Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this

Subject: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:49 PM

Please tell me how he gets such vigorous sound? I can't tell how he is plucking hard enough to do so...it looks awkward. He's playing a benefit concert on Thursday. I think I'll go. Here's a youtube of him: Trace Bundy.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:57 PM

Hammer-on and pull-off. Callouses and practice.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 11:20 PM

So that's what those terms mean! Ouch! Thanks!

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 03:56 AM

He's got a loop station working on some of the tracks. he's very good. His touch reminds me a little of Gordon Giltrap. That's meant as a compliment.

He's been influenced a little by the late Eric Roche, I think - but then everybody was, who was lucky enough to see Eric.

Not many guitarists have done the hours in Irish sessions that gave Eric his assurance with percussive stuff. This guy sounds positively tentative in comparison.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 02:36 PM

The video clearly shows a microphone placed a few inches from the soundhole fo the guitar, but I suspect there might be additional amplification as well.

There could be a cord coming out of his strap-button, connected to some kind of under-saddle pickup ~ the picture is too dark to see whether or not anything is there. I suppose he could even be using a wireless pickup-to-amp connection ~ that's certainly not unheard of for electric guitars in rock bands, I see no reason why a similar setup could not be installed in an electro-acoustic.

Hammering-on and pulling-off strings on an acoustic guitar is usually audible only when the string has just been plucked/picked immediately before the note played with the left hand only (hammered or pulled). The kind of one-handed playing seen in the video is relatively easy on an electric guitar but not on an unelectrified acoustic.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 02:55 PM

Now you guys have really got my curiosity up! I'd almost decided I really couldn't afford to go to his concert, but I may anyway!

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 03:46 PM

Sorry, WLD, no loop station. And, PG though he is amplified, and gets a nice clean sound, but it is incidental to the way that the sound is created.

The way his right hand technique works is this: he plucks the open string with the fretting finger *before* he hammers on. When he hammers scale notes on the string, it is already ringing.

The movement is exactly the same as you'd use for fingerpicking with the left hand, except, because of the position of the right hand while fretting, you are actually pulling in the opposite direct. This means that you can do it on an unamplified guitar and get just about the same volume that you'd get from regular fingerpicking.

The left hand is like this: he simply pushes the left index finger down on the bass note he wants to sound and holds it. Half and whole notes.

You can do the right hand type stuff as well, I am not sure if he does that or not--it wouldn't be too hard though, as it.

The right hand part, as he plays it, is simply the repetition of a phrase--what the classical boys call an "ostinato"--though there is no particular reason one couldn't vary and develop the phrase--

The left hand part provides the interest, because it creates a simple moving part that plays against the ostinato--

He uses harmonics too, done the Lenny Breau way, but that is a whole nother explanation--(though what he does it way simpler than what Lenny used to do).

The reason that he sounds so good has less to do with his technical ability and more to do with the fact that the piece itself is well thought out, clean, and simple. Oh, and well-played.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:10 PM

I was watching Sweet Child Of Mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWPQLDKOnh4&feature=related


that has got to be a loop station or a little man hiding in his guitar.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:29 PM

I looked at a minute or less of the one video, and haven't heard it at all yet. I'm at work, "pretending to work" (like our friend Liz), have no speakers on my workstation, and wouldn't use them if I had 'em. So, my comments were based on visual observation only.

In the part I watched, he doesn't seem to be using his right hand at all.

I do understand what M.Ted tells us about his plucking the string (surruptisiously?) with a left-hand finger immediately before hannoering/pulling. Seems unnecessary from a musical point of view, simply a matter of showboating.

No denying the guy's skill, of course.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:38 PM

get some mini headphones!

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:57 PM

There are few tracks of him on u tube
Seems that capo's can be fun

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 06:57 PM

You can actually see him turn off the magic loop box at the end of "Sweet Child of Mine"--though you can see that he's using loops early on, and, at one point, the loops fall out of synch and out of tune with each other.

Maybe I was wrong and he was looping on the first one too, though it would have been just as easy to do it the way that I explained it. It occurs to me that if he was looping, then either he's not as good as I thought, or I am better than I thought--

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 06:59 PM

lots of good guitarists use loop stations - Giltrap for one.

Subject: RE: Trace Bundy-what kind of pickin' is this
From: Jayto
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 07:52 PM

Check out this guy from Canada. Erik Mongrain I love his style of the whole tap/slap technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbndgwfG22k