Huh! I'm a Bruce Cockburn fan, but I've never gotten close enough to his fingertips to see this particular hack. I admit that as I read it, I had this nauseated pulse in my stomach of how it would feel as the pick pulled up on the top of my fingernail.
OTOH, Bruce gets the most marvelous sound out of his guitars, and I'm sure this is part of it.
Speaking of hacks, Ani deFranco covered her fingertips with duck tape (cylindrically on the four, metal thumb pick). On more recent videos looks like she has super-heavy stick-on nails, painted a lovely lilac. But the duct tape sound is very close to the special tone of skin on steel: check out the sound from this Youtube vid of her amazing song, Two Little Girls:
Oh My Gods, that video was shot right here in Ottawa!
I had heard about her relationship with duct tape!
The tone you get is from the strings definitely does change depending on what you are striking them with...when I play my 12-string guitar, I like to use a lighter pick, as it helps soften the sound, but use a medium one for playing 6 string. I don't like using a heavy pick with the electric 6 string, I use a medium one, but many guitarists swear by a heavy pick, some of which actually use metal picks!
From my one experience with fake nails and the superglue they use to apply them, I'm going to guess that anyone who crazy glued plastic anything to his natural nails is not going to feel a tug, as even the plastic fake nails feel as if you have finger armour on, which is another thing I found off-putting about them.
I've lucky enough to live in his home town of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, so I have seen him in concert at least a half dozen times. We have such a great folk tradition here in Canada with people like Bruce, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian & Sylvia Tyson, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Irish Rovers through to current day acts like Loreena McKennitt, Sarah McLachlan, The Arrogant Worms, The Crash Test Dummies, Great Big Sea and The Barenaked Ladies. And then there is the Celtic music scene...
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Date: 2013-06-28 06:43 pm (UTC)OTOH, Bruce gets the most marvelous sound out of his guitars, and I'm sure this is part of it.
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Date: 2013-06-28 06:58 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUK5gXPMs8iBq8LKMxL2Z22A&feature=player_detailpage&v=7j3FZ1THi-Q
that's one long link, I have no idea how to shorten it.
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Date: 2013-06-28 08:28 pm (UTC)I had heard about her relationship with duct tape!
The tone you get is from the strings definitely does change depending on what you are striking them with...when I play my 12-string guitar, I like to use a lighter pick, as it helps soften the sound, but use a medium one for playing 6 string. I don't like using a heavy pick with the electric 6 string, I use a medium one, but many guitarists swear by a heavy pick, some of which actually use metal picks!
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Date: 2013-06-28 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-28 08:19 pm (UTC)p.s. Oops, I almost forgot Stan Rogers!