Steve Morse talked to the Guitar Techniques in an interview that deals with technical aspects of guitar playing. If you ever wanted to know what his favourite picks are, without what pedals he can’t live and which guitar he would save from a fire, here is your chance: What strings do you use, Steve Morse?
Ritchie Blackmore spoke to the Guitar International magazine about his last album, Autumn Sky:
Matt: Besides playing guitar on the record, you also play the mandola and mandolin. Both are stringed instruments, but are tuned and strung different to the guitar. Is it tricky to change your mind set when going from one instrument to the other, because of the different tunings, and do you prefer to record each one separately when you get into the studio, recording all the Mandola parts consecutively before moving onto the guitar parts for example?
Ritchie: I have to readjust whenever I pick up the mandola and the mandolin as they are tuned in 5ths, and I have to feel my way around the instrument. When I’m playing a mandolin and the mandola, I don’t know sometimes what chord I’m playing or what key I’m in, but I find that refreshing because it’s a sense of adventure not knowing exactly what I’m playing. I tend to go to different places that are not familiar. Also, when I used to play the cello, play the same way, and that’s how I got the riff for “Gates of Babylon,” which I wouldn’t have gotten to by writing on the guitar.
Read Above the Autumn Sky on guitarinternational.com.
Once you’re at it, check out a couple of historic Blackmore interviews on their site. The infamous one from 1996:
Here’s the double-edged sword: What do you think of Steve Morse?
Ahh, the big question [Laughs]. I was a big fan of his when he was in the Dixie Dregs. I heard a thing he played around 1981, and I couldn’t believe how good it was. I thought, who is this guy? Very fast country player, brilliant stuff. So I went to my room and brooded for half an hour and got drunk, because I realized that there’s always other players out there that can blow you away. I was really impressed.
I hear from a lot of people that he may be a jack of too many trades, but I’m still a big fan of his. He’s always got the guitar, so that’s his ticket to life. I can relate to that. I took up the guitar because I felt so inadequate. Maybe I could play the guitar, and be somebody and do something, and mean something. I have the feeling he did the same thing and I can relate to a man like that. Of course, I don’t know about the band he’s with [Laughs]. He’ll figure it out.
And a long one from circa 1975:
You didn’t want to simply leave Deep Purple for say, six months, do a solo album, and then return?
RB: No. Originally I was, but then I thought, well, this is silly because there is such a difference between when I was back with Purple than when I’m working with this lot. There’s a community thing. We understand each other’s humor, each other’s jokes. And basically the guys are quiet. I’m quiet, maybe moody.
With Purple, they had a different sense of humor than what I liked. I was more into the practical jokes, a very dry sense of humor. They were more into verbal, witty jokes, and you’d be surprised how that can destroy a relationship in a way because I never laughed when they did and vice versa…
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