Post Guitar Guide 2

Right. Here's a thought/suggestion that isn't the new new Guide. This is probably aimed at someone who's getting along a bit with playing. My suggestion is that you get hold of a second guitar.

Don't worry, this instrument isn't going to break the bank. In many ways, the cheaper and tattier the better. If you are CEO of a multinational company and already own several custom-made boutique guitars, by all means use one of them in the way I am about to outline (although I can't see many CEOs reading this, to be blunt).

An ideal second instrument is often your very first guitar - the cheapo you no longer play now you have a half decent acoustic. You can also find some real bargains on eBay and in some non-chain music shops. Look for old Ekos, both six and 12-string, Kays or, if you can afford it, beat-up Yamahas. The neck doesn't have to be perfect, the frets can be ropey and the intonation doesn't have to be spot on.

The point is you want something that doesn't have a lot of money or emotion invested in it. You (or your parents or partner) may have struggled to buy a guitar of reasonable standard, and, if you are a certain sort of player, it will be very precious to you.

When I had my first really expensive Gibson - a Southerner jumbo, like a blonde Hummingbird with a plain rather than the fancy etched scratchplate - I first heard Big Joe Williams, who I pictured in my last blog. It took me a while to suss out that I would not get anywhere near sounding like him until I added two strings to my guitar. For Big Joe, I discovered, played an eight-string - two top Es and top Bs, just like on a standard 12-string.

Interesting to note here that Martin have a signature model named after Roger McGuinn, a D45 which has seven strings, with the G having an octave string to get, says the advertising blurb, that Byrds' twang. Quite how that duplicates the sound of an electric Rickenbacker 12 in full flight, I don't quite understand, but I am not a marketing man for Martin.

Anyway, back to Big Joe. No way was I going to butcher my first real Gibson (although much later I realised it was a pretty duff player, but that story is for another time). But the archetypal bloke up the road came to my rescue.
He'd started playing on an old acoustic jazz box an uncle had handed on to him. He'd graduated to a rather nice Hoyer J45 copy (streets better than my Gibbo, I now realise). So for a few quid and passing on a couple of chords I knew which he didn't, I acquired my first second guitar, a Martin Colletti, if I remember rightly.

I filed two more primitive slots in the nut, shoved two new machine heads on and I was away. Ah, the folly of youth. I had great fun with that guitar, and years later I even had a second guitar 12-string from which I removed all the octave strings to try to sound like Big Joe.

Years later still I realised I would never play like Big Joe Williams as long as I had a hole in my ... well the usual place, even though I could make some of the sounds he did. A very, very important and hard lesson and learned via my second guitar.

So, bright Budding Guitarists that you are, you'll be getting my drift by now. Use your other guitar for all sorts of interesting experiments and indignities you wouldn't dream of inflicting on your pride and joy.

Use it for bottleneck. Use it for Nashville tuning, also known as high-strung guitar. The best way to do this is to buy a set of strings for a 12-string, making sure the main "thick" strings are suitable for your prized axe. Then string up you other guitar with the octave strings left over and tuned an octave higher than they would normally sound - your bottom E is the equivalent of the note on the second fret of the D string on your normal guitar.

You can also use these thin strings for odd tunings. Experiment with outrageous string gauges. I know of one folk band who record basic rhythm tracks with Nashville guitars with a cunning twist. They have guitars tuned for each note in a chord. Let's say the first chord is C. They'll have one guitar which has high strings of different gauges all tuned to C, another all tuned to E. They play both guitars at the same time to sound the two basic notes in a "power" chord (read the Guide if you don't know what that is).

Experiment with this sort of thing yourself. See what six E strings sound like - and play melodies on two or more strings while using the rest as a drone. It's a Sonic Youth trick pinched from the freeplaying jazz avant garde. It's a good idea to have a series of nuts for your second guitar - they don't have to be glued in place - to accommodate different string gauges, but never tune anything too high, that's when you can damage your guitar.

At one time I thought I could strengthen my left hand by using outrageously heavy strings. Buy a set for an electric seven-string and use seven to six to string up your other guitar - you may have to file away at the nut to get them to fit.

A few sessions of scales on those, with the bottom string tuned to something like the D below your normal bottom E, and your "real" guitar's strings will feel like a spider's web.

Pictured here are two of my favourite players, Doc Watson, top, and Ry Cooder.