Sunday, November 30, 2008
Developing Finger Strength
Strengthening your fingers will help you play the electric guitar with more precision, speed, and dexterity. Having stronger muscles in your hands and fingers and continuously working to build more power in your tendons will make a considerable difference in your overall playing ability. There are actually a couple of non-playing exercises you can do for strengthening your fretting hand, which I will tell you about below. When I reveal some of these exercises, you are probably going to think something similar to, "Oh, that is simple, anyone can do that; why is he giving us this exercise when it's so easy? That won't build much hand strength." But when you finally curl those digits around your well-worn fretboard and try the chordal set of exercises, you are going to realize they aren't nearly as easy as they seem, and you just might find yourself confessing: "Oh, now I see, this exercise is pretty difficult after all."
Before we begin the challenging stuff, so that we do not strain any muscles, we need to start off easy, so try this:
1. With your hand in the fifth position, place all four fingers on the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th frets of the neck.
2. While holding your third and fourth (ring and pinky) fingers down, raise the other two fingers off the fretboard, holding them for a count of two, then set them down again. Repeat this ten times.
3. Do the same with the opposite fingers. That is, while holding your first and second (index and middle) fingers down, raise the other two up off the fretboard and hold them for a two count, then set them down again. Repeat this variation ten times. You can think of this as trying to do hammer-ons and pull-offs if you want, with the fingers being set down with enough force to "hammer-on" and sound a note.
That is the easy warm-up. Now it will get more difficult. So get prepared. Basically we are going to be doing the same exercise as above, except now we will use opposite fingers.
Read the rest here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/703427/electric_guitar_developing_finger_strength.html?cat=33
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Invent New Hardware for the Electric Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of Red Zen & How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
This article is more of an outside-the-box thinking lesson than the other guitar articles I have written (see “A Fast Finger Tapping Pattern for Electric Guitar” and “The Wah-Wham Method,” among many others available on the Internet and in my guitar book, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell). This article involves hardware – the actual equipment you use when playing the electric guitar – instead of where and how to place your fingers on the neck. But what I'm about to tell you has genuine value with a down-to-earth “life lesson” involved, so hopefully you will benefit from it.
Here is the back-story: At a Thanksgiving family celebration last year, my uncle played me a John Fogerty song in his van and asked me to learn the chord progression and teach it to him. I learned the song in a matter of minutes, simple basic chords, and afterward I showed it to him, and we began discussing guitars and various equipment. I mentioned string winders at some point and he said that he would like to put a motor on one, to make it automatic, and I suggested that we build one and patent the idea and try to make some money.
That suggestion reminded him of his latest invention.
He said he wanted to make a self-tuning guitar, a guitar that tunes itself automatically at the press of a single button.
“Great idea,” I said. “How did you think of that? And how would it work?”
“Well,” he said, “My best friend Dudley and I were talking the other day in my shop and the idea occurred to me to make a plastic fold-around piece that fits onto the headstock surrounding the tuning pegs, with little motors running the tuners, and a device like a piano hammer striking each of the strings, then a computer chip would be embedded in the plastic wrap-around part which would determine the current tuning of the six strings; if the guitar is out of tune the motors will go to work on the tuning pegs, winding the strings, until they hit the correct pitches. We would need a programmer and an electrical engineer to help us put the whole thing together, but I could handle most of the design and construction myself. In the end we would have it rigged up so that we could just push a single button and the guitar would automatically tune itself."
“Sounds fantastic,” I said. “Perhaps we could patent that idea too and make a little cold hard cash.”
"I'm sure every guitarist could use one," he said. "If you help me build it, I’ll split the money with you."
"You got a deal," I said. "Of course I'll help. I know a guy with a few patents to his name. I could ask him about the patent application process and some other things. I wonder why nobody has ever thought of this before. Maybe they already have. I'll have to do some research on it."
"You'll have to do A LOT of research if you're going to help me build this self-tuning guitar."
"Right on," I said.
Then my uncle went back to talking about the actual design of the gadget. He mentioned input and output procedures, he talked of electrical signals and chromodynamics and megahertz and power generators and transformers, he spoke of ohms and conductors and watts and other technical electronic terminology that I didn't fully understand. But I listened anyway and was still enthusiastic. I wanted to help him build this new device and put it on the market to allow millions of guitarists to purchase it so they could keep their guitars perfectly in tune with absolute ease.
My uncle said he wanted the contraption to fit around the headstock, he wanted it to be portable and adaptable to most guitars, therefore we would have to make a few different models to fit the ‘three-tuners-per-side’ style, and another for the ‘all-tuners-on-one-side’ style of guitar. He said every guitarist in the world would want one of these and we would soon be rich and I totally agreed.
There we were, standing out in the cold, shivering, ready to eat a big Turkey dinner, with mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce, corn and tomatoes and yams, sweet and sour pickles cut into long thin slices, pumpkin and pecan pie, pistachio salad, homemade ice cream and cake, and I was huddled outside by the garage next to my uncle, who was grinning about this new invention that he’d come up with. We both thought we would soon be famous and have a real patent to our names and make a little money. Then I wondered aloud about licensing the self-tuning mechanism to major companies like Gibson and Fender and wondered whether we would need an agent of some sort. "But we still have to build the darn thing first," he said. “Right on,” I said.
Some time went by. Maybe a week. I was thinking about the self-tuning gadget. How to build it. How it might work. What all it would entail. I began to suspect that building it would be beyond our abilities. We also needed to find out how to patent the thing. I tried to think of everything it might involve. I prepared to do some research, see if it had already been done, and before I could even open a web browser, I noticed an email from a news site with the headline saying something like, “New Self-Tuning Guitar Now On the Market.”
What? Beat to the punchline again? I read the article. Then I went to the web site where I could learn about self-tuning guitars and the technology underlying them. There was a demonstration video there. I watched it and saw my uncle’s new invention. Except it was quite a bit different from his explanation. This one had motorized tuning pegs that turned by themselves, sensors in the bridge that could detect the current tuning, an extra knob beside the other volume and tone knobs, which you pushed in and then strummed the open strings and the motorized tuning pegs went to work retuning the guitar for you. The knob had green lights that flashed whenever it was properly in tune, you pushed it in when the tuning was finished and that bad boy was ready to play. You could even program it to cope with alternate tunings if you want, tunings other than the standard E-A-D-G-B-E. It looked like tremendous fun. This new self-tuning technology was developed by Chris Adams, a German engineer, at his company called Tronical in Hamburg.
So how much does this thing cost? I thought.
Then I read that it isn’t portable and adaptable to all guitars, you have to bring your guitar into the shop and they will modify it for you, install all the necessary technology and equipment onto your guitar. That’s cool. But it would cost $900. Not so cool. Too rich for my blood.
I realized that in some ways my uncles’ version of the self-tuner was better. But it would require more work from the guitarist at home to set it up properly and get it functioning smoothly. But the demo video on the company’s web site made their version look awesome as well. Simple and practical and a guaranteed perfect tuning with no extra equipment getting in the way. It would free up musicians to concentrate on their music and play without having to worry about keeping their guitars in tune all the time.
Now, did my uncle see this new guitar technology before I did, and pretend that the idea was his? I seriously wondered that. It seemed impossible that he would suggest inventing a self-tuning mechanism for the guitar and then later that week Gibson announces they have one on the market? But maybe he did actually think of it by himself – independently of the Gibson guitar company. Who knows. I didn’t ask him, of course. Later I did inform him that self-tuning guitars had already been invented; and I explained all the necessary technology to him. But he didn't seem too interested in my explanation. He was busy with other things at the time.
Do you see the lesson in this article? You should strive to make improvements to the functionality of your electric guitar. It could be anything. Hardware, or technique, or any other aspects or qualities. Anything to do with the instrument, try to see if it can be improved upon in some way. Anything can be made better in some manner or another. You may notice something that other people have overlooked for decades. Search for the thing that could be improved upon and design it for yourself and then build it from scratch and strive to patent the idea. Tell the world about it and make a million dollars for you and your loved ones. Strive to look at the guitar in ways that other people never have; and notice something that could be made better; then do it to the best of your ability. That is the basic lesson in this article. I hope you can use it in your life and your work. More info on Gibson’s self-tuning guitar:http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19462/page1/http://www.tronical.com/
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Guitar Article: Licks Inspired by Niccolo Paganini
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2237404/Guitar-Licks-Inspired-by-Niccolo-Paganini
Be sure to search for my other articles while you're there at Scribd.com
