for around $150, for which I know of several proper combo amps of relatively decent quality with much more punch and versatility than one of these.

If you’re just starting out as an electric guitar player, however, this might be a good investment as it can, for the time being, serve as your only amp. But if you already own any other amps, I’d honestly pass this one by.

4. Marshall MS-2

Okay, now we’re in proper mini-amp territory. This baby even has a belt clip so you can wear it on your person. Also it’s cute. I honestly like how they made this thing that is round about 4 inches tall look like a proper Marshall stack.

Unfortunately I can’t confirm this, but I’m fairly certain this is a 1-watt amp, which despite being literally the bare minimum, can be surprisingly loud. At least loud enough for practice purposes.

Now the image pretty much demonstrates your amount of sound control. Volume, tone, off (no sound), on (clean channel), and OD (overdrive). Pretty simplistic, but for practice purposes, that’s more than enough.

Retailing for usually around $50, this one is way more affordable. However, my biggest complaint with this is it feels pretty cheap, even for $50. In fact I know a lot of people who have broken these accidentally doing fairly benign things.

The sound is also not the best, to be honest. However, if by chance you own, for example, an Ibanez Mini Tube Screamer pedal, throwing that in front of this will give you a great sound.

3. Orange Micro Crush CR3

This baby is the latest addition to my collection and I’ve been playing with it a lot lately. It’s kind of a step between the Roland and the Marshall. It’s very small, but still a 3-watt, and as you can see it has a bit of a combo amp thing going on, including its own chromatic tuner.

Other than that, the controls are pretty basic. Tone, Volume, and an Overdrive on/off switch, and general on/off switch.

Another reason to love it, for me personally, is not only does it sound great, but look at it! It’s a proper Orange! For me, that’s a selling point. Might not be for you, however. Speaking of selling, these retail for around $60.

Now there are two downsides to this one. They are minor, but still worth mentioning. First, despite its fairly compact size, that’s a wooden housing, so it’s damned heavy (but does come with strap locks so you can attach a guitar strap and wear it). Also despite having a general on/off switch, you can’t leave anything plugged into it. For whatever reason, if something, even just a cable is plugged into it, that will slowly but constantly drain the battery.

2. Danelectro Honeytone N-10

Okay now we’re really getting mini. Even with a 9volt battery loaded into it, this thing is so small and lightweight you’ll forget it’s clipped to your belt.

This was my first mini-amp, and what sparked my love for them. It’s 1-watt, and the controls of volume, tone, and overdrive are pretty basic, but this thing rocks, especially if you want something that sounds a little 80′s-90′s.

It sounds amazing but really the best reason to buy one is the price.

One of these, which you’ll notice is nearly the same as that Marshall in terms of specs, is only $20. What more can I say?

1. Danelectro Hodad DH-1

This amp is very similar to its Honeytone brother. Cheap ($30), lightweight, compact as hell, 1-watt, and producing an unbelievably stellar sound. But there’s even more to it than that, and some good reasons this is coming it at #1.

I have often found myself playing through this amp and wondering why I even own six other amps or why anyone would need or want anything other than this. Eventually I come to my senses, but still.

This wonderful little beauty gives you one of the best vintage 60′s-70′s sounds ever. My $150 modeling amp can’t even compete with this.

Again, the controls are fairly basic. Volume, Tone, and Gain knobs. But wait, what are those two buttons? Those, my friend, are basically free effects pedals built into this tiny machine. You’ve got a button to turn on a light echo effect, and one to turn on a tremolo effect.

Now in that third picture, you see that little white screw on the back? Use a coin, or hell, even your guitar pick, and use that to adjust the rate of the tremolo.

Honestly, the only downside at all is there is no way to attach this to your person. Other than that, I really can’t recommend one of these enough.

Now just to wrap things up, I want to share one last piece of advice with you, a wonderful little thing I discovered. All of these, every last one, has a basic jack for headphones.

But let’s say you really want to jam on one of these amps, but the 1 or 3 watts just isn’t cutting it. Got some speakers? Or a stereo system with an aux cable? Both will plug right into that jack.

We’ve got a surround sound system in our living room that I often plug my mini-amps into, crank up the volume to just below the point of annoying the neighbors, and jam. That’s when you truly wonder why you bothered buying that 4x12 cabinet and 50-watt amp head when you could have just dropped $30 on a Hodad and plugged it into the surround sound.

Got any questions or comments? Let me know! I hope this was helpful and informative.

Cody’s Custom Tunings - Clactiv Tuning (Part 2)

Alright, by popular request, for all you ukulele players, may I present “Clactiv Tuning”. Honestly, I can’t exactly remember where the name came from, so no fun story there. Anyways, on to the tuning.

Clactiv Tuning: G-C-A-G

Yep. You read that right. As far as my tunings go, this one is rather mild. All I did was tune the 1st string (usually an E) down two steps to a G, the same G as the 4th string.

“Now Cody, isn’t that a bit redundant? It’d be one thing if it was in a different octave but...” I hear you saying. Well, yes and no.

The actual fact is there’s a lot of fun to be had with having two strings playing the same note, it just takes some experimenting around with. Mostly, however, it’s just happenstance, because when I was designing the tuning my goal was to simply tun the 1st string down two steps because of reasons I’ll get into in a moment.

But another thing is, while they might both register with a tuner as the exact same note (specifically a G4), on an actual ukulele the timbre is different. Why? Long story short: string gauges (AKA how thick the strings are). Assuming you’ve got standard string gauges and tuned down from the standard C tuning, the 1st string will almost always be just slightly thicker than the 4th string.

Factor in some other things that are... complicated and this isn’t really the time or place to explain, and there will be a slight but audible difference just in how the two strings resonate.

But all that aside, let’s get down to why I decided to tune the 1st string down.

Long story short, banjos. Specifically, 5-string banjos tuned to Open G.

I know, I’ve probably lost you unless you happen to be a banjo player who is very familiar with Open G tuning. Again, long story short, the bottom three strings of a 5-string banjo tuned to Open G are tuned G-B-D. My chandjo tuning is based on a 5-string banjo tuned to Open G and I use that tuning a lot for my main acoustic guitar, thus I am very familiar with playing three strings with the relationship that G-B-D have.

Well I realized that the C and A were five steps up from the G and B and all I’d have to do to make the 1st string be five steps up from the D would be to tune it down two steps. The result is G-B-D and C-A-G have the exact same relationship between strings.

What that translates to is the same shapes for chords and various melodies, riffs, what have you that I was already very familiar with, I could now play on my ukulele. An unintended bonus is, technically, this is also an open tuning which basically means if you barre all the strings on the same fret (or just play all the strings open) it’s already a chord. (Technically, all the strings open with this tuning is kind of a modified C chord.)

You probably noticed this post is labeled “Part 1″. There’s a reason for that. I want to show you how to get the most out of this tuning and some of the really fun things you can do with it, but that’s going to require I kind of create an exercise sheet and/or lesson plan. Which takes time.

So that will be Part 2. In the meantime, just play around with it and I can promise you that you’ll probably figure out some fun stuff right away. It’s also probably worth noting that I primarily do a lot of fingerpicking when it comes to playing ukulele and shy away from just playing straight chords, so that’s more what this is geared towards. That said, it’s up to you to decide how you want to play it, so go nuts and hopefully Part 2 won’t be too long in coming.

Alright, here’s the first post of what I’m hoping to be a series. You see, as I’ve probably mentioned before, I use a lot of seemingly incomprehensible and inane tunings I invented myself. In fact, I usually end up designing a specialized tuning for every instrument I own, each focused and carefully designed for what I mainly use that instrument for.

Of all my instruments I only have one currently in any form of standard tuning and that’s because I use that one to give lessons.

The secret is, there is a method behind my madness, it just usually takes a lot of explaining on my part.

So to start this off we’ll be looking at one of my most recent tunings, one that involved considerably more trial and error and evolution than most. It’s designed specifically to work with my electric sitar but can be easily applied to a standard 6 or 12 string guitar.

From the moment I had decided to get an electric sitar, I knew I wanted to give it a very unique tuning, and so I started designing one before I had even got it.

I drew my first inspiration from a tuning I can unfortunately no longer remember that Kaki King uses on one of her songs (maybe “Playing With Pink Noise”? I can’t remember), but with a few modifications to create the first iteration.

Khaki Tuning: D-A-C-G-A#-F

Now let me explain the logic behind that. It follows a very simple pattern of alternating perfect 5ths and perfect 3rds. So ostensibly you have three sets of perfect 5ths each separated by a perfect 3rd. A perfect 3rd can easily be converted into a perfect 4th, making playing your typical major and minor powerchords easy.

However, due to a specialized custom bridge system for my electric sitar, I noticed that the first string, the high F, just didn’t resonate right anymore. It was just too taut. Thus came the second iteration.

Dropskip Tuning: D-A-C-G-A-E

The name for this tuning is derived from the idea of drop tunings (such as Drop D) where the 6th string is dropped two semitones to make it a perfect 5th in conjunction with the 5th string. However, every other string is dropped from standard. So it skips a string. Also it’s a pun on “dropkick”.

Well this solved the solution of the 1st string not resonating right, but now the 2nd and 3rd strings were only two semitones apart which created some ergonomic issues in playing chords, so I quickly found a solution.

Dropskip Standard Tuning: D-A-C-G-B-E

Now you’ll notice that this is very close to E Standard (E-A-D-G-B-E). Now the only differences are the 4th and 6th strings have both been dropped. What this hybrid of sorts allows for is the use of many standard chords on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings, while maintaining a lot of the ease of use of “True” Dropskip on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th strings.

I realize this may still seem confusing for some, so if anyone needs clarification, feel free to shoot me an ask and I’ll do my best to explain whatever you need explained.

Now for the next part, I’ll let you guys pick the next tuning.

Swagman (Standard 6/12-string Guitar)

Chandjo (Standard 6/12-string Guitar)

Guttersnipe A (Baritone 6-string Guitar)

Clacktiv (Standard Ukulele)

Saskatune (Standard Mandolin)

Your vote?

Depends on the instrument, the style, and the sound I suppose but in all honesty I use only one pick 90% of the tame and it’s a Dragon’s Heart GT.

It’s versatile, it feels good in my hand, and I think it sounds great. Admittedly these mothers are nine bucks a pop, so I’ve only got the one, but I love it and absolutely think it’s worth the money if you’re a serious player.

Buy them in bulk. You’re going to need more than you think. Why? You’re going to lose them at an alarming rate. No matter how careful you are with them, they will go missing.

I don’t know how it happens but everyone I know who uses picks has the same problem. Just... buy as many picks as you can.

Also you’ll end up finding them in the strangest places.

I’m still looking for more mods, hopefully of slightly different skillsets/knowledge bases than I, with a fair amount of experience with stringed instruments. No blog mod experience is necessary though, but being able to communicate well and in a timely manner with myself and/or other mods is a necessity.

Disclaimer: As a self-taught musician my technique may not be the “proper” technique, but it’s worked just fine for me for the last decade or so, so I figure it can’t be too bad.

Alright, so let’s start with the basics. You’ve got a chordophone of some kind, be it a mandolin, ukulele, guitar, whatever. You know a chord or two and you want to play them, but you’re hesitant. How do you get your hand to cooperate? How do you get the sound you want?

Well let’s start with something easy. With your left hand (or right hand if you play left hand style) finger a chord. Actually this is optional, you can just practice strumming with all the strings “open”. Might not be the prettiest sound, but it’ll help you concentrate just on what your strumming hand is doing.

Now take the thumb of your strumming hand and kind of with the outer edge of it play the top string, then the string below that, and the string below that, and so on and so forth. Now do it faster. And faster. Still faster, almost there!

What you’re shooting for is no pause in between playing strings, just sort of “raking” your thumb downwards across all the strings.

Congratulations, you just started strumming! Now we’ll move on to something more advanced. Most of the same concepts apply.

For many instruments at this point you’re going to want to use a pick or a plectrum. For strumming purposes I’d recommend something flexible, with a rounded tip, and perhaps some added grip where you’ll be holding it.

I know a lot of people insist there is a correct way to hold a pick, but in my experience both playing and teaching, what works for one person doesn’t always work for another and what works for one purpose doesn’t always work for any other, so hold it however feels best to you and don’t be afraid to experiment.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: For things like ukuleles and anything with delicate strings or nylon strings either forego the pick and skip ahead to where I explain how to strum without one or use a special felt pick or you will very likely damage your strings.)

Anyways, same exercise as before, but use the pick. You want to just be raking it or dragging it downwards across all the strings pretty quickly. Try not to “dig in” too far with the pick, you just want the tip touching the strings lightly for now.

Preferably, try to just be pivoting at the wrist, not using your whole arm to strum. You may need to utilize your elbow a tiny bit depending on the instrument but your shoulder shouldn’t ever move. You’re not Pete Townshend windmilling on some power chords, you’re just lightly strumming.

Alright but let’s say you’ve got delicate strings or for whatever reason don’t want to use a pick, what do you do? Well there may be a better way, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what works for me.

I hold my hand like I’m holding a pick, kind of like I’m making an OK sign with my hand, my thumb pressed against the my index finger. When I strum downwards I use mostly my index finger’s nail to strum with and when I strum upwards I use my thumb’s nail to strum.

Now I keep my nails pretty damn short and if you choose to use this method it may take some practice and experimentation to find a way that doesn’t tear your fingers to shreds.

But this leads me to our next lesson. Strumming upwards. This can be quite challenging for some folks, but we’re going to keep with the same exercise. Using either a pick or your fingers as I just described, do the same exercise, but in reverse. Play each string starting from the bottom to the top then pick up speed until you’re strumming.

Now comes both the hard and the fun part. We’ll start out easy though. We’re going to bring this together. I want you to strum down, then strum up, and repeat. Just down, up, down, up, down, up, etc. Pretty easy right? Well I’m going to throw a monkey wrench in there now.

Try this: Down, Down, Up, Up, Down, Up, Pause, Repeat.

This may take some practice. Learning new strumming patterns is difficult, even for me after all these years. But once you’ve mastered that, there’s one final thing to practice.

For instruments with 3 or 4 strings or courses, use the bottom two strings/courses. For anything with 5 or more strings/courses, use the bottom three.

Now strum those just with a downward strum, but only those strings. Miss the rest of the strings. Now alternate up and down. Now use the strumming pattern I taught you.

If you’ve made it this far, then really there’s nothing more I can teach you about strumming, you’ve learned it all. You officially can strum with the best of ‘em.

Good work! Keep up the practice and experiment. Try different speeds, strumming patterns, etc. Go wild with it.

(As this was my first tutorial post I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants so let me know if you have any questions or comments or ideas to make further tutorials better. I hope I did okay and someone learned something useful from this.)

Ohhh man, have I got the pedal for you. Now you’re gonna have to trust me here a little bit, because it’s cheap (but that might be a good thing depending on your budget!), but let me tell you about my all time favorite reverb pedal, which just so happens to be the most versatile one I’ve ever found.

The Behringer Reverb Machine RV600.

I got mine for $40 USD from Amazon, and I could probably write you a 12-page essay on why it’s amazing but I’ll keep it really simple.

This is more than just a reverb pedal, it’s a reverb modeling pedal, meaning in this case it’s basically 11 reverb pedals in one. Throw in tone, master mix, decay, and time knobs and a trails on/off switch and you’ve basically got infinite possibilities.

In keeping with the theme of this blog I’ll just list the stringed chordophones I play, although there’s non-chordophones I play as well.

Guitar (Acoustic, Acoustic-Electric, Electric, Baritone Electric)

Mandolin

Ukulele

Mountain Dulcimer

Electric Bass

Electric Sitar

Banjo

Lapsteel Guitar

Unfortunately, as for autoharp experience I don’t have MUCH. I played it a bit in school but that was ages ago and I was never terribly proficient.

Just noticed my follower count over quadrupled in the last half-hour. Guess I have @copperbadge to thank for that.

Anyways, hello everyone! Feel free to ask me anything, even if it’s about me or the blog or whatever.