Guitar Licks

Guitars, tips and great music discussions




You are here: Home / Archives for My experiences / The early Years

My Fender Lead II

by

I have been using my Fender Lead II as of late. I only have one guitar stand and I rotate the guitars that I put in it many times throughout the year.

I got this guitar off a exchange student from Japan around 1984-85. Oddly enough, this is a Student Guitar, meaning the body is smaller making it easier to play. He was a little low on funds and he wanted to know if I wanted to by it. At first I started to give him lessons and he was not that bad if memory serves me correctly.

While looking at my black Fender I started to wonder what year this baby was built so a Googling I will go!

fenderleadii.jpg

This site was the one that I ended up at. You can normally determine the age of your guitar by the serial numbers. Mine is “E0 09736” so it’s made in 1980, that makes it 27 years old! If you have a Fender guitar just sitting around the house, go and get it and find out how old your is. Get back us on that one if you have one.

I just love the sound of the X-1 single coil pick ups on this one. You can raise the pick ups by turning the 2 screws at either end of the pick up clock wise. This adjustment brings the pick up closer to the strings thus you get a stronger signal.

There is a phase reversal switch that works when you are in the middle position or using both pick ups at the same time. This switch is really nice to have at your disposal.

multiplefendlead2.jpg

I know I will try to get a picture of mine up here soon!It has 21 medium Jumbo frets with a 4 bolt neck piece. It has a “Soft V or C” profile neck, which means the part of the body which attaches to the neck section of the guitar. The neck itself is maple. The small headstock is a nice reminder of the past Fender guitars that were built between 1954-65. Oh, headstock is part where you tune the strings on the “head” of the guitar in case your unfamiliar with guitar terms.

The bridge, where you put the strings on the body of the guitar, is designed after a Fender Telecaster. Keith Richards plays this type of an axe.

As far as I know it was made at the Fender Fullerton California plant. It was also one of the last fender guitars to be made at this legendary location!

So hats off to my 27 year old gal and hope we’re together a lot longer!

Keep on Jammin’




Toto – the early stuff I mean

by

As you are more then well aware I am a huge lover of Prog Rock or you could even say challenging music to play!

Prog Rock is better known as Progressive Rock. Examples of this is YES (the four-part “Close to the Edge” or “The Gates of Delirium” from the Relayer Album), RUSH six-part “Hemispheres”, Klattu, early Genesis, Jethro Tull or Saga. If you think that just listening to this style is enjoyable then you you should try playing it live!

Of coarse there are always bands that I strongly feel that should have placed in there but have not for some reason or another. The one band that comes to mind is Toto, SOME of their earlier stuff that is.

albumcovers-toto1978.jpgTheir first album Toto, is the greatest one that they have put out and the only vinyl one of theirs that I have ever bought. As a matter of fact, I just bought CD version on-line a couple of minutes ago. This album really brings back memories of the my early years of playing rock guitar/music.

I had just been let go by Phylis and I was a little bit bummed out to say the least. I had just found out only last year by the keyboardist Tony, still a great friend to this day, that my parents were quite worried about my playing with them on the road in bars. I think they believed that I might be influenced by the rock & roll life style that accompanied being on the road at such a tender age of 15.

Anyways, during this period I was desperately trying to get out of my funk and at the time was desperately looking for another musical genre to put under my belt. This band had it all.

They were challenging to play live, a bit jazzy and a little bit of pop to round it out. Yes I did say pop. My great wife Tricia has always thought of me as a player who was a rocker at heart but for some reason loved pop music. She always has that look on her face when I play some great rock tunes only to be followed by some popish sounding stuff.

I fell in love with Child’s Anthem as well as Girl Goodbye because they have that Prog Rock like progressions to them.

I found I’ll Supply The Love, Georgy Porgy and You Are The Flower to have this Earth Wind and Fire feel to it. “Taking it back” has influences of Gino Vannelli’s Brother to Brother album, I also happen to know the brother of the drummer on this particular album.

So I hope that this post helps you better understand my childhood influences that I had growing up and the styles that has helped my playing of today.

Keep on Jammin’

The early St. Pius X Elementary School

by

If memory serves me correctly I started off playing in grade 5 at St. Pius X elementary school in Brantford.

My teacher was believe it or not, Mrs. Lord, yes that is correct! What a name for a Catholic school teacher. She was a guitar player who, played it for us in our music class. She played and we sang. She was playing some type of classical guitar and at the time I thought she was GREAT!

She played and we sang songs from the radio, which was in the early 70’s, and they sounded perfect. Songs like ” Seasons in the Sun”, ” Starry starry nights”, ” Alone again, Naturally” (which is a song that I still play today and is a long time favorite of mine) and I think she also played ” Natures way” as well.

We all started off learning the basics like, how to hold the guitar and the pick. This I found odd because she didn’t use one. She said that she felt more comfortable playing the guitar like that. She then taught us about the strings that we would be playing.

Then we progressed to chords! They were very basic ones. Anyway, I then remember her telling us that in our next music class she was going to show us how to play songs! I thought that would be a blast.

I guess everyone was excited with this new part of the curriculum, I know I was. I had a bit more of a leg up on everyone on this part of schooling. Imagine that mom and dad, I was at the head of the class for once!

Keep on Jammin’, I did

A Realization that I can play guitar

by

I was just surfing while listening to one of my favorite Canadian musicians of all time, Bruce Cockburn (B.C.). I came to the realization that I am finally playing like a great guitar player of the 80’s, Mark Knopfler.

In grade 8, a song came onto the music scene that was really new and refreshing. It was a band called “Dire Straights”. The song that caught my ear was “Sultan of Swing”.

The guitar player was just a jammin’ on this tune. His name is Mark Knopfler. This popular song at the time was a song that I just had to play. I was taking lessons from the best guitar teacher of all time, in my mind, C. Peterson. I had requested that he show me how to play this tune and he said that he had already figured it out.

Mr. P. was just unreal at figuring out anything in on guitar. So off he went and started to show me the song. It was fun and challenging to play, just the way I liked it. After a couple of lessons, I could play the song pretty much inside out, which is the way he taught me.

While playing the song for many years, I decided to re-visit this song to see if there was any other way(s) to improve playing it. Mr. Peterson introduced me to the technique that Mark Knopfler used on the song but I thought that this guy was one of those off beat musicians that would fade after a short success, boy was I wrong.

I had listened to this song repeatedly over the years,and I noticed subtle tones that I had missed while playing. When I played it, it had a crisper sounding to it then what he had. His version almost had a muddled sound. In my younger years listening to the song, I had noticed that, and I thought it was just the recording technique at the time and that was it. So I then tried playing it with just my fingers and wow, it was really hard to play.

Being a classical guitar player, I was use to using my fingers but had to use my nails to attack the strings but, this guy used his thumbs and at a lightning like speed during his solo’s to boot! I tried and tried and tried but I could not get the calluses on the sides of my fingers that I really needed to pull of the song so I went back to the original way of playing the song.

Now fast forward to 2 years ago when I fell in love with the B.C.’s style of finger picking. The attack technique used here was different from my classical training but I loved the sound he got out of his axe. It was just plain fun to listen to.

So today while I was surfing and listening to B.C. at the same time, I was listening to this song called “It’s Going Down Slow” and “Mamma just wants to barrelhouse all night long”, from Waiting for a Miracle (1987). Today I can play these ones not bad and I just enjoy listening to them. It was at that moment that I noticed the similarities between both techniques and it had just dawned on me that, I can play guitar.

Keep on jammin’

My first Rock Bands Concert … a KISS tribute one at that!

by

I mercifully skipped grade 7 for you all and went right to the good stuff.

Well I just have to let the cat out of the bag and swallow my pride on this one! Yes I was playing in a KISS tribute band and was Ace Frehley. Well in all honesty, the majority of the tunes were KISS tunes. I was the only one in the band who did not belong to the KISS Army though.

I was into more challenging music but the only guys I knew that could play were these guys! Don’t get me wrong, these guys were my best friends for the longest time! Eddie, was the drummer and had extensive gigging with a “Polka Band” and Brian, the guy in my previous posts was the other guitar player. We didn’t have a bass player at the time due to the fact that no one we knew played the bass.

When I was in grade 7, I remember playing with the Muroz brothers. It was fun because they had taken lessons and could play their instruments well. I think we played some Queen, Led Zeppelin and some pop tunes of the day. I forget why we broke up but I guess that is how it goes. Sorry, I just had to write a bit about the grade 7 thing!

Anyways, we would practice and practice for hours on end. I keep trying to get these guys to slow down and take apart the songs that we were playing and it did sink in to some degree. I’m sure that they would tell ya differently but it’s my blog so there!

As we grew older we found that other schools had band and that they were playing live at their schools so we had no choice, let’s do a live show. Our first and only show was to be played at “St. Bernard’s” school. This was what we thought was our big break!

During this time I had been introduced to another band in the making. They were both in high school and they were just who I was looking to play with. They were Tony, the keyboard player who sounded like a god on that thing, and Harry the guitar player who could play quit well technically but lacked the feel that you need!

Anyways, when we played the show, I had a blast! My soon to be band mates where in attendance and the show went on. Brian, who was like Gene did this wild guitar solo in the audience with the help of MANY GUITAR EXTENSION CHORDS while i was lying on the stage moving these knobs on my old ” BOSS BF-1 FLANGER”. Our band was named “Duce” and when we played it to start off the show, the words go something like this, “Get up and get the hell on out of here!” and there goes Brian singing it directly to a nun, I almost blew a nut laughing so hard on stage!

So, how was that?

My first Rock concert I’ve ever played in … in grade 6 that is.

by

Well I remember that being in grade 6 was quite a musical experiment to me.

A new kid named Brian came into our school that year. He seemed very cool but different from the rest of us. He spoke with a funny sound in his voice (that’s how I explained it when I was in grade 6 anyways). He was smart and a good soccer player. He also had a older brother who started hanging out with my older brother.

His brother liked and had all of the same music that all of us listened to, as well as some UK sounding style bands that we never had hear of. The guitar playing and singing was quite interesting. They also lived besides my brothers girl friend at the time. Soon we would start going over there to see them as well as her.

Brain and I got along great from the start. One day while in class, the teacher gave us all this assignment that was a report on what we liked and had to do a report on it in front of the class by years end. So, being off the wall as we were back then, we both thought that we should do a report on “Alice Cooper’s” new album, that everyone had, called “Schools Out”. We both thought that the best way to do a report was, not just to bore our fellow class mates by talking about it but, to sing it to them! This was also appropriate because it was almost the end of our school year.

We talked our teacher into letting us both do the same topic and that we would do it together in front of the class as well!

This was very exciting! So we listened to the words on it and sang it over and over again. We also knew that we had to give out information to the class for their own notes and asked my mother if she could do something for us. She was working on this thing called a “computer” at her work. I remember her bringing home papers that she read so, I asked her if she could go to work and do what ever she did with that computer thing and print these words out so we could give out to the class for the assignment. So, she did!

The day finally came for our report to be recited to our class and boy I was just bouncing off the wall with excitement! We had told our older brothers what we had in plan and they just laughed at the idea and said that it wouldn’t fly. By them laughing at our idea, it drove us with even more determination to make this the best report ever!

So when it was time for us to go up, we then gave out the copies of the song and walked up to the front of the class!
We had the teacher sign out the record player from the library so we could have the song playing while we sang it, in front of them. She then put the record in it and put the needle down! We had chosen ” Schools Out ” and sang our little hearts out! We even moved around like rock stars and ended our first rock concert, so we thought, with an screaming grade 6 class so much so that the principle came down just to see what the hell was going on.

Ahhhh, the simple things in life!

What was your first concert that you gave and how did it turn out!

Keep on Jammin’

The Christian Rock Band

by

Mrs. Lord, I think, arranged for a Christian Rock band play at our elementary school one time and this is what sent me on my journey to where I am today. To this day I am still trying to to find out what the the name of that band was.

They had showed up at our school with this touring bus that looked like the Partridge Family bus and it was amazing to look at. It had real groovy colours and patterns in the design. It looked like the Big Top just pulled in, well to a little kid anyway.

They were a 5 piece band with long hair. There was 3 men (guitar, drums and bass) and 2 women(Keyboards,flutes and tambourines).

When we went into our class, after the beginning/morning bell rang for us to go in, the anticipation was so thick that you could cut it with a knife! The morning had pasted and we where called in for the afternoon. As they were doing their sound check, my heart was racing so fast and I was literally bouncing off the walls! Mrs. Lord knew that I was going to go inter ballistic so, to make sure I wasn’t anymore of a distraction then usual, she asked me if I would see how the band was doing. Thank God the door was open or I would have bolted right through the damn thing.

As I entered the gym, the regular lights were out, the bands lights were being worked on and they were tuning and talking to each other. It was at this time that I think that I had an outer body experience!

I just stood there right in front of the stage and absorbed everything I could. I saw these glittering drums these big tall black things with lights and knobs on it (it must have been a Marshall, full stack) these things that a women was playing on the right side if the stage, that sounded like an organ one time and then the next moment sounded like a whole herd of violins that sounded much better then the grade 8 class ever did!

I had never heard a keyboard with such a full, wild sound like that before. Our church organ/keyboard had a traditional sound and feel, but seeing and hearing this electric keyboard\organ thing was wild! This was a change from the organist at our church which was always a man. I was trying to listen to both the guitar player and keyboardist but I was just in ahhhhh with what they were doing.

Finally the whole school was asked to go in and the event that was going to change my life was about to start!

When we were all seated on the floor, I didn’t sit with my classmates. I sat right in the middle and if anyone would have tried to ask me to go to where my class was sitting, I think that … well they wouldn’t be with us anymore.

The lights then went down and this very eerie music that made me feel very strange and scared, started to play! Then after minute pasted, a flash of light appeared and the transformation had begun. The lights were flashing and the POWER CHORDS brought me to another place in my mind!

Throughout the whole show I thought that I was the one that they were playing for, nobody else! I watched intensely as they played, the drummer was sooo powerful and the guitar solos made me feel like I was literally floating in the air. I finally looked around and saw kids holding their ears and running out of the gym, what the hell where they running from?I thought, GREAT, I hope they all leave and I can have this experience all to myself.

When the show was over I started screaming like some crazy girl at a Leif Garret show. For those not familiar with this guy, go and google him! Then everyone started screaming and screaming! Finally they came out for an ovation! They did this acapella thing that was a lot better then the harmonies that we did for mass and that stuck with me too!

After the show, we could go up and ask them questions and I told the guitarist that I too was a guitar player and he said that was great! He said keep practicing the basics and go VERY SLOWLY with it at first and then I will get faster later. Mrs. Lord then added that I was a good guitar player and she wanted to see if he would listen, and he said yes. I wasn’t nervous about anything back then so I played the band some songs and they liked it!

I got a chance to see them pack things up, and I watched them drive away. The guitar player drove away with one of the women in the band on the back of his motor cycle, wow, I knew then that this is what I wanted to be!

Has anyone ever had an experience like this in their life that changed them in such a drastic direction?

Keep on jamming everyone!

In the begining … part II

by

If memory serves me correctly I started off playing guitar in grade 5 @ St. Pius X elementary school in Brantford. I was 9 years old.

My teacher was, believe it or not, Mrs. Lord, yes that is correct! What a name for a Catholic school teacher. She was a guitar player who played for us in our music class. She played a classical guitar and at the time I thought she was GREAT! She played and we sang songs for the radio, which was in the early 70’s and they sounded perfect. Songs like ” Seasons in the Sun”, ” Starry starry nights”, ” Alone again, Naturally”, which is a song that I still play today and is a long time fav of mine, and I think she also played ” Natures way” as well.

We all started off learning the basic like how to hold the guitar and the pick. This I found odd because she didn’t use one, she said that she felt more comfortable playing like that. I thought nothing about playing without a pick for many years to come. She then taught us the strings that we would be playing.

Now she started out with chords! They were very basic.

She broke the class into 5 groups of 4 or 5 students. Each group had their own guitar and we each got a chance to practice on it. I can’t remember how civilized we were about sharing it, but I do recall that it was a blast.

The one thing that I do know was that, it was as easy as walking is to most people in the world. I remember having my fellow students look at me like I was cheating or something like that. I can see in my mind, a buddy who was having so much trouble in trying to play it that I went over and told him to relax then I broke it down to show him and then he finally got it. To my amazement I recall everyone looking at me and then they followed what I was saying! It got to a point where I was the top of the class in something!!! Mrs. Lord seemed to be so impressed that she eventually let me play guitar with her at our school masses that we had in the gym.

I don’t know if I told you this but, I, supposedly, was a LITTLE BASTARD as a kid! I found out through a cousin of mine that my grandfather, on my mother’s side, use to say Oh no, here comes that LITTLE BASTARD again~!@#$%^&*()_+!!! So, I was a little hyper-active kid. I’m man enough to admit it now! I guess as the old saying goes, we are the people that our parents warned us about. I was a very athletic kid at the time but not always the brightest light on the tree!

Keep on Jammin’

In the begining …

by

Hello everyone on-line!

This is my second attempt at blogging on my own so wish me luck, I’ll need it!

So, my name is Chris and I’m originally from Brantford, Ontario, Canada. This site is dedicated to the progression (or regression) of my journey on becoming a guitar player.

This page is here to express new idea’s on how to look at guitar playing from a different approach as well. I am known for being quite a task master in my approach to teaching. In a way you may say that I’m an old school teacher in how I teach/practice, ask my wife.

I take apart every song that I figure out and put it back again. I attempt to have/play as many strings as possible to give it a FULL FAT sounding tune. I love to input as many parts (little obvious runs) from the other instruments into this as humanly possible, instead of just playing/strumming a simplistic melody.

I try to incorporate inverted chords that allow playing in other positions on the neck that make it easier to achieve what the other instruments are doing in order to have that BIG sound. I know that you’ve heard this before but going over and over and over the very basics will help you achieve this easier, and in some cases, when you break down a song and put it back together, some of the basics that you were taught and did not get at first will come roaring back into you head saying “that’s what that thing is used for!!!” It’s like when you were in school and your too afraid to ask the teacher to go over as certain part of a study because you think that your the only one in the room who didn’t get? Come on, everyone has been there, done that and got the t-shirt right? You want to ask the teacher to repeat something and you look around at your fellow students and they look as if they got it, but more then likely they didn’t! this reminds me of the words ” when I look in their eyes, they’re running too” from Jackson Browne running on empty.

So that’s the end of this lesson, so until i blog again, when figuring out tunes on your own, listen to what every instrument is playing and pay attention to what licks each one is using when approaching a certain part of each song!

Meta

Archives

Pages

Tags

Acoustic amp band bands Brantford Bruce Cockburn Canada Canadian concert Entertainment fender funny General guitar Guitar Equipment guitarist guitar player guitars Home house Humor humour instrument jammin jazz John Mayer keyboard Live Music musician Musicians play playing Progressive Rock Pylis rock RUSH Songs to play sound strings Technology Toronto tour Video YES