Play Better Acoustic!

Stuart Ryan examines four approaches to the acoustic guitar, from singer-songwriter fingerstyle, to open-tuned Celtic and modal 70s rock, plus plectrum strummed and single-note bluegrass.

- Stuart Ryan

With so much emphasis on electric guitar playing in popular music history, it’s tempting to view the acoustic as the rhythmic tool to add foundation to the track, staying out of the way while the soloist goes for glory. However, the acoustic guitar is a hugely versatile instrument that has shaped music history for much longer than its electric brothers.

Go back to the 1930s and before and you’ll hear acoustic guitars driving bluegrass, jazz, and blues. Jump to the ’60s and ’70s and you’ll hear pop royalty The Beatles and rock gods such as Jimmy Page or Pete Townshend making acoustic guitars the core of their sound. There is so much you can study from acoustic guitar styles so in this special feature we’re going to examine it from four different angles: the ‘modal’ sound of ’70s rock and blues; the singer-songwriter approach of artists like James Taylor and Paul Simon; the classic American bluegrass sound; and finally the evocative tones of solo DADGAD guitar drawing on the Celtic music traditions of Ireland, Scotland and beyond.

One of the main things to consider when using acoustic guitars is which technique you are going to employ – pick, pick and fingers or all-out fingerpicking? All of this, of course, depends on context but part of the fun of acoustic guitar playing is getting out of your comfort zone, ditching the pick and embracing the fingerpicking approach that can make the instrument a multi-voiced tool of rolling arpeggios and piano-like textures.