The late Bob Bogle

Rolling Stone online has a column on the Ventures’ Bob Bogle, one of the two original founders of the group (Don Wilson being the other). The column includes about a dozen full length Venture hits, featureing some of Bogle’s lead guitar work. There’s more here at the Ventures’ website.

Emotive Fender

Channel

Blog (Korean)

Fast jazz (the way I like it)

Guitarist Andres Oberg

“Coming soon“

Strange guitars again (I think they’re breeding)…

Hey here’s a slew of strange guitars I got from one of the commenters here.

The lonely guitar player

Well, at least he looks lonely…

This video is from here.

Yes, this is in fact the world’s largest guitar (I think)

Yeah, it’s pretty big (but does it have an outboard engine like this one?)

When two stinkin’ hands aren’t enough…

…go with four…

Antoine Dufour, Tommy Gauthier (w/ thumb and index finger)

Gotta love Fandango

Nice sharp crisp version of Fandango, performed by Grisha Goryachev (channel here).

Classical guitar construction

Here’s a series of photos on Flickr demonstrating the various stages of making a classical guitar.

Hope for the Iraqi Oud

“Dhia Jabbar hides his oud in a sack when he walks down the street in his Baghdad neighborhood. He used to teach students in the back room of a photo shop, where the sound could not be heard. But last week, militia gunmen invaded the store, destroying one of his instruments and ordering him to stop teaching. He had dreamed of a performing career, but now he has lost hope…BUT…” Seven thousand miles away, Rahim Alhaj, who fled Iraq in 1991, carries his oud without a second thought through the streets of Albuquerque, where he now lives. In New York, Washington and other cities, he plays for audiences of hundreds. An album he recorded was recently nominated for a Grammy Award…” You can read it here.

Note: I only came across this article recently, though it’s from last year’s “NY Times.” Maybe things have a changed a little for the better for Dhia Jabbar during the interim.

That cool Chewbacca sound

All right, looks like a guitar breakthrough of sorts: recreating Chewbacca’s  guttural growl (or whatever that beastly sound is) from Star Wars. I’m thinking this could be a big request at bar mitzvahs and  Superbowl parties.

Doin’ Chewbacca on a Fender Strat

Dissed guitarist?

“The unsung hero behind Madonna and Michael Jackson died yesterday morning, and the grieving family of David Williams is furious over the disrespect shown to him by the music community and by what they say was neglect by the hospital where he spent his last days. Williams, who was 58, was the guitarist for the pop superstars and toured with both of them as well as Jessica Simpson, Chaka Khan, Lionel Richie and Van Halen for more than three decades, succumbed to complications from high blood pressure…” Read article here.

Playing the charango

The charango is a small, rounded back guitar like instrument popular in the music of Peruvian Andes region. Kate Hathaway explains it all in the video below. Ms Hathaway forms half of a brother sister duo (the other half being James). You can learn more about this enterprising duo at their website and blog. They also have a number of videos on Youtube.

Update: This is a great song they wrote and play, called “Wait for Me,” being performed recently in a club in Peru:

Cold Play VS guitarist Joe Satriani

Probably nothing in the world, whether in music or literature or even science, is truly original anymore. With so much music and written language concoctions floating about everything creative probably contains something of  one or more of the others. Sometimes it’s coincidence; sometimes deliberate. The plagiarism aspect of a complaint can only be maintained if the “copying” is sustained (as I humbly see it). From a cursory listening it sounds like Cold Play made the entire theme of their song, Viva La Vida, from a 70 second thematic section of Satriani’s If I Could Fly. The theme in question is clearly the main theme of  Satriani’s song, though it’s development is  supplemented by variated  riffs. The main difference between the two themes is that while Satriani’s is melodically guitar based Cold Play’s is orchestrated. Anyway, there’s a much better analysis below. Hey, we report, you decide (sound familiar?)…

The comparison of a key part.

Joe Satriani playing If I Could Fly. The controversy stems from approximately the 50 second mark to the 120 (this interwoven theme phrasing comes in later too during  the variated riffs).

Here’s Cold Play’s Viva La Vida

Here’s Part 1 of a technical analysis by Creative Guitar Studio

Electric guitar VS fish

Can a guitar be played so loud it makes fish jump? Er, yes, yes it can. The proof, of course, is in the police report–but did anyone actually see the fish jump?

“A man made so much noise in his Colonial Drive apartment that he made his downstairs neighbor’s fish leap, the neighbor told sheriff’s deputies. It was a Monday night and the noisy man had been “playing his electric guitar and making loud drumming noises loud enough to cause the complainant’s fish to jump…” Read rest of story here.

Heavy Metal guitarists from Iraq

“Acrassicauda had been through hell as a rock band in wartime Baghdad. Its practice space was bombed. Its members were branded Satan worshipers and received death threats for making Western-style music. Then they suffered through two purgatorial years as refugees in Syria and Turkey, killing time and dreaming of rocking out in the land of the free…two days after the last of the band’s four members was resettled in the United States, they enjoyed what any metal fan would have to call heaven: bearhugs and “Wow, dude” heart-to-hearts backstage with Metallica at the Prudential Center in Newark. It probably wasn’t necessary for James Hetfield, Metallica’s lead singer, to surprise them after the show by handing over one of his guitars, a black ESP, and signing it “Welcome to America”; their minds were already blown…” Read article here.

From the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad, released in June 08

Is this REALLY awesome guitar playing?

Supposedly this is “awesome guitar playing.” To each his own I guess.

Vancouver’s Fear Zero guitarist playing Octane

Stradivarius

We’ve always heard that the Stradivarius had the finest sound of any wood instrument. Perhaps it does, but why? Is it the age of the wood? The wood itself? The construction procedure? Well it turns out, at least to scientists who have studied this phenomenon for years, the superior tone is  actually due to a chemical preservative that had been used to deter the worms 300 years ago. There you have it.

Note: I’d love to do a blind test someday: Several makes from expensive, including a Stradivarius or two, to the cheapest, played all the same–the same phrasing, the same volume, etc. Would the Stradivarius win resoundingly? I have my doubts. I’ve been through this with classical guitars. Some much cheaper models sounded as good or even better, to my ear anyway, than the more expensive.

Fresh sound of old time Americana–on guitar

“I get young girls at my shows and they sit there screaming at me. It happens all the time. I’ve no idea why, it’s a mystery. I’m old enough to be their grandfather! It’s a miracle what playing a guitar does – it transforms you into someone else. I just wish it had transformed me 40 years ago…” Read article here.

Guitar Hero VS real guitars

It seems that at least some guitar manufacturers are asking the question: shouldn’t real electric guitars be as easy to play as those plastic push button guitars?

Why are they still making guitars with “real” strings that are difficult and boring to learn how to play and really make your fingers hurt? What is the point? Do we still slaughter our own cows? Dig our own wells? Work in the turnip fields for 18 hours a day, six days a week? No. Buttons have proven themselves to be much easier and more efficient…We demand piece-of-piss-to-play button guitars now. And pre-programmed “hurdy gurdy” guitars that actually play both louder and faster the harder you crank the handle. And living guitars made out of pain-sensitive clone flesh with screaming Jagger-lipped mouths at the end of the necks that vomit a milk-like substance over the first five rows of the baying crowd at the end of each particularly impressive guitar solo. Read article here. (Note: please allow for at least some tongue-in-cheek context.)

Guitar breaks

All is quiet. It is eight o’clock on Sunday morning. Through the frosty windows of the Barnett Hill hotel and conference centre, in Guildford, Surrey, the countryside looks like a Christmas card. Suddenly, the tranquillity is shattered as a hail of guitar notes is forced at breakneck speed through some kind of distortion effect…the weekend begins with everyone introducing themselves, stating their influences and explaining why they are there. “My name is Edward, and I have been playing since time began, but I know nothing about the guitar whatsoever,” says Edward, whose e-mail name, it later transpires, is axewarrior. “I’ve been playing the same solo for 30 years,” says another grey-haired chap. “I’d like to get some fresh ideas.” Read more here. And go here for Guitar Break–The Guitar Getaway. Yes, and there is a Guitar Break channel, from which the following video came:

“Guitar Port”

Guitar Port advertises itself as a guitar instructional site, geared toward tabs and electric guitar technique. I haven’t spent much time on it but it seems interesting.

Strange guitars video

I’ve posted quite a few photos and links over the past year or so about strange looking or at least unusual guitars, but here’s a neat video version:

Flamenco played on electric guitar with a pick

This is an unusual combination–electric guitar with classical guitar machine head,  no sound hole, no visible pickup (transducer?), plectrum technique… then finger technique…–when it comes to flamenco guitar playing. Though perhaps it’s too far afield for Flamenco purists (e.g., Montoya or Sabicas affectionadoes), it’s still pretty interesting. ; the guitarist is Steve Stevens.

Strange case

Yeah, this is weird. “A few months ago [aTV  news feature] told the story of an 8-year-old from Elkhorn billed as the youngest performing blues guitarist in the world. Suddenly, somebody is trying to silence him…All he wants to do is play for people, but the child prodigy may be getting too good too soon because he’s already making some mysterious — and possibly dangerous — enemies.”  And now the government Labor Board is after him…And also keep in mind that his agent is getting death threats. Read story here.

YouTube’s Mr Funtwo

The Korean guitarist was featured on Youtube Live, and even the NY Times got into the act, officially welcoming him as a guitar hero. He also has his own Wikipedia entry.

Above, at Youtube Live

There’s a lot more of these videos at Youtube. We need a Guitar Tube.

Fingerpickin’ with a laser

How do you play a nano guitar–very carefully of course, but not with your fingers. You must use laser beams.

Nano guitar update.

Build an electric guitar

Have woodworking tools and a garage or work shed? Then why not build your own electric guitar. Looks like fun if you have the time (which unfortunately I don’t).

Here are some well-rated books on the subject:

Build your own electric guitar: complete instructions and full size plans

Make your own electric guitar

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Related: Here’s an electric guitar kit for about a hundred fifty dollars.

Machine head

In case you’re wondering what a guitar machine head is, it’s the mechanical pegs, gears and rollers of the top of a guitar, usually decorated with ornate plating. Below is an example of a classical guitar machine head. Even most flamenco guitars use the machine head now instead of the traditional peg head (which is the same type still used in today’s lutes).

Traditional Flamenco peg head

©Gloria Mavis/JLS

Malaguena on three guitars

The Romeros–well three of them– playing Malaguena, one of the few flamenco pieces in standard classical guitar rep.

Not to be out done by six male hands, here’s Liona Boyd with two feminine hands playing the same piece (the recording quality sounds a little off ):