“RayJoyce!”

The printed music for “RayJoyce!” is sold as an individual transcription. “RayJoyce!” is an imaginative composition. It brings together musical elements from many sources and explores a good stretch of technical terrain. According to Dan, “It is a piece written for my parents to celebrate the music they surrounded me with as a child. From my mom’s fondness for Janet Jackson to my dad’s interest in Johnny Cash — with a bit of my current curiosity for Indonesian music.”

It was written in 1993 and recorded in 1999, and originally released on the compilation American Finger-Style Guitar Circa 1999 (Peacefire Productions PFP 1626). This same recorded version of “RayJoyce!” is now also available on Guitar Fingerstyle 2 (Narada 50772, 2001). The transcription corresponds directly to the audio recording.

“RayJoyce!” is written for a guitar with two partial capos (prepared guitar, so to speak) and achieves sonorities which would not otherwise be available on the guitar. Originally, Dan used modified Kyser capos after the fashion of David Wilcox. Now, however, he uses a less barbaric approach with one Shubb six-string capo and one Shubb partial capo. The six-string capo is put on slightly off center so that it covers only strings 5-1. The partial capo is put on to cover strings 4-2.

The notation of music written for a guitar with multiple partial capos poses special challenges. Normally, in tablature written for a piece played with a full capo, the numbers represent the fret numbers starting at the capo. In this transcription, the numbers in the tablature represent the actually fret numbers starting at the nut, not at the capo. And the notes that are held down by the capo are shown in red so that they can be easily distinguished visually — so that you will remember that they do not have to be fingered.

We extend particular credit to Ichiro Suzuki for the elegant translation of these study notes into Japanese.