LINER NOTES TO #130CD "THE LIBERTY GUITAR METHOD" by HARVEY REID & JOYCE ANDERSEN


1- A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Dylan) (5:56)
2- Hush Little Baby (Trad.) (2:28)
3- The Cuckoo (Trad.) (3:33)
4- This Land Is Your Land (Guthrie.) (2:59)
5- Amazing Grace (Trad.) (3:35)
6- Folsom Prison Blues (Cash) (2:24)
7- Your Cheating Heart (Williams) (2:51)
8- Let It Be (Lennon/McCartney) (2:36)
9- Angel From Montgomery (Prine) (4:05)
10- Maybellene (Berry) (1:44)
11- Imagine (Lennon) (3:49)
12- The Wedding Song (Stookey) (3:58)
13- Someone Like You ( Atkins/Wilson) (4:38)
14- House of the Rising Sun (Trad.) (4:26)

All tracks use a Liberty FLIP Model 43 partial capo. For more information about the partial capo, visit http://www.partialcapo.com. Harvey pioneered this idea, and has recorded over 120 tracks using more than 20 configurations of partial capos.

These songs were all played in what I call “Liberty Tuning,” using only the middle two fingers of my left hand playing very simple chord shapes. Most of these songs have never been considered “beginner songs,” yet they sound great and are not at all hard to play. The accompanying book shows how. (HR)

Featuring Taylor guitars on all tracks

This album is intended to show that anyone can play some iconic great songs with easy left-hand chords, and to introduce a new approach to beginning guitar. This new tuning, that combines a partial capo with a slight retuning, only takes a few seconds to do on any guitar, and allows some really great-sounding music. This includes a vastly improves repertoire of songs for beginners to start with, and they feature “regular” major, minor or 7th chords as well as more sophisticated chords. All of them are playable instantly with very simple fingerings. We used an inexpensive nylon-string guitar on many of these cuts, since we think that is the best choice for beginners.
HARVEY REID (2013)

Guitars- A 2013 Taylor Model 312 nylon-string was used on tracks 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, and 11. A 1984 Taylor 810 (Serial # 3086) was used on tracks 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13 & 14.
Strings- Elixir medium gauge Nanoweb, D’Addario Pro Arte nylon strings
Microphones- Audio Technica AT-4047
Engineering & Production- Harvey Reid & Joyce Andersen
Recording- Woodpecker Studios York, Maine. March 2013 to Nov. 2013.
Design & Graphics- Aphro-Graphics, Fil Kennedy
Mastering & mixing- Thomas Eaton, Newburyport, MA

For more information about the partial capo, visit www.partialcapo.com. Harvey pioneered this idea, and has recorded over 120 tracks using more than 20 configurations of partial capos.

About the Tracks...
1- A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Dylan) I added a full capo to push this into the key I like to sing it. I did all the right hand strumming with just one finger, and it sounds fine. (V1 + capo 2=key of B)
2- Hush Little Baby (Trad.) This is the kind of 2-chord song beginners have been playing all along. It’s quite easy to play the melody in this situation, so I did, though of course total beginners won’t be able to do that right away. (V1 + capo 3=key of C)
3- The Cuckoo (Trad.) We wanted to include another 2-chord song, and show how good Liberty Tuning is with minor-key songs. Our Liberty Song Train book shows how you can play 56 great two-chord songs with 2-finger chords, before you tackle songs with more chords. (V1=Em)
4- This Land Is Your Land (Guthrie) This song has remained a respected anthem of folk and campfire music for decades, and lots of people know it. It’s easy to play and sounds great in this tuning. Again I added some melody because it sounds good and is also amazingly easy to play. (V1 + capo 2=B)
5- Amazing Grace (Trad.) One of the best-known songs in the world, that features the 3 basic major chords, plus the 6 minor chord that is used in millions of songs. A 4-chord song with 2 fingers. (V2=E)
6- Folsom Prison Blues (Cash) I love the sound of the bluesy 7th chords. (V1+ capo 2= F#)
7- Your Cheating Heart (Williams) Also done with just one finger strumming, on the nylon-string guitar, which still seems to sound fine on this country classic. It has a 2 chord, which is valuable and common, but usually not in beginner songs. (V2 + capo3=G)
8- Let It Be (Lennon/McCartney) Same chords as Amazing Grace, with the 1-4-5 majors and a 6 minor. (V2+capo 1=F)
9- Angel From Montgomery (Prine) Features the 3 basic major chords 1-4-5 and also a modal “drop” or “flat 7” chord, which in the key of E is a D. All 4 chords are the same chord shape at the same fret. Amazing. (V1=E)
10- Maybellene (Berry) The whole song only uses about 1 square inch of fingerboard, with the simple chords higher up the neck. Awesome-sounding 7th and 9th chords are no harder than majors. (V1=E)
11- Imagine (Lennon) Another level more complicated, and here to spur beginners on to learn some harder things. It has some new chord changes we haven’t seen before, like the 37. Some of these easy chords are really beautiful, and not playable in standard tuning. (V2=E)
12- The Wedding Song (Stookey) Also a little show-off piece, since it has a lot of chords and uses quite a bit of the neck, though none of the chords by itself is at all difficult. You could strum it, but I wanted to fingerpick it to illustrate that the tuning lets novices play songs like this that even professionals can’t really do in standard tuning. (V2 tuned down 1 fret= Eb)
13- Someone Like You (Atkins) This was a massive world-wide hit, and guitar teachers everywhere didn’t get far teaching it to beginners, because it had too many chords. It’s an impressive show of musical power how well the chord voicings in Liberty Tuning work for this song. Just 2 of the easiest shapes you can possibly form with 2 fingers, each moved to 3 places, all nearby. (V2+ capo 4= Ab)
14- House of the Rising Sun (Trad.) Not even close to being a beginner song in standard tuning, and not as easy as some of the others here. I couldn’t resist including it because it’s just not a chord progression you would think you could do with 2 fingers. (V2= C#m)

I recorded this entire album with a Liberty FLIP Model 43 partial capo that was designed for this purpose. It’s hard to play in Liberty Tuning without a Liberty capo. They are less visible, more versatile, more attractive & lighter weight than other full or partial capos. They also fit more types of guitars and work well with different widths and thicknesses of necks. The discovery of Liberty Tuning came amid my “Capo Voodoo” research, as I was “mapping” the hidden musical world that partial capos generate.

I have published several books that show in detail how players of all levels & styles can use both types of Liberty FLIP capos in over 100 ingenious ways. www.LibertyGuitar.com

 ©2017