First, I’ll say that I think the best way for me to learn guitar was to find a teacher I like and take one on one lessons. But that can cost a lot of money (I know, I’m doing it and at $50 per hour lesson, it ain’t cheep). So, I decided to take a look at online lessons as a supplement to my one on one lessons. That way I can cut back the number of times I meet with my instructor.
Well, I doubt I need to mention it, but today is a sad day due to the passing of Les Paul. I recently watched the Les Paul documentary Les Paul: Chasing Sound and I was absolutely amazed by what he had accomplished musically and technologically. I remember when I was a kid I use to think “why is there a guitar named after Les Paul… who the hell is he?” Of course at the time Def Leppard’s Phil Collen was my idol and if you didn’t have big hair you didn’t exist. But take one look at this documentary and you’ll see why not only was a guitar named after him, the greatest guitar ever made was named after him (there’s a reason I chose a Les Paul for my logo at the top of the page).
I’ve always wondered if I could really tell the difference in sound between two sets of strings of the same gauge on the same guitar. So when I took my new Gibson Les Paul Goltop over to San Francisco Guitarworks to get a proper setup I also had them put on a new set of strings (I could have done it myself, but I was feeling lazy and they were working on my guitar anyway).
But, before taking the Les Paul into the shop I did a quick recording on the current strings so I could compare them to the new strings once I got my guitar back.
As I posted last week, I went out and tested a EHX Big Muff Pie and a Analogman Sunface NKT 275. The one fuzz box I wanted to try but didn’t because nobody had one available locally was the Keeley Fuzz Head. When I was listening to samples of fuzz boxes, the Keeley was actually my favorite out of them all. But obviously you can’t tell anything about how somethings really going to sound off of a YouTube video. Even trying them out in the store only gives you a little idea of how it will work for you. It’s not until you get things home and use it with your gear that you’ll really know how you’ll like it.
The other day I posted about my first guitar lesson and touched on the CAGED system. I wanted to follow up that post with some more detail, mainly for my own learning process. If I write it down in my own words it helps me remember.
Above are the five major chord shapes an their scales. My instructor points out that for the most part you’re not going to use a lot of the shapes when playing bar chords. Since you can play any chord with any of the shapes, it doesn’t make sense to use the D shape to play a C chord when the A or E shape is so much easier. And after trying to play the D shape, I agree. Maybe once I get better I can venture into the more difficult shapes.
