Tom Yoder
Transcription
Tom Yoder
TCG: Hi Tom. How would you describe your own playing and are there other guitarists you could mention that inspired your Playing? TY: I would describe my playing ing the context of Eat This It!s Safe and The Moment the Apple Falls as American fingerstyle guitar. Through the framework of those recordings, that!s the image I!ve created. However, as a guitarist I am more than that. I have played and love to play loud, fast electric guitar. I try, well actually I can!t help but bring some of that abandon into the acoustic guitar realm. I think my playing is far more influenced by electric guitarists than acoustic. As far as other influential and/or inspiring guitarists are concerned, everyone has been and is. Well, anyone that!s any good. Eddie Van Halen, I owe my living to him...and Mick Ralphs. Those guys own my two favorite guitar tones of all time. Obviously I!m talking electric here. Also, Greg Howe, Tony MacAlpine, Jeff Beck and Robin Trower would be my other biggest inspirations. Oh, and Les Paul too. Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges would be my two and really only acoustic influences. TCG: You started off playing electric guitar, so how did you make the transition to acoustic guitar? TY: Well, I!ve always played acoustic guitar. It!s always been around for me. So I didn!t have to work on acquiring a feel for it at some point in my A guitarist who spent time listening to Fair Warning by Van Halen as well as Six and Twelve String Guitar by Leo Kottke and Aerial Boundaries by Michael Hedges, North Carolina-based Tom Yoder is on a mission to bring his remarkable acoustic guitar sound further into the public ear. He!s equally schooled on electric guitar yet, more recently Yoder!s impeccable fretboard skills on acoustic guitar has taken center stage, earning him a 2003 Independent Music Awards, for the title track of his second solo CD The Moment the Apple Falls, in the New Age category. In an interview with 20th Century Guitar editor Robert Silverstein, Tom had quite a lot to say about his noteworthy approach to guitar performance. As Is... An interview with Acoustic Guitarist Tom Yoder By Robert Silverstein development. I!ve always gone back and forth between the two. I have always played fingerstyle as well. I decided to seriously pursue the acoustic route several years ago when yet another band I was in didn!t work out. TCG: Could you compare the sound and making of your two CDs? TY: Both my CDs were recorded in Raleigh, North Carolina at Mike Gardner Studios and mastered at The Kitchen Mastering by Brent Lambert in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I say that because the expertise of those two guys is spectacular! I!m nowhere without them. Mike is just the greatest. Mike comes from the George Martin school of thought: Use a good mic and a good musician. That!s what he told me. It!s one of the greatest compliments I!ve ever been given. Overall, I prefer the sound of the second CD. TCG: Twenty two years ago, you attended the Guitar Institute of Technology in LA. How did your experiences at GIT affect your playing and compositional style? TY: You!re making me feel old! I don!t know that my GIT experience helped me that much with composition, at least at that point in time. I!m sure everything I learned there has had a tremendous residual effect on my compositional style through the years. It was absolutely the best time of my life to this point. The biggest and greatest thing I learned there was how to learn. That may sound funny or weird, but it!s true. I got an understanding of the learning process that has been invaluable to me. Also being around such high caliber players at every moment was, and still is, completely inspiring. I mean, I went to school with Frank Gambale! Need I say more? TCG: You play mostly Taylor guitars. What attracted you to Taylor guitars? TY: Taylor!s play great and sound great too. They are very consistent from one instrument to the next. The problem with them is they won!t put big frets (Dunlop 6100) in their guitars. They don!t even give you the option! They should. I think it!s just insane that they don!t. I tried to convince them to do it for me but it was like talking to a brick wall. Now, I know that big frets aren!t for everyone. But they should be available. Not everyone can deal with them, but I can and so can lots of other people. So every Taylor I!ve bought I!ve had to throw another $250-$300 into it for the frets. That!s a drag. Make no mistake about it, I must have and will have big 6100!s. They say it!s because of intonation problems, but you know what? That!s a word I!m not going to use here. I!ve never had a problem with intonation because of big frets. But I do like Taylor guitars. Even after that rant I think the new Expression System is excellent. I don!t like the Fishman stuff they used to have. I disconnected mine and put in a McIntyre Acoustic Feather. . TCG: Are there other guitars you enjoy playing? TY: I am open to playing most any guitar if the people that make it will listen to what I want or more correctly, need. I guess I!m addicted to big frets, cutaways and low action. Of course I love my electrics, a Jackson Dinky Reverse, Charvel San Dimas III, a couple of Fender HM Strats and an Ibanez Saber. Well I guess it!s not called a Saber anymore, the S series...whatever. TCG: You teach guitar down in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area. TY: I!ve been teaching for a while now. I teach privately and at Coastal Carolina University. I love teaching, but would like to teach less and play more. I will, it just takes time. It!s fun to teach people who are into learning. But the thing I always remember is, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can!t make him drink”. It!s a beautiful thing. It helps me too. Teaching is the last step in the learning process. You must know what you!re talking about from all the angles. TCG: Could you mention how different tunings affect the sounds of your songs? TY: Wow, how long do you have? Different tunings sound better on different guitars. I felt going in to record that I knew which tunings would sound best on particular guitars. And for the most part I think I was right. I used three different Taylor guitars, two 814-C!s and a 710. My touch is light but firm. That!s why I can use the big frets. I think the guitars sound good, nice and big. My 814C!s seem to love DADGAD. I don!t know why. It seems to come across in the recording, at least to me it does. TCG: How did you develop your unique finger-style guitar technique? TY: It is very kind of you to say I have a unique fingerstyle technique. Thank you. I!ve worked very hard on it. I studied classical guitar with a great friend Tom Foster. I didn!t want to play exclusively classical though. I wanted to use the technique as a springboard to end up somewhere between Manuel Barrueco and Leo Kottke. Also, I!ve got great nails. I just file them as needed every day and go from there. TCG: How would you compare your work on the nylon string with that of the steel string guitar? TY: First of all, I love the sound of both. And in the hands of a master the music is transcendental. It!s much harder to make a great sound on nylon string guitar without a doubt. So if you can get it to the point of making a great sound consistently, and that!s the key, achieving that level of consistency on nylon string, you!ll adjust well to the steel string. Remember, a good sound is in your fingers. TCG: In your opinion, what is it about the guitar that makes it so suitable for so much musical exploration? TY: Portability. You can take it anywhere. And through the years people have. Also standard tuning on the guitar is an ingenious evolution. You know, Beethoven called the guitar a miniature orchestra after hearing his friend Mauro Giuliani play. He was right. Next to the piano, can you think of an instrument that you can do or imply as much with? I can!t. Also, one can retune the guitar quickly and with relative ease to create different sonorities. So just by a particular tuning you can imply a genre or a culture. 20th Century Guitar March 2004 Volume 15 Number 3