444 posts tagged with guitar.
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Globally great guitar
Forget about Hendrix, Beck, Clapton, Page and Van Halen; we want to highlight the guitarists who have made an impact outside of the usual rock’n’roll axis of axes. It’s a list full of invention, customs passed down through generations and a focus on rhythm as much as volume. These are the musicians who defined soukous, bossa nova and Touareg desert blues, who soundtracked revolutions and revelations, and made their traditions that little more recognisable to a global audience. These are our guitar heroes... from 50 Global Guitar Greats [Songlines]
October 31, 1963
Ghost of Your Guitar Solo
Amarrarme a mi guitarra
Yerai Cortés is a guitarist and a rising star among the current generation of Flamenco artists. Last month he was invited to COLORS where he performed a piece titled Romance, and he returned this month for an encore performance of the song Sonar Por Bulerías. There is also a music video version of the latter.
5000 picks/second
Mattias Krantz is a Swedish engineer who modifies instruments mostly by having really dumb or funny ideas, and then being stubborn and persistent enough not to give up where any sensible person would. He has done a number of weird and whacky pianos (including one previously featured on mefi) but has more recently moved on to guitars: a petrol-powered electric, an acoustic strung with Madagascan spider silk, and a spinning necked guitar which he then tries to play. Now his most recent guitar project is all about speed: picking speed, specifically. Here is his concept for a thousand-pick auto-picking guitar, like a hair metal hurdy-gurdy. [MLYT]
From Kora to Guitar
Translating Great African Composers. "In this mesmerising performance and talk, Derek Gripper explains how he painstakingly translated the works of the great Toumani Diabate from the 21-string kora, onto six string guitar. He gives context to the virtuosity of Diabate himself, and an insight into how African music traditions are passed down. In the process of this translation, Derek is also capturing these African masterpieces onto guitar scores, providing a new way for the works of great African composers to be preserved and interpreted by musicians worldwide." [more inside]
MEOWdulator
B's Music Shop has announced the Meowdulator ($199.99) which is a guitar effects pedal that meows and purrs (0:24 Instagram video). [more inside]
Come for the songs, stay for the songs
Jesse Welles is a singer/songwriter in the protest tradition: War Isn’t Murder; Cancer; Fentanyl; The Olympics; Whistle Boeing; Payola; Happy Mother’s Day; Fat; God, Abraham, and Xanax.
And when it's time for leavin', I hope you'll understand
Singer, song writer, guitarist Dickey Betts has died. A driving force and original member of the Allman Brothers Band, Dickey Betts was an early pioneer of two part guitar harmonies in rock music.
The Tapa Room Tapes - Hawaiian music, Hawaiian Village Serenaders, 1950s
The Tapa Room Tapes are a collection of recorded performances by various Hawaiian artists (includingi Alfred Apaka and Jules Ah See) from the Tapa Room of the Hawaiian Village in the late 1950s. Originally uploaded by British steel guitarist Basil Henriques. The sound quality can be variable, but the music is hot Hawaiian swing with plenty of steel guitar.
Kicking Out The Last Jam
This past Friday, Wayne Kramer, legendary co-founder and guitarist of the incendiary and massively influential MC5, died at the age of 75. [more inside]
Happy Friday
*Imitates the sound of the spokeshave*
Tchiks is an amateur woodworker from Brussels. He makes the kind of YouTube video I enjoy: Someone making things (in this case guitars), no chat-to-camera (though there's some in-the-room chat, usually dialogue with his daughter, who is now six years old), no music (apart from the demonstration of the instrument at the end), the only sounds are workshop sounds. Since 2019 he's occasionally been uploading videos of the guitars he's been building, including the one he made out of a shelf during quarantine (because it's the only wood he could get), the one he made with one hand (because he'd broken his arm) and the detailed reproduction of Brian May's Red Special.
For their latest project Tchiks and his daughter built her a bass guitar together.
Even if you're not interested in videos of people building guitars, it's worth skipping to the last minute or so of this one for the demonstration. [more inside]
but mine goes up to 11
rolling stone's list of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time - we all know that we will find total agreement on this, right?
Cowboy take me away...
Betty Lou Music offers uncluttered chord guides to thousands of songs behind several attractive low-resolution pictures of shaggy dogs.
Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from Mack McCormick
Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971
I have not been this excited about a new collection of vintage blues and African-American music in years...And this is as good as it can get. [more inside]
Fender Amps FAQ
Amp technician and guitarist Lyle Caldwell presents a relaxing, 30-minute tour of a typical vintage Fender guitar amplifier. (SLYT)
Keep an eye on the rabbit
Exposing the truth about the guitar industry
The batteries used in guitar pedals are more important than you think. A new pedal from JHS can now simulate the performance of the batteries used by the stars.
Hi Ren
"I'll spit poison at all your bad boys"
playing a 2x4 through a tacklebox head into a foamcore cabinet
About a year ago, Nashville musician Jim Lill asked: where does an electric guitar's tone come from? Lill has since asked a few more questions and done his best to document some answers in additional short entertaining videos:
- where does sustain come from?
- where does guitar string tone come from?
- does scale length affect the tone?
- where does speaker cabinet tone come from?
- where does amplifier head tone come from?
- where does sustain come from?
- where does guitar string tone come from?
- does scale length affect the tone?
- where does speaker cabinet tone come from?
- where does amplifier head tone come from?
Indigo Girls Tiny Desk concert
The Indigo Girls, almost preternaturally suited to the medium, perform a Tiny Desk Concert. [more inside]
Guitar Legend Jeff Beck has died
This has to be the coolest guitar ever
During a concert at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ in September 2022, the guitarist Julian Lage got to play a short improvisation and Charlie Christian's Seven Come Eleven on Christian's own 1940 Gibson ES-250, showing Lage's typical joy at playing, seeing what sounds he can coax out of this legendary instrument. [more inside]
But I won't be blue always
Legend of The Music Tree
"Not long ago, while browsing a craft fair in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, I spotted a guitar like no other I’d ever seen. It hung half-hidden behind a display of cutting boards and wooden bowls in the booth of woodworker and luthier David Smith. Noting my hungry stare, Smith gently lifted the instrument from its perch and urged me to give it a try. I cradled it under my elbow and plucked a few chords. The sound was resonant and true. But the most remarkable part was the look of the thing: Its back and sides rippled like a full moon reflecting off a dead calm sea. Mesmerizing.
“What you’re staring at is The Tree,” Smith said, smiling. “It’s the rarest and most coveted wood in the world.” [nopaywall] [more inside]
that fella can really wail on that, uh, absence of form
What's the most important factor in a guitar's tone? Well, apparently it's not like 99% of the guitar, including the part that looks like a guitar or that a normal human being would refer to as "a guitar".
The StickMan Departs
"You can always tell a good luthier because they can count to 10"
Over the course of a week (and a 2 hour video), musician, guitar YouTuber, and weird instrument aficionado Rob Scallon builds a guitar from scratch with professional luthier Marshall Bruné. [more inside]
You can lace your signature guitar sound with some truly epic farts
It's a Rio de Janeiro bouncy ball
Dry Cleaning is a post-punk band from South London featuring a tight rhythm section, sweet guitar riffs, and wonderfully scattershot spoken word vocals. A song with a fun arty music video. A song about the Duchess of Sussex. The title track from their new album.
STILL His Guitar Fiercely Weeps
In 2004, George Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - but Prince TOTALLY stole the show with an epic solo during a performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". 17 years later, the original RRHOF broadcast director for that night has released a directors' cut of that performance, which puts the spotlight right smack on Prince, where it belongs. [more inside]
The Face of Solo Guitar Is Changing. It’s About Time.
Gauche, Audrey, Goose and Branches (among other things)
Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars have been making hand-crafted guitars for thirty years and are based in Hokkaido in Japan. A collaboration between the luthier Kaz Goto, his wife Eiko and Akiko Oda, each guitar is unique, with elaborate and beautiful wood inlays, and comes with a matching strap and (often) a matching pedal, each designed along with the guitar.
Here is an interview with Kaz Goto.
Here is a direct link to a gallery of JGHG's archive of guitars. [more inside]
John Fahey -- Live 1997 -- Full Show
The Voice Goes Electric
Michael Winslow impersonates Jimi Hendrix playing “Purple Haze” at Montreal’s “Juste Pour Rire” festival using his mouth as an electric guitar.
Previously -but postdating this recording- we had posts about Winslow performing “Whole Lotta Love” and “The History of the Typewriter”
A short clip from Viceland of Winslow and a DJ playing together
Previously -but postdating this recording- we had posts about Winslow performing “Whole Lotta Love” and “The History of the Typewriter”
A short clip from Viceland of Winslow and a DJ playing together
"I learned all their songs on the airplane."
Backup Singer Dolette McDonald on Her Years With Talking Heads, the Police, and Don Henley. The latest article in Rolling Stone's Unknown Legends series (which seems to have ramped up considerably during the pandemic) - long interviews with veteran musicians who have played and recorded with icons and stars for decades, but who remain largely unknown to the general public. [more inside]
Loud Enough to Wake the Dead
Introducing the Skelecaster: yes, this dude built a guitar out of his dead uncle’s skeleton. Bone-shredding video included.
A Celebration of John Fahey and American-Primitive Guitar
...Fahey was nonetheless in enviable form. There’s sweating! A Charley Patton demonstration! Furrowed brows! And, of course, almost an hour of beautiful guitar-playing. ''Fahey, who did not suffer strangers nor fools, suffered both with us, and gave us a private concert.''John Fahey -- Santa Monica (1981) Via A Celebration of John Fahey and American-Primitive Guitar by Amanda Petrusich [more inside]
Do I have to be strong enough? I don’t know what to do.
Deep Sea Diver has a new album, Impossible Weight. It's really good guitar oriented moody rock, stop reading and go listen. [more inside]
Maple, Trench and Here Comes the Sun on a Kalimba
This will definitely soften your heart after a stressful day. It's been a long while, I think, since Maple and Trench were last featured here, and after seeing their latest, I just had to share. A wonderful pooch and some peaceful guitar, who'd think it would be so heart lightening to watch a set of these?
Music Gear Bechdel Test
The representation of women in that magazine was the first time it occurred to me that, perhaps, guitar wasn’t for me. Writing in the EarthQuaker Devices blog (EarthQuaker Devices being a small company in Akron, Ohio, that builds guitar effects pedals (recent previously on guitar effects pedals)), Hilary B. Jones, musician, founder of RIOT RI a.k.a. Girls Rock! Rhode Island, adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, suggests that it is long past time for music instrument manufacturers to use a modified version of the Bechdel Test when creating their marketing and promotional materials, very much including social media posts.
Make it very simple, let the music speak for itself.
Classical guitarist and lute player Julian Bream has died at the age of 87.
Obituaries Guardian and NYT
The conventional wisdom about the classical guitar is that the Spanish virtuoso Andrés Segovia single handedly carved out a place for it as a concert instrument worthy of the classical repertory. But I would argue, in fact, that as important as Segovia's groundwork was, the strides taken on the guitar's behalf by Julian Bream were as great, and in some ways more significant, than Segovia's.
Some quotes.
The conventional wisdom about the classical guitar is that the Spanish virtuoso Andrés Segovia single handedly carved out a place for it as a concert instrument worthy of the classical repertory. But I would argue, in fact, that as important as Segovia's groundwork was, the strides taken on the guitar's behalf by Julian Bream were as great, and in some ways more significant, than Segovia's.
Some quotes.
Jupiter and Mars.
MiuMiu Guitargirl is a 7 year old in Nanjing. Her parents have been posting her performances to YouTube during the last few months: multi-instrumental covers, song lessons, guitar playing tips and originals.
Some of her earliest posts were I Wish You Love, Fly Me to the Moon and Moon River. I looks like musicians around the globe have time on their hands right now and have decided - to - accompany - her - performances.
Aram Bedrosian
Aram Bedrosian plays amazing music on solo electric and acoustic bass guitar (with occasional collaborations). My current favorite - Weightless. His YT Channel. [more inside]
The Country Gentleman in the Njårdhallen
Saturday is Chet Atkins’ birthday! Here is Chet Atkins and the Blue Boys ripping it up for an enthusiastic crowd in Oslo on April 15, 1964, as part of a tour to introduce the Nashville sound to Europe. [more inside]
It's a rewarding life, but it's not an easy one
Ted Woodford is a luthier and guitar repairer in Hamilton, Ontario, who has a YouTube channel.
Slow, gentle tv at its very finest. Exactly what I needed to stumble over. [more inside]
the guitar is a tambourine with a ton of different pitches
The holy trinity of tambourine according to musician Jack Stratton of funk band Vulfpeck
1. Sandra Crouch (tambourine solo queued up)
2. Jack Ashford
3. Norman Whitfield
Also in the Holy Trinities series:
Minimalist Funk Arrangers
(Rhythm) Guitar [more inside]
1. Sandra Crouch (tambourine solo queued up)
2. Jack Ashford
3. Norman Whitfield
Also in the Holy Trinities series:
Minimalist Funk Arrangers
(Rhythm) Guitar [more inside]
The sweaters, the dancing in socks, the keyboard guitar...
As the final of Iceland's qualifying contest for Eurovision 2020 draws near, one song and (especially) video has received some attention - Think about Things. Wiwibloggs: “Last weekend, Daði Freyr and his group Gagnamagnið qualified for the Söngvakeppnin grand final with the Icelandic version of their song, also titled 'Gagnamagnið'. But they’ll be taking the English version, 'Think About Things' to Iceland’s grand final on 29 February.” However, other entries such as Oculus Videre stand in their path to representing Iceland...