The Practice Room

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Received this from Brian Wampler of indyguitarist.com. Brian is deeply into effects pedals and amp mods (and effects pedal mods), many of which are available through the web site. Brent Mason, in addition to being one of the world's most-recorded guitarists, is a frequent instructor at the National Guitar Workshop's Nashville campus.

Here's something I thought you might get a kick out of if you are a fan of Brent Mason or just monstrously huge pedalboards. I finished one up for Brent this past week and I wanted to show you some pictures. It’s huge! 24" by 48" wide complete with a custom case by Stompin' Ground Cases. Here is the pedal order:

guitar - custom hifi buffer - tremolo - microvibe - keeley compressor - dynamic wah - vox wah - tubescreamer - sparkledrive - zendrive - BB preamp - RC preamp - EQ - Katana boost - Mk4.2.3 volume boost - Boss Volume Pedal - Small Stone phaser - Boss Chorus - Rotosim Leslie Simulator - Line 6 DL4 Delay

The huge true bypass box has 20 individual true bypass loops and 3 stereo true bypass loops. It has the buffer built into it as well so it is always on.

So, Brian, I have two questions:

            - who carries it?

            - who changes all the batteries?

[TJH]

Not just clean - Kronosonic clean

I’ve been browsing the Kronosonic resources I downloaded from GtrOblq, and found a few interesting tips for developing precise and clean technique. It’s under the heading “Mr. Clean.” (No author is listed.) Among them:

- “Use a sharp, rigid, thick, small pick – like a Stubby or something similar. These have better ‘memory’ and will have better response. The sharp tip will also reduce the amount of friction and surface area coming in contact with the string – facilitating greater accuracy and speed.” I suspect this is less true for acoustic players, who have a lot more physical mass to move than electric players.

- ‘Plug in your amp and go for the clean channel… Use no effects whatsoever – not even reverb!...Use a moderate amount of volume. Too little volume will result in excessive force ands too much will damage your hearing and not facilitate long enough practice sessions.”

- “Use an ‘economy’ of motion and force. In other words don’t physically play to hard and, conversely, don’t be a wimp either. Use just the amount of energy to get the job done, Most people use way too much force when they play – hacking away.”

- “Relax when you play. Smile (it really does help.)” I can picture Buckethead playing a million notes a minute with a big goofy smile on his face under the mask and KFC bucket.

- “Generally, keep your thumb behind the neck – exceptions are okay but stay cognizant of when you’re being lazy.”

- “Be patient. You’ll get nowhere quickly. Developing technique will take a lot of hard work and dedication… If you persevere through the dry spell you’ll come out sooner or later and you’ll be not just one step past where you were but exponentially beyond what you were able to do, seemingly, just days before.”

[TJH]

Hard

"The hardest thing was not learning to write; the hardest thing was to never give up." - Po Bronson

Applies to playing music, too, I think, especially for us hobbyists/amateurs/duffers. Why the hell am I still wrestling with this stuff after all these years? Some days, I think, "This is as far as you're going to get. This is the place you've been trying to get to. So enjoy it and make the most of it, and forget about any significant progress beyond this point."  Most days, in fact.  And it takes effort to stay in that place. It's not the top of a hill, it's just the side of a hill with a few things to hold onto. Let go, and you slide back down the hill.

And truthfully I don't really know why I'm still at it. There's pleasure in playing, but I never seem to play well enough - there's so much room for improvement. The more I do this, the more respect I feel for the pros, who bet their lives on their ability to play, every day.

A while back I saw a TV program about the musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina (remember them?). A trumpet player sat by himself and played "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?" Just the melody, with his own personal ornaments and shadings. It seemed so direct, and simple. I've been trying to do that ever since - nowhere near as easy as it looks.

But I haven't given up.

[TJH]

Making Music

Making Music is a magazine dedicated to amateur musicians. (The tag line: “Better Living Through Recreational Music Making.”) The web site has almost as much useful information as the magazine, and is definitely worth a browse. Some of the current stories:
   - Creating Community the Classical Way, about the Chicago Classical Guitar Ensemble – 10 amateur guitarists of varying skill levels rehearse once a week and perform in public twice a year.
   - Do You Have Tender Tendons? “Musicians, like athletes, should know how to treat tendonitis, so an acute case doesn’t become chronic, impacting your ability to play.”
   - Give Me Just a Little More Time ..., about facilitating a group of Weekend Warriors from across the generations trying to play rock ‘n’ roll together.

Making Music is a long, long way from the guitar-hero-driven mags most of us a familiar with. (You’ll never see Slash on the cover.) The focus is on amateurs, regardless of instrument. I’ve come across the occasional error  (“Learning the classical guitar, a centuries-old variant that uses nylon strings and is tuned an octave lower than steel-string guitars, might seem daunting to some…”), but that may be a small budget/big topic problem. Anyway, I like to see my fellow duffers get the spotlight every now and then.

[TJH]

musicFIRST

This is news to me: A coalition of artists called musicFIRST is asserting that performers in the United States have digital performance rights when their music is played on satellite radio, internet radio and cable services, but NOT when it is broadcast via AM or FM radio. I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but that surprises me, and it seems ridiculous. Needless to say, musicFIRST is trying to change the status quo.

More tidbits from musicFIRST’s FAQs:

- “… a January 2007 study conducted by the University of Texas at Dallas stated that ‘Radio play does not have the positive impact on record sales normally attributed to it. Instead, it appears to have an economically important negative impact, implying that overall radio listening is more of a substitute for the purchase of sound recordings than it is a complement.’”

- “Currently, when American music is played in foreign countries, they withhold royalties to protest the fact that United States radio stations do not honor a performance right for foreign artists.”

Among musicFIRSTs’s Founding Artists are Aimee Mann, BB King, Brian Wilson, Don Henley, Dr. Dre, Dr. John, Jimmy Buffet, Keb’ Mo’, Pete Seeger, Placido Domingo, will.i.am, and, apparently in a naked attempt to add some heft to that list of musical lightweights, The Pussycat Dolls.

[TJH]

Best flatpicking

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine has just released the "Best of the First Ten Years" on four CD-Roms. The compilations include articles published from November/December 1996 (Volume 1, Number 1) through September/October 2006 (Volume 10, Number 6). The discs include:

Volume One: Cover Story Articles: every cover story article that was published during FGM's first ten years, including the transcriptions and tabs. 

Volume Two: Guitar Builder Articles: fifty Guitar Builder articles, plus 14 guitar reviews and 11 articles about guitar building by Don Gallagher. 

Volume Three: Rhythm Guitar Articles: includes 90 rhythm guitar articles (with tabs) and 29 interviews with rhythm guitar players.

Volume Four: Editor's Pick Song Transcriptions: includes 147 song transcriptions.

All are available through FGMs's web site, www.flatpick.com

[TJH]

Maynard Silva

Me: How often are you surprised by your playing, or what you’re listening to, or music in general?

Maynard: If my mind is clear and it's real music, not Brittany Timberlake Jackson Manilow, then I'm always surprised by it. You never get used to cold showers - they always wake you up.  As for playing, it's the preconception thing…less preconceptions, more surprises, more fun.

Blues singer/guitarist Maynard Silva was the first person I interviewed for WorkshopLive’s profile series. I heard a lot of great stuff doing those interviews, but to me nobody topped Maynard. Beginner’s luck on my part, I guess.

Maynard has been fighting cancer for a while now. There’s a wonderful story about him and his son, Milo, in their hometown paper, the Vineyard Gazette, and it’s well worth reading. Also, because I’m a sentimental guy, I’m posting the whole interview with Maynard in the continuation section of this entry.

Milo, by the way, is a devotee of Tuvan music and all things Mongolian. I interviewed him as well, but found it too hard to connect the Tuvan music he was playing with the guitar/bass/keyboard interests that I expected WorkshopLive subscribers to have. One of these days I’ll give it another shot.

[TJH]

Thinkin’ About Your Body

Musicians, like athletes, practice a craft that takes a toll on their bodies and, again like athletes, they don’t like to admit it. A recent Northwestern University study found that almost all incoming freshman music majors – freshmen - already have a playing-related physical ailment. Hearing problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, shoulder problems from bad playing posture - all are familiar to players almost regardless of instrument. Throw in years of traveling from one low-paying gig to another in the back of a van, eating fast food and breathing second-hand smoke – it’s enough to make you change to a safer job, like rodeo clown.

Dr. Kris Chesky, a physician with a doctorate in music education, has developed a specialty in saving musicians from themselves. At the University of North Texas Center for Music and Medicine, he helps musicians with playing-related health problems like hearing loss. He's published studies on the wrist impairments of clarinet players, the painful hands of pianists and the damaged mouths of trumpeters. And he's using technology to measure the exact sound levels classical musicians expose themselves to. That’s right – it’s not just rock players who have decibel excess. College marching bands, for example, can get awfully loud (and it can’t help that they’re playing marching band versions of “Louie, Louie”, either.)

For more, here’s an interview with Dr. Chesky from the Dallas Morning News.

[TJH]

Tom Dempsey on Rosie O'Donnell

“…Every gig has its own inherent musical challenges. The most important thing is to be able to creatively and artistically have your soul in that musical space at that time. I used to sub in a band on a television show here in New York, the Rosie O’Donnell show. And it may have been at the first gig when the drummer said to me, “Doing this gig is kind of like doing sprints. You have to be totally on, with everything perfect in your musical execution of something, and it could be four seconds long.” And that was the inherent challenge in doing that gig. You might have four of five measures of music, but they had to be a perfect four or five measures of music…”

[TJH]

More things my guitar teacher used to say

Success in music takes three things: talent, luck and hard work. The only one you can do anything about is the last one, so work hard, and forget about talent and luck. They'll take care of themselves.

[TJH]