Questions + Answers

From Kae S.

Allison, you're awesome, and thank you for sharing your talents and philosophical ramblings with us. 

So here are my questions: What's your favorite guitar to compose on? What are your favorite guitar strings? When you're composing, do you use a recording app or a computer program or...? 

Blessings to you and yours, always.  

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Dear Kae,

What wonderful questions. I would be terribly limited without my artistic tools and love to talk about them.

Those of you have been with me for a while probably already know that I feel attached to my guitars, and love them as objects in general. Though that is true, I see them as tools that must be put to use (most of the time) rather than things that should be put away to be adored and not played. I appreciate guitar collectors, but that’s not what I am or want to be.

My favorite guitar to compose on is whichever one holds the tone I’m looking for. When a song idea comes to me or starts forming, it will sometimes present itself with sonic information, which often has more to do with rhythm than anything else when it’s in its beginning stages. Let me see if I can make this make sense — that rhythm, and what strumming or picking pattern that will best support it based on my very limited musicianship, is what informs for which guitar I reach. For instance — if it’s a wide open country-rock feel that needs some strumming, I’ll go to my 1965 Gibson Country & Western or my 2004 Gibson OJ (recently repaired from February’s fall) because they are both balanced, pretty loud, and ring out. If I’m dealing with something more internal sounding, I’ll get a smaller body guitar that has a folkier sound— and I’m lucky enough to have two family heirlooms with which to find that slightly boxier tone — the 1964 Gibson B25 that belonged to my father AND a 1954 Martin 00-18 that belongs to my sister, which she permanently loaned me on my fiftieth birthday last year. Several songs have come out of that one lately, and I recorded with it just last week. It sounds fantastic and has magic in it.

Then there is my classical guitar — a 1963 Epiphone I purchased at Gruene Guitars in 1995 or so. A gut string will send you in a specific direction for sure. But they are so much fun to sit around and play on and usually lead to pretty chords — the width of the neck is always a challenge for me, but it does make my finger picking prettier.

I generally play D’Addario EJ16 strings. I use Garage Band for recording my ideas and getting things started and sketched out, and some of those tracks make it to the finished tracks you hear. I’ve been making work tapes in Garage Band for 15 years. It’s so easy to use and the loop libraries are plenty good enough for sketches. Kenny has endless libraries of sounds over at his studio, so we’ll generally take what I start when I put an idea down in Garage Band, transfer all the tracks to his ProTools set up, and take it from there, replacing or redoing whatever needs to be replaced or redone, which sometimes means everything and sometimes means just a few things, depending on how I’ve done at home. Always record to a click! That’s how you make sure it’ll all work together.

You never know what will work — I recorded the acoustic guitars (the B25) on “Stardust & Freedom,” on the mic I use for livestreams at my dining room table one Saturday night in June 2021. In theory, they should’ve sounded like crap, but it was a specific sound that we ending up liking and didn’t want to lose, so we went with it. So many things I stumble upon happen because I make mistakes or am pressed for time and am just trying to get something down because I’m inspired to do it right then. I genuinely know almost next to nothing about recoding, but I’m not afraid to try, and that is the ingredient that makes the difference when I’m making art, in my opinion. I have to be willing to try, make mistakes, fall on my face, sound like crap, fail, learn, and work through that failure and learning to some sort of success that probably doesn’t fit the original vision I thought I had.

I must also express my thanks to the voice memo app — I remember well the days of always carrying a micro cassette recorder and notebook around everywhere. I also believe staunchly in using the tools at hand — sometimes a video taken on the phone becomes an audio loop. The “Wish For You,” EP has several of those!

I’m so grateful to be an artist. Best of luck in your creativity, whatever paths you choose and whatever guitars you use. Blessings to you and yours too. Thank you for the question.

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Y’all have a lovely weekend.

Allison

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