Blogging politics, culture, sociology and life from Brisvegas
Just a quick headsup for Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne readers – you still have the chance to go and see Martha Wainwright live. I saw her at the Tivoli on Sunday night, and she’s fab. A bit nutso, but fab. And lucky folk in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth can see Beth Orton. I’m going tonight in Brissy!
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Small technical point: bracing the hand against the body of the guitar with the little finger like that restricts, if not actually precludes, the use of the fourth finger while finger-picking.
Can’t you pick just with your thumb and one other finger though?
Dunno – I’m not a guitarist!
Here’s a review of the Wainwright gig in Bris:
I wasn’t too fussed on Martha until I heard ‘Factory’ but that song is gorgeous. love it. Have fun tonight Mark!
Sorry I just realised Mark has already seen Martha. So scratch that last sentiment.
But Mark could still take the sentiment along and have fun at Beth tonight, Kate!
Kim — yes, but you’ve got six strings, remember. The more fingers you bring to bear, the more you can do with them. Thumb and forefinger is very crude style.
I think she’s one of those singers with a guitar rather than a guitarist, Rob, if that makes sense.
Rob,
Though I am sure that some guitarists do use the fourth finger, I’ve rarely come across pieces that actually use in it the genre of fingerpicking.
The thumb and forefinger has served countless guitarists well in folk and blues with the occasional second finger (though classical if I remember 20 years back pretty much relied on thumb and the first two fingers).
By the way, apropos of Kate’s comments, you can listen to Martha’s song Factory by clicking on the link in the post.
She might just be having a little break or resting her hand or whatever. There’s no evidence that she spent the entire night in that position. It’s one shot that captures one moment. To truly analyse her guitar-playing style, perhaps watching her actually play or at least a video of her playing might be in order?
Bracing the hand like that is quite a common thing with guitarists. It enables them to keep their fingers at the right distance from the strings. It’s quite a hard habit to break.
Shaun, I use thumb and three fingers. I think classical guitarists use their little fingers as well, but I’m not sure. The litle finger is not strong and does not move independently of the fourth finger without a lot of training.
Thanks, Kate – you can watch her perform live on Letterman’s site.
Rob, I do know that classical guitarists use all four fingers, but I imagine it does take a bit of training.
Just been googling, you can download some Beth videos here.
Anyway, I’d best make tracks – I’m going to the gig too.
I think classical guitarists use their little fingers as well, but I’m not sure. The litle finger is not strong and does not move independently of the fourth finger without a lot of training.
All true. Also, definitely no bracing — you support your hand with arm and elbow muscles and maintain a particular angle from the wrist. I trained my little finger okay & can still play with it eons later, but had to give up classical guitar lessons eventually because I couldn’t stop biting my 16 yr old nails.
I saw Martha Wainwright when she and her mom and auntie and show-pony brother came west to Adelaide after the Leonard Cohen tribute tour last year. They were all fantastic — Martha nutsy, as Mark says, but musically an absolute knockout. She was also on RocKwiz on Saturday and she was great.
I know classical guitarists use their fingernails, but I could never come at that. I didn’t like the sound it made, for some reason. Friend of mine used to wear fake fingernails to play.
Classical guitarists tend to use the thumb and three fingers. Using the pinky as well is very unusual except in a style of strumming called Rascuedo (which I can’t spell). Much guitar music in the classic style has fingering instructions. For the right hand this is usually marked as p (thumb), i (index), m (middle) and a (ring or annular). I’ve never seen classical music with other than pima notation (ie, no pinky included). That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just that it’s uncommon.
Martha has a fine musical pedigree – Wainwright and McGarrigle.
I’ve just checked this out and spog is absolutely correct (and I am now doomed to spend the evening revisiting my old Aaron Shearer classic guitar technique books). Must have taught myself to pick with the pinky during folkie days.
*Eyes mist over*
*Gropes for walking stick*
Using the thumb can be useful, particularly if you want to add a base note to a triad (a chord with three notes) for a subtle variation. I personally prefer using the thumb to anchor a broader sweep of the four fingers, particularly when you are doing some sort of intricate fingering, but in some situations the thumb on the bottom or even second-bottom string can be darn handy.
I hope there is still tickets for the Sydney show, I think I can afford this one without ending up in one of Rafe’s debtor prisons (just kidding Rafe), I’ve missed too many good concerts since going postgrad. Also Augie March is in a fortnight’s time, which is one I won’t be missing out on.
I lie Rob. Remembered that I have been learning a celtic arragement of Elizabeth McDermott Roe. There are couple of chords that I play using the thumb and three fingers.
Re fingernails I tend to keep ‘em short.
Anyone else see the Kransky Sisters do Highway To Hell on Spicks and Specks tonight? It was both hilarious and sorta scary.
Richard Thompson plays with a flat pick held between thumb and first finger, and fingerpicks with the second and third at the same time. Neat if you can do it, but I’m too set in my wyas to learn that now.
tell that to a bass player.
Rob,
A Thommo songbook is supposed to be on the way. It will be worth contorting the fingers when it comes out.
Playing country I did some of the pick and two fingers stuff. I’m out of practice but the intro to Albert Lee’s Country Boy is good for getting up to speed with that technique.
Thommo’s brilliant, of course, but it must be a bit of a strain. I mean, you can’t really use your wrist. You’d have to keep your hand rigidly over the strings all the time. Works, though.
Aah, but like a lot of people whose technique serves the music rather then vice versa for him it is natural. Been doing it for years.
I believe Leo Kottke uses a right hand technique similar to classical guitar.
How many pickin’ fingers does it take to play ‘Mood for a day’? (plus, anybody seen that concert DVD ‘The Three Pickers’ w/ Earl Scruggs and company?)
also, is Martha Wainwright descended from the wacky Loudon Wainwright blood? Or is she from the East End Wainwrights?
Hope Beth knocks ‘em dead….
Martha is Loudun III’s daughter, Kate McGarrigle’s daughter, Anna McGarrigle’s niece, Rufus Wainwright’s little sister and Suzzy Roche’s ex-stepdaughter-in-common-law.
Martha is very well connected.
Shaun, you have to see the Kransky Sisters live if they ever travel too far from Esk…
Beth was brilliant musically, but she didn’t chat to the crowd as once was her wont. That made me a little sad.
Just to tie the threads of the thread together, in my folkie days (yes, I was one too, PC — one of us must have chosen the wrong path at the fork), I heard LWIII in concert with Richard Thompson down in Melbourne. Of course, being folkies, we all agreed that Thompson, who was second-billed, was much the better performer.
Sill think his time with Fairport Convention marked the highwater mark of the English folk revival.
Try Crazy Man Michael. (Actually by Thompson and Dave Swarbrick, I believe.)
Crazy Man Michael is one of the songs my little finger and I used to play/sing in folk concerts.
Fork? There was a fork?
Rob: “…of course, we all agreed that Richard Thompson, who was second-billed, was much the better performer…”
Richard Thompson was second-billed? And there was a debate about who was the better performer? I don’t know LIII’s work all that well, but I’d be astounded if it came within a country mile of Thompson’s. Kinda like shooting Marvin Gaye in an argument over who was the better singer: you, or Marvin Gaye (which was actually how he met his end).
As to the idea of R. Thompson being second-billed, I have only these sad words: “Puppet Show and Spinal Tap.”
I dunno how many fingers Buddy Guy used tonight … seemed like about 74.
All together now:
I suppose a fork would be out of the question?
Ah well, someone had to say it.
PS. I would love to see LWIII. Had tix to his last scheduled gig out here but he cancelled. I saw Martha and Rufus and assorted McGarrigles at the Len Cohen tribute at the Opera House. Meh.
nybody seen that concert DVD ‘The Three Pickers’ w/ Earl Scruggs and company?
Not seen the DVD but I have the CD. Phenom.
Amanda — yes, I heard ‘meh’ about that show too. After it finished the family came west to Adders, sang their own stuff, and I think were probably much better. None of them seems what you’d call likable, or not that night anyway, but they did at least one transcendent thing each that I remember. The McGarrigles sang ‘Talk to Me of Mendocino’, Martha did her chanteuse thing and was stunning, and Rufus sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ totally straight (as it were) and brought the house down. And they did a few nice family-group a capella things — ‘It’s a Hard Life Wherever You Go’ and the like.
Rob — heh.
Yes, I imagine thats true. Bad venue and I was forever turned against it by the performers (including some of my favoruites, yes Mr Cave I’m looking at YOU) not actually knowing the words and being glued to the phoocopied lyrics all night. I dont like Its A Hard Life, generally I find Nanci Griffith a bit twee but if you’re going to have it it might as well be by the McG’s.
Can Martha W. do anything as fun as “When I Grow Up I Wanna Be An Old Woman” by Michelle Shocked?
Pavlov’s Cat: “…Rufus sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ totally straight (as it were)…”
-Something that should be attempted more often, despite its camp undertones. Like Chuck D.’s 98-O, the song is bulletproof (and pretty much indestructible).
Rob — Just re-watched the “Three Pickers” concert DVD. You’ll never guess which barbaric musical-posture habit the legendary 3-finger-pickin’ Earl Scruggs has got…
Well, Martha’s smash hit about her daddy, ‘Bl**dy M*therf*cking Assh*le’, went down a treat the night I saw her but I would not call it fun exactly. Kate McGarrigle came onstage after it was over, looked at the shellshocked audience, gestured at Martha and said somewhat sourly ‘She said it, I didn’t.’ Clearly there are still Issues. But Martha was lots of fun on RocKwiz the other night — lots of beautiful/witty on-the-spot crooning and improv in response to questions asked.
Rufus is flamboyantly, nay, insistently gay, camping it up onstage big-time, which is why his straight-up rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ worked so well — in an odd way it was the only possible style to do it in, given his usual persona.
I was lucky enough to see Richard Thompson at the recent Blue Mountains Music Festival, and came away convinced that the man is a genius. He has always been one of the best, but if anything he’s improved with age – a revelation!