|
Post by delb0y on Apr 5, 2024 6:56:09 GMT
What a great YT channel that is! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Apr 4, 2024 21:54:02 GMT
I don't think music gets any better than this.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 29, 2024 10:06:10 GMT
Bryan Sutton's school is great. He's a wonderful and generous teacher and one of the best flatpickers on the planet.
I agree, I think the three shapes philosophy is a better way around the neck, especially for lead guitar. On the top three strings I picture an E shape, a D shape, or an A shape (a "long" A, being the same as a G shape really). Learn the minors, the sevenths, an where the nice notes are (say, 6ths and 9ths) and you are good to go.
Lots of videos on this. One of my favourites is Stephanie Wrembel:
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 29, 2024 8:32:43 GMT
I always felt the C and D in CAGED were essentially the same thing, so that narrowed the learning to just four shapes. The G is a bit cumbersome - trying to hold a barre whilst holding a G shape - so the impracticality ruled that one out for me, leaving just three shapes. I've never been good at the A barre chord - could never get the "fold" in my third finger to allow me to hold the chord nicely whilst allowing the top string to ring. So I avoid this one. That leaves just E and D. Two shapes, which is eminently manageable. But then E and D are so close together you really only need one or t' other. I like E. So for me CAGED, once simplified, is just an E chord. But it's a good chord.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 27, 2024 14:37:02 GMT
Been thinking about this, on the gypsy jazz stuff I, too, use a Wegen. It certainly makes me play more Manouche. So I guess there is something in different picks.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 27, 2024 13:27:08 GMT
Over in the bluegrass / flat-picking world a lot of very good players swear by them. I suspect you have to be of a pretty good standard to be able to benefit from what these picks offer (although I've no idea what that is). Ah that wouldn’t be me then. How come Norman Blake and Doc Watson were such great flatpickers without a £50 pick then? It wouldn't be me, either :-) I think those guys, along with many others, would be great with any pick. But maybe (I have no idea) had they also had a Blue Chip pick they'd have been even greater. Who knows? Maybe it's all in the mind, but that little psychological boost maybe the way to get an extra 1% from an already brilliant musician. Maybe it's not all in the mind and these picks really do make a difference - if only one has the ears to hear it, or the fingers to take advantage of it. I certainly don't have the ears - hell, I can't even tell what chord I should be playing half the time, and not long ago I recorded a flat-picking piece with each of my guitars and afterwards I couldn't hardly tell one from the other. I do tend to subscribe to the school that's it's (almost) all in the fingers. But there are players with great ears who undoubtedly can tell the difference. Of course, that then begets the argument if the audience doesn't have equally great ears then how do you get across that extra 1%? I recall once I bought a Yamaha Pacifica telecaster style guitar as back-up to my Strat. That guitar had the fastest, easiest playing, neck that I'd ever come across on a guitar. I could play things on that guitar that I couldn't play on any other before, or since. But I sold it anyway. I don't have a quick enough musical mind to take advantage of such a speedy guitar. But there are some that do. And I guess a speedy pick would be good for those guys, too. I'm 80% thumb-pick now, but I won't be buying a Bluechip @ $40 !! Derek
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 27, 2024 11:01:22 GMT
Over in the bluegrass / flat-picking world a lot of very good players swear by them. I suspect you have to be of a pretty good standard to be able to benefit from what these picks offer (although I've no idea what that is).
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 27, 2024 10:43:51 GMT
There was a thread on here a while back and, IIRC, some of our esteemed colleagues were tempted, and were going to report back. I wonder if Blue Chip do a thumb-pick? Although, at the rate I get through thumb-picks (they become loose, and thus no good) I wouldn't want to pay more than a pound or so for a pick. :-)
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 21, 2024 11:15:06 GMT
Wasn't Robert Johnson around in the 16th Century ? There is an old tale about a musician who hung around with Robin Hood that some people say was known as Robert Johnfon. Apparently he (backed by the Merry Men) recorded a song for Robin and Maid Marion that was so popular it went to the top of the charts and stayed there for eight hundred years. Luckily, for Johnfon this was before streaming. An eight hundred year reign at Number One is estimated to garner just £23.50 on streaming services.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 18, 2024 19:55:58 GMT
Well done, Leo. A cracking song, and the jazz ending sounded fine to me. Top quality project from all involved.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 12, 2024 21:05:36 GMT
Can't beat a Telecaster! Hope all is improving on the health front.
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 9, 2024 8:38:08 GMT
What scorpiodog said, Larry. It is those undamped strings causing the issue, and all those micro movements that SD alluded to are indeed the answer. One mightn't be deliberately damping strings as one would in, say, Travis picking, but we all still do a lot of almost unconscious string damping - a point we reach after years of playing. I have/had this problem in extremis on my gypsy jazz guitar. I even showed it to Francis, one of our ace luthiers on this site. He did suggest a solution to try next time I change strings, but in the meantime I am simply paying a lot more conscious attention to damping strings as I play that guitar. On the other hand, this resonance can also be a good thing - and this why your Fender should probably not be assigned rhythm guitar duties only. If you're playing single note lines out of chord shapes - I don't mean picturing the shapes, but rather actually holding them down ( hold, say, a C chord and keep it held down whilst you pick Frere Jacque) then those resonances may well be "in tune" and give your unaccompanied single line tune some "free" accompaniment! Listen to the bluegrass players when they're playing on their lonesome (as they say down in the holler) for many examples. That's why those guys love their big old resonant dreadnaughts and pay a lot of money for the good ones. Derek
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 8, 2024 15:54:03 GMT
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 8, 2024 13:03:06 GMT
I bid on a Tanglewood TW73 parlour but it went for twice what I bid :-(
|
|
|
Post by delb0y on Mar 8, 2024 9:55:55 GMT
I recalled reading this, and just found it again: Work and Worry (whoever that is) talking to Stefan Grossman. I love Ton Van Bergeyk, but it sounds like even he couldn't get it right sometimes:
W&W – Was your perspective that with someone like Ton Van Bergeyk or Lasse Johansen, these sort of guitar-monster European players, that the playing and the arrangements would speak for themselves, and that you didn’t have to fuss so much over the sound of the recordings?
Stefan – No, we tried to get the best sound possible, always. In the studio, the problem was that the guys who played the real intricate arrangements, they could never play them from beginning to end, so you needed to have a good editor, whether it was me or Nick, who could cut it up and put it together.
So perhaps the secret is simply multiple takes and some editing!
|
|