Posts Tagged ‘Electric Guitars’
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.
Most people at some time in their life has gone to, or knows someone who has gone to a live concert. Concerts are held in big auditoriums, major league stadiums, and theaters around the world.
I grew up in New York City in the 50’s and 60’s where the biggest event by far was The Beatles playing at the home of the New York Mets, Shea Stadium in 1965. The Ed Sullivan Theater, a 12oo seat theater located on Broadway between 54rd and 54th streets in Manhattan was also the first place The Beatles ever played in the United States. Unprecedented at the time The Beatles played on three consecutive Sunday’s in February 1964.
The Beatles first appearance was on February 9th, this alone was the defining moment in pop culture, it also marks the beginning of the British Invasion. For me and other teens my age it was our introduction to the world of music and electric guitars.
Everyone has a particular band they really like. Listening to them from one song to another you often hear the electric guitars like you have never heard them and wondered how they got that sound.
There are many factors or guitar accessories that give them the sound they achieve. Quality cables are often overlooked as something that can give you better sound, bad cables can distort the sound by driving the mids up at the same time driving the the highs down.
There are many different pedals that can have an influence on the sound you are hearing. Fuzz, wah-wah, volume, tone, are just a few pedals, there multi function pedals, tremolo pedals the list goes on.
As yo advance in your music career you might want to try a few of these to enhance your sound.
You have already purchased a bass guitar package and have had it for a while. You’ve practiced everyday and have become fairly proficient at it and are ready to take the next step, however you’re not sure what wether to try another style of bass guitar, or get a bigger bass amplifier.
Why choose, consider the advantages of having both another style bass guitar, and another amplifier. With the right bass guitar package you can have both. As with electric guitars all bass guitars don’t play alike, or sound alike. Having another style bass guitar gives you the flexibility to experiment between the two when your playing a song, you might like the sound of one over the other, or the feel of one over the other.
When looking for another bass guitar package look for one with a different size amplifier than that of the one you already have. Again this gives you more flexibility, let’s say you already had a 10w bass amplifier and have now picked up a 20w amplifier, you can either play either bass guitar with either of the amps or you can treat one amp as a pre-amp. This is achieved by running one cable from your bass to the first amp (lets say the 10w bass amp), next you would run another cable from the headphones jack of the first amp to the input jack of the second amp. (by the way the second cable you get along with the 2nd bass package). Don’t be afraid to experiment with it that’s how the professionals get their sound.
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.
Southern rock is a category of music that combines rock and roll, blues, and country music. Southern rock mainly focuses on vocals and electric guitars.
Many of the first wave of stars in rock and roll were southerners. Its’ origin can be traced back to the 1950’s with rock and rollers like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard.
The British invasion was responsible for taking rock and roll out of the south and moving it overseas to places like Liverpool in the 1960’s. The Allman Brothers around 1970 were one of the bands credited for bringing rock and roll back to ts roots in the south. Other bands around that time were Wet Willie out of Alabama, and the Marshall Tucker Band from South Carolina.
Another wave of bands in the 70’s were Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, and .38 Special. You can just hear the rhythm guitars when these bands are mentioned, and how about the guitar solos.
Have you heard the Doobie Brothers lately? I’m not just referring to the recorded songs you hear on the radio, I’m talking about some of their live music.
If you are not familiar with the Doobie Brothers they have been around since 1970 have to date sold over 300 million albums. While most of the band have been replaced through the years Tom Johnson and Pat Simmons have been with the band from the beginning (give or take a few years). Tom Johnson handles most of the lead vocals along with guitar, Pat Simmons is a good compliment to Tom on vocals as well as on guitar, John McFee has been on and off with the band since 1979 and is another good compliment to the guitar package of Tom and Pat also helps with the vocals. Skylark was added to the band in 1995 and is a great addition, his bass guitar style is effective yet simple. The bass guitar sound he provides rounds out their guitar package.
One particular song of theirs shows off their versatility, the name of the song is “Steamer Lane Breakdown”. While alot of their other songs are make use of electric guitars and vocals this one is a bluegrass instrumental, it features Tom playing rhythm on an acoustic guitar, Pat finger-picking on a acoustic guitar and John with some great work on a steel guitar.
Guitar Hero was a hit for several years in Japan before it came to the United States and took the console game world by storm. Guitar hero allows players to play a guitar in a game, and Guitar Hero itself has done much in terms of sparking interest and creating more aspiring guitarists. Electric guitars have become the standard in new music throughout the last century, and kids and teenagers all over have shown a greater interest in guitars because of game titles like Guitar Hero. While playing an electric guitar in Guitar Hero is nothing like the real deal, it does generate interest in performing the actual art.
Learning to play the electric guitar is an excellent activity to motivate children to learn more about music and have a fun and valuable skill for the rest of their lives. For those who aren’t sure if they’re interested, Guitar Hero makes a superb start! If you are thinking about trying your hand at the real thing, check out some cheap guitars before making a big investment.