Back in June, Anders and I were at a loggerjams with Cairn O' Mount - I wanted the guitar part to stick to the simple driving rhythm part he had previously recorded for me. He was already bored with that, and wanted to try something different. We went round and round, and it got kind of ugly.

This last weekend, with Anders in town, we hit on another approach.

I have been jamming with a local rhythm guitarist, and in the back of my mind, I've been wondering about whether I should get him into the band, mainly in case Anders can't make a given gig. But this thought wasn't fully formed, and was lurking in the back of my head. At the same time, Anders has expressed an interest in playing more than just guitar: mandolin, octave mandolin, cittern, or Irish Bouzouki. Maybe even English guitar.

When we began to rehearse Cairn O' Mount yesterday, I played Anders' old rhythm-part on the stereo as a "refresher", and noticed Anders noodling a lead guitar part as he listened. And I liked it! So we quickly decided that the rhythm part will be left unchanged, and that a yet-undetermined guitarist would take Anders' old rhythm part, and Anders would play a new lead part on either a nylon-stringed guitar or cittern/bouzouki.

This led to having him try his hand at a mandolin part for Sergeant Where's Mine?, and that sounded very good. There's already a bouzouki part in the old SixMileBridge arrangement of The Mosstrooper's Lament, so we're all set for the songs.

The question now is where would Anders play guitar? I'm thinking he may stick to guitar on the instrumental sets, and the other guitarist might try something else. Or two contrasting guitar parts. We'll see. But the new approach is very exciting.