Article: Dylan's Guitars/How to Emulate His Sound

[emtsteve]

Originally Posted by Joe Beamish

....... playing the same thing as the record every time, the songs that everyone expects, the way they expect them....

I don't expect that. In fact I like variety in performances.

Dylan just isn't my cup of tea. I like his songs, when other people perform them. And I can appreciate that others feel differently.

[Joe Beamish]

Originally Posted by emtsteve

I don't expect that. In fact I like variety in performances.

Dylan just isn't my cup of tea. I like his songs, when other people perform them. And I can appreciate that others feel differently.

I can dig that. I feel the same way about many, if not most of the hallowed names people worship as guitarists around here.

[Hoyt]

Playing a song that someone else wrote and composed is not the height of creativity. Dylan wrote the lyrics and usually music and basic guitar tracks.

That’s the essence of a guitar player, not some flashy licks or cover artist.

[Mirosh]

Last year at Dylan Fest here in Duluth, a local musician opened up a whole new realm of guitar playing to this very long term amateur: to play Mr. Tambourine Man, drop the low E string down to D. Capo on the 2nd fret.

Since trying that I've been playing much more than ever, have acquired three more guitars, and find that song, and Dylan's Newport version of it, the most mysterious and beautiful piece of music ever.

BTW, Duluth Dylan Fest happens the week of Dylan's birthday, May 24, and we hope it can return in 2021, his 80th.

[Tony Burns]

sorry -self deleted my post
knowing i would piss off allot of people !

[Italuke]

Originally Posted by bufflehead

I can appreciate that. He is a cultural icon in many ways. This makes him difficult to critique on purely aesthetic grounds.

Listen to this recording, just for the guitar technique. It's clumsy in places, especially at the end, where he really doesn't seem to have visualized how to finish the song. Take away the Dylan mystique, the musical genius of the composition, and you've got a guitar performance that, at best, is plodding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ

I realize that the Dylan who emerges from the studio on later albums outperforms the live Dylan at Newport, but that's the magic of the studio, isn't it?

Yup, you're digging your heels in, ok. This is a live performance in front of who knows how many people by a 22 year old. I repeat, a 22 year old.

Surely you could have done better. But that's not the point. For pure, solid acoustic guitar playing, listen to those first 4-5 albums. NOT the electric stuff starting in 65, as no one said he was a stellar electric player. but acoustic, and especially AT THAT AGE, yes, a really good player.

ALSO...I'll check this, or someone correct me, but I believe he did all or most of the cuts on the first few albums LIVE, that is, guitar, harmonica, and vocal simultaneously. But oh yeah, any mediocre player could have done better.

[Joe Beamish]

“...This would not have been possible had Dylan not been a great, natural guitar player: technically speaking, World Gone Wrong is Dylan’s greatest achievement as a guitarist since Freewheelin’. Worth pointing out is the consistent technique of picking out the melody line or fragments of it on the bass strings and strum on in the higher strings as if nothing special was happening. Two Soldiers is the standout track in this respect, but also Love Henry and one of the many superb outtakes in Dylan’s production, You Belong To Me shine. Delia and Ragged and Dirty do some of the same: the little riffs that go through each of those songs, echo snippets of melody line as well. World Gone Wrong could be on the curriculum of any course in “Solo song with guitar accompaniment”.

But even more important is the way Dylan makes the guitar one with the body, hence with the voice, hence with what comes out through the voice: the words. The interludes and ornaments flow as freely and naturally as the syllables of the text. An alacrity in the words is transformed into strokes on the strings — a slightly harder strum here, a vaguely noticeable tempo gain or hesitation there. The strokes set and adjust to a pace: the guitar breathes....”

Check out this guy’s write up about World Gone Wrong. Plus tabs, as usual.

https://dylanchords.info/