I recently wrote how I was trying to talk myself out of purchasing another resonator guitar. It didn’t work. I am now the owner of a Gretsch G9240 Alligator resonator guitar and I couldn’t be happier. Here’s a review of the instrument. The Alligator is a wood-bodied, single cone, biscuit…
The topic of today’s post is to discuss factors to be considered when buying a resonator guitar. I’ve discussed much of this previously because I love resonator guitars. But the goal of this article is to talk myself out of purchasing another resonator. Let’s start with the answer to a…
I purchased a Morrell 6-String Pro lap steel guitar after the Recording King lap steel I attempted to buy was back-ordered beyond my patience to wait. I am fairly happy with the Morrell guitar, but not entirely so. There was a slight hum when I played the guitar through any…
I’ve been putting off adjusting the action on my wood bodied tricone resonator guitar. The action has been on the high side of acceptable since I purchased the Royal guitar from Imperial Guitars. Then, last week, an internal post came loose after changing the tuning. I couldn’t have the post…
A general rule for guitarists who want to change from standard to an opening tuning is to tune down for acoustic guitar and up for electric. The two most popular open tunings, especially for slide, are Spanish and Vestapol, named after tunes once popularly played in those tunings. Spanish tuning…
I’m getting a lap steel guitar soon. I can’t wait. In the meantime, I’ll share some information regarding steel guitars. This is what makes a guitar a Steel Guitar A steel is a name for the metal slide used when playing guitar horizontally, e.g. on your lap. Thus, any guitar…
I’ve lived with an annoying string buzz on my AR371CE archtop since I bought the guitar six years ago. I should have taken it to a luthier but never got around to it. If your guitar buzzes only on certain strings when playing only in certain positions, it might be…
I recently published a post on Jazz Boxes for the Masses which was about lower cost, big jazz archtops. Since then I’ve been thinking about all those great (and not low cost) guitars from Gibson: the L5-ces, L4-ces, ES-175, the Super 400 and the rest. These are iconic guitars in…
It’s difficult to try to learn Wes Montgomery licks without thinking about his Gibson L5-ces. I’ve been listening to a lot of Wes recently. If you’ve read my posts about guitar size you’ll have discovered I’m a fan of smaller sized guitars with lower bouts of 16 inches or less.…
A solid body electric guitar in theory isn’t much more than a slab of wood and some hardware. Solid body guitars tend to have longer sustain than hollow bodies but their big advantage is they are less prone to feedback. My favorite jazz guitarists mostly play hollow body, archtop electric…
