1 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(11 replies, posted in Electric)

Hi Froot & others
There was a time when the "copy " guitars were a bit of a joke  but that was a long time ago , now most reputable companies make a decent guitar. As a full time guitar teacher I play all sorts of guitars in quick succession and   I play them all through the same Pod XT pedal board.  I have about 15 guitars and as well as a selection of acoustics  most of them are Strats I have a Strat Plus Deluxe /USA Standard strat/various Harley Benton"Copy" strats and a Line 6 Variax. I also play all my students guitars on a daily basis which consist of some more harley bentons , some squiers and some epiphones. The main noticable difference in the studio/bedroom levels is the feel of the instrument as the budget clone guitars have rough finish to mainly the fret ends compared to my strat plus and the Variax , but apart from that there is not a lot of difference!! I could play any of them on stage but the main difference there would be that I would have to tune the budget ones much more often and may have to make changes in my pedal board to compensate for the weak pickups and if there is a big lighting rig they would be "noisy" on stage at high gain levels.
What guitar you get depends on what you are going to do with it and although looks are a reason to buy a guitar that in my opinion is really the last consideration unless you are overly concerned with image. 

As Kahuna and Slaya both point out the "Strat" is a very good place to start. I didn't get a  strat until I had been playing for 20 years haveing wanted to be "different" not even playing a Gibson either but It was only when a got my first strat ,admittedly it was top of the range at the time but i realised what i had been missing all that time and how versatile it was .
So I would say get a Strat to start with, I recommend the harley benton budget strats that you can see here http://www.thomann.de/gb/thomann_gitarren_set_g13.htm
and i have done so since about  1998 and they have stood the test of time well and i have played hundreds of them!
If it's your first electric then you can get your foot in the door for very little money and if you out grow it you will be doing very well indeed and for your next guitar you will leap frog all the £150-250 guitars which cost a lot more but offer very little more than what you  already have.
hope this helps
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hey Slaya go to the pharmacy and get some "surgical Spirit" for the ends of your fingers they will toughen up in no time!
of course I didn't do that I played it 'till my fingers bled ! cool

Go to forum: Electric

2 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(25 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

Blueblade wrote:

I have a Korg chromatic tuner...you can set the hertz to whatever you want...what's that all about?  What should it be set to?

That is the reference(Calibration) point  so that your tuner can tune  "perfectly" or to "other" things

Concert Pitch stipulates that A = 440hertz and normally that is what you should tune to/set your tuner to  if you want to be in tune with everybody else when you have finished.

However the tuner has the ability to tune ( say 5 cents for example) flat or sharp so that you could use it to tune your instrument in to "the old piano in the corner" which is (say) 5 cents flat!

For example play a note on the "piano" to find that it is 5 cents flat according to your tuner so "calibrate" your tuner so that A now = 435 and then tune your instrument as normal(using the re-calibrated tuner) and then you should be in tune to the old piano! ( a bit flat!)

In practice you will be close but not perfect because  each key on the piano will not be exactly 5 cents flat but you should be close!

I have just returned to the studio since my first post last night to find that  "My First Tuner" was the Korg AT 12 and a mighty beast it was too! I now use the Harley Benton CT10 from Thomann which costs less than £10 and I have 5 of them that I use at the schools that I teach at.

I always impress the importance of tuning to my students when they start out but the easiest and the quickest way to do it unless you are very experienced is to use a tuner  and it can be as cheap as you like , just make sure it says "chromatic" on it!

The quicker you tune up the sooner you are playing!

Go to forum: Guitars and accessories

3 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(25 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

Tuning & Tuners  !!??
It can be a bit difficult sometimes when you read (emails/fax/blog/forums etc) as it is sometimes difficult to realise(especially if you don't know the writer)if they are actually serious or just as we say "having a laugh"

When I started playing,  the Ark, had just settled, and all we had was "Pitch pipes" neither did we know anything about "Intonation" (string length) nor did we have "electric guitars " as they hadn't invented ones that we could afford at that time .

So I blew into the pitch pipes (1 for each string) and tried to tune the string to the pipe/harmonica-like sound  as best I could and then wondered for years later why my guitar always sounded out a tune  when I played it, but sounded in tune when I listened to the "open " strings against the sound of the "Pipes" (frustrating!)
Eventually(about 15) years later I saved up £70(trade price!) and bought a Korg Chromatic Tuner and this opened up a few avenues as me and the band started to play properly in tune as opposed to nearly in tune.

So called "automatic tuners" are electronic tuners that recognise the strings (usually)E A D G B E  and when you tune a string to that note it will react and tell you when it is  "perfect" because the "needle " is in the middle (or the light is green )
this presents a problem as , unless you can tune the string to,  for example E on your own by ear then you are stuck and the tuner is  useless and you can’t go any further!

A "chromatic tuner" is the thing to use, although not fool proof it is a much better option. It will tell you what the strings is tuned to (at the moment) so that you can then hopefully work out what to do , turn it up or down to get to what you want

The "Robot Tuning" I assume refers to The new Gibson Robot guitar which looks great although a bit of a gimmick but a great idea never the less, the moving tuners/machine heads is a natural extension of the moving/motorised faders that I have on 2 of my mixing desks. Not because I don't know where to put them but just because I use then so much it is nice to re -align them instantly. I would have bought one but there was so many dud ones in the first run that were returned to the factory that not everybody got one!

If you tune the harmonic of the 12th fret to your tuner that is about as good as it is going to get , if it sounds out of tune after that (when you play a chord) it is because firstly your strings are old & knackered but if they are new say less than week old then probably the "intonation" is out as well!

Beginners/Newbies/Noobs whatever
The better the guitar sounds  on its own, the more likely it is to sound good when you start messing around with it so if you  are just starting out then get a chromatic tuner  and  tune your guitar in seconds so that you can then spend the bulk of your time playing it!

Tuners? they are a great idea!
They didn’t go out last night , nor are they in a bad mood today ! Consequently they do the same thing day after day!

it's like putting "surgical spirit" on the ends of your fingers to toughen them up so that you can play for longer,

just don't tell anybody! 

say  " I played it  'till my finger's bled"!"

now what PSi is your "air guitar"

Mark

Go to forum: Guitars and accessories

4 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(10 replies, posted in Acoustic)

HI Xkooda
thanks for your kind comments and no problem with posting the url
I am pleased that the info has been of use to you.
I am often approached by amateurs and professionals alike to "do the site properly"  more professionally etc but i don't want so many hits/visits/requests that i can't respond personally which is what i like doing ! I am going as fast as I can now ! :-)

Go to forum: Acoustic

5 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(32 replies, posted in About Chordie)

Hi people !

STRUMMING;
We(I)use strumming "Patterns" to enable you to play the songs straight off
and that after doing that for a week/month/year
(WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT) you will eventually "Strum it like it goes"
the point of the "Strumming patterns" is to give you something to do until you can
subconsciously take over and strum it like it goes!

The secret is to NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT and get so completely relaxed
with the DDUUD strumming (or whichever pattern) and eventually you will
find yourself embellishing those patterns DDUUD will turn into DUDU/UD
which is the same over a count of 4 and just makes it swing a bit more.
D = down U= Up strums a "/" is what i use to signify something different it may be a pause or a bigger strum

If you did think about it (and you shouldn't!) you would find that 1
Part of your brain is working one hand and another part of your brain is working the other.
Once that happens everything is fine, the secret is to be a "Plonker!"
that is "Plonk" your fingers on the strings in the chord shape, WHILE KEEPING THE STRUMMING
GOING regardless of what a mess you make of the chord shape.

("PLONK" is a word that I use to describe putting the fingers "En Masse" unto the fret board in the shape that they "should" be in.)
I don't think you will find "Plonk" in the dictionary! :-)

Children do this, as it is what I tell them to do, Adults don't
Because (they think they know better!) they stop when they put their chord hand in the wrong position.

Don't be an adult be a "Plonker" :-)

So learn to play lots of songs with easy strumming patterns which will develop your sense of timing so that eventually you will just strum it like the original, like you want and/or how you hear it!
As you do that you will start to hear the relationship and the difference between an Up and a Down strum and be able to recognise them for yourself.

hope this helps !
Try this, lots of different strumming and easy chords
go here www.guitar.gg/americanpie.html
regards
Mark G

Go to forum: About Chordie

6 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(4 replies, posted in Acoustic)

As you have found full "Barre chords" are a handful especially  on the acoustic

Sometimes if you only hit the appropriate strings you can get by with an easier shape!

There are a couple of “work arounds† Instead of going for the Full Barre chords straight away try this;


Playing "F" (we should say F major, but we don’t bother!) is a bit of a challenge as you may have found!
do it as  what I would call an “open"  chord is like this XX3211 ( a 4 string chord that is moveable)

There are not any “open" strings in it anyway, so it is a bit of misnomer!

I seem to remember it took me ages to get all the strings ringing true!

The bonus is that when you can do it then you can play every Major chord

because it is a "moveable shape" so (with the same fingering) start in the
2nd fret it is F#
3rd fret it is G etc
So you have learnt every Major chord with one shape without the "pain" of a full barre chord

For a minor chord
This shape  XX3321 = Bb minor in 1st fret
B minor starting in the 2nd fret
C minor in the 3rd and so on

Hope this helps!

regards
Mark

Go to forum: Acoustic

7 Reply by The Real Hotdog!

(10 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Hi people  and thanks Xkooda for promoting my site

Strumming, as you have found, is not always blindingly obvious!
If you thimk about it , and you are obviously doing too much of that,..
you would realise that there are only 2 options Down (D)  or Up(U) strums.
The way that you actually "strum" is the character of your playing or you could think of it as your "accent"  i.e. how you speak (musically)
Put a load of monkeys in a room and they will come up with the chords for "Stairway to heaven"  but it wouldn't sound right as they have no sense of timing (have you ever seen a monkey dancing ?!) 
It is this (in built)"sense of timing† that we use to develop our strumming.
If you have no sense of timing "u would sound like a ro-bot when u talk pro-noun-cing ev-e-ry syl-a-ble the same "
so assuming you are not the robot from "lost in space" (yes i know , b4 ur time!" 
then you can strum!
 
Reading strumming is like describing colours  to a blind man, how would you describe "green?" You need to “hear† strumming not “read† strumming so that you can realise how it is supposed to sound.

When I started playing( just after we finished the ark!) I used “D† for down and “U† for up strums ,
which made perfect sense to me but of course only if “English† is your first language
and when I started teaching professionally it made perfect sense to me to continue with this,
after about 20 years the internet also started becoming a resource and suddenly there were lots of formats developing and becoming more mainstream, such as up & down arrows to denote strumming (not a bad thing but I hate them and can’t find them on my keyboard!) also tab and of course the armchair expert!

The Forum/chat room is the whole embodiment of the internet , empowered people helping each other (and for free)and great it is to!
However I get frustrated at some of the myths masquerading as fact that I read on the internet (only occasionally as I don’t bother to look most of the time)
This is usually posted by well-meaning people who only have their own experiences to draw on (what worked for them!)

An experienced Guitar teacher with a “track record† will advise you as to what works for most people
and will also be able to help if that doesn’t work for you (unlikely, but it happens)
and what to do if that is the case.

Please also understand that I am not criticising “Chordie† as I haven’t looked at the info available  but only followed a link to my own site and ended up here in their forum!
If you want some advice (and it’s not compulsory!) think of the Internet as “The bloke down the pub†  sometimes he is “full of useful info,† and sometimes he is just “full of it!† ï Š

I wish you all well in your playing and thanks  again to Xkooda for promoting my site and if you want some more strumming information have a good look around this site and the info available but if  you get stuck go here www.guitar.gg/strumming.html  and I might be able to help you out
all the best and keep "Plonking"

Mark (The Real Hotdog!)

Go to forum: Acoustic