The Wandering City (percussion drum set on Rock 3 song)

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1

I once read that with a 12-string guitar, you spend half your time tuning it and the other half playing out of tune. There’s a lot of truth in that, but I still love the twang they provide.

This song features an old Yamaha FG-260 12-string acoustic that I’ve had since I was a teenager. It had seen better days and some of the internal bracing was coming loose, so I loosened the strings over a decade ago and put it in a closet. I rescued it last year after moving out of my house for a few months and tuned it back up and was surprised that it still sounded pretty good. I vowed to record a song with it one day, so this is the result. I got the rough idea for the song on Friday afternoon and did the actual recording Saturday afternoon.

FYI, these are the same strings it had on it all those “closet” years. They are probably close to 20 years old, since I probably hadn’t touched the guitar since the late 90s.

I wanted something different for the drum track, so I used the Rock 3 song and changed the drum set to Percussion. Definitely different. I added a lot of fills, too. Maybe too many, but it felt right at the time.

2

That’s funny, Joe. I often see related quotes on other forums. “How do you know when your 12-string is in tune? No one knows as it’s never been done before.”

3

Fortunately, tuner technology has improved since the last time I played this guitar. I used a Peterson Stroboclip for this session. As I recall, I had a pedal-style tuner back in those days (the banana quartz tuner with an analog-style needle), but it used a mic for acoustic guitars. That’s fine if you are in a quiet location, but pretty bad if you are trying to play in a band or jam with friends.

4

I still have my pitch pipe :smiley: