Learn Guitar with Mark McKenzie
…you`re stuck between a rock and a hard place ?
…up to your middle at the crossroads trapped amid the gleam of a loamy moon?
…or find yerself petitioned by the Baron, aboard the skullbone trap of the Devils midnight charter?
Well, if your black cat bone just evaporates into an unholy dust, your Black Spider Dumpling gots the taste of a drowning witch – sold to you by a snake oil trickster with badluck in his teeth then you better head on over to
Yessiree, here`s the mighty Son House. I`m not going to say much except this man is 100% the real deal and spent the first half of his life in the Steam Age and the later half working on the New York Central Rail line. If this man`s music doesn’t move you – nothing will. You must be dead. In my humble opinion Son House is the greatest blues player of all time…
House was born in 1886 (officially) 1902 in Clarksdale, Mississippi and in his mid twenties, inspired by Willie Wilson, he bought a guitar and played alongside Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. Son House even spent time on Parchman Farm for killing a man in self defence.
SO if you dont know who Mike Bloomfield is here`s a chance to catch up. Bloomfield was one of the first popular music stars of the 60s to earn his reputation entirely on his instrumental prowess and his early supporters were Buddy Guy, B.B.King, Muddy Waters and Dylan. Bloomfield got together with Elvin Bishop and Paul Butterfield and formed the Butterfield Blues Band who were in part responsible for bringing that whole Chicago sound from a black to a white audience. Butterfiled was famous for his cross-harp inverted harmonica style. You can hear them both hear prior to Bloomfield`s departure to form Electric Flag.
After finding an online video teaching the two-fret (whole tone) string bend as a fundamental blues lick, there has been a certain degree of disagreement around the office as to whether this simple bend can constitute an blues fundamental.
How can something as simple as this elicit so much passionate debate?
Well, it`s all about emotion, passion and technique.
For me the ultimate blues lick would probably have to consist of only one note and some might say that maybe no-one has played it yet. I disagree:
On Freddie King’s “Pack It Up”, and “Shake Your Booty Baby” King takes this simple single bend technique and pushes it to its emotional maximum.
If you wanna hear simple blues playing that just really really cooks like a blister burning on the surface of the sun this album is the real deal. If you play the guitar and you`d like to develop the kind of passion and string control that will take you somewhere then this is one of the top ten albums in your list:
Michael Jackson`s legacy has left and interesting aftertaste for the guitar afficionado.
Jackson`s first album began with the luminescent touch of Larry Carlton and Beat It from Thriller features both Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather as well as Jeff Porcaro and, as usual, Quincy Jones` inimitable production. The following album, Bad, featured Billy Idol`s guitarist Steve Stevens and on tour the fiery Jennifer Batten (later to work with Jeff Beck).
Some of the guitar playing artists featured include buddy Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Gregg Allman, Keith Richards, Les Paul, Pete Townsend, Peter Frampton, Steve Vai, and Slash.
Here are some great shots of Mark McKenzie`s, one of out tutor`s, stratocaster. Check him out on Songpond. As you tell by both his face and his guitar accoutrements (that`s the pick ups, and the bridge fellas) Mark`s a bloody good player, an amazing teacher and his amps go up to eleven!
Here`s one of Captain Beefhearts gutarists Gary Lucas playing amazing slide.
INTONATION:
Okay so here`s the deal regarding intonation. Intonation problems are created when the length of the guitar string is not precisely matched to the length of your guitar. Why does this matter? Well, when you play a guitar you are dividing the string into different lengths in the process of fretting notes, this causes the strings frequency to increase or decrease in an inverse relationship with the strings length.
One thing you need to learn is to tune your guitar. Years of using electronic tuners with lights live on stage means I’ve lost a bit of the natural ear skill – ’cause years ago we used to just get on with it and tune up. Anyway, if you’re a beginner use your ears , not the lights, it’ll do you good. Alcohol tends to impair your judgement as well if you’re a novice too.