Back during my college years I fashioned myself a fledging rock-star, and had the drive—and vanity—to record some ideas I had on a Fostex cassette-based four-track recorder. Backed by bass guitars that I assembled, my trusty Gibson ES-335, a Strat copy, a Washburn 12-string electric, a Roland Juno-108 keyboard, and some horrid drum machine, I worked away at some studies of tunes that I came up with, or stole. Oh, yeah, there was also a Les Paul copy with EMG pickups in the mix, too. Any goodness here probably came from my beloved Mesa Boogie amplifier.

Study in G major (ca. 1985)

This first study is probably the most “put together” of the bunch. Unlike some others, which lack a background drum track, for example, this one has all the elements. I used my Washburn 12-string, a P-bass knock-off though my chorus unit, the Juno keyboard (two tracks, I recall), the drum machine, and the ES-335 through my echo-unit. Mind you, the piece doesn’t really go anywhere; it’s just a canvas on which I’m tossing up whatever improvisational music paint I could muster.

Study in D-major (ca. 1985)

For some reason I named this “Marina,” perhaps liking the wave-like quality of the sound. This is a simple study, with a simple, soft bass-drum tapping in the background, and layers of my Strat copy through my stereo-chorus and echo-unit. I tuned the low-E string down to D, and that’s the bottom end of the whole thing; I used no bass guitar. Here I enjoyed fingered-harmonics and lots of sixth- and ninth-chords.

Study in E-major (1984?)

This was an attempt at being slick, starting off the thing with some light guitar textures (sixth- and ninth-chords, again), which lead up to a nice diminished chord, and then into an embarrassing attempt to throw down a fusion guitar piece. Running out of ideas, I go for funk in the middle, finally returning to my ubiquitous singing-ES-335-with-sustain-and-echo to close it out. Hoo, boy.

Study in C-major (1984)

Here again I’m loving the high-register with sustain and the use of my volume-pedal to get attack-less entrance into the note. For some reason I feel that this was influenced by the group “Asia,” which was big at the time. I do know that if I ever should meet Pat Metheny I owe him a sincere apology for what I did to “Phase Dance.” This is a fairly complete study, with bass guitar, lots of keyboards (lovin’ that “oh, I just figured out that a synthesizer can do this” stuff).