Last Johnny Cash Song

"Like the 309," the last song written by Johnny Cash before his death, will be included on "American V: A Hundred Highways." The album includes one other original song, and covers of such songs as: Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)," Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind," and Hank Williams' "On the Evening Train."

Keith Richards Undergoes Surgery

After either falling out of a tree, off a jet-ski, or both, Keith Richards ended up in hospital in New Zealand under observation. After "complaining of headaches yesterday, doctors thought it prudent to move ahead with a small operation to remove the pressure."

Apple Beats Apple

An english judge ruled that Apple Computer Inc., did not violate the terms of a trademark agreement with Apple Corps.

iTunes is safe! (for the moment.)

Dylan Does Radio

Bob Dylan a radio DJ? Yes sir, if you have XM radio his one hour long weekly radio show debuted this week. Each show of Theme Time Radio Hour has a theme (this week it was weather, next week Mother's Day) and Dylan provides a commentary that is "uncharacteristically chatty."

Unfortunately I don't have XM Radio, and I don't think I'm curious enough to spend the money to listen to one show, but they do offer a free 3-day streaming trial (see link from web page.)

Yahoo Article: "Mr Tambourine Man played a song for me: Dylan's DJ debut"

XM Radio Page

T5 Soundcheck

Taylor's T5 is a sort of hybrid guitar. It's more electric than acoustic, but it's supposed to be able to generate acoustic tones as well as electric ones.

From my own limited time with it, it feels (sound, the way the strings respond) more like an electric; though the neck feels more like their acoustic guitars, if that makes any sense.

Whatever. It didn't work for me (though I do think they look pretty cool.)

Taylor has a T5 Soundcheck on their website where you can hear what the T5 sounds like in various combinations through different amps. I don't know that it should really influence anyone's ultimate buying decision, but it is an interesting way to spend some time...

Rock And Roll: Priceless

One day they're going to take away You Tube, and half my posts will disappear. But until then here's a spoof(?) of those MasterCard "priceless" ads:

Let It Be

This video is actually taken from recording sessions for The Beatles aka The White Album but it makes me wish they'd rerelease the movie Let It Be on DVD. I know it's not exactly a happy movie, but just having the concert on the rooftop footage would be great!

Darol Anger's Republic Of Strings

Darol Anger's Republic Of Strings played at Club Passim on Saturday. I don't know the name of this song, but it's a good indication of the kind of things they performed (though they ranged over several styles of music.) good stuff, though I was mostly interested in observing how the guitarist was playing accompaniment.

Practice, Practice, Practice

From the June 2006 (it's June already?!!) issue of Acoustic Guitar these tips for practicing (abbridged)

1. Block off your practice time
2. Set a goal for the day
3. Keep a journal
4. Warm up first
5. Use a Metronome
6. Do it every day

Here I go:

1. Sometime after dinner
2. Find my tuner
3. That's what this is
4. It's 70 inside at the moment, close enough
5. I know I had one, I just haven't seen it for about a year...
6. Ehh, maybe tomorrow

Mark Geary performs Volunteer

Mark Geary opened for The Weepies last night at Club Passim. I didn't think I'd heard him before, but when he started playing Volunteer I knew that I'd heard that song before. Very nice song.

At the end he even does some looping, and a song that has a bit of a Beatles song in it (I've Got A Feeling) can't be all bad!

John Gorka

John Gorka played at Club Passim last Sunday, April 23, and it was a great show. Though I wasn't really familiar with his music prior to the show, I've heard his name around a lot; just didn't quite know what he'd done. So it was cool to catch him live and see what it was like.

I really enjoyed the show and he has some great songs, just two highlights; Mean Streak and People My Age which is a hilarious little number about growing old. John has a great stage presence; very amusing and light hearted, but a dynamic performer.

And he plays a Martin.

The audio on this is a little light due to the camera used to record it, and because I was off axis from the front speaker.

John Lennon: Back From The Dead Part II

No, I didn't see it, but Stephen Colbert talked about it on his show last night. He said that John Lennon's message was 'Peace, the answer is Peace' or something like that.

Stephen wasn't so sure what John meant, so he immediately took out his own after-life communication device and 'spoke' to the spirit of John Lennon. Seems that John really meant 'piece' as in 'getting a piece of the action.' Turns out the afterlife is kind of expensive.

Logic Express

I've been playing with GarageBand, but even after installing 1GB in my iBook, have been a little annoyed with it's performance. I mean, I think GarageBand is perfectly fine for me features wise; it's just annoying to have it stop recording after only three or four minutes with only one track.

Apple also sells Logic, and Logic Express. Logic is a high-powered audio creation and editing tool, while Logic Express is somewhat in between GarageBand and Logic. Some people on the web report that Logic is more efficient - less of a system pig - than GarageBand.

You can even download a trial version of Logic Express, though I found the link on another web site rather than found it on Apple's site, itself.

So I'm going to give that a whirl and see if it really is a little smoother than GarageBand.

John Lennon: Back From The Dead With A Great New Diet!

From what little I know of John Lennon, I think that the last thing he would do is communicate from the other side via a pay-per-view event, but that's evidently the case:

A controversial television seance airing on Monday will claim it has reached the spirit of John Lennon, but viewers will have to pay $9.95 to find out what the peace-loving Beatle has to say.

Then again, maybe the rates are cheaper, or maybe he would do it, just to screw with us.

Justin King

Pretty amazing playing!

How Do You Pronounce Takamine?

Like the word Porsche, it appears that I've been pronouncing it all wrong.

Takamine is pronounced:

tah -- kah -- MEE -- neh

The word means "high ridge" (as in "mountain ridge") and is taken from the name of a mountain (Mt. Takamine) located in the Gifu Prefecture where the company is located.

GarageBand Tutorials

I've been messing around with GarageBand since:

a) I already have it
b) it seems to work!
c) it's not that complicated

and I just came across the Apple Tutorials for it, which makes it even easier; trust me, it's not as obvious to use as you might think/wish that it was.

World's Worst Songs

Ken Levine started a list of the Worst Songs of all Time. I don't agree with everything on the list, but most of them I do!


4/31 UPDATE: Another worst songs article at CNN.com.

Holophone H3-D Microphone

Is it a space probe from Star Wars? Or some new robot? Maybe a shaker? Nope, it the Holophone H3-D microphone, a 5.1 multi-channel surround sound microphone. This is described as 'economical' as it will be priced at $1,695. Their H2-D Pro microphone costs $5,500.

What's it do? Well it outputs multiple channels, and provides a surround sound image. You need the ability to record all those channels at once separately (a drag if you only has a USB interface or a low-cost recorder.) What's it's application? Ummm...well I'm sure it has some application for live recording, though novice that I am, I can't help but think that you have a lot more control if you mic things separately.

The astute amongst you will notice that this image is a 3D model. Their microphones do exist though; at least they have pictures of their H2-D on their website.

Lost In Vermont

I'm in Vermont, staying with friends for a couple of days.

Last night we went to see Cabaret at the Northern Stage, a small professional theater in White River Junction, VT. I'd never seen Cabaret before (live or the movie) so it was really exciting to see it. The production was really good. I hesitate to say that it was "better than expected" since that suggests automatically that I wasn't expecting much. The production was excellent, the actors all great, and even though I don't think I'd put Cabaret forward as my favorite show, I definitely enjoyed it and was really glad to see it.

Unfortunately, the last performance is tonight, so you missed it!

Today stopped into Hanover Strings which is the local musical instrument store in Hanover New Hampshire. It's a small store, and it has breadth more than depth, but still was interesting to spend a quarter hour looking through. Bought a book of Dave Matthews Band Music. They had an iControl, a USB controller that works with GarageBand, which I hadn't seen before; . Not sure that it's worth the $150, but still interesting. The guy behind the counter was kind enough to let me open the box and nose around for a second.

And to complete the 'i' report, my friends have the Altec Lansing inMotion speakers for the iPod. The sound isn't too bad; not as good as Apple's seapkers, but then it's half the price.

Another Thought On Digital Beatles

Reading the News.com report on The Beatles going digital, I see the following note:

Neil Aspinall, a former Beatles road manager and managing director of Apple Corps, was a witness in the company's trademark lawsuit against Apple Computer.

He said that the company was digitally remastering the entire Beatles catalog, which would pave the way for selling the songs online.

Which got me thinking. Remastering? Really? Or do they just mean compressing? Are they really going through and remastering the recordings? I thought they did that once for the CD release? Could a remaster done now (about 20 years after the CD remastering) be any better than the CD remaster?

I'm guessing that yes, advances in technology and all that, they might do a better job. Though I have to wonder how much you will lose when those remasters are compressed to go out over the Interent.

But what I find really curious is that, reading Geoff Emerick's book, he says several times that he doesn't like the CD recordings because they magnify problems in the original recordings. Wouldn't a digital remaster done now just make it even worse? Or will the digitally take out all the noise? And if they alter them so much, then aren't we getting away from the original recordings?

In other words; if The Beatles never made a Dolby Digital 5.1 release of Sgt. Peppers is it okay to do it now? Or is it like colorizing old Black & White movies?

Beatles Join The Revolution

It seems that The Beatles are going to join the online revolution and start selling there music digitally through The Internets. Oh goody! I can buy their catalog a third time (to go with the vinyl and CD copies I already have.)

Or maybe not. I can already put my CDs on my iPod.

But it is interesting that they are finally going to put their stuff online.

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world

Here There And Everywhere

I'm a big Beatles fan, and I've read a pretty large number of books on the Beatles. So many that I pretty much have given up on looking at any new books that have come out. But, the other day I was at Barnes & Noble and came across the book Here There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick. Emerick was the balance engineer for a lot of the Beatles recording sessions, and this book documents those sessions, along with a few other details of his career.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through this, and it's really great. Emerick must have kept a diary or have a photographic memory (or perhaps access to the original studio tapes have refreshed his memory) as the book is amazingly detailed. Lots of stories from the recording sessions; really interesting things about how songs came together and the recording effects used, as well as rememberances of things that happened; from the day that fans ran riot at Abbey Road, and recording Strawberry Fields, to how the Beatles interacted with each other, and with other people, including the session musicians that were brought in. It's great stuff.

This may even replace my previous favorite Beatles book; The Beatles: Recording Sessions, the Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes 1962-1970 by Mark Lewisohn. While that book is very detailed about the sessions, it lacks the more personal details that Emerick adds.

So if you're a Beatles nut, definitely pick this book up; you won't be dissapointed.

I Like To Hit Things

It's percussion day at The Guitar Apprentice!!

That's what happens when you talk to a drummer. You start talking about drums and percussion and drummers you've seen and songs with percussion you like and they start telling you about crashes and rides and you start thinking "That almost makes sense!"

And it seems like everywhere I listen, I hear drums.

On NPR today:

All Things Considered, April 11, 2006 · The Junkman makes music with mailboxes, saw blades, frying pans and beer cans. But he has also composed two pieces for Twyla Tharp and performed with both Eminem and the Louisville Symphony.

Now the Junkman has written a full length spoken-word opera based on the Nordic myth of the Viking god of war, who also happens to be the Viking god of knowledge. Odin calls for 10 percussionists, a cast of six and a chorus of 24. It will be performed at New York University in April. Andrea Shea reports.

And then tonight on BBC Radio, they have a peice on Brian Eno talking about Tony Allan, an afrobeat drummer described as "one of the world's best drummers."

Drum Solo Anyone?

More Beatles News

According to The Telegraph The Beatles will release a new album to mark opening of a Las Vegas extravaganza with the acrobats of the Cirque du Soleil interpreting the songs.

It's a little unclear what they are doing, though the article notes: "The producers will have access to unreleased archival material, including 200 hours of recorded conversations between the Beatles in the recording studio."


And, another new Beatles set; The Capitol Years, is released tomorrow. I gather it has the mono and stereo versions of the early Beatles albums in the "U.S." format; remember that Capitol released versions of The Beatles albums that were very different from the U.K. releases.

Having grown up with the U.K. albums, I guess I'm not as enthused about the idea of getting the U.S. versions (though I know how disconcerting it can be to be used to a particular track order and have things change on you.)

As to the stereo/mono debate; George Martin (and Paul, George and Ringo) felt that mono was the 'right' way to hear the early albums, and did that for the original CD release. Don't forget that when the albums were first produced, they were only mixed in mono, the stereo mixes weren't even made by them.

But hey, if people will buy it, why not sell it to them?

Classical Mystery Tour

An Internet posting about Classical Mystery Tour caught my attention. It's some of the actors from Beatlmania performing with a classical orchestra at various places around the country.

It looks like fun, so I got tickets for the Boston show!

Here's part of the review:

They came out in the black suits like the early Beatles and as the show progressed, so did the clothing. About midway they came out in the Pepper uniforms and ended as the "1969" Beatles, Paul and Ringo in cool black suits and George in his denim attire. Where's John? Ah, there he comes out last, long hair and the white suit. I laughed out loud. [...]

The show was really a hoot. At first they played a few without the symphony and I Saw Her Standing There really took me back. It ripped! Some of the Beatles songs I'm not real wild about, like Eleanor Rigby and A Day in the Life were really good in concert with the symphony. At the end of A Day in the Life, where the long note is, the crowd clapped too soon. The conductor gave the Lennon actor at the piano a look and they ended the note early. Too bad as I'm sure they were ready to carry it out to it's long end. I am the Walrus was another of my favorites.

There was a great rendition of Good Night, from the White Album with the drummer and symphony doing an excellent job. I'll probably never see/hear that song in concert again ever.

Golden Slumbers / Carry that Weight / The End were my favorites. The guy playing lead on a Tele nailed all the John / Paul / George solos on that one by himself. His Tele was really wild looking and changed color from silver to green when the light hit it. [...]

The final encore was Twist and Shout and the older audience was on it's feet. The thought entered my brain "would John still be playing Twist and Shout if he were still with us?" Not just yeah, but hell yeah!

Making A Guitar Neck

Taylor Guitars has been putting up weekly video clips about guitar building. This week's clip looks at what goes in to building the Taylor guitar neck.

Behringer Brings USB To Guitar

Fender has already shown (but not delivered) a Stratocaster with an Ethernet connection. Now Behringer - maker of all musical equipment cheap - has announced the iAXE393 USB Guitar. Catchy name. It's a Strat-like guitar with USB connection.

I'm a little hazy on what the Fender sends out over it's Ethernet connection (Digital Audio? MIDI? Something else? All of the above?) The iAXE393 sends out audio. I'm not sure that a USB connection would be much use for real gigging situations; so this is really for hom recording and maybe for practice and learning applications. The write-up suggests that included software, in addition to letting you add efects, will let you slow down music that you play along to and other neat tricks.

According to the web page, the iAXE393 includes:

The iAXE comes with loads of great-sounding virtual amps and stomp boxes powered by state-of-the-art modeling software. Jam along with your MP3, WAV and AIFF songs or backing tracks on your Mac® or PC. We even included multi-track recording and editing software so you can record your music on the spot.

Sounds like more fun than a barrel of monkeys. The package comes complete with a USB cable, adjustable guitar strap, three picks and padded gig bag, and WDM and ASIO drivers.

Nothing on price yet, and availability isn't expected until the second quarter. (Also, the computer depicted is not included.)

Happy Birthday My Blog

I've been doing this for a year. My how time flys when you're getting no where.

I Got Memory

My iBook is now sporting 1.25GB of memory. Turns out I didn't put the damn card in right!! :( Anyway, all fixed and on to bigger and better disasters...

Shawn Colvin & Martin Guitars

I saw Shawn Colvin play at Club Passim last November. The video (captured with a still digital camera) isn't great, but it's an amusing story she tells about her love for Marting guitars, and the Signature Edition that Martin made for her.

Hardware Hassels

I got a 1GB card to upgrade my iBook, and I thought I was all set.

I had a grounding strap, and I thought I was all set.

I had a PDF with instructions on how to install the memory, and I thought I was all set.



Then I opened the grounding strap and discovered there were no instructions....what was I supposed to attach it to? A friend suggested the water tap.

Then I went to undo the screws that kept the memory shield in place and discovered that I didn't have a screwdriver small enough...I discovered that my Swiss Army knife blade worked okay.

Then I put the card in, reassembled the whole thing, started it up and....the machine didn't recognize the card! No change at all!

I have such bad luck with computer hardware; is there any wonder I hate to upgrade machines?!


Possabilities;

1) I didn't install the memory correctly (I tried re-seating it and still no go.)

2) The memory card is faulty (or worse, I screwed it up)

3) The computer doesn't actually support more than 1GB. (I checked, but it can be a little confusing to figure out which iBook is which and what memory they support.)


This just sucks. Now you know why I don't play electric guitar.

I'm Trying To Be Good

Guitar Center has some kind of 3 day sale going on.

They have sales at least a couple of times a year, and sometimes you can get something interesting at a good price.

I gave it some serious consideration, and was really close to going in and taking a look today, but I think I have talked myself out of going. I am so tempted, but the reality is I absolutely, positively don't need anything right now, and going in would just expose myself to temptation!

I keep telling myself that:

a) they don't have anything I want (probably true)

b) anything I would be interested in won't be on sale (if past sales are any indication, the best I can hope for on a good guitar is about 60% off anyway, which I know how to get from other places)

and c) the guitars aren't in good condition (probably not true, the GC in Boston seems to be pretty good about taking care of their stuff.)

But boy, put guitar and sale together in a sentence and I find it difficult to resist!

MiniDisc

Most people seem to think that MiniDisc's day is done. They are probably right.

I have an old Sharp MiniDisc player which I've used for recording stuff here and there. It's easy to use and does make good recordings; but transfering the audio to the computer is a bit of a hassle. Some time ago, Sony took steps to improve the transfer of audio from the computer to their players, but they limited the transfer the other way (allegedly to stop bootleggers.)

I went off and bought a CompactFlash recorder (it's so much easier to transfer files to the computer from a CompactFlash card) but the MiniDisc is appealing because you can leave the original files on the disc as a backup.

Sony has tried to pump new life into the MiniDisc with the Hi-MD format, and they now have announced the MZ-RH1 which will transfer audio to your computer using USB 2.0, and it will work with Macs. Woot!

But it's probably too late. MiniDisc never was that popular and has always been a bit of a niche product. As much as it makes sense - and it does make sense for some applications - I think it will get steamrollered by all the solid-state devices that can record audio.

Probably just as well. I don't need to be spending $360 on another recording device.

Carol Noonan

Carol Noonan performs Creatures of Habit with Kevin Barry and Duke Levine at Club Passim.

I really liked the song, and the jam at the end is icing on the cake!

Digital Trumpet

Hammacher Schlemmer's Digital Trumpet can generate over 20 sounds and allows musicians to perfect valve fingering, tempo, notes, and key changes before learning to master breath control and mouthpiece placement of an actual brass trumpet.

Sounds include; seven trumpets, eight brass instruments (including the tuba and trombone), five woodwinds (including oboe and clarinet), strings, and a synthesized human voice. By simply humming or singing into the mouthpiece, you create the notes and tones.

But at $399.95, wouldn't you be better off saving your pennies for a real trumpet?

Guitars Are A Fad

Video from National Association of Manufacturers covers history of Martin Company and takes you through the manufacturing process (though this video was made in 1996 so the manufacturing process has actually changed quite a bit in that time)

Martin Guitar Company

Karl, if you're watching...

Neil Young Appears on the Daily Show to promote his new concert Movie Heart of Gold. Talks about writing songs, the new movie and his dogs.

Neil Young on The Daily Show

Tonight. If I wasn't still sick I'd watch it. Hopefully I'll catch it repeated tomorrow.

Dear Prudence

Ryanhood covers The Beatles Dear Prudence.

Not the greatest video, but what do you expect when standing at the back of the room with a still digital camera capturing in video mode?

Owen Plant & Ryanhood

Owen Plant and Ryanhood played at Club Passim last night. This is a new song they co-wrote called (at the moment) "Move Me Round The Sun"

I'm An Idiot

...turns out I only have 256MB of memory in the iBook. Well, duh!

Time to order the upgrade

One Of Those Weeks

It's shaping up to be "one of those weeks" where you end up further behind where you started.

Finally got cranking with GarageBand last night and did some recording. It is fun to record yourself and then listen back and go 'that sucks.' For one thing; you can more easily identify where the sucking occurs. I did a bunch of experimenting with effects ('just how much echo and reverb do I need to add so that my voice doesn't sound horrid?') as well as recording just guitar. For the most part GarageBand worked fine, but I discovered that after recording a three minute piece and playing it back, GarageBand stopped during playback and threw up an error message that there wasn't enough memory to complete the operation. It stopped, and I could restart the playback okay - nothing was lost in the recording - but it is rather annoying that it got lost performing a fairly simple operation.

I had heard that GarageBand was a bit of a memory pig, and I only have 512 MB of memory in the iBook, but still! Had it happened after recording 20 minutes of audio, or after putting several tracks into a 3 minute piece I might have understood, but two tracks of only three minutes?!

Now I'm faced with the next issue; add more memory to the computer, and/or look for different software. I guess the obvious thing to do is upgrade memory; I just have always been wary about memory upgrades after a particularly unpleasant experience.

The adventure continues.

Next issue: how do I upgrade my crappy voice?

Longer Than It Should Have Been

I spent several hours yesterday trying to get the TonePort UX2 to work with software that I could use. It comes with some weird application that I just couldn't figure out. I had tried getting it to work with Deck, but had no luck. Deck didn't recognize the TonePort at all. I did get it to work with GarageBand okay, but it would only record one track at a time (the UX2 supports 2.)

So yesterday I checked through the Line 6 online forums and found a few interesting things.

1) someone asked if you can record multiple tracks at the same time in GarageBand, to which another person helpfully replied; Yes.
2) Other users recommended Tracktion from Mackie

I also discovered that there was a software update for the TonePort's software.

Armed with this information, I set about trying to get this all figured out last night.

The first thing I tried was updating the UX2's software. I had to register to download the software, and I was having network problems so it took a looong time to download the software. I mean a looong time. And then after I installed the software I discovered that it didn't solve the problem. Deck still didn't recognize the TonePort at all.

Then I tried Tracktion. Took a bit of figuring to get it to work with the TonePort, and I wasn't exactly thrilled with the interface. Also, the demo version plays an audible noise every few seconds just to be super annoying. I gave up after a while.

I then went to take a look at Bias's support, on the chance that maybe they had something about using the TonePort (nope) or that their forum might have something.

I had to find my product serial number to get into the forum. And when I did, I discovered a notice about there being a problem with Deck and Tiger (which I had to upgrade to when I installed the TonePort's software *sigh*) The notice said you could work around it by creating an Aggregate Device through Audio MIDI Setup. Insert a couple of hours of mucking about here. Long story short; discovered that the reason it wasn't working was that Deck doesn't support 24bit devices (i.e. TonePort.)

Then it occurred to me that I was using GarageBand 1.0 on the Mac, and I had a copy of GarageBand 2.0.

Sure enough, installed GarageBand 2.0 and discovered that it added a record button to each track; ta da!!! Now you can record to two tracks at once.

'
What did we learn from this? Not much other than the fact that what could have been solved in 15 minutes actually took me more than half a day.

Chaos and Creation in Abbey Road Studio

Well the show was awesome! I'm a big Beatles fan, and I've always liked Paul's stuff (okay, maybe not Ebony And Ivory) so I figured I'd find this at least interesting, but really I was blown away. I thing I really liked were the little demo's of multi-track recording that he did, as well as the little comments he threw out here and there. The musical performance's were - as expected - pretty damn flawless, and he performed a mix of new stuff and old.

For those that missed it, Paul put on a show at Abbey Road studio's for a small audience that was videotaped and shown on PBS as part of their Great Performances series. I'm pretty sure that it was done in Studio 2, which is the one the Beatles used. It's not the largest studio at Abbey Road, but it's big enough to hold a small orchestra.

Paul played several new songs, as well as some old numbers, performing little snippets of other songs here and there. Nearly everything was just him playing either guitar or piano, but it was much more than just a music performance.

Highlights for me included:

The demonstration of multi-track recording (using an old 4-track recorder!) where he recorded sound created by rubbing the top of wine glasses, and a harmonium, and then sang the intro to Band on the Run

The performance of Lady Madonna with piano and new arrangement

The "Elvis Bass" performance

And at the end when he did another little multi-track example using a digital recording system.

There were a lot of other great things about the show, and I really wish it was another hour long! I'm hoping they'll release it on DVD; hopefully with additional material!

Highly recommended!

I Know What I'll Be Watching

Tonight on most PBS stations (in my case, WGBH at 10:00pm)
PAUL MCCARTNEY: Chaos And Creation At Abbey Road premieres.

I guess I could wait for it to appear on YouTube, but I'm going to try and catch it on television tonight. The following is from the PBS website:

In this unique concert, the legendary Paul McCartney returns to Studio 2 at London's Abbey Road Studios (where most of the Beatles' recordings were made) for a fascinating journey through his songwriting career, from his very first Beatles song to the work for his new album, CHAOS AND CREATION IN THE BACKYARD.

Helter Skelter

Paul McCartney at the Grammies.

Guitar Humidification

Spring is almost here. In the northeast we can almost taste it. Oh, there's at least another month of wretched weather ahead of us, a good snow storm maybe, but that's beside the point; we're over the hump.

Which means that guitar humidification is becoming less of an issue. But before we forget about it until November, here's a link to an article about making cheap guitar humidifiers from a sponge and a plastic bag. Kind of a downer for those of us that swear by Dampit's (which cost about $15 each!)

Johnny Cash - Hurt

I've been too busy tied up with school vacation week to do much of anything else.

Spending way too much time on YouTube though...what I can't figure out is; how are they paying for this?! Well, whatever, enjoy it while you can...

'Clapton's Guitar' Book Reading

Book reading and discussion of guitar building revolving around the book 'Clapton's Guitar' at the Concord Bookstore, MA, Feb 19th, 2006. A local event I videotaped, this is just a summary I threw together.

It's A UI Thing

I downloaded the aforementioned FretPet to give it a try. Fortunately it's shareware or trialware (not sure which) but I managed to download it and give it a quick try out.

The bad news; it opens up a bunch of windows and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do! I can't even figure out how to simply display a C chord. I can click on the fretboard and mark strings to 'play' and therefore draw my own C chord, but I can't get it to show me a C chord, and I feel like it should do that.

And it does all these other things in other windows and they don't mean anything to me. It looks like it should be interesting, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do! It's very frustrating. I spent a good five minutes messing about with it and was none the wiser for it.

I guess I'm going to have to actually read the documentation if I'm going to figure out how to do anything with this program, which I think is rediculous. Some of these functions should have been really easy to figure out. It should have led me in and encouraged me to use it, not leave me stranded before we even get out to sea.

Guy Davis - Things About Coming My Way

Guy Davis, a great blues player, was back at Club Passim last night. Here's his performance of Things About Coming My Way

With A Name Like FretPet...

...it's got to be good?

Came across a link to a Mac OS X application called FretPet X which is described as:

"FretPet is a unique guitar-oriented music sequencer, an educational tool for learning music theory, a controller for software and external synthesizers, a reference for all things relating to notes, chords, keys, and scales. and an indispensible assistant for creating coherent musical compositions with ease."

It looks kind of cool and would - if nothing else - save me from having to go to Chord Finder all the time.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Scale Length

I've heard about Scale Length, but never quite knew how it worked. The following is a combination of posts from this thread:

Scale length is the distance between the nut and the twelfth fret, doubled. On a steel strung acoustic you can't measure from nut to saddle because of the slant for intonation compensation. A longer scale length requires a greater tension on the string for the same note at the same pitch in relation to that note on a shorter scale length.

Typical scale lengths are 24.9" (such as Gibson electrics and Martin's 000-42 and 000-28) , 25.4" (most Martins) and 25.5" (Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters). In principle, though, there are no particular rules for scale lengths. PRS released a 25.0" guitar as a middle ground between Fender and Gibson, for instance.

Some consequences of scale length:

1. The lower you want to tune an instrument, the longer the scale length must be to avoid strings slacking, introducing fret buzz or flopping about.
2. A longer scale in standard tuning is generally harder to play than a shorter scale.
3. A longer scale will have more sustain in the notes due to the higher tension. It will also tend to sound a bit brighter.
4. A shorter scale's slacker tension allows guitarists to upgrade their string thickness for a fatter sound.

Also, it easier to bend strings on a short scale relative to a long scale with the same gauge strings. So the blues players tend to like them.

This all goes a long way to explaining the difference between a 000-42 and an OM-42 (that's the problem with looking at Martin's product list; they have something like 100 different models, and it's so difficult sometimes to figure out what the differences are between each.

So after reading this, I'm thinking maybe I should get a a short scale guitar. I'm always looking for a good excuse to buy another one! Even a port excuse is better than no excuse at all.

Then I realized....I already have one! D'oh!!

There was an item on Wolfgang's Vault Web site on NPR over the weekend, and now I see a piece on News.com, so obviously it's making the rounds.

Bill Sagan paid more than $5 million for items and recordings from Bill Graham's estate, (Graham was programmer of San Francisco's Fillmore.)

The website has a 75-song playlist from 7,000 to 8,000 audio and video concert recordings made between 1966 and 1999.

You can't download any of the recordings, only stream them, though there's talk of CD and DVD sales in the future.

iPlayMusic

I happened across iPlayMusic in a local magazine. They offer online video guitar lessons and you can get 35 of them free. They are pretty basic lessons, but might be worth checking out for someone just starting.

Most interesting of all; you can get them on iTunes as a podCast and play them on your video iPod!

Do You Have Big Thumbs?

I was never a big fan of Bob Dylan's Just Like A Woman - that was until I heard Richie Haven's do an inspired version of it at the Bob Dylan 25th anniversary concert. That was just amazing.

If you want to play like Richie Haven's, it's pretty easy (he says so!). It appears that all you need is a really big thumb!

Are We Not Weenies?!

I hang out at the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum quite a bit. It's a fun place with nice people, and you can learn a lot about Martin guitars (and acoustics in general.) They also hold a yearly get together in Pennsylvania that's pretty much heaven for Martin guitar fans.

That said, sometimes things can get a little out of hand. Discussions about some topics; the wood used for necks, the price of the D-18 Authentic, and whether so-and-so deserves a Signature Edition, can sometimes get a bit repetitive. But we're guitar geeks, and that's to be expected. The best solution sometimes is just to stop reading a specific thread. I try not to take things too seriously.


A recent posting asked 'Are we the only weenies, in the world???' and spoke about a guitar player that one of the members encountered at an open mic who had no idea what model guitar he owned.

After he was done I walked up to him, and asked if it was a Westerly. He looked at me with a puzzled expression.

I said, "Your Guild.....was it made in Westerly?" He shrugs, "I don't know."

So then, I ask, "What year is it?" Again....shrugging, "I don't know....it was a gift."

So I ask, "what model is it?" Again....a shrug...." I don't know it was a gift.....I normally play Alverez's."

The posting then went on to speculate whether the forum members were the only weenies that know so much about their instruments. Do Sousaphone players know much about their instruments? Do they debate the merits of different models and years of production?

It’s a mildly interesting discussion, but frankly I don't see it as a big issue. Some people are really into the instruments, and some people just see them as a tool they use to make music. I don't think either attitude is right or wrong, it doesn't really bother me which one you are.

But while I was pondering that a little, I saw another post:

How does tuner mass change a Martin dread?
I'm wanting to swap out the small knob Pings on my D-15 for something of higher quality [Grover Rotomatics...] I've heard that these are lighter and that the lower mass allows for more resonance.

I've also heard that the greater mass of the Rotos will contribute to greater sustain.

Say what?!!

Changing the tuners changes the mass enough to effect the tone of the guitar?!

Okay, I have suffered through discussions of Brazilian vs. Indian Rosewood. 'Opening Up' vs. guitar aging, effects of humidity, bracing patterns, top woods, and coated vs. uncoated strings. But changing tuners?!!

One reader suggested that clamping on a couple of capo's on the headstock will effect sound! Others wrote:

To my ear, the lighter, open-back [tuners] are somehow less-invasive and allow for more wood-character to come through.

On some instruments adding weight to the headstock has had a dramatic positive effect on volume and tone (Blueridge guitars & Resophonic guitars).

The general rule is greater mass will add sustain. This is particularly true for electric guitars.

This kind of stuff can only lead to madness people! Put those capo's down! Don't touch those tuning machines! It's time to go back to playing the damn things!

Carved Guitars

Doug Rowell carves guitars. Beautiful, intricate work that he performs on old Stratocaster bodies and other instruments, to create these works of art. His Dragon Strat is amazing, though some of them make you wonder...

Even though it's left handed, and a bass, I like the Yellow Submarine Bass. I'd like to have that on my wall ;)

Lori McKenna Free Track On iTunes

I'm a big fan of Lori McKenna. I'm also a fan of iTunes free downloads; sometimes they're a hit, and sometimes they're a miss, but they are always free!!

This week the two come together. The free Discovery Download is Lori's Mr. Sunshine from her album Bittertown.

I'm not sure when this free download expires; they change the "Single of the Week" every Tuesday, but I think the Discovery Download changes less frequently. Either way, if you have an iTunes account, head on over and download it today!

The Frame Costs More Than The Picture

Some time ago I bought a poster that was signed by Mark Knopfler. It cost $90. Pretty expensive, but then it cost me about $110 to get the thing framed.

I was reminded of that when I saw a write up about Reunion Blues handcrafted guitar bags; a Rawhide leather bag for dreadnought guitar, and an electric guitar bag in crocodile finished full grain leather.

They didn't really catch my fancy, but then I saw the price! $899 for the electric guitar bag! That's more than my electric guitar is worth!!

I think I'll stick with the SKB.

Toys, Toys, Toys

I ordered a Line 6 TonePort UX2 several days ago from MusiciansFriend. Their online system is messed up; they can't seem to get the tracking information for the orders right. The package didn't arrive yesterday, so I figured it would be Monday at the earliest.

Much to my surprise, as I was walking out the door this morning, there it was waiting for me.

Getting the thing working wasn't quite as easy as I might have liked. Firstly, I had to install OS X 10.4 because the software won't work with earlier versions :( Luckily for me, I had a copy of Tiger, and it only took about an hour and a half to install the system.

Then I installed the software; which consists of something called GearBox, which is a utility you use to control the box's options, and Ableton Live, which is recording software.

First problem; the instructions say not to connect the box until the software tells you to. But it never did. After installation I launched the GearBox tool and it came up that there was no hardware attached (*duh*), did I want to run in a mode that pretends there's a box connected? Well no, so I had to quit, attach the box and launch it.

That worked okay. The little needle level's lit-up too. Excellent.

The software help suggested trying a guitar connected to it first. I plugged in my guitar and....nothing. The meters didn't register anything. Plugged the guitar into an amp just to check and that was working, so what's up? I tried help, I tried fiddling with various settings, and nothing.

Finally I just got a microphone and plugged that into the microphone input. Success!!

Then I tried the Live recording app. Didn't like it. I could record audio, but I didn't really want to.

Then I tried Deck, but I couldn't get it to work with the TonePort. Tried all kinds of things, but no luck.

So I tried GarageBand and Ta-Da! It worked. Now I just have to experiment with the options...

Are You Finished?

If you're interested in how finishes are applied to guitars, then you'll find the lastest 'Factory Friday' video at the Taylor website interesting. In this 9 minute video, finishing department manager Jerry Cooper demonstrates applying a Tobacco sunburst to a maple top T5.

Did someone say maple?

Sunbursts are tricky things, and companies apply them in different ways; some have very sudden transitions from light to dark, others are much more gradual. It's definitely an art applying these things.

Mark Erelli @ Club Passim

Mark Erelli @ Club Passim, February 2, 2006
The Only Way
Mark is a singer-songwriter, originally from the Boston area, now living in Maine. I've seen him perform several times at Club Passim, sometimes alone, sometimes with other musicians. He has a range of musical interests; his previous album was described as being 'rockabilly,' but his latest is more in the singer-songwriter tradition, and is more political. This album, Hope & Other Casualties will be officially released at the beginning of March, though he was selling copies at the show last night.

G.A.S.

Here's a link to an article on G.A.S. by Walter Becker (of Steely Dan) that originally appeared in Guitar Player magazine.

He starts out by describing some friends that obviously suffer from very advanced cases of the disease. Then he offers some tips for "any sufferer on the brink of yet another G.A.S. attack." Here's just two:

1. Consider for a moment the karmic implications of owning all those guitars. Picture yourself dragging your ass through eternity with all those guitars strapped to your back. In hardshell cases, not gig bags.

5. Ask yourself: would I like to be thought of and remembered as a guitar player or as a guitar owner?

Of course, the problem is that I am such a lousy player, my only hope is to be remembered as a guitar owner...

*sigh*

Brokeback Guitar

Not having grown up in America - or the fifties - I wasn't really aware of the 'cowboy guitar tradition.' Sure, I vaguely had heard of singing cowboys, but I didn't realize that they also painted their guitars "prettier than a twenty dollar whore."

But it seems so. Or at least that's what guitar manufacturers would want you to believe.

On the left, the Martin Company's Cowboy IV, a 000-14 Fret size guitar constructed from HPL/Texture Finish (that's High Pressure Laminate.) It'll set you back about $700.

On the right, the Rodeo Sweethearts! from Recording King which will set you back about $199.

I'm not really sure I'd want either of these; unless I was going camping. And if I was going camping, I'd rather take my Taylor Baby M, which is smaller, and a lot less embarrassing to be seen with!


UPDATE: Turns out I might have got my decades wrong when it comes to the popularity of singing cowboys. There's even a book about Cowboy Guitars!

Spend Money; Feel Better

Decided to order the UX2 and see how it works out. Primarily because of a favorable review I came across from an actual user, and because of the knobs and meters. Placed my order with Musiciansfriend, and it is supposed to arrive in, oh 2-5 days.

The initial rush of the purchase did brighten my otherwise gray day a little, but now I’m starting to suffer from buyers’ remorse...

What The?!!

I'd always heard that Michael Hedges was an amazing player, and I've heard some of his music and liked it. But wow; take a look at this! What's he doing with his left hand?! I don't know how he does that stuff...

Further Consideration

I think one of the big issues I need to consider re: the breakout box thingy (below) is whether my iBook has USB 2.0 ports, or 1.0 ports. I'm not too sure and it's at home, and trying to figure out from Apple's spec pages which model iBook has what proved to be an exercise in frustration.

So...I guess the suspense will continue until I get home (at which point, the suspense will still continue, but I should have one more piece of the puzzle to plug-in.)

UPDATE (4:20PM): Turns out it has USB 2.0.... still none the wiser...

UPDATE (5:31PM): Okay, I'm clearly leaning towards the UX2 right now. Found this user review, which was positive. It appears that latency is not an issue.

UPDATE (10:43PM(: No idea what I'm going to do. Think I'll sleep on it.

Better Living Through...

In my experience, there's no day that can't be improved by the purchase of electronic equipment.

With that in mind, I've been thinking of getting a recording interface to use with my computer so that I can more easily record my guitar. There's two boxes that have got my attention: The Line 6 TonePort UX2, and the PreSonus Inspire 1394.

They are both $199 at MusiciansFriend, so it comes down to features, and the biggest difference (off the bat) is that the PreSonus is FireWire based, and the TonePort is USB. FireWire is generally faster than USB (particularly if you only have USB 1.0 on your computer! ;) ) The TonePort seems to offer more 'neat features' and super-cool knobs and meters, but rates lower in the reviews than the Inspire.

On the other hand, the Inspire only has three reviews, while the TonePort has eight.

On the other, other hand, the TonePort readers seem to have encountered problems with latency, which is the big issue with these interfaces (i.e. a delay between the sound that's coming out through the speakers, and what's being recorded. This can really throw you off while recording.)

Giving up on the whole 'other hand' business; the TonePort offers more effecty things, but it seems like the recording software isn't quite as good (or is more limited.) The TonePort also has the meters and actual knobs to turn down the audio output and the headphone levels separately.

It's a quandry! What to do....what to do...

Magical Mystery Tour

My daughter wanted to borrow the Magical Mystery Tour CD to take in for music class, where all the 6th graders were supposed to bring in CDs of music they liked. She wanted to play the song Magical Mystery Tour.

"Everyone else is bringing in Green Day," she said cryptically.

As usual, it took me a while to hunt around and find it.

"Why that one?" I asked.

She shrugs. "I like it." she says, then adds with concern, "there's no drug references or swears on that one are there?"

I had to think for a minute. I was certain there was no bad language, but drug references? If you thought about it for a minute, almost all of their songs from that period could be construed as being about drugs, drug influenced, or so weird and indecipherable as to be suspect.

"I think they played it on the BBC," I finally said. Actually they did; they played the Magical Mystery Tour film on the BBC - once.

"What's that mean?" she asked, not getting the reference. I wondered whether I should explain how the BBC is owned by the government, and how it was very "proper" and wouldn't broadcast anything remotely lewd or obscene. Well, except for Monty Python.

I just went with the "It'll be okay," reassurance instead.


I'm actually quite pleased that she is a fan of The Beatles. As a fan myself, I was careful not to push the music on to her. It was a friend of hers who first introduced her to a Beatles song, and when she came home one day and said how much she liked a song she'd heard, I said 'You know, I have that."

Since then she's become a bigger fan, though I guess we'll see if it lasts into the teen years.


I picked her up after school the next day.

"How was your day?"

"Okay."

"Anything interesting happen?"

"No."

"Did you play your song?"

"What? Oh yeah! Though I played Hello Goodbye instead."

"Why'd you do that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Just felt like it," she said.

"What did everyone else bring? Green Day?"

"No. Actually, a lot of people played Beatles songs. [Someone] played Bungalow Bill and there was Ricky[sic] Raccoon and [someone] played Maxwell's Silver Hammer and there was some rap and some other stuff."


It felt somehow good to know that The Beatles are still popular with 6th graders.

Nice Kitty

Yesterday I was playing guitar, frightening the neighbors’ cats, when my daughter said “Too bad you don’t have an electric guitar.”

I don’t now why she said it. She was sitting doing her homework and wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing.

“I have an electric guitar,” I said brightly.

“You do?!” her eyes widened. “Where is it?”

So I went and grabbed the Strat from the closet and brought it out, opened the case and put it into her hands. She started strumming it and frowned.

“I have to plug it in,” I explained, and went searching for a cable to plug it into the amplifier. After a few minutes I had it plugged in and making noise and she sat there strumming happily. It wasn’t in tune, but she wouldn’t have noticed as she didn’t know any chords.

“Will you teach me how to play?” she asked.

She’s asked me this before, and what usually happens is I show her a chord, she strums for a bit, and then she’s done and never mentions it again for a month or so.

“Sure,” I say.

“Can I have it?” she asked, looking down at the guitar.

“Eh no,” I said.

“Why not?” She knows I have more guitars than I need, and I spoil her rotten.

“You learn to play,” I offer, “and you can have it.”

I’m not sure that it will actually cause her to learn. She’s got her hands full with learning and playing the saxophone; I don’t think she really wants to spend any time actually learning another instrument. But she was certainly impressed by this bright shiny guitar that made the loud twangy noise.

She’d probably have kittens if she saw the Hello Kitty guitar from Squire.

Harry Manx

I meant to write up a bit about the concert last week with Harry Manx.

Lloyd Thayer, a local performer, opened (or co-billed) with Harry. Lloyd is a great blues player, and he plays lap-style guitar (not, he's quick to point out, the armpit geetars we all play.) Lloyd is a real character and a great performer. I love his sense of humor, and he has great stories that he tells between songs (some go on for a fair while!) I always enjoy his shows; great slide work and his voice works well for the blues.

Lloyd teaches some classes at The Passim School of Music (just upstairs from the club!) as well as at The Music Emporium. Check out his website for some Dobro info and other interesting tidbits.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I also took one of his lap-guitar classes.) I’m still hopeless, but that’s not his fault!


On to Harry, who I didn’t even know anything about prior to the show (I went because Lloyd was playing.) Harry is Canadian, and has quite a sense of humor too; when asked if he had a mailing list sign-up he said ‘No, but just tell people to check out my website; www eric clapton dot com.”

Harry released his first CD back in 2000, and has won several Canadian awards for best blues record (one of which, even came with a trophy...but that’s a long story.) It’s unclear what Harry was doing prior to that; he's well into middle age so he must have been doing something. He did say that he spent five years at VM Bhatt’s house, learning to play the Mohan Veena.

I’ve already written about the Mohan Veena, a 20 (or 19?) string cross between a sitar and a guitar that’s played lap-style. He also plays a Taylor and a Martin six-string, and broke out a banjo for one number.

He says that he plays exclussively in open D; DADF#AD from the bass end, though sometimes he'll drop the F# down to F to give a Dm tuning. I didn’t get a chance to ask him, but I have to wonder if he isn’t using a special kind of pick that’s doing something to the bass because the bass strings really thudded and sounded to me like they were an octave lower than the normal bass strings on a guitar.

Steven King uses this technique to get extra bass from the 5th and 6th strings.


Harry was accompanied by ‘South Side Steve’ (don’t know his last name) a young guy that plays Hamonica and is “not too bad for a guy from Ottawa” according to Harry. Steve definitely knows how to play, and provided a real soul to Harry’s songs. I was most intrigued by an effect he got where the harmonica sounded almost like a Hammond organ. Turns out he was using a POD effects box and running the harmonica through the Leslie speaker effect. Pretty cool.

Amongst the many great songs, I particularly liked the performance of Baby Please Don’t Go which took the song in a slightly different direction to how I've heard it before.

But as Harry said, “the blues is not about feeling bad; it’s about making other people feel bad,” and if you like the blues, I think you’ll like Harry. His playing brings a different variety to the music, and his instruments – especially the Mohan Veena – adds new colors to the sound. He even played a bit of banjo “to torture us a bit” though he played it much like it was a guitar, and it almost sounded more like a guitar than a banjo (I even wondered if he was playing it in a guitar tuning.)

A great show, and I definitely recommend checking Harry out.


Another piece of stage patter: Steve, the Harmonica player, during a moment that Harry was adjusting his guitar, related how they had been in New York and seen a flyer for a band that was playing at some bar. The band’s name was ‘Hard to Make a Living,’ and somewhat prophetically, underneath it read ‘No Cover Charge.’

Guest Chord: G7sus4

Today's guest chord is G7sus4. Just finger it up and strum it hard

It's been a hard day's night...

Unavailable Sites

I thought it was kind of weird that today both musiciansfriend.com and harmony-central.com were unavailable.

Then I remembered that Harmony-central was bought by Musicians Friend a while back. :(

No fun for me today...

Daughters

In a recent discussion, someone mentioned that the song Daughters by John Mayer, is now the most popular song for the first father / daughter dance at weddings.

Kind of interesting; though who compiles this information?! And where do they get their data?

I guess the other thing is; have you read the lyrics to that song? It's a really nice song and all, but it's about meeting someone who is totally screwed up, and finally realizing that you can't do anything about it and that it's all the fault of the person that raised them! Hardly an appriopriate sentiment for a wedding, is it?!

i know a girl
she puts the color inside of my world
she's just like a maze
where all of the walls all continually change

I've done all i can
to stand on the steps with my heart in my hands
Now i started to think
maybe its got nothing to do with me.

so fathers be good to your daughters,
daughters will love like you do,
girls become lovers who turn into mothers
so mothers be good to your daughters too.

Come on people! Pay attention to the lyrics!

What Is That?!

It's a Mohan Veena. That's the bastard child of a guitar and a sitar. Actually, in this case, it's a very nice instrument, played by Harry Manx, a Canadian who plays...the blues.

The Mohan Veena looks like an arch-top guitar with lots of extra tuners down the side of the neck. It has twenty strings, and - according to Harry - only takes three hours to tune. It was invented by VM Bhatt, and I gather that it's not currently made commercially in quantity (some guy hand builds them in India), though on his website FAQ, Harry also reports that a company is making an "imitation" of the Mohan Veena you can find on eBay. He gives these imitations mixed reviews.

I just did a search on eBay and found such a listing for $745. It also said that it has 19 strings (Harry said 20 at the show) and they are giving away a copy of Harry's CD with the instrument too!

I saw Harry playing this instrument (a real one) at Club Passim last week. It was a great show, and the instrument was very interesting (I'll write up a bit more about the show shortly.)


Photo from an eBay ad

A Flugel Whatsit

Know Your Flugelhorn








The Flugelhorn is a valved bugle developed in Germany.

It is not generally used for aggressive or bright displays as both trumpet and cornet can be, but tends more towards a softer and more reflective role.

It is also the subject of terrible poetry:

The flugel is your friend,
The trumpet is your spouse,
Don't mix them up or
You may lose your house.

That's just awful. It doesn't scan well, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense either! I am now on a quest to find good poetry about instruments...

Signature Editions?

Guitar makers have been making 'Signature Edition' guitars (special models endorsed by famous players) for a long time, and for a long time, guitar buyers have been complaining about them...

These complaints seem to break down into some variation of the following:

Why'd they give *HIM* a signature model?
I hate [some aspect] of the guitar
It's sooo expensive

Just the other day Martin announced a new John Mayer signature edition, prompting this posting on the Martin Guitar Forum:

Didn't the other Mayer edition come out just a few years ago? Do we really need two Mayer editions? [...] what has he done to really merit two signature editions?

Well, here's an interesting Signature Edition from Gibson: the Kiefer Sutherland Special Edition

I was really wondering about that one, but then on reading the article I see that he owns about 50 Gibsons, and he has a record label too!

Gosh...well...still. I can't imagine what they're saying about that over on the Gibson forums!

Taylor ES

The Taylor website has a great video on noise (hum) reduction.

From this link, click on "Performance Tips/Maintenance" in the upper right

Then click "More" at the bottom of the page

Finally, select "Noise Reduction"



It will, at least, help you to determine whether the problem is your guitar, your amp/PA, a bad extension cord, or your house wiring.

All You Need Is...

Just one of my favorites...

Is Lennon chewing gum?!

Revolution

Revolution
Filming Dates: September 4, 1968
Filming Locations: Twickenham Film Studios
Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg

The backing track to "Revolution" was pre-recorded, but the vocals were live. Two clips were shot; They were mostly identical, but there were some lighting differences.

"Revolution" was broadcast only once in the UK, in black and white, on Top of the Pops on September 19. It was broadcast in the U.S. in color on on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on October 13.

Teeny Tiny D-35

Jaap Kaiser owns an original 70’s D35. Not content with that, he decided to build a minature D35 at a scale of 1 : 4.75.

A translation of his story, along with pictures, appears here.

I wonder if he's taking orders?

New Martins

New Martin's announced. Most notably:

Roy Rodgers OM-45 in regular and Braz. models. $10K for the Indian Rosewood model; you don't want to ask how much the Braz. model is.

A white version of Eric Clapton's Bellezza (called the Bianca.)

D-42 Flamed Mahogany (about $10K too)

There's a bunch of other things too, including; OMJM John Mayer, 000C-28 Andy Summers, MC12-41 Richie Sambora, 000-18 Golden Era 1937, and for the kids, a FeLiX II.

Now what will Taylor announce?....

Gibson + Ethernet = ??

Remember that Ethernet guitar I mentioned? Well it has come back to haunt me.

The Gibson Digital Guitar brings the 1930s technology of conventional electric guitars into the Digital Age according to the press release. It looks like a regular Gibson electric, but it adds an Ethernet port and Gibson will be showing it at NAMM, though no word on price or availablity...





The Gibson Digital Guitar System features:

* A genuine Gibson guitar, 100% compatible with existing equipment.
* Gibson's patented HEX pickup, which senses up-and-down motion (like an acoustic guitar pickup) and side-to-side motion (like an electric guitar pickup) for each string.
* MaGIC-enabled digital transport, carrying multiple channels in both directions over standard Ethernet cable.
* Gibson's BreakOut Box, with 8 outputs (1/4" jacks) - one for each string, plus classic humbucking pickup output and pass-through for microphone; 2 inputs carry audio back to guitar for monitoring; split mode assigns strings to different amps.

Wait a minute. Did that say EIGHT outputs? I have enough trouble with one!

Gibson has developed a prototype digital guitar that converts the analog signal into a digital signal inside the guitar. Stray frequencies entering the guitar pickups are eliminated along with analog line noise induced through the guitar cable. A guitarist can run a cable over 100 meters with no loss of audio quality.

What if you want wireless? Does it support Wi-Fi?!

The Gibson Digital Guitar system delivers signal processing on a string-by-string basis, providing increased quality and flexibility, including the ability to adjust volume, pan and equalization of each string individually.

MaGIC technology
MaGIC, developed by Gibson Labs, stands for Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier and is designed to replace all wiring systems in both the musical instrument fields and consumer electronic applications with a single Ethernet cable. MaGIC-enabled consumer electronics devices will allow daisy chaining devices and plug-and-play capabilities.

If Sony and Apple support it, maybe I'll buy one...

Andy Summers Signature Edition

Turns out some NAMM news from Martin has already slipped out....on Andy Summers website. Martin will announce the 000C-28 Andy Summers Signature Model.

You can find more details about it here.

This is not Martin's first collaboration with the law. Fellow Police member Sting already has a Martin signature model or two.

NAMM Announcements Already?!

Okay, I'm excited. Only three days until NAMM and already there are announcements!

I have no idea why I'm all excited about this year's show. I don't honestly expect that anything will be announced that I'll actually want, but for some reason I'm still dying to know what might appear. Maybe it's because I need some excitement in my boring life?

More Lessons

And why not? It's all about learning, right?

Here's a couple of articles that look interesting from guitarist Eltjo Haselhoff.

The first article "Learning New Songs" goes into how best to learn a new song at considerable length. The second article "Recording Acoustic Guitar" looks a little heavy on the theory (hey, I'd like to just know what to do thanks) but there are some good suggestions at the 'tips' at the end.

He also has lessons! If nothing else, check out the section "How to Play Cornerstone" which has a fun little example with the song played via MIDI and on acoustic guitar for comparison. Comparison of what you ask? Umm, well not sure really, but it's interesting.

Lessons

Some websites with lessons:

Eric Lugosch Fingerstyle Academy has a number of different songs. For most there's both tab and MP3.

The Acoustic Guitar Workshop; range of resources.

Jack Baker's site for New York School of Fretted Instruments has beginner and intermediate tunes, advanced tunes, and some Chet Atkins/Jerry Reed/Merle Travis arrangements. You need Tab/Edit to download the files.

The Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar page has many arrangements -- also TabEdit, mp3s, etc.

Arrangements from UK guitarist Steve McWilliams including traditional, blues, 20s pop, Celtic, etc., and a beginner's section

Some other arrangements from the late Marcel Dadi and other well-known guitarists, such as Ton Van Bergeyk, Duck Baker, Eric Schoenberg, the late Dick Fegy.

Martin News

I'm just whiling away the time until NAMM [Jan. 19-22], when all kinds of good things should be announced.

In the mean time, the Martin Guitar company has been working on renovating their Factory Museum, and though there's been no official opening ceremony yet, it does appear to be open, and it's even been covered in the press: "Martin's new museum gets in tune with visitors"

...Get's in tune with visitors...I love that! I could write a headline that bad!

And in NAMM related news, who knows what new goodies Martin will unveil, but a web posting gives a hint of one possible announcement:

I was on a factory tour yesterday and saw a new Roy Rogers sig in an early state of build. Only thing I could gather was it was a Brazilian beauty. Anybody know about this model? has it even been announced?

If it's Brazilian then it's going to be wicked expensive and built in only very small quantities (unless Martin managed to find some unexpected stash of Brazilian.)

Dancing About Architecture

Yesterday's post provoked this discussion. [edited to make me appear more intelligent]

Adrian: I was just checking out your blog and I see that you featured the swanky Yamaha axe :-)

Me: I like pretty colors too, and the tuners are weird ;-)

Adrian: the design is kinda Apple-esque

Me: hmmm...yeah, hadn't thought of that. Might fit nicely with the 'pod

Adrian: that's what I'm thinking

Me: though they need some way of wiring the two together so you can play along with your iPod. Then they might be on to a winner!

Adrian: you could get a Y adaptor, and plug the guitar and the iPod into a little amp, and then plug your headphones into the amp... that'd work... maybe not quite as elegant as it ought to be, but it'd work ;-)

Me: hmmm...you'd need a mini to 1/4 inch adapter and the guitar and iPod have different levels. The guitar output is lower

Adrian: I'm sure there's a way to do it. My bass amp has two inputs, one for line level input and one for lower level inputs

Me: Yeah, that might do it. Some company had a guitar with an Ethernet port on it. I need to find that again

Adrian: Interesting. That sounds very familiar too. Seems like USB2 or FireWire would be more useful, but who knows

Me: Yeah. I don't know what the exact point of it was. Getting Ethernet from a guitar is a bit like getting MIDI from a CAD program.

And Writing about music is like dancing about architecture is one of my favorite quotes.

Playing In Tune

I must admit to being a little unsure about this one... it's The Performer from TransPerformance. This fairly large and complicated piece of machinery will keep your guitar in tune, in any one of a number of different tunings. The tuning can happen almost instantly, though you have to strum on open strings to do it. You can preset the device to store as many as 240 tunings. When a tuning is selected, sensors and motors adjusts the tension on all six strings simultaneously. In addition to the fairly substantial piece of hardware at the bridge, there's an LCD screen cut into the side of the body that shows the note, octave and cent value of all six strings.

And I thought the Robotic Tuner was pretty whacky!

At the moment it's available for hard body guitars (Les Paul's and Strats) but there's probably no reason it couldn't be adapted for acoustics; other than it's large and heavy! on second thoughts, looking at the size of the bridge, maybe not in it's current configuration.

CNET has an article about the device. I'm not sure of the price; and not sure I want to know.

You, Light Up My Life

I'm not a huge electric guitar fan; I have three, but none of them's particularly good, and one's out on loan.

I don't know why I don't play them much, just ended up being more into acoustics.

Anyway, reader Adrian (I don't think I have any others) suggested that the Yamaha RGX A2 Electric Guitar (left) is kind of cool because: 'I love the tuning knobs, and the color LEDs behind the volume and tone knobs.'

Yeah, that is pretty cool, though I wonder how bright that tuning knob light actually is...and wouldn't it be even more cool if it had that light over the fret board or something (kind of like those cars with lighting underneath them?)

The tuning knobs are interesting; I wonder how they feel when you turn them?

Anyway, it's nice, but too expensive for me to get one just because the lighting is cool.

Are You Experienced?

The Gibson Custom Shop has announced the Inspired by
series of limited-edition guitars, inspired by and built to the exact specifications of some of the most innovative guitarists of all time.

And the first guitar? It's the Jimi Hendrix Psychedelic Flying V. I'm assuming that Jimi didn't actually come back and specify this one. And actually, this isn't really 'inspired' by either, rather it's a 'copy of.'

It also seems that a lot of the work was in recreating the finish. No one is sure what Jimi used to paint the original (whether it was nail polish, enamel, or some combination.)

The finished result looks pretty cool. Not sure what the price is, but I'm sure all those ex-hippies who now work on Wall Street will be placing their order.

How Do You Hold It?

I've never been a big pick user. Just never really comfortable with them, so I mainly use my nails. Still, I do occasionally use a pick, and like all things, the more you use them, the better you get with them (a bit.)

Came across this little tutorial "In Your Hand" on using the pick (or more accurately, how to apply it to the guitar string.)

I've also been accumulating a collection of picks of different sizes and thicknesses. None seem to make a whole hell of a lot of difference in usefulness for me, but I keep trying!

I've read that you shouldn't hold the pick too firmly, but I find that if I don't, then the thing will move and even rotate in my fingers while I'm playing. Inevitably the thing will either fall out, or get into a position where it's useless and I have to either stop or drop it and play on using my fingers.

Beat It

I just bought a Djembe. At least I think it's a Djembe, because it kind of looks like this thing here on the right (which isn't my drum as I haven't taken a piture of it yet.)

I've been wanting to get a hand drum for a while, so finally today I went down to Guitar Center to have a poke around. They didn't have a big selection, but then I had no idea what I wanted (or needed) so I tapped a few, tried not to make too big a spectacle of myself, and picked one.

I've been banging away on it for a while, but I'm not sure I exactly know what I'm doing. Maybe I should get a book or something. They have drum circles in Harvard Square. Maybe I should give that a try, though searching the internet provides a hint that drum circles are often about meditation and healing rather than beating your drum.

Here Comes the Sun / Homeward Bound

Not super quality, but this clip gets the point across: George Harrison and Paul Simon singing "Here Comes the Sun" and "Homeward Bound" on Saturday Night Live.

Happy New Year

December was kind of quiet around here.....mostly because I was running around the first of it getting ready for a trip, and the second half of December I was on the trip, so I didn't post anything for a month...

What a slacker.