Dylan vs. Hendrix

Or, as it were, acoustic versus electric.  Where to start?

This article by JamPlay's Kevin Wimer does a fair job of comparing and contrasting the two:
http://www.jamplay.com/articles/5-guides/3-choosing-a-guitar-acoustic-vs-electric

 I don't have any real complaints about Wimer's perspective, though I feel I must take umbrage with at least one of his points.  Specifically, the 'Ease of Play' section seems to have a bit of a bias towards electric guitars (over acoustic).

Why is this a problem?  I feel that the arguments Wimer makes are in direct opposition to arguments for learning proper chord technique.  Are acoustic guitars more difficult to play, due to their larger necks and heavier-gauged strings?  Generally speaking, yes.  For someone learning to play guitar, though, this is essential to developing proper technique.

Guitar strings that aren't held down with appropriate force will produce a buzzing, unclear tone.  This is a common malady for novice guitarists, for a number of reasons: tenuous finger placement, inadequate force, and the simple fact that many budding guitar players are youths or adolescents with still-growing hands.  Time will provide a remedy for the youth, but the other afflictions are part of the learning process.

Compare this process to learning how to shoot a basketball.  Most people start by throwing the ball at the basket with two hands, being unable to provide enough force with one hand to reach the hoop.  This is largely a product of learning basketball as a child, when a full-size ball dwarfs a small hand.  When most individuals are large enough to manipulate a regular ball, a different shooting mechanism is utilized, one that involves an entirely different motion.

This is not the same as learning to play a guitar, and overcoming the 'buzzing' sound.  Learning on an 'easier' electric guitar, with its thinner, less-spaced strings, will provide faster results at the expense of developing fundamental technique.  Achieving a full, clean sound is a basic qualification for a guitarist and not something to be accomplished as an afterthought.

For this reason, the acoustic guitar is ideal for a beginning guitarist.  I do not believe Wimer appropriately addresses this issue in his admittedly brief article.  I might also make the argument that a developing guitarist will be playing alone at home for the majority of their practice time, which supports the case for an acoustic guitar even further (cost, portability, no need for electricity, less sound encroaching on the neighbors, etc), though I digress.

P.S.  The fact that Dylan 'went electric' at, ultimately, no detriment to his career, is duly noted.

What, Exactly, Is That Noise?

Music is a lot of things to different people.  For some, just noise; for others, it is their career.  For many of us, it is a soundtrack, a touchstone, a mood in a bottle.  I still think that the best description came from a woman that I used to know.

This woman and I dated briefly in our late 20's; she was easy to talk to, though sassy enough.  Our differences were unavoidable, however; to this day, her defining trait remains her infatuation with televised high-school melodrama.  She did share this bit of wisdom with me:

"Music is a time machine and a bookmark.  A song can take you to a place and time faster than any vehicle."

Can I Axe You a Question?

A guitar is never just a guitar.  A guitar is a sound and a story; it is an extension of a person's soul, much in the way that feudal Japanese samurai believed that their swords were their souls.

Willie Nelson has his Trigger, named after Roy Rogers' horse, beat to hell and hidden from the IRS during his famous tax problems in the early 1990s.  Jack White (of the White Stripes and solo fame) has his red JB Hutto Montgomery Airlines guitar.  I have my mother's old guitar.

This guitar came to me some half-dozen years ago when I stumbled upon it (not literally, thank goodness) in the attic of my parents' house.  It was in a box more dust than cardboard, and I doubt my mother had even taken it out of the box in twenty years.

The guitar itself was in good shape, save for the black and filthy strings, even if it was nothing special as far as guitars go.  It's a simple wooden acoustic guitar, metal frets, a plastic pick guard, no strap.  I was never really sure what the guitar would mean to me, but I missed having music in my life, and Mom didn't care if I took the guitar with me.


I found out in no time at all that this guitar was tough to play.  Part of this problem was the adjustment of my fingers to the guitar strings.  Who would have thought that pressing coiled wire into a person's fingertips could be painful after a period of time?  It also turned out that the guitar had a "high action", I think, meaning that the strings had to be pressed relatively hard to play different notes.

The difficulty of the guitar itself was not an effective deterrent for me.  Would a newer, 'better' guitar have magically imbued me with musical ability?  Well, no.  And so, I set about playing, enrolling in a basic guitar class through the city's continuing education program.

To be continued...

Are You Ready to Soft Rock?

"True Colors".  The song made famous by Cyndi Lauper in 1986.  This is the song I'm going to learn for the guitar this week.

See the following links:
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/c/cyndi_lauper/true_colors_tab.htm
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/c/cyndi_lauper/true_colors_ver4_crd.htm

The first is a link to a guitar tab, which is probably close to the actual guitar part for this song.  Not impossible to play, but somewhat intricate, and singing the lyrics while playing this part would be difficult to accomplish in a week.  The second link is to chords for the song, which are easy enough to play while singing.  While I am not an accomplished guitarist, I feel confident that I could learn the chords and lyrics in a day, so I feel that a greater challenge is in order.

See this link:
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/c/cyndi_lauper/true_colors_ver2_crd.htm
Here's what I am working from.  Chords for the verses, and a tab for the intro / interludes.  I feel that this "splits the difference" and offers a little challenge, mostly in the intro, but also provides some variation on basic chords.  I plan to take some liberty with the verses, largely because the "whisper-speak" of the third verse seems unnecessary.

So stay tuned this week to see how I progress!  There's a fair chance that I will become frustrated and settle for playing a simple Tom Petty song by Wednesday, but I'm going to make an effort to learn "True Colors."  If my understanding of webcams is any better than my understanding of guitars, I will post some video / audio here.

As an aside, I heard a sound byte from Cyndi Lauper on the radio last week, and her voice sounds awful.  That sound byte must have been the longest twenty or thirty seconds of my entire week.

Basic Chords

When learning to play guitar, one first learns how to hold the instrument, what tone each string represents, maybe even how to tune it.  Then, finally, something representing progress: a chord.  That first chord is almost always E-minor, often written as 022000.  (Left-hand finger position relative to strings.)  Simplicity aside, this is a good chord, as it has a wicked, foreboding sound, even out of song context.

The idea of a rudimentary step seems an appropriate parallel to this blog.  This post is meant to be analogous to that E-minor chord, a starting point and an initial direction.

Make no mistake, this blog was conceived as part of a course assignment through Drake University.  However, its inevitability need not be a burden; no, better to view this development as a catalyst for personal development.  Hence, I will interpret the assignment as an impetus to learn a new song for the guitar.

My experience with the guitar is largely personal.  I am self-taught and generally play for fun, having learned chords and tabs for a couple dozen songs that I both liked and felt would translate to acoustic guitar.  My actual guitar is a rickey old axe that used to belong to my mother; she was content to part with it upon my discovery of its box in her attic, where it lied underneath at least a dozen years of dust.  The guitar is by no means valuable, and by others' accounts, difficult to play.

The song will decidedly not be an original piece.  As much as I might like to claim some songwriting acumen, my knowledge of musical theory likely dictates that this piece will be an 'interpretation' of a popular (relatively speaking) song for which I have some affection.  My technical proficiency will be a contributing factor to song selection as well.  This song should represent something of a challenge while completion within, say, fourteen days remains attainable.

Many pieces of music have been reinterpreted by artists other than the creator, but in spite of the departure from the original sound, the song remains the same, after all.  (Hence, blog title.)  Theoretically, my rendition of whatever song I ultimately select should bear some resemblance to the original, though success need not (and, in this case, probably will not) be determined by accuracy of imitation.

If all goes well, perhaps this song will see a public debut at a local coffee shop's open mike night.  This seems to be the appropriate venue for such an exercise, both in terms of audience expectations and not provoking any sort of legal consequences.

(Song selection forthcoming...)