[old man down]

This subject has come up lately and so I thought I'd start a thread to explore it.

Many who have followed Garcia's guitar talent through the years admit freely that the way his playing sounds can be attributed to "his fingers."

It sounds silly, doesn't it? After all, his fingers, all 9 1/2 of them, are just like yours and mine, so what does this statement really mean?

Is he really light on his fingers?

Is it the fingers of his picking hand? Or the fingers of his fretting hand? The combination of the two, both hands in concert?

My take on this comes from the comment Phil Lesh made about Garcia. I cannot quote it verbatim because the reference is difficult to find, but it was how Jerry had a "spangly" playing style.

From on-line dictionaries, I've found:

WordNet Dictionary

Definition: [adj] covered with beads or jewels or sequins

Synonyms: adorned, beaded, beady, bejeweled, bejewelled, bespangled, decorated, gemmed, jeweled, jewelled, sequined, spangled





Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Definition: \Span"gly\, a.
Resembling, or consisting of, spangles; glittering; as,
spangly light.


Of these, I like glittering the best since his style of play does seem to glitter, meaning it reflects light at all angles and wavelengths, and constantly changes, like a spinning mirror ball.

So, how is it that what is in his fingers transcends into a likeness to a mirror ball.

I think it has to do with the fact that he was always randomly picking notes while at the same time maintaining a central motiff. In this way the central motiff would be adorned with a lot of adjacent notes to make a spangly cascade of sound.

What do you guys think?

[Tennessee Jedi]

I take it to mean his physical sound - the guitar and amp - the quote is an old one.A Guild Starfire could be "spangly" ...
Not his "hands" ....
Unless Phil was tripping.

[Pete B.]

In the Pedal Steel world "It's all in the hands" is a pretty well documented fact.
We have these "Steel Guitar Conventions" several times a year at different locations around the country, where hundreds of guys can play the same Steel>Amp combo, one after another, and each sound notably different, tonally, although the in herent "timbre" of the instrument (and "timber", for that matter ) is a constant.

If I win the lottery, I will start having rukind conventions!...
Get all the Jerry gear, Jerry guys, and Tribute Bands that we can into a Holiday Inn convention center for the weekend... and letter rip!

I think if you grab a given Jerry rig, and pass it around to several Jerry guys, you will quickly see what the "it's all in the hands" thing is about.

fwiw, Jerry has described his L/R hand touch technique in a coupla GP mag articles that are floating around.
~pb

[strumminsix]

Here is my contribution:

strong picking/pick - intentional plucking of each note

fret with the fingertip!

big arches so the finger is perpendicular to the fretboard

[old man down]

playingdead wrote the following on another thread which I'm adding here since it gets to the core of the matter, and is excellent, by the way:

But in terms of his hands, Jerry used several different vibrato techniques with his left hand, ranging from moving the string horizontally, moving his finger on the string vertically, varying the speed, the depth, etc. etc. etc.

Jerry also did a mix of flatpicking and fingerpicking, often tucking the pick up between his index finger and stump.

He also varied greatly his attack on different notes, he would really snap the strings at times, or pick it very delicately. He was very into defining each note individually.

He was particular about where on the neck he was playing certain passages, preferring the sound of midrange notes high up on the low strings in certain instances, for example.

He also used his thumb occasionally, doing partial barre chords with it, instead of laying his index finger across all six strings, he'd catch the low string with his thumb, and barre the upper strings with the pad of his index finger, that gives you more reach on the higher strings with your other three fingers.

He used his pinky a lot; lots of guitarists hardly use it at all because it's the weakest finger.

He had a fairly unique way of strumming the guitar, which you don't often hear from other guitarists, it's very percussive.

These are all things that are exclusive of his gear, and, in my opinion, have a lot to do with his tone.

There are other cool little touches, like playing the solo in Loser or that one riff in Tennessee Jed with harmonics, and so forth. What a creative genius he was!

[caspersvapors]

dude that definition exactly articulates how ive always thought jerry sounded.