Welcome to 1979, the last year of the great music decade that was the seventies! Here are two absolutely exemplary guitar instrumentals from two guitarists divided not only by the vast expansion of the Atlantic Ocean and the north American Landmass but also coming from diammetrically opposed guitar traditions and styles. To all intents and purposes Frank Zappa`s fusionist flurries and highly modal guitar solos would seem a million miles away from the delicate sonorifics and nascent power of Peter Green`s guitar style.
But you decide; Green`s Slabo Day is an absolute triumph of phrasing, tone, meter, understated elegance and power – Zappa`s Watermelons in Easter Hay a similar victory of substance over stylistics. These tracks are available on In the Skies and Joe`s Garage. If this doesn`t move you then perhaps you need to get your hearing tested. Here`s a link to a Zappa exegesis site for those of you who want to learn more. There is also some amazing guitar playing from Steve Vai on a lot of Zappa`s albums especially on the “You are what you is” album from 1981.
The Zappa video below contains swearing, so, 18 years or older please.
Kia Ora Jake here. I just wanted to write a quick post in response to a few questions about guitar effects pedals. A boutique guitar effects pedal is most usually a hand built or a limited edition pedal built by electronic enthusiasts, or a modded (modified) pedal. Many people mod their Boss units for example. There`s a whole new world of quantum manipulation opportunities out there once you start buying some of the crazy and often deranged units. Obviously there`s time and a place for everything but if you want to continue along the consciousness bending, sonic roads of Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Tom Morello, Jonny Greenwood, Robert Fripp, Alan Holdsworth, Steve Hillage, Reeves Gabrels here are a few links to help you get really weird….soak up some of these, wring yourself out, and drink!
There were a few being built inside small transparent soap boxes a few years back…great if you need to wash all those fingerprints from across the surface of your brain! Tomorrow I`ll be having a brief look at the analogue versus digital argument, just so we all know exactly what we`ve been missing…
Following on from the last post about the future of guitar Jon and I were talking about bike riding this morning and we think there are great parallels between bicycle design and development and that of guitar. I think the Sunday Times ran a think tank amongst a series of leading experts, gurus and scientists who felt that the greatest invention of the last 250 years was the bicycle. Basically any great design doesn`t need radical improvements but more so innovation in materials over time. Like they say you just can`t reinvent the wheel but you can improve the drivers, sprockets, braking, or frame materials and geometry for different applications. Anyway this what we`re seeing in modern guitar design right now. Conisder the PRS Custom 22, the Ernie Ball Music Man, the Parker Fly, Steinberger GL, or at the most extreme the Teuffel Birdfish or the XOX.
Most experts agree the single-course, 6-string guitar began to appear commonly around the 1790`s and that by 1800 it became popular with music becoming printed around 1808. The instrument may have been “invented” earlier as a custom order, and many single-course variants like the arch-guitar, lyre-guitar with 7 or more strings apparently preceded it in the 18th century.
Of course underlying the construction of the guitar are some fundamental mathematics which I`m going to have a quick look at tomorrow and we`ll find out exactly how you can juggle time and space – the easy, non-transcendental way.
Meanwhile, perhaps, have a listen to Frank Zappa’s imaginary guitar solo on “Watermelons in Easter Hay”, Leslie West playing Nantucket Sleighride with Mountain, or Vernon Reid ….man. If you want to learn to play guitar like these fellas then maybe Jamorama could help propell you along the path toward unlocking the fretboard!
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