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A Trip To The Guitar Store

Posted on October 18, 2016 by SonographicTendencies

Going to the music store is a wonderful experience, who doesn’t want to be in a large sonorous room with off tempo beats and out of tune guitars competing for the attentions of reluctant ~~audience members~~ customers?

The typical trip begins with a greeting by a long haired employee who looks happy to be there and is totally fine with his life choices despite what his parents say. Followed by a short detour to the amplifier section, there you’ll find the latest line 6 amplifier just begging to be dialed up to the “insane” setting.

After playing a long medley of Metallica riffs peppered with various tapping licks, rickety sweep arpeggios and out of tune bends with the treble on 12,

the now inspired six stringer goes on to look at guitars he can not afford only to be intercepted by the “can I help you guy”, “nah I’m just looking” is the readily available answer. hqdefault

Before long a couple hours have passed, and you have tasted the sweet Martin and Taylor tones of the acoustic section, played the intro to “Whipeout” on the drums, used the bathroom to evacuate your bowels only to finally approach the counter and ask the “Guitar Retail Specialist” if there are any Ernie Ball Slinky’s or Dunlop Jazz III’s on sale.

After a quick palaver with said employee, you’ll be questioning yourself whether you’re being punk’d.”Do you want an extended warranty on your strings”? No, no I don’t.

After your journey is complete, you can walk to your car knowing that your guitar is going to sound bitching once you place those Ernie Ball Slinky pinks on it! Once you get home you begin the ritual; you grab your preferred ax, string winder and other string changing paraphernalia, you cut off the strings one by one, not caring what that nerd on Facebook said about it ruining your truss rod. After about 5 minutes, a close call with your eyeball almost being poked out, and a couple needle sticks on your fingertips from the strings, you finally tune that bad boy up and re-tune it, then tune some more to where you are almost in tune. You bend that high E string at the fifteenth fret and POP!

Henry “Stax” Suarez

Guitar Players Collective

Featured in this article are videos from Jared Dines, Ryan “Fluff” Bruce and Tyler “Music is Win” Larson check them out, they are great guitarists, musicians and funny as hell.

Online Guitarist Featurette Tina S.

Posted on August 23, 2016 by SonographicTendencies

Tina S has been making YouTube guitar covers for quite a while, eight years in fact.In this video she is covering the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

Now historically Tina has received some hate from the online guitar community, “she has no emotion” is an oft quoted trope for example, but the hate typically appears to be jealousy in disguise. She has talent and obviously puts in the wood shedding hours. She has amassed quite the following online and deservedly so…

She has been featured on Guitar World and Guitar Player magazines Facebook pages many times.

She is usually seen playing Vigier Guitars, a French electric guitar, bass, and string manufacturer based in Grigny, Essonne, which she is endorsed by. She uses Ernie Ball slinky 9-46 strings.

So sit back and enjoy a fellow guitarist exhibit technique, phrasing and tone, a trifecta in the guitar universe!

Ludwig van Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata (3rd Movement) Tina S Cover

Tina’s Youtube Page

Tina’s Facebook page

Henry Stax

Guitar Players Collective

Top Ten Albums of All Time and Their Guitars 10-6

Posted on April 12, 2016 by SonographicTendencies

10. Led Zeppelin – IV
Released 1971
Records Sold 37 million
Though untitled it is known colloquially as Led Zeppelin IV, the album was a success, with hits like “Black Dog”, “Rock and Roll” and “Going to California”. The album was also mired in controversy, with the accusations of alleged back masking satanic messages.
The album was recorded between December 1970 and March 1971 at several locations, most notably Headley Grange (a three-story stone structure Built in 1795 in Headley, Hampshire, England, UK)

Best Guitar Moment: Stairway to Heaven
Zeppelin’s Jimi Page is known as a prolific guitarist. It is hard to choose any of his works, though the Best guitar moment in IV is a no brainer in the 8 minute + “Stairway to Heaven”. Considered by many, much to the chagrin of guitar shop owners, to be one of Led Zeppelin’s greatest song and a prominent staple of Classic Rock radio and still heard on rotation to this day. The song starts off with a finger picked Acoustic intro in morphing through several sections each adding more layers of guitar including 12 string, (becoming a rock symbol live with the use of the Dual neck Gibson SG) and working up to an exciting guitar solo that wasn’t too flashy and served the song expertly.
Fun fact though Jimi is known as a Les Paul player he cut the iconic solo using a 1959 Fender Telecaster and through his Supro amp, (though in a Guitar World interview he said it could have been a Marshall). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairway_to_Heaven#cite_note-Light-13

9. Shania Twain – Come On Over
Released 1997
Records Sold 39 million
The 3rd studio album from Country Pop star Shania Twain. Written and co produced with Mutt Lange, the album went on to become the best-selling country album of its time. With hits such as “You’re Still The One” and “From This Moment” it stayed on the top 10 for 54 weeks, set a record for longest stay in the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 of 112 weeks, and in top 40 for 127 consecutive weeks. If you were watching MTV/Vh-1 in ’97 you were exposed to some Twain…

Best Guitar Moment: Man! I Feel Like a Woman!
The Album opener, the song has a catchy hook, and features simple riffs and a tasty Country flavored Rock solo likely played by a session player. The video famously pays homage Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” music video, featuring Twain dancing with ripped male models staring blankly at the camera.

8. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
Released 1977
Records Sold 40 million
The eleventh studio album by British-American rock band. It was mostly recorded in California and spawned massive hits “Go Your Own Away” and “Don’t Stop”, it is regarded as their most successful album. Though lots of drama due relationship issues plagued the making of the album it didn’t stifle its success. On the contrary all those mixed emotions may have helped them mold this masterpiece. The album stayed at the top of the Billboard 200 for 31 non-consecutive weeks.
Best Guitar Moment – Don’t Stop
The guitar playing of Lindsey Buckingham is all about serving the song. Using then state of the art recording techniques they captured beautiful tones. An honorary mention has to be made about the brief bass solo right before the outro section and guitar solo of “The Chain” It has a gorgeous sound and feel and give way to a great release!

7. Bee Gees and various Artists – Saturday Night Fever
Released 1977
Records Sold 40 million
Hairy chests? Check
Falsetto? Check
One of 2 Soundtracks in this list, Saturday Night Fever was a massively successful album to accompany an equally successful movie with heart-throb John Travolta. The album was certified 15x Platinum, being added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress for being culturally or aesthetically significant. The Bee Gees are featured significantly in the album. Fun Fact The Bee Gees’ involvement in the film did not begin until post-production. As John Travolta asserted, “The Bee Gees weren’t even involved in the movie in the beginning … I was dancing to Stevie Wonder and Boz Scaggs.
Best Guitar Moment – Manhattan Skyline
Being a Disco album it is sparse in the guitar department save for the occasional wah wah riff. The main melody line at the beginning of Manhattan Skyline features a warm slightly compressed clean guitar tone.

6. The Eagles – Their Greatest Hits 1971-75
Released 1976
Records Sold 42 million
With selections from the Eagles’ first four albums, “Greatest Hits” was for a long time the best-selling album. It has been certified 29 x Platinum by the RIAA. Considered by the band as way for the record company to make more money off of product without having to produce anything new. As true as that may be, the album was hugely successful.
Fun Facts it is the first album to receive the RIAA platinum award, introduced in 1976 to honor albums that shipped one million copies in the US.
Best Guitar Moment – One Of These Nights
The album “One Of These Nights” has been called the dress rehearsal for what would become Hotel California. It was recorded Criteria Studios, Miami, & Record Plant, Los Angeles, 1974-1975
Featuring the newly added Don Felder, he brought the rock edge the band was looking for. In this song he plays a funky solo with a tone to die for. Discussed by forum goers to be nothing more than his Les Paul into a Fender tweed which may or may not have also contained distortion and or fuzz pedals in the signal path. Whatever the case the solo is peppered with amazing phrasing and little clicks and pick squeaks it just oozes rock n roll. all killer no filler.

Mock And Roll Hall of Fame

Posted on April 11, 2016 by SonographicTendencies

Oh the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where does one begin? Probably one of the most unrock n roll institutions there is save for the Grammy’s!

Let’s take a look at this year’s inductees:

Steve Miller

Okay great!! He’s earned it.

Cheap Trick

Sure enough, well deserved…

N.W.A.

Well, uhm… huh?!

In all respects to NWA they are iconic and definitely culturally significant but Rock n Roll they are not. They are as rock as Jethro Tull are metal (still not in the HoF) however the latter at least is within the Rock category. Would Steve Miller be admitted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame? Unlikely.

Now I know genres and sub-genres are funny things and many band’s blur lines.

You could also argue genre’s have been more historically important for record labels then for actually categorizing music. But it is the system we have and many people identify with and understand it.

It brings up the question, what is rock? Now that is a tough question beyond the scope of this article. But it could be argued that Rock IS an attitude, which NWA definitely posses, but it is also about sound bought to us by instrumentation, loud guitars, thundering bass and crashing drums are and should be part of the ingredients.

If samples and 808’s are sufficient to be called “rock” then categorizing music appears to be an exercise in futility. Why not add Liberace to the RnRHoF? He sure is flamboyant enough for rock.

Who will be future inductees 20 years down the line? Justin Bieber? Nicki Minaj? Now if there was shortage of rock bands needed to fill the hall then by all means add more obscure or unrelated acts but it clearly is not the case. I mean when bands like NWA are admitted in place of bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest? something is just not right there I guess when you have a bunch of suits running organizations like this it is to be expected, it is obvious it’s a business, and businesses end line is to make money by whatever means necessary.

At least Steve Miller spoke out about some problems with the Hall of Fame after his induction.

“We’re not gonna wrap this one up,” Miller said, insisting the press woman sit down and learn something. “This is how close this show came to not happening, because of the way the artists are being treated right now.”

Classic. Good for him!

List of others who should be in the Hall of Fame but aren’t.

Henry Stax

Guitar Players Collective

Cover Songs vs Original Music

Posted on November 5, 2015 by SonographicTendencies

Must there be a choice? On the internet you’ll come across people deriding cover artists and waxing poetic on how they’ve released 20 albums of original material that no one has ever heard.

I say why limit yourself? There are plenty of successful professional acts that sprinkle a cover into there set to spice things up after playing the same songs night after night on tour. Or they start off doing covers and evolve and get the bug to write their own tunes. While the inverse is true, why limit yourself to only learning covers? When you start off the best thing you can do to broaden your musical vocabulary and library is to learn other artist’s music. You immediately start to pick up how songs are written, how chord progressions are built and how melodies fit on top of these musical landscapes. Furthermore by attempting to sound like other artists (and failing) you begin to develop your own style and sound.

Another way to change it up is to change it up, covering a song verbatim is satisfying, at least to me. You nail the rhythms and solos and you feel the rush almost as it was you that originally cut the track in the studio. However making a cover your own is also as exciting. Say you have a Heavy Metal tune and you tone it down, drop the bpm’s a little, change it into an acoustic arrangement with some light strings to accompany! Hell who knows your version might become the preferred version. There is a vast catalog of cover songs that have become more famous than the original. All along the Watchtower is an easy example, originally recorded by Bob Dylan and made famous by Jimi Hendrix.

After a while of learning and performing other people’s songs you might get interested in what making your own music might accomplish. Perhaps you join a new band and they require you to write your own parts or bring full demos to the table. Writing your own music is a journey that is unparalleled. You have the literary aspect of writing lyrics were you can create autobiographical songs about experiences in your own life, or you can be like a fiction writer and create new worlds that only live in your mind! Another aspect is the musical: tempo, rhythm, melody, harmony… You can stick to traditional song structures i.e. Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Or you can create your own. Perhaps an hour-long chordal vamp with syncopating melodies, the sky is the limit! What instruments do you want in the arrangement, everything is game (don’t forget guitar, it just goes good with everything).Don’t limit yourself, learn other artist’s songs, create your own, start a cover or tribute band, write your own songs and add them to the list. There is no formula, embark on your own journey, only you know the destination that suits you.

Henry Stax

Tune up, Plug in and Rock out

You can see my covers, lessons and other videos here

Guitar Players Collective Facebook group

Hotel California Guitar Solo Lesson

Posted on September 5, 2015 by SonographicTendencies

“On a dark desert highway”

Simply one of the most Iconic solos in the History of rock and roll, Joe Walsh and Don Felder trade some tasty licks and segue into a head bopping dual guitar harmony outro! In this post you will see a video of me playing the guitar solo with TAB and I will also insert the TAB so you can look at and download…

A gorgeous song detailing the excess of the 70’s, following the Chord progression Bm-F#-A-E-G-D-Em-F# in the key of B minor… I hope you guys enjoy and expect more lessons like this in the future

Please feel free to share the post!

Henry Stax

Guitar Players Collective

GPC Facebook Group

#GuitaristsBeLike

Posted on August 14, 2015 by SonographicTendencies

We guitarists are special bunch, and like any Unique group of people we have vernacular and phrases that only we regurgitate on and on in conversations and gear forums the world over. Here I am gonna list a few terms and comments you are likley to encounter perusing the web and or guitar store!

“Does It Go To Eleven?”

An oft repeated joke paying homage to the very best musician parody to date, Spinal Tap. I that Famous scene Nigel Tufnel is showing Marty DiBergi his Guitar and amp collection. He goes on to explain how he has modded his Marshall’s to go to eleven as opposed to the typical 10… The scene is a classic and just one of many quotable moments in the movie.

“Does It Djent?”

A relatively new Sub-genre of Progressive Metal that sports über high gain guitar amps. The word Djent itself is an onomatopoeia for the distinctive high-gain, distorted palm-muted, down tuned guitars typical of this genre which has gained a massive following… This popular phrase can be found on YouTube videos and Guitar forums on the daily!

“I’ve never taken any lessons”

Often repeated by the newer generation of self-taught guitarists. A phrase spoken with pride by the self learners and resented by more traditionally trained guitarists…

“I Plug In Straight”

Some guitarists think that they get a purer tone if they eschew the use of guitar pedals. Going straight into the amp prevents the buffering of the guitar tone… These people are usually assholes.

“Nice Tone! Tube?”

Another purist is the Tube snob. Every piece of technology known to man has benefited from digitization. Except the guitar amp. Many a guitarists will play solely through a tube amplifier, typically high wattage. The saturation and compression provided by tube (called valves oversees) amplifiers can not be denied. It is no surprise that these tones are still sought after more than a half century later!!! However the Tube snob never gives digital or solid state its credit. Tough in its earlier days the technology left a lot to be desired, modern gear is astounding in sound quality, yet the tone hound will tell you that the tones are, “cold”, “clinical”, “lacking warmth” and “Fizzy” etc… These people should be avoided cause no one needs that kind of negativity in their life!

These are just a few there are so many that is would require publishing a book to document them all!

String Theory – Harmony for the Guitar

Posted on July 31, 2015 by SonographicTendencies

The guitar is easily one of the most influential instruments of the 20th and 21st Century. Like any instrument we have a method to speak about how melody and harmony can emanate from our chosen music tool.

Music Theory!

Now a lot of people are intimidated by music theory, but this not need be the case. There is a way to learn about the guitar that is fun and educational.

In this quick Tutorial we hope to bring some of these topics up for discussion. As most things music, this should be fun more than anything. Do you NEED Music Theory? No, however learning it will not hurt you. On the contrary you will have a more deep understanding of the guitar and will soon be applying these ideas to composition and song writing!

Harmony – The combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect.

Harmony as we usually know it is built on a scale. Major and Minor being the most common in Western music.

A scale is any set of musical notes ordered by pitch. We use it as our “vocabulary” with a specific syntax , according to this syntax we decide which direction every note should go in a musical context.

The Major scale is just a group of pitch intervals or pitch distances measured in height i.e. Ascending or Descending.
the intervals are as follows:
Tone, Tone, Semi-tone, Tone, Tone, Tone Semi tone.

(Another common way to write this is whole note, whole note, half note etc… (Simplified version is W,W,H,W,W,W,H)

On the guitar a tone is the distance of two frets and a semi tone is one fret. so one tone higher from a note on the 5th fret would be the note on the 7th fret (this applies to all the string in the same way), if you go a semi tone lower than the 5th fret you will be on the note on the 4th fret.

Another term for tone or semi-tone is step and half step respectively.

One step equals a whole tone, a half step equal a semi tone.

The minor scale is also, just as the major scale, a series of height distances or pitch intervals, but the relation of pitches is different.

Minor Scale: Tone, Semi-tone, Tone, Tone, Semi-tone, Tone, Tone.

(W, H, W, W, H, W, W)

If you start the major scale from it’s 6th note by a freak coincidence you would get the minor scale, and if you start the minor scale from it’s 3rd note you would get a major scale.
the universe is a strange and wonderful place full of small coincidences. that is to say:
A MAJOR SCALE AND A MINOR SCALE ARE NOT THE SAME!!!

these two scales have seven notes and they are also called diatonic scales.

from each step of the scale we can make a chord, which gives us seven chords for each scale.
The term I am going to use for a single not in the scale is “step” or “note” and for a chord “degree”,

Example:
in the C major scale the first step will be the note C, the first degree would be C major chord.

First Step (3rd Fret second string C) First Degree (C major chord 1st position)

The third step would be the note E and the third degree would be the chord E minor (Em for short).

Every chord is build on three different notes or “triad”. The name/tag of the chord is determined by the distance between each of the notes building the chord and how many notes there are in a chord. the difference between Am chord and A chord is the distance between the notes in the chord. the difference between E and E7 is the number of notes in the chord.

Now Harmony is essential in the construction of chords but it is amazing what you can do with guitar lead work. Armed with overdrive, twin guitar leads are one of the most beautiful sounding things imo..

Here I leave you with a couple of examples of guitar lead harmony in Rock…

Boston – More Than A Feeling

Avenged Sevenfold – Bat Country (Video Begins on guitar harmony solo)

Dan Cohen and Henry Stax

Tune up, Plug in and Rock out…

Dan Cohen loves to sky dive with kittens and eat roasted marshmallows when he is not playing guitar live or teaching it. Check him out at his page.

Music In Theory and Practice

Guitar Players Collective

guitar, music, rock

How To Sound Like Slash in 4 Easy Steps

Video | Posted on July 29, 2015 by SonographicTendencies

Have you always wanted to play and sound like Slash? Who hasn’t, well I’m here to tell you that it’s possible in four simple steps! Step 1 You’ll need a guitar. And not some cheap knock off! The most expensive guitar will only do, so…

5 Mistakes Beginner Guitarists Make

Posted on June 6, 2015 by SonographicTendencies

We all remember hitting that E minor power chord with that sweet saturated distortion coming off of our amps!!! That thunderous clap that ignited the fire within us to play electric guitar. However we soon follow our journey by watching concert vids or YouTube videos showing us just how amazing other guitarists are and just how far we have to go. In our quest to Guitar Hero status, we often take shortcuts and bypass certain techniques that, much to our disadvantage go on to plague us as we progress, the inevitable “bad habits” we’ve all read about in guitar magazines and forums alike… Here I’m gonna list five things the novice guitarist could focus on to better their six string journey

Pinky and the Brain

The Pinky or 5th digit, the weakling of the phalangeal brotherhood, is oft ignored by the budding virtuoso. The result being a dextrous and strong Index, Middle and Ring fingers with a pinky left floating uselessly in the air or tucked away. Use alone is what builds strength and muscle memory. One thing the Beginner can do is play Fret 1-4 Ascending and Descending using all finger AKA a chromatic finger exercise. This allows you to utilize each finger at equal intervals which helps with

finger strength along with timing and speed, which leads us to…

I Can’t Drive 55

Speed is a very important fact and tool in music, not just how fast you can play but also how slow and if you can get a groove going. All of us soon see the Vai’s and Yngwie’s of the world ripping up the fretboard to pieces reducing their plectrum’s to a smoking filed down nubbin. The best thing one can do is add a metronome to their daily practice, starting at a slow or comfy tempo, slightly and gradually raising the bpm’s. First trying with simple down strokes and moving onto more economic picking techniques i.e…

Alternate Universe

Alternate picking adds a level of groove and dexterity than downpicking alone can not. Called as such because you alternate between upstrokes and down strokes of the picking hand. Again grabbing a metronome will help immensely when learning alternate picking. The same TAB pattern used for the Chromatic exercise can be used for alternate picking. If you plan on playing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck (of course playing with tremolo picking as opposed to the tapping version) throughout, this is an exercise you will need to add to your repertoire!

Take The Lead

Lead guitar is what most (not all) aspire for. A lofty but attainable goal, but what shall you do between guitar solos? Stand on stage drinking? Signal to the sound man which groupies to bring back stage? Lead playing, though flashy and creative, only encompasses a small percentage of playing, by definition all lead guitarists are rhythm guitarists. While the Singer is stealing the show, you, along with the drums and bass, will need to keep the rhythmic bedrock of the music pumping along. Rhythm is the heartbeat of music, it is what makes you take notice and gets your foot a tapping!

If you can’t play in time then playing in front of people, or along to records at home is gonna be quite frustrating. Again here the metronome comes into play! Set a tempo and start banging out chords, or if that appears too monotonous, put on your favorite song and play along with it, feel the groove and sway of the music, as you become more comfortable you’ll begin to just “go with the flow”, it’ll become second nature, and when you find that groove pocket, you’ll know what heaven feels like to us mere mortals.

Theory of Relativity

Last but certainly not least is THEORY. Sure we all know about the great Blues legends that didn’t know the difference between a Harmonic Minor scale and Major Scale. Hopefully you are blessed with that subconscious/ephemeral knowledge and attachment with music, but if you are like the rest of the music playing population knowing even the basics of the “Musical Language” that is theory can only help! How far you want to go with it is entirely up to you and what your preferences and tastes are. But help it will, simply learning the Minor Pentatonic Scale can open up your vocabulary and phrasing potential within the Rock and Blues genres! Knowing what notes make up certain chords can help when looking for different flavors and tonality for songwriting! Simply put, learning something new is always gonna be a positive force in life, so don’t give up the chance to broaden your musical horizons, with the advent of the Internet the world’s information is at our fingertips, don’t waste that time looking at cat videos…

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list for beginners, just a few points to think about when you are beginning you guitar journey! If all else fails Metronomes make very nice furniture and or paper weights….

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Henry Stax

Tune Up, Plug in and Rock out!!!