April 23rd, 2010 / No Comments » / by GuitarWiz
I stumbled across this excellent video at the just the right time. I tuned my acoustic to open G tuning and I’ve been having a blast. I found this to be an amazing inspiration. I love the way he pounds on that octave harmonic, and all the play with his knuckles too. Enjoy!
April 15th, 2010 / No Comments » / by GuitarWiz
We all have days when we think we suck at guitar. Hell, that”d most days for me. You know that feeling like all your fingers are thumb…you can’t put 2 notes together to save your life, you suck and you always will. Maybe you should give up that damn guitar and take up needlepoint.
Well heres a couple of guys that worked it out without thumbs, or fingers or even elbows. Check ‘em out:
Now don’t you think you should stop feeling sorry for yourself, get out your guitar and practice?
January 22nd, 2010 / No Comments » / by GuitarWiz
The International Blues Challenge is going on this weekend. Blues bands from all over the world compete for the title and a slew of prizes.
And what better place for this illustrious event than Memphis, Tennessee? I had the honor of taking part in this awesome event in 2004. I got to play the blues on Beale Street right across from Handy Park. It was great!
If you are anywhere near Memphis this weekend be sure to check it out.
January 21st, 2010 / No Comments » / by GuitarWiz
If you eat, breathe, sleep and think guitar 24/7 now you can do your business into one too! Finally the guitar toilet seat is here. Apparently, the toilets of Steven Spielberg, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson sport the guitar toilet seat, so you will be in good company.
It brings a new meaning to “Boy that guitar sounds like shit!,” not to mention the comfort it will bring when you pray to the porcelain god.
If only it had a tuner….
Check them out at www.jamminjohns.com.
January 20th, 2010 / 1 Comment » / by GuitarWiz
Every once in a while you hear about a kid who can play guitar remarkably well…for his age. They show up on TV and play a few simple, sloppy blues licks while all the ignorant adults stand around wowing their incredible talent.
To tell you the truth it really gets on my nerves. I mean any somewhat motivated kid, with the proper instruction, can do what most of these kids do. The difference between most of these “child prodigies” and any other reasonably talented kid (with the right instruction) is overzealous parents.
I’m not trying to say anything negative about the kids. On the contrary, I think it’s great that the kids are working hard to master the guitar. My beef is with the adults.
A few years ago I had a 9 year old student that learned some Satriani licks from tab with his previous teacher. He played them sloppy and with no feeling, but he was hitting all the right notes. He had no idea what the notes were, and absolutely no sense of phrasing, but hell, the kid was 9.
The kids father thought that this kid was going to be the next Eddie Van Halen. And though he himself knew absolutely nothing about music or what it takes to play the guitar, he insisted on telling me what I should be teaching the kid. He sat in on the lessons and kept interrupting. He never let me do my job.
Needless to say, this was unacceptable and I we agreed that maybe he should find another teacher. It was a shame because I could have really helped that kid.
I did see them again about a year ago. The kid is a teenager now and still playing entirely off tabs. It’s a shame really.
I’m telling you all of this to give you a peek into my psyche. These are the things that go through my head when someone tells me about some kid on the internet or on TV who can really play guitar. All of this is what went through my head when a family member shot me an email about Lucciano Pizzichini.
Now, take a look at this:
This time I gotta admit it…this kid can play guitar!
January 16th, 2010 / No Comments » / by GuitarWiz
Attention all gearheads! The NAMM show is going in right now in Anaheim California. In case you don’t know, the NAMM show is the where the companies that make anything and everything related to making music show their new products. So if you love guitars you would be in heaven at the NAMM show. Sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, doesn’t it?
Driving to California this afternoon is out for me, and these days who the hell wants to fly? But you can still be part of the goings on.
The Dean “Live from NAMM” Webcast goes live this weekend and will feature nearly over 100 exclusive artist interviews, new Dean instrument spotlights, the lovely Dean girls and more. The Dean Guitars “Live from NAMM” Webcast is a groundbreaking production that gives viewers a backstage pass to this exciting music-industry only event.
OK, I stole that paragraph from the email Dean sent, I admit it. Sue me.
I’m speechless! You can be be part of the NAMM show in seconds, just follow this link:
http://www.deanguitars.com/namm10.php
Learn more about the NAMM foundation.
July 20th, 2009 / 4 Comments » / by GuitarWiz
We take a long flat hunk of wood, hammer some pieces of metal into it, stretch 6 wires across it, and spend the rest of our lives trying to figure the darn thing out. How can something so simple be so complicated?
The guitar is a complicated instrument, and it’s very difficult to master. It’s hard to see all the notes, and most things can be played on the guitar in many ways. And I don’t mean different chord voicings or melodic ideas, I mean the exact same notes.
But if you look closer there is a way to simplify things. All you need to know are these basic chord shapes:
Each of these chord shapes is the basis for a basic chord form (or shape), and each of these basic chord forms can be moved up the fingerboard to play any major chord. For example, when you play the E shape on the 3rd fret (your basic barre chord) you are playing a G major chord. It can be thought of as the E form of the G major chord. In other words, it is shaped like an open E chord.
Each of these chord forms can be found somewhere on the fingerboard with any of the 12 notes as the root. And if you look closely you will notice a few things:
July 10th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by GuitarWiz
George Fullerton was the “G” in G&L Guitars. I just read about his death in this article:
In the 70′s, Leo fender, along with George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt founded G&L Musical Instruments. These guitars continued the concepts invented by Leo Fender, and took them further.
I once owned a G&L Telecaster style guitar. Boy do I regret selling that one! (Take my advice…never sell a guitar! If you are tired of it just put it away for a while and play another one. If you sell it you will eventually want it back). Especially since the guy I sold it to chopped it up to install a Bigsby tremolo that doesn’t really work right.
Anyhow, it’s the death of another legend. Rest in peace George.
June 25th, 2009 / No Comments » / by GuitarWiz
Ever on the lookout for cool new music, and of course being of limited means (I am a musician), I admit that from time to time I have set my morals aside in order to obtain the coveted cool music. OK, I’m a sinner. I’m not going to heaven. Woe is me.
So when I stumble across new music that is not only cool, but absolutely 100% free, it is a gift from the music gods. Hallelujah!
Daytrotter is a recording studio in downtown Rock Island, Illinois. Daytrotter.com is their website, which is not merely cool, it is unbelievably cool. What these fine people do is invite musicians into their studio for one day, record them and make 5 songs available online for free. Simple, and beautiful.
And to make it even better, at least to me, is that these recordings “…are all live, no overdubs, straight to tape. What you hear is what happened in the room that day.”
In these days of computerized tweaking, overproducing, soul sucking sterile recording it is so refreshing to really hear the band, not the technology. I like to hear the room, the interaction between musicians, the musical event.
Daytrotter.com has so many great free music downloads that you will need to buy a new hard drive just to store them. The daytrotter.com home page shows that they have posted over 7 million songs. At the time of this writing, the daytrotter archive page had 614 awesome artists, some of whom are well known, like Aimee Mann, Death Cab for Cutie, and Ani DiFranco, others awaiting your discovery.
But wait, the audio is not all. They also have a limited number of performance videos. And the way cool art on their website makes it a really nice place to be.
Do yourself a favor and when you check out daytrotter.com be sure to subscribe to the daytrotter.com feed so you don’t miss a thing.
June 23rd, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by GuitarWiz
A lot of people have written asking for help with sweep picking. As I like to start at the beginning, this will be the first in a series of posts that starts at the most basic level and goes all the way to the monster guitar chops level.
