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This Here People Farm Misses Jimi Hendrix

Today the world smells burned.
"Sensationalistic accounts of the final months of Jimi Hendrix’s life portray him as a drug-ravaged shell of his pyrotechnic self, but the music Hendrix made as fate’s clock ticked tells another story – one of a profoundly talented musician who remained at the height of his creative powers..."

Ted Drozdowski 7/08/2010 Gibson Lifestyle Blog

I have lived here before the days of iceAnd of course this is why I'm so concernedAnd I come back to find the stars misplacedAnd the smell of a world that has burnedThe smell of a world that has burnedWell maybe maybe, it's just a change of climate..."Lyrics excerpt- "Up From the Skies" Jimi Hendrix

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Important Techniques for Mastering Lead Guitar 2 - Slides, String Bending & Tremolo Picking

Learning how to play lead guitar is an art and it can only be mastered using some of the most important and advanced techniques like string bending and tremolo picking among many others.

The most important part of playing the lead guitar is playing it well and using the various techniques to your advantage without going out of tune. Guitar techniques come into picture only in the advanced stages.

The tremolo or the whammy bar as many call it is a useful tool when it comes to lead guitar techniques and can bring out a distorted sound that is common in hard rock or heavy metal bands like Metallica, Megadeth and Dreamtheater. Some of the other lead guitar techniques include doing the slide and string bending.

Slides

When doing the slide on a lead guitar, you need to take care of an aspect, which is raising the strings of your guitar a little higher of the neck. You can always use an extension nut for this purpose. For sliding you can use your hand or another instrument called the slide. When you press the slide against your guitar strings, the pitch of the strings change and you can even vary the pitch to an extent by moving your slide upwards or downwards on the guitar neck. Slide is a lead guitar technique that is also known as the bottleneck guitar. It is an effective technique because it helps you to create pitch transitions continuously on your lead guitar.

String Bending

String bending also known as radial pitch-shifting is an important technique of playing the lead guitar. To create string bending, you have to move the string that has been held down in a particular direction, which is normally perpendicular to the axis and is always parallel to your fingerboard. This is a type of pitch-shifting that is most often used by in a rock or heavy metal band. String bending is most commonly used with other distortion techniques for making the lead guitar playing sound smoothly and melodic. It is limited to not more than 1 or 2 semi-tones but you will get to use even 3 semitones once you are highly skilled. Instances of 5-semitones can also be seen especially when you hear the guitar solo played by David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) in Another Brick In the Wall Pt.2 from the album "The Wall." This solo has become an anthem in Rock music history.

Tremolo Picking

When you need to play some fast phrases on your lead guitar, you can use tremolo picking. With the help of tremolo picking, you will be able to play a particular note multiple times in quick succession. It is also known as double picking and you can do it with your finger or with your pick. The main reason for using tremolo picking in lead guitar is because it adds more sustenance to melodic lines.

For over 1000 Professional Guitar Backing Tracks, check out Planet of Rock, The #1 Secret Weapon For Guitarists.

Eugene is the founder of Planet of Rock Music Studios.

He is a professional guitar teacher and an ex band member of Black November which has toured and performed in Australia and Asia since 1997. He has contributed to publications as Guitar Player, Guitar World Acoustic, Maximum Guitar and dozens of magazines and websites worldwide.

In 2005, he has founded Planet of Rock Music Studios to provide affordable Guitar Backing Tracks for guitarists. As featured in Guitar Player, these professional backing tracks for guitar are great for lead guitar practice or live performances.

Jam with your favourite bands at the comfort of your own home or studio with backing tracks for guitar. It has also been used heavily in live performances by customers across United States since its inception.

Play like you have the entire band backing you up!

P.S: Remember to sign up for your free Ultimate Guitar Tone eBook (worth $29) at Planet of Rock!

Planet of Rock - You Rock. We'll Back You Up - For The Rock Star In You ....

Country Guitar Lessons - Guitars and Guitarists

Country guitar lessons in these days of the world wide web are now popular all over the world. If you are wondering what the fuss is about I will just mention some aspects of country guitar playing that excite the interest of music fans and guitar enthusiasts alike. This article will focus on a couple of the more individualistic guitar styles in country music and also talk a little about the Telecaster - the country musician's guitar.

First let us look at a guitar style that has entered the country genre through blues and rock. The slide guitar, also known as the bottleneck guitar is a lyrical way of expressing feelings through guitar music. It was developed in the early twentieth century by the early blues players, and popularized by young white rock and blues players in the nineteen sixties. Now there are many country guitar players who see the musical possibilities in this style of playing. The key to this technique is sliding an object along the guitar strings to make a whining or wailing sound. This presents the guitar player with many opportunities to play notes that fall between the frets of the guitar as well as imitating the sound of a singing voice.

The term "bottleneck" refers to the practice of many slide guitar performers of producing the sliding sound by fitting the neck of a bottle to their first or second finger. Popular wisdom has it that other players used the blade of a knife. Modern slide guitar players usually go to a music shop and buy a slide. You can play slide guitar with the guitar held in the normal playing position or with the guitar in your lap. A player can use an ordinary steel string acoustic guitar tuned in the standard way or to an open chord, or a resonator guitar which has a distinctive metallic sound well suited to slide playing.

Another guitar style used by country guitar players is chicken pickin', developed to high art by Waylon Jennings. It is used in lead guitar solos and involves the guitar player pulling on the string with his right hand fingers and at the same time damping the string with his left hand. Most country guitar players use a plectrum or thumbpick to play bass notes in conjunction with chicken pickin' on the treble strings.

Chet Atkins is a country guitar player who was adept at the chicken pickin' technique but he was most well known for his adaptation of the Travis picking technique. Merle Travis developed an impressive solo playing technique using his thumb to pick bass notes and his index finger to play melody or filler notes. Chet Atkins was so impressed with Travis' solos that he assumed that Travis was using his second and ring fingers in addition to his index finger. This mistaken assumption led to a whole new generation of country guitar players inspired by the Chet Atkins style.

If you want to take country guitar lessons you should learn about the typical sound that is associated with country guitar music. While rock and roll has as many sounds as there are guitar players, country guitar has its own sound. This is due to most country players opting to stay with the clean, unadorned sound of the Fender Telecaster. The "Tele" had a sound that made aspiring guitar players sit up and take notice combined with a design that made it a dream to play. It is a solid body electric guitar with two pickups, and was the first electric guitar to be successfully produced and sold on a large scale.

In the early days of the electric guitar both rock and country guitar players wanted to be heard by the audience without feedback interfering with the sound of the guitar. The Telecaster filled the bill when it came out in 1950 and has remained a popular choice for solo guitarist ever since. Country guitarists noted for being enthusiastic Telecaster players include Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, James Burton and Merle Haggard.

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.

Buddy Guy is Living Proof!

"My first wife said to me, 'It's me or the guitar,' and I picked up my guitar and left. We still laugh about that..." Buddy Guy

Dunno what's better, the above quote or the photograph! 

Either way, Buddy Guy has a new release due out October 26, 2010 entitled "Living Proof" featuring a guest appearance by B.B. King, which is reportedly the very first studio recording these two legends have done together. 

Nightwatcher's House of Rock has the full scoop!

NOTE: CLICK HERE for a story about Buddy's rare '58 three color burst, maple neck Strat.

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McKinley Blues

Slide guitar is also known as bottleneck guitar because bottlenecks were the first materials used to produce the effect. Normally a guitar player varies the pitch of notes by pressing a string down against a fret. Slide guitar players place a slide across the strings and move it along without lifting, creating continuous changes in pitch, sometimes in addition to using their free fingers to fret the guitar, sometimes not. The chords available are limited, so many musicians, including Mr Morganfield, use open tuning, a technique where the guitar strings are tuned to a particular chord (often D-G-d-g-b-d) which then changes key as the slide moves up and down the neck of the guitar. The origin of the technique is not clear. There is an Indian instrument, the Vichitra Veena which is played with a slide, as are many African one stringed instruments, though these don't share the challenges of slide guitar where strings which are playing the 'wrong' notes have to be muted.

Robert Johnson was one of the early influential guitarists to use the slide technique, but slide guitar couldn't be contained and burst from the acoustic world to electric guitar with the early blues musicians, and particularly with McKinley Morganfield who really brought the sound to electric guitar. "I Cant Be Satisfied" and "I Feel Like Going Home" were recorded in Chicago in 1948 and became hits for Mr Morganfield, bringing him a long way from his birth in Mississippi and early days as a field hand. If you're wondering why you haven't heard the name, it may be because you know the nickname better, McKinley Morganfield was better known as Muddy Waters.

Born in 1913 and raised by his Grandmother in Clarksdale Mississippi, McKinley Morganfield enjoyed playing in mud, hence the nickname Muddy. He added the 'Waters' himself later. Aged 13 he learned to play harmonica, but four years later, after hearing Robert Johnson he took up the guitar and by age 17 he was playing at various local events, his style a mixture of Johnson's slide guitar playing and Son House's tone. He married for the first time in 1932 but his wife left three years later when his first child was born, but not to her. In 1941 collectors came from the Library of Congress, looking for Robert Johnson in the hope of recording his music. Johnson was dead, but Muddy Waters was willing and able to demonstrate. He was recorded in 1941 and 1942 and then left the South for good in 1943 to move to Chicago.

It was Muddy Waters who brought blues, and specifically electric blues to England in the late fifties to influence an entire generation, though he himself was surprised that the music, which had arisen in black America, was losing it's appeal within the black community who were turning to soul music. At the same time young white teenagers were becoming huge fans. The Rolling Stones named themselves from one of Water's songs, Eric Clapton grew up loving the sound, and Led Zeppelins 'Whole Lotta Love' is based on a Muddy Waters song 'You Need Love'. It may be his influence which spread the use of slide guitar to the rock and roll world where it has developed still further. The Rolling Stones and ZZ Top have all used the technique as have Pink Floyd and even George Harrison, who experimented with it during his time as a Beatle and on later solo songs like 'My Sweet Lord'. Martin Scorsese the film director is a confirmed fan and has used Muddy Waters songs in many of his films, such as Casino and Goodfellas.

Muddy Waters continued to work throughout his life. His last performance was with Eric Clapton's band in Florida in 1982. He died a few months later. He is ranked #17 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, but his true influence can't possibly be measured.

John Blackwood
Learn to Play guitar
Blues Guitar Lesson

Another 3 HB Hybrid Monster from Frank Verrilli

8 Stratocasters + 1 Telecaster = ???

Boutique art guitar builder Frank Verrilli is at it again in his secret workshop/laboratory. He sent me the above pic of eight Strats and one Tele, and a rather sturdy lookin' bench of reclaimed hemlock, which he combined through some kind of Leo Fender meets Willy Wonka molecular transmutation process (Frank has this machine, see...)
to turn out what we see him demonstrate in following video:

BTW, the Strats and Tele were various upgrade and relic projects of Frank's. But if he wants to squeeze them all into one monster tone smoothie machine, that's his bidness.

Discover more about Frank Verrilli:

fvcustomguitars.com
frankverrilli.com - Complete art works site

See more Verrilli guitar demos at Lance Keltner Videos

Frank Verrilli Guitars are also available through boutique purveyor Destroy All Guitars

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