New Pedalboard

Old Pedalboard | It served me well

New pedalboard | More spacious

So I had this new-to-me pedalboard case for… wow, it must have been 6-7 months… that I didn’t do anything with.  Since I haven’t been playing a lot of gigs on electric I guess I didn’t have a reason.  But this week I decided it was time.

A few changes.  The new board is much bigger.  The other musicians on stage will love that!  NOT!  :)

But the great thing is that I was able to leave space for expansion.  The lower left-hand corner is spaced so I can drop in the Digitech Jamman (1st Gen).

The Korg DT-4 tuner, which is great in terms of tracking and accuracy, didn’t make it to the new board.  That has been my tuner for 17 years..??  But it was never a great stage tuner.  So I’m going to give the Boss TU-2 a try.  I’ll probably make another board for the acoustic setup and put the Korg there.

The Ernieball Pan Volume pedal also didn’t make it.  Unfortunately, it’s too long to fit on this board.  Good thing I have the Ernieball VP Jr. (which needed to be fixed first but that’s another story).

And I was able to add the MXR Custom Comp which I bought fairly recently.  I’m adding it to the signal chain in front of all the drive/distortion pedals after the wah (guitar > volume > wah).  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m kind of using it as a fattener and I think it does the job fairly nicely.  The other thing is that the Brian Moore i8 has coil-tap but the tapped signal is always so much weaker that I couldn’t use it.  Now I can switch it over to the tapped sound and boost it up a little with the compressor.  I’m sure this isn’t the way it’s meant to be used.  But with everything I have, this sounded the best to my ears.

I had some problems with the George L cables at some point.  But I checked all of them with a cable tester and they were fine.  I adjust a few just to be safe.  So I got some of those and some Planet Waves DIY cables in there.

With the old board, I did my best to fit everything and at the same time make sure I can push all the buttons with my foot without accidentally hitting a knob.  With the new board I’m able to position almost all the pedal the way they were designed to be used (except the Boss GE-7 which I put sideways because it was easier to hook up the cables and that pedal pretty much just stays on anyway).

The new board has a raised platform for the upper row so all the cables can be hidden away.  So much cleaner!  I’m thinking of adding another drive/distortion pedal on the upper right-hand corner where I have more space.  Or maybe a power strip?  As it stands, I have 4 power chords coming out: 2 Visual Sound One Spot (Line 6 ML-4, EHX Holy Grail), a power chord for the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 and an adapter for the Shure UT-4.  It would be great to be able to plug all of them into a power strip and just have 1 coming out of the board.  But we’ll see.  I’m looking forward to trying this out at upcoming gigs this summer.

I’m not sure how this happened exactly.  But except for the volume pedal, somehow I managed to group all the pedals together by color.  And much like my wardrobe, everything is black, white, blue or grey.  Go figure.

Another Great Suggestion From a Student

Teacher Becomes the Student

I’m so thankful for my students introducing me to new music I probably would have never come across (well, I would have seen the Glee episode eventually… waiting for season 3 to get on Netflix streaming).

Wild World – Required Learning

Over the years, I’ve been teaching on and off.  When I first started teaching, I was giving lessons for free.  I just wanted to share the joy of playing music with my friends.  They were all young adults or older.  And I guess I was learning (how to teach) along the way as much as I was teaching.  Each time I started fresh with a new student, I tried a different teaching technique.

Right now, I’m teaching mostly young kids (pre-teens).  And again I’m finding that my teaching technique has to be very different.  With the kids, it seems to work better to help them learn songs that they like.  But that might not necessarily require them to learn a lot of different chords (without changing keys, etc.)

And I notice that most students are kind of resistant to learning scales.  No big surprise.  :)

(these guys covered the song, that's where I actually learned it from)

Thinking about it a little, Wild World is really a perfect learning song.  It uses a wide variety of chords.  The chord changes are fairly quick (a good challenge for beginners).  It uses chords that are “in scale” as well as ones that are “out of scale”.  There’s a scale run in the middle of the chorus (ha, you have to learn a scale!).  And a good example of tonal movement through circle of fifths..?

And this is going to be one of those songs that their parents will recognize and probably like a lot.  Win-win!

I’m excited to see if this will work out like I think it will.  Fingers crossed (well, not literally).

If you were a beginner, what song(s) would you like to learn?  Leave a comment.  Would love to get some more ideas!

My Love-Hate Relationship with Capo

When I first started playing guitar, I was really into 80s metal.  I never saw any of my heroes using capos.  You know, it was all rock with heavy distortion.  A lot of power chords and open string stuff.

For a long time I thought using a capo was cheesy.  Only for people who didn’t know how to use barre chords.  And something that I didn’t like about it was that notes held by the capo didn’t sound the same as notes from open strings.  They sound muted.  And because I was playing a lot of rock, I wanted all the notes to ring as loud and as long as possible (even on acoustic).

But later on I realized that if you wanted a certain sound that’s produced by a specific way of holding a chord, let’s say for instance the G (major) using the C-shape down around the 8th fret (open G-string), but you need it in a certain key (let’s say you need this for Bb), then using a capo is really the only way to accomplish this.

In my original project, Simple Souls, some of the material is meant to sound folky.  And I noticed that a lot of folk singers use capos.  Most often, they would use a capo and then play open (string) chords.  The aha moment for me was when I realized not only does that allow them to get a certain sound and sing at a comfortable key.  But the muted sound the capo produced was also part of the feel.

So now I embrace the capo.  I also like using it in acoustic jams so that I can play chords in a different position from someone else and thicken the sound.  At the same time I can use mostly open chords and not tire out my hand.  One of my students wants to learn about songwriting.  So I’ll be showing him how to use the capo to change keys quickly.

I’ve used a number of capos.  Right now, my favorite is the one in the picture above.  A few brands make that style capo.  I’m using the one made by Keyser.

Do you use a capo?  When and how do you use it?  Leave a comment!

Star-Spangled Banner

I’ve been teaching one of my students how to play the Star-Spangled Banner. This student is really into it. It was his suggestion actually. I’m hoping to be able to use this song to show him a variety of playing techniques: slide, hammer-on, pull-offs, bends, 3-note per string runs, etc. I’m pretty psyched about it.

I found this video of 3 great guitarist each having a different take on it.  Which version do you like best? (I actually remember seeing Vai play that live on MTV.  Wow, I’m dating myself!)

Kids are incredible

Kids are just amazing!  I’ve been teaching guitar to a few young kids who are about 10 or 11.  And even though in some cases their hands aren’t quite big enough to hold the chords, they try so hard and they’re just completely fearless!  Week after week I’m surprised at how quickly they learn the previous week’s lesson.

Today kids have access to everything and they have such diverse interests in music.  In one lesson I might be teaching 90s pop then the next lesson might be 70s and 80s rock then it might be a Beatles tune after that.  In some way, I think it might be easier to teach kids than adults.  Even for basic music theory!

Peavey Vypyr — Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel please…

Got this amp used on Craigslist for a pretty good price (I think).  Tried it out for a couple of minutes the other day just to make sure everything works.  It seems to have a lot of sounds in it.  It’s a very, very light amp — perfect to carry around.  Tonight will be the big test — going to try using it to give a lesson.  We’re working on Back in Black (AC/DC).  So I’ll be trying to dialing in some classic, Marshall stack like distortion with some nice overtones.  It’s got to sound decent with power chords, full chords, and blues licks.  So we’ll see.  Sure beats lugging around an amp and a huge pedal board.

Vox AC15CC — Welcome to the Family

Okay.  Quick note.  Just got this great little amp.  Used it live for the first time 2 weeks ago.  Everything sounded great through it.  All my pedals, guitars, etc.  I just love it when it’s like plug-n-play.  The output level is just perfect!  The only thing is I still like the Holy Grail for reverb better.  I really haven’t found a built-in reverb I like so I guess I’m not surprised.

Anyway, now I’m really looking forward to playing with this thing and the Blade tele.  There’s so much depth and warmth and chime!

More lessons coming soon… I hope!

Music Theory — why??

A friend of mine recently asked me, “what are some practical applications of music theory?” This is a very good question. I mean… why learn something if you never going to use it.

Here are some of my thoughts:

Communication

As part of learning theory I think you also end up learning how to read music. You learn what the lines and what some of the funny symbols are all about. Personally, I can’t read very fast. But I can read something if I have to. So it provides a way of communicating with other musicians in written form.

Theory is also useful for verbal communication. I find it simpler to talk in numbers rather than letters. Let’s say the song is in G. I prefer saying, “Let’s try playing a 6 5 4 5 progression for the bridge” rather than “Em D C D”. I guess they’re both just as quick…

But let’s say the song has a key change. It’s easier to say, “Let’s try the same progression 1 step up” rather than “Instead of G play A, instead of Em play F#m, instead of C play D, instead of D play E”, etc., etc.

Learning

I do a lot of my learning in the car (driving by myself). It seems to be where I can have a block of time to just listen and I can blast it without others complaining. For most songs that I have to learn which are mostly pop and rock I’m able to pick out chord structures and notes while I’m listening. So by the time I get to a guitar, I already have a good idea of what I’m doing playing… maybe evn how. This is called “relative pitch”: being able to identify a I chord vs a IV chord vs a II minor, etc. I wish I also had “perfect pitch” and was able to also tell what the key is. Maybe in the next life.

Understanding theory provides a framework that allows you to quickly figure out what a song is doing (how chords are changing). This coupled with ear training allows you to identify chords and notes quickly and without a lot of guessing.

One time I was sitting with a friend of mine who’s a very talented piano player. We were watching a performance at a conference and she said, “Wow, I really like this song.” She took out some pen and paper and just started writing out the melody she was hearing in numbers. Music theory gives you the language to be able to translate what you hear to something that can be read.

Writing

Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to write your composition in music notation so someone else can play your song, music theory comes in handy during writing because it gives you an idea what chords and notes would sound “good” together. And conversely, it would also tell you what chords and notes might sound “strange” and “unexpected” (if that’s what you’re going for). Again, it takes some of the guess work out. Or maybe answer the question, “is this basically the same song as ___?” (the answer is usually yes and it’s okay… we all borrow from somebody)

As you analyze more and more songs, you’ll notice certain patterns are used over and over again. And you’ll notice that these patterns seem to almost always give you a certain “feel”. This might also be useful while writing. Maybe there’s a certain “feel” you’re going after. Music theory might help give you a starting point to vary from.

understanding theory will also help you understand and come up with harmony quicker. This can be used 2 ways: what chords to use and/or what background vocals to sing to harmonize with a given melody.

Moving it up and down

To tie it all to guitar…

One of the things I love about guitar is that you can visually see how the theory “plays out”. For instance, transposing a song from one key to another might be (usually is) as simple as moving a few shapes up or down the neck. This is not true, say, for the piano. Your fingers have to do something slightly different when playing in C vs Eb. No one every feels sorry for the guitarist if the singer decides to change the key (and it’s almost always the singer

In a previous post, we looked at how all chords of the same type (ie major, minor, 7, etc.) are held the same way regardless of the root note. Example: you’d hold G7 and A7 the same way except a few frets apart.

Final Thoughts

I think theory can often be “misused”. You can easily box yourself in both as a player and composer. Nevertheless, it’s a useful tool to have in your toolbox for creative expression.

Wow, I can’t believe I just typed all this on a keyboard hooked up to an ipod!