Manuela Boy - Slack Key from Mighty Fine Guitars

Описание: The next town over from Walnut Creek is lovely Lafayette. The one commercial street that runs through town takes us to our favorite burrito shop, our favorite Thai restaurant, a fine Italian deli, a terrific fish house, well, you get the idea.

But now there's a new reason to visit Lafayette, and it doesn't involve eating. Renowned acoustic guitar ace Stevie Coyle has opened a specialty guitar shop, Mighty Fine Guitars, and brings an assortment of top shelf instruments to town. I brought Ledward Kaapana over for a little visit when he was in town and we wound up jamming the afternoon away.

Today I stopped by Mighty Fine Guitars with a couple of cameras and a recorder and wound up with a bit of video to share. The guitar that captured my attention was a CF Martin 000 custom, a 12 fret slot headed beauty with abalone inlay, a shaded top, and koa back and sides. The fancy appointments caught my eye, but the big neck, wide bridge spacing, and powerful voice kept me playing. I slacked some keys until we were in taropatch and ran through the rascally old "Manuela Boy." This is a piece I learned from the Ozzie Kotani instructional book, "Guitar Playing Hawaiian Style" and one of the first songs I extended with my own variations. Ozzie's arrangement is a classic, and a great springboard for improvisation.

The guitar is tuned to taropatch open G, spelled D G D G B D from low to high. The audio is recorded on a Sony PCM-D50 and you're hearing it without EQ, reverb, or any other processing. The video was captured on a Panasonic Lumix GH2 for the face shot and a GH3 for the side shot. Editing was done in Edius Neo.