Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover

I get caught down the rathole of YouTube live music every so often (OK, a lot), but the one thing that always makes my jaw drop is this one. Perhaps the greatest piece of live guitar work I have ever come across.

I've probably posted this before, but so be it.

Eric Johnson, Cliffs of Dover.

I was lucky enough to see Eric in Phoenixville with Brother Dave a bunch of years back. He played this, which made me happy. And didn't play SRV, which made me sad.

Oh well. Life is a compromise.

Daily Nugget - Tommy Emmanuel

Tears in Heaven, by Tommy Emmanuel and Igor Presnyakov

Lovely.... There's just something about a sad song that always seems true...

Or for something more...hopeful... Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

Fishman Loudbox Mini

Fishman Loudbox Mini

You can never have too many toys, and one of the things I have been looking at recently is an acoustic guitar amp to go along with the Epiphone EJ200-CE acoustic-electric guitar that I bought last year.

I have a Line 6 Spider IV modeling amp for my electric guitars, but amps for acoustic-electrics are different, and while I can plug the acoustic into the Line 6 amp and it works (sort of), it doesn't sound very good. I was browsing website reviews (Fender Acoustasonic was a contender), but decided it made more sense to ask if brother Dave, my resident expert, had a specific recommendation. I did, and he did. He said having done the similar research, he was going to get the Fishman Loudbox Mini, but then decided to get a small PA system instead. I read up on it, and it sounded perfect for what I wanted.

Fast forward to the end of a vacation day for the Presidents' Day holiday (kids are off, and we all had some nice family time), and I now have a Fishman Loudbox Mini in my living room. It is tiny but sounds AMAZING, and puts out enough sound to easily annoy everyone in the house (just in case the need ever arises). Guitar Center was having a nice sale...so...why not.

It has controls for gain, reverb and chorus, along with a phaser button (in addition to the usual master volume and low/mid/high adjusters). Additionally, so you can do the coffee house one-man-band thing, it also has a mic input and full set of controls.

With moderate gain and a little reverb, even I sound pretty good, and my Epiphone sounds more expensive than it was. I couldn't have a better initial reaction. Thanks Dave!

And now back to my lessons. And preferred chord fingering. And holding the pick properly...

[As an aside, while the family waited for me to browse and purchase, Amp (my wife Amparo) found great humor in the sign in the store that talked about "Selecting an Amp". We have filled the rest of the day with jokes about upgrading your Amp, finding a new Amp, problems with Amps, good qualities to look for in an Amp, etc... So technically I now have three Amps in the house, although not all of them have Master Volume controls, Reverb settings and Phaser buttons)...]

Unlearning Guitar

As the last few years have gone by, I have become less interested in going into a new year setting specific goals. When I first began blogging, I went into every year with the obligatory post(s) on plans for the year ahead. More often than not, I either didn't achieve those goals, or in some cases, didn't even try as my interest-du-jour wandered off to something else (as it tends to do).

Now, having said that I don't do goals for the year, here's my goal for 2015: I will put in enough real practice time to get better on guitar, at least to the point that I can better justify owning four of them. And to better justify buying such things as the Fishman Loudbox mini acoustic guitar amp that I plan on getting soon...

The magnitude of the task ahead of me came into better focus when I stopped by brother Dave's this afternoon to see his new basement PA system set-up (excellent!), ask him some questions, and play around a little bit. [This isn't news to me; I just try not to think about it]. I asked about suggestions for an online course, and he recommended Justin Guitar, available both on YouTube and on www.Justinguitar.com. My comment to Dave was "this is going to be rough - I have 35 years of bad habits to unlearn." Everything from holding the pick incorrectly to improper (or at least non-optimal) fingering of certain chords. Such as my G chord (with fingers 1-3 instead of 2-4). There's nothing wrong with my G chord - it covers the right strings and makes the proper chord - but it makes shifting between the G and C much more difficult than the proper way. Using the better way, I could start at G and then shift easily to C, but when I tried to shift back to G, my fingers tripped over each other and I really couldn't do it. I also tried holding the pick properly, and that felt about as natural as strumming the guitar with a pork chop.

So I have gone back to square one, or perhaps even square zero. This afternoon, after getting home, I have done the first bunch and a half of lessons in Justin's Beginner Course. Most of the first batch, prior to playing anything, is really basic, and stuff I already know (and am not doing wrong - except the holding the pick thing). In the first set of "playing" lessons, there are 3 chords taught (D, A, E) along with the preferred way of forming each of them. Check on the D. Not on the A. Not on the E. Sigh. Which doesn't mean I can't play them fluidly (which I can), just that it may be preferable to re-learn them.

All this is a daunting task, but one that seems worth it. I am continually amazed at the guitarist Dave has turned himself into over the last few years via a lot of hard work and practice, and a shadow of that would make me pretty happy indeed.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the basement. I have D, A and E chords to work on. While attempting to hold the pick properly...

Epiphone EJ-200CE

Question - What does a hack guitarist who owns four guitars and can barely strum a few chords need?

Answer - Another guitar, of course.

In fairness, to say I am a total hack would be an overstatement of my ineptitude. "Competent beginner" might be better. That being said, it is still hard to justify owning four guitars on any other grounds than I really really like guitars. So adding a fifth was, well, completely necessary. From a certain point of view.

Epiphone EJ-200CE acoustic electric
in vintage sunburst

Of the guitars that I own, the one that gets picked up the most often, because it leans against a chair in the living room, is a beginner Yamaha acoustic hand-me-down that Brother Dave was kind enough to give me. It is a very basic guitar, with some fret buzz and a tendency to not want to stay particularly well in tune. It's fine for what it is, but it is a beginner guitar and nothing more. But there is definitely something special about an acoustic versus an electric, and I love picking it up for a few minutes here or there and just noodling on it. So it's been a blessing and a curse; great to have, but leaves me wanting a better one.

Which is where the new guitar comes in. I have been wanting an intermediate level acoustic for a year or more, but have found it hard to justify. In the meantime I have spent a lot of time researching, reading reviews online, and trying out various things in my price range at the local Guitar Center. Having sold a bunch of hobby related stuff, I finally felt like I could get a new guitar since I could make it a net-zero proposition. I settled on an acoustic-electric Epiphone EJ-200CE, their version of Gibson's legendary J-200, a classic guitar known as the "King of the Flat Tops". It's a jumbo sized guitar, but I don't have any intention of taking it anywhere, so size doesn't matter (fill in your own joke here). I like the versatility of an acoustic electric-compared to a plain acoustic, and I like the cutaway shape versus a dreadnought shape for better access to the higher frets (I can't play Brown Eyed Girl on a dreadnought...).

Having decided what I wanted, I remembered that Brother Dave had bought an Epi acoustic-electric a while back, in a pale blonde "natural" finish, so I went back through his guitar blog to see what his was. To my surprise, I had selected the exact same guitar. While that made me feel lacking in originality, it also gave me some confidence that I had picked a good one, as Dave knows a lot more about this stuff than me.

So on Friday after work, I went to Guitar Center for a capo (to play Whiskey Before Breakfast in "D"), and came back with a new guitar instead. In a beautiful (!!!) vintage sunburst finish. It sounds fabulous. And gets picked up and played up a lot. Strangely enough, I sound better already.

And I bought the capo too...

Guitar - Observations

Having spent a decent bit of spare time noodling around on my various guitars recently, I have come to the following conclusions (some relevant, some less so):

• I'm not very good. Not very good at all...
• ...but I do have a good feel for music. I just need to practice enough to turn that aptitude into the ability to play.
• I have so very much to learn...
• ...but I want to learn.
• My Strat is a very very very nice guitar (yep, it's worth at least three verys).
• The Les Paul is a very nice guitar.
• The ES-335 copy is what I hoped it would be after all. Thankfully. Dreams die hard...
• My technique stinks. I hold the pick wrong, put my fingers in the wrong place, hold the neck wrong in the left hand... some of which can be fixed... some of which, after 30 years of bad habits, will need to be accommodated for. On the bright side, watching YouTube concert footage of some of my guitar idols seems to indicate that their technique isn't text book either. This is a good thing.
• I am thankful for Dave's experience in being ahead of me on the learning curve (way way ahead). He can drag me along with him, at least a little bit...

So... I am grateful for Dave, and for YouTube lessons, and just wish I had more time....

Guitar Lessons

Dave and I have been wanting to get together and play for a while now (since immediately after the last time really), and schedules worked out such that I could get over to his house for a couple hours this afternoon and goof around. I was anxious to get together with him for a couple reasons; first, he hadn't seen my new baby in person yet and I was anxious to see what he had to say about it, and second, the last time we got together he was able to teach me a lot (that stuck) in a fairly short period of time. I was also hoping that he would be able to make a couple of minor adjustments that I felt the new guitar needed.

I will preface my comments on today's session by admitting that I have been happy with the new guitar, but that there are a few things I have had minor reservations about. I expected the tone to be warm, bright and clear. At home it sort of was, but seemed to be missing a little something. This might have been a case of burdening one "copy guitar" with a lifetime of musical expectation that perhaps even the real $2500 version couldn't meet, but I couldn't help feeling that something was missing. String bending was a little difficult, and there seemed to be a lack smoothness, for lack of a better term. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but something just didn't feel as wonderful as I expected it to feel. Not that it was bad, but it was good and not "wow". I kinda had my heart set on "wow".

Prior to showing up at Dave's, I asked for a good general purpose string recommendation, and he said to buy D'Addario "tens", which I did. When I got to Dave's, I proudly unveiled the new purchase and he was suitably impressed (good brother that he is). The first thing he did was plug it into his Bugera tube amp, and I had my first "a-ha" moment. My baby did NOT sound like that at home! Same guitar, same strings, same cabling, nothing changed... but when he plugged in and strummed a few chords... I heard "wow!". I love the amp I have at home (a Line 6 Spider IV hand me down courtesy of Dave) that has all sorts of cool modelling effects (phasing, delay, drive, etc), but for pure clean sound I am now convinced that a nice simple (high quality) tube amp has a special something in terms of sound. This has the very likely possibility of turning into an "oops I did it again" moment in the not-too-distant future...

The remaining hour and a half or so that we spent together today was a combination of a lesson on chords and some pointers on different chord shapes and their use up and down the fretboard, and a chance for Dave to polish his guitar maintenance skills. The strings that came with the 335 looked discolored in places, which is a sign of age and exposure, and I had some questions about the action of the 5th and 6th strings. Dave had no issues with the action (just relax and don't strum so hard!), but the strings did need replacing, which he did. He also raised the low side of the bridge a little just in case, but it probably didn't need it. Before he replaced the strings, he also cleaned and oiled the fretboard, which was surprisingly dirty. After doing so the feel was much smoother, and closer to what I had hoped for and expected.

While Dave worked on my 335, I had the chance to noodle around on a couple of guitars - his Casino and the newly arrived Epiphone SG, which he recently picked up on eBay. The Casino is a true hollow body that is otherwise similar to the 335, and the SG is the signature guitar of Derek Trucks (among others), a fairly recent musical man-crush. The Casino is warm and rich, and I loved the SG. As Dave had mentioned to me earlier, it is incredibly neck-heavy, but sounded wonderful. And an absolute steal at the price he was able to get it for.

All in all, a fun couple of hours. Productive in terms of learning and also a revelation about what a tube amp can sound like. By the end of the session, I had learned some valuable things, but more importantly, Dave had put the "wow" back in my holy grail guitar. Not bad for two hours on a Saturday afternoon...

The Holy Grail... Sort of...

Epiphone ES-335 Pro

I did a very very silly thing today. In a moment of weakness (or was it strength?) I took the plunge and checked a holy grail item off the list. As I mentioned in a recent post, I have been playing a lot more guitar recently and have made some strides toward actually being able to play some things passably well.

One of my favorite bands growing up was the Moody Blues (still is for that matter), and Justin Hayward has always been one of my favorite singer/songwriter/guitarists. His signature guitar is a Gibson ES-335 semi-hollow body. In cherry red. The guitar of Nights in White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon and most other classic Moodies tunes. The guitar that I have seen live in concert at least a dozen times. The guitar that probably more than any other made me want to learn how to play the guitar, or at the very least make me wish I could.

Since a very early age, that guitar (along with Eric Clapton's black Fender Stratocaster "Blackie") has been on the short list of "someday I need to own a guitar like that, even if it's just decoration". It's a very short list, perhaps including only those two plus a Jimmy Page classic sunburst Les Paul and (much more recently) a Derek Trucks red Gibson SG.

Before kids, I checked the black Strat off the list in 1993. Today, after some eBay watching, I went to the local Guitar Center store and bought a little piece of my adolescence. Specifically, an Epiphone Custom Shop Limited Edition ES-335 Pro. Epiphone is Gibson's second brand, and the usual Epiphone version of the ES-335 is referred to as "the Dot" because of the distinctive dot pattern on the fret board. The ES-335 Pro is a limited edition of the Dot with upgraded volume knobs that allow push-pull switching of the pickups from single coil to double coil mode (and rectangular fret inlays, not dots). This has the effect of making the guitar sound more like a Gibson or more like a Fender depending on the setting. The difference is substantial, and a tribute to modern electronics.

The Whole (electric) Gang

I haven't had much of a chance to play around with it yet, but it has a wonderful warm rich tone that is very different from both the Strat and from the Les Paul copy. It could use a minor 5th and 6th string action adjustment to remove a tiny "fret buzz" on the middle of the fretboard, but that is a simple adjustment that Dave can help me make.

Do I need a third guitar (four if you count the hand-me-down Yamaha acoustic)? Of course not. I barely play well enough to justify one nice one, let alone three. And the Strat from twenty years ago is still qualitatively the best of the three instruments, probably by a fairly wide margin. But that misses the point for the most part. Or misses the point entirely. Life is short. Love of music can manifest itself in many ways, not the least of which I suppose is a middle aged guy with a small guitar collection. So I see nothing wrong with indulging a fan-boy moment. Does owning this make me Justin Hayward? Sadly, no. That takes talent, ability, hard work, dedication, luck, a voice, songwriting ability and a time machine. But it sure does put a smile on my face, and there is something to be said for that.

Given that a real Gibson ES-335 goes for $2,200 rock bottom minimum, this is almost certainly as close as I will ever get to my dream guitar. But it's close enough for me.

A Million Miles to Go...

or... Swallow Your Pride and Just Play.

On an otherwise gray, rainy and dreary evening, brother Dave and Lori came over to have dinner with us and spend the evening. We had popped by their house earlier in the day, and I had said to Dave that he should bring one of his guitars with him when they came over. I have said similar things in the past, and have been honestly somewhat relieved when he has not actually done so. This is because I own a relatively nice guitar and have no idea how to play it in any real sense of the word, while Dave has gone to the effort of learning how to play his and now plays quite well. It's not a question of embarrassment or anything like that, just a recognition that I don't know how to play anything beyond the most basic strumming of a few chords. I love music in general, and really like the idea of being able to create (or recreate) some music, but do not have the ability to do so at this point.

The best way I can summarize my guitar experience is that I love the idea of playing guitar. Like most other things of value in life, this kind of skill isn't going to drop out of the sky, but must be earned. For various reasons (time commitment, too many interests, etc..), I have never bothered to take the time to learn that skill. I think that I have a very good feel for music, but do not have the education or training to match my interest level, and my understanding of even the most basic music theory from years gone by has faded.

That being said, Dave and Lori came over for a nice dinner, and then Dave actually got his Fender Telecaster and his amplifier out of the car and brought them in. Which created that awkward moment for me; Dave wanted to play around and I had no idea how. With a substantial amount of trepidation mixed with excitement, I got out my Fender Stratocaster 1970's copy (pictured above), and we played... if you can call it that. And strangely enough, I think you can.

To make a long story short, and to avoid dwelling on my feelings of great inadequacy along the way, we had a good time messing around with a few different songs, such as "After Midnight", the Moody Blues' "Tuesday Afternoon", and the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar". I am a total hack; that much is true. But I have a hard time putting into words how much fun it was to play a few things that actually sounded like the songs that they were intended to be. Our playing was generally limited to Dave instructing me on a few basic chords and then me fumbling along on the rhythm guitar part while he took the lead, but still... it sounded like music, and it made me happy.

Which leads me to the following conclusions:

• I love music, and the idea of being able to make music, however clumsily.
• I do own a very nice guitar, because when Dave plays it, it sounds fantastic!
• If I ever do hope to be able to play at even a competent beginner level, I need to learn my chords. Learn them cold. They are the building blocks that are the foundation of everything. And as Dave has rightly pointed out, there are a wealth of songs out there that are fundamentally three chord songs.
• Dave and I need to do this again soon, and I need to swallow my pride and be prepared to be terrible for a while in the hopes of being better at some point in the future. You have to start somewhere, and I have never really started.

This was humbling, but it was tremendous fun. Thanks Dave!