[FiL]

Originally Posted by Howard Emerson

In the magazine Fretboard Journal[1] Fred Carter, Jr. recounts:

"I had a baby Martin, which is a 000-18, and when we started the record in New York with Roy Halee, the engineer, and Paul [Simon] was playin' his Martin — I think it's a D-18 and he was tuned regular — he didn't have the song totally written lyrically, but he had most of the melody. And so all I was hearin' was bits and pieces while he was doing' his fingerpicking . . . I think he was fingerpicking in an open C. I tried two or three things and then picked up the baby Martin, which was about a third above his guitar, soundwise.

"And I turned down the first string to a D, and tuned up the bass string to a G, which made it an open-G tuning, except for the fifth string, which was standard. Did some counter fingerpicking with him, just did a little backward roll, and Iucked into a lick. And that turned into that little roll, and we cut it, just Paul and I, two guitars. Then we started to experiment with some other ideas and so forth. At the end of the day, we were still on the song. Garfunkel was amblin’ around the studio, hummin’ and havin’ input at various times. They were real scientists. They’d get on a part, and it might be there [unfinished] six weeks later.

HE

I know this is an old thread, but I just stumbled upon it, and I'm surprised no one pointed this out: Since when is a 000-18 considered a "Baby Martin"?, and who tunes a 000 up a third? I wonder if Fred is mis-remembering this guitar. It seems more likely that it was something like a 5-18, no?

- FiL