Playing the Guitar
I learned to play the guitar from my father and by ear when I was about twelve or thirteen. Along the way, I've absorbed a few books on guitaring including Bert Weedon's famous guides and the excellent Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer (isbn=0679742751). (I thoroughly recommend that last.) More recently, I've discovered the On Line Guitar Archive although this has been closed down for alleged copyright infringements by the Harry Fox Agency which wants to make it illegal for a musician to figure something out, write it down and disseminate it to other musicians. The guitar lessons and information on scales and general technique should still be there.
Try the South African OLGA Mirror instead. Last time I checked it was still up and working.
The guitar I first learned to play on was an Eko Ranger IV, my Dad's acoustic guitar. he still has it, although he's also got an Gibson Epiphone and a six string banjo these days.
Q. What do a vacuum cleaner and an electric guitar have in common?
A. When you plug them in, they both suck.
First Guitars
My first electric guitar was a Fender Jaguar clone, although a very poor copy and blue spangly finish and a tone sharper than cheap wine in the afternoon. Think of the guitar tone on The Animals' "House of The Rising Sun" and you'll get an idea of what it sounded like. With the tone turned right down.
I traded it in for a Hohner Strat clone, a slight move upwards in quality, mainly to have a vibrato arm and an instrument which didn't provoke giggles wherever I went. This was ok, for a cheap strat clone, but at the time, I wanted noise and grunge and thought that strats were too clean.
Westbury Standard
That didn't
last very long and eventually I traded it in for the guitar which I
used for most of my early musical career: The Westbury Standard,
which I still have. This is quite a reasonable guitar: set neck,
twin humbuckers (DiMarzio's) and a fixed bridge. The neck's a bit
thick and it's less comfortable to play than the Strat. Sounds
alright though and it's got a long sustain thanks to that set neck
and the heavy wood. It's very loud; the output from those
DiMarzio's is pretty high. I've never seen another one in real life
and I don't know if the manufacturer is still going. I believe that
Westbury are a Korean manufacturer and maybe it's supposed to be a
Gibson SG. Whatever the
original design intention was, it's a reasonable instrument, if not
up to the quality of a Strat or a Les Paul.
Q. What does it mean when a guitar player is drooling out both sides of his mouth?
A. The stage is level.
Fender Stratocaster
My main guitar is an American
Standard Stratocaster by
Fender. (Mine doesn't quite look the one on the left: mine has
a rosewood neck.) I'm slowly replacing the pickups as the standard
Strat ones are a bit weak. The standard Fender complaint, really,
especially if you've come from playing a humbucked guitar. I've got
a Seymour Duncan single coil on the bridge and a Seymour Duncan
Humbucker waiting to go on the bridge. I usually run Ernie Ball
strings on it, 10s to 46s. It's a very nice guitar to play,
although I've got it set up a bit funny with a relatively high
action. I find that it's easier to use a slide with a higher
action. This is my main axe. It responds well to dynamics and
there's a nice range of tones available from the controls.
When I bought it, I played every Strat in the Shop (Tom Lee Wanchai). This one sounded and played better than all the others, even the top of the line Fat-Strats. There seems to be tremendous variation in build quality for Strats (and Teles and Les Pauls). I have heard a rumour that the initial set up of guitars destined for the Far Eastern Markets is not up to the same quality as those destined for U.S.A and Europe. i don't know how true this is, but after only a year's (admittedly quite heavy) use, the frets are starting to have indentations where the strings rest on them. I've had to shim up the nut and have a go at the electrics as the internal wiring catastrophically failed on me at one point. Only took five minutes with a soldering iron to fix, though.
Strings don't seem to last too long on it, but I sweat a lot when playing (c'mon, it hits 35+ degrees C here in the summer...) and that knackers the strings pretty quickly. They never break, though. I don't think I've ever had a string break on me (except on a bass. Go figure.) during a gig in the last few years. I don't know why that is. Maybe I'm just not a violent attack type of player. I never used to get punctures either, whether on car or bike.
Why a Strat? When I decided to buy a 'real' guitar, I decided
that if I didn't buy a Strat at one point, I'd always regret it. So
I bought one. It has it's drawbacks: dodgy tuning and electrics,
lack of gadgets. At the same time, there's a great dynamic
flexibility in the sound and it's a very 'transparent' instrument:
any number of people can get a distinct noise out of it.
Godin Multiac
I've recently acquired an Acoustic. It's a Godin Multiac (I think) with balanced outputs and a built-in graphic equaliser. I run Martin Nickel wound 10s to 46s on this, the same gauge as the Strat. The fingerboard is quite flat and it's a very nice guitar to play fingerpicking on. The balanced output is great for DI'ing and it can also drive a guitar amp for a nice 'Chuckabilly' type of sound. Slide works really well on the Multiac. The internal preamp takes a 9v battery and it can eat batteries if left plugged in when not being used.
Q: How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Twelve. One to change the bulb and eleven to
say they could do it better.
Fretless Bass
Last year, I decided
that I was going to learn to play the Bass guitar. I bought a
four-string Yamaha Fretless and dreamed of being Jaco Pastorius. I
went through a phase of not using this very much then suddenly
decided to use it in anger. The roundwound strings that were on it
hurt my fingers with all the sliding so I replaced them with nylon
coated flatwound. This gave a nice acoustic tone but had no top end
whatsoever. I changed back to flatwounds recently and it has a bit
more zing.
Overall, this fretless has a nice sound, although the pickups are very weak. Then again, this is the second cheapest bass guitar in the Yamaha range. (The fretted version is a little cheaper.) It's got fret markers, so it's not impossible to play. There is a slight tendency for the fingers to creep up while playing, though, the result being that the bass player gets sharper and sharper until one of the guitarists slaps him around the ear.
Strings? I run 45-100 Fender roundwounds on it.
Ibanez Ergodyne
My current main bass is an Ibanez Ergodyne
5-string. This is fretted and has a nice low action.
This is a nice bass, with a good range of sounds and a nice neck. Easy to play and not too heavy, although you can certainly feel it when you're carrying it around all night.
Q. How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Six: One to change it, five to fight off the
lead guitarists who are hogging the light.
Amps
I've got a very small practice amp,
a Marshall Reverb 12 transistor amplifier. Normally when I play, I
use Marshall Valvestates or occasionally
Peaveys. A friend of mine has a Mesa Boogie Subway Rocket and
that sounds lovely. Quite fancy one of those little Fenders though...
Brightly Coloured Machine, er, Effects Pedals
Guitarists tend to accumulate brightly coloured pedals to jump
about on while playing and I'm no exception. I used to gig with a
BOSS Super Phaser, DoD Flanger, BOSS Turbo Overdrive and JPL
Digital Delay rack unit. I went down to just having a Turbo
Overdrive for a while and usuallly play now with no pedals. I set
up the amp to scream with the guitar volume right up and then work
the tone from the guitar. This works quite well with the Strat, not
so well with the Westbury. I've tried a foot volume pedal but could
never get the hang of it, preferring to use my little finger hooked
around the volume control.
I have a BOSS GT-5 floor mounted effects box which contains every pedal in the BOSS range. I haven't used it much. I got it when I was playing in a Pop/Rock/Covers band but it didn't suit the Blues Band very well.
It's very complex and capable of producing almost any sound. I have my doubts about its dynamic response to varying playing styles of pick attack, but that's an accusation that could be leveled at just about any similar piece of equipment. It's a great toy, but requires a huge amount of setting up with a range of tones/sounds before actual use.
Links
Harmony Central has some articles on Gadget Acquisition Syndrome which I, of course, don't suffer from...