Where you least expect it…

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As mentioned in a previous post I feel that inspiration can happen anywhere and from just about anything, if we are open to it.

I had been wanting to write a new instrumental song for a while. I wanted it to be melodic, powerful and totally unique from what I had done before. I imagined it as being done and had the thought that before I knew it I’d have something cool. A little while later this magazine showed up:

At first I didn’t notice anything special or unusual about the magazine. It was nicely designed and well written but nothing stood out to me. Right before I was about to put it into recycling the orange tape on the back of the guitar headstock caught my eye:

I realized that it was probably the tuning of the guitar, a tuning that I had never used before. I grabbed my guitar, set it to the pitches indicated and within a couple hours had two new songs that were totally unique from anything I had done before. All from something that I was about to throw away.

I love it when stuff like this happens but looking back at it now makes me wonder just how often this type of thing could be happening. Where the seeds of what I want could be right in front of me and I just don’t see it.

72

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I bought this guitar years ago after learning the hard way that if I find something that I really like I should grab it before it is no longer available. At the time I was looking for something “a little different” and this fit the bill. Part stratocaster, part telecaster, part precision bass, the ’72 was one of the “Fender Pawn Shop Series” models introduced in 2011 and only in production for a couple of years.

Here’s the official press release from Fender:

“The Pawn Shop Fender ’72 presents an unusual combination of classic Fender design elements, not the least of which is its semi-hollow Stratocaster body with an f hole. The result is a truly distinctive instrument with a huge sound, with other features including a U-shaped Telecaster neck, rosewood fretboard with modern 9.5” radius and 6105 frets, Fender Wide Range humbucking neck pickup and Fender Enforcer™ humbucking bridge pickup, early-’50s Precision Bass-style dual-knob chrome control plate with master volume and center-detented pickup blend controls, ’70s-style hard-tail Stratocaster bridge, ’70s-style Fender “F” tuners, mint green pickguard, bullet truss rod, three-bolt neck attachment and deluxe gig bag.”

The other day I pulled it out of the case and put some new strings on it. Forgot just how much I really love this guitar. Feels and sounds great, plus it looks really cool!

Photo was taken at a SF Guitarworks setup workshop a couple years back.

 

Pulse

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I used to listen to this live Pink Floyd album while taking day trips through the farm lands and forests outside of Eugene, Oregon. Disc one has some great songs on it but it is disc two that I love. This disc has the band playing “The Dark Side of the Moon” album in it’s entirety. It was then that I became convinced that TDSOTM is one of the greatest rock albums of all time. So many great songs, fantastic sonic textures and production techniques that would become the new state of the art.

Hans Zimmer

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Last year I took the Hans Zimmer Film Scoring course on Masterclass.com and really enjoyed it. While there wasn’t too much technical information in this class it had plenty in the way of mindset and approach that Hans used in various real world situations, which helped him to become one of the most prolific and successful film composers of our time.

I particularly enjoyed doing the assignments, creating compositions based on specific limitations/requirements. My Music Sketch #55 “Perception” was based on the following assignment:

“Think about one of your favorite directors. Find an interview in which he/she talks about the making of one of his/her lms. Use this as a jumping o point to create your own version of a score that’s informed by how the director talks about their intentions behind the film. How can you translate the director’s approach to telling the story into a score that helps serve that narrative?”

The director I chose was Terry Gilliam and the movie interview was about his film 12 Monkeys. The key point I got from the conversation (which inspired the song) was this:

“We seem to be inundated with information. It’s hard to know what the real stuff is, which is the stuff that counts, I think that the hardest thing in modern society is to know what to listen to and what not to.”

No Guitar Is Safe

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First discovered this podcast by Jude Gold and Guitar Player magazine in late 2016 and am so glad that I did. Amazing guitarists jamming and talking about their craft. They can go really deep when compared to a magazine interview, these podcasts can go for 90 minutes or more. Really great to hear these full length conversations.

While there are a ton of fantastic interviews, the ones that really stand out to me are the Ben Lacy, Mike Keneally, Owen Barry, Jeff Kollman and Tommy Emmanuel episodes. Really cool!

Guitar Techniques

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When I first found this amazing magazine about 8 years ago I was blown away. It has so much instructional material for a wide variety of subjects and styles (rock, jazz, country, classical, blues) from some really great players/instructors. The focus is truly on teaching/playing, way more so than any other guitar magazine that I’ve read. Also, it’s really well put together. The writing, notation, photos, audio and video examples are all done at the highest level of excellence. This is the kind of magazine that I’ve always wanted. So glad that I found it!

Mastery

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Last year I put together a custom electric guitar, all aspects of it were to my specification. Everything from the parts, the materials used, the look and wear/aging of the paint and hardware, even the type of wiring used for the electronics. I called it “The Duke”.

I love this thing. Honestly, it turned out way better than I thought it would. Essentially it’s all my favorite things in one guitar: mahogany Fender Jazzmaster body & neck, ebony fretboard, extra wide neck (for my big fingers), locking tuners, stainless steel frets, throaty P90 pickups and the amazing Mastery Vibrato.

I point out the vibrato because I was originally given another (inferior) tremolo/bridge and was really not enjoying the way the guitar turned out as much as I had hoped I would. Once I got the mastery installed it transformed the guitar into a completely new instrument. It feels so smooth, solid and dependable. Stays in tune without needing a locking nut and looks bad ass. It’s fantastic. This is without a doubt one of my all time favorite guitars. Thanks Mastery!

What a Rig!

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As much as I love my tube amps they just aren’t practical to record with at all hours of the day and night, so I’m super glad to have Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig to get my ideas down. I particularly like the “Country” presets for clean parts, “Dual Vintage” or “Massive Wall of Rock” for crunchy rhythms and “Eric John Son in Manhatten” or “God’s Love” for leads.

Capo

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I’ve been using this app “Capo” as part of my “Hearing and Writing” transcription assignments. A bit pricy but works really well for what I need. In addition to being able to slow things down while maintaining pitch and spectrogram analysis, I particularly like being able to navigate forwards and backwards in a song using key commands so that I can really zero in on a passage without having to look at the screen.