How Marty Works

Jason asked Marty about his guitar and his new Tokyo Jukebox 3 album...

1) What do you like about your signature Jackson guitar that a standard Gibson Les Paul doesn’t provide you with?

It has everything I love about a Gibson LP, the weight, the body shape which looks great on anyone, but the Jackson design is more modern and can be seen and recognised from quite far away. The sustain you can get without having to use heaps of overdrive is unbeatable, even using modest amp simulations, as with my lead tone here on Majestical.

2) What shaped your choice of music for Tokyo Jukebox 3? Were you looking for ‘deeper cuts’ from Japanese music or were there newer pieces that you never got to feature on the previous releases?

I have played the opening ceremony for the Tokyo Marathon for the last three years and was slated to do it again in 2020. I always played songs from TJ1 and TJ2 so this time I wanted to make newer and more athletically motivating arrangements to play at the ceremony. That’s why the whole album works so well for working out, long distance running and the like. It was a conscious effort to support athletes, as well as to motivate lazy bastards like myself.

3) If you haven’t played guitar for a while

- say a week or two - what aspects of your technique do you tend to work on to get back up to your usual requirements?

After only a few weeks off, absolutely nothing. If I took two or three months off, it might take a few minutes of warming up to feel normal. If one’s playing is based mainly on mechanical metronomic work, I suppose time off would create some type of temporary muscle memory problems, but I think that only affects people who are relatively new to an instrument; those who don’t do music for his or her livelihood. A pro musician is like a carpenter, or any other tradesman. They are not going to get weaker at or forget their craft after even extended time off. Conversely, a little time off makes it more enjoyable to return to playing.

4) In general terms, how long can you take to find the best fingering for a phrase from a technique or timbre perspective?

Usually it is instantaneous, but when I’m trying to make a very dull melody sound interesting (for example from :27 to :40 in Senbonzakura from TJ3) it can take a little while to not only decide on the fingering, but to master the unusual twists involved. When I occasionally do classical music (as can be seen on my recent performance with an orchestra on YouTube) there is no room for error at all, so I spend a lot of time deciding on and memorising the absolutely smartest fingering for every single note. There are two reasons for that--to choose the exact fingering that allows me to express the part the way I like, and to eliminate any chances of blowing it!