Well things are humming here at Jamorama HQ as we get closer to the end of the year and New Zealand is warming up as we approach summer. Festivities really start to kick off around this time of year and all of a sudden it seams every weekend is full up with gigs, parties or BBQs. […]
Artists
Mike Einziger
Mike Einziger, lead guitarist and backup vocalist of top band, Incubus was born June 21, 1976 in Los Angeles, California. But he was not always quite so famous: “Here’s what I used to know about Mike Einziger: that when he was 9, he played on the same soccer team as my good friend Mike; that […]
Paul Ubana Jones Fingerpicking
In the late eighties Paul and his family moved to New Zealand, which is still their permanent home. He has continued to perform internationally, to growing acclaim. Concert performances include opening for the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Taj Mahal, Keb Mo’, Tuck and Patti, and Crowded House.
Understandably Paul’s “off the hook” skills aren’t something that’ll come to you overnight, unless you’re friends with the devil, but, to compliment the awesome Blind Blake style fingerpicking lesson from Jim Bruce, Paul’s approach to fusion expands upon an already eloquent vocabulary.
So, here is Paul discussing one of his clawhammer thumb picking patterns.
Whilst this may be out of your playing depth technically Paul describes some helpful techniques in approaching fingerpicking such as focusing upon a relaxed hand and extracting and concentrating upon the the rhythm of the left hand – it`s well worth spending some time in trying to apply Paul’s advice to your own picking practice regime.
In a world of increasing homogeneity and gratuitous eulogising of the mediocre by the media simply for what appears to be the sake of having something to talking about, it’s a rare sight to behold aberrations to the normal especially in the form of unique and uncompromising talent.
Jeff Healey
There’s an awful lot of talk about tone and technique but talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. One guitarist who never let anything get in the way of his playing , and also one will be sorely missed is the immense and unique talent of Jeff Healey a blind guitarist who played the guitar whilst it lay across his lap.
Healey’s literally hands-on approach to the guitar gave him an unsurpassable level of attack & sustain rivalling that of Jimi Hendrix combined with an absolutely devastating high octane thumb fretting and soaring string bending technique. I saw Jeff in the early 90`s in London and the performance was absolutely mesmerising, highly physical and intensely emotional. If you’re struggling to find inspiration and the practice routine or lessons are getting you down perhaps try doing it with your eyes shut.
Richie Havens Open D
“…turn the guitar up Mike please….” Awhile back I took a look at the open D tuning and I’d like to revisit it once more but with a focus upon the idiosyncratic style of seminal folk maestro, icon and messenger Richie Havens; the great and the good – Richie Havens If there was ever a […]
10 minutes with…Darren Watson.
How lucky can you get! Today I`m going to spend ten minutes with highly accomplished south pacific blues master Darren Watson. You may not have heard of Darren but in a career spanning three decades Darren has worked on the bill with such blues luminaries as Robert Cray, Koko Taylor, George Thorogood, Billy Boy Arnold, […]
Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson;
there’s something in the water in Texas and it must be talent, melody or some kind of mystical otherworldly pan-galactic musical goodness and Eric Johnson is definitely drinking it.
By the time Johnson released his Capitol Records debut Ah Via Musicom in 1990, he was regularly winning awards for his musicianship in the guitar press. During this period, Eric Johnson was also drawing recognition for the rich, violin-like tone he coaxed from his vintage Fender Stratocaster.
Eric fuses a more classical sense of melody with the a highly accomplished and adult sonic palette blending vibrato, bends, scales and tones in a way that avoids the hair-metal neo-classical plagiarism of guitar for guitar’s sake and the time honoured cliches of the been there, done that blues-rock guitar cannon. Here he is playing “Manhattan” – so, listen up and listen good because it’s said that Eric can tell the difference between the brands of batteries in his effects pedals.
Andres Segovia & modern classical guitar
For today’s post we’re going to take a quick look at the classical guitar and a few key players thereof. If you’re interested in taking a a quick tour through the guitar’s history then a shortlist of great players might have to include the following:
Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710), Fernando Sor (1778-1839), Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), Andrés Segovia (1893-1987), and John Williams (1941) and Julian Bream.
During the Golden Age of Flamenco, between around 1869–1910 guitar players supporting flamenco dancers had gained an increasing reputation and flamenco guitar as an art form was born. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century however the status of the classical guitar was in decline, and only in Barcelona and in the Rio de la Plata region of South America could it have been said to be of any significance.
John Martyn – fuzz box folk
His first album London Conversation remained more strictly folk oriented in terms of genre but what made Martyn particularly unique was his guitar set up whereby he ran his acoustic guitar through a fuzzbox, a phase-shifter, and an Echoplex which he used to produce more progressive rock styled guitar motifs within the broader contexts of the folk-jazz idiom. This approach begins to be heard on his second album Solid Air is reinforced on Storm Bringer and also on his more atmospheric, reggae infused One World album.
Today we`re going to have a look at English guitarist and musician John Martyn – an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues:
It`s definitely worth illuminating Martyn’s individual approach to his effects and equipment as a key factor in defining a highly individual sound and approach within folk music.
John Fahey, Guitar Frank and American Primitivism
If you like Lightning Hopkins you`ll probably like Frank too. It’s well worth looking into Fahey’s work because his eclecticism illustrates that even within a specific genre or technique there are always new ways to express and expand the musical vocabulary of the guitar. Fahey is the forefather of modern acoustic guitar in sense that he was the first to demonstrate that the finger-picking techniques of traditional country and blues steel-string guitar could be used to express a world of non-traditional musical ideas
Fresh ! Far out ! Essential !