Guitar Performance Tip no. 3 – Don’t Overplay

by The Guitar Fool on April 19, 2010

Don’t Overplay

Every guitar player wants to be the next Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Kenny Wayne John Mayer Live Shepperd, or John Mayer (without the chick drama and poor judgment).  I sure as heck do. But one of the biggest mistakes you can make is trying to over do it, and sometimes even guitar gods can over do it.  The quickest way to lose the crowd is treat them like their being held hostage to your guitar theatrics.

In fact I was at one of the Eric Clapton Crossroads concert at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas a few years back.   Most everyone on stage that day was a guitar great but something funny happened when Carlos Santana started playing.

Carlos, the amazing Carlos, would not stop soloing.  The man would not shut it down.  I mean every song was a 20 minute guitar solo, and as amazing as he is as a player, it got boring really quickly.  In fact the longer he played the more people got up and headed for the bathrooms or to get a beer.  People were waiting for an excuse to get up and Carlos gave them that excuse.

Musicnotes.com

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Mostly 1980s Fender Telecaster Review

by The Guitar Fool on April 17, 2010

1980s Fender Telecaster

1980s Fender Telecaster

Every guitar I have ever purchased, and I have bought many over the years, was a well thought out buy.  I’d spend at least a few weeks thinking about it, contemplating it, saving money, and doing what I needed to do to insure I was making a wise purchase.  The only example of a spur of the moment guitar purchase was a beat up 1980s Fender Telecaster that I bought back in the late 1990s.

So I’m killing time at a guitar store while my wife was getting her hair done and I spot what I thought was the ugliest Fender Telecaster I’d ever seen hanging on the wall.   It was black with a rosewood fretboard and I thought the black on black was an especially ugly combination.   Note that I had previously owned a gorgeous sunburst Fender Telecaster with a maple neck and fretboard that had been stolen a few years prior.  Anyhow, I went over and took the Telecaster off the wall, almost out of spite. [click to continue…]

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Guitar Performance Tip no. 2 – It’s a Surprise

April 16, 2010

Don’t Take Away The Surprise
We all love surprises, right? And unwrapping a present is part of the fun of receiving one, is it not? So why do so many musicians rob the audience of the surprise value of their own performance?
How many times have you seen someone play a cover tune and prior to starting [...]

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Guitar Performance Tip no. 1 – No Apologies

April 15, 2010

 Never Apologize
Let’s face it, if you’re playing guitar in front of an audience odds are at some point you’re going to hit a note or chord that you wish you could take back.  Big deal, seriously.  Maybe the audience will notice, or maybe not, but I have seen way too many guitar players either apologize [...]

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Stevie Ray Vaughan – “Little Wing” guitar tab

April 14, 2010

“Little Wing” was written by Jimi Hendrix and first recorded on his 1967 Axis: Bold as Love album. It was ranked #357 by Rolling Stone in their “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time”. Stevie Ray Vaughan won a Grammy for his 1992 instrumental version. It’s a great song for guitarists and provides a [...]

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Jimi Hendrix – “Hear My Train A-Comin’” guitar tab

April 5, 2010

When I was a teenager I saw this video of Jimi Hendrix playing “Hear My Train A-Comin’ ” and my resolve to learn more blues and also explore the 12 string guitar was galvanized.  This was also a performance that opened my eyes to how cool playing an acoustic guitar could be.
While surfing YouTube I [...]

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