The Seventh String

Today I decided to pull out the ol' seven string guitar.  As I slung the ever cheesy 'police line' strap over my shoulder, I thought to myself "wow it has been a while.  I wonder if I should sell this guitar."  The answer came to me seconds after I played my first chord.  The huge sound seemed to swirl around my body, (thanks in part to the cold medicine that I am taking) and it came to me: of course I could never sell it, I still need it. The following argument with myself went something like this:
What For?  Surely I trespass some of the Bassist's territory with that low B string.  Not to mention that I haven't even come close to mastering the six string guitar so why would I even want a guitar with more strings that that?  Plus any guitarist worth his salt should be able to make his six strings sound as huge as any seven string guitar.

Will the defence please rise.
For charges against trespassing on the bass territory:
Bands sound best when each player stays in their little pocket and don't try to carry over into someone else's place.  If you are a rhythm player, be content playing a supporting rhythm to the bass and drums; something to fill in the sonic gap... but don't over fill!  This can be done on a seven string.  Just check your volume and don't play more than you should.  If you are a lead player, you should try to come to grips with the fact that you may never be satisfied.
 
For the charge against needing to master six strings before attempting seven:
You don't need to master a six string before attempting a seven string.  That is ridiculous.  It is a different instrument and needs to be treated like it.

For the statement "any guitarist worth his salt should be able to make his six strings sound as huge as any seven string guitar.".

This is somewhat true!  The simplest way to make a chord sound an octave lower is to simply drop a fifth on the bottom end of the chord.  For example if you are playing the C chord (3rd fret A string) to make it sound bigger, crank the distortion and play the G (3rd fret low E string) on top of the C chord.  Voila!   ...but its just not the same.  Also there is no real way (other than some pitch shifting pedals) to mask single notes as being lower than they are that I am aware of.

Further statements:
The Seven string also feels different, and not just because of the little wider neck, but because of its scale.  My seven string has a slightly longer scale than my other guitars do.  That means that the strings have to be pulled a little tighter to produce any given note than is necessary on a regular (not baratone) six string guitar.  The result is a tight feeling, mean and deep sounding machine of sonic might and glory.

Verdict:  I will keep and continue to love my seven string.

Fast Times and Canada Day

The first of July is one of the greatest things about the town where I live.  The population doubles on Canada Day here for the parade and the street party that follows.  Yesterday I had the chance to help set up for a band that played here called Fast Times.  They put on an excellent show!  The people in the crowd really enjoyed the music that they played.  They played from every genera too, everything from Journey, to Merle Haggard, to Lady Gaga and Led Zeppelin (just to name a few) and they did it well too!  After the show I went and spoke to the guitar player and this is what he said:  He told me that over time most of the combinations of chord progressions and notes have already been used and that the real key to being a musician is to render what is already there in your own way.  The music already exists and the musician acts only as a conduit to release it.  That is similar to what Victor Wooten had to say at a bass clinic that I attended one day and its what DiVinci about his sculptures, so it must have some merit.  He also told me the thing that sets one musician apart from another, is the way that the music is played.  No two musicians sound exactly the same weather the difference be in the tone that he or she peruses, or the technique used to create a certain effect.  So I guess this is another post like the 'sound like yourself' post I did a little while back.  Happy long weekend!

Canada Day Long weekend from the 1st to the 3rd or July 4th from the 2nd to the 4th for my American friends, have a good one

Finally, A good photo!

I decided to mess around with a camera and a little photo editing program to see if I could make a great picture of my guitar and this is what I came up with.  I know its not much of a blog post for today but I like this picture and since this is a blog about music and musical instruments, why not?

Ok so what I did was I took a rumpled piece of black fabric and then placed my guitar on it.  Then I took a picture with my camera and then imported it into gimp (which is an open source photo editing program which is very similar to photoshop, only free).  Then I put the guitar on one layer, put a gradient filter overtop of that, and a black background under, and Poof!  Sweet picture of my guitar.  Enjoy!

Ugly Blog

Well I have done a little research and looking at other people's blogs and I have come to the realization that My blog is ugly.  This is no good.  I want to make my blog look awesome so that I when I write about guitar playing, or piano playing or music in general, people aren't distracted by the ugliness.  Its time to go digging around and see what I can do in order to make my blog a little less of an eyesore.  Suggestions?

About the Piano

I am a piano player.  In fact, that is the instrument that I'm taking at University!  I know that it would be difficult to tell because of all the posts that I have done about guitar... 

Now, I like to consider myself a social creature.  I like to interact with people and perhaps that is part of my problem.  In all of my piano playing that I have done over the last 20 years, I haven't had the chance to sit down with someone else and make music.  My job was to master a piece of music, usually written by someone long dead, well enough to play at a recital or exam.  When the technically perfect performance was given, picked apart, and found acceptable, I was then able move on to another piece and start the process all over again.  Along the way I learned how to play scales, chords, arpeggios etc. but never learned how to apply them in a more social setting.  In contrast, when I started to play guitar, I jammed for the first time probably six months after I started on songs with which I was familiar!  I had FUN!  I want to be able to jam that way with piano but I'm afraid that I am too engrained with the classical discipline.  I NEED HELP or else I may be doomed to conversations like this:

"Hey we should get together this weekend and have a jam"

"Yeah!  That sounds like fun!" 

"Great!  I was thinking maybe I'll play keyboards, and I'll have a bass player and a drummer lined up and you could take lead guitar?"

"Sounds like fun what are we playing?"

"Ooh, well are you familiar with Bach's prelude and fugue in Bflat major?  I was also thinking we could do the first movement of his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto."

"....Seriously?"

"Yeah! You know the ones... BWV 866 and BWV 1050!"

"I take it back, it does not sound like fun after all."

Now don't get me wrong, Those Bach pieces are great works of art and are enjoyable to listen to, however you need to be classically trained to play this stuff and even then, the challenge is formidable.  Once the task of learning such a piece is complete, there is very little room to play around and add your own flavour to the piece. Especially with Bach, because with Bach, there is only one flavour... the Bach flavour.  You can't just improvise your own keyboard solo in a Bach piece, mostly because he is already playing the best notes that could ever go there, but also because he will curse the musical talent right out of you from the grave (or so I've heard).  All this doesn't make me want to practice piano much.

So, you can see my conundrum.  I want to be able to play music with people (which I think is one of the best things about music) but there are very few people who know how to jam with a keyboard and I don't know where to begin to teach myself.  Ooh well.  I guess I'll just do the best I can and maybe by playing along with the stereo, improvement in this area will be improved, and this will increase my desire to be awesome at piano and I will practice more.  

Help! Gear Stolen in Vancouver

Hello everyone who visits my blog,

Someone named Maurice had his music gear stolen in Vancouver.

CLICK HERE to see his poster on craigslist.

Maurice, I don't know who you are or if you will ever read this post but I sure hope that you get your gear back and that in their wrath, the Gods of Karma strike the dirty thieves down!!

First Attempt at Garage Band

Alright Ladies and Gents,  This is a piece of a song that I created shortly after I started to play the electric guitar so its not full of shred-tastic awesomeness, but it has a good rock groove.  I decided to try to record something on Garage Band and this is what happened.  Now that I'm beginning to learn the ropes and whatnot, I'm sure that there will be more posts like this one, just with better tunes.

This is what I did.  I made the drum track on Garage Band with the typing keyboard then I plugged my guitar into my little blackstar 5 watt amp and the emulated headphones out from my amp into my computer (no interface just right into my audio in jack).  Then I laid down the guitar track a couple of times.  After that, I grabbed a bass, plugged it right into the computer, laid down that track and poof!  A simple song!  Looking back I probably should have done the drums first followed by the bass then the guitar.  Ooh well.   I guess the point to this post is that Garage Band has all the fancy toys that I need at the moment.  Maybe after I become proficient in Garage Band, I'll explore some of the bigger programs.