Today I’ve been to a supermarket to buy some groceries. When I returned to my car I took a small break to eat some chips, I’m a sucker for chips, I know they’re not healthy, so I try to eat as less as I can but when I do…I want to enjoy every piece.

So, here I was in my car, in the parking lot, eating my chips, light was low, the radio was playing Sunrise Avenue with Fairytale gone bad. This song is (still) in heavy rotation in Romania, after a summer when I heard it every day on every possible radio station.

I like the song. I don’t know if I did in the beginning, but I do now, probably I have been intoxicated by so many times I have heard it.

So  here I was, eating my chips and thinking…is it rock? Is it pop? WTF is this song? If I judge by the drums, in the first half of the song, it’s so kind of pop, I’d say. Man, I would love some Skid Row now… The second half has rock drums, some overdriven guitars, open high-hats, what it’s needed to jump around in the crowd, I guess it’s some kind of rock after all, modern rock …

And there it started…I guess it’s because of the chips…modern rock, WTF is modern rock? Music that is in trends today. 80′s rock is not in trends anymore. Guitar solos are not in trends anymore, screaming it’s not in trends anymore. Today something else is in trends.

Why?

Did you ever ask yourselves why?

What it is that makes a style of music to be in trends? Why “hair rock” is not in trends anymore? What makes it old fashioned today?

I remembered my teacher of philosophy from high school (yep, I had classes of philosophy) telling us about I can’t remember what philosopher (I think it was Nietzsche but I won’t bet my life on it) that started his work on denying the work of EVERY OTHER PHILOSOPHER BEFORE HIM. Man, he must have been one busy guy, cause a couple of hundred years before him, philosophy was, well, let’s say…in trends, so everybody was doing it.

Now, also some lyrics from N’oubliez jamais (Joe Cocker) come to my mind, some lyrics that I’ve always considered the essence of a good children-parents relationship:

Papa, Why Do You Play All The Same Old Songs
Why Do You Sing With The Melody
Cause Down On The Street Somethings Goin’ On
There’s A Brand New Beat And A Brand New Song

He Said: In My Life, There Was So Much Anger Still I Have No Regrets
Just Like You, I Was Such A Rebel So Dance Your Own Dance, And Never Forget

N’oubliez Jamais, I Heard My Father Say
Every Generation Has Its Way A Need To Disobey

I guess it’s just the need of a new generation to disobey the one before. I guess being in trends doesn’t mean being better or newer, maybe just DIFFERENT, different that what has been before you.

I have a theory that I’ve told to a couple of my friends, some agreed, some didn’t, but hey, here I go again:

I have my own example here, with a Skoda car (I personally like that car so I use it as an example here). We have a Skoda Octavia 1, beautiful car at its time. Then we had Skoda Octavia 2 (next model). Everybody started to go wow, yes, nice one, more beautiful than the first. Now we have Skoda Octavia 3 (or the New Skoda I think, I don’t really care). Even more beautiful than 1 and 2.

Are you sure?

Is it more beautiful? Or just different for the sake of being different? Are you sure that you would have said the same if the models would have been switched somewhere in time, at a higher level, and in 1995, let’s say, Skoda 3 would have been released under the name Skoda 1 and in 2008 Skoda 1 under the name Skoda 3? I am pretty sure you would have said that the most recent one is nicer.

Following the same pattern, if at the same higher level we could change the history of music and put this music that Sunrise Avenue plays now, somewhere in the 70′s, (supposing they would have been successful), and release hard and heavy rock in 2008-2009, I bet hard and heavy would be THE NEXT THING! A FAR BETTER MUSIC!

You know what? Hard and heavy, hair rock, glam, all this kind of music would be in trends in 2008, 2009.

So, actually in this post I have brought up 2 different points to discuss:

1. What makes a song/style in trends?
2. If by a magic switch of musical periods, the music of the 80′s would be released FOR THE FIRST TIME in 2008, would it be in trends?

…or is it because of the chips?

PS: I couldn’t help myself, I added here N’oubliez jamais, one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

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After this last year of blogging here at GuitarFlame.com, one full year when I put everything on the table and you learned to know me with every post I publish, I have realized that I would also like to know more about you.

I already know a bit from the comments you write on my blog and by reading your blogs or RSS each day, but this time I would like to know a bit more.

So, I have created this survey (the banner you see on the top side of my site with “I would like to know you better”) and I ask you to give me like 1 minute from your life to answer 10 simple questions. These simple questions will help me know you better, to create better content for the year to come.

I assure you these questions will not ask email addresses, name, will not ask to recommend this site to a friend, or anything like it.

After enough people will answer it (I don’t know how many, I don’t have yet something to compare to), I will publish the results here, because I think that all of you running blogs about guitars will be interested in knowing what is the general profile of the people reading guitar blogs, isn’t it?

So, how about it? Would you care to help me on this one?

It will only take a minute.

A minute from your life…

Thank you!

Click here to start the survey!

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Lately I have become a fan of smartphones. I don’t own one at the moment, I have a “regular” Nokia phone, but I plan that somewhere in the near future to buy a new phone, maybe an E-TEN glofiish X800, or an Asus P320, but not at this moment.

Now, where are the mobile phones connected to guitars?

I must admit, the idea of this post came to me after reading an article on GuitarNoize.com about Sonoma Wireworks FourTrack, when I suddenly remembered about my lovely and trusty Korg guitar tuner that I recently broke. Well, not completely since those green lights still show where I am relatively to the pitch, but the display is totally dead, black, crashed (one day I put the tuner first and the multi-effect second in my gig bag, on top of the display of the tuner. That was the day when my guitar tuner died! RIP!).

The lights are not enough since the tuner has the capability to tune the bass also, by pushing a button, so I don’t know anymore if the button for the bass has been pushed or not, or if the pitch was altered by 1, 2, 3 half steps (another button). However, I learned to know that if it doesn’t hear the B string, must be on the bass setting, thus I push that button again and I find my way around it.

If at home I can easily tune my acoustic guitar by ear (or using the guitar tuner from the TonePort interface), on stage with all the noise around I’d better have a tuner. So, I definitively must buy a new one.

And now, finally, the connections with the mobile phones. Damn, it took a long time to reach this point, isn’t it?

One of my friends downloaded on his smartphone one of those great little applications, a software guitar tuner. Man, it comes handy for those moments when you want to tune your acoustic guitar and don’t have a tuner around.

Just start the application, get the mobile closer to the guitar and just tune the guitar! Of course this can not be used for electric guitars on stage, because there is no cable connection, only the mic of the mobile phone, but hey, for tuning the acoustic guitar in a relatively quiet place, it does the trick!

There are many options out there, I found a few myself, like 4Pockets Guitar Tuner ($19.95 on Amazon), or HandDee GTuner ($15) for example. You can find more for yourself, if you think they come handy.

By the way, how do you tune your guitar? Do you have one of those small tuners, have a tuner on the guitar processor or by year?

Buy from Amazon

BlackBerry Bold 9000 Smartphone
E-TEN glofiish X800

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After I posted yesterday about Green Day playing Queen, I started to look for similar performances and I found videos from that concert for Freddie Mercury from 1992.

I have watched it a lot of times and it still manages to surprise me every time, as a great exercise of how to match (or not to match?!) a voice to a particular song, given the fact that a lot of singers joined the show that night.

The fact is that all the guys singing there were professionals and I guess we can not argue their professionalism, value or voice but still, some of them were not from that movie. I mean, I love Guns, but Axl should have picked other songs, seriously…Or just other stage, I don’t know…

But that’s not the point of this post (I wonder how many times I said this already on this blog!!).

The fact is that I have started to think about Queen and Paul Rodgers project. I remember when it all started, it created a bit of a buzz here, as I guess it did the same all around the world.

However, I can not stop myself thinking that Paul Rodgers is not the best match for Queen’s music. I don’t know why, but he didn’t move me in any way. If you would ask me about ONE ARTIST that really impressed me when playing Queen’s music, well, that’s George Michael…

When I listened George Michael singing Somebody to love, I had the impression that he is 100% there! Perfect match (you know, like in Terminator, with Arnold’s bionic eyes scanning around). I had the impression that George Michael is like THE VOICE for Queen, or what is left after Freddie died.

It may be also because George Michael has an educated voice, maybe more than other singers there, he controlled it every step of the way, never missing a damn note, never losing breath, giving me the impression of a work extremely well done, by the book.

I don’t know, but the fact is that Somebody to love, for me, is the image of that show and George Michael is “the voice that should have been” after Freedie passed away, not Paul Rodgers, for any “Queen plus” project.

Or…if you don’t see George Michael there, who would you see?

By the way, does anybody see Paul Rodgers in there?

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I am curious about one thing, your participation will be most welcome…

When rehearsing with the band, at one moment, quite short, I guess, the number of songs you learn and rehears with the band will be higher than the number of songs that you can actually rehears in one single rehearsing session.

Considering cover bands that should have a list of at least 40-50 songs (am I wrong here?) to play in a show of 2-3 sessions at a party, all these songs can not possibly be practiced in one session.

So, how do you do it?

I have spoken to a friend of mine that actually does this and he said that they study the songs at home, individually and at the rehearsal they only go through the difficult parts, like breaks, tempo changes, points where they feel they should go through at least once or twice together but don’t play the easy parts.

I think I have heard a pro band saying once that they actually don’t rehears anymore, they do it on tour, because they spend anyway a lot of time together. OK, I guess that when you play every 1-2 days the same set that is already stuck in the mind of the audience, every show is a rehearsal so another rehearsal wouldn’t help that much. Maybe only for new songs…

Personally we play a few songs every rehearsal, but lately we haven’t met that often, so practice would be needed…

So, how do you do it?

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Following yesterday’s post about the choir singing Smells like teen spirit, it has come to my attention that Tori Amos covered it also live in her tour in 94, after Kurt Cobain died, as a tribute.

Now, listening this version, makes me think that what actually Scala covered was not Nivana’s version but Tori’s version, sounds closer.

What do you think?

Later edit: Paul Anka singing Smells like…?!! Damn, I couldn’t imagine that…

Or…how about the Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain?

Now I just sit and ask myself…is there any bluegrass version?!!

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I think I am a sucker for a cappella rock music.

It is not the first time I post about such music here. If you remember a couple of months I posted about a few guys singing Bohemiam rapsody a cappella and also other similar performances that I don’t find this very moment in the archives of my own blog…doh!

This time I discovered a very interesting choir singing rock music. Man, this rules! It is not 100% a cappella since there’s a piano involved, but for the rest, it just rocks!

Scala is the name, a choir of 60 fine ladies singing rock music. This time, Smells like teen spirit, Nirvana.

If this doesn’t rock your world, then I don’t know what does…

…maybe Creep?

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Following yesterday’s post, today I was thinking about layering the guitar tracks on a record and this started a whole new thread on my complicated mind…

I will start with this concrete situation I faced these last weeks, a song that I play with my band since I guess, 4 years. I think I can say I know that song. I wanted to test my new recording toy and the recording application, Ableton Live. Everything worked fine until recording the chorus, on power chords.

My habit, when recording the chorus, not because I plan, but because I observed it over time, is to record one guitar as the base track and then a second one with that special something that make the chorus interesting, from the point of view of the guitar.

To my despair, what I used to play since a couple of years in live shows, didn’t sound right when recorded, especially when another guitar was added on top of it. I tried various things, deleting and recording over and over again, until, to my surprise, the best track, the one that I actually kept in the end, was the simplest one, a track where the “base guitar” played only a G and a C on power chords, straight, no muted strings, just plain power chords. On top of that, the second guitar worked like a charm…

I must admit that in live situations, I would have never agreed on playing JUST PLAIN POWER CHORDS. Man, I can not just sit and watch you playing while I play one chord every 4 measures, I CAN DO MORE THAN THIS!!

I can, but the question is…should I?

I think that we could think of a compensation law, as in everything in life, if you wear a striped shirt, you’d better wear a tie with an unique color, if one of the two life partners is a “hard rock(my mother’s saying)” the other one should be less stubborn, isn’t it? The married guys should know what I mean, guitar players or not…

It is the same with the music: if the lead vocal line is complex, you’d better think of something simpler for the instrumental part, while if the vocal part is straight, you should compensate it by having an interesting instrumental part. If both are complex will sound crowded, while if both are simple, will sound…simple and dull.

Joe Satriani said that 90% of what you play as a guitarist is rhythm guitar(I think I’ve seen this on Jack Pribek‘s site a couple of days ago) and he is damn right just that we, as guitar player, always want to play more, louder, more complicated, when we actually play for the song, not for us.

I think that the less is more law works here better than anywhere else, isn’t it?

To make my point, here’s the chorus of the song I was telling you about. Unfortunately, it is the first version, that is all I could find on this computer, drums are way too loud so almost everything stops when the kick drum comes in, but you’ll get my point. At one moment I will upload the whole song. Until then, enjoy!

By the way, that’s a Gibson Les Paul emulation there over a Strat clean tone on my Variax using tones only from Line 6 TonePort UX1.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

So, let me hear you, guys!

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What I am going to say today is the result of a post over at Pribek.net and the result of my last weeks experiences with home recording.

Jack speaks again about the tone. Tone is in our hands, we are the seekers of tone, as he previously said on this very blog a few months ago. Every guitar player looks for the perfect guitar tone, how to sound fatter, nicer, more personal, to make his playing easier to recognize.

While reading his post I suddenly started to think about the fact that the tone that you make for your guitar WHILE PLAYING ALONE is usually not sufficient WHEN PLAYING IN A BAND, where your guitar, despite the high volume, can not break through the rest of the instruments.

How many times have you heard that? Hey,man, turn it down a bit! I guess all of us know how hard it is for a guitar player to turn the volume a bit down, no matter how “band oriented” he is. All the time we have the impression the guitar is not loud enough and we still need that extra boost to make us stand out of the crowd, isn’t it?

But is really the volume what puts you into this situation? Or is it the tone?

While recording at home various pieces with drums, bass and guitar (to not say anything about the vocal tracks cause we start other discussions) I found myself in the position of a newbie sound engineer trying to make various instruments cut through the mix.

And suddenly the volume was not enough, the panning was not enough either…

It was about the tone.

If you want, as an exercise of imaginations, the guys from Line 6 emulated the tones of some famous guitar players, like some tones of Eddie Van Halen, of Angus Young, etc, and put them all on my little home recording toy. I can tell you out of context they don’t sound like the killer tones they are in context of a band. But I guess everybody can agree with me that in the context of a band, Angus Young, Eddie Van Halen and others like them sound fantastic.

That’s why I ask myself if looking for the tone by yourself is actually enough. I think that the quest should be for the band tone as a whole. Of course, each and every instrument should sound well by itself, but sometimes, you need to give some high frequencies to your guitar to make it sound good along the other instruments, even if the sound of the guitar by itself may sound a bit dry.

What’s your opinion on this? I would really like to hear your thoughts so shoot!

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I usually don’t just pick subjects from other websites, but this song that Emon posted on Guitarkadia.com, following my post of a few days ago about mandolins, just blew me away.

I mean, The Unforgiven is one of the hymns of metal and is a must have for any Metallica fan, but The Unforgiven played on mandolin and banjo, man, it just rules!

The band is Iron Horse, by the way, I rushed and bought Fade to bluegrass vol2, I only hope I receive it since they say to add an additional $2 for shipping outside US, but the Paypal form didn’t allow me to change the amount so I couldn’t do much about it.

You should also know they have a Tribute to GNR Cd, a Tribute to classic rock Cd, a Tribute to Black Label Society Cd, a Tribute to Van Halen, featuring David Lee Roth himself and other similar records. That must be good! I can not tell if it is because the mandolin and banjo don’t allow you to play the songs exactly like the originals or it was just the fact that they didn’t try to sound like the original, however, on a few samples I had the impression of some notes that are missing. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. I don’t speak just about not following the solos, which is fine, considering it is a cover, not a copy, but I speak about some chords, progressions or patterns that gave the very mark of the song. I speak here about Fade to black for ex, or One, if you want.

However, listen the song on YT and you will agree that it just rocks!

What do you say?

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