New Toys for Tunage

As you may have noticed, Christmas came again this year. Every time jolly old St. Nick makes his rounds, I feel the urge to justify a little strummable splurge.  But it’s getting harder. Not that I have any sort of exceptional collection of equipment, but I’ve got the bases covered with a stack of useful, if b-level, gear.  Any more and moth and rust will corrupt it all faster than I can.  So this year it came down to this little 20-dollar wonder:  The Cut-Capo.

So far I’ve found it useful for two things:  Opening up alternate (and somewhat simplified) fingerings to give the old folk-chord voicings a new flair.  And for rolling picking patterns up-and-down the neck, which sonically nicks Mr. Drake and makes me want to grow my hair long a take a ride on the free love freeway, preferably in the UK, in an Aston Martin.

Here’s a half-written experiment of the above. It started sort of Nick Drake, took a lyrical turn south, but came back around with a little Eno-y electric.  I haven’t attempted to put notes and words together for the better part of 10 years, so I consider anything at all to be a success.  Just give me a chorus and a dose of the auto-tune and soon we’ll soon be making rock-and-roll history!