Guitar tabs,electric guitars,acoustic guitars

OK, I know we all have this thing with looking out for new and impressive guitars, it’s like guitar porn as one of you guys said once.

Yesterday a friend of mine sent me this by mail and since I own a Variax guitar, which can be easily considered a chameleon guitar, it got me started!

I personally didn’t know at first where to put it so I put it both in acoustic guitars and modeling guitars categories since it has a bit from both.

Personally I am not a big fan of resonators, but I must admit this guitar would be great in someone’s guitar collection, isn’t it?

I only ask myself wouldn’t be a be difficult to carry it around with all those wood “sound boards”? I mean, hey, guys, wait a minute please, to switch my sound board to something else. Yeah, now we’re talking!

And yes, of course, I said you will also be interested in it, so here it is, the chameleon guitar from MIT:

Well, would you buy one or not?

By the way, here’s the original article(PDF).

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Every country has those 2-3 artists that build it’s core, that define and stay in the hearts of people no matter what.

We have such artists, and I do speak here about rock music, because this is closer to my heart than anything else. I can’t speak about theater or dance. I speak about guitars and rock music.

More than 20 years ago, while the communist party was 100% in everything around, there were a few rock bands that led the way, despite the fact that communist party leaders tried to bury them and their music. Long hair? Leather? No way…

One of these few bands is IRIS and Cristi Minculescu, the lead singer, is, I’d say, the most emblematic figure of Romanian rock music. And I do understand the meaning of these words…

The band is now more than 30 years “old”, more than 30 years of constant activity producing hit after hit, for one generation after another, going from the hard rock of 30 years ago to reinvented music that follow the time we’re living in.

Cristi Minculescu is 50 years old, as far as I know, and since a long time suffering from a chronic disease. Everybody knew it and, since 15 years, everybody could see it, since his belly kept on getting larger and larger, giving room for rumors like him having cirrhosis due to his previous wild rock life.

These last days, after a concert, Cristi started to not feel well, he went to a local hospital and then he was sent to Germany for more investigations. During a press conference doctors said he suffers from a chronic disease inherited from his father, and not cirrhosis, illness that manifests itself by producing cysts in the liver. A transplant of liver is mandatory for him and his wife, they say, will be the donor.

I am not like their biggest fan or something, I even remember telling my friends how bad Miculescu sings low notes, since his whole life he was used to scream, joking that even I can sing better some songs (joking, given my voice), but one way or another, their music marked my own musical path and no matter how many rock singers started to appear over night, none can even touch Cristi Minculescu’s stardom.

Cristi Minculescu doesn’t have the best voice around, in a classical way, he was a self made rock singer, as far as I know (and you can even tell it from his voice) , learning to sing in a period where you can barely manage to get a recording of an occidental band, so examples were too few to relate to, but one way or another he manages to transmit so much emotion in his singing that marked the life of  a lot of generations…

His vocal range allowed him to sing Zeppelin, Purple, Priest, which put him right from the start in the position of a very solicited lead singer at that moment and the life he dedicated to rock music proved he truly belongs on stage, given all the hits he and IRIS composed over time.

Now he’s in Germany, IRIS canceled their shows on the next period, waiting for a positive answer from doctors.

I can only say “get well, Cristi and come back on stage! We’re all waiting for you!”

Later edit: seems he is back in Romania, his wife will give him a part of her liver and he will be scheduled for the operation soon. Canceled shows were “un-canceled” for the moment.

Good to know!

Here are a few songs from IRIS, maybe you won’t get the words, but at least, the very fact you know IRIS exists, due to these videos, wherever you may be, makes me feel better.

Trenul fara nas (I don’t know the English word for the last word, but it’s the guy that checks tickets in the train. So it’s something like the Train without ticket master. OK, smile and tell me the word for it)

OK, you know this one, We wish you well, Coverdale. It’s in Romanian this time, IRIS and Felicia Filip, a famous Romanian soprano.

Ultimul mic dejun al lui Bon (Last breakfast of Bon Scott, as far as I know they appreciate a lot ACDC and Coverdale, see above). This song is from 96, I’ve been to the show when they released this album, they totally reinvented themselves on that album.

OK, and now one that you will also know, Lady in black, next to Uriah Heep, rerecorded. They teamed for a while here, for some recordings, this video and a few shows.

For those reasons here and for thousands others, I think I will go to the next concert IRIS will play around here, even if I have already been at quite a few. By the way, the guy is from the same city as I am. What do you know?!

By the way, how about a bit of Zeppelin, just for fun? I now realize, writing this, that IRIS is the only professional band in Romania not afraid to play covers and tribute songs on TV. No other band does it, you know…too important probably for covers? IRIS put up a whole Zeppelin show, as far as I know, Queen, Thin Lizzy, ACDC, etc…

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I love when well known artists reinvent themselves giving us new reasons to love and admire them.

These days, Sting was here, in a concert in Bucharest, capital of Romania. Well, I wasn’t there, but I can tell you from what mass-media said that the tickets were sold out long before the concert and then those who really wanted to be there bought them at 10 times the price!

Sting was accompanied by Edin Karamazov and his lute. Very interesting, I’d say, Sting playing on lute. They both played instruments built in Romania by a Romanian instrument builder, Cezar Mateescu. Sting personally thanked Cezar Mateescu for the instruments, very nice of him. Also Edin Karamazov was a student of the great Sergiu Celibidache, one of the greatest musicians this country gave.

I was a bit intrigued at first by Sting and his lute, so I searched on YouTube for some videos with him playing lute, and I can say it gives a great sound, it is beyond a “regular unplugged” sound. Even the music is different, it is old, from the 16th century. Cool! Sting singing Elizabethan music.

Here’s a sample:

And another one:

And this one, I couldn’t help it, no lute, but man, how beautiful:

Well, do you like it? Is it Sting here or not?

By the way, you can buy from Amazon:
The Journey & The Labyrinth: The Music of John Dowland (DVD & CD)
Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994

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Rules are made to be followed.

Well, are they really?

One of the things I particularly enjoy when I listen a song is when I hear a chord that in the normal flow of chords just…should not be there, but the very fact it is gives a total new meaning to the song and a totally new sonority to that particular musical phrase.

Rules are made to be followed, there is a reason for which we use G, C, D in G major, right? They sound well together and they follow the rules we learn about as we learn to play the guitar.

But of course, there are people who follow rules and people who break and even make rules. Sometimes you hear a Cm chord in a G major song, and man how beautiful it sounds… That guy broke the rule and it didn’t bother you. Just that, as with everything in life, in order to beak the rules, you need to know them well. Not everybody can break or make a rule, only those that master rules can break them.

Think also about chromatic improvisations. It is not something easy to do, isn’t it? That’s exactly because chromatic improvisation kind of break the rules of scales that we, guitar players are so attached of. It is not easy to start in G major and find room for notes such as F or C# in your musical phrase. That is exactly because you need to know how and when to break the rules in order to make thing work…

I was listening Fuoco nel fuoco, of Eros Ramazzotti, a beautiful Italian song in F#m. Listen the chorus and spot that beautiful Dm in there. And listen to the bass line in the chorus…great find, in my opinion…

Or if it is close to you, Extreme with More than words. Or Radiohead, Creep.

Here’s the song, enjoy and comment!

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There is this discussion on Pribek.net about this fantasy trio. I am also part of it and I could only think of a rock fantasy band, starting from Gamma Ray, from the guitar player actually, Kai Hansen, a guitar player that I used to follow from his early days in Helloween. Jack started a discussion about influences, roots, etc.

I was more and more tempted to point him to Helloween and I couldn’t help asking myself why is that? What keeps me coming back to Helloween? I realized it was part of a very important stage of my life.

So far, thinking back, I was able to clearly see stages in my life related to books and authors. I can remember clearly the following:

Jules Verne, I remember missing only 4 of his books when I was a child, 4 out of 39 I think. Damn, I had a lot of time in my hands back then!

Then, when I grew up a bit, I was in love with Karl May’s books about the Wild West, Winnetou, Old Shutterhand and the rest. Not much about Mark Twain, even if I do realize US readers will probably be way more familiar with his books.

Then I had the Sven Hassel period, missing only 2 of his books, I think 2 out of 12.

Then I started to love John Grisham very much, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, etc…

Then…technical books on IT, marketing, etc. As my literature teacher in high school used to say, read now while you still can because later you will only read technical books. She was right, I might say…

Now, coming back on music, when I discovered music, it was all about rap. MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Kris Kross, Dr Alban. Don’t blame me, everybody had to start somewhere, OK?

Then, I discovered Guns N Roses and it all started to have a different meaning. I have definitively fallen in love with rock music! For good! A friend brought me a tape with Saxon at one moment. I loved the sound. It was Dogs of war. But I still couldn’t tell that’s what I need, what I am looking for! I asked him for more of the same kind. Well, let’s see…Manowar? Well, I don’t know.

Kings of metal…and there I had it. From the moment I started to listen Manowar, I knew I found my music, it all came together, the sound, the rhythm, the voice, the power, the energy and..I think even the message at that moment. I wanted more and more. And then my long time friend and today’s band mate Mihai (and my actual godfather in marriage) gave me tapes with  Helloween, Gamma Ray, Running Wild. Then Cosmin, another long time friend and the bass player in my band gave me Iron Maiden, he was a fan…

Man, what an universe!

See, Satriani, Vai, came a bit later. Malmsteen, Metallica also. For me it was all about Helloween, Manowar. This was what set me on and still keeps me connected. The rest came later…

Up to this day I love to discover new music, I love to discover new bands that I didn’t know about. It’s fun, it’s like reading a great book, like watching a great music. Actually it is more, because that band you discover is the source of a long time musical journey from that moment on.

Up to these days I am fascinated by voices such as Michael Kiske, Eric Adams, Dickinson, Sebastian Bach, Axl Rose, I love them all.

Of course, I like to listen a lot more music these days, I like quiet music also, I love blues, I love pop-rock, but my soul I guess is still in the same area that started everything: melodic metal.

That is why today I feel that nothing complements better this post than a bit of…Helloween!

I want out and a voice that can’t be matched! I also like Andi Derris, current day singer, but I am always amazed of how bad he can sing this song. Andi can not go that high that easy. Also Hammerfall covered this and barely reached those high notes.

So I think that it is very important how your musical education started because it will follow you the rest of your life. It is what you will probably like and judge by for as long as you will live on this Earth. That is why so many people argue about music, because each of use judges by his own standards that started somewhere back in time….

Am I right or what?

Later edit: here’s a video of Hammerfal playing the same song. Great cover, I might say. By the way, is that UDO in the clip next to the band?

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We have this European music show here, Eurovision, each year European countries send a representative to sing a song, yadda yadda.

So far, each year the talk show after the Romanian selection was a very intense fight, people throwing accusations at each other, artists considering they were misjudged, etc. Of course, you know the type of show they put after finding they won’t go further.

This year everything was smoother, seems everybody was OK with what happened, nobody threw accusations at other bands, seems the situation was cool.

I listened the songs in the competition, I will post here the ones that had a chance or meant something, from my point of view, I would like to know your opinion, since, after all, your opinion may be pretty close to what other people would say about the artists here. After all, you don’t know the people in these video so you may have an objective point of view. But then, again, you, like me, like rock and blues, you may not be in the target group for this. And it is an European competition, the music is a bit different, but let’s see…

Due to the fact that almost everybody decided to sing in English this time, you’ll get a pretty good image of the music there.

The song that won the Romanian competition and will go further to the European’s competition that this year will take place in Moscow, is The Balkan Girls, the artist is Elena Gheorghe.

The direct competitor was Catalin with Stop

On the 3rd position was Blaxy Girls, they say they play rock. So they say. The song is Dear mama. They are a project of a very controversial composer and producer here, who turned from dance to a low class, kitschy music that made him a lot of money. I wonder if these girls can actually play the instruments…

Then I will add here Zero, with Sunny days, a song that I actually liked, I like this kind of songs, I play this kind of songs. By the way, in case you can’t tell, this is the band that was tricked here with the paper music, remember?

And the last one is actually my favorite, it’s in Romanian and it’s called Pleaca (Leave!) The guitar player and the drummer are part of THE FIRST BAND IN ROMANIA to have a professional video for a professional music television here. The guitar player has now a recording studio and composed this song also and honestly, it has his name written all over it! Maybe you won’t like the song, but man, I love it! I actually used to play such music a long time ago.

The guy clearly studied his market: needed a song to be played in Moscow. So, here’s a Russian sounding song sung by a girl that has Russian backgrounds. Leave! Cool, I love it!

So, let me hear you on this. Does any of these songs make an impression on you? How do you find them? How about the winning song?

PS: and this one, I forgot about it. The guitar player is my ex band mate, Bogdan.

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You know, I understand weird performances, I am aware of the “beauty of the ugly” concept, but WTF is Buckethead doing here?

Really, I dig the guitar solo, but the break dance-techno-kung-fu dance?! Come on!

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These days everything runs around this financial crisis, isn’t it? I mean everybody heard about it, I don’t think there is one place on this world, connected to the global money flow, that didn’t hear or feel it.

I was thinking about that and about the fact that probably, this affects us too, guitar players, because we are not able to buy the instruments we want, anymore, or at least we consider it twice before spending our money. Isn’t that right?

I mean, last year I bought my Variax guitar and the recording gear from Line 6, now I want a new digital camera and a BOSS GT10 processor, but seems I can’t find the money for them, anymore. Something changed here and probably in your part of the world too. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me thinking twice, or maybe the money were unconsciously directed to some other areas or…

However, I looked at how car builders tried to face the situation at the current car shows, coming up with smaller cars, hybrid cars, anything to lower the fuel consumption and the overall expenses.

Did anything similar happen in the industry of guitars?

I mean I could compare here the Gibson Robot guitar to some expensive car, with some features that you don’t necessarily need, but for which you spend like $900 more, that you could keep in your pocket. Get it?

I mean, how do the guitar builders try to face this crisis that probably affects them all? Personally I would come up with some cheaper guitars without the fancy things there, without pearl inlays, floyds, etc, but with a good quality, that people be able to actually buy and play. Usually low price guitars are not that good, the quality of the manufacturing is be poorer than at a $3-4000 guitars. But how about a guitar for which you spend $300 or $400 that plays like one for which you’d spend way more, but without the shiny glitters?

Would this help sales in times of crisis? Would you consider buying one despite the actual economic situation?

Let me hear you!

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OK, this morning I have been tagged by Zack from GuitarVibe.com from a post on TheOpenSource.com, seems he is part of a tag game. The rules are simple and I am going to list them here:

• Link your original tagger(s)(I did, see links above), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Hmm, semi-useless facts, this should be a dare, indeed, let’s see…

1. I am born on 1st of April, I know I had a post about this on my blog. People don’t usually believe me, so you can just check my ID pictured in the post about it here.
2. I have a beautiful and interesting family, that I only discovered about 2 years back. Things don’t always work the way you want in the beginning, but sometimes God works everything out the best possible way, I guess. Also I have a not so good relationship with another part of my family. I hope everything work out for the best because it matters to me. A lot.
3. I love guitars but I wasn’t able to buy a new guitar for a very long time because I never found the money for it. I actually bought a new electric (read Variax) and other things related to music last year, after being motivated by this blog. I am happy about it and proud and I also plan to buy a new processor, probably a BOSS GT-10, I will see.
4. I am currently taking classes for a Master in Business Administration in a local university. I have actually studied electronic engineering in university, I have a bachelor degree and a master degree in electronics, but honestly didn’t help me too much since I don’t know much about electronics anyway. Unfortunately I realized this after finishing the university. I now work as a programmer. Close enough.
5. I am constantly looking for peace and quietness. I don’t like rush and mad times. I like to be in control of the situation and I don’t like to risk. If I have a pile of money, which doesn’t usually happen, I don’t just spend it, I plan my expenses for the next period so I don’t run into a stressful situation. My boss told me once this is(the need to peace,I mean) because of the fact that my life in the past hasn’t been peaceful at all so I now strive for peace and quiet. The fact is that I have been rushed into quite a few stressful situations in the past. Now I must be getting old…damn! I guess this doesn’t quite sound like a rock and roll profile, doesn’t it?
6. Because of a particular situation that I won’t detail here cause there’s no sense in it, today I had, on paper, about $130.000 and the next day I had nothing. Well, at least I am healthy!
7. I love you guys, I read you every day and you make my day with your daily posts about guitars. I am into programming, web, marketing, etc, thus I should read a lot about these topics. I actually do, but nothing makes my day better than your posts about guitars. That is why I will also tag people from the same area of interests: guitars!

Well, I actually realized that these 7 semi-useless facts touched a more personal side, revealing things you didn’t know about me, so the tag be more interesting. So, why don’t you keep the same idea and tell us 7 semi-useless spiced up facts about you?

Should be interesting!

Let’s see, people I tag are:

1. Jon from GuitarNoize.com
2. Jack Pribek from Pribek.net
3. Dr J from ControlRoom
4. Danny from GuitarPlayersCenter.com
5. JP from Stratoblogster
6. GLW from Guitarz
7. Jeff from GuitarPlayersZen.com

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Today I have been in the mood for Ozzy.  I don’t know why but I listened quite a few of his songs.

The fact is I am a bit intrigued by how this guy looks and acts on stage. I know he was a great artist, had a lot of shows, a lot of fans, still has, as a matter of fact, but I also know he used to drink a lot back in his time and do a lot of drugs, and it must have had a large impact on his body cause now I have the impression that now on stage he looks like he’s just been hit in the head with a hammer or something. He looks groggy, dizzy, I don’t know…He’s old, man, but he’s a product and products must sell…

The fact is that a couple of days ago I was looking at a picture of Keith Richards on Stratoblogster’s site , Keith is 65, looks older than he is, but man, he’s there and lives every second of his stage presence. Ozzy looks like he’s going to collapse or…fall asleep! Damn!

However, I love some of his songs, like for ex Dreamer, I was watching the video on YT a couple of months ago and I was speaking about it with my teacher of photography, telling him about how they must have worked a lot on getting that younger face for Ozzy, especially when the solo starts. He laughed and pointed me to the fact that the particular picture I was speaking about is a still frame, it is a picture, not an actual movie frame, probably taken in his earlier years and added in the clip with a slow motion, to give the impression it is part of it.

Pay attention when the solo starts, around 2:43 and let me know what you think!

Well?

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