Welcome back, my 4, 6, 7 and 12-stringed friends! How’s it been? Oh right, cool. Funny, I didn’t get an invite to that party. Never mind, I’m sure you have a perfectly reasonable explanation/excuse. Anyway, this is my second post after finally getting a new laptop sorted, so the arid wasteland in my life that was not-having-a-laptop seems to be fertilised and flowered for the foreseeable future. Touch wood. So, onwards we go!
Ladies/gentlemen/fluids, let’s broaden our minds! Lawrence?!
DOUBLE STOPS
Expressive playing appears to be a key part of being a rock guitarist. The strength in which a player will pluck a note or the intensity, speed and frequency of their vibrato will become their personal musical signature. Heck, a good enough player can noodle around two notes for ten minutes, but still make it sound awesome. A big part of expression seems to be double stops, the use of which I believe is left up to a player’s discretion. I’ve known about double stops for years, either through tuition or just hearing stuff on records, but have always struggled to know when to use them. I’ve never been sure whether to pluck those two notes (on neighbouring strings) at the start of a phrase, the end, or somewhere in between. Well, cracking this skill is now on my to do list. I’m getting slightly better at it, but the experiments continue! How do you use double stops, dear reader?
AMP REPAIR
I finally managed to get my Ibanez TSA5TVR booked in for repair. As mentioned in previous posts, it tends to crackle and pop unpleasantly at even relatively low volume. My local music shop recommended someone as the person they go to for their own repairs, as their in-house technician only does guitars. The amp repair chap works from home, which made him tricky for me to track down. Being visually impaired, I would have obviously preferred a visible shop front on a high street in which to find, rather than a quiet semi-detached house in a leafy middle-class suburb, but thankfully my taxi driver was competent (a rarity) and found it with ease. Booking ahead with instructions seemed to help. Well, my last communique with the repair dude revealed that the problem might be with the tone control, which apparently might be overloading, or something. I don’t know, I’m not very technical. So, fingers-crossed he’ll be able to fix it and it won’t cost too much! If it’s more than the cost of the amp, I guess I’ll just have to tell him to keep it. He doesn’t have my address.
ORANGE CABINET
I’ve owned the Orange Micro Terror mini-amp head for about a year or so now. I bought it because a) it was super-cute b) I’d never owned an amp head before and c) it had a headphone jack, so I didn’t need a speaker cabinet to run it through (back then I was only playing “silent”). Well, since I’ve recently started coming out of the guitar playing closet, I decided to get a cabinet(s) for the Micro Terror and Crate PowerBlock. The Terror actually has a cab designed for it, which came up 2nd hand at my local guitar shop a few weeks ago, so it’s now in my living room sat comfortably under the Terror. Yay! It may be a bit too low powered for the PowerBlock, but my guitar-Yoda friend said that it’ll be fine, just so long as I don’t have the volume up too loud. Which I certainly won’t. The cab for the Terror is passive, so I didn’t need to sort out an extra plug socket for it. It’s also very user friendly, so just one simple lead was required (and included) to get things going. And it all sounds great! I’m so excited, as this is the first head/cab combo I’ve ever owned, or even tried. I usually use practice combos, which are sensible for “bedroom playing” (although my music nook is actually in my lounge). Since the prospects of me ever being in a band are low (apparently, you need to be good at socialising), the chance of me ever owning a proper, giant, scary head/cab stack are unlikely, so my Orange kit will do me just fine. For now.
COMPRESSOR #2 PART 2
I got round to picking up my new Electro Harmonix Soul Preacher compressor, which I wanted to use to compare with my MXR Dyna Comp and hopefully learn more about the “art” of electric guitar compression. So far, I’ve learned that this one is a lot more sensitive than the Dyna Comp, so the volume/sustain hits antisocial levels very quickly. The compression level seems a little more slack, so I’m still playing around with that. I’m still not sold on the whole compression thing, even with two pedals of varying output. I guess I’ll use them only when I’m playing a very cheap guitar with low sustain and high crapiness, which I’m guessing is why they were invented. Onwards!
SLIDE GUITAR PROGRESS
I love slide guitar. It’s just the coolest sound ever, and makes my soul weep. Well, my tutor ran me through the basics last year, and what I gleamed from him is that you really just need to play it intuitively by ear. Since then, I’ve not really followed up on it much, so last week I decided to pick it up and attempt to master it, once and for all. What I’ve learned very quickly is that I need to adapt one of my guitars especially for slide playing, as I require much, much heavier strings (almost bass guitar-heavy) and a higher action/nut height. There’s a special detachable nut you can buy to put over your guitar’s default nut, so there’s no need for me to pay for the nut to be raised at the guitar shop, but stringing heavy strings doesn’t sound fun, so I might just pay to get that and the nut done, and set aside that guitar for permanent slide use. It’ll be fine, as it’s just a cheap Vintage-brand Strat that’s kinda surplus in my collection anyway. Sounds great with the slide I’ve done so far, too!
Nut.
LEARNING SONGS
I personally come at guitar playing from a writing perspective, so my main enjoyment comes from developing chord progressions to be sung over, or jamming with myself using a looper. However, that’s all getting a little old, and I really want to start playing the odd cover. Most importantly, I want to learn the blues. You can be taught all the basic musical theory you like, but playing the blues seems to be something you need to figure out yourself, much like slide playing. Makes sense, since slide playing is often a key part of the blues genre. I prefer southern Delta and hill country blues, that often have simple, metronomic rhythms, rather than northern Chicago blues, which is when saxophones and fedoras usually get involved… *shudder*. Although I do enjoy Texas blues too, which is faster and more upbeat. What I plan to do, is just sit down in front of my laptop with a guitar and play along to a song each day until I get the essence of it. I’m going to learn by ear, rather than looking up guitar tabs on the internet, which I find very frustrating indeed. While he wasn’t technically a roots blues artist (although when he did dabble in it, it was incredible, of course), I’ve decided to begin learning-by-ear Jimi Hendrix’s debut Are You Experienced album. I’ve already cracked the basics of Foxy Lady and Manic Depression, so fingers crossed, when I come to more traditional styles, I’ll have honed my skills. Hendrix is somewhat tricky due to his unique guitar setup (that right-handed Strat slung over for his left-hand playing created sounds you can’t recreate on an un-customised instrument), so I’m just trying to get as close as possible and assume it’s the best I can do. His expressive playing I can’t reproduce, either. Few can, I guess.
Right, that’s all for now, lovers. See you at the after party!
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