Back in June I reviewed an excellent online video guitar lesson site called Infinite Guitar. I was really impressed with the line up of guitar tutors and in particular the lessons by Rick Graham, so much so that I looked him up on YouTube and discovered his YouTube Channel to which I instantly subscribed. Well Rick recently took time out from playing and teaching to do a quick interview with me.

What age did you start playing?
I was 17 when I started.

You seem to be proficient in just about every style imaginable, did you study music at college?
Yes, I decided to take the steps to study music after I began playing classical around 1995. I wasn’t able to read music at that time and after getting some books from the library and teaching myself I decided to enrol in a music theory night class which really helped. Following that I studied music A level and then headed off to London to study Classical guitar. I primarily played Rock before picking up the classical guitar and after I did that the floodgates opened and I realised how beneficial it was to be open minded about learning.

You have a very efficient left and right hand technique, you’re fingers barely seem to move. Is this something you have focussed on?
Not really, although in the past few years I have tried to make myself more aware of how much energy I am exerting whilst playing. I can assure you that it doesn’t feel effortless from my perspective!

How and when did you become involved with InfiniteGuitar.com?
Actually, one of my students sent me a link to the original IG website and mentioned how good Sean’s videos were. I was very impressed with what I saw and when I discovered Sean was looking for instructors I knew it was something I would like to be involved with.

Do you record your lessons at home? What is your setup?
Yeah, I record all my stuff at home. I have a sony camera which I use to record the vids with the essential lighting setup to increase the quality. Actually, I have just bought another camera so that should open up a new world of possibilities for the new lessons. I do a mix of spoken lessons which use the mic from the camera to record the audio but for the other lessons I record via the line in on the pc and sync’ up the audio with the video. Gearwise I am using a Flaxwood liekki guitar into a pod xt live and then direct to Sonar. Sometimes I use my Yamaha AW16G as a mixer depending on what I want. Amp wise I have a switchblade 100 bead into a marshall 1960a 4x12 which is what I use for gigs.

How do you get your ideas for lessons, have you had teaching experience?
It varies really depending on what kind of lesson I do. A lot of ideas come when I’m doing something totally unrelated to music. Some of the guys on the IG forums give great ideas to the instructors and that kills two birds with one stone so to speak. My latest tutorial in the style of Andy Mckee for instance was requested by a number of people so I went with it. I really enjoyed doing that one as I love that particular style of playing and I really like the music of Andy Mckee. I began teaching around 2 years after I started playing which does seem a bit crazy to me now! However, it really forced me to understand myself and what it was that I was actually doing and because of that, I have learned so much over the years which has helped me grow as a musician and teacher.

Your transcription skills are amazing, Andromeda (by Mark Sfogli) for instance! Have you worked as a transcriber for guitar mags?
Thanks! No I have never done any work for magazines but it is definitely something I would love to do. I love transcribing; I find it a wonderful way improving one’s overall musicianship and it is something that I always do. Just as a mechanic tends to learn by taking things apart and putting them back together the musician does with music. The important thing though is what happens inside the mind and ears of the musician during the transcribing process. I feel it is the best way to develop you overall musicianship and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

Edit: Here is the link to Rick playing the Andromeda solo on YouTube

In your IG videos you have a champagne coloured Ibanez JS Series, what made you switch to Flaxwood guitars?
Yeah, it’s an Ibanez JS2000CG (Satch champagne gold model) and is a great guitar. I particularly love the fact that it is as light as a feather and the shape of the body is so comfortable for me. I got involved with Flaxwood through Richard Lundmark, a Flaxwood endorsee who is a phenomenal guitar player and an instructor at IG. I had seen some footage of Richard on YouTube and had always loved the tones he was coaxing from the guitars, so we spoke at length and an endorsement deal was arranged. I received my endorsement guitar at the London Guitar Show in June of this year and have been blown away by the versatility and tones. It’s a fantastic guitar!

Is it a standard model or a signature model?
It’s Flaxwood’s flagship model the ‘liekki’. Hopefully a signature model will be a possibility in the not too distant future!

They look kind of similar to my old Patrick Eggle, how do they compare to your old Ibanez JS?
I have owned a Patrick Eggle actually but I feel that the Flaxwood is an entirely different beast. The JS 2000 is a great guitar but I think the fact that I have rarely played the JS since I got the Flaxwood speaks volumes!

I have yet to hear your EP but do you have any future releases planned? Surely record companies must be knocking at your door by now!
Haha, maybe I was out that day then! I have been working on a full length solo album for some time but what with other commitments it has been put on the back burner.  I am hoping to complete the recording by next year with a view to releasing it at the end of that year.

Are you a gear head? If so what are your favourite guitars, amps and effects that you own?
I’m not a gear head at all really when it comes to guitars and amps. I am much more interested in synths and drums. My favourite piece of gear has to be my Roland XV5050 sound module. I spend far too much time editing sounds on that thing!

I’d like to thank Rick for taking the time out to answer my questions, check out Rick’s site for details including personal tuition: Rick Graham’s Website
Also check out Rick’s MySpace page.
Infinite Guitar Online guitar lessons with Rick Graham
For more information on Flaxwood Guitars as endorsed by Rick.

It used to be that you had to really earn a signature guitar by years of service to the music industry and by creating something unique. These days it seems you just need to be in a popular band in order to put your name on a guitar that is hardly any different to the original stock version. The guitar brands are cashing in, just check out Fender and ESP who have 25 and 22 signature guitars respectively.

So what makes a signature guitar worth buying? Well the original signature model was the Gibson Les Paul. Les Paul nailed his design so perfectly that in 50 years little has changed apart from hardware and production advances. The shape and finishes are still as they were. The only weird thing about the Les Paul is that it somehow became a model rather than a signature guitar which means that now you get signature Les Paul’s, a signature signature model! This is a way of Gibson constantly cashing in on the original by altering the neck profile or pickup selection slightly and brand it a Slash Les Paul, whack a nice fat price tag on it and watch the money pour in. So would I buy a Slash Les Paul, no probably not. Likewise with Fender, replace the pickups and scratch plate and call it a John Mayer Strat, bingo! Instant income from JM fans who could have bought an American strat and replaced the parts themselves and saved a few dollars.

What really makes a signature worth the money is when that guitar has been through a long development cycle with the guitarist yet isn’t just tailored to one individual. The Les Paul again is a perfect example of this, something that has been constantly refined for years and suits most guitarists and styles. What doesn’t make sense to me is a guitar such as the ESP Jeff Hanneman model http://www.espguitars.com/guitars_jeff.html which is basically a stock guitar with EMG’s and a fancy camo paint job, or maybe that is the point? Maybe the paint job IS the signature… some would probably argue this case, I personally think that this is a cop out. Similarly the Matt Bachand Ibanez signature really seems like a waste of money to me.

So why did I buy a signature guitar (pictured above)? Well for 2 reasons. Firstly I have been a fan of Ibanez guitars since I bought my RG550DX back in the early 90’s and secondly because I have been a fan of Joe Satriani for 20 years. AHA! I hear you say, you bought it because you were a fan, not because of the product development cycle! Wrong. That is exactly the reason I bought my JS1000. This guitar is something that has been refined for 20 years by Satch and used on tour year after year. Unlike Vai, Joe is happy to use new guitars not favour one old one in particular and this is the important factor. From the years of touring and studio recording Joe has sculpted what was once a humble Ibanez 540 Radius into something that is an incredibly versatile, comfortable and amazing sounding guitar. The multi-radius neck gives the guitar a vintage feel when you are playing in first position and yet makes shredding easy up the top end of the fretboard. The bridge pickup was designed by Joe. The ability to split the coils on both humbuckers enables all the clean and distorted tones you will ever need and if that wasn’t enough there is hi-pass filter when you pull the volume pot maintains high frequencies at low volumes which is a great feature. This guitar in my opinion is a perfect example of a Signature guitar and worth the money. In fact, they are actually pretty reasonably priced compared to the Ibanez JEM which in Australia will set you back $4,795.00!

In the end though it all comes down to personal preference and there are enough Dimebag and Randy Rhoads fans out there in order to keep Dean and Jackson flogging their signature models even after death. The Dimebag Signature series currently has 33 different models… I mean come on. I bet Fender are kicking themselves that they didn’t get a Jimi Hendrix Signature model out before his untimely death!

bandFind Social is a new online musician community which is kind of like Facebook but much more specific to networking with musicians in order to find people with similar interests to jam with, or to find a band member. Aside from finding musicians it is also a place to promote yourself and your band. The site is currently USA only but having only launched in April it will no doubt will expand to other countries soon enough. When you sign up to bandFind Social you are asked to fill out your profile in order to build a picture of exactly what you do. You choose the music styles that apply to you, enter your influences, equipment owned and musical biography including whether you are signed to a Major or Indie label and if you are a teacher you can enter a price for a lesson. This is an interesting point as it shows that this site is covering all bases, so that if you find a musician that you are impressed with you can contact them through the network and approach them for lessons should they be willing! Once you have completed this section you can fill out your Musician Talents, for instance us Guitarists can fill out how many years experience and skill level you have in each particular category such as Acoustic, Electric, Slide etc. Then moving on you select your regional area and availability and this is where you say whether you available for band tryouts, gig fill-ins, jam sessions, recording sessions etc. so that you will show up in the search.

Once you are all done completing your profile it is time to find out who is in your local area. By clicking on the Local Users link you are instantly given access to the profiles of musicians in your state and the use of icons in the profile immediately give you at a glance information about what skills and level of skill the person has with links to check out their profile, contact them, add as a friend or you can invite them to a jam session, recording session, writing session etc.

There is also a new music section which allows you to browse the latest music uploaded by musicians in the network, this is a good way to find more out about the musician if you have been invited to jam or you are looking for a band to join and they have invited you. This way you can decide whether you are a good fit before organising anything.

The New Ads section shows all the latest requests for musicians, this is US wide so you will probably need to go to the Search section and use the search filter to get exactly the ads you want, ie in your region. You can also use this search to find Professionals which is the umbrella category for anything from teachers to recording engineers to photographers.

So what bandFind Social is trying to do and I think they are definitely on the right track, is to create a one stop community for musicians to network with each other, find managers, artist relations people, promoters, engineers, teachers… well just about every part of being a musician or being in a band is probably covered. The site is new and obviously still gaining momentum but there seems to be a lot of members already. I have used a site similar to this in Australia called musolist.com but this site seems a lot more thorough and with the potential to expand. The design is probably the only thing lacking in that it seems a bit thrown together without the kind of professional design that social communities like Imeem or last.fm and it uses framesets which I hate and something that will not play nicely if they want to port this to mobile platforms but I think with a bit of spit and polish and elbow grease this could be a very useful social community.

Last week was a big week for PRS Guitars with the announcement of 4 new electrics, 2 acoustics and PRS Amps! First of all to get this out of the way, pictured left is the announced Al DiMeola PRS Prism guitar which immediately makes me think of Mardi Gras. I mean seriously what was he thinking? I have a lot of respect for Al DiMeola, he is one of the all time great Jazz guitarists but this guitar looks like he would better suit playing at a kids party, or maybe Sesame Street? Some people may love it, I for one hate it I think its a waste of a perfectly good PRS. Ok enough of my dislikes and onto the new Modern Eagle II, this update brings new pickups, the 1957/2008 humbuckers which use the wire from the machine that made the pickup wire for the original Gibson PAF pickups*. This is explained on their site with the following information, “PRS obtained exclusive rights to the original pickup wire used in the most revered pickups in the 50’s. PRS obtained the rights to the wire in 2008, and 1957 was the year the humbucker was first commercially available, giving rise to the 1957/2008 name.” It is as spectacular as PRS guitars come with its curly Maple top and Green abalone bird inlays with iridescent paua heart centers!

One of the first surprises was the announcement of PRS Amps. According to MusicRadar.com ”“Paul Reed Smith has enlisted to help of amp builder Doug Sewell who has come up with four designs based on classic amp tones. Hand-wired with point-to-point construction, we’re deep into boutique territory here.” You can imagine the kind of quality amp that will come out of this partnership, unfortunately if the Modern Eagle II is anything to go by I can imagine they will carry a pretty hefty price tag too so it might be one for the wishlist for me!

Another announcement that again was a complete surprise to me is the introduction of PRS Acoustics, although with a RRP of £6995, thats two grand more than the Modern Eagle II, puts this way out of contention for most amateur fingerpickers.

Finally another Retro styled guitar called the “Starla” was announced after the success of the Mira, so this wasn’t so much of a surprise. The guitar features a Mahogany body and neck, custom pickups using propietary Alnico magnets to create a unique clean and crisp sound also capable of rich harmonic overtones when driven and a Bigsby trem for true retro style. “Some of those crazy old vintage guitars are really cool but imagine if you had one that was also really well-built.” said PRS Director of R&D and Private Stock Joe Knaggs.

*source: MusicRadar.com

I have to admit although I knew the name I couldn’t name a song by Todd Rundgren so when I was contacted recently about his upcoming tour and new album I had to do a bit of research. Well what I found out was quite impressive. Aside from being a guitarist/singer/songwriter since the late 60’s (he formed pyschadelic rock band Nazz in 1967) with 20 studio albums already under his belt he has also produced albums for the likes of Cheap Trick, The New York Dolls, Hall & Oates and Meatloaf. In fact Todd actually produced Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell” album!

Well Todd is set to release his first full-length record of original studio material in 4 years, entitled Arena in the UK on September 29th and in America on September 30th. Todd will also play four rare UK concerts that will follow the September 29th UK release of his long awaited new studio album. Check Ticketweb.co.uk for more details.

“Arena is a definite return to riff-oriented guitar rock,” says Rundgren. “It’s supposed to make you reflexively pump your fist and wave a lighter in the air.”

The Arena Tour band will consist of Jesse Gress (guitar), Rachel Haden (bass), Kasim Sulton (guitar, keyboards vocals), Prairie Prince (drums), and Todd Rundgren (guitar and vocals).

“The concerts will be a straight-ahead, guitar-rock extravaganza,” assures Rundgren. “We can’t afford the flamethrowers yet, but we’ll make up for it with aggression.”

Rundgren is universally hailed as the most innovative rock star on the planet.  He was the first pioneering recording and performing artist responsible for interactive audio and video.  In 1981, his video for the song Time Heals was the second video ever aired on MTV in America.

For a taste of the 70’s style rock with some nice slide playing, check out the track “Mountaintop” on his MySpace page which is from the new album.

Photo: (c) 2008 Jean Lannen

Back in May I gave 1 lucky person the chance to win a signed copy of the Tommy Emmanuel Live CD ‘Center Stage’ well to mark the release of the ‘Center Stage’ live DVD Guitar Noize is giving you the chance to win the entire catalogue of Tommy’s Favored Nations releases! Favored Nations is Steve Vai’s record label that includes guitar virtuosos on his books such as Eric Johnson and Andy Timmons, but also has an Acoustic artists section including Peppino D’Agostino and Pete Huttlinger.

• Center Stage DVD
• Live At Her Majesty’s Theatre DVD
• Center Stage CD
• The Mystery CD
• Endless Road CD

And we’re not giving away 1 pack, we’re giving away 2 prize packs! All you have to do is head over to the Competition page and enter your name and email address to be in the running, simple!

The live ‘Center Stage’ DVD is fantastic by the way, it is one thing to listen to Tommy play but to watch him play tracks such as ”Mombasa” (which has a great intro where Tommy uses his guitar as a drum kit!), Train To ”Dusseldorf” which Tommy plays so effortlessly and Tall Fiddler which just makes you want to give up playing! Well ok, not give, aspire to play it like Tommy! The performance also features Harmonica extraordinaire Bob Littell who joins Tommy onstage for a few songs such as ”Georgia On My Mind” and ”Amazing Grace”. Tommy has an amazing amount of dynamics in his playing which really shows with his accompaniment of the songs with Bob Littell.

If you haven’t heard Tommy Emmanuel play before, check out his site which has a few YouTube links which showcase Tommy’s amazing talent. And what better way to get into Tommy than to win his entire Favored Nations back catalogue?

Tommy Emmanuel Competition page

Back in July I posted about the imminent release of Steve Vai’s Naked Tracks a set of 5 volumes worth of backing tracks with the lead parts removed for you to play along to. I was pretty excited about the prospect so as soon as I noticed that they had gone on sale I decided to download a track to test.

I decided on the track ‘Answers’ from one of my all time favourite guitar albums ‘Passion & Warfare’ because, well, compared to the rest of the album its not too technically challenging! I downloaded the track from iTunes which cost me AUD$1.69 and loaded it up in Abelton Live 7. Now I’m not sure why or how this happened but the first 8 bars played at a different tempo to the rest of the song, it doesn’t happen when I listen to the track in iTunes just when I import into Abelton. Weird, ah well I couldn’t be bothered to work it out so the first 8 bars play at 107bpm and then I switch to 95bpm even though it continues to play at the same tempo (this also happens momentarily at 4:15 too). I’m sure this is some kind of weirdness that I don’t have the technical knowledge to fix rather than a problem with the track.

So the first thing I noticed was that this is an extended version of the track… damn I thought I was going to get away with the album version! The idea is that there are extended solo sections which presumably Mr Vai uses in live performances but I suddenly realised that I was going to have to record a solo… over a Vai track… gulp! Well I figured out that E Mixolydian seemed to do the trick so I didn’t stray much from that and probably made the mistake of trying to sound like Vai instead of me but its very tempting when you have the whole Vai backing section behind your playing!

Below is the finished version, I didn’t do it one take and its a bit sloppy in places but it is to show the quality of the Naked tracks, not my playing! I will be downloading a few more of my fave Vai tracks to play along to because you don’t have to download the whole album and I’m hardly going to even notice $1.69 disappearing out of my bank account.

In case anyone is having trouble playing the above example I have also uploaded the track to my Ultimate-Guitar.com profile.

One of the techniques that guitarists are eager to learn in order to impress their mates is Sweep Picking. Unfortunately it is not a simple technique to master and when done badly sounds atrocious. I’ve never been much of a sweep picker which is why I was interested when I received a copy of Ysrafel’s ‘Sweep Picking Mastery’. Now the cover art is not a very good indicator as is often the case with guitar instruction books… why is that? Ah who knows but anyway this book is packed with just about every arpeggio pattern, execution tips and tricks, no wait there is no trick only practice! The book starts with 2 string patterns explaining muting techniques and advances chapter by chapter to 6 string patterns. There is a table showing the bpm that you should start learning each exercise and what you should work up to, this is the key to learning sweep picking, use a metronome to make sure you articulate each arpeggio correctly, something I’ve never had the patience to do but I am going to try and work on it using this book. So where do you go once you have mastered all the major and minor arpeggios? Well, the book moves on to 7th chord patterns, extended 7th chord patterns such as major 13#11 and then adding tapping to further extend patterns to previously unachievable levels!

So if you are looking to master the art of Sweep Picking this book is a very good place to start, it is only $29.95 which I think is a fair price for an arpeggio reference book let alone a technique masterclass. You can get more information at Ysrafel’s site.

There aren’t many female guitarists in the world who can hold their own up against the top shredders but when I first saw the Michael Jackson video for ‘Dirty Diana’ I had to know who the quirky guitarist was with a shock of blonde hair that could beat Marge Simpson in a height battle. It wasn’t long before Jennifer Batten was appearing in all the guitar mags and I remember reading how she attended the Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT) which was the holy grail of music institutions for guitarists in the 80’s and is still going strong today as part of the L.A. Musicians Institute. After GIT Jennifer auditioned for Michael Jackson’s band sending a video which included a note for note rendition of Eddie Van Halen’s ‘Beat it’ solo, she was selected for the ‘Bad’ tour and played to over 4.5 million people over a period of 1.5 years. That in itself is a pretty amazing achievement but Jennifer then decided to record a solo album to really let people know what she was capable of, the album was called ‘Above, Below and Beyond’ and featured her incredible two handed tapping rendition of Rimsky Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’, check the video out here. Shortly after Jennifer rejoined Michael Jackson for the ‘Dangerous’ tour and in ‘93 played in Superbowl XXVII’s half time show which aired to 1.5 billion people in 80 nations! She then released another solo album called ‘Jennifer Batten’s Tribal Rage ~ Momentum’ before joining Michael Jackson once again for the 2 year ‘History’ tour in 1997. After the ‘History’ tour Jennifer joined forces with Jeff Beck for 3 years releasing a couple of albums and touring the world.

That just about brings us to Jennifer’s new album ‘Whatever’, yes that is the title of her album I wasn’t dissing her in my post title! This album was mainly written while she was working with Jeff Beck and it really shows with his love of electronica. There is a very diverse collection of music on ‘Whatever’ from the laid back hip hop vibe of album opener ‘Ass Whoopin’ which features Jon Clark, the other guitarist on MJ’s ‘Bad’ tour, doing a spoken word comedic character. The melodies have a bit of Vai about them but Jennifer has a really unique rock/fusion style. Some of the tracks such as ‘Ricochet’ are a bit 80’s sounding and really don’t have enough guitar playing in them for my liking but these tracks are in the minority.

‘Fearless’ took me by surprise as it is an acoustic solo piece and I’ve never heard Jennifer playing acoustic guitar before, you could easily mistake her playing for Tommy Emmanuel to begin with and then she unleashes her Michael Hedges style, there’s even a bit of slide in there. This is one of the stand out tracks for just being so different to the rest of the album and showing that she also has the chops on an acoustic guitar.

The title track ‘Whatever’ and ‘Hooligan’s Holiday’ both have heavy Jeff Beck influence in them, the latter even more so utilising Jeff Beck’s whammy technique to create a slide sound in the main melody.

Another stand out track is ‘Run With It’ which show Jennifer’s world music influence as well as some interesting riffs and the odd flurry of notes that makes you want to quit playing!

I don’t really know what to say about the final track but I suppose it shows Jennifer’s sense of humour which is basically a bunch of musical farts and belches… very bizarre!

All in all it is an interesting album and showcases Jennifer’s exceptional guitar playing and the reason why she enjoyed so many years touring in one of the top jobs in the world with Michael Jackson’s band but due to her diverse musical interests it is a bit hard to pidgeon-hole. Maybe that is a good thing? Check out her website for some audio snippets to see what you think. Also watch out for her upcoming column in Guitar Player magazine!

Jennifer Batten’s Official Site

One thing I noticed recently whilst looking to purchase a new guitar was that here in Australia the choice is limited in comparison to the US and the UK. I also quickly realised that the pricing of anything but standard guitars were somewhat over-inflated which is why I eventually settled for importing a guitar from the US. Well someone else has noticed and started a business to address this situation. Now if you are just looking to buy a standard American Strat or Les Paul then this site probably isn’t going to be of as much interest, what this nicely designed blog does is showcase a selection of pristine quality rare guitars that you simply don’t see in Australian guitar stores such as this Ibanez J-Custom RG8470Z RS which uses top grade woods and hardware as well as DiMarzio Air Norton, Blue Velvet and Tone Zone pickups.

This is just one example of the guitars on sale, there is also a George Lynch Kamikaze and a limited edition custom shop Gibson ZV which is number 95 out of 100. Each guitar has a rating of up to 5 stars which means new condition to give you an idea of what you are looking at, also any defects or damage is listed in the description as well as a full spec list. Now obviously this list is updated all the time so I advise you to subscribe to the rss feed to see when new guitars are available or have been sold. The blogging platform actually works well with this kind of business!

If only I had known about this site before I ordered my JS1000!