Guitar Spotting at the Grammys and Guitar Economics
I watched this years Grammy awards and spent part of my time doing what I always do when watching guitar players on television. I played guitar spotting. How quickly could I name the brand and model of the guitars on stage? I’ll admit that I’m slipping and a few threw me. I blame poor camera [...]
Picky – The Thumb
I started a series on guitar picks more than a year ago. I always intended to complete the series with a post about thumb picks. I had even started this and saved a draft. So, sorry for the delay. Here’s the third post in the Picky series. Thumb picks Few electric guitarists play(ed) with finger [...]
Archtop Guitar News, Winter 2013
Good news for all you lovers of Jazz box, archtop hollow body guitars. Several companies have recently announced renewed production of classic archtop designs. D’Angelico. I had included some D’Angelico models in my review of small jazz boxes. These were reproductions of D’Angelico designs but were not high end luthier built guitars as made by [...]
The Epiphone 1962 Collection includes Sheraton with Mini HB
Source: epiphone.com via Dan on Pinterest Epiphone Guitars has recently released their 1962 Collection. The collection consists of three historic electric guitars as they were made in 1962. The three are the Sheraton E212TV, the Crestwood Custom SB332 and the Sorrento E452TDN. If you love solid body electric guitars and want something similar to a [...]
Gibson ES-330 vs Epiphone Casino
Oh dear. Gibson has released another ES-330 re-issue. I’ve been waiting for nearly twenty years for Gibson to re-issue what I consider to be the “classic” ES-330 design. But they seem incapable of making a re-issue except for the fringes of the original run designs. I’m not implying these re-issues don’t match a design that [...]
Chrome Browser Apps for Musicians
I recently reviewed iPad apps for musicians. I’ve also mentioned Android apps I use on my smartphone such as gStrings, a chromatic tuner I always have with me, as long as I have my phone. But sometimes I’m working on my laptop or desktop computer and it would be easier to just see an app [...]
Ukulele Woods A to Z: Coming soon to a guitar near you?
I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at ukuleles in the last few months. Once of the interesting things I’ve discovered is the large numbers of non-traditional woods being used to make ukuleles today. The companies experimenting with these woods are most likely to be the importers of Asian made ukuleles and the intent [...]
Chromatic Tuners, Old and New
Chromatic Tuners, Old and New Until 1994 I generally tuned my guitar so it was in tune with itself, but rarely tuned it to some absolute standard. If I was playing with another guitarist then we chose a guitar and tuned the other to match the first one. I owned a pitch pipe and occasionally [...]
Fatherly Advice: Never buy … without a professional setup
I recently wrote a blog about how to buy a new musicial instrument (Where to buy…). I’m still fired up over the difficulty in getting a new instrument that plays well from the time you take it home. There are two problems I’ve I identified and want to write about more. The first is the [...]
iPad Apps for Musicians
Android, iPhone, iPad and HTML 5 apps are changing the landscape for us amateur musicians by providing inexpensive (often free) apps to all our devices. I obtained the new iPad 3 when it came out and have been loading it with music related apps. Now it’s time to share what I’ve found. Before I do I [...]
24-Oct-2012: Baritone Ukulele Strings with Mixture of Stainless Flatwound and Plain Nylon
23-Oct-2012: C Tuning with Low G on Baritone, All Plain Strings
19-Oct-2012: Aquila Red Series Ukulele Strings – Low G
14-Oct-2012: My New Kala Tenor Ukulele