So check out Rick Toone` guitar luthiery here. Rick fuses the history and tradition og guitar luthiery with contemporary knowledge, physics science and materials. Check out Ricks site because it is a highly informative resource for anyone interested in how guitars actually work and how they could be improved. Rick has taken this thinking forward to pioneer such ideas as:
Tag Archives: guitar
Terry Robb – updated
No description, introduction or eulogy required. Terry Robb is a blues guitarist occupying a unique position in the guitar pantheon as an exponent of American Primitivism a style pioneered by John Fahey and derived from the country blues and string band music of the 20’s and 30’s. If you own a gramophone and are familiar […]
Blast from the Past
Here is the unbelievable Merle Travis beating Angus Young to it, but only by around 40 years or so!
The Art of guitar
At today I`m going to stretch the art of guitar metaphor a little further and give everyone out there an insight into some visually shredded guitar art that combines fast colour kinetics, motion and explosive emotional intent.
Visit www.babyakart.com for more – all paintings are copyright Michael Babyak.
The Art of Guitar
IMHO, there are ways to shred and burn on the guitar that far surpass the egocentric simplicity and slavery to technique of that whole guitar school, speed focussed, sweep picking, notes for notes sake playing that occurs in a vacuum devoid of taste, subtlety and emotion.
Real guitar shredding is emotive, not mechanical, slick or polished unless it needs to be as part of the expression – e.g. a Freddie King Lick an Albert King bend, a Clapton phrase, the Leslie West tone, Hendrix` sustain etcetera…..
Piedmont syle
For those of you out there who are keen on Pink Floyd I thought I`d write a little post that positions Pink Floyd within a certain part of guitar history and associated style. At the beginning of their career Pink Floyd werea quintessentially English band led by songwriter and folk singer Syd Barrett who had named the band after two Piedmont Style blues players Pink Anderson and Floyd council. It`s interesting to note that the early manifestations of the band
Digital Guitar – Analogue Brain
the Dark Fire which although comes equipped with a humbucker, a single-coil and a bridge-mounted piezo acoustic pickup is DIGITAL through and through. The Chameleon Tone Technology claims to emulate very single guitar sound of worth ever, comes with a firewire connector and a midi adaptable hex connector too, a robot interface pack and Ableton Live 7 plus Guitar Rig III.
Time and Space
Music is mathematics. Yes, it sounds scary but it`s true. If you are looking to mess with time and space simply try playing a few octave sequences. Consider your open E string, the halfway point is at the twelfth fret and this is why intonation, the fine tuning of the string length is crucial to playing tight and true notes at higher frequencies! Basically when the string is played open it is twice the length (space) than if played at the twelfth fret but vibrating at half the speed (time).
Future guitar II
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 yearswas the bicycle. Basically any great design doesn`t need radical design improvements but more innovation in materials. Like they say you just can`t reinvent the wheel but you can improve the drivers, sprockets, braking, geometry for different applications. Anyway this what we`re seeing in modern guitar design right now. 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 have a listen to Frank Zappa’s “Watermelons in Easter Hay”
Choosing Guitar Pickups and amps
gold lace sensors used exclusively by Fender from 1987 to 1996. These were used by Eric Clapton for some time, and Jeff Beck also. So if you`re interested, check out the sounds these guys achieve between these dates live. I think they deliver a great sound through a range of amplifiers and I`d recommend them. The options for pick ups are pretty vast these days and Fender are now producing their own Fender Special Design dual-coil ceramic Noiseless™ pick ups so these, which Clapton (using the vintage model) and Beck have in their current signature guitar models.