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FEBRUARY 2002
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Source: Acoustic Guitar Magazine
Contributed by Tim Morse
Yes Man
By Tim Morse
It may be surprising to discover that although Natural Timbre (Spitfire) is
Steve Howe's twelfth solo album, it represents his first venture into the
all acoustic instrumental format. The guitarist of the classic rock band
Yes readily admits the project was a long time coming, but indicates the
difficulty was creating appropriate material for the album, "I'd always
imagined that I'd do an album of pieces for solo guitar. And as I started
using solos on various projects I realized the reason I hadn't done a whole
album of them was because I hadn't written a whole album of them! I can't
write to demand on any level, because I write from my inner goals. I will
say although it's been a long time and I've been doing other things, I did
need quite a while to have that breadth of writing. My original concept
was that I would have half the album to be solos. It was a little bit less
than that, six are solo pieces. I thought, 'Well, if I've got six of those
I can relax and have some fun. Hey, a madolin! A dobro!' Anything
acoustic and I was off on a much more diverse direction as a guitarist,
looking for other things to do. The distracting side of being a
guitarist. The coloring, the shading, looking at the guitar family."
The album also reflects the musical diversity of Steve's many
influences. He is quick to single out guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Tal
Farlow, Pepe Romero, Big Bill Broonzy, and Julian Bream as having made
valuable contributions to his playing and compositions. Howe illuminates
the important relationship between performing and writing by saying, "Part
of writing an original tune is not so much writing it, but learning to play
the idea you have. Because there's no way you've written it, before you
can play it. 'Solar Winds' on the new album is a big undertaking. It
involves a sort of solo flamenco escapade and it's taken me years to
practice since I wrote it. If you've got an idea, you can hear it, but you
can't play it, then try and get there and play it! Sometimes you do play
things and you don't know quite what they are, if you like. And I think
they are some of the best music that I make, where I over step some
perimeter that I'm usually observing."
On a project where the acoustic guitar is the featured instrument Howe
warns against getting carried away with post-production. He feels that it
is vitally important to keep the performance that's already there and to be
careful not to destroy the sound. Steve does admit to being tempted at
times to put an electric instrument on the album, and felt the real
challenge to use his ideas with different instrumentation, "I thought it
was sort of organic to find an approach that could do something similar to
the electric idea I had. I might think, 'God, it would be nice if I put a
leslie guitar there,' and then I'd think, 'Well, what acoustic instrument
would give me something like a leslie or how can I create that?' You
couldn't exactly, but you could take the idea and stretch it."
With the release of Natural Timbre Howe has produced one of his most
consistent and satisfying albums in his career and reaffirmed his love for
acoustic instruments. As he says, "In the end technology is great, but
it's only great so far, because we're not looking to replace the acoustic
guitar. It's here, it was here and it's staying here. It's my writing
place, I don't write on electric guitar. I think there is a more healing
quality of sound in a natural instrument. And what's great is there is a
renaissance of acoustic appreciation. I've also come back to the
importance and the enjoyment I get from a solo guitar. It's a very
challenging writing perspective. It's probably the most challenging; not
that it inhibits because of that, it demands that you have something to
play. The essence of it is the one man and the guitar, there's an honesty
and a wonderful paradox of simplicity and difficulty as well."
Yes is currently on the road to support their new album Magnification. For
the tour Steve Howe will be taking his custom 0018s, a Martin J12-65M 12
string, a 1992 Scharpach SKD, a 1973 Kohno No.10 classical, and his
Portuguese 12 string. He has been very impressed with the Scharpach
pick-up which has been fitted in the above guitars with the exception of
the Portuguese guitar and the Steve Howe 00-18s (which have Fishman
pick-ups). The guitars go through a Scharpach pre-amp and the speakers are
Sound Projects. Steve currently uses a discontinued Fender jazz medium
(pear shaped) pick. The Martin 0018 is strung with Martin Marquis (14-48)
and the 12 string has Marquis light gauge. The Portuguese 12 string uses
Gibson bronze (08-32), the Kohno gets Silver Sequoia, and the Scharpach is
strung with Elixir (46-012).
Tim Morse is the author of Yesstories and Classic Rock Stories (both
published by the St. Martin's Press).
Purchase YesStories
Purchase Classic Rock Stories: The Stories Behind the Greatest Songs of All Time
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