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chitarra acustica 9 twothousandandeleven chitarra acustica 9 twothousandandeleven

Two-Hand Grooves
by Jon Gomm
So, we have some wood, some strings, some frets: what can
we do? If you approach the acoustic guitar as if youve never
seen one before, as if you dont know what fngerpicking is, as
if you dont even know which way round to put your hands, you
can come up with some great new ideas.
I should come clean before we begin Im a convert: I used to
be an electric guitarist. No wait! Im sorry, please dont turn the
page! When I played electric, I was always intrigued by players
who did something a bit how can I put this delinquent with
the instrument. I spent untold hours trying to play with all 8 fn-
gers on the fretboard like Stanley Jordan, or scraping my strings
with allen keys to get Tom Morrellos DJ-scratching sounds, or
slapping sparkling harmonics like Jennifer Batten.
Ive since seen the light and switched to proper guitars, but
my love of strange techniques remains. So what this article is
focussed on is using both hands to tap out basslines, chords,
and even percussion all at once. Sounds scary, and its certainly
not easy at frst, but its worth it these ideas sound great as
accompaniment to a vocal part, as an intro or coda for a regular
fngerstyle piece, or we can even add a melody ourselves as
well as all the other stuff!
The frst bit of craziness is the tuning CGDGGC. Drop the
OK, Example 2. Put your left hand away (somewhere safe so you dont lose it), and hit the bottom
two strings with a downstroke of your right-hand thumb or a fngernail if you prefer. Next reach over
and hammer-on the notes with the index, fattening the tip to cover both strings.
Two-Hand Grooves
For Example 3 we do examples 1 and 2 together keep the left hand going, try not to think about
it, and concentrate on the right hand. Always look at the tab vertically look at everything that is hap-
pening on a particular beat. The hardest part will be pulling-off the left-hand while hammering-down the
right hand at the end of bar 1: practise this one move on its own.
The next groove is a little like something Preston Reed might play. For Example 4, were going to
play with the left-hand positioned above the neck, to give you more fnger-power and mobility. Keep
your thumb on the back of the neck as you normally would. Hammer-on one note at a time (no plucking
Jon Gomm got his frst guitar
when he was two. Hes now a tour-
ing singer-songwriter and maver-
ick virtuoso acoustic guitarist, with
a playing style infuenced by Mi-
chael Hedges, Jonny Greenwood,
Steve Vai and Bukka White. Re-
viewers say things like Sublime
impassioned songwriting, Sheer
genius and The new Hendrix.
His albums and transcriptions are
available from his website www.
jongomm.com where you can also
download MP3s, video clips and
check when hes coming to play in
a town near you!
5th string down a tone to G, the 2nd string way down to G (so its in unison with the 3rd string), and the
two E-strings down to C.
Our frst groove is inspired by Michael Hedges (who was a genius, check him out!)
For Example 1, form the two-note chord shape, and simply hammer-on (dont pluck it) and pull-off
in quavers. Itll take a while to get the strength up in your fngers to sound a note with a hammer-on,
so take it easy at frst!
tc technique
tc