Archive for the ‘Acoustic Guitars’ Category
Have you ever been driving in your car or truck when a song came on the radio that you never heard before? As soon as you get home you start looking for the song, when you find it you find it had an outstanding bass guitar line that was invisible on the radio, you start to ask yourself why.
How about those songs you hear over and over on the radio that you just don’t like. As with the first example you find the songs done live by what ever band it is, and you hear electric guitar licks you never heard on the radio, and are now a big fan of that particular band.
That has happened quite a bit to me, one such band for me is The Doobie Brothers. There music has been on the radio for decades and to me it was alright, but nothing great. If you have never heard The Doobies try it. Electric guitars are used for most of their songs, featuring great guitar solos, along with some snappy rhythm guitar work, and if you are an acoustic guitar lover listen to “Snake Man” a song which the play entirely with acoustic guitars along with a steel guitar.
If you have started playing guitar and have just purchased your first electric guitar with great difficulty because of the many types and styles of guitar, your not alone. The selection is so hard because of the great finishes, and features each guitar has to offer.
The guitar use choose is also very hard to narrow down when you take into consideration there are acoustic guitars, as well as electric guitars, with many different styles in each catagory. Alot of times after you have made your decision you have second thoughts, should I have picked up that other guitar instead of the one I purchased?
As a first time guitar buyer you might be surprised to know that other guitarists like yourself own quite a few guitars. It’s not uncommon for someone to own 4 or 6 guitars. There guitar collection might include an LP style, Telecaster, Stratocaster, they might even own 1 or 2 bass guitars, not to mention a few acoustic guitars.
When you started your musical career you bought yourself a cheap electric guitar, or a cheap acoustic guitar. After much practice you have now progressed to where you are now an intermediate to good guitar player and are ready for the next step.
The first question you ask yourself is, “should I spend alot of money and get myself a really good electric guitar”, my answer is not necessarily. If you are one of the fortunate people who have thousands of dollars to spend, then I say be my guest and go buy one of the great guitars that are manufactured by one of the big names in the industry. If you fall in the majority of people that don’t have alot of extra money to burn there are alternatives.
Whether you interest is in electric guitars, acoustic guitars, or bass guitars, you get what you pay for. As I stated before when you started you picked up a cheap electric guitar because you weren’t sure if you were going to stay with it but now are ready to move on. Depending upon how cheap a guitar you bought, if it was at the low end you can step up to a much better knock-off guitar, again you get what you pay for, the more money you spend the better the finish, pick-ups and other things might be. If you already purchased one of the higher end knock-offs you can consider gutting it in favor of better pick-ups from Fender or Gibson and improving its sound.
Sunday February 7thall of america watched the New Orleans Saints and the Baltimore Colts compete in Super Bowl XLIV. The game was great, with some gutsy and surprising calls by the New Orleans Saints coaching staff they were able to upset the favored Colts.
Half time was provided by The Who, a band older than the Super Bowl itself. Prior to the Super Bowl the two founding members of The Who Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend armed with a couple of acoustic guitars gave a abbreviated concert with “Behind Blue Eyes”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Pinball Wizard”.
The half time show didn’t disappoint, the laser light show was a nice touch being in sync with the music, and myself being of the older generation I was impressed with the vocals, and with Townshend, now with his stratocaster electric guitar showing they still have what it takes to give a command performance.
There are many different styles and shapes of electric guitars. There’s also a few different styles of acoustic guitars. When I started to play in the mid 60’s your color choices were also limited.
These days you can get a guitar in just about any shape imaginable, I’ve seen guitars and bass guitars in a vee shape, and shaped like a star. A guitar that I think has a weird shape is the Gibson Firebird. Gibson produced this guitar to compete with the Fender Telecaster guitar. A guitar that was pretty much made famous by heavy metal bands is the Gibson Explorer.
For me the best style guitars are the ones that have become a standard in the industry. Guitar shapes like the Les Pauls, Telecasters, and Stratocasters have proved themselves to be ergonomically balanced, and the most comfortable.
One thing that has changed dramatically with electric guitars, bass guitars, and acoustic guitars is the color and the finish you can get on them. In my day there was a choice of standard colors like black, red, blue,white, and sunburst. Today you can get the same colors but you can also get those colors in a metallic finish, and different color bursts. You can find guitars in hot pink, purple, green, animal stripes, anything you can think of you can find. Some of the finishes I particularly like today are the ones that show off the wood grain. Woods like quilted maple, and ash, with transparent colors, or different color stains like walnut, along with a high gloss lacquer finish makes them among my favorites.
Like most high schools around the country, my educational institution was filled with cliques and kids who fell into oft-used clichés. While most of us try not to classify people into one group or another, in high school that seems to be the M.O. We of course had the jocks, the cheerleaders and the preppy kids, but the one group that I seem to remember the most are the acoustic group.
These kids would tote their cheap acoustic guitars to school everyday and sit in the halls playing the same three songs over and over again. Although some of the musicians were truly talented, for every one person that was adept there were four who were atrocious. I have never been able to figure out what motivated these people to sit on the floor of the hall playing their guitars, but it is something that I will probably never forget.
For decades the sound of electric guitars has dominated the zeitgeist of popular rock music, but recently there has been a shift to mellower, acoustic sounds. The change started occurring near the end of the grunge era, when bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains participated in MTV’s acoustic program Unplugged. When these quintessential grunge bands whipped out their acoustic guitars, fans began to have an appreciation for the toned down sound.
Today there is a litany of new bands emerging that exclusively play acoustic music, many of which have been received with critical acclaim. One of the most highly touted albums of the last year is the self-titled release by The xx, which features a distinctive minimalistic acoustic sound. Other successful acoustic groups to emerge in recent years include Bon Iver and the Fleet Foxes.
As in life some things are just not fair. A band after 25 years of their first released album should be eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If you were to see the list of bands that have not been inducted you would be surprised.
Some of the bands that scream out to me are, “Hall & Oates” “Heart” and the “Doobie Brothers”, it doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about acoustic guitars, or electric guitars these bands were and still are great. How about “KISS”, with their innovative style using wild costumes and pyrotechnics someone has to explain to me why they are not in the Hall of Fame. How about the unique sound of (ELO) Electric Light Orchestra, why aren’t they in?
Between KISS and ELO you have two extreme bands, KISS is purely a hard rock band, while ELO with the help of a string section was a symphonic rock band. Why is it that neither of these bands are in the Hall of Fame.
When you see the list of bands that have been overlooked you have to start to wonder about some of the bands that are in, and how they got there ahead of these guys. It makes it seem like the rock and roll hall of fame is kind of like a popularity contest, if it is it really takes the credibility out of being a member.
I received an email the other day about this musician named Dave Carroll. He recently had a nine month long dispute with United Airline over damage the baggage handlers had caused to his $3500 custom acoustic guitar made by Taylor Guitars.
When the airline refused to compensate him for his loss he explained to the customer relations manager for retaliation against them he would expose them by making a music video for You Tube that would exploit their lack of cooperation. The manager for the airline told him “Good luck with that one pal”.
The You Tube video (“United Breaks Guitars”) took off and has taken almost 6 million hits, the story was even covered on CNN. With all the bad publicity, the airline contacted Dave to try and settle his origonal complaint in exchange for him yanking his video off the internet, Dave’s responce to them was “Good luck with that one pal”.
Taylor Guitars was so appreciative towards Dave they gave him 2 new guitars, because since his video hit the internet they have had an increase in sales. The moral of this story is don’t mess with musicians.
Taylor Guitars is a guitar manufacturer based out of California, the started making guitars in 1974. They manufacture acoustic guitars as well as acoustic/electric guitars, electric guitars, as well as a baritone guitar which will allow you to play in a lower register.
Many guitar makers pay top artists to play there guitars Taylor does not, they want artists to play their guitars because they like them. Some of the artists that play Taylor Guitars are Lindsey Buckingham, Taylor Swift, Jewel, Eric Clapton, and Jackson Brown perhaps you’ve heard of a few of them.
Their manufacturing process includes a patented bolt on neck. Their acoustic/ electric guitars also use a patented humbucking pickup to enhance their sound. As a beginning guitarist you most likely would not make this your first purchase, but as you progress you might think about it. Taylor Guitars will set you back thousands of dollars, and as you get on with your musical career you will find sometimes you get what you pay for.