View post (Jerry Garcia Playing Style)

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hawk900
Registered User
Joined: 07/08/11
Posts: 1
hawk900
Registered User
Joined: 07/08/11
Posts: 1
07/08/2011 6:46 pm
I have been a Jerry tech freak since around 16 when I saw my first show and already played what I thought was guitar until I saw him 20 feet away for the first time.
When Jerry talks about his style , patience(lack there of) in between notes/chord changes and his 16 different types of vibrato and no he didnt have a whammy bar. He's all manual feel and delicate touch. For simple fills and standard verse/chorus leads eg. Touch of Grey he uses caged technique which you are actually picking the proper notes in the cage that surrounds the key of the chord. eg2, touch lead he'll jump to the 11th fret and do the barred D form which on the 11th fret is a Bmajor. That cage includes the F# and B of course for the "Must be getting early" then slide back in the same chord form to the 9th fret which is now an Amajor that also includes the E "Clocks are running late". This covers the standard lead which emulates the first line of the song. In this lead in this tune it goes verse,chorus,verse Jerry hits mostly all the notes in the caged chord scale aka arpeggio and hits the right note as chord changes alot of times changing positions based on how drastic the chord change is.
He is very delicate and mutes alot too and plays under extreme volume conditions unlike any other player could obtain due to feedback and distortion.
Simple terms he barely touches the strings and uses a thick 2mm pick that dont flex. Big part of his tone and style. Just listen to all the finger rolls he does like in bad example "Looks Like Rain" when he does constant finger rolls at the end of the song when Bob adlibs and he makes the rolls sound like rain.
Once again extreme volume with super sensitive pickups,speakers,onboard unity gain buffer(eliminates any feedback) plus a 10db onboard preamp that feeds his effect loop. Get your hand on any 75 or earlier preferably Fender Twin,Marshall Head , or Traynor ygm-1 or ygm-3. aka 3 of the best tube amp companies for doing any type of mod. Get your hand one or two if twin 8ohm JBL E-120 guitar speakers. Dealers all over net. Especially the E-120 has a 18pound ceramic magnet on the back and has a sensitivity of 103db and a voice coil of 4inches. D 120's,110's and K120's use an alnico mag and he kept blowing those out of his custom cab and even managed to blow some e120's a few times. Now get yourself a Dimarzio SuperTwo DP104 HB pickup which also has the highest level imaginable of any pickup ever built. Wire that in two a double poll double throw switch either built on a push pull 500k linear tone pot and split the neck or middle pickup (where ever you installed it) so that when you trigger the split the active coil is the one closest to the bridge. Also throw .022 ceramic or paper/oil cap on that tone knob relating to the dimarzio. Flick the switch to turn it into a single coil for strumming and singing and pop it back for full HB crystal clear leads. I guarantee you wont be touching your pickup selector after this.
I'm currently doing up my third SG which has the perfect body to mod and all neck and that 12th fret is right in front of your face. Thats a whole nother story though.
Just try and play as light as you can under high volume (if your equip can handle it)and work on the caged strategy and major and relative minor scale patterns.
hawk