Guitar Technique of the Day: EQ

Clarifying frequencies opens a spatial dimension in addition to wavelength consideration or opening up frequency spectrum.

EQ helps define the SIZE of the instrument and the sound.

Multiple stages of EQs is basic technique.

SHADOW metaphor

Because the guitar tone control is a low pass filter, the control doesn't have any effect on the low frequencies below the EQ's cut off frequency; it only effects higher frequencies above the cutoff frequency. Since most EQ is subtractive, an EQ after your guitar, before the amp, enables access to low frequencies for roll off (or boost too, but watch out) depending on the instrument, the amp, and the room/space you are playing in, and your ears. Get big ears. Grow golden ears.

...more to come for sure.

Guitar Technique of the Day: Plateaus and habits

An interesting problem of late. Some very simple possibilities/variations are escaping my notice and don't show up in improvisations. I think I've become too accustomed to my habits, so I have to start transcribing and copying other guitarists again. Also, setting limits helps. For example, using just the 1st and 2nd finger of the left hand on the fretboard, and, relatedly, playing across the fretboard more (Django did this a lot, as do sitarists of the Ravi Shankar school). I was watching some old George Benson videos and noticed that, in spite of using all four left hand fingers, he often uses just the first, second, and third, omitting the fourth. This enables a great kind of slower to medium-fast phrasing and can make smaller riffs and lines more interesting. Plateaus are tough to get out of, but I'm hoping to move past this one soon. It's weird-having practiced so much that certain basic things fall out of your purview. Who ever heard of practicing too much? :)

Guitar Technique of the Day: "natural" electric guitar latency

 

I recently had the realization that an essential difference between the response of an acoustic and electric guitar is, regarding the latter, I can hear/feel the micro-delay between the acoustic pluck and the response of the amplifier speaker at the end of the line. I've never read or heard about this phenomenon, and was quite shocked to stumble upon it.

I  thought that electricity travels at the speed of light, but according to Bill Beatty, the speed of electricity is dependent on the value of the current; the lower the current, the slower the speed. If this is true, the small milliamp AC outputs of guitar pickups indeed conduct slowly relative to higher current values. But Beatty still doesn't give speeds.

see: http://amasci.com/miscon/speed.html

I'm not that interested in the final scientific resolution of this question, but I am psyched that my ear/touch have gotten sensitive enough that I can hear/feel differences. If I'm not imagining it, then the sensitivity and complexity of the human architecture continues to amaze me. I believe this insight will yield major benefits in my electric guitaring.

Any thoughts, equations, negations?

Zen Posts

Music as THE vehicle, not as A vehicle for something else like ambition, ego, or power. This is an especially delicate point for (mostly male) guitarists. Perhaps amateurs are closer to the truth of why we started playing the guitar in the first place: so we could make music. The guitar is an instrument/tool for our creativity, not the locus of it.

zen posts

Don't let you eyes fool your ears, grasshoppers. Close the eyes, listen and focus. Inhabit the now and the near future simultaneously. Don't play if you don't hear anything.

Zen Posts

1. Play THROUGH the strings, like a conguero plays through the drum skin/head.
2. There are no strings, thus no resistance.
3. Minimum effort, maximum sound.