From: eliot@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Eliot Miranda;W211)
Newsgroups: alt.guitar
Subject: Re: John McLaughin
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:47:22 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London


>  I just got "Shakti" and is just an incredable album!  I was wondering what's
>the deal with his guitar.  It seems to have some strings going accross the
>normal six.  Also is his guitar in standard tuning on this album?


Its built by Abraham Wechter of Gibson.  There's a Guitar Player article
on McLaughlin (perhaps 1978?) with a side-panel describing it.

The guitar is based on a standard gibson steel-stringed acousic with many
modifications.

The guitar has a 6 string normal neck with a heavily scalloped fret-board.
McLaughlin has stated this makes bending much easier.
At one point on 'Handful of Beauty' you hear McLaughlin bend a low F# on
the bottom E up t a B (!!).

Running across the sound hole from top-right to bottom-left are seven drone
strings.  These run underneath the regular 6 strings.  McLaughlin wore a
small finger-picking style plectrum on his little finger with which he could
play the drone strings.  Each drone has its own tuner, and McLaughlin tuned
the drones to notes in the Rag he was playing, allowing him to provide chordal
accompanyment to solos etc.

The drones require strong cross-braced struts running beside the sound hole
to support the drone strings.

I believe (but my memory is growing dim here) that the regular strings were
picked up by a sterio piezo-electric pickup in the bridge, top three strings
to one side, bottom three to t'other.  A third output was from a piezo-electric
pickup underneath the bridge of the drone strings.

If you've only got 'Shakti' then you must also get 'Handful of Beauty'
and 'Natural Elements'.  Handful of Beauty is fantastic throughout, ending with
the very lovely 'Two Sisters'.  Natural Elements is patchier, some tracks
verring into pap.  But one track is a MONSTER!  'Get Down and Struti' features
all four musicians in a real Indo-Jazz fusion full of blue notes and funky
rythms.  There's a blusy/indian theme stated on giutar & violin followed by
solos; first McLaughlin gives a wonderful dissonant chordal solo, then
L Shankar gives a vert fast Violin solo featuring some wonderful slides (When
Shankar plays he keeps about 15 pots of various waxes at his feet, often dipping
a finger into a particular pot just before doing a 'freshly lubricated' slide!)
Then Hussain produces an amazing Tabla solo in which we here the first hints
of a compound time rythm riff which is returned to at the end of the song.  
The last soloist (I've forgotten his name, but it might be Vinayakram?) plays
a great clay-pot solo, again ending with a statement of the rythm riff.
Then the theme is restated, followed by a brief tabla solo.
What happens next really blew my mind the first time I heard it, never having
heard Indian vocal percussion before, but Shankar & McLaughlin then go into
an extended vocal rythmic duet, both singing the same line in perfect synchrony
with the tabla, ending up with a virtuosic vocal statement of the rythm riff
as an incredible tempo.

IMHO its the most exciting thing he's ever done (which is saying something)

--
Eliot Miranda,  Lecturer	email:	eliot@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science	ARPA:	eliot%dcs.qmw.ac.uk@nsf.ac.uk
Queen Mary Westfield College	UUCP:	eliot@qmw-dcs.uucp
Mile End Road, LONDON E1 4NS	Tel:	071 975 5229 (+44 71 975 5229)
				Fax:	081 980 6533 (+44 81 980 6533)