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Welcome to the Acoustic Guitar Podcast . I'm

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your host , nick Grizzle . For this bonus

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Acoustic Guitar Sessions mini-sode , I'm

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joined by Naima Bock , a singer-songwriter

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with roots in Brazilian and British folk

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music . One quick note before

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we start . During our conversation

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, you may hear my dog barking in the background

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. Please accept our apologies in

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advance . He promises to be a very good boy

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during our recording sessions in the future . Our

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episode begins with an impromptu performance

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of a new song by Naima Bock , titled

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Showers .

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But I've been a trial

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Lord , but

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I can't remember

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before . The

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veins on your hand

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show me the way

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. Nothing easy

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now , nothing

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hard either

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. So just watch

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as you sway on stage

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An

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object or some kind

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of muse . But

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I can't get close

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to you , so

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I'll say

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your name

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again and again

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, like

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I sung before

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In another

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song . Your

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shoulders are wider

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than the mountains .

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How did you get started playing guitar ?

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um , so I had my

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father played guitar and

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so it was always around in the house

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. Um , in brazil I

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was lucky enough to grow up with

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a family who , so my dad , played

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guitar , um , predominantly

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electric , but at home he would play , you know , nylon

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strung , and then my aunts and

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my auntie was a cello player , is a

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cello player , and my grandmother is

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a pianist and so I was

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kind of grew up with a lot , of , a lot of

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that stuff , mostly classical . There

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they play classical music , um

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, and then so

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I had that that kind of sonic world

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around me is

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, is the guitar the instrument you mostly

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use for songwriting yes , I

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used to . I used to . I used to use bass

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more that

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would have , but that was about five years

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ago or something and , like a lot of the

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songs that were on my first record , I

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initially wrote on bass and then

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, uh , that was because I was , that's

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what I was playing in the first band that I was in . But

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then , yeah , no , the last five years it's been all

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guitar and I've tried to just

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have it with , like , make sure

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that the song is good enough , just guitar and voice , and

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then only , like quite a lot

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later , start thinking about other things to put on

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it so your , your

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voice is pretty distinctive

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.

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I mean , you can , how did you develop that

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, that distinct sound that you have ?

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I don't know really . I think I

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think it is just , I think it is mostly just

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um , it

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being my voice . I found found

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a recording not that long

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ago of me singing a Sandy Denny

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song when I was 13 . And

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it was really funny to hear because I thought about

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in my head , I thought , oh , I've come this far with my voice

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and kind of trying to be able to

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project more or

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doing trills better or these technical

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things that I sort of thought I was improving

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on , which I have improved on . But I

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listened to this recording of me when I was 13

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and it is kind of the same , just like a few

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, like you know , octaves higher . So

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I just thought , well , I mean , yeah , you do

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sort of get what you're given in terms

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of your voice . And I remember once , like someone said

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to me , um , which

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slightly contradicts what I said earlier , because there

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is always improvement . But I

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think that , in terms of tone , um

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, and maybe that's mostly

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what comes across when people like

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have unique voices , is like the unique tone

4:58

that they have , um , and

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I guess delivery as well , like depending

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on how much someone , how

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far someone pushes their voice , and

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often I think , the further

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that one pushes their

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voice , it can sometimes become

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more generic sounding . That's like

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not always the case , but

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I sometimes find that like , the

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better a singer is , you know

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, like , the more they kind of just sound like everyone

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else . Um , you

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know , not every case , but so

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I not that I resisted being a

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good singer . I just think that I had

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to like watch how far

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I wanted to push it . Um

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, but in turn

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, the next thing would be doing

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, I think , doing folk , like doing choirs

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, singing folk

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, a cappella songs . That's probably

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been the biggest helper in terms

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of learning how to be more

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open , less shy with my voice

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.

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Can you tell us a little more about your process for songwriting

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?

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about your process for songwriting

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. Yeah , I think that I've

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had it's changed a bit

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over the last six months actually , because before , prior to six

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months ago , I would normally write two

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to three songs per year , which is just

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nothing . I would be very

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it would take me a long

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time to figure out exactly

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what I wanted to do with the song and

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what the lyrics should be , and it would just take me a long

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time to write

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it and finish it . And

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I sort of thought of this as like a , you know

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, a bit of a slow cooking attitude

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towards songwriting , which I was fine

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to function in , because I didn't ever

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I mean , I'm grateful to myself for not

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ever really putting um like

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pressure on myself to write songs

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, because , and if I had periods

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of time which I have had many where I don't feel like writing

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songs , I don't beat myself up about it . Um

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, my friend calls them the fertile

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void , which is I quite like

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, because , you know , other things grow up

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in that time and you

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sort of ingest more than you put

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out , and I think that that can be important . Um

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, but the last six

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months I've found that

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I'm at , you know , I'm back at university

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again and doing something

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other than music has been the best thing

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for writing songs . It's the

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. It's probably like a strange brain

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trick , you know , um that

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where you , if you , the thing that

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you have to do songwriting

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has become my procrastination , and

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so then I'm just writing loads of songs , which

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is fun , and I was going to say , like

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it's , it's a lot of . It is dependent

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on who I'm listening to and if , if

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I've got an artist or a musician that I'm really

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invested in , in that period

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of time over it normally lasts

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two to four months where I just listen to one

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person predominantly , and if I

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have that kind of feeling

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towards a musician , then I'll

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write more songs , um , influenced

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by what they do . I was

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listening to . I listened to like Phil Elverham

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, so Microphones , mount Eerie , but

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I hadn't I hadn't known anything about

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him before last

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year , and then I found the Microphones

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in 2020 album song

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, and so I listened to his music

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for about four to five months and

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I still listen to it quite a lot . And then

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also in the , and

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then the last person has been about three months

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I've predominantly just listened to , like

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everything Will Oldham's done so Palace Brothers

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, palace Music , funny

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Prince Billy , and

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actually those two are the . I think I'd say

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I could probably just leave it at those two for the last

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, for the last period of time .

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Also Joanna Newsome and Joanna Sternberg . Okay , let's talk guitars .

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Uh , what guitars do you play and what do you like about them ? So I've had , um , my

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first guitar that I got , which

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is the one that I played live up until

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a year ago , is the Yamaha

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FG800

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or something . I can't remember the exact model

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, but it was . It was like

9:10

250 pounds , which is probably about

9:12

300 dollars , I'm guessing

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, and it was very cheap . But

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it was very sturdy and

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it and it stayed you

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know it didn't warp played

9:28

, you know it didn't

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warp and it stays in tune , and it was

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a really good guitar . But I I kind of moved away from it . Um , I just thought

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, well , I'm like I thought , if I'm gonna do this as a job , I need to

9:37

get like a real expensive

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guitar . So I tried to buy

9:42

, I went through a few different guitars

9:44

. Um , I mean , should I actually reel

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off all of the guitars ? Is that going to be boring ?

9:48

This is a guitar nerd podcast , so we're

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into it .

9:51

So yeah , so I had that Yamaha and

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then I went and then I did , because

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I definitely wasn't a guitar

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nerd I just thought I want a guitar that looks

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cool . So I got a Hofner from like a 1964

10:04

Hofner . So

10:10

I got a Hofner from like a 1964

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Hofner and it was very thin , which is , um , yeah , very thin , like v-e-r-i

10:15

thin , and uh , it was not a great guitar and it really went out of tune all the time

10:18

. But everyone thought , everyone was

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like , wow , that looks so cool

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and then thought , well , maybe I'll keep

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it as a kind of investment . You know , it's

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like pretty old

10:29

and it's been kept in good condition-ish

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, but

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yeah , and I have , I've still

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got it . I've tried to sell it . No

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one wants it , so I don't know what I'm gonna do I'm

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sure somebody out there wants it from 1964

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. I feel like , yeah , I mean , my other option

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is just to hold on to it , you know . And then , like

10:49

, in 40 years it'll be worth loads

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more . And then I moved on

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to , and then I bought a larivay

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um mg

10:58

800 , I think is

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. I'm I'm closing my eyes because I'm picturing

11:02

the sticker inside the guitar

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, but I can't say that I know exactly

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what the model is for that . But an OM , I

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think the Larrivee was and

11:11

it was . That was a really beautiful guitar , but it's too

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, it's too precious to take

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on tour or to play gigs with . It's just

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, it's really nice and it's rosewood

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as , and so I just keep

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it at home in its case and play it like every

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now and then . And

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then I had , and

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then I got but this is acoustic guitars

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. Actually I realized I was talking about Hofner . Hofner

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was hollow body , which is , you know

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, half of an acoustic guitar .

11:38

Counts yeah .

11:39

And then , after the Larivee , I

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tried to get , I tried to get a Martin

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. I've been kind of wanting to get a Martin for a

11:45

really long time but they're

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really expensive , so

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I haven't quite managed to get myself a Martin yet . That's something that I'm going to

11:54

work towards . But the

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main guitar that I play now is

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a nylon strung , which is this one . It's

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an Alhambra and it's

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new . I bought it new for for like

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1200 . I actually will be able to tell

12:08

you the model of this one . Well

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, that's a complicated model , surely

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not cslr

12:15

, I don't know

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crossover alhambra , um

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, but it's got like a good . The

12:22

main one of the main reasons I got this is mostly because , well

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, I mean , it's also solid wood , so it's not laminate , and it's got like a good . The main one of the main reasons I got this is mostly because , well , I mean , it's

12:26

also solid wood , so it's not laminate , and it's

12:28

the microphone . There's

12:30

a microphone inside rather than

12:32

I can't remember what the other

12:34

kind of we know like metallic pickup is

12:36

Like a piezo pickup or something . Yeah

12:38

, it's not that it's like it's a fishman , but it's

12:40

tiny microphone in it , which

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just means that , like because , try

12:45

, I was using a LR Baggs pickup on

12:47

acoustic guitars and acoustic guitars are obviously

12:49

difficult to play live

12:52

with and it's super venue dependent

12:54

, like dependent on the PA . Um

12:57

and they ? I

12:59

didn't really give it a second thought until

13:01

a very honest and kind friend of mine three

13:03

years ago said that the guitar sounds like shit

13:05

so I was like , right , I need to actually

13:08

sort it out . And then , since then , I've been on a really

13:10

annoying journey of trying

13:12

to find the right mix of . You

13:15

know , because I'd

13:17

like to , I'd prefer to play with a microphone

13:19

to the acoustic guitar , just an external

13:21

microphone to the acoustic guitar . But in

13:24

the gigs that I play usually , which like

13:26

support slots , it's very kind of you know you got

13:28

like 20 minutes to do a sound check and and

13:31

the engineers hate you because

13:33

they , like the , might have used a microphone

13:35

and feeds back , and so I

13:38

decided to get this guitar and

13:41

um and the it's

13:43

. It's still not perfect and it doesn't sound great

13:45

when you strum it , but it sounds beautiful

13:47

when you finger pick it and so it's

13:50

been , it's been like the best thus

13:52

far . But my

13:54

, my , you know acoustic guitar

13:56

pickup journey is not over . Um

13:59

and actually I think nylon strung in terms

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of if you're going to be playing like just

14:04

on your own , then it feels

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, I feel like the sound of it fills the room

14:09

a little more . It's super warm

14:11

and pretty loud as

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well . I mean on its own , without amplification , it's

14:16

a lot louder than a steel strung . But

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yeah , I've enjoyed . I've enjoyed my nylon

14:21

strung life over

14:23

the last six months . It's been good and it

14:25

it changes the way I write songs as well

14:27

, I think how ?

14:28

so how does it change your songwriting

14:30

?

14:31

um , it's just a bit it makes it veers

14:33

you away . It veers one away from just doing

14:36

the kind of like you know

14:38

, like the they're like very like basic

14:41

strumming patterns and it just

14:43

has to be finger-picked and it kind of means

14:45

that I have tried to learn new techniques

14:47

, with that not being like super

14:49

successful , but I'm on my , I'm trying

14:51

a lot of the music . Some

14:54

of my favorite musicians that play acoustic

14:56

guitar , I realized only recently , play nylon

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strung . So like I was listening to

15:01

an Aldous Harding record , she plays

15:03

mostly nylon strung other than when she plays

15:05

piano . I know that Mount

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Erie , a lot of Mount Erie songs are on

15:09

nylon . Some Jessica

15:12

Pratt tunes are on nylon but like , yeah , I've started noticing

15:14

the difference , I guess , in tones , a little

15:16

bit more .

15:18

To hear more from Naima Bock . Be sure to check

15:20

out the show notes for this episode . If

15:22

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15:24

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15:29

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