Hello Troubadourians! Relevance is a big concern for me both musically, professionally, and personally. Recently, there was an issue that came up in my day job that started me thinking about remaining relevant. At what point are we no longer relevant? At what point is our music—that which we play and that which we listen […]
Hello Troubadourians! It’s summertime! That means you might asked to bring your guitar or other instrument to a party that isn’t in someone’s home. The beach is especially popular and a very dangerous place for your instrument. So is the trunk of your car. It is possible, under certain circumstances, for the interior of a […]
Hello Troubadourians! Facebook is such a bizarre medium for expression. People post the inane, profane, boring, beguiling, inflammatory, hilarious, ridiculous, and sometimes very personal parts of their lives. I’m probably guilty of posting all of these things but mostly the boring, I would imagine. What seems profound to one person holds little interest to another […]
Hello Troubadourians! Have you ever experimented with open or non-standard tunings? While this is mostly the domain of guitar players, other instruments such as bass guitar are also candidates for non-standard tuning. Guitarists have been using open tunings for almost as long as the modern guitar has been around. When the guitar took its modern […]
Hello Troubadourians! Every year, on the third week of January, the NAMM Show comes to the Anaheim Convention Center. It’s my job to attend and check out as many of the instruments and equipment on display as is humanly possible. Of course, I’m looking for things that I like but I’m also looking for things […]
Hello Troubadourians! How many instruments do you own? If you’re a guitar player, how many guitars do you own? On average, guitarists own seven guitars. That would make me average because that’s how many I own. I may rate an exception, though, because three of them are “projects” that have been delayed so they are […]
Hello Troubadourians! Last year I memorialized three famous guitar players—and a few not-so-famous ones—as well as one legendary luthier. I had hoped that I could get to at least March before I had write another such memorial. Such is life that it’s January and I’m doing it again, this time from a very personal perspective. […]
Hello Troubadourians! It is with much sadness that I have to write that one more of our generation’s guitar heroes is gone. As I started to compose this month’s column, I received the news that Malcolm Young had died at age 64. While every death is sad, his was made a little sadder in that […]
Hello Troubadourians! We’ve lost a lot of our musical heroes lately, Tom Petty being the latest. While every loss hurt, this one had a particular sting that, to me at least, was unexpected. Petty had success with pretty much everything he tried, from hits with the Heartbreakers to solo work and duos with Stevie Nicks. […]
