Need to play standing up?

This is a how-to for temporarily attaching a strap to a classical guitar. It’s a DIY job and not particularly elegant, but it’s cheap, it doesn’t require much assembly, and I’ve tested it through a number of operatic performances that additionally required people other than myself to handle the guitar on stage. If you need to put a strap on a guitar for an unusual performance, or perhaps if you have back trouble and want to experiment with playing standing up without first committing your guitar to ‘surgery’ to have pegs installed, this is for you.

Some time ago, I had the fabulously good luck to join an opera, namely The Neemrana Music Foundation’s production of Pablo Luna’s zarzuela (Spanish ‘pocket opera’) El niño judío – as a guitarist of course, but as a guitarist in costume, on stage, and singing with the chorus a couple of times! Needless to say, it was a thrilling experience that taught me a lot, introduced me to a number of wonderful and phenomenally inspiring people, and allowed me to address aspects of being a musician that predominantly solo-playing classical guitarists seldom have to – or get to – think about. But much more on that in my next few posts, because as you will know from my title and opening description, this one is about a relatively small – and yet quite essential – logistical aspect of the whole experience.

When I joined the production early in April, I learnt that I would have to play standing up. Not wanting to install pegs on any of my classical guitars, I spent some time looking for alternative solutions. After waiting for suction cups that never arrived in the mail, and talking to a couple of luthiers, here’s what I came up with – it allows you to wear your guitar with a normal guitar strap, you can set it up and remove it yourself, and it will leave no trace on your precious instrument. I should mention at the outset, though – you should only try this with guitars finished in PU, lacquer, or nitrocellulose, as it involves adhesives that would very likely damage a french polish finish.

To do this, you’ll need the guitar you have in mind, of course, and all of this:

…which is to say, the guitar strap you’ll use, some ordinary velcro (2 standard-sized lengths, or about 2′ in total), 3M or similar double sided rubberized tape of the sort you’d find in a car accessories store, Super Glue-style quick drying adhesive (as pictured, in India that would be Fevi kwik), and a bit of plastic sheet.

Here’s what you’ll need to do: the double sided tape goes on the guitar, the plastic sheet sticks to it, and you use the quick drying glue to stick the fuzzy side of the velcro to the plastic sheet. (Glue the velcro to the plastic before sticking it to the tape on the guitar, so as to minimize the risk of messing up the guitar finish with the glue) Create two approximately square patches like this, one on the bottom of the guitar (where the two sides meet), and the other on treble the side of the upper bout. You should end up with something like the photo below.

Note that I have stuck these two patches a little below the guitar top, so that they’re not conspicuous on the instrument when you’re playing it. Here’s a closer look at the two patches, for positioning:

Use the same glue to stick the side of the velcro with the hooks in it to the ends of the guitar strap, with the velcro strips going along the length of the strap ends.

While standing, hold the guitar in an ergonomic playing position to figure out how it would rest against you, and make a note of the approximate angle at which the strap would leave the guitar from the two velcro contact points to wrap around you. Stick the strap’s velcro ends on the guitar’s velcro patches at this angle. It should look something like this:

And you’re done! You’re ready to sling it over your shoulder, stand up, and start playing. Here’s a shot of my strapped-up guitar (and me!) doing just that, accompanying soprano Shireen Sinclair on De Espana Vengo.

Before I let you go, it’s important that you note a few details:

1. The velcro attachment is easily strong enough to hold up the guitar, but directionality is very important. The velcro’s grip is sound really only when force (gravity, usually) is applied along the direction in which the ends of the strap are attached to the guitar. If the strap is attached so the ends want to twist the velcro attachment sideways or pull up and away from the guitar, the velcro might give way.
2. If you’re holding the guitar by the strap, say if it isn’t slung over your shoulder, it’s important for the reasons I mentioned in the previous point to not lift the strap so the guitar is pulling directly away (downwards) from the nearest velcro contact point between guitar and strap. An example of what not to do would be grabbing the strap at one end and lifting it, so the nearest contact point faces upwards, and the weight of the guitar is pulling directly away from the velcro.
3. When detaching the strap from the guitar, always lift the velcro strap end from the tip, peeling it off the guitar in the direction of the strap. Also, it’s a good idea to hold down the velcro patch on the guitar while doing this. This will minimize the force applied to the adhesives attaching the velcro to the strap end and the patch to the guitar.

On performing on the guitar in India

Some time ago, while discussing this article by Graham Wade in Classical Guitar Magazine, Veda Aggarwal (Director of the Indian Guitar Federation) asked me to reflect upon my experience of playing in India over the last few years, and in particular, those aspects surrounding performance production that are unique to performing on the classical guitar in India. In his article, Wade essentially focuses on questions of fidelity and artistic integrity that merit more consideration than they usually receive when microphones and amplification are added to either a performance or recording situation. While his insights relating to these issues are as pertinent in the Indian context as in any other, the Indian concert production does present the performing guitarist with some unique environmental and other qualitative idiosyncrasies that require consideration, and when addressed properly, can make for wonderfully compelling concert experiences. The following are some of these aspects of concertizing in India that I have come to recognise as requiring particular attention in order to make a guitar concert great – especially in India, but no doubt to some extent elsewhere in the world as well. If you play here, or are thinking of doing so, I hope some of it will be useful to you.

Amplify Effectively
There are no concert halls or auditoriums of reasonable size where a classical guitar – be it a Yamaha or a Ramirez, or even a Smallman – can really deliver a heart-wrenchingly beautiful line in pianissimo to the last rows. To share one’s music effectively with an audience, it therefore becomes necessary to amplify though a PA system. To echo Mr Wade’s point in the above-mentioned article, this is where a guitarist (or any musician, really) can and should make an artistic decision, and determine qualitatively how the amplification is going to become a part of his or her personal sound. Most concert venues have their own sound equipment, and by communicating one’s needs to the attending sound technician before the day of the concert, and going through a sound check, it is possible to create an effective amplification solution that doesn’t compromise one’s visual presentation by placing a bulky mic stand between the performer and the audience, while also living up to the amplified ideal, where one’s true, acoustic sound doesn’t boom out from the speakers as in a rock show, but reaches further away from the stage than would otherwise be possible while remaining intact both tonally and dynamically, and in volume. If the venue’s inventory of equipment confines you to the ubiquitous instrument mic, the Shure SM57, a short or tall stand placed to the right of the guitarist is effective and unobtrusive. Point the mic at the guitar’s 12th fret, and position it at least 2 feet away. To extend the reach of the guitar’s natural sound through this (or indeed any) mic, keep the gain relatively high, and the volume relatively low. Better than this, and visually more compelling, is a floor mic positioned right in front of the guitarist. If you do not want to be dependent on the equipment available at any given venue, a small investment into acquiring your own microphone will give you tonal reproduction that’s very much closer to the sound of your instrument, along with the confidence that your tone will always be consistent, and that you’ll always be heard. A few examples of great guitar mics worth investing in, in increasing order of price, though not necessarily quality, are the AKG C411, the Bartlett Guitar Mic (or Guitar Mic B), and the DPA d:vote 4099.

It Might Get Loud
…for reasons other than yourself, that is! Many concert venues, including large auditoriums in a number of major cities across the country, allow sound from their environs to filter into the concert space. Ambient sounds are often an accompaniment to my own playing, although thanks to adequate amplification, I have never yet had to contend with the risk of being drowned out. There often isn’t much one can do to prevent outside noises adding themselves to the concert experience, but it’s something to anticipate with your sound technician while setting levels during a sound check. Once your own ability to project your sound is assured, ambient sounds can surprisingly add to the poignancy of live music in a given place. If you’re lucky, they add a special intensity to the ephemeral magic of the interaction between your art and that place, that comes about when you’re playing in it – some of my favourite concert memories include playing Vivaldi along with nearby church bells in Bangalore, and playing Villa-Lobos along with a muezzin and the cries of parakeets flying home in Udaipur.

Temperatures May Vary
Venues that have adequate air conditioning for the tropics will often feel frigid to your fingers, now more so than in the past as LEDs are increasingly coming to replace the sweat-inducing old-fashioned halogen bulbs in stage lights. It is useful to wear a couple of layers in one’s performance attire, so as to be able to cope with cooler than ideal temperature conditions on stage. (suits also happen to look nice – as do shawls) While performing, it is always better to be too warm than too cold, if only because this allows one’s muscles (and fingers!) to work more freely.

Humidity
The clamminess that often accompanies warm conditions – and can also be a side effect of those old-fashioned stage lights – is ironically second only to extreme cold in being an effective inhibitor of rapid and precise finger movements. While this isn’t usually a make-or-break issue, it can lead to a left hand that slides a little too easily over the fretboard, and stickiness between the fingers on the right hand. A light dusting of talcum powder on both hands takes care of this problem completely.

Connect!
The combination of western classical performances being relatively uncommon, and much of the classical guitar’s repertoire being generally unknown, makes for a blank canvas that practically begs the performer to enrich the projection of his or her artistic vision with as much detail as possible. In contrast to audiences in many parts of the world, the majority of people in the audience at a classical guitar concert in India will not be guitarists, or especially familiar with very much guitar repertoire. Thoughtful and well-researched program notes that contextualise the music go a long way towards creating meaningful experiences, as do a genuine and sharing approach to speaking between pieces, and being friendly and approachable after the show.