Songs Without Words by Guitarist Yasmin Williams

'Guitarist, composer, and songwriter Yasmin Williams is both a multi-instrumentalist and multi-tasker. She’s a fingerstyle lap-tapping guitar player who sits and rests the guitar in her lap, to make the guitar into a table on which she sometimes mounts a kalimba; her distinct style also leaves her tap shoe-wearing feet available for her to make beats. Williams also plays banjo, bass, kora, and as she puts it - “anything with strings.” During the conversation, Williams explains that her use of extended techniques: tapping the guitar from above with both hands, playing the strings with a cello bow, hammering with what looks like a Patellar reflex test hammer in a dulcimer-like fashion, a pick that she sometimes wears on her thumb, the hammer-ons and pull-offs, and beat-making on the guitar (and with her feet) – are all in the service of her songwriting.'

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