…by Gabriella.
She recorded this a couple weeks ago. I love the little harmonic at the end of the stanza, and the ones at the end of the song.
If you go all the way to the end, it segues into her amazing cover of Sultans of Swing, that she did a couple months ago. She’s getting a unique sound on that one with steel strings on a classical guitar (usually they’re nylon). They’re probably light ones, because of the weaker neck, but it also makes it easier for her to bend them. I like the brushes with the left hand. You have to appreciate that she’s playing both guitar parts from the Dire Straits version simultaneously on a single instrument. It’s clearly an open tuning, probably DADFAD.
That looks like a Western-style acoustic guitar with steel strings and a pick guard, as opposed to a European classical guitar with nylon strings and no pick guard (because they’re always finger picked). Finger picking a Western style guitar can produce a remarkable sound. I started with a cheap Stella when I was eleven, but never went anywhere with it, always wondered if that was how Lindsay Buckingham wound up finger picking an electric. Never bothered to look into it though.
Which one are you referring to? Silent Night is on a western acoustic. Sultans of Swing is the one that is a steel-strung classical. They’re both Taylors. She’s an endorser of Taylor.
Sorry about not getting back to this in a timely fashion. I try not to post unless I have something interesting, or at least engagingly silly, to say, but sometimes I post anyway, with predictable results. In this instance, I started to talk about my experiments with “wrong strings” on various instruments, but decided it wasn’t worth anyone’s time to read, so canceled. And, obviously, clicked the wrong spot on the screen. Call it a half-formed thought.
I don’t know if anyone here if familiar with Angelina Jordan, but the voice coaches are losing their minds over her, lacking even the vocabulary to describe what they’re hearing. A few days ago she released a video from the studio sessions of “Million Miles”, a song she wrote about losing her grandfather.
Million Miles
She’s from Norway, but living in LA now, and turns 15 next month.
I was also listening to Leonid & Friends Christmas stream. They’re some of the best talent from the former East Bloc, and American music had a profoundly deep affect on them when they were young, because it let them know that people really could be free. They treat our classics with reverence and study them like chess grand master, and it shows.