I was just thinking about duplicate content in web environment. Everybody is afraid of somebody stealing his website content, losing rankings, blog scrappers, PR going down, etc. Duplicated content is bad, bad, bad!!!

Well, is it the same in music? I am not speaking about stealing somebody’s song and pretending it is yours, no, that it is illegal. I am speaking about playing someone’s songs. I think that if more bands play the same song, this only makes the melody better since every musician finds that particular side of the song that fits him/her. Plus that it pays tribute to the original artist which is a way of showing your respect and appreciation.

So the reason I’ve started this post started is Love of My Life by Queen.

…but also played by Scorpions here

…and also by Extreme

And of course, how could I forget Love Of My Life by…Carlsberg

Well, what do you think about it?

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Well, Jon of GuitarNoize.com gives away a Chrossroads guitar festival DVD to his readers. All you need to do is to comment on his blog, telling there what is the name of BB King’s guitar! Man, that’s a tough one! By the way, one of the things I like about this contest is that it is open to everybody, not only to people from US and Canada! Way to go, man!

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I am sure that a lot of you (rock fans) admire voices such Bruce Dickinson (Of Iron Maiden, of course), Michael Kiske (ex Helloween, “the silver throat” as some used to call him - by the way, I am a big fan of you, man!!) and others with similar abilities. I know I do. I love this kind of voices. What I didn’t know is that you can actually study this kind of vocal technique and that the way they sing is not just pure talent or God given voice but also studied technique. Here in Romania, I am not aware of someone teaching this kind of things. Of course we have all kind of music schools and a lot of great vocal trainers, but, damn, I don’t think we have something similar to this.

Here’s a movie of a guy singing a Queensryche’s song. He is a student of this private rock class. Of course, lead singers like Dickinson or Kiske are not born every day, but admit it, he’s there!

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I have always admired Jazz guitar players, but I am not into Jazz. And I surely don’t like all kind of Jazz music, I love melodic one, not that modern-I-can’t-understand-it Jazz. I love the creativity that these guys show and the chromatic scale improvisations. I think this is what fascinates me the most: chromatic scales, because there is not much theory there. Instead there is much creativity, inspiration and feeling, the very heart of Jazz music.

For me, Jazz it is like an alien world, a world still not open to me but full of hidden poetry. Don’t yet consider me uneducated, please don’t! I have listened some (some is the keyword here) but indeed, not a lot. However, it is fascinating to me the way (inspired) Jazz musicians come up with the most beautiful chromatic phrases that always make sense…As George Benson said, “everything works in Jazz”. Right, but only if you know how to make it work!

Note: I embedded the following movie only for the first 10 seconds, I think, of Charlie Parker, not for the lesson itself. I find those liks just lovely. What do you think?

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Today, because I watched a video on YouTube, I asked myself how many ways of playing the guitar we know. Ways like in how to keep the guitar, how to use it, not as in electric vs acoustic or musical styles. However, in some cases, particular techniques can be defined as an other way of playing the guitar, case when I will put a separate entry for them. Let’s see:

1) The normal way

I didn’t know how to call it in an other way than the normal way, because this is exactly what it is, in my opinion, the normal way of playing the guitar: you hold the guitar hung by your neck/shoulder and you pick/strum strings with one hand while pushing them with the other hand to get particular notes. Doh! Like this.

1b) Guitar tapping

Well, here there are many things to say. Guitar tapping is one of the favorite techniques of the 80’s, starting with Van Halen and remembering Michael Angelo Batio’s 2 hand playing/tapping. But I want to put here an other style of music, not hard/heavy rock , but Jazz. See Stanley Jordan’s version of Stair to heaven here:

2) Lap playing styleOK, this one is one of those moments when I am not sure how to categorize it since the position is different and at the same time the way of playing, usually with a metal or glass slide thus forcing me to refer to this as an other (4rd) style also. Used a lot for Hawaiian music(with specific guitars) but also for blues.
As Wikipedia says:

“The lap steel guitar is typically placed on the player’s lap, or on a stool in front of the player, who is seated.

The strings are not pressed to a fret when sounding a note, rather, the player holds a metal slide called a steel in the left hand, which is moved along the strings to change the instrument’s pitch while the right hand plucks or picks the strings.

This method of playing greatly restricts the number of chords available, so lap steel music often features a restricted set of harmonies (such as in blues). Alternatively, the lap steel guitar player can play the melody or another single part.“

Like this:

2b) Playing with a slide

I called this 4rd way of playing (since I consider it to be a different mode, not just a technique) 2b because it is somehow similar to the second because of the slide being used. We are speaking now mostly about blues music, the guitar being hold in “the normal way” while the the notes are obtained by sliding a piece of round glass or metal on guitar strings. Like this:

3) Andy McKee unique finger-style

OK, if you can or know better than me, find a better name for this cause I can’t. Composed of a series of techniques such as normal string picking,tapping, hitting and beating the poor guitar box, his style is truly unique. Here’s Andy McKee:

I would also put here Dominic Frasca with his way of playing, in the same category, in a way. More taping than Andy McKee. Also related to 1b)
Or Erik Mongrain with his lap style of playing the guitar combined with the 2 above. Of course, there is always THE FUNNY AND EXTREME WAY!!! where 2 guys share the same guitar

I ask also my fellow guitar bloggers to help me add more styles here, if they know more. Guys?!! (Jon, GuitarMX, JP, Dr. J,Cary , Ignacio and all of you blogging the guitar!)If you liked this, subscribe to RSS and please remember to Digg and Stumble this! Spread the word! Thank you!

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Today somebody entered my site searching for 12 strings fretless guitars. Man, is there such thing as 12 strings fretless guitar? What would you do with such an instrument? What would be the use? The exact use of those 12 string would be for strumming while I would find difficult to use chords while fretless…

Anyway, maybe use it like a mandolin? The mandolins I think that have the strings doubled to sound full and can be used at “soloing” at the same time. Because I couldn’t find a picture with a 12 string fretless guitar, here’s a mandolin!

By the way, if you know somebody knowing somebody who has a friend owning a 12 string fretless axe, let us know!

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I was thinking about every guitar player’s dream, about that part where you are the solo guitar player and everybody is cheering you, loving you, adoring you, in a spot where everybody would love to be. It is somehow like in that movie I saw some years back with one guitar player that was no good, selling his soul for becoming a great guitar player playing astonishing solos. Of course…

Anyway, every guitar player wants to be the bad ass solo guitar in a famous rock band. Every guitar player dreams it….

But! There is a but here… I had the opportunity to go with this friend of mine in ‘97 to get a job (my friend, not I) as a professional guitar player in the local theater big band. He was good, really good. Now, as I have already told you a few times before here, he is one of the best rock guitar players in Romania, in my opinion. So, he got the job as the lead guitar in a big band with about 30 instruments, a band that used to play along the lead singers working for the local theater.

There was that other guitar player there, about 45 or something, the second guitar. Of course he didn’t have leading parts, he was always there but nobody saw him. However, I couldn’t help myself thinking that if that guy wouldn’t have been there, the music would have been missing something…

If you think about it, you can not play a guitar solo without somebody being the rhythm guitar, to keep you on chords and to help you be creative. I don’t speak about somebody playing C, F, G only. I am speaking about a better guitar player. A bit of 9 here, some 7+ there, a small 13 chord, well, you know what I mean… Did you ever notice that if you play with a rhythm guitar who is a great at playing chords, you just become more creative, you feel the music better and you are better, playing better solos? It feeds you with his chord harmony instead of playing those plan C, F, G…

That guy there is the second guitar that nobody knows or notice.

I have been in this second position while playing in Kapela (I am not saying I was that guy that inspired the lead guitar, I was not in such a position, unfortunately). I was there for about 1 year and all that I had in front of my eyes was to be the lead guitar in an other band. Of course, the dream…

I am sure you are familiar with TV shows such as “So, you think you can dance?” Next time you watch it, watch the second guitar there and see how important is that part: rhythm, chords, melody, technique but no glory. Is it right this way?

Take the man out of the band and see how it sound. Then, if it sounds bad, put him back in the band and put the lights on him, giving him those moments of glory that he deserves. I say that because our similar TV show here had such a moment, cheering the rhythm guitar while playing on a large screen some great moments with him on stage. Unfortunately it was because his sudden death  a few days ago, he was 70 or something…

But he had his part. Unfortunately, one moment too late…

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I have listened Christmas carols a lot these days due to winter holidays. Some of them were international songs, like White Christmas, or Silent night, songs that you all know and others were Romanian songs. Because I am Romanian, I find a special joy in listening old Romanian Christmas carols, songs that throw a special feeling on Christmas each and every year and remembers me those wonderful times of childhood.

I know that you, my readers here, are located all over the world and you probably don’t understand Romanian language and you don’t know much about Romanian culture. That’s all right, I won’t even try to teach you, that’s not the purpose of this article. But I just couldn’t help not sharing with you a piece of our Romanian Christmas culture.

While listening Romanian Christmas carols, I have realized that they are a bit different from the international, widely known songs in the way that most of our traditional carols are based on popular, folkloric songs, thus borrow a lot from the folkloric melodic structure. If you are going to listen (at least) a few seconds of the songs listed below, you will see that most of these songs have some repetitive parts that come immediately one after an other (even if you don’t understand the language, listen carefully and you will see what I mean - focus on the first artist which is a mark here). Also there are some common themes that a lot of our winter songs share, words, melodic structures and lyrics that a lot of Christmas carols share (such as “leru-i ler” (untranslatable, at least for me), “flori de mar” (apple’s flowers), etc). Some songs are based on these structures, others just use them.

Also there are a lot of artists singing such songs around Christmas, of course, it is a tradition, I guess it is a good source of revenue and nobody could blame you for recording a carols album 1 month after releasing your “normal” one, Christmas won’t count here, right? Or if you don’t have inspiration for an album, Christmas should give you the reason to record well known songs that everybody sing and know. Whatever…

However, we have here in Romania some great artists that sing (carols) very well. I will point out a few of them and I invite you to listen to them.

Taste the sound as you would do in a Chinese, Italian or why not, in a traditional Romanian restaurant. So, here we go…

Stefan Hrusca

Stefan Hrusca is just about THE MOST FAMOUS Christmas carols singer in Romania. He is a tradition here and for Romanians all over the world. I just know about 2-3 songs of him, others than carols, but I do know a lot of his carols. And trust me, here in Romania everybody knows him and his music. He is just a man with an acoustic guitar on a stage, enchanting the audience every year. I just don’t know how he lives for the rest of the year, but during Christmas time, you just need to have him. The music is simple, direct and based on traditional themes(see the part above about repetitive folkloric themes, he’s the one using this a lot). Hrusca is a traditional folk singer that found his niche: Christmas carols. By the way, he’s the one in the picture of this article.

Fuego (Paul Surugiu)

Fuego is not a traditional Christmas artist, but he does a good job, in my opinion singing carols on winter time. His voice is suited for this style and he has some beautiful carols. He is a pop singer, with folkloric experiences. I could not put my finger on his exact musical style and I don’t even bother to, I just listen…

Andra
Well, Andra is an other story. She is just about the best women voice of her generation(22-23 years old?) and this “of her generation” is a matter of discussion. She can cover almost anything, she usually sings pop but also has a folkloric album that has a nationwide hit on this totally different style. As far as I know, her musical background includes traditional folkloric studies so she sings folkloric music better than other artists specialized on that area. Due to her natural way of being and due to the fact she is so true to music she is very loved and appreciated here, which is not something I can say about many artists in Romania.

This first song I listed below is a traditional Christmas carol here, I think that Stefan Hrusca made it famous, but I won’t bet my life on it. However, she sings it beautifully.

Also see here Silent night in a half Romanian, half English version, that may give you a better image of her voice.

Bogdan Curta
Well, let me tell you that I just don’t know who this guy is, I haven’t seen him anywhere but on this site I post songs from, a Romanian version of YouTube. He has a wonderful voice made for carols and he just puts his voice to work here and I felt that for creating a complete image of what Christmas means in Romania, I should include him here.

Ducu Bertzi

Again, a traditional folk singer, our parents music, not a traditional Christmas carols singer, he usually has some folkloric inspired songs, very popular here. He is very loved, old school music, again a man with an acoustic guitar, nothing more, but he is one of those artists able to make a whole stadium stand singing his songs while he only plays his guitar.

Cargo

I left this band at the end of my article for the following reasons: I am kind of a fan of this band, Cargo, a very famous rock band in Romania. They play hard rock, over 20 years of experience and stage life, usual stuff: 2 electric guitars, uniques screaming voice, one of the best voices in Romania (at one time, now the lead singer is not in Romania anymore but in Australia, however the band goes on with an other lead singer and still kicks ass,even if the glory period was with Kempes as lead singer). One of my personal reflection about Cargo’s ex-lead singer(Kempes): he sings be cause HE CAN! Cargo made a band tradition to come with a carol at the end of the year, composed by them. They don’t play traditional carols, only their own stuff. But I love them every time I see them on TV with this kind of stuff. When you see that Eddie like look of the lead singer(again, ex-lead singer, I still have that image in my head) and hear his scratching voice, you know Cargo is here. By the way, see more about them here.

Well, I don’t know if I managed to give you a correct image of what Christmas music means in Romania because I only listed here one traditional Christmas singer. However this is the way I see it, this small list is based on my current feeling and on what I could find on Trilulilu site.

Anyway, how is on your country? Are we different in Romania or not?

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Hello, everybody!

This is my first post in one week. The reason is simple and clear: 3 month ago I have purchased an apartment that me and my wife have (totally) arranged during the past 3 month and we have barely managed to move in these last days so my computer was somewhere on the floor, I had no desk, no chair and around me there are only clothes thrown all over and screwdrivers, drilling machines and other similar stuff.

Since a new house needs work (I had to install lighting sources, new furniture, fix sockets that the workers left hanging,etc) I had no time for internet, computers or guitars. OK, I must admit, after the living room furniture was in place, I took some time playing my acoustic guitar for relaxation. Somehow in the way Einstein played his violin for relaxation, but nothing more.

Since I have also bought a desk and a chair, I have put them up as soon as possible(they’ve come in boxes, as pieces) and I’ve started to write this post saying nothing more than I am glad to be back online.

Now that I think about it, the year is about to be over and it was a good year for me. My most important achievement for this year is by far purchasing this apartment since until now I was paying rent to an old apartment, which clearly was not a long term solution. Also, I thank God I was healthy and full of energy, considering the last 3 months of stress and continuous work that I had to put up to finish the apartment.

Because it is the end of the year and I didn’t have that much time to speak about Christmas and winter holidays, I just want to say that I hope the new year to be at least as good as this one, generally speaking, me, my family and my friends to be healthy and happy and I also wish you the same. As you see, I don’t wish(you/me) money, I just don’t believe we should. You make money, you wish happiness and health.

And I also wish all your websites to go sky high and get as many visitors as you want for them and I also wish GuitarFlame.com to get as many visitors as possible since I find it to be soooo fun writing here, I wasn’t expecting the reactions I received and I just want to thank you all of you reading my blog and being part of it!

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Because Christmas time is here, I put up a list of Christmas rock songs/carols or rock icons playing Christmas songs. Let’s see what we’ve got here:

So, we feature Twisted Sister with Heavy metal Christmas,

Then some kind of Guns’N Roses (sound-alike?!) here, even if I can not tell if it’s really them or not, if it’s really them, probably they were drunk, at least Axl must have been if I judge by the screams… We also have Tarja But most of all I smiled when I saw Ozzy singing with Jessica Simpson in this video


Do you have any other rock Christmas songs to show?

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