Quick Links
This is a collection of links I’ve found interesting over the past week or so.
Oliver Sacks on Earworms, Stevie Wonder and the View from Mescaline Mountain - Interview with Oliver Sacks about his new book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (via TDS)
Album art gets short shrift in digital marketplace - I remember pouring over my parents albums as a child marveling at the art that they contained. Is the age of cool album art dead? I hope not (via TDS)
String Theories - Acoustic guitar recording advice from Tommy Emmanuel, John Etheridge, and more
Guitar Modded Into an iPod Dock - New use for an old guitar?
Video: Steve Vai Can’t Play Guitar - Funny satire combining video of Steve Vai and bad guitar playing
Sheet Music From Hell - Wow
Scharpach Classical Concert Guitar - Interesting new design for classical guitars (via Guitar Noize)
Humility separates the guitar boys from the guitar men - More sage advice from IG
Sometimes you just need to take a break… - Goofydawg discusses why taking a break from guitar playing can be helpful
YouTube Hero - Eric Mongrain
I was browsing YouTube the other day for interesting guitar-related videos, and I came across a video called AirTap! featuring a guitarist named Eric Mongrain, and with over 2 million hits on YouTube, I’m certainly not the first person to discover Mongrain. Mongrain uses a technique called “lap tapping” where he places the guitar on his lap and taps the guitar like a pianist would play the piano. I was expecting somewhat of a gimmick, but AirTap! is actually a fairly interesting song.
If you’re a fan of Michael Hedges, then you might like Mongrain’s music. He cites Hedges as one of his primary influences, and it shows in his music. Check out AirTap! below.
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet: Brazil
The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet have released their latest CD Brazil, which features the music of Sergio Assad, Marco Pereira, Hermeto Pascoal, Baden Powell, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and more. This CD marks the first recording with newest member Matthew Greif, and also on the recordings is vocalist Luciana Souza. The Brazil CD was recorded at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, which I imagine was an interesting experience in and of itself.
As an editorial aside, I am a big fan of Andrew York who left the group last year. It’ll be interesting to see how the dynamic has changed with York no longer in the group.
The LA Times have reviewed a recent performance by LAGQ. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a live performance by the LAGQ, and I would agree with the LA Times:
Although the four guitarists — John Dearman, William Kanengiser, Scott Tennant and new guy Matthew Greif — are classically trained, their omnivorous musical interests have brought them to a global repertoire of genres and styles. And, like Yo-Yo Ma, they have explored these genres with extraordinary authenticity.
Amazon MP3
Today, Amazon.com launched the public beta of Amazon MP3, an MP3 downloading service featuring DRM-free, high-quality (256 kbps) tracks. I’m very happy to see Amazon entering this market, as it finally gives iTunes a viable competitor, and will hopefully further the proliferation of legal, DRM-free digital music for sale on the Internet. Because these tunes are DRM-free, they can be played on any MP3 player.
At launch, Amazon MP3 had over 2 million tracks available, all of them DRM-free. And, most songs are priced at or below iTunes prices, with most songs priced from 89 to 99 cents and most albums ranging in price from $5.99 to $9.99. Unlike online stores like eMusic, many of the tracks available on Amazon MP3 are from major label artists, including Beastie Boys, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Keith Urban, Nickel Creek, Pink Floyd, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, and many, many more.
John Gruber has posted a nice review of both the Amazon MP3 Store and the Amazon MP3 downloader. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has also posted a review of the Amazon MP3 service.
Quick Links
This is a collection of links I’ve found interesting over the past week or so.
Weekend inspiration - Excellent short video documentary of Itzhak Perlman teaching masterclass students
Taylor Solid-Body Electric Promo Video - I can’t wait to actually play one of these (via Strat-o-Blogster)
Number One Priority - While not necessarily music related, I think the record labels have the same issue…fighting piracy has somehow taken priority over creating quality content
Zakk Wylde Talks about a new guitar and the Secret of Life - The Gibson ZV looks like an interesting guitar (via IG)
Next venue for ‘Guitar Hero III’: PCs, Macs - Now, PC and Mac owners will experience the joy that is Guitar Hero
Video: Nintendo DS Jam Sessions Reviewed as Musical Instrument - Another musical gaming diversion
Alpha Omega Vintage Guitar Effects - Interesting-looking series of guitar pedals
Independent Music Stores
I would like to take a moment to encourage you to patronize your local, independent music stores this weekend. I must confess that all too often I end up at one of the major chain stores because they are closer or more prominent. However, I think it’s important that the local independent music store remain in business to support arts in the local area. Also, smaller, local shops often offer more personalized service.
I’m fortunate to live near Music City, USA, so there are several very good independent music stores in my area. There is Artisan Guitars, Corner Music, World Music Nashville, and the famous Gruhn Guitars. These shops often sponsor and/or host community events to help promote music in the area.
What’s your favorite independent music store in your area?
Should you learn to play classical guitar?
One of the questions that I’ve heard many guitarists ask is whether they should learn how to play classical guitar. I’ve stated often on my blog that I studied classical guitar for a few years in college, and I can state unequivocally that those two years made me a better guitar player. However, learning to play the classical guitar is not for everyone.
Learning to play classical guitar music will not make immediately make you a better rock, blues or metal guitar player. It will, however, make you a better technical player, which often translates to a better command of the instrument. This in turn will help you get better at other musical styles. During the first year or so of learning to play classical guitar music, you primarily focus on technique, rather than on making music. This lays the foundation that you can then build upon.
When I started playing the classical guitar, my guitar teacher at the time indicated that the classical guitar is a different instrument than the standard acoustic guitar, and he was right. A classical guitar is not simply an acoustic guitar with nylon strings. The classical guitar contains different dimensions and has a wider neck that allows for more precise finger picking. If you’re familiar with playing a standard acoustic dreadnought guitar, then playing a classical guitar will feel awkward at first. However, I found the classical guitar to be quite comfortable after getting used to it.
Additionally, classical guitar music is very different from modern rock, blues and metal music. With classical music, you should attempt to play the music as it is written; there’s not a lot of room for improvisation when playing classical music. This isn’t always true, but more often than not it is. Thus, learning to play classical music will not directly help you improvise when playing rock or jazz music, but the music theory foundation that is often built in correlation with learning the classical guitar will help you learn the instrument in detail so that you can improvise when playing other styles of music.
Although more rigid than other playing styles, I love playing classical music and the classical guitar. As I stated earlier, I believe that the technique I built while learning to play the classical guitar has ultimately translated to other styles, but it wasn’t a direct translation. If you want to get a better command of the instrument, I’d recommend attempting to learn to play the classical guitar. To truly gain any benefits for other playing styles, you should be willing to commit to spending the time to build the technical foundation, and I believe doing so will reap rewards in the future.
* Photo from Yuen-Hui (Flickr)
Music Roundup
My friend and fellow guitarist David has recently introduced me to some new music:
I’m a little late to noticing Rodrigo y Gabriela, as the CD was originally released in early 2006, but I’m glad to finally have heard them. The Amazon.com review starts off by asking the intriguing question “How did two Mexican-born heavy-metal enthusiasts end up at the top of the Irish charts?”. I would describe the music on this CD as acoustic heavy-metal, and both Rodrigo and Gabriela play nylon string guitars. And, they play them well. On their album, they cover Led Zep’s Stairway to Heaven (and manage to create an interesting version of the song) and Metallica’s Orion. The original songs on the album are very good, as well.
The Travis Larson Band is a rock fusion group featuring Travis Larson on guitar, Jennifer Young on bass and Dale Moon on drums. TLB play a brand of instrumental guitar music not unlike Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Steve Morse with a little bit of Rush thrown in. I’ve been greatly enjoying their Rate of Change and Burn Season CDs.
Could Martin Taylor have been anything other than a guitar player? Not with a name like that, I say. Martin Taylor is an excellent solo jazz guitarist, and has also performed with Stephane Grappelli, Chet Atkins, and many others. You can hear some of his music and watch some of his videos on Taylor’s MySpace page.
Quick Links
This is a collection of links I’ve found interesting over the past week or so.
Van Halen Rehearsal Report - Looks like Van Halen is gearing up for the reunion tour
The History of the Guitar Face - The many faces of guitar players
Air Guitarists battle for glory - Ochi Yosuke is this year’s air guitar hero
Music industry betting on ‘ringle’ format - Bet again; what a dumb idea (via TechCrunch)
ESP Unveils Ten New LTD Model Guitars for Fall 2007 - Several nice-looking guitars in that list
It’s Official: Taylor Is In the Electric Guitar Business - This looks very interesting
Strat Masters - A movie about the Strat? Sign me up (via Guitar Noize)
Beethoven Goes Digital - Interesting that classical music is experiencing sales growth (via TDS)
EMI’s Scoutr Connects Bands and Talent Scouts - Upload your music and possibly get heard by an A&R scout (via TDS)
MP3s vs. CDs
Lately, I’ve been debating about whether I want to go all digital with my music and for future music purchases. I’ve converted pretty much all of my music to the MP3 format already, but I still end up buying a lot of music on CDs. These CDs take up space and require a bit of time to organize them so that I can access them later. Much of my debate about this was prompted by a statement in the Music Man article I linked to earlier this week:
Rubin also suggested (strongly) that Columbia become the first major record company to go green and abolish plastic jewel boxes for all its CDs.
While I would not call myself a hard-core environmentalist, I do think that we should do what we can to reduce our impact on the environment, and this statement resonated with me. Thus, I started looking around at my CD collection and realized that once I copy the CD to iTunes, I rarely look at the CD case again; it gets stored away with the rest of the CD cases and end up taking up space.
That being said, I do enjoy reading the liner notes when I purchase a CD. And, I’m able to get a higher quality track when copying from a CD than when purchasing from iTunes, although I believe this will change over time. Furthermore, I like buying CDs because a CD is a tangible item; when I buy a CD, I walk away with a product. I can then resell or trade that product to someone else. With digital music, I can’t do that.
One thing to consider about digital music is that it somewhat changes the paradigm of the concept of an album. Will artists continue to sell traditional collections of songs or will we see artists creating less songs, but better quality songs because they don’t need to create “filler” songs to round out an album? How will that affect my purchasing habits? Will I buy more, will I buy less, or will I buy about the same amount of music?
The fact is, digital music is the future. Purchasing digital music is easy and fairly cheap. Unfortunately, with the flexibility of digital music comes the problem of DRM. Most CDs are not encumbered with DRM, whereas most digital tracks are. Hopefully, EMI moving to DRM-free tracks on iTunes will initiate a shift in the industry, but that remains to be seen. No other labels seem to be stepping up as of yet, but I’m still hopeful.
I don’t know that I’ve reached a resolution yet, but I’m leaning towards going all digital for any future music purchases. With sites like eMusic, which offers DRM-free digital music, I can avoid at least some of the DRM problems. And, many albums on iTunes offer digital liner notes. What are your thoughts?
Have you gone all digital with your music?
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About
Welcome to my guitar blog! My name is Josh, and this site is my attempt to celebrate the guitar, its history, and its players. Read more...
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