One of the things that I really think about for a long time is what skills a performing artist needs on stage and I am not speaking here about musical skills, studies, licks or tricks …

Be an entertainer

What I speak here about is social skills, that quality that separates a singer, a guitar player, a musician from a real performing entertainer (in the good sense of the word). And before jumping to slap me because you didn’t study long years how to play the guitar just to entertain people, think about it for a moment.

Entertaining people does not mean necessarily making them laugh, OK? It means making people feel good at your shows, no matter you are Sepultura, Iron Maiden or Shakira. Think about Manowar and the motorcycles they use in some of their shows when going on stage, think about ACDC and Angus Young’s almost trademarked jump.

I know that some of you may think that music is what really matters, not acting foolish on stage, but in my opinion that matters also. It matters because it is part of THE SHOW, it is part of the whole thing going on there.

We have here a band where the lead singer is also an actor. It helps. It really helps. The guy does not have the best voice, he has range, OK, has a particular sound of his voice that differentiate him, has good songs, but he often sings flat on stage, loses his air and he really couldn’t care less because what he does on stage is not singing, is acting, is performing, is entertaining the audience.

What makes them different is, beside the songs, the fact that they seem to live every moment on stage and the public feels it very well…I have paid some thinking about this since we don’t have this on stage every time and we should really invest some time in this.

Teaming the beast

Also, speaking about social skills, I guess one of those skills you really need (at least at first) is the capacity to overcome unpleasant moments.

I remember one interview of two famous Romanian stand-up comics performing together. They were explaining how in one of their shows, in a club, some guy from the public started to make fun of them and didn’t want to stop. At one moment, one of the artists kind of blocked not knowing how to answer to what the guy from the audience was screaming at them, moment when the other comic, with over 20 years experience in this, decided to answer back and shut the mouth of the poor bastard in everybody’s laughing. Call it experience, but it is also part of those social skills you need on stage.

At one moment we had such a show where it was a mixed audience, rock and hip hop (small town, not that many bands, make a show, call everyone there. Bad idea!). At one moment hip hop fans started to throw things on stage at rock bands. Hip hop fans are not hard rock fans and will probably never be…well…

The reason that started this post is a video with Paul Gilbers and a stage “moment” he handled great! Take a look and let me know what you think!

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A very interesting thing I didn’t know about: the Xavian scale, Steve Vai’s “own” scale. Well, did you know about that? A very interesting topic that I have never thought about. Really, it shows you how deeply involved in his music Steve Vai really is.

For me, all those scales out there contains some of the same 12 notes in a “standard” chromatic scale and honestly I have never thought about another way of dividing the space between 2 octaves. Well, I guess somebody else did…

Think about taking this available “space” and divide it in another number of equal intervals, not in 12 as we commonly know. Divide it in 10 spaces, or in 8, or in 9, or in 20 spaces…whatever… The result? Well, you could name it “another chromatic scale”, I guess. This is exactly what Steve Vai did: took this space and divided it in 16 equal spaces and then, by experimenting a lot, he took 10 notes out of 16 and built his “own scale”, Xavian. Speaking about playing like Steve Vai…

Of course, you won’t be able to do this with a regular guitar, no matter how good you are, since it is not built for this. Vai couldn’t do it either so he asked Steve Ripley to build such a 16 intervals guitar for him. He also has a 24 intervals guitar…

Seems that Deep down into the pain song is the only record where he actually used the Xavian scale. Listen closely the end of the song. I know that Steve Vai uses strange modes all over his music, but his own scale with notes outside the known Universe, man, that’s weird…

What do you think about this? Read more about this here and come back and comment, I would like to know your thoughts on this!!

Stumble and Digg this!

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One of the things I deeply admire at great guitar players and great musicians in general is the capacity to express so many nuances in their music in a few simple notes and it has always been a dare and a constant quest for me to express this.

The reason that started this post is actually Dream Theater. I really love their song “Another day” and each time I listen it I find myself charmed by all those nuances there…Listen for example the starting riffs, 3 simple notes or the solo guitar theme/intro or even the drums!

Now that I have started this, I think that if I would need to define Dream Theater in one single word, that would be NUANCES, nuances all over. This is actually the result of their musical studies at Berklee School of Music, result of theory and practice, I’d say, and I guess that even if you are not a big fan of progressive rock you agree with me that no other rock band can be represented by this word better than Dream Theater: nuances…

Here’s Another day for you! Enjoy and comment!

Am I right or what?

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A quick and funny one, from Guitarist.co.uk site:

New AC/DC album to weigh in with a whopping 15 tracks

The wheels on the chariot of the gods of rock are finally turning again…
AC/DC have confirmed that the title of their new album will be Black Ice as widely rumoured, with the first single being Runaway Train.
Reports that one of the songs includes an F minor chord cannot be confirmed at this time.

What?! Reports that one of the songs includes an F minor chord cannot be confirmed at this time!!

Really, I am also interested to find out about the album, but about the fact that hey, listen…ONE OF THE SONGS INCLUDES AN F MINOR CHORD!! Man, this is mad!

I don’t know, maybe I am not THAT familiar with ACDC’s chord choices,but is this something out of the ordinary with Angus Young or what?

Their albums have never included a minor chord so far, or what?

I think that’s a news for the really eager fan! Man…

PS: That article is not against Guitarist.co.uk site, in any way, I really like the site and I read it often, but I just found the news hilarous and I just had to point this here! Man…

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At last rehearsal with the band we decided to cover Don’t cry from GNR, after all, it must be pretty easy, we all like GNR and this it’s a song we sing and play since high school, we know it by default, right? Eh, when listening the song I was surprised by a few nice progressions there, that I didn’t expect, that helped the song a lot. But that’s not the subject of this post.

The subject is actually the guitar solo or the guitar behind the solo, to be more exact. I didn’t pay too much attention in the beginning to the chords behind the solo, presuming they go by some repetitive chords like the chorus for ex. How wrong I could be!

After working this part with they guys in my band, I could say that my impression is that the solo was created first, and then they created a backup track to support the solo, which is totally strange from my point of view. I say this because the chords under the solo don’t follow any pattern, the length of a particular chord depends on the particular passage the solo plays and not the other way around.

My way of soloing is to actually improvise over a common pattern in the song, like the chorus or some intro, f.e. and I have never written a solo that I needed to back up later. I have some passages in particular songs that I needed to explain to my band mate playing the other guitar when he joined the band and I did need to find chords to match a particular progression but I was the only guitar player in the band at that moment and the only melodic backup was the bass line, which can be pretty free; I think this does not apply to GNR since Slash was never the only player there, isn’t it? Then?

My opinion is that Slash worked the solo without the second guitar player, in a free way, making the solo sound nice and then they searched for some backup chords to match the solo.

Listen here and tell me your call on this.

PS: When embedding this video here I was totally charmed by this song and listened every note of it until the end, totally forgetting I have this post under editing!!

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I guess today I am in an acoustic mood, who knows, I have watched a few videos on YT with live performances with just a guitar and a voice and I have decided to post here a video of Avril Lavigne live.

The reason for which I post this video here is that I really liked how the rhythm goes on guitar and how they both managed to transmit energy and freshness with only one guitar, no drums, no bass. I like how the guitar player plays the fast rhythm passages on acoustic guitar. If you would have asked me I would have said that punk needs electric guitars. Well, how about it, works great with only a voice and an acoustic guitar if you have the right artist.

How do you find it?

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WILLIE’s LARGEST U.S. BOX SET EVER – HIT SINGLES, RARITIES AND TRACKS FROM 60 ALBUMS ON A DOZEN DIFFERENT RECORD LABELS

Personal favorites range from four historic local Texas singles (1954/55 to 1960) to dozens of studio & live career touchstones, including collaborations with Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell, Roger Miller, Ray Price, Ray Charles, Merle Haggard, Webb Pierce, Julio Iglesias, Faron Young, Hank Snow, Highwaymen (Waylon, Johnny Cash, Kristofferson), Lee Ann Womack, and more!

100-page full-color booklet with introductory essay by Mickey Raphael, and 8,000-word biographical liner notes essay by Texas journalist Joe Nick Patoski!! (read the full story here, PDF file)

All these could be YOURS!

All you have to do to enter this contest is to comment on this post providing a valid email address and a name!

On 30 August one person out of all of you commenting on this post will be awarded with the Willie Nelson’s 4 CD collection, One Hell Of A Ride.

The winner will be announced by email!

So, gentlemen, start your engines this very moment!

For more information on Willie Nelson and Legacy Recordings see this link here https://www.legacyrecordings.com/

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Patience was the song that really turned me to rock music and I have always thought the sound there is the most you can get from an acoustic guitar.

The sound is so clean and warm that nothing can beat it and the fact there are no drums there gave me the feeling of being closer to the song, like the song was recorded by a few guys playing the guitar for fun, like we used to do at one party or another…

Now I have discovered on YT this version of Patience played by Velvet Revolver and even if they didn’t change that much to it, the new voice makes it sound different while keeping the rest of it makes it sound the same. New and still the same, does it make any sense to you?

How do you like this version? Did you know it?

PS: Listen closely, did one of the guitar players played a flat note on 1:21 or is it just me?! I love those moments!!

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I didn’t know that but thanks to Guitar Players Center website I found out about it, I really didn’t know when Joe Satriani’s birthday is.

And honestly I didn’t know he is 52 yo, man, how time flies!!!

So, a short and warm Happy birthday to you, Joe! and I think I speak for everybody when I say you don’t show your age and I wish you create beautiful pieces of extraterrestrial music at least for the next 52 years to come!

Happy birthday, Joe!

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Call me stupid, call me uninformed, call me whatever you like, but I swear I didn’t know about this girl, Tal Wilkenfeld, who at only 22 yo!! has been touring with Jeff Beck, Chick Corea, Eric Clapton, Herbie Hancock, Steve Vai, and the Allman Brothers. Damn!

I have found out about Tal Wilkenfeld by reading Little Rock Jam’s blog and once again I realized why I love blogging about music so much! Everyday I get the chance to find out about something new and wonderful in this world! That is why!

So, who is Tal Wilkenfeld?

Tal Wilkenfeld has been playing the bass since less than five years! She started playing the guitar at 14 in her native Sydney and switched over to the electric bass three years later.

“I’ve always just picked up any instrument and been able to play it―I could sit down at the drums or the piano and just play for fun…But as soon as I started playing bass I knew it was my instrument. It was like, ‘Yes this is it. I don’t even want to play guitar anymore, this is amazing.’”

I am not going to reproduce the original article since this is not the idea of this post, you should visit Little Rock Jam and read it for yourself there, but I am going to post a video here so you get my point!

By the way, here’s her MySpace page and also her website.

Well, what do you think about her?

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