Juliana Hatfield - Instruments

Instruments

The guitar (both electric and acoustic) is Hatfield's primary instrument, and she is a highly proficient technician, her work often featuring alternate tunings and intricate, unusual voicings executed high on the neck. She has not received as much acknowledgement for her imaginative bass playing, which can be best heard on the Blake Babies albums Earwig and Sunburn as well as throughout the Lemonheads' It's A Shame About Ray. Unusually for the instrument, she plays melodically and harmonically rather than simply holding down a bass line. She often plays on two strings simultaneously, using expressive sliding tones on the upper string to add another melodic voice to the group's sound. Since her work with the Blake Babies she has gravitated more towards the guitar and has largely lost interest in the bass, generally assigning parts for the instrument to other band members, and not playing as melodically when overdubbing with it in recordings. She has periodically also played piano, electric piano, and organ on her releases, and on her album Made in China (2005) she played drums for the first time.