The first professional instrument she
owned was acquired back in 1966 when she received a 1956 Martin D-28 from a
Marine captain. The captain was in Vietnam
The captain had two guitars inside his tent at the
time. Joni claimed this Martin to be her best guitar ever. She wondered if the
explosion did something to the modules in the wood, since the guitars sound was
incredible.
She used this guitar on all of her early
albums. But by the time she recorded Court and Spark; the guitar had been
damaged by an airline carrier and soon after was stolen from a luggage
carousel.
It was in the latter 1970’s when she turned to electric
guitars. She preferred George Benson model Ibanez guitars which she usually played through a Roland
Jazz Chorus amplifier. To keep up with her unique tunings, Joni traveled with
five similar Ibanez guitars.
Each guitar was strung with differing sized
strings which were matched to the tuning she used. She states that the guitar
has to sound crystal clear when playing harmonics. Therefore the more slack the
tuning was, the heavier the strings needed to be.
During that same decade Steve Klein built her a
wonderful handmade guitar in Klein’s own
interesting and decorative style. This instrument was visually and technically a masterpiece.
The sound hole’s rosette ring could be removed to provide a larger bass voice
that can be tuned by affecting the air resonance of the body. The inlays are
I-Ching hexagram number 56. The Wanderer graces the face and upper bout of the
instrument and Don Juan’s crow flies on the head stock.
The
acoustics she now owns and uses include two Martin’s; a D-45 and a D-28 and a
Collings D2H and a Collings ¾ size guitar. All guitars are equipped with
Highlander pickups, although she makes use of an external microphone on stage.
In 1995 Fred Walecki, the owner of
Westwood Music in Los Angeles
Not only was it
useful for her variety of tunings, but also for the unique sounds she could
coax from the Roland synth.
More recently I have seen videos of Joni
wielding a 2008 Parker Fly Mojo Flame guitar. She uses this guitar as a synth
controller in combination with a Roland VG-8 guitar synthesizer.
This guitar alos contains the built in Hex pickup
and a piezo pickup that allows her Parker guitar unique sounds to match her
music.
For the unfamiliar, it was during the early part of 1960’s
that folk music briefly became the rage. This music grew out of the clubs around Washington Square
Many famous players started due to their love of acoustic blues music. The clubs attracted a
hotbed of musical talent. Name a well known folk artist and you can be sure he
or she got their start by playing at one of these club.
Joni states she purchased Pete Seeger’s How to Play Folk-Style Guitar.
She was so proficient that she skipped ahead of the book’s lessons and learned
to fingerpick the way Elizabeth Cotton picked on her famous song “Freight
Train.” And though she may not have mastered that alternating 1 – 5 bass line,
Mitchell did come up with her own style.
I recently learned part of Joni's reason to use alternate tunings was due to having polio as a child, which affected her left hand. The altered tunings allowed her to play chord shapes that she could not get her weakened hand to play.
I recently learned part of Joni's reason to use alternate tunings was due to having polio as a child, which affected her left hand. The altered tunings allowed her to play chord shapes that she could not get her weakened hand to play.
Like many guitar greats, the way she
strokes and picks the strings with her right hand is the heart of her guitar
sound. Her style went beyond finger
picking as she concentrated more and more on song writing.
For instance she says the simplest tuning in her opinion is D modal (DADGBD). She also utilizes other simple tuning in open G (DGDGBD) and open D (DADF#AD).
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| Both Sides Now |
Mitchell claims she experiments by attempting to play her songs with different tunings to get a larger sound. She visualizes sounds as colours and shapes. To date, Mitchell said that she has used 51 tunings. Some tunings recur at several pitches. Generally speaking, her tunings started at a base of open E and dropped to D and then to C, and these days some even plummet to B or A in the bass. This evolution reflects the steady lowering of her voice since the ’60s, which occurs in all of us as we get older.
Her tunings include 7 5 or 7 7 for the bottom strings. As an example, Free Man in
For those who are interested, the only published documentation of her 30-year guitar odyssey is four single-album songbooks transcribed by Joel Bernstein, her longtime guitar tech and musical/photographic archivist, which show the real tunings and chord shapes.
Joni Mitchell frequently turns to the dulcimer in her on stage performance. During a back packing trip Mitchell did not take a guitar, but did bring the dulcimer and a flute, learning to play both instruments.
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| Joni and Jaco Pastorius |
I may add that Mitchell is also an accomplished pianist. And I cannot leave out the fact that in the 1970’s Joni was very dissatisfied with the standard bass style of the era.
She came across a bass player from
And of course Pastorius became on of the most recognized and sought after bass players of his era.
Here it is 2013 and Joni Mitchell is still singing and playing her songs to the delight of her fans and admirers.
Check out her fingerings in this 1970 video.
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