I hit 20,000 hits today

considering how I’ve let this blog wane, it still gets 50 or so hits a day. i really should write more on this blog

21 Essential guitar Intros that Every Self-Respecting Player Should Know

I’m dovetailing this onto Gary’s post about the same topic.

From my experience these are some songs that I learned years ago and pull out from time to time to reminisce and reflect on my musical influences.

· Stone In Love – Journey – Simple and hard at the same time it’s only 3 chords, but the rhythm is a little more complicated than it sounds when you hear it

· Talk About The Passion – R.E.M. – This was a tune that my cousin introduced me two maybe 20 years ago. It’s a great picking exercise

· Rocky Mountain High – John Denver – more finger picking, this was a tough one for me to learn.

· Round About—YES – Compulsory tune…everyone should know this one. If you don’t go out and learn it.

· Green Grass and High Tides – The Outlaws… a long song with good guitar work

· Welcome to the Jungle – Guns N Roses – Great intro…powerful, and not all that hard to learn

· Josie – Steely Dan – I used to think only really good players could play songs like this one.

· Dream On – Aerosmith – A great stretch, I play it with my fingers rather than a pick

· She’s a Beauty – The Tubes — another catchy rhythm and pretty easy to boot

· Money – Pink Floyd – Sure I know it’s a bass riff, but everyone who plays should learn this one.

· Find Your Way Back – Starship – great 12 string work, there is a recording that Craig Chaquico made that is all instrumental. We used to play it before church services years ago.

· Dance the Night Away – Van Halen — Everyone should have a little Van Halen in their repertoire

· Money for Nothin – Dire Straits – I’m not sure what the drummer is thinking when he’s doing his lead in, but the guitar part makes a whole lotta sense to me.

· Slide – The Goo Goo Dolls – another good picking exercise and a good tune

· Time Stand Still – Rush – See Above

· Fool for the City – Foghat – a Funky song with a great intro

· Down on the Boulevard – Jackson Brown – need I say any more? I totally disagree with this guys politics, but love his music

· Rebel Rebel – David Bowie – Not a big Bowie fan, but this is a catchy riff that was easy to pick up. learn to play this one, and you can play the whole song

· Hell’s Bells – AC/DC – being a SD Padre Fan and a Trevor Hoffman fan as well, I heard this song every time he came out for a save. Check out the Bluegrass tribute to AC/DC it goes along with the Van Halen tribute that came out a few years ago.

· Turn Me Loose – Loverboy— Brad Gillis work here. Pre Night Ranger but classic stuff.

· From the Beginning – ELP— Much like Round About, but played like an open tuning. I like songs in open tunings.

Who says old guys can’t rock the house?

Any thought that I had about old guys loosing their rocker edge was put to rest last night. We double dated last night with a drummer friend and his wife to the Viejas Casino to see Foreigner. They have is listed as “Concerts in the Park, but it may be more fitting to say “Concerts under the Stars. With Orion to my left, and the Big Dipper on my right, the band rocked the center stage.

With only one original member of the band playing, I had the feeling that I was in for a “cover band” experience. That was not the case. All the players were veterans of rock and roll with 20-30 years of playing under their belts. Mick Jones was on his game, and Kelly Hansen pretty well picked up where Lou Graham left off.

For the highlight of the show was the 10 minute version of “Jukebox Hero” somewhere in the middle of the song the went into Zeppelin’s “Whole lotta love.” It made sense when I realized that Jason Bonham was playing drums.

Back to Mick Jones…He appeared to look a cross between Wilford Brimley and Malcolm McDowell, but his guitar work was flawless. Songs like “Urgent”, “Hot blooded”, and “Feels like the First Time” were true to the original recordings with a live flair. His stature as one of the premier guitar players of my time really shined trough.

The band played hit after hit. Two hours of songs that 2,500 people could easily sing along with. They did take the time to play one new cut “Too Late.” Now From what I’ve experienced, when old bands release new cuts, they usually suck…well; almost always suck, but nit in this case. I’d say that the song is a pretty typical foreigner song, with one acceptation. He stole my lick. As I’m listening to the song in real time Mick played my lick that I throw around pretty regularly. This gave me a sense of great pride, and then the thought that I may be seeing a royalty check someday soon.

Overall I was pleased with the concert. The only thing that could have been better coordinated was the shooting star that we saw should have waited till the band player Star Rider.

All in all I give it 5 out of 6 strings.

The Baroque Guitar

In the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural epoch, extending
approximately from 1600 to 1750. It was exemplified by drama,
ornamentation and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance,
and music.

By the beginning of the 17h century the guitar was
becoming more respectable and many fine composer/players began writing
music for it.

The Baroque guitar is the direct ancestor of the modern guitar.

The
Baroque instrument was smaller than a modern guitar, of lighter
construction, and had gut strings. Like the Renaissance guitar, the
frets were also usually made of gut, and tied to the neck.

A
typical instrument has five courses. The first course is single and the
other four double. The instrument utilised a re-entrant tuning scheme,
with the bottom course an octave higher than might be expected.

Source

The Renaissance Guitar

The history of the classical guitar during the Renaissance period (from the French word Renaissance, meaning “rebirth”) was a cultural movement in Europe that spanned from roughly the 14th through to the early 17th century.

By this period, all the musical instruments that the Moors had brought to Spain had disseminated throughout all of Europe. This included both the lute and the guitar.

The Renaissance guitar had only 4 courses of gut; the first was usually single and the other three double. The frets were also usually made of gut, and tied to the neck like the lute.

In contrast to the lute, the guitar at first was considered to be merely a simple folk instrument used by the lower classes for strumming to the popular songs of the day.

source