Guitar Licks and Tips


You are here: Home / Blog

What does a Truss Rod on your guitar do?

by

Adjusting the Truss Rod in your guitar to doctor up your action on the fretboard is something that I don’t think I’ll try on my beloved Larrivee L-03. This is something that should be left to the professionals, unless your doing this on your old beater guitar before attempting this on your good axe!

The Truss Rod in a guitar is embedded in the middle of a guitar’s fretboard, closer to the bottom of it, moving from the head of the guitar to it’s body. It consists of 1 or 2 metal bars that are designed to adjust/move the neck of the guitar up or down making it easier to play, get a unique/certain sound that you desire or to help out that buzzing sound that one gets when playing a note somewhere on the fretboard.

Trussrod At one end of the Truss Rod there is a nut that allows you to adjust it. It can be accessed by either the head of the guitar (normally there is a plastic cover over the opening) or located where the fretboard meets the body of the guitar. The other end is where the rod is anchored or fixed into position. This will give the adjusting end the tension that you will need to move the Truss Rod.

The 2 types of truss rods are single and double action.

The single truss rod allows you to move the guitar neck in one direction (or as some technicians call one way) only. This makes the neck go in an up-bow or upwards direction. If you place your guitar on a flat surface and look at it sideways, the head of it will be higher then the body of the guitar. The double lets you go both directions.

So this is a basic introduction to what the Truss Rod does in your guitar. If there is some interest on this topic here on this blog, then I will do some more detailed updates in the future!

Keep on Jammin’

Here is a great book for the intermediate guitarist that wants to know a little more about how his/her instrument works. This might make a neat Christmas present for the guitar player in your life!





The guitars that your metal heroes have endorsed

by

There are mixed feelings in the guitaring community about signature models -they are customized for another person, not you, and cost alot more because of the name on them. Here’s a few of the signature guitars out there for the ‘metallers’.

Dean Guitars ‘Dimebag Darrell’ range. The average guitarist will have one guitar made for them -Dimebag has a range of 33 guitars made in his memory. The Pantera guitarist died tragically in 2004, and since then Dean have supplied us with a whole range of Dimebag guitars, shaped as flying Vs or Explorers. Depending on the age of the guitar depends of what Pickups you get – EMGs or ‘Dimebuckers’. So select your choice of pickup and decide which of the 33 looks best to you and enjoy hours upon hours of metal. If Dimebag was your hero, this is the range to look at prices range from the ‘dimeblade’ at £219 to the ‘rebel razorback’ at £3500 -so choose wisely.

BC Rich Kerry King Signature series. Not to be outdone, One half of Slayer’s guitaring duo Kerry King, has his own signature range. Available as either a flying V or Explorer shaped guitar as well, painted with tribal designs to match his head tattoos, these guitars look as mean as their owner, but how do they sound? Not bad, they certainly go along way to helping you achieve that harsh ‘Slayer’ guitar tone.The range has BC Rich’s own brand of pickups in them to give the guitar a little added kick.

Jackon’s Phil Demell guitar. Created with help from Machine Head’s lead guitarist Phil Demell, the Jackson guitar has one hell of a kick to it. The guitar has EMG pickups and is shaped like a flying V and ready to tear your head off. Expensive at £1100m but if you’ve got your money and love your metal its the guitar to go for, and it comes tuned to drop B as well.

Looking for electric guitars? Or maybe you prefer acoustic guitars? Visit here.

Train Your Voice To Sing Higher With These Tips

by

A few points to remember about expanding your vocal abilities are as follows.

Before you work on extreme methods of singing high notes, be sure you understand the basics of vocal production. This is absolutely necessary. Your voice can be damaged if you do not comprehend how it works to begin with. You know how a hoarse voice feels if you scream at a baseball game one day and can hardly talk the next.

Vocal ranges are defined as soprano, alto, tenor and bass. SATB is the acronym which refers to the vocal ranges. Your range is defined as the lowest note you can sing pleasantly most of the time to the highest. Your teacher can help you define what your range is or you can go up from middle C until you can no longer comfortably go and downward in the same way. You can refine your range only when you know what it is.

In order that you do not set yourself up for failure, set an achievable goal. If you want to be reasonable, do not set a goal of reaching an extra octave of range in the near future. You may incur lasting injury to your vocal cords if you choose such a goal. Practice and diligence are the only things that will bring results. Always warm up your voice before attempting to stretch it, just like a runner. Warming up is done by all singers and with good reason.

Your voice will become better with time and practice. Runners and singers must follow the same rules in this regard.

Always get guidance from an instructor or program in order to improve. Teacher to student is the best way, albeit expensive. Many online programs offer a perfectly acceptable alternative to the teacher and student relationship.

While you practice your singing at home, try these two ideas.

Exercise standing, facing a mirror. In this way you can observe the position of your jaw and chest. Your posture should be correct and your jaw should not reach up for the high note. It is a natural inclination to reach with your posture, but this harms your ability to hit the note.

None of us hear ourselves the way we actually sound, record yourself and see. It is a shock at first to hear what you sound like, but if you continue to use this valuable tool you will get better even quicker. If you record a lesson you can go over and over it to pick it apart, so to speak. Money for lessons is not easy to come by, get the most out of your lessons.

In the state-of-the-art study of singing, time and effort will produce the best results if you want to become a better singer.

One heck of a patriotic guitar

by

CanadianGuitar

Now this is a neat little guitar. I’m not sure if it is a Maple Leaf that they’re trying to represent here but I’ll take!

Hell even Slash, the original guitar player from Guns and Roses, is playing one!

I’m not sure who made this unique guitar or if it’s just a one of a kind model. Too bad I couldn’t find the guitar case that went with it.

It’s obvious to the trained guitarist eyes that soloing would be very limited and playing it on your lap may prove to be a problem but what the heck, eh?

Keep on Jammin’

Insecurity issues associated with playing live music

by

It seems to me that there are a lot of people out there who become anxious, insecure and or uncomfortable when they have to talk or perform in front of a group of people. Public speaking must be high on the list of personal stressers for many people.

This anxiety can be used to one’s benefit or make them become paralyzed with fear. With musicians, we try to use this insecurity to our advantage! Some say when this, the most dreaded of all emotions, is lacking before one goes up on stage, you might consider giving it up. By this I mean, some performers believe that if they don’t have butterflies in their stomach or some stress before going on stage their performance won’t be up to par.

I can relate to this topic on some levels. In the past I’ve lost the drive to play guitar and perform live. Actually going up on stage for me is similar to the average person just going to the store, I just don’t get those butterflies in my stomach.

The thing about operating in a public forum that gets me is … will they get into or like what I am playing for them? Will they pay attention to the subtle nuances and examine my guitar technique? Or will they just go, that’s nice. Maybe it’s acceptance that musicians crave for from their audience that makes us crazy.

panic I take apart everything I want to play into so many sections and perfect, in my mind that is, how they are reproduced and flow from one part of the song to the next. I also have to anticipate how to execute it if say a string breaks in a theatre or bar in the middle of song. I sometimes find that it’s hard to juggle all those issues and bond them together flawlessly into my act without losing my mind in front of an audience while giving the impression that it is all in a days work for a guitarist/performer!

I understand that over the years I’ve lightly touched on this topic before, on most of my other guitar blogs that I have, but I’ve never really been able to answer this question head on. I do think that I may have come across the answer to this question today while glancing through my MACLEAN’s magazine’s BOOKS section by Jonathon Gatehouse (OCT. 12′ 09).

The article was about Margaret Atwood and how she see perceives what her audience gets out of her great body of work. This is the part of the article that caught my attention!

After so many books, she has learned that it is useless to try to point the reader in one direction or the other – they will take away exactly what they want to. “Your not in control of how people read a book. They’re doing their own interpretation.

That’s it! It seems so simple now how she came to this conclusion. It is one of those – “you can’t see the forest through the trees” – kinda thing. My wife thinks that I shouldn’t take an audiences reaction so personally. She says that people are just going out to have a good time and enjoy themselves! I guess she does have a point. Now the hard part is in attempting to incorporate these words of wisdom into my musical mind set!

Sometimes this creeps into my writing style as well. I do not claim to be a wordsmith by any stretch of the imagination but I try. Some people have the ability to express themselves and get their message across and others just wish they had that talent! Most people I talk to say playing an instrument is similar. You may have all the technical knowledge and theory in how to play one but the way you reproduce a song, or the feel for it, is lacking.

So has anyone out there come across a way that helps them overcome their fear of performing or talking in front of people? Or is dealing with this problem just a part of one’s personality trait?

Keep on Jammin’

Meta

Pages