--------------------------- AXEMANSHIP --------------------------

               A monthly newsletter for guitarists

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Vol. 1 No. 5                                            June 2005

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Tom Serb, editor editor@noteboat.com

This newsletter is distributed by subscription only.  If you want

to unsubscribe, instructions can be found at the end of the

newsletter.

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IN THIS ISSUE:

> Tips and Tricks: cleaning guitars, awkward fingerings, musical

forms, cadences, being prepared

> Product review: Blues Licks Encyclopedia

> Music News

> Question of the month

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TIPS AND TRICKS: CLEANING GUITARS

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Sooner or later, every guitar gets a bit grungy.  Assorted dirt,

dust, and oils from your fingers build up.

Before you start scrubbing away at the grime, you should figure

out how your guitar was finished.  Many guitars have finishes

that are delicate, and the particles of dirt can be pretty

abrasive against fine finishes.  If your guitar is more than 60

years old, it’s worth the trip to take it to a luthier for

cleaning advice.

Start by using a clean, soft rag.  I bought a few yards of

flannel at a fabric store for about $4, and that’s enough for me

to cut into several hundred cleaning pads.  Fold the rag into a

square that you can easily grip, and use a circular ‘lifting’

motion to polish the guitar.  The idea is to transfer the dirt to

the pad, not to just move it around the surface.

Sometimes the dirt sticks pretty well to the guitar, and you need

to soften it up a bit.  Moisture helps, but you don’t want to be

spritzing away at the guitar with water.  I breathe on the

surface – think of fogging a mirror with your breath – and that’s

sometimes enough.

To move up a step, you’ll want to consider solvents to cut

through the oils that hold the dirt on the surface.  One of the

best solvents for guitars is naphtha (lighter fluid).  Put a few

drops on your cleaning rag, and it’ll help cut through the oil.

Naphtha will leave a little bit of a haze on your guitar, so

follow up with a clean, dry rag.

Commercial polishes and cleaners for guitars are sold at most

music stores.  These contain a fine abrasive to help rub away the

dirt, so don’t overdo their use – but they can remove a bit more

than lighter fluid alone will.

Fretboards need special attention when cleaning.  Because you’re

constantly putting your fingertips on the fretboard, it collects

a great deal of dirt.  Here’s one area where the cleaning

techniques vary a great deal with the instrument – if you have a

maple fretboard, it’s been sealed with a clear finish.  Don’t use

abrasives like steel wool or guitar polish, because you’ll cut

right through the finish coating – only use elbow grease, with a

little lighter fluid if you really need it.

Other fretboards, like rosewood or ebony, can be cleaned with a

plastic scraper (I’ve used the edge of a pick in a pinch) or with

steel wool.  If you go the steel wool route, use only 0000 or

finer.  Coarser wools can damage the fretboard surface.

Some folks swear by lemon oil or other finishing touches – I’ve

even heard of people using olive oil to get a finishing polish on

their guitar.  Many modern guitar finishes simply don’t need it,

but if it makes you feel good there’s 

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TIPS AND TRICKS: AWKWARD FINGERINGS

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Every now and then we all run into a chord or phrase that makes

us sit back and say “but my hand won’t DO that!”.

Whenever I run into something like that, I think about Django

Reinhardt.  With his fretting hand horribly burned in a fire, he

had to re-learn the guitar from the beginning – and in doing so,

re-invented jazz guitar.  If he could do what he did with only

two working fingers, I can manage to rise to the challenge.

When your fretting hand won’t do what it needs to, the solution

lies in breaking the problem down to basic mechanics.  To begin

with, you need to place your fingers where they need to land, and

get good tone out of all the strings.

Common stumbling points here are dead strings, buzzing, bent

strings, and problems with reach.

Dead strings can be caused by not having enough arch to one or

more fingers, or by insufficient pressure -especially on barred

strings.  Remember that the guitar is in three dimensions, and

you can adjust any or all of them: you can move the neck up or

down, you can move the neck towards or away from your body, and

you can angle the face of the fretboard.

Make small adjustments to each of these in turn, paying attention

to two things: how does the movement affect your finger arch, and

how does it affect the line of your fretting hand wrist.  You may

find that you can play a section if you anticipate it, and change

your approach to the guitar during that one phrase or chord

change.

Buzzing is usually caused by insufficient pressure, and that in

turn can have two causes: weakness in the finger/hand/wrist

muscles, or a bad angle of attack on the strings.  Notice which

finger is the culprit, and do some exercises.  If the problem is

your little finger, and the motion calls for it to play a note,

slide up, and play another note with the same finger, develop an

exercise that works that specific motion, like this (played

entirely with fingers 3-4, the ‘s’ indicates a slide of position;

play on all pairs of strings):

-----5-6-s7-6----------7-8-s9-8-----------9-10-s11-10-

-5-6----------7-6-s7-8----------9-8-s9-10-------------

If the problem is bad angle of attack, use the method described

for poor arch.  There’s probably a better guitar position that

will make it easier to play.

Bent string issues are caused by a bad angle of attack.  If your

neck is at too low an angle, you may find some fretting fingers

are pushing up on the strings as you fret (in very rare cases,

they may be pulling down on the strings, but the root cause is

the same – bad attack angle).  Adjust the guitar angles until

your fingertips are coming straight down.

Problems with reach can only be solved by slowly stretching the

ligaments of the fingers, although the guitar position plays an

important role here, too.  If you need more reach between your

first and fourth fingers, spread them apart as far as you can in

the air, then place the fingertips on a table while in that

position.  Using your free hand, slowly move one of them out from

the other – don’t do this to the point of pain, just a gentle

stretch.  Hold it for a few seconds, then relax.  Try it again a

few minutes later.

As each day goes by, you might add repetitions to this exercise,

and over time you’ll find you have more reach.

Ok, so you’re reached the point where you can now finger that

awkward chord or stretch between notes by itself – but you still

need to do it in context to make it musical.  Now you need to pay

attention to how your fingers enter and leave this odd shape.

Make the motion required very slowly, paying attention to the way

your fretting hand is required to move.  You’ll want to look for

a few things:

- if one finger stays on the same string, don’t lift it during

the change.  If it needs to move to a new fret, slide it.  If you

don’t want a slide sound, ease up on the pressure, but keep the

finger on the string.

- if two fingers move in the same relation to each other, like

your second and third fingers do when moving from an open C chord

to an open F, move them as a ‘block’.  Patient practice can make

this second nature, and it cuts finger placement time in half,

since you’re placing one ‘block’ instead of two finger tips.

- look at your wrist motion.  Your wrist often rotates during a

change, and you probably don’t even think about it... watch your

wrist move during the change from open D major to open G7 and

you’ll see what I mean.  Now look at how your wrist NEEDS to move

during the trouble change, and anticipate the motion – start it

early.  This might feel strange, and it might give you new dead

string issues to deal with, but you already know how to overcome

those.  Any fractions of a second you can save during the change

gives you that much more time to get it right!

- get the weak spot first.  Let’s say the trouble is going to a

D7 chord with a fourth string F# bass, a ‘rootless’ voicing:

2

1

2

4

x

x

You’re going to need to get that F# planted sooner or later to do

that right, so you might as well get it first – after all, the

other fingers are ‘easy’, so you’ll be able to train them

quicker.

- if all else fails, find a ‘cheat’.  The goal is to play the

required notes at the right time, and most chords/phrases can be

done in more than one place.  If you’re struggling with a C7+

fingering like this:

4

1

3

2

x

x

Try finding another position for the same voicing, like these:

x x

9 x

5 13

8 10

7 13

x 12

You might also need to adjust the position of the chords/phrases

right before and after the awkward one, but that’s ok – and as a

bonus, you’ll become a lot more aware of where all those

possibilities lie on the neck!

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TIPS AND TRICKS: MUSICAL FORM

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When you’re working at building solos, it helps to have an

understanding of how music is put together on a structural level. 

That gives you a ‘big picture’ frame to work in.  Let’s say

you’ve come up with an interesting riff to begin your solo; this

is your theme, called a ‘statement’.  We’ll call it ‘A’.

If you just play the riff over and over, you’ve built a form with

the pattern AAAA.  That’s called a strophic form; it’s simple –

but it’s boring.

A good solo not only has unity – it hangs well together as a

piece – it also has variety.

You can alter your riff, coming up with a ‘variation’ – one that

uses slightly different notes, the same notes with a different

rhythm, or the same notes transposed to a new key.  That would be

called A1; the next variation would be A2, then A3, and so on. 

Now you’ve got a little more material to play around with, and

you can make a few different patterns, like:

A-A1-A2-A3...

or

A-A1-A-A2-A-A3...

This form is called ‘theme and variation’.  Not so boring, but it

can get old if you carry it on for long periods of time.

Many good solos carry this a step further, with a section of

contrast.  You might begin your solo in the key of C, but move to

G – continuing in G for a while, you then move back to C for the

finish.  The contrasting section is ‘B’, and your new form is A-B

or A-B-A; each of these sections can have a theme and variation

structure, so your whole result might look something like:

A-A1-A2-A-B-B1-B2-B-A

It actually works best if there are some similarities between the

A and B sections – similar rhythms, or note patterns.  That helps

to give your whole solo a sense of unity in spite of the

contrast.  If you really want to go farther afield during your

solo, you might try something called the ‘arch form’, A-B-C-B-A. 

In this form, the C section is getting pretty remote from your

original theme, but the B sections provide the connection.

You might notice that these musical forms look similar to song

structures: A-B = verse-chorus; A-B-C = verse/pre-chorus/chorus. 

That’s not a coincidence; we all have certain gut expectations of

what a musical experience will be like, conditioned by all the

music we’ve heard before... if your solos conform to this

pattern, they’ll seem to have a better ‘fit’ to the song.

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TIPS AND TRICKS: CADENCES

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Cadences are essential parts of chord progressions – they’re what

brings the whole idea to a close.

A cadence is a movement of two (or more) chords that creates a

sense of finality to a piece, section, movement, or phrase.  They

come in a lot of different flavors...

You’ll sometimes hear talk of a ‘perfect’ cadence.  That’s got a

very specific meaning in music theory: it’s a movement from a

dominant (V) or subdominant (IV) chord to a tonic (I), where the

final chord has roots in both the bottom and top voices.  On the

guitar, you only find a couple of ways to get the last chord in a

perfect cadence – both are from the E form barre (C is shown):

 8-8

 8-8

 9-9

10-10

10-x

 8-x

Besides being perfect or imperfect, cadences can be authentic –

moving from down a fifth from V to I; plagal – moving down a

fourth from IV to I; or mixed – using both V and IV, as in IV-V-I

or IV-I-V-I.

Sometimes the final chord isn’t the tonic, and there are names

for those cadences too.  A half cadence ends on the V or IV, so

an authentic half cadence is ii-V, II-V, or iii-IV (moving down a

fifth); a plagal half cadence is I-V, or i-V  (moving down a

fourth).

One other type of cadence worth noting uses chord substitutions. 

As you might know, chords can be substituted for each other...

that’s usually done when the original chord and the substitution

share two notes.  In other words, good substitutes for C major

(C-E-G) might be Em (E-G-B) or Am (A-C-E).  If you substitute for

the tonic chord, you might end up with V-iii or V-vi; these are

called deceptive cadences.

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TIPS AND TRICKS: BEING PREPARED

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You’ve heard it a thousand times: succeeding in the music

business is all about luck.  Well, that’s true – the people who

make it get lucky.  There were a lot of bar bands in Germany in

1959, but only one became the Beatles.  But in the long run, luck

gets distributed pretty evenly; everyone has chance meetings with

influential strangers, performances where somebody who’s SOMEbody

is in the audience, opportunities to take new paths with your

music that might lead somewhere.  You may not be the next George

Harrison, but you get chances every day that you probably

overlook.

The hard part about opportunity is that it comes in disguise. You

really never know how chance will present itself, and it’s almost

always in a series of steps: Brian Epstein sees the Beatles

playing at the Cavern in 1961.  He’s not a famous rock manager;

he owns a local record store.  He convinces them to give him a

chance as manager – and the unknown record merchant begins by

changing all the things he doesn’t like about them: their

appearance, their stage personalities, etc.  He gets them

presented to a record company, Decca.  They get turned down.  A

year or so goes by before he gets their music in front of George

Martin.

Or take Stevie Ray Vaughan, who on Guitar Players’ reader poll as

best blues guitarist for nine years in a row.  He got a record 

contract because of a demo he made using studio time donated by

Jackson Browne.  He met Browne because of his performance at the

Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1982.  He got that performance because

he’d played a private party for the Rolling Stones.  He played

that party because they’d seen a video of him performing at the

Austin Blues Festival.

So the Beatles didn’t get discovered – they met a record store

owner.  Stevie Ray didn’t get discovered – somebody filmed a gig

he did, and the tape got passed around.  Most successful

performers will have a similar history, because that’s the way

things really work.

One of my favorite sayings is: Chance favors the prepared.  I

believe you really can prepare yourself to be favored by chance –

you just have to be aware of how it works.

1. You don’t know the person who will discover you, and you

probably can’t get to know them on your terms.  They’ll find you

through someone else – and you have no way of knowing who that

might be... a fan with a video camera?  A record store owner? 

Your cousin’s classmate’s mother’s new boyfriend?

Since you don’t know who will provide your ticket to success, you

need to assume that everyone might.  That means treating everyone

with some respect and appreciation, and playing your heart out no

matter who, or how small, your audience may be.

2. You don’t know what the person who will discover you wants, so

be open to change.  The Beatles didn’t start out as peppy young

men in matching suits; they were like every other bar band.  If

they’d rejected suggestion (after all, what does a record store

owner know about how bands should look?), you would never have

heard of them.

Don’t dismiss criticism or suggestions that run counter to your

idea of what you should be like.  I’m not suggesting you blindly

follow every idea thrown at you, but consider if a suggestion is

worth taking a chance, maybe on a trial basis.

3. When you really come down to it, it’s a numbers game.  There

are six billion people in the world, and maybe 6,000 of them have

the power to ‘discover’ you.  That’s a one-in-a-million shot. 

Remember that discoveries happen second or third (or fourth or

fifth) hand – it’s not the person who sees you who will catapult

you to fame... it’s someone they know.  You won’t be able to play

in front of a million different people to have even odds of a

‘star maker’ catching your act.  But if each of those 6,000 star

makers knows 10 people well... and they each know 10 people

well... and THEY each know 10 people well...  now we’re talking

bout one-in-a-thousand.  Can you play in front of 1,000 different

people this year, and make each performance stellar?

Realistically, yes.  That’s one open mike night a week in front

of an audience of 20.  But in order for the ‘buzz’ to work its

way up to the star-maker, that performance has to be strong

enough to be talked about.  Play it like it’s Woodstock, and

you’re following the Who.  Even if the crowd consists of only a

bored bartender, maybe she dates a guy who lays floor tile with

the brother of a friend of a roadie for a band that will open for

Coldplay.  If you snap her out of her ennui so she’ll talk about

you, you’re one step closer to the big time.

That’s the way people get discovered.

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PRODUCT REVIEW: BLUES LICKS ENCYCLOPEDIA

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This is the second National Guitar Workshop book I’ve bought, and

the second one I’ve liked.  The opening pages give you a review

of basics – how to read tab, a couple pages of technique, scale

patterns, and the I-IV-V progression.  That’s followed by 80+

pages of riffs in different blues styles: delta, Chicago, Texas,

rock, country, swing/jazz, and minor blues, plus some riffs for

slide guitar.

Each section begins with a typical chord progression, a list of

the scales most commonly used, a few of the major artists in the

style, and a list of popular tunes in the genre.

The riff section in each style begins with a page of intros and

turnarounds typical of the style, followed by riffs in the style

of key players ranging from Hendrix to Setzer, Santana to the

Kings (Albert, B.B. and Freddie).  Riffs are organized by the

progression chord – a page of licks for the I chord, a page for

the IV chord.

The patterns themselves range from trite clich?©s to some

interesting riffs.  The real value from the book won’t come from

dropping these lines into your solos, but from taking apart why

the riffs work over certain chords – what note does it start on,

where does it end, how does it get there.

The only two faults that I find with this book: first, there

aren’t many riffs presented over the V chord.  In the rock blues

section you get 20 riffs for the I chord, 15 for the IV chord,

but only 5 for the V.  Riffs for I and IV run two bars each, with

V riffs being a single bar.  In a 12-bar progression, you’ll have

those chords in a ratio of 8:3:1 or 7:3:2, depending on whether

or not you use a turnaround.  The riffs in the book aren’t in

quite that ratio, so it’s a little heavy on IV, and a touch light

on V.

Second is that riffs presented ‘in the style of’ for various

artists will be either riffs on I OR riffs on IV and V.  You get

I chord riffs for Santana; you get IV and V for Page.  Still,

it’s a convenient starting point for exploration.

The cover says over 300 guitar riffs.  The book contains 296 in

the main sections, so they must be counting the technique

illustrations as riffs too.

Published by Alfred, this is available with or without a CD.  I

picked up the version without, so I can’t comment on the

recording, but I find the text version a pretty decent value.

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QUESTION OF THE MONTH: CHANGING STRING GAUGES

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Q: My guitar came with medium gauge (.011-.050) strings, but I’m

finding it hard to play.  Will changing to light gauge strings

help?

A: String tension is a factor of several different things: the

scale length, the composition of the strings, and the string

gauge.  The same gauge strings on a Fender will seem easier to

play on a Gibson because of the scale length – the shorter the

scale, the less tension required to get up to pitch.

Different string compositions have slightly different mass.  A

lighter mass means less string tension, so 92/8 phosphor bronze

strings will have more tension in the same gauge than 80/20

bronze strings.

If you do decide to change string gauge, it may effect your

setup.  Thinner strings affect a guitar’s action in two ways:

first, because thinner gauge strings have less tension, there’s

less total force on the headstock.  The guitar’s relief is set up

for a specific amount of string tension, so thinner strings will

lie closer to the frets.  Second, the string slots in the nut and

saddle might be badly cut, resulting in more of a ‘V’ shape slot

than a ‘U’ shape.  This can cause thinner gauge strings to come

to rest lower in the slots, also lowering the action.  In many

cases, this will lead to fret buzz when you change string gauges.

So yes, lighter gauge strings will make your guitar easier to

play – but it may require a new setup after you change gauges,

and in extreme cases the replacement of the nut and/or saddle.

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MUSIC NEWS

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Elvis Costello managed to tick off a bunch of his fans... his

concert 25 May at the University of East Anglia conflicted with

Liverpool’s soccer match against AC Milan.  When the game ran

long, he stayed backstage watching.  After it was finally decided

by penalty kicks, he finally appeared – but cut his set very

short.  Angry fans wanted their money back; Elvis told them they

should have stayed at home reading their cookbooks.  You’d think

he would have been more charitable – after all, his team won.

East 17 singer Brian Harvey is hospitalized in London after

somehow being crushed by his Mercedes convertible.  His manager

is calling it a freak accident, and not a third suicide attempt,

as some have suggested.

The Greek Orthodox church wants Slipknot’s Athens show cancelled,

on the grounds that the band is promoting Satanism.

The Darkness has dumped bassist Frankie Poullain over musical

differences.  No replacement yet.

Nine Inch Nails will headline at the Voodoo Music Festival in New

Orleans in October.

In the studio: The Vines, working on their third album; Hootie

and the Blowfish, with their first album on their own label;

Staind, with their fifth effort; Billy Corgan, working on songs

for a documentary DVD; Roger Waters, with his opera Ca Ira, based

on the French revolution

On the road: Journey, with their 30th anniversary tour starting

26 June in Irvine CA; Babyface with Anita Barker, US tour

starting 23 June in San Diego; John Legend, with his first US

tour starting 10 June in Atlanta; the Rolling Stones, with a

world tour starting in Atlanta in August.

The Grateful Dead will release a concert video next month (the

concert was 4 July 1989 in Buffalo NY) to celebrate 40 years

since their founding.

The Polar Music Prize has gone to Brazilian singer Gilberto Gil

(who also happens to be the Culture Minister of Brazil) and

German singer Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau.  Last year’s winners were

Hungarian composer Gyeorgy Ligetti and B.B. King.

The Zooma tour, which was to feature Trey Anastasio and Ben

Harper, has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Bob Geldof’s new idea, Live 8, will be presenting simultaneous

free concerts on 2 July in Berlin, London, Paris, Philadelpia,

and Rome to raise awareness about poverty.  Headliners include

Crosby Stills & Nash and Brian Wilson (Brandenburg Gate, Berlin),

McCartney, REM, and U2 (Hyde Park, London), Bon Jovi, Dave

Matthews, Maroon 5 and Stevie Wonder (Philadelphia Museum of

Art), Duran Duran, Faith Hill, and Tim McGraw (Circus Maximus,

Rome).  Paris’ venue hasn’t been announced yet.

Counting Crows will open the new House of Blues in Atlantic City

on 8 July.

Guitarist Paul Hinojos has left Sparta and rejoined Mars Volta.

Guitarist Mark Weinberg has left Gratitude over ‘touring issues’;

they’re not replacing him.

Rest in Peace: the reaper spared the famous this month, with the

exception of jazz singer Oscar Brown – but didn’t pass over some

talented lesser-knowns like Welsh folk singer Siwsann George,

film composer/pianist Linda Martinez, classical pianist Ruth

Laredo, composer George Rochberg, and jazz trumpeter Benny

Bailey.

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------------------------ editor@noteboat.com --------------------

http://www.noteboat.com                             (630)697-7229

Tom Serb, editor                                fax (630)910-4553

PO Box 6155                                Woodridge IL 60517 USA

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