Twenty2o was recorded between 5/11/21 and 6/6/21 on a Doubleneck Weissenborn guitar made by Paddy Burgin of Wellington N.Z.
The piece was composed over a 6 to 10 month period from Sept. 2020 to Spring of 2021. Once the structure of the piece was finalized, I would take time every day to play it all the way through, over and over……one day at a time. On May 11, 2021 I did the first recording of the piece, and then did 6 other takes over the next month. The final piece that you are hearing was take 7, in the first week of June 2021.
I remember a time when I had been playing Dobro for about 3 or 4 years, and I was sitting on a tiny little patch of rocky beach, on a warm day, late in the Fall……I was studying with Stacy (Phillips) and going for lessons a lot. so much of what he was doing was way over my head, but just getting the gift of being able to sit with him and watch him play. it seemed effortless and that he would never run out of ideas. I am still not at that place, but I have made much progress. using the doubleneck guitar I felt like I could play for an hour without running out of ideas……and it was really important for me, during that dark and heavy time. I am very very grateful to have this beautiful instrument, and to get to spend time with it.
There are no overdubs on this piece. There are a couple of sections which have a drone in the background. The Drones were made with a Boss RC 20XL Looper….(this pedal also has a reverse feature which is great) The different tones that are heard throughout are different pedals, none of it was done with computer plug ins.
The neck closest to me I refer to as Neck One, which is tuned C, G, C, Eb, C, D. The neck farthest away from my body is tuned C, G, C, Eb, Bb, C…….
or, said another way: a C minor 9 chord and a C minor 7 chord. you can make those two chords on an armpit guitar by just moving one finger, but with a Weissenborn, you need a whole other Neck!!! ha.