Guitar Gear

I’ve been playing guitar for over 42 years. One would think that after all this time, I should be some sort of virtuoso guitarist, able to spin in and out of lead lines without thinking. I can do that with some stuff, but not everything. Frankly though, I focus much more on rhythm playing and playing against vocals or other instruments so that my guitar playing is integrated with the presentation of a song; whether I’m playing solo or with a band.

I’ve never had any formal training in guitar, and the breadth of my musical education includes 6 months of piano lessons. That doesn’t mean I don’t know much about music – I do – but my learning has been much more interactive and organic and osmotic as opposed to academic. I’ve studied a bit of music theory and harmonic structure, but all on my own, as I was driven to learn these things. For me, while I do believe that I would’ve benefited from formal training, I don’t know if at this point in my life as I have devoted my life to making music that having a formal musical background would have made any difference.

The point to me sharing this isn’t an attempt to give myself a backhanded compliment. It’s simply to communicate that I went my own way with learning how to play guitar and make music; irrespective of whether it was the right way or the wrong way of doing things. I’m happy with how I’ve learned, though I’m never satisfied with my playing and performance as I’m driven to constantly improve, which brings me to the crux of this article.

I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve heard unsolicited advice on learning guitar that invariably began with “You should do such and such to learn guitar.” We guitar players are an opinionated lot, that’s for sure. Of course, there have been some people with whom I interacted who have given me great advice or recommended some fantastic resources for learning guitar, and I’ve followed that advice and have only gotten better because of it. But to be honest, being self-aware, I’ve always known my limitations, be they due to time constraints, personal issues, or just life in general, so I’ve just gone with flow and learned as I could. It also meant that – especially with all the things I’m involved in besides music – regular lessons just wouldn’t worked for me.

In all my years of playing and learning guitar, I’ve come to realize that there is no secret method for learning guitar; pretty much any method will work. If you learn best in a structured, academic way, then go for it. If you’re like me and just want to do it organically, that’s also valid. But that said, whatever method you choose won’t matter a bit if you don’t practice. I’ve taken on several adult students in the past who have wanted to learn guitar. They’ve all been busy professionals, and they all lasted about two months before I discontinued the lessons. It wasn’t about being harsh or mean or frustrated. I was just honest with them and told them that I didn’t want to take their money if they weren’t not moving forward.

The only way to move forward is to practice what you learn.

For me, I play at least a half hour a day, maybe more if I can swing it, and I gig at least twice a week, year-round. Most of the time when I practice, I’m not really trying new things, but I spend a lot of time honing the skills I have. My thought is that I’d rather be great at fewer things than mediocre at many things.

In a reply I made in an earlier post, I mentioned that my buying spree with gear these past 10 years started with me getting a tube amp, namely my trusty Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Once I got the Hot Rod, I started buying guitars, I started buying pedals and pedal boards, and I started buying amps. And it hasn’t stopped.

I stopped to think about what is it about a tube amps that made/makes me go into GAS attacks. I think it has to do with their individual quirks. For instance, between the time I got my Hot Rod and when I got my Aracom PRX150-Pro attenuator, I was REALLY big into getting overdrive pedals because I couldn’t play my amps loud enough to get them to their breakup point – and that’s pre-amp, not power amp breakup. So I had to use overdrive pedals to get my overdrive tone. Then I needed a delay, then I needed a chorus, then a vibe, etc., etc…. Then I decided that I wanted a more aggressive tone than a super-clean Fender, so I got my Aracom VRX22. It just didn’t stop. In a year, I spent tens of thousands on gear. Getting into Aracom Amps got me into the vintage Marshall sound. Some of my older pedals just didn’t work well with that tone so…. I had to get other pedals.

When I fell in love with the Les-Paul-through-a-Marshall-amp-tone, I started getting Les Pauls; to wit, I only have two, an R8 and a ’59 replica. But I’m still looking to get more LP’s such as an Les Paul Supreme (love that headstock logo).

I know, a bit convoluted… But it’s actually pretty simple. Tube amps or classes of tube amps have fairly distinct voices. Some pedals or guitars work with all those voicings, some pedals or guitars only work well with a certain type of amp voicing. Given that, I was compelled to buy and try gear that worked my guitar and amp combinations. “Compelled” is probably rather simplistic or even a bit misleading. But once I got into tube amps, I started getting compulsive about buying gear. I’d hear something then say, “Wow! That seems that it would work great in my rig.” Here comes the debit card…

Nowadays, though I still get the urge, I luckily don’t have the funds to make the big expenditures I did in the past. Life happens, and I’ve got to take care of other financial obligations that make buying new gear prohibitive. But that doesn’t mean I get the occasional piece now and then. It’s just not at the velocity I was going in the past. Plus, I’m pretty set with my tone. Once I got my DV Mark Little 40, I just haven’t really been compelled to get more gear because that amp literally works with anything I throw in front of it, be it pedals or guitars.

But I do realize that my GAS is just dormant right now. Who knows what’ll get it going or when it’ll happen again. Time will only tell…

I just finished reading an interesting article in Premier Guitar entitled, “The Secret World of Hindustani Slide,” that talked about slide guitar playing in India. Yes, slide guitar. Apparently, slide guitar was introduced in India by Tau Moe, a Hawaiian slide guitarist that moved to Kolkata (Calcutta) in the early 1940’s. His performances and recordings sparked a fairly large following, to the point where slide guitar is now a staple in Hindustani music, with several manufacturers and schools devoted to slide guitar.  Cool.

Admittedly, my experience with Indian music in general has been limited to background music or Bollywood videos played in Indian restaurants. Given that, to me, Indian slide guitar to me has always been about the sitar, which I never really liked that much because of its (to me) overly thin tone. There have been times when I’ve heard some deeper-toned string instrument being played in the songs I’ve heard that I thought were pleasing. I had no idea that they were from a guitar.

Here’s a video of a very nice song being played with a Hindustani slide guitar…

Very cool in my book! The musicianship and instrument mastery of the player is awesome. Musically, it’s not my cup of tea, but I appreciate great musicianship when I see it.

After I saw that video, it occurred to me that it would be cool if there was an electric version of a Hindustani guitar. After all, the bodies seem to be predominantly archtops. But I couldn’t find a single video where I saw a Hindustani slide guitar plugged into an amp. Hmmm… In any case, throw on a couple of P-90’s and you could add all sorts of effects. I’ve heard some really moving (as in up-tempo) Indian music in the past, especially stuff from Goa where there is a heavy rhythmic vibe. Imagine getting some of those rhythms then playing some distorted slide on top. But irrespective of the distortion, pickups would open up a whole new palate of tones.

That could open up a whole new genre of music. You definitely couldn’t call it traditional; nor could you call it “world.” But perhaps that new genre could be called “Hindi-Rock,” playing off the whole Indie Rock thing…

Yet another reason why I’d like to hate this guy but I can’t because he’s so damn talented – not to mention that I actually like his work. I just saw a video of him playing guitar with the Black Keys at the MTV Movie Awards. It’s not that he’s a super-sensational guitar player; but he can play, and play pretty well at that. Talk about living the dream.

Here’s a link to the article…   He plays on the second video…

Love that Les Paul Jr. he’s playing! Dammit! Livin’ the dream, baby!