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Carl Kress and Marty Grosz
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Hey guys, I'm a few days old to the forum. My name is Nico and I'm beginning to play professionally in Marty Grosz's tuning which is an alternative take on Carl Kress's tuning. I'm fortunate enough to know Marty and consider him to be a mentor of sorts to me. Anyways, I thought it'd be nice to have a space here to talk about Kress and Marty. I feel very alone in playing this style of swing guitar and thought it would be nice to reach out and see if anyone else is doing it and if so, we can trade knowledge and stories. Anyways, thank you for your time guys.
Comments
Nice — can you share what exactly the tuning is?
Adrian
I double on plectrum banjo, so actually that crazy Kress/Grosz guitar tuning does make some sense to me, but I've never had enough patience to really master it. But I'm glad to see it's not totally forgotten!
The thing about that style is that it requires a lot of memorization, and if you get a gig after not playing for a few weeks, God help you!
Anyway, I've had the good fortune of meeting Marty several times in Toronto at the now defunct Canadian Collectors Congress.
He's a real live wire, as I think the following photos will attest...
Will Wilson
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
I hope you will hear echoes of all my acoustic guitar heroes: Eddie Lang's marvellous rhythm playing, Django's single-string work, and Marty Grosz's eccentric chord soloing...
However... all the 'clams' are totally my own innovation...
Will
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Thanks, man. The next video I plan on sharing is Carl Kress's Peg Leg Shuffle.
Will, it warms my heart to hear your words. Fun story, I have a friend that collects instruments and he happened to have a mid 30s Gibson L7 plectrum guitar that belonged to Marty. The case still had a name tag in it with Marty's name on it. I got to play it and it was good fun. Lovely photos of you and Marty. He certainly is a lot of fun. Great work on I Aint Got Nobody too. I just finished converting Eddie Lang's Fingerboard Harmony book to Marty's tuning. I've gone to far to turn back and honestly I don't mind. Having played standard tuned guitar by ear all my life I never actually understood what i was doing so with this tuning I'm glad to be able to restart and actually really learn something.
Mark, the gauges are as follows.
Bb- 85
F- 54
C- 37
G- 26
B- 17
D- 14
That'll get you the right tension however intonating it will be tough. Your bridge will have an extreme slant to get it right however if you find any Gibson guitar made in the mid to late 30s you'll notice that the pins for the bridge are offset. Unfortunately changing the bridge is usually one of the first things that happens with people that buy these instruments. Below is a photo of the Gibson L5 Special that Kress designed with an example of what I'm talking about with regards to the bridge.