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These are a few of my favorite things. I love these guitar players, check em out. St Vincent, or Annie Clark, is one of my favs for sho. She writes awesome avante-garde pop tunes and then occasionally rips over them with some guitar pyrotechnics. She's been a bit more interested in song craft and texture with her more recent releases, which she excels in, but check her earlier two albums ("Marry Me" and "Actor") for some gnarly tones and mean sounds. Robert Fripp got his start playing guitar for punk-as-hell prog-rock band, King Crimson. He moved forward with a lengthy solo career collaborating with the likes of David Bowie, Brian Eno, and many more. He was constantly reimagining guitar. He moved from prog rock to ambient guitar noise to soundscapes and wildness. Check him out. Nels Cline may be most known for his work as Wilco's lead guitarist, and his playing definitely lends some much needed flavor to what may be the biggest alt dad-rock band of all time, but his solo material reveals his true genius. Check this performance from his group the Nels Cline Singers. I was introduced to Sonny Sharrock through Space Ghost Coast to Coast, for which he recorded the intro theme and music used throughout. If you've never listened to the theme tune for that show you should definitely go watch an episode to have your face melted by his other-worldly free-jazz licks. Ask the Ages is the last record he put out before his death and reveals the depth of this guy's work, ranging from wild free-jazz freak outs to elegant and nuanced displays of melodicism that put Santana to shame.
-alex In the musical world women are not often associated with the double bass or bass guitar. This week I thought I would highlight some amazing female bass players. Tal Wilkenfeld is probably best known for playing with Jeff Beck, but has also shared the stage with other notables like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Macy Gray, and Toto. With her smooth style and mixture of chording and tasty licks, she left Australia and landed New York at age 18 to make a name for herself. Esperanza Spalding is an Grammy Award winning solo bassist that draws on many different genres for her own compositions. She experimented with many instruments growing up but finally landed on the bass in high school. Not only did she become a phenomenal bassist, she can also sing in 3 languages! Bridget Kearney is the bassist from the up and coming soul quartet Lake Street Dive. Being in a band that doesn't have a full time guitarist makes the bass player work over time to fill in the gaps, but Bridget has no problem picking up the slack, all the while providing back up vocals. “So David”, Al asked me last week, “why do we have flats and sharps?” Well the reason we have these is because our 'system' of Western music is comprised of both whole steps and half steps. That's the way it evolved from Gregorian chant. (For we fretted instrument players, a whole step is two frets and a half step is one fret. It's a whole step from fret 1 to fret 3 and a half step from fret 1 to fret 2.) So why are flats and sharps important ….? Well, to start with we need flats and sharps in order to have half steps and we need half steps in order to make music that sounds 'right' to our traditional Western ears. OK, guitar players, try this: starting with C on the 2nd string first fret and staying on the 2nd string, play every other fret (whole step) until you reach C on the 13th fret. How does that sound? Doesn't it make your ears want to hear some half steps somewhere in there? Also as a result of the evolution of 'Western" music is the fact that the intervals of fourths (C to F) and fifths (C to G) became very fundamental to Western music. (Without those intervals we wouldn't have all the three-chord songs that are so near and dear to our hearts.) You simply can't get from either C to F or C to G without using a half step. Think that's complicated? Then don't ask me about double sharps and double flats! So that's it; Western music 'needs' half steps … and you need flats and sharps to create them in every key but C and A minor. -david The capo is one of the most essential tools for a guitarist. I might even go so far as to say that a capo can be as important as a tuner! The ability to play songs in any key while utilizing open chord voicings is crucial as a songwriter, and ultimately, due to the way a guitar is tuned, there are certain licks and melodies that simply cannot be played correctly without a capo! The term “capo” is derived from the Italian words "capo tasto" which means head fret. This makes sense, as a capo's function is essentially to move the first fret anywhere you choose on the fingerboard. Early capo designs that were widely used throughout the 60's and 70's utilized an elastic band that stretched around the neck of the guitar securing a bar over the fretboard. Though these classic elastic band style capos are not widely used anymore, the basic functionality of any capo remains the same: to hold the strings down anywhere on the fretboard. These days, the most common capos used are built by companies like Shubb, Kyser, Paige, and G7th. Modern capos range from simple in design to more elaborate. The G7th Performance 2 capos for example, have a very sleek, space age appeal, while also being highly functional and easy to use. I recently started using this capo and have been very happy with it so far. One bit of advice I would offer to those of you who are thinking about getting a capo is to avoid the "economy" models, while these will typically save you a few bucks, they are generally not built well and require extra time to put on and take off -- not good if you are in the middle of songs and want to avoid that awkward stage silence! For $20 you can get a great capo that will last you years -- or as long as it takes you to lose it! -McCoy McCoy Tyler is a salesman at Sylvan Music with an aptitude towards acoustic guitars, amps, and pickup systems. When he's not spouting musical knowledge on the sales floor, he can be found doing some hot picking and sweet singing with his group The McCoy Tyler Band. Do you want to play an instrument but don't want to 'learn' anything? Well then you're a perfect candidate for the AUTOHARP! It's just barely harder than playing the radio. All you need is someone to tell you what chord to play and you just press that button and strum all the strings. It's that easy!! We even have an electric autoharp in our shop so you could plug in and get crazy psychedelic if you so desired. There's nothing stopping you. If you have 2 working hands and you're not in a coma then you could master this thing by the end of the day!
-Mike
The many times that his friends were at the house, my wife and I were happy to evacuate the living room and give them their space. We often commented on how energetic and happy this group can party. Loud laughter, dancing, snacks, and unjudgemental friendship. Did I mention, no alchohol or drugs. We've learned a lot over the years watching this group interact with one another. He kicked my ass in a chess match last night, I'm not used to that. My competitive side was hurting but my pride was elated that my baby out-bested me. The next day, mom prepared one of our favorite meals, chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli, so that softened the blow. He's leaving tomorrow, back north, and we will miss him.
We have many relationships in our lives but none compare to the love for our children. We've watched their every step, we've cured their pain and confusion, and our love for them has given us the strength and the creativity to make their journey as obvious and transparent as we are capable. We love you Perry. Experimenting with your effects chain is an easy avenue to pursue if you're looking to diversify your guitar sound. A simple example which I have found to be pretty fun is placing your reverb pedal before your distortion and cranking them both! Most "common-sense" guides discourage this because your tone loses all sense of clarity and separation, but it is so awesome come on! Instead of your distortion box clipping your clean signal, it takes this massive ocean of noise and then it sets that ocean of noise on fire! But anyways, try stuff out, experiment, never give up trust your instincts!
-Alex I thought I'd attempt to tickle your funny bone this week so here's a list of some good music related jokes. Most of the musicians or instruments in the jokes are interchangeable, so you can change them to rib whichever bandmate shows up late for practice. "Whats the difference between a large pizza and a drummer?" "A large pizza can feed a family of 4" "What did the banjo player get on his exam?" "Drool" "How many bass players does it take to change a lightbulb?" "One Five One Five One Five" "How can you tell if the stage is level?" "The banjo player is drooling out of both sides of his mouth" - A man walks into a music store and says to the clerk, "I'd like to play that big red saxophone". The clerk replies, "You must be a banjo player". The man says " I sure am, how'd you know?" Clerk scoffs, "Because that's a fire extinguisher." "Whats black and blue and lying in a ditch?" "A guitar player that told too many drummer jokes" "How does a lead guitarist change a light bulb?" "He holds it and the world revolves around him" "What is a gentleman?" "Someone who knows how to play mandolin but doesn't" "What does a mandolin player use for birth control?" "His personality" "How can you tell there's a mandolin player at your front door?" "They can't find the key, the knocking speeds up, and he doesn't know when to come in" "Whats the difference between a ukulele and a trampoline?" "You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline" "Whats the difference between and ukulele and an onion" "Nobody cries when you cut up a ukulele"
Fifty years ago or more I spent hour after hour staring at and dreaming about the electric guitars on display at Lyon & Healy, Chicago’s largest musical instrument store.
This was the era before Fender Strat and Gibson Les Paul copies so dominated guitar design. Local guitar manufacturers such as Kay, Harmony, Valco, Supro and more were experimenting with wonderful “out of the box” designs. These were soon followed by imports such as Teisco, Greco, Guyatone and others. Crazy shapes, crazy electronics, crazy colors and crazy materials; I drooled over them all. Some had vibrato systems, most of which barely worked. Some had built in speakers – you can imagine how that sounded. Body styles and designs were as varied as can be. Remember, this was the time when automobile design was featuring fins and tons of chrome. Product design in general was beginning to reflect the culture’s fixation on outer space. Electric guitar design didn’t escape this trend. But all of these electric guitars had one thing in common – they were cool, very, very cool! And now Sylvan Music is about to make that cool available again. We’re set to receive our first shipment of Airline electric guitars in about a week and we’re all excited about it. These instruments have the same cool factor as the originals but are built much better, sound much better, and feature better overall playability than the originals. Best of all, this retro cool is available at very reasonable prices. Make sure to come by soon and try them out. - David |