Chords for James Taylor on playing and technique: exclusive video for Guitarist magazine

_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ Can you quickly talk [D] us through this _ _ James Waltham guitar?
This is your number two stage guitar, is that right?
Or your number one stage guitar?
This is, it's called number two. _
It's the second one he built for me. _
The first one was in a hotel room in Minneapolis
when I _ showed up to do _ benefits.
_ He had gotten the guitar into my room,
it was lying on the bed and I picked it up and played it
and knew I had _ [G#] _ _ _ _ found a great new guitar.
It's slightly wider here than normal, _ _
than a normal six string would be.
So that [G] fits my hand better. _ _ _
_ _ This _ cedar top, _ _ _ rosewood, _ it's a really, it rings,
it's a very bright sound, but it's balanced _ _ _ _ across the guitar.
It's got a good, [E] _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ you can get a good bass note out of it.
_ _ _ _ I tend to play it, _ the action [E] is low. _
_ _ The _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ action is low and I like it low,
_ just on the clean side of buzzy. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] You use thumb and two fingers as you mentioned,
and [C] you kind of use a bit of nail and a bit of [D] flesh.
[G] Why is it called nail? _
The nail is mostly just to stop it, to mute things.
So it's the nail that, _ yeah, it's definitely the nail that makes the sound.
And again, they're these bionic nails.
I build my, they would never last for a week on the road
if it were my own nails.
So I've been doing this for _ 40 years I think anyway. _ _ _
_ _ [D#] _ [G] _ _ _ _
Interesting, I've said this to you before,
_ when you play _ _ your chord changes,
because you're playing bass notes usually before the internal of the chord
and then the licks on the top,
your fingers tend to creep [D] across the neck and around the neck
because you're leading with the first finger of the next chord.
Can you play us a few _ changes to just show,
just do it [G] naturally and what you do [A] will happen.
_ _ _ _ [E] _ [F#m] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
[G] _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [F#m] _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ [G] _ [A] _ _ _
_ [D] _ [A] _ _ _ _ [F#m] _ _
[G] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ [F#m] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [Bm] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ It is, they're _ [A#] _ independent. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ They're sort of lines that are happening [Bm] _ _ _
all around each other
rather than _ _ all at once.
It's very different from _ a strumming technique. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ That's a very typical [Bm] James Taylor chord,
_ [A] _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ and also _ [F#m] a [E] _ _ _ _ plus two chord or a ninth but low down. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Another thing that _ opened things up for [Bm] me was this _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ sort of [E] _ pro [Bm]-Latin thing. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I'm very seldom capable of [D] any higher than the third fret.
It's _ _ so that playing in _ E, _ _ in _ D and in A,
I can go up to playing in F, _ in G or in C.
It _ allows me, I very seldom _ play in open C. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ It's just an interesting _ _ chord on the [E] guitar to me. _
_ _ _ _ _ I much [B] prefer the _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ D, _ A and E fingering.
_ _ It just pulls it into a different range for the voice
so that you can do a different thing melodically with it. _
I'm a baritone, which is not great.
_ I think the best thing to be is a tenor like Jimmy Nails or Sting,
_ Graham Nash, Ricky Skaggs.
_ Have that really high range because then you're playing the guitar
and you've got this _ huge thing up above it.
_ It feels like a much wider range _ of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ stuff available to you.
I wish I had a higher range than I do.
_ But perhaps [B] you compensate by making the guitar the higher thing.
So you're [D] using the capo to get those higher notes on the guitar.
I'm constantly working on finding a way to make the guitar lower. _ _ _
Basically, _ I do play bass with my thumb.
_ _ _ My bass player, _ Jimmy Johnson and _ Lise Klaar,
would both tell you that the challenge is working with someone
who's already playing bass. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ I _ _ _ _ _ _ actually wish my guitar did have bass notes in it.
_ _ I've been trying to come up with a sort of, _ _ _ _ what do you call them,
very guitar, _ _ like that Line 6 guitar or _ _ the Roland guitar synth. _ _ _
You can get them so that they'll drop these strings down an octave.
_ The problem is that you only want one string at a time to be down the octave _
because you don't want chords in those lower _ registers.
It's too muddy.
_ So I'm trying to figure out a way to switch _ that _ machine _ automatically
to just play whatever my lowest note on the lower three strings are.
Someday I'll _ do it.
I'm close now.
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ [F#m] _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ _ [F#m] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ [F#m] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _