Guitars, tips and great music discussions
I imagine that having an extra digit on your left hand must have it’s con’s, but the pro’s might just make it worth it!
Playing a 7 string guitar would come in quite handy with a hand configuration like this? When playing difficult chord progressions like the ones that Bruce Cockburn and John Mayer use, wouldn’t it be nice to have another finger just hanging around the old fret board?
Wow, keep on Jammin’
If your a guitar player who thinks that he or she knows it all, then you should just skip this post! Also, this post is VERY LONG as well!
Every once in a long while I come across a guitar player who thinks that they know it all. I think that we’ve all met a person like this who fits the category? I understand that in order to be a great player you have to have this invincible attitude or ego to obtain these lofty goals but come on, you can’t know everything. There is always someone out there that knows something that you don’t.
In my younger days, there were moments when I had this type of footprint attached to my persona. Sometimes upon entering a Brantford music store some musicians put down what ever they were playing and looked at it as if they didn’t know what this thing was that they had in their hands. Sometimes at a party or other social event guitarists would not play while I was playing or afterwards for that matter. This I thought was good for my ego, but later on I realized that we all were doing was just cheating ourselves out of a learning experience. After not playing for many years, I started to understand this problem.
While living in a dorm/frat house I started to play with many levels of musicians. I realized that some had these guitarists were playing these great little progressions that I had never heard of before and it spurred on my thirst for more musical knowledge. I made great efforts to stunt my level of playing and let other people shine. This approach made others relax and play without intimidation.
Fast forward to today, I think that it is time for me to take lessons again, not to figure out songs/styles but for technique. I know proper positioning, how to change chords efficiently, but I could use some work on understanding progressions better.
Another area is finger picking.
My classical picking is now at the level of a hack, but I can achieve the action and dexterity that I need to pull off a song or style without any noticeable problems. The classical stance is something that I do not use to any great extent but it does come in handy once in a long while.The real problem is with my thumb drone or an alternating bass picking style. The easiest way to understand this is to imagine a piano. You have the left hand working the bass or lower notes and the right hand doing the phrasing/melody. In guitar, your thumb is the bass and the rest of your fingers are the right hand playing the phrasing/melody.
Bruce Cockburn is the master of this in my eyes! It’s almost impossible to pigeon toe his style into one word but this is one of his many fortes. The best example of this is one Going to the Country which I have been trying to finger out or master for many years. I wish that the intro to the song was there to introduce to you to what I mean about his playing ability.
So now I am toying with the idea of taking lessons at the 12th Fret by a gentleman call Dave Martin. He specializes in picking, he loves the some style of picking that I do and best of all he has the same length of fingers that I have. While talking to him, he told me that he has come up against the same playing/technique problems that I have so it would be nice to have someone who has similar issues in this area.
They charge around $22.50 a 1/2 hour so I’ll try him out for a bit and see how it works out! I’ll get back to you later on the results and besides, he probably knows something that I don’t!
This is a company that is owned and run by an old guitarist buddy that I use to play with way back in the day. His name is John Ball and what a success story his is.
John and I always played together but not in the same band. We hung around the same circle of friends and musicians and to make a long story short, we had different playing styles that never really over lapped. He gravitated to the harder speed metal sort of arrangements while I was under a more Progressive Rock, Jazz and to a lesser extent Pop genre.
My sister and John were closer in age and they both were in the same grade at St. John’s College. Boy did both of them get themselves into a little bit of trouble as kids during those years! Then again, I was no angel either.
His company is called Ball Media Productions and he had his humble beginnings in our home town of Brantford, Ontario. He at first started his empire with a recording studio in the basement of a well known Brantford music studio called Music and Sound. Over the years he has branched of into different area’s as he sees fit.
Now his company has a jaw dropping amount of specialized services that can now compete with the big guys!
Ball Media includes Printing/Bindery, Packaging, Branding/Indentity, CD / DVD Replication, Graphic Design and Web/Multimedia plus video area’s of expertise. Take a look for yourself and if you do need his services for anything no matter how small, just tell him “Stickman” sent you!
I wish him well with all of his company’s future endeavors but I know that he doesn’t need it!
Keep on Jammin’ Johnnie!
Basically making a Humbucker pick up(p/u) is when you place a single coil beside another one.
Visually you will notice that some Humbucker p/u’s may have a cover on them, thus you will not see the two coils side by side. I will try to explain that one in another post.
Both coils generate a signal that comes from the strings that are vibrating or making sound. If you pluck a string it will vibrate in a certain direction and height. During one complete cycle it will move closer and then farther away from the pick up itself. By placing two of them side by side obviously gives you more signal/sound output that comes out the the p/u and into the guitar amplifier.
These coils are wired together in a configuration called series.
For people just trying to grasp at this idea, here goes nothing. Both of the coil’s wirings are opposite to each other.
When you wrap the wire around the coil, it can be wound either by clock wise or counter clock wise direction. This is better known as polarity, or the direction of how the signal is sent to the amp. In guitar terms it is better recognized as reverse winding and reverse magnetic polarity called RWRP.
For guitarist in the know, the RP is how the pick ups are wired to each other.
With a single coil p/u, it generates a certain hum from it. For some, this drives them mad and others love the effect. I tend to fall in the middle of this one. Both sounds are very unique. So now having two coils in RWRP, the EMF effect, offsets the other one thus making a hum less p/u with more power. BTW, this is the reason why they called it the HUM-BUCKER pick up, get it? Also by adjusting the height of the p/u, you change the sound and output of it.
This link is to a How to make a Humbucking Pick Up thus giving you a complete visualization of the structure and a better idea of how it works. I tend to be a more visual person in how I learn, some people learn more by audio means.
I hope that I did not confuse anyone with this post. I just want to give the average person a better/basic working knowledge of how this system works!
Keep on Jammin’
Well good readership, I have been going on for a while about fingernails. Let’s make things clear, I’m talking about the ones on my right hand only!
I envy people with finger nails that they could use as screw drivers! I just wish that there was a product that really made a difference on mine. The only thing that I found on line is the Guitarist Guide to Fingernails.
At work in the surgical area, there is a new finding that acrylic finger nails trap germs on them and that we are told not to use them. Ahhhhhhhh, but I need mine to play at the level that I am accustomed to. So, I have decided to go a different root this time. I am forgoing placing the regular acrylic tips on and just placing the hardener right on to the nails themselves. This totally eliminates the tips that are causing the problem.
In order to pull this off, I had to let my nails grow a bit longer then I would have them praying just to have a larger surface to work with. You know just in case things went south very quickly.
I am now back from my secret manicurists hide out and we’ve successfully applied the above mentioned hardener right onto the nails on my right hand. To the axe cave I go! I then picked up the axe and started to put my experiment to the test!
At first, I tried a bit of Bruce Cockburn’s If I had a Rocket Launcher and it was not that bad. I then began to adjust the length and shape of the nail to my specifications with my handy dandy file.
Now it was time for tougher challenge, playing Blackbird at warp speed! They are holding their own so far. Finally, the acoustic version of Neon from John Mayer, perfect!
Now let’s hope that it will continue this way!
Keep on Jammin’
I first heard of this band by my buddy Tony when we were standing next to the speakers at the Saga concert that I was at recently.
He had told me that his son that has his own band, loves this type of Rock. He quickly described it as a hybrid of RUSH, Saga, Yes and Heavy thrashing metal. These guys I had to check out!
I first headed off to what in the world is that obscure site called … oh ya, youtube and listened to a few of Dream Theater’s tunes.
This is the one song that really caught my eye. It was everything that Tony had told me about all wrapped up into one song.
The keyboardist sounded like a young Rick Wakeman near the beginning and the bass player sounded a bit like Chris Squire. The guitarist had that Alex Lifeson sound that he had on A Farewell to Kings album one minute then a hint of Permanent Waves the next! The vocalist at first sounded a bit like Jethro Tall then Michael Sadler from Saga.
Todays music in my mind, sometimes lack the feel of musical diversity. There is so much influence out there that bands just don’t tap into. Remember, there is no such thing as a completely new style that has never been heard of before. We may use multiple approaches/styles to create these new sounds but we all use outside influences to create our own individual stamp of music.
I now think that it’s time to let Rick be exposed to this style and see if he can incorporate some of this into his unique approach!
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Keep on Jammin’
Mark Goffeney is definitely in the running for my vote for the most unique guitarists to have come around in quite some time.
I saw this somewhere and when I saw it I knew that I had to post about it.
I mean have you ever tried this feat, no pun intended!
It is hard but this guy makes it look just plain old easy? Check out his site and enjoy the show!
Mark also has a great myspace account.
Keep on Jammin’ indeed!
Has anyone out there heard of this guitar maker? I found out about these guys through a patient that I was taking back to their room after a procedure. The patient was a bass player and said that it was the pride of the collection. So curious about it I went and googled it.
To my amazement the makers were none other them Leo Fender – Maker of all pre-CBS Fender as well as Music Man instruments – and George Fullerton.
Leo Fender, we all know who he is but, the other guy, not so much. George Fullerton is the co-creater of the Fender Stratocaster. Not a bad thing to have as a lasting legacy of a man now is it!
G & L was the result of Leo having to sell his company in 1965 due to health problems that he was having in the early 60’s. It was started up in 1980 at the same location that had housed his Clarence Leo Fender Research (CLF) facility.
Some of the musicians who use these beauty’s are personal favorites of mine. For example:
Carl Perkins, Canada’s own Gord Sinclair (The Tragically Hip), Peter Frampton and Bob Mayo (Peter Frampton Band), Neal Schon (Journey), Davey Johnstone (Elton John band), Gary Hewitt (Gary Allan Band) and all the guitarists from Aerosmith and INXS. Just to name a few.
If you happen to come across this post and own one of these beauty’s PLEASE write a comment here about your experiences about your axe. We’d really like to hear from you, please?
Keep on Jammin’
I was made aware of the Saga concert on the morning of the show.
Tony, God bless that guy, called me on Saturday morning and asked if we were going to see them that night. I had told him that I knew nothing of the show and hung up to get some tickets on-line.
My wife was not feeling up to going to the show so I naturally decided to contact my keyboardist friend Rick to drag him along.
The tickets were $20.00 Can. the seating was in general admission. We were one the first one’s there so we decided to stand beside the stage. We waited for a long time until Tony,the old keyboardist from Pylis and his beautiful wife Laurie to meet us there.
Last time we saw Saga live was around 2 years ago at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto. That night we stood on the right side of the stage were Ian Crichton the guitarist traditionally played. Tony wanted us to be on Ian’s side of the stage so I could be amazed by his wizardry. At this point I was recovering from a heart problem and I thought that it was really nice of my old buddy to be thinking in this way!
This time I thought we should be on the keyboardist Jim Gilmour’s side because of Tony’s nice gesture the last time we saw the boys in the band.
We were around 15 feet, yes 15 feet away from him and it was wonderful vantage point to see the band from. Tony couldn’t have been happier.
Here is the set that they played that night!
Trust
That’s as far as I’ll go
Wind him up
Your not alone
The one
The Perfectionist
Conversations
Scratching the surface He did this solo and it was dedicated to a married couple that he knew.
The Flyer
The Perfectionist
The Runaway
See them smile
Compromise
Careful where you step
Don’t be late
Don’t be late is my favorite Saga of all time! It really was the best song that I have ever played then and now!!!
Encore
Humble stance
On the Loose
The end of a Rocking Roll/Progressive Rock era ladies and gentlemen.
Keep on Rockin’ Saga!
I was introduced to the Vox Tonelab SE peddle by a guy who I was playing with this past weekend at the Arlington Hotel’s Capron’s Cavern, Paris Ontario.
The event was being held for a dear family friend who was celebrating his 50th birthday. Craig Peeler was the guitarist who played a wide variety of tunes. I brought along my Larivee and he graciously let me jam with him on stag that night.
Wow, I was at Steve’s Music on Queen St. in Toronto today and I was looking at a Vox ToneLab SE. This thing looks HOT! Unfortunately they did not have this in stock but was getting them in this week.
John Boldt was the rep. that I was talking to and he was very up to date on his pedals. He was saying that 12AX7 dual triode vacuum tube is used at the end/output of the inside mother board of the floor peddle. This has quite the warming effect on the sound. The tube is not used for the power of this system! He said that most pedal companies are using the vacuum tube at the beginning of their process but Vox was using it at the tail end instead. This makes sense because you would always want a warmer tube sound coming out the speakers.
I would recommend this little piece of equipment heaven for anyone’s collection!
Keep on Jammin’