Indeed, seems that people started a whole industry around electric guitars (and I am not speaking only about directly related things such as guitar strings, amplifiers, picks, stompboxes) and they never cease to amuse and make me wonder where could we go next?!!

Because Jon of GuitarNoize.com and Gary of Thumbrella pointed to a few interesting electric guitar related gadgets, when I found this I knew I had to show it here, so here it is: the Fender Telecaster mouse pad! Very cool thing to own, don’t you think? My current home mouse pad has some nuclear plant related drawings and graphs on it and the one in the office has cats on it…

Later edit: Jon asked me if they come in Strat version. Well, here’s the link to the original Tele model and here’s a Strat model.

Well, how’s that for a gift, IG?!! Huh?!

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A very practical observation: be careful when listening music while driving, it can be dangerous! It happened to me, more than once, to sing what’s been playing on my CD player and due to the rhythm to step on the acceleration pedal more than needed or…to have guts to “force the entry” of an intersection…Not good! Trust me!

I am not a reckless driver, no way, I like to think I am a “defensive” driver, meaning I let you pass if I consider it is better for the situation and I don’t have that “me first” complex. But when listening to a high paced song, a “driving song”, man, I lose it sometimes!!! And I become mean!!! Ha, ha, ha!!! Me first, me first!!

I guess it is the same with everyone of you, right? Once you turn up the volume on your auto CD player and a song that gives you wings comes on, you become an other you, right? A meaner you, with way more guts! Look, mom,I’m king of the road!!

A few songs that drive me wild on the road: Highway to hell (AC/DC), Balls to the wall (Accept), Hard times come easy (Richie Sambora), Youth gone wild (Skid Row), etc. Actually, I think a driving song needs 2 a few ingredients : a steady, “easy to feel” beat (4/4), with balance, a good melody and, in my opinion, a positive attitude.

Even love songs will do. Here’s a Romanian band, (Holograf) and a song that really makes my day when I am behind the wheel. It is my favorite Romanian band (about 30 years of playing) so you get the chance to taste a bit of Romanian culture (again)! The song is called Romeo and Juliet, please make an effort to listen to it even if you don’t understand the lyrics.

So, let me hear you!

What gets your engine started when behind the wheel !?!

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These last days have been kind of slow for me. Slow, from the point of view of blogging, otherwise they have been crazy. We celebrated Easter (I am Christian Orthodox by religion, like probably 90% of the people here) and these last days me and my wife visited every possible relative because, of course, everybody was inviting and expecting us. Which is a wonderful thing, just that a bit demanding after a while…

And of course, the guys from the band asked their share, so, Costin, the lead singer, called to invite me to a barbecue at the rehearsal location (I don’t dare to call it room, cause it is not just a room, it is a building with a big yard). After 2 visits that day, I took my wife and my guitar and went to the rehearsal studio.

I can only tell you that I was part of the “team” handling the mixed grill (my wife says I still smell like smoke after taking like 4 baths) and Costin was part of the “team” handling the lamb cooked over the fire (which is way more difficult than cooking the mixed grill!). There was beer, music, food and a lot of fun! Everything was again organized under the same conditions as last time.

Everything ended up after a lot of playing the guitar, jamming and singing, around 1 o’clock AM, I think, when we decided that it was a busy day and we should all go home and take some rest. I know I needed it!

I have more stories to tell, but really, I find so little time to spend in front of my computer these days, but I will be back soon…

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I’ve found via Dr J’s blog about a Seth Godin’s post, that I consider to be quite an interesting one. I used to read Seth Godin’s blog everyday some time ago, not that often lately, but still…

I will try to summarize here the main idea of Seth’s post, but in a guitar oriented way: what you do everyday helps you improve your playing or musical knowledge or is just “playing around”?

Personally I love to take my acoustic guitar and play a bit when I get home in the evening, it relaxes me, I think I am some kind of Einstein playing his violin in the evening. OK, I am not an Einstein, but I like the comparison…

So, when you pick your guitar, you just play whatever comes to your mind, or you play scales, try to work on some stubborn lick or just love the sound of your guitar? I know that this is heavily dependent on many things, that must be considered, like the mood, how tired you are,etc, and nobody says it’s wrong to play for relaxing in the evening, heck, I love to do that, so I couldn’t argue my own habits, you know…

But how about you? When you pick your guitar, do you practice or play?

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That is right, I dare you again to guess the guitar player in the left image. Somehow looks like him today so there may be a great chance to guess right.

Well, what do you say?

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At least that’s what this short quiz says!

If you regularly read this blog you know that it doesn’t quite fit my music taste, but I do respect the man and his influence upon guitar music. So I won’t contradict such a result, because it goes well in my guitar playing CV, right?

Now, let’s see who feels like arguing with me on this blog, I will only ask one question:

Who did you say you are?

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Warning: This post may be a controversial one!

Yep! Since a few days I keep on thinking about difficult to play guitar solos. And guess what! I am not thinking about Malmsteen or Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. Hell, no! The song that keeps on running through my head is “It’s probably me” of Sting and Eric Clapton. Did you ever try to play that solo? I know I did some time ago and I just couldn’t get it right. I don’t speak about the notes, cause there are not that many or that fast, but man, those note are so full of soul that you just can’t reach them!

The solo is so warm and Clapton plays it with so much feeling that it makes it so difficult to play it right…

And you know what? I remember in the high school about this guy that managed to nail the theme solo of Wonderful tonight with such feeling that nobody could play it the same. Again, there are only a few notes and I think this song (Wonderful tonight) was one of the most played song when I was in high school, but this was the only guy that managed to play it right.

I think that the most difficult to play guitar solos are not the fast ones, but those solos that requires feeling, interpretation, understanding for the notes you play and a lot of soul.

I think that as in life, or even more than in life, in music, the most difficult thing you can do is really express yourself.So, what’s your most “difficult to play” guitar solo?

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BBC News today featured an article called Why don’t girls play guitar?

Let’s ignore the fact that it is a “journal style” headline, and some girls do play the guitar, and some of them actually kick ass, if you think about Jennifer Batten, for ex, (she was always an icon to me, from this point of view, because indeed, girls do play the guitar but how many play solo electric guitar? At that level, I mean!)

So, this post is not actually about Jennifer Batten, even if I proposed to myself to cover something about her, soon, but about the preferences that boys and girl have when it comes to picking up a musical instrument.

Here’s what the study that BBC uses says when it comes to learning an instrument:

Boys play:

• electric guitar 81%
• bass guitar 81%
• tuba 77%
• kit drums 75%
• trombone 71%

This sounds like a pretty decent rock band. What are the tuba and trombone doing there?!!

Girls play:

• harp 90%
• flute 89%
• voice 80%
• fife/piccolo 79%
• oboe 78%

Well, it may be related to social preconceptions, or just to the fact that there are some physical constraints here, such as a girl having trouble playing tuba due to dimensions, or just about the fact that being a girl may be associated to being softer, quieter, nicer, AND NOT PLAYING THE DAMN LOUD, METAL GUITAR!!!

Later edit: can it be for real that  90% of the girls play harp? I ask this because I don’t know any girl in my relatively close social neighborhood who play the harp. Actually I don’t think I know any girl who play harp while I know a girl here who plays bass guitar in a rock band. 

See the article here

Hmm, so, how many girls do you know playing an electric guitar and how many playing the harp?

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Nothing relaxes me better when I get home in the evening than a short session of playing my acoustic guitar! Just that I have observed lately that I have the tendency of repeating myself from time to time. It became kind of a overused record. Most of the time I play some improvisations, nothing planned. And I find myself repeating some of the licks and, frankly, I don’t like because sometimes, instead of being relaxing it annoys me. In this situations I do my best to seek links I have never played before, to learn a solo of some particular song, because in my opinion, playing other people’s music forces you to think on an other direction than your own.

Do you find yourself in the same situations? When starting to improvise, do you recognize overused patterns in your playing? What do you do to overcome this? How do you exit this situation?

Now, be honest, don’t you dare telling me that you never repeat yourself, OK?!

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A few days ago I was reading on Jack Pribek’s blog about the fact that he decided to give guitar lessons (again). That made me think of the fact that I have been often asked questions like “will you tech me to play the guitar?”, “how long would it take me to learn to play the guitar?”, etc.

To tell you the truth, I have never given guitar lessons. One of the reasons is the fact that I don’t have time to do this and I don’t think I really find the pleasure for it, but it is not the main reason. The main reason is that I don’t consider myself a guitar teacher. I know how to play the guitar and I play it since a while. I love both the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar and I would probably manage to teach somebody to play. But I think that this doesn’t quite qualifies me as a guitar teacher, because there’s more than meets the eye in this, as far as I can see.

One of the facts that I don’t feel comfortable with is the terminology. Being a self-made guitar player, what I know comes from listening songs, reading books and watching video. When speaking to a friend of mine that is a guitar teacher, musically educated, at a local music school I realized that he has a vocabulary that I totally lack.

Also, I play my own way. Not the best, I don’t actually know which is the best way to play the guitar. My licks, my finger positions are personal. In time, I understood that some were not the best and I changed them or I have tried to. For ex,a few years ago, when playing a C major natural scale, starting on A string, when reaching the B note on G string, I used to play the next C (for going further on the second octave) with my little finger. I realized, at that point, when watching a basic video lesson that you need to slide your pointing finger to the C (on G string) in order to be able to play the next notes correctly.

This is a basic example, where I want to say that what you learn by yourself is not always the best thing. Sure, it worked the way I used to do it (of course, how often you play 2 full major natural scales?) . I realized that I am doing this wrong after explaining to a friend of mine how you play that C scale.

The point is that I CAN teach somebody to play. But I am not a teacher. I think there is a difference here.

I remember a great electric guitar player in Romania, when trying with his band to make it big outside, in UK, if I well remember, after a while, in order to earn a living there, somebody asked him to teach guitar. But I am not a guitar teacher, he says. I can not teach! Well, just try and do your best! This guy is one of the best guitar players here and the band is well known here, one with great fan base, a lot of sales and publicity. by the way, they’ve never made it big in UK.

Well, to make a long story short, the only reason for which I would teach somebody to play the guitar would be for my own interest, for learning myself, because it’s said that the best way of learning to do something is by teaching others.

So, do you feel comfortable teaching somebody how to play the guitar?

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