All's a Chord 5: 1997

From: Josh Runyan

I recently started guitar lessons. I started on a great guitar, the Martin 0018. I am crazy about it. It was manufactured in about 1956 and I was wondering what you thought about this series and how much the guitar is worth. It has a few scratches but is in good condition.

"I think the 0018 is a great, great Martin model and it's the one I've played since 1968, when I bought it. I think it's a great model and the value of a '56 if it's in really good condition might be about $3000 or if not such good condition $2500, maybe something like that. Quite a good era for the Martin, it will have a tortoise shell scratch plate and they look really nice. I use Martin light gauge strings on mine and keep it in a Martin case."

From: David Carlin

Hi Steve, I just bought a 1971 Martin D12-20. It's in mint condition with the original case. I have been playing it for a couple a weeks now and it seems to be very uncomfortable to play due to the width of the neck. Did you have this problem with you're twelve strings (Martin) not the Guild. I've tried putting light gauge stings on it to better the action but now the guitar sounds a bit flat. Do you have any suggestions for me?

"Martin 12 strings are usually strung very low and are somewhat the easiest 12 strings to play ever made. So if you're having trouble maybe the guitar ought to be adjusted a little bit. You've got to use reasonably light strings on the guitar, so maybe it just needs cleaning up a bit, the neck redressed…it's a Martin so it should sound good, I can't imagine why it doesn't. The neck has to be wide because of the extra spacing of the strings, and except for Leo Kottke and a few people you play not easier things, you play things that are appropriate for the 12 string, I mean it's no good trying to play like Jon McLaughlin on a 12 string."

From: Eric Geevers (Delft Holland)

Did you use any effects on the "Sound Chaser" solo? It has such great dynamics, from smooth to scorching.

"As far as I remember the 'Sound Chaser' guitar solo didn't have any guitar effects on it, it was the Fender Telecaster into a Fender amp very loud, plenty of distortion from the amp, and maybe an Eventide digital delay to widen it a little bit, say about 20 milliseconds, but that was about it, pulling up the studio end. So that was just a wound-up sound and an exciting thing to play. So I didn't use any effects on it."

And one personal question: being Link Wray's bass player, I was wondering if his music (e.g. the '59 instrumental "Rumble") has been an influence on your playing... (I can tell you that Yes have influenced me, big time!) Saying "thank you" for the music you gave us.

"I remember 'Rumble' from Link Wray, so say hi to him for me. Certainly 'Rumble' was very original and it was at the right kind of simplistic style. It was one of the very first guitar records I remember hearing that was more electronic in the pop way, it was more of a pop guitar record of its time. Very effective. [Did it] influence me? Yeah, I wanted a tremolo unit [laughs], it was a tremolo sort of sound, so I just turned tremolo on in the amp. It was something to play to use the effects and of course that is an important part of my guitar work, has been effects."

From: Dave Wolfe

I have been following your music with admiration and awe since 1975. I particularly admire your blending of many sounds and styles to be the "Steve Howe" sound. My question is this. I am in the market for an electric guitar, and I was wondering at what suggestion you might have for buying one guitar (my budget limits me to only one electric guitar) that would be the most versatile for playing a variety of styles? I play blues, lite jazz, hard rock and folk mixed together.

"It's hard to get one guitar that covers folk as well as jazz and hard rock, very hard. I might recommend you get a Brian Moore guitar, they're very nice. They're quite expensive, not exactly cheap, but I believe that's got an acoustic transducer in it. If not fit one to one of those guitars get a guitar that's got an acoustic sound as well, of which there are a few out and about. Obviously I could recommend you get a Gibson from the early '60s or something, a 335. It depends on what your budget stretches to, whether you've got to go out and buy a copy of one of these great guitars, but that depends on what your budget is, so since you didn't say what it was either buy one of those Bryan Moore guitars or one with a transducer. A guitar is a bit like buying a car, you've got to go out and drive it. It's no good looking at it and saying, 'I want that one,' you've got to get in it and make sure it's not a heap of junk. Go out and explore what's available and what's in your budget."

From: KCimino1@aol.com

Are there going to be any releases of old material on video now that the original 70's line up was back together.

"There has been releases, of the 1979 video ['Yes Live in Philadelphia 1979'] in Philadelphia…'Yessongs' of eons ago, 1972…there are potentially things that could be released if they weren't sort of somewhat trapped in actually who's got them, who owns them, are they worth looking at, where's the original sound track, who owns the rights, did the company go liquidated…there's about ten major problems that could beset any kind of project like that but it is possible that like QPR came out other videos have come out, but what should be done is a competitive and politically correct audio sound, good video, of the best of Yes bits and one day that might happen."

From: Alex Madsen

I own a late-50's model Fender Challenger and use it regularly in the group I perform with (SMILEY). Do you own one, and if so, what string gauges do you prefer to use?

"I thought I knew Fender guitars quite well, I should have looked in a book so I'm not inept in saying that I've never heard of a Fender Challenger. I like Fender Strats, Telecasters, 6 string bass, Fender Precision, Fender steels, I'm pretty up on the Fenders but I don't have a Challenger and when I'm playing those guitars I like reasonably heavy strings, something maybe starting at 10 or 11, going to about 42. Good luck with Smiley."

From: Sergio dos Santos Nogueira

The first time I heard your work was in the TALES release. This inspired me to learn guitar. And since then I accompany what you and YES were doing. Well, there's a guitar that look so lovely for me and I plan to buy it someday: a Paul Reed Smith Custom 22. I'm curious about if you ever try it or a hybrid guitar like this. Thanks and endless inspiration for you and your bandmates.

"I would recommend that you do buy a Paul Reed Smith guitar. They're very, very good; I've played them and they're lovely guitars, very gutsy, and they've got a nice vintage sort of sound about them, they don't sound like a plank of wood with two pickups plunk on it. So all I can say is yes I have played them, I do think they're good and I hope you have some fun, I recorded a little bit of music on a Paul Reed Smith but it wasn't actually for general release."

From: Jason Bellino

I am one of your biggest admirers and I would like to know if you used a guitar synth on the last solo of "That, That Is".

"No, I didn't use a guitar synth or anything like that on that guitar solo but it does sound a bit synthesized and that's because as well as a Fender amp, most probably a Marshall amp, or a couple of amp sounds to choose from there was also a guitar processor we used the latest Roland guitar processor [possibly a Roland GR-100] and somewhere in the first bank of 100 there are some sounds on there, and that's really what it is, it's a Roland guitar processor sound that you're hearing." size="2" color="#336699">

Also I would like to know if you are planning to do any solo touring. thanks for your time.

"I would very, very much like to do some more solo touring and basically Yes keep holding me up on different times of the year, so each time I plan to do it, it ends up they think they're going to do it, they don't do it and we do something else, and so that's how the last two years have elapsed by me not doing any solo concerts except just playing in a little village in Devon, like I did just the other day to a small group of about 100 people, and so I keep in touch with the solo show and I love doing it, and I'm always getting new ideas for it. In this show I just did I played a Gibson Super 400 and I played things like 'Meadow Rag', 'Diary of a Man who Disappeared', and stuff like 'Bareback' on electric guitar and had very much fun."

From: Kenny Lippe

Steve, I'm so excited! I just bought a 1966 ES-175 in great condition. It is a beautiful instrument, but it is much different from any of my other guitars.

I played my first gig with it last night, and it would not even come close to staying in tune. I'm used to playing Fenders, so I strongly suspect that this problem is related to the floating bridge on the 175. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep this fine guitar in tune?

"You bought a 175 and you reckon it's got a floating bridge. I don't quite get that unless you've got a tremolo arm on it. If you've got a tremolo arm on it take it off. Get a Gibson tune-o-matic bridge, stick it on the guitar with some --very important--with tiny bits of very thin, very fine sandpaper under each side of the bridge, so that when you put it on the guitar it kind of grips the guitar, that stops the bridge moving around. Then you've got to wipe the nut where the strings go through, just before the machine heads, with a graphite pencil, and this manages to stop the strings kinking in those grooves where the string goes through the nut. Then you've got to string it very sensibly, with strings that are of very good quality and quite on the heavy side, like I use 12 to 50, or 52. I think those guitars work better with good things but mine goes out of tune, so if you want to play that guitar and you want to play kind of heavy things on it it will go out of tine a bit. Any kind of guitar goes out of tune; if it's really going out of tune all the time then maybe you're not putting the strings on right, maybe you're playing it too hard, maybe you're bending it when it doesn't want to--I don't know, you could be doing lots of things."

How about controlling feedback?

"A volume pedal…you have a volume pedal and you control your volume with that. You usually need that with a full body guitar." And lastly, could you please tell me what string gauges you use on your 175 and if you use a plain or wound third string? "The strings I use are surprisingly 12, 12, 16, 26, 42, 52. The 16 is the third string and that's wound. It's pretty unusually for anybody to have two 12s on the top but that's just the way I like that guitar."

From: Bringer@earthlink.net

Having been with the band for over a decade and a part of 3 1/2 Yes albums, do you now feel Trevor deserves a special place in the annals of Yes more than just being another temporary member-(even though he is not part of the classic inner circle?) What is your assessment now that he has moved on and you inherit his body of work for future Yes tours.

"Trevor was in the group for those three albums, 90125, BIG GENERATOR, and TALK, and those three albums say a lot about Trevor. TALK says a lot about Trevor because he virtually made it on his own. 90125 kicks in big, and 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' brought Yes a partly new audience. BIG GENERATOR I suppose was Yes getting on with the job of coming out with records but the only trouble was, and it wasn't really Trevor's fault, that there so few records released, I know now that it's a very slow process getting thing organized with the group Yes, so Trevor's opportunities were few and far between, really, compared to the rush of the 70s and the multi-faceted music that we made then. I did feel that the 80s were rather bland and rather straight ahead but I noticed that on the late Yes albums I use quite a lot of heavy sounds, DRAMA is quite heavy-metalish, I don't really think fundamentally it's that Trevor's style was overly influenced in heavy metal but he's actually a brilliant player and a very capable musician on the guitar and also on the keyboards. I do find that the combination that they created was a Yes that was going around the corner from, if you like, the intensities of anything from RELAYER to TORMATO, the complexity of like just the introduction to 'Future Times', you know it's got a real Yes thing, the musical work there is a kind of craft that's all over the 70s. I don't know, there was something that wasn't happening to the music that was being altered in its structure so if anything it's too hard to summarize. It's kind of hard for me to comment on Trevor, I've got no problem with him, it's just that I don't really understand that period that well and I was doing other things."

From: Steven A. Sullivan

Who played the bass on 'Abilene', you or Chris Squire?

"I'm absolutely sure it was Chris. I can't think at that time why it would have been me."

From: QPress@aol.com

I've always been enchanted by Steve's magical handling of Vivaldi on his second solo album. I've yet to find any Vivaldi disc that contains "Concerto in D (Second Movement)". I wonder if the name of the cut is different. Or perhaps my ears are so biased to Steve's treatment of the melody that I can't recognize it by someone else. Also Vivaldi has several concerti written for different instruments (strings, etc.).

What is the actual name of the covered Vivaldi song?

"Basically it's called 'Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D Major.' I called it's 'Vivaldi's Concerto in D, Second Movement,' all I play is the second movement. In 99.9 concertos there are three movements so I played the second one. The other two are equally wonderful but they're uptempo. So you should find it quite easily under 'Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D Major'."

Also, is THE STEVE HOWE ALBUM available in the U.S. on CD? If "yes" what label?

"Atlantic kindly rereleased both my solo CDs at my request, so they're available on Atlantic. I don't think you should have any trouble with finding them in your area."

From: Keith Forman

I was wondering if you could give us some details about your live acoustic guitar playing (i.e., favorite acoustic guitars, method of amplification, etc.). Thanks for all of the great music over the years, Steve!

"When I'm playing live acoustic guitar on stage I quite like to play my Martin 0018 or my Scharpach. Both are the two steel strung 6 string guitars that I like to play mostly. I use a system called Applied Acoustics which is from Holland and made by the same person, Scharpach. So I use that Spanish guitar, and a 12 string guitar, and I like that very much. I put it through some monitors that I take around with me, very small powered monitors from Holland again, and that's all I do really. I go through the PA, I go through DI boxes, I go through my mixer and things like that, add a bit of Lexicon reverb for onstage and sometimes if he wants it our front then he's got it. If you're playing live acoustic you have to get very sure about what you want to play and the order it's in and not get distracted with things. What else can I say, come and see the show, listen to NOT NECESSARILY ACOUSTIC, that's what it's like, it's hell Sarge [laughs]! Any kind of performing is the balance of physical capabilities and mental strategy because there has to be some sort of strategy to play onstage and it's not really defined, nobody tells you how to get it, but you just have to keep trying and getting your mind to behave itself and let you get on having a good time, so that's part of it, get yourself prepared and go on and sort of ignore everything else in the entire universe a that particular time."

From: Nicholas C. Zales

Back during the RELAYER/GOING FOR THE ONE tours it seemed as if your pedal steel guitar was triggering some kind of synthesizer. (I always found it sizzling. It was great). Is that true or were you using other effects or none at all?

"Those two albums you spoke of I wasn't triggering a synthesizer. On RELAYER Patrick [Moraz] and I sometimes played together like on one of the themes from 'Gates of Delirium', and also on GOING FOR THE ONE like on 'To Be Over' the pedal steel goes through a Korg muti-pedal, which mixes double wah-wah and phasing, it's an old thing so I don't know whether that's available. Other times if it's a big powerful sound there might be some Big Muff on it or a wound-up Fender amp, lots of delays, but mostly that multi-pedal for GOING FOR THE ONE, and I would think Big Muff on the other one [RELAYER], not synthesizers."

Have you ever linked your pedal steel guitar to a synthesizer for live performance with YES?

"Not really, no, I haven't done a lot with guitar synthesizers with the steel though it's quite interesting, I haven't picked up on that too much recently."

From: Jeff Melton, Staff Writer, Expose Magazine

Thanks for the note on your website concerning the latest tribulations in the band. A clear head renders clear thinking I always say.

Now for the question (more of a request), I've thought quite a bit on how to ask it over the last few years:

Gradually during the last 20 years, your use of effects has declined on a regular basis. In a live setting, you use very little fuzz tone, echo-plex or other tone altering gear to fatten the sound as you used to which results in a cleaner, somewhat weak and tinny sound. I also believe that this conscious effort has reduced the power to your playing to a thin representation of your full capability. Are you planning to use more effects in the live context for the next tour or continue the trend toward more pure tones? I strongly believe without more aggressive effects, the strength of the music and in particular your contribution is de-emphasized dramatically.

Thanks for taking the time to review this message.

"Basically I can see what you're saying, it was through my own desire that when I did UNION in particular I had a cleaner sound and I feel that was something I was always trying to get but couldn't get anyway and suddenly I could get it so I had it and that's what I did. But I think if you listen to KEYS 1 live work I don't think you'll find my guitar particularly clean a lot of the time and I would say my solo work doesn't always rely on clean work on the guitar, [there's] a little bit of crunchiness here and there. But I must say I picked up on it in as far as the multiuse of effects, if what you're talking about is how often I press a button to make the sound get all aggressive and big and stirring, and I mean it has that in as much it has clean Telecasters it has dirty Gibsons. You've kind of got a good point but I'm not exactly sure why you would think it would always stay the same. But I must admit listening to TORMATO I thought that the reason I did so much effecting of the guitar was usually because I didn't like the sounds, I'd think, I don't like that sound, let's change it, let's stick a flanger on it or something. But that somehow became part of what I was doing more that I was planning it sometimes, so I'd plan to have certain things sometimes but in the end if I didn't like the sound, it was too clean, I'd make it scrunchy. So I suppose getting a better clean sound meant that I quite enjoyed playing more clean guitar. But it's not over yet and as I said KEYS 1 isn't about a dreadfully clean guitar."