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Home -> Hanging on a Star -> contents -> Nick the Guitarist -> next page
Nick the Guitarist
Nick's use of the guitar was quite unprecedented in his genre - though there were others who were pushing forward the boundaries of folk and discovering the possibilities of the non standerd tuning, somehow Nick's approach was unique. The key to much of Nick's music is the guitar tunings he used; rather than standard tuning (EADGBE) or the traditinal non standard tunings of open G, Open D etc, Nick found it neccesary to use his own tuning. His reasons for his use of strange tunings is not entirely known. I would hazard a guess that he had many reasons for doing so:
I would imagine that Nick would start work on a song in one tuning (possibly standard EADGBE tuning, or maybe one of his own from another song) and as work progressed he would hear certain things in his head that he couldn't reproduce in that tuning - so he probably tweaked a string or two and then carried on until he came across another barrier. He was undoubtedly a perfectionest, apparently spending hours and hours on his tunings, voicings and fingerings; and when he found the right result, he never performed the song any differently.
Also, his tunings tended to free his left hand more, presumeably so he could concentrate on his right hand picking, which was at times incredably intricate and complex, and also to make his singing easier - apparently he sometimes had great trouble singing and playing at the same time. The other reason for his tunings was probably one of sound, or timbre: Almost all the non standard tunings he used used a root, fifth and octave in the bottom three strings - not an unusual voicing as most standard chords and bar chords start with this pattern - but the fact that the fifth and octave are open strings and not fretted gives the chord a very distinctive drone like quality - one can hear this effect particulary in songs such as Ride and Parasite.
His use of tunings was certainly one of the areas where he stood out from most from his contemporaries. With many other guitarists it often seems that they fall under a tuning's spell, allowing it to suggest certain shapes and voicings that ultimately make the use of a non standard tuning obvious. With Nick however, his songs would dictate their tunings, rather than the tunings dictate the song, so the useage of altered tunings wounld often go unnoticed.
Throughout the book I will be discussing some of his various tunings; his useage of hammer ons and pull offs; some of his picking techniques; his use of chords; his strumming technique, and will also be giving example of the rare occasions where Nick actually used standard tuning.
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