Archive for the ‘Guitar’ Category

Tapping Instrument Search

October 20, 2008 by john No Comments »

It’s been well over a year and I still haven’t landed a good tapping instrument. My top choices would either be a newish Chapman Stick (with the adjustable tailpiece) or a Warr Guitar. I’ve played a Warr Guitar on and off lately, and it’s fabulous. I can’t seem to get the owner to part with it and I’m continuing to explore some alternatives. The design of those two instruments is particularly attractive to me. The Stick has a classic streamlined appearance and I love its minimal design. And the Warr Guitar is simply stunning with its exotic woods. Since I’m planning to approach the instrument as an ultrawide bass+guitar, I want to string it from low to high – unlike the common Stick approach with the bass strings inverted. As a bassist I want the lower register arranged in perfect fourths, and as a guitarist I want the upper register tuned as the top five strings of a guitar. The part of the equation I haven’t settled on is the interval between the two groups. I’d be willing to try a continuous tuning from low to high, and also willing to try two groups separated by a wider interval to minimize the likelihood of hands colliding.

My playing involves tapping and cross-fingering on both bass and guitar, although I also play both instruments in a more conventional approach as well. So the tapping instrument would provide a good wide-range platform for those instances when I really want to cover more ground or generate those percussive tones. If anyone has a spare Stick or Warr Guitar they’d like to part with…

 

80s Invasion @ High Dive

October 5, 2008 by john No Comments »

We had a pretty good gig at the High Dive in Ballard on Saturday night. I had a bit of trouble with my guitar – a lot of high-pitched noise and microphonic feedback issues. I haven’t had time to really perform a complete system check to determine the root cause, but this was pretty frustrating. Fortunately it seemed to come and go, so for most of the show it didn’t bother me.

Overall, the gig went really well and we had a great crowd. The house sound operator at the High Dive is very attentive and professional, and it was a pleasure to work with him. Oh, and they have pretty good Mac and Cheese, which is definitely one of the hallmarks of a quality venue.

I’m looking forward to our next gig. The band is tighter all the time, and our backing vocals are coming together nicely.

 

Ten Happy Fingers

August 17, 2008 by john 4 Comments »

I’ve been practicing a lot lately, which is always enjoyable. If I didn’t have to work I’d practice four hours a day. The current focus of my effort is to economize the motion of both hands and fingers. I’m also putting in a lot of time on two-handed tapping. It’s not as much fun on a guitar or bass. I would love to get a Warr Guitar or a Chapman Stick, but they’re both out of my price range. So I’m doing my tapping on the instruments at hand. It’s a good exercise for counterpoint and definitely is a mental puzzle.

I spent a good few hours on fretless bass yesterday, working out some phrasing technique and continuing my analysis of Mick Karn’s bass lines.  The man is a most complete stylist on the instrument and his distinctive playing is one of the reasons I was drawn to fretless.

And at some point I need to get back to practicing keyboards too. 

Ten fingers. Too few hours.  

 

Practice Practice Practice

August 5, 2008 by john 1 Comment »

Unemployment brings opportunity. While I’m waiting for the phone to ring, I am enjoying some practice time on guitar and bass. Meedly meedly. I dusted off some jazz books and started working on standards. One of my upcoming goals is to learn a few Chet Atkins tunes for the 1 Uppers. I’m starting to put some material together for recording purposes and hopefully will be able to complete some tracks next month.

 

The 1 Uppers : First Gig

July 31, 2008 by john No Comments »

Last night the 1 uppers played our first gig. It was a lot of fun and many wonderful friend came down to Ballard to observe the mayhem. It went pretty well for a debut, with the usual sorts of furtive starts / stops and a trainwreck or two (but what kind of country band wouldn’t have a trainwreck?).

Many thanks to David and Anne, Frank, Kellie and Cynthia, Ken and Art, and most of all to my wife, for coming out to hear us play.

Big kudos to Jon Hyde for putting this thing together. He positively slayed “3 Picks”, a Lloyd Green instrumental. And Kris Geren delivered a perfect performance of “Sad Is The Lonely” by Don Rich. Overall a fine evening of beer and twang. Can’t wait for the next one!

 

Intonation On Guitars – Is It Really In Tune?

July 23, 2008 by john 2 Comments »

As guitarists and bassists develop better technique, we often discover there seem to be tuning inconsistencies with our instruments that can’t be addressed by plugging into a tuner. Over the years that I’ve played, I have discovered that there is an inherent problem with all of my instruments in a certain portion of the fretboard range. In the process of trying to understand the problem space, I had to do a little math and physics. See? Beneath its firebreathing veneer of rebellion and self-expressive freedom, rock and roll is actually science! And all this time we thought we were being so anti-establishment. Well, at least we can say we’re putting our science to work.

Let’s start at the beginning of the problem with “this thing isn’t in tune”… these issues need to be fully addressed before we can derive any benefit from discussion on microtuning.

Tuning Issues
If you find your guitar or bass won’t play in tune, there are several things worth examining.

  1. First of all, make sure your strings are relatively new (less than one month old). Old strings, especially if they’re really dull looking and cruddy, will not properly stay in tune. If in doubt replace them and allow the new ones to stretch a bit before proceeding.
  2. How is the neck relief? Sight down the guitar fretboard, looking from the bridge to the nut. If you see an obvious bow / curve / twist in the fretboard, you need to adjust the neck relief. You should also be able detect any serious fret problems this way (see #4 below). Adjusting the neck relief isn’t terribly difficult, but if you aren’t experienced in making this adjustment I’d suggest you have a luthier show you how it’s done. The key here is to make SMALL adjustments; no more than 1/4 turn of the adjustment nut at a time. Warning: overtightening can break the truss rod, and this is the very definition of the word “bummer”.
  3. Your tuning issues might be due to improper string action. Check the height of the string above the fretboard. If there is too much distance from the string to the top of the fret, there will be too much deflection when you fret (you’ll always be pulling the string sharp when fretting). This needs to be adjusted at both the bridge and at the nut. Adjusting the bridge is simple. Adjusting the nut slots is not. I recommend you have a luthier handle any nut adjustments.
  4. It could also be your frets. If the frets are improperly crowned you’ll find tuning isn’t consistent on fretted notes. Sight down the fretboard and take notice of any unusual frets. If you see deep ruts in the frets or they seem really tall, flat, or radically different from each other, it might be time to ask a good luthier for an assessment.

So if you’ve checked all these things and carefully tuned the open strings with a good tuner, only to find your guitar or bass still doesn’t seem in tune when you’re playing, it might be time to check your intonation.

Read the rest of this post for more information… read more…

 

The 1Uppers Ride Again

July 1, 2008 by john No Comments »

Last night we assembled The 1Uppers for a (nearly) full-band rehearsal… we were missing one guitarist, so I got to hold down the fort with my trusty Telecaster. Man, that’s a great guitar. I had a blast working on those songs with the band, and we’re starting to sound pretty dang good. Jon Hyde is positively slaying the pedal steel parts on these songs. He seems to have an endless supply of interesting licks. I’m going to need to do a lot of practicing to keep up!

I need to buy a combo amp for these kinds of gigs, and I’ve decided to look around for a used Fender Twin or perhaps a Hot Rod Deluxe. Either amp would be great for general use. I just can’t show up for 1Uppers gigs with my rack setup. It just doesn’t seem right… 🙂

The Tele sounds surprisingly warm and is really comfortable to play on these songs. Part of the joy of playing guitar is the feel of the instrument, and this guitar has a lot of goodness.

 

Expanding The Preons Instrument Rig

June 30, 2008 by john No Comments »

I spent some time this weekend working on my guitar synth setup, which I’m planning to bring into play with The Preons. It will allow me to drive some additional tones from the guitar platform, and since I’ll be using my Strat with the synth pickup, I will also have a great electric guitar to add to our existing mayhem. We are working on a few songs that I really want to take solos on, and this will let me pull up some bass sounds underneath the guitar patches. Plus I’ll have the ability to play some skronky synth parts.

Of course, this nearly doubles the amount of stuff I need to haul to gigs… fretted bass, fretless bass, guitar synth controller, guitar synth module, effect processor pedal, amp + cabinet…. sheesh… between Brad and I we’re a mobile pawn shop.

 

Thinning The Guitar Herd

May 29, 2008 by john No Comments »

Looks like I’ve sold one my guitars… my trusty Jackson is currently on extended test-drive with a friend who is delighted with it. This guitar is a classic shred machine with reverse pointy headstock, Duncan humbuckers and a Floyd Rose trem tailpiece / locking nut. I originally purchased the guitar for use in Vital Idol, the Billy Idol tribute in which I played. It was perfect for that purpose and delivered beautifully on those awesome Steve Stevens tones.

I knew I’d eventually sell this one since it’s really not something I continue to use on a daily basis. A friend of mine has been very interested in the guitar since I first mentioned I might let it go. Based on his feedback it appears he’s planning to buy it. I’m always happy to see musical equipment get into the hand of people who are truly excited to have it, and there is something freeing about liquidating surplus stuff. I’m making him a deal on it, mostly because he’s a good guy and also because I can see he’s going to put it to great use. Fly! Be free! Rock on!

 

Practice Practice Practice

December 14, 2007 by john No Comments »

During the past month I’ve been putting in about 2 hours per day of practice. A lot of it has been guitar practice in preparation for tomorrow night’s 80s Invasion gig in Seattle, but I’ve also been working on my bass parts for The Preons. It’s interesting because these are three different instruments:

  • Six string electric guitar (Fender Stratocaster) with a scale length of 25.5″
  • Four string fretless bass (Warwick Corvette) with a scale length of 34″
  • Five string fretted bass (Tony Levin model) with a scale length of 34″

These instruments are all pretty different and require different techniques. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that my practice time on any of them seems to improve my playing on all of them. I’ve also noticed that my pitch detection and concept time-to-execution is much improved. There might be something to that old thing about practice…

One of my new approaches to practicing is to work on parts much more slowly than before. I am attempting to keep my tempo very controlled until I can execute the parts flawlessly, then I’ll develop speed. My guitar teacher in college told me “practice doesn’t make perfect. practice makes permanent.” It makes sense. Once errors are practiced repeatedly, they are much more difficult to address. So I’m putting in some miles with my instruments, getting ready for upcoming gigs and hoping to break through to the next level of my playing. Meedly meedly.