This one is rather short and to the point. This little diddy deals with signature guitars, specifically Les Pauls; so here it is. How can someone have a signature Les Paul? A Les Paul is a signature guitar named for yep you guessed, Sean Connery, I mean Les Paul. I mean, is there going to be a signature (insert famous guitar player's name) Dimebag Darrell guitar? No, because it's stupid. It's one thing to have a signature Stratocaster, that is just an existing NON signature guitar. A Les Paul is a god damn Les Paul.
I mentioned this to a former coworker who was a drummer and his response was: "Well, what about signature Vic Firth drumsticks?" My answer was simple: "It's completely different. Vic Firth is a guy and that's the name of his company, like Fender was Leo Fender's company or Marshall was Jim Marshall's company. Les Paul had a signature guitar through Gibson. It's already a signature guitar to begin with. It doesn't make sense."
There you have it, signature series anything, of an already existing anything doesn't make sense.
Showing posts with label stratocaster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stratocaster. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2012
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Weedely Deedely Deedely Weeeeeeeeee! (Guitar Noises)
One of the few things in life that I know that I am legitimately good at (bordering on genius, okay not that great) is playing guitar. Since I was a little Josh (ages 0-10) I was enamored with it. The first real memory I have of a guitar and knowing it was cool was when my family lived in England or Great Britain or the United Kingdom or....I think that's all of their names. I looked up and saw this bad ass (what my stupid brain told me was bad ass at least) purple guitar; it looked like one of those lame ass C.C. DeVille guitars in retrospect, but I was hooked.
Flash forward to my tenth birthday.
I bugged my parents and finally I got one. It was a cream colored Fender Stratocaster, which I still have and plunk around on when I come home to visit, along with a little Crate practice amp. Immediately I was awesome. By awesome I mean that I made it sound like shit just by looking at it. The first time I broke a string I thought that I was going to get in trouble because I was a stupid child. I didn't tell anyone and kept it in it's case for a while. Eventually I let the cat out of the bag...and caught a beating. Just kidding?
Eventually my mom got me signed up for lessons with my first teacher Ryan. The first thing he asked me was what I knew, my answer: "I can play D." Swish. Well, in my eyes things progressed quickly. I was learning quickly and was one of the few people who legitimately loved to practice. I played all of the standard AC/DC tunes but soon got bored. Around this time Ryan moved to Minneapolis and I took lessons from the guy who taught him, Jeremy. He was great. He challenged and pushed me into newer territory making me better.
Also around this time I began to jam with some people from school, doing the shitty high school band thing. I don't want to say that I was hot shit or anything, but I kinda was. I mean one day the other guitar player's (at the time) was cool enough to give me a ride home and he said this: "...you know you guys are not bad, well those other guys are not bad; but you I can tell, you really like to play and practice..."
Flash forward to my sophomore year of high school.
I played football and broke my god damn knuckle. No guitar for like 6 months. Bye bye callouses, muscle memory, speed, accuracy, blah blah. I did make a triumphant return and I feel that I play better than before even with limited range of motion, just because I had to relearn things instead of just going all guns blazing.
Around this time I also made my first upgrade in the guitar department by winning a music store contest; by being the only one to enter it. Hey $200, is $200. Also my English teacher found out that I played guitar so she hounded me to come in and play for the class; no joke she did. So I did and ended up playing for two classes and missing my lunch. I also did this for a speech class. Needless to say my superstar skills and devilishly handsome looks got me some attention from the ladies.
Our little shitty band made an upgrade by getting my friend Ray to be the other guitar player. We both took lessons from Jeremy and we had a healthy competition between each other which helped us get better.
Flash forward to "real life".
Once college came, boy things changed. Gone were the days of playing for hours on end with out responsibility. It became more of when I could, although I always tried to play at least one hour a day no matter how busy. It got easier to do once I started working at a music store and teaching lessons because I was playing upwards of five hours a day and some of my students were really good. Now that I'm in grad school and inching towards real real life, who knows how much time I will have. I do know that no matter what I will always love to play it is one of my first loves and something that I know I am really good at; there is no doubt about that. The shitty thing is that when school is in session, I can only play maybe 3-5 hours a week if I'm lucky. On breaks "Whoa Nelly" do I go to town. I'd say about 10-15 hours a week. The first few days I suck balls (in my mind), but at about day three or four my callouses are back in full form along with speed, accuracy, and my memory. Side note: I have this game I play with myself. I like to learn tune all the way through, play it about 900 times and then not play it for about six months to a year. Then I try to play it off of memory without the aid of a book. The first time or two I just sort of feel it out, but by take three I have it all the way back.
So as time has gone by I have also upgraded just about everything and gotten rid of almost nothing. I have somewhere around 10(ish) guitars and about 6-7 amps. Even though most aren't really worth a damn or even "sexy" guitars I love 'em all for different reasons. They all have different sounds and feels. I should probably stop getting them because I only have two hands and can only play one at a time, and it gets a bit costly to maintain them. But I love it, it's like crack.
Flash forward to my tenth birthday.
I bugged my parents and finally I got one. It was a cream colored Fender Stratocaster, which I still have and plunk around on when I come home to visit, along with a little Crate practice amp. Immediately I was awesome. By awesome I mean that I made it sound like shit just by looking at it. The first time I broke a string I thought that I was going to get in trouble because I was a stupid child. I didn't tell anyone and kept it in it's case for a while. Eventually I let the cat out of the bag...and caught a beating. Just kidding?
Eventually my mom got me signed up for lessons with my first teacher Ryan. The first thing he asked me was what I knew, my answer: "I can play D." Swish. Well, in my eyes things progressed quickly. I was learning quickly and was one of the few people who legitimately loved to practice. I played all of the standard AC/DC tunes but soon got bored. Around this time Ryan moved to Minneapolis and I took lessons from the guy who taught him, Jeremy. He was great. He challenged and pushed me into newer territory making me better.
Also around this time I began to jam with some people from school, doing the shitty high school band thing. I don't want to say that I was hot shit or anything, but I kinda was. I mean one day the other guitar player's (at the time) was cool enough to give me a ride home and he said this: "...you know you guys are not bad, well those other guys are not bad; but you I can tell, you really like to play and practice..."
Flash forward to my sophomore year of high school.
I played football and broke my god damn knuckle. No guitar for like 6 months. Bye bye callouses, muscle memory, speed, accuracy, blah blah. I did make a triumphant return and I feel that I play better than before even with limited range of motion, just because I had to relearn things instead of just going all guns blazing.
Around this time I also made my first upgrade in the guitar department by winning a music store contest; by being the only one to enter it. Hey $200, is $200. Also my English teacher found out that I played guitar so she hounded me to come in and play for the class; no joke she did. So I did and ended up playing for two classes and missing my lunch. I also did this for a speech class. Needless to say my superstar skills and devilishly handsome looks got me some attention from the ladies.
Our little shitty band made an upgrade by getting my friend Ray to be the other guitar player. We both took lessons from Jeremy and we had a healthy competition between each other which helped us get better.
Flash forward to "real life".
Once college came, boy things changed. Gone were the days of playing for hours on end with out responsibility. It became more of when I could, although I always tried to play at least one hour a day no matter how busy. It got easier to do once I started working at a music store and teaching lessons because I was playing upwards of five hours a day and some of my students were really good. Now that I'm in grad school and inching towards real real life, who knows how much time I will have. I do know that no matter what I will always love to play it is one of my first loves and something that I know I am really good at; there is no doubt about that. The shitty thing is that when school is in session, I can only play maybe 3-5 hours a week if I'm lucky. On breaks "Whoa Nelly" do I go to town. I'd say about 10-15 hours a week. The first few days I suck balls (in my mind), but at about day three or four my callouses are back in full form along with speed, accuracy, and my memory. Side note: I have this game I play with myself. I like to learn tune all the way through, play it about 900 times and then not play it for about six months to a year. Then I try to play it off of memory without the aid of a book. The first time or two I just sort of feel it out, but by take three I have it all the way back.
So as time has gone by I have also upgraded just about everything and gotten rid of almost nothing. I have somewhere around 10(ish) guitars and about 6-7 amps. Even though most aren't really worth a damn or even "sexy" guitars I love 'em all for different reasons. They all have different sounds and feels. I should probably stop getting them because I only have two hands and can only play one at a time, and it gets a bit costly to maintain them. But I love it, it's like crack.
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