Had an interesting conversation with a friend last weekend. We were watching YouTube showing each other different guitarists that we dig. I showed him some Michael Hedges and William Ackerman videos,which then led us to a conversation about open tunings. I explained to him that Hedges and Ackerman used/use alternate tunings almost exclusively. He said, “meh” When I pointed this out, he seemed unimpressed and maybe even lost a bit of interest once I mentioned open tunings. The first thing he asked was why not just learn/write the song in normal tuning; adjust yourself to the instrument instead forcing the instrument to adjust to you. Interesting point but I had to disagree and explained that many of these songs would be impossible to replicate in standard tuning and if you could play it in standard tuning the mood or feel of the piece might be adversely affected. He nodded as if to agree but not totally convinced. His background is as a progressive metal guitarist and in his experiences, he has witnessed some players tune to an open tuning and just bar everything for every song. To him, that is a shortcut or cheating. I agreed with him to some …
latest update
Good news for all of us TE fans out there! A new live 2 CD set, “Center Stage,” is set to be released April 29th. Recorded October 2007 in California, “Center Stage” is a compilation of 3 nights recording and the word is that there is a HD DVD coming in the following. According to CDP, some previously un-recorded songs will be featured like “Ruby Eyes.” DISC 1 1. The Finger Lakes 2. Papa George 3. Train To Dusseldorf 4. I Go To Rio 5. Nine Pound Hammer 6. Old Town 7. And So It Goes 8. Jolly Swagman 9. Sukiyaki 10. Happy Hours 11. Ruby’s Eyes 12. Beatles Medley 13. Mombasa DISC 2 1. Workin’ Man Blues 2. Georgia On My Mind 3. House of the Risin’ Sun 4. Amazing Grace 5. Story of Little Boy 6. Tall Fiddler 7. Cowboy’s Dream 8. Morning Aire 9. Initiation 10. Lenny Bro’ 11. Questions Certified Guitar Player is pre-selling “Center Stage” for $15.95. I’ve already placed my order, have you?
I’m a “how’s that work” or “Let’s see the guts” type of guy when I see new gadgets. This now includes the Gibson “Robot Guitar” and it’s self tuning mechanism. I have heard about this new gadget and haven’t looked into it too much until news.com had an interesting pictorial with descriptions on “Taking apart the robot guitar.” I’ve seen similar contraptions that can be installed on existing guitar but it’s nothing like the robot and requires some serious routing. It was pretty cool to see how Gibson hid the electronics to keep the guitar looking authentic. The machine heads are pretty bulky in the back and looks like you will need a bit of training on how to use it. Pretty cool but seems like a gadget that I can do without.
I’ve seen on twitter and other forums that guitarist (including myself) lament over [ad#125-125-floatright] the fact that they don’t have their guitar with them. Well, your lonely days are over! All you need is buy an iPhone and jailbreak it. Below, is a video of someone doing their best to play us a Beatles medley with their new guitarpod and I’m sure that you can see that our steal and nylon stringed companions won’t have to worry about getting replaced by this “Guitar Hero” for the iPhone. Anyway, I could see someone eventually getting pretty good at playing the iGuitar and will have a nice little gimmick in an act or at parties. I also see a nice little tool that could help you work out a melody that was stuck in your head or working on chords. Will this be enough for me to hack my iPhone? I think not. My iTouch….. well….. Nah. I’ll just stick to playing the real thing.
Been working on Tommy Emmanuel stuff lately and thought I would share some of the available tab that I have tried. Some of these are pretty accurate and are almost the same as the stuff in my TE Note for Note book. Anyway, hope this helps in your quest to learn Tommy’s music. That’s a short list on the Tommy E songs I have been working on. Of those, I could probably perform Dixie, Angelina and Those Who Wait without too much trouble. I would still say they need some polishing. So if you need to Tommy E songs to work on, I hope this helps. If you can afford it, I would strongly recommend getting the “Note for Note.” Not only for the great transcriptions but there is some useful information on Tommy’s playing and his influences. Like it says in the book, you need to learn about what influenced him if you really want to play like him. Anyway, I hope this helps and if you find any good transcriptions, please leave a comment. Keep Playin’ More Tommy E song books here.
