|
Guitar Conversions and the Improvised Secret Weapon
Part Four: Buster Goes to Nashville
A NEWSLETTER CAVEAT: My penchant for verbosity notwithstanding, I promised John Cable, editor in chief of the Maple Street Guitars Newsletter, that this article would not be long. Yet, I have spent years cultivating my particular style of circuitous build ups, anecdotal self-effacement, and occasional sesquipedalian vocabulary (which I use both for fun and to tacitly admit my pseudo-intellectualism in some areas). So, should this article come off as a chronic, protracted treatise, typical of Lindsay Petsch, I would have you believe that it is merely the result of me behaving in accordance with my nature rather than a deliberate act of mendacity towards poor John!
For many of my guitar-playing years, I resisted the urge to name my guitars. Be it deference to fate, serendipity, or the providence of the guitar gods on my part, I’ve always thought it is best not to force such matters. After all, one cannot casually decide to name their guitar if they are truly serious about imbuing that instrument with legitimate mojo! Rather, it has been my experience that, if a name is truly warranted, it will materialize as the personality of the guitar is revealed. Then again, if you hang out around guitars enough, some of them start to follow you home. And, before you know it, your domicile has been taken over by a horde, and you are left shuffling around in slippers and a bathrobe, incessantly talking to your “babies” while occasionally peering out suspiciously through the blinds at passersby. By this point, all of your guitars will probably have terrible names like Mr. Sassy Strings, Queen Fancy Flame, or Skittles (there’s always a Skittles in the mix). Thankfully, I have yet to reach such a low, but I've amassed enough guitars along the way that the law of averages has played out to where some have been appropriately dubbed.
Buster was the third guitar of mine to receive a name—the two forerunners were: “Peanut,” the Collings Baby 3 (so named for its diminutive size and peanut shell proportions), and “The Magic Guitar,” a National Polychrome that had an uncanny ability to inspire. Buster is a 1998 Collings C10 Koa, hailing from a time when Collings was using some uncommonly resplendent Koa. Indeed, Buster’s back and sides ripple with three-dimensional curl, an arresting hypnotic display of undulating caramels, golden wheats, and ochres. Buster’s naming could perhaps be attributed to a glitch in the Matrix. Or, I guess it’s possible that I tripped into a random Einstein-Rosen bridge that fell out of the pocket of some drunken Men in Black alien tourist whilst they were traipsing down Ponce de Leon Avenue after a weeknight bender at the Clermont Lounge. Regardless of how I got there that fateful night, I found myself in the company of a most magnificent and affectionate orange tabby at a Super Bowl party. As I am highly allergic to cats, mildly allergic to professional sports, and unquantifiably allergic to TV advertising, my presence in such a setting could be painted as a paradox. In fact, I think I overheard that the cat’s slave, who was tasked with hosting the party in the cat’s house, was named “Schmo Dinger,” or something like that…. Then again, there was a lot of drinking involved, and I was pretty high on the spinach and artichoke dip that I’d been wolfing down with reckless abandon, so I can’t say for sure. These perplexing circumstances aside, I was mesmerized by the orange tabby’s coat, which was not only particularly vibrant, but also had an unusually tight and seemingly book matched pattern. I suddenly realized that this cat reminded me of the Koa on my C10! Inspecting the cat’s collar, I learned that his name was Buster, so I thought it only appropriate that I should pay tribute by bestowing his moniker on his inanimate musical doppelganger. And so it was that a name found its way to Buster the C10 Koa that night.
Romantic, serendipitous naming yarns aside, it is embarrassing to admit that my acquisition of Buster was almost entirely motivated by Koa Lust (yes, this is a real thing with guitar nerds!), particularly as I professionally advise folks to make their buying decisions with their ears, not their eyes! And, in ironic support of my claim that prioritizing superficial concerns over sound is a mistake, it is likewise embarrassing to admit that my initial failure to bond with my beautiful C10 was entirely predictable. Though it had a compelling voice, a certain ease of play, and even a pretty damn cool name worthy of a folk singer icon, I just couldn’t seem to discover that special emotive response that really makes an instrument an extension of you.
As a result, Buster languished on my wall. I often left him in altered tunings or just strummed him here and there, but it is fair to say that he was a somewhat neglected masterpiece. Then, more than a decade after Buster came into my life, Buster’s role as a musical ornament changed abruptly. I was hanging out with a bandmate after a rehearsal at his home when I picked up one of his Waterloo guitars that he had strung in a Nashville tuning. (For those not familiar with the brand, Waterloo guitars are made by Collings and are styled after the offerings of Great Depression-era catalogue guitar brands like Kalamazoo, Stella, and Recording King.) Given the reputation of excellence that Collings maintains, the quality of tone and the responsive, lightweight construction of the Waterloo WL-14 that I was playing came as no surprise. But, I was absolutely floored by the clear, chime-like texture that this guitar generated in the Nashville tuning—it was so much more potent than any Nashville-tuned guitar that I’d ever heard! In fact, I just couldn’t stop playing it, to the point of zoning out and ignoring the conversation that my bandmate was trying to have with me about the covers we should add to our repertoire, listening to Mongolian folk tunes on acid, or whatever he was talking about. In the midst of this impromptu Nashville tuning reverie, it dawned on me that I had a similar, but even higher quality guitar that was presently underutilized. What if I were to take it to the next level by dedicating Buster, the mega Koa Collings, to this obscure tuning? I resolved that night that it would be so!
So, you might ask, “what exactly is Nashville tuning and why do I care?” The best way to understand Nashville or what is sometimes called “high strung” tuning is to start with a typical 12-string guitar and take away the six regular strings. Like mandolins, ouds, and lutes, 12-string guitars were designed around coursed stringing, meaning there are groups of strings that are intended to be strummed/plucked together rather than played individually. In the case of a 12-string guitar, the strings are usually paired such that the usual low E, A, D, and G strings have a thinner string in front of them (when viewed from the bass side) that is tuned an octave above the normal pitch. Meanwhile, the E and B string courses are tuned in unison (i.e., the same pitch). All of these additional strings translate to more tension and a wider fingerboard than that found on most guitars; and this, in turn, translates to a guitar that is a little more challenging to play, especially if one is doing complicated melodic passages.
Now, despite the arguments of vintage guitar enthusiasts and curmudgeons everywhere, we happen to be living in a golden age of guitars, where advances in manufacturing and design have yielded a vast array of affordable and playable instruments. We also now have access to a host of folks that know how to remedy a guitar that has tough playability. Yet, if we got in a time machine and went back to anytime much past 1990, there were far fewer options for 12-string guitars, and most of them were pretty clunky in terms of neck feel. Those that had been out in the world a while often had tough action, as the strain of additional string tension usually affects a 12-string guitar more readily (despite design efforts to compensate for the added tension). Subsequently, most 12-strings that one would encounter were not good for much other than first position rhythm applications.
So, back to Nashville: The legend goes that someone decades ago wanted a complex 12-string part on a song, but the 12-string that was readily available was a bear to play, making their request an impossible one. Some genius engineer had the epiphany that they could effectively create a 12-string sound by doubling the part on two separate 6-string guitars, a regular 6-string guitar and another strung only with the high strings of a 12-string guitar. Once the tracks were synced up, the result would be a blistering 12-string part, as far as any listener was concerned. Well, it worked, and this became a very common practice there in Nashville and beyond. And, though the modern age has ushered in a new era of 12-string guitars and players who can play the snot out of them without any fancy recording tricks, Nashville tuning is still being used to this day.
The original application of a Nashville-tuned guitar is certainly appealing and practical. However, I have come to appreciate that this tuning is a thing all unto itself. The four lower strings being tuned above the normal pitches of the E and B strings creates an ephemeral chime that is then met with inversion where one would not expect it—this is a form of reentrant tuning. It was this crystalline tone that inspired me to convert Buster after playing my friend's Nashville-tuned Waterloo, and anyone who hears it understands why!
Now, I say I converted Buster, but, if I'm being honest, there wasn't much work involved in the conversion. Though the strings used for Nashville tuning are a thin gauge, the high pitches to which they are tuned create a lot of tension—enough tension, in fact, to compensate for the reduction in mass of the normal guitar strings. As a result, one can restring a regular guitar with a Nashville set (e.g., D’Addario EJ38H) and probably achieve good results with little to no adjustment to the guitar’s setup. Of course, this is not always the case! It would still be prudent to anticipate that the neck may need to be relaxed a bit by loosening the truss rod. Also, depending on your prior setup tolerances, some adjustments at the nut might be necessary (such as shimming, or filling and re-filing nut slots), as the thinner strings will sit lower in the nut slot and thus pose some threat of open strings rattling against the first fret. Yet, the increased tension of these strings and their high pitch does translate to a tighter arch of vibration, so it can be surprising how low the tolerances at the nut can be without buzz. If there was anything custom about Buster‘s conversion, it was that I chose to increase the string gauge of each high string by 1/1000th—this did necessitate a slight neck adjustment. My reasoning here was that the strings would not only be a little more durable, but they would have more sonic girth, especially in altered tunings, which I use frequently.
Thus, with a simple restring, Buster was absolutely transformed from an object of visual desire to an utterly inspiring and highly useful tool. With his new transcendent tone, Buster took on a whole new personality, captured my heart, and truly settled into his name—he was no longer a Collings C10 Koa named Buster, he was Buster, a guitar with something to say! To that end, my friend, Billy Gewin, remarked that Buster “sounded like a chandelier” while engineering my intro to my bandmate’s tune, “Another Sad Guitar.” I agree whole heartedly, as there is indeed a prism-like quality to the sound, where notes and overtones seem to refract rather than just project. Any effort to describe much beyond this is just frivolous. Simply put, the Nashville-tuned guitar offers a truly unique sonic palate that any player would enjoy! And, once again, my experience with Buster just goes to show you that an underutilized guitar can find new purpose if you are willing to experiment a little bit. In the words of Ferris Bueller, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”
Well damn, I guess I lied to John after all…. – L. Petsch, September 2022
|
