In Memory of Duane Allman

New Chord Form

E ---0----0----0---
B ---0----0----0---
G ---11---9----6---
D ---12---10---7---
A ---10---8----5---
E ---12---10---7---

This is a chord show to me tonight as I played. Those are a few places where the movable parts don't sound too bad with the ringing B and E. This is a jangly clean-tone chord, but give it try.

Looking just at the EADG strings, first, notice that we have the root, minor third and dominant seventh. It would be easy to say Emin7, Dmin7, Bmin7, but that doesn't bring in the G string. In the first case, that's an F#. That's an octave up from the root, so that's a 9? Emin9? We'll assume that someone, somewhere, will fill in that fifth. Come to think of it, the open B string gives us the fifth. So, yes, Emin9.

Drop down to the second chord and you see that's a Dmin9, except the B and E become a 4 or 11 and another 9. So Dmin9sus4?

When we get to the B, that's root minor-third dominant-seventh ninth root fourth, so again a Bmin9sus4.

New Digs

The main room has the good sound. The main room has the playback setup. It has the Aviom system and piano and the glass cage for the drums. The choir is starting to do songs with the band rather than going along with pre-recorded tracks. So the choir is getting the main room, and Wednesday service is going to ... well, until this week, it was called "the choir room."

I didn't know how good I had it. Seriously.

Instead of a real piano, we have the kind of digital piano that people who want to start learning piano get. We have the drum set we had before we got the drumset before we got the drum set before we got the drum set. And the monitors. This is the first time I played there without earbuds, and the monitors were just nowhere near enough.

About a third of the way through the set, I noticed that I couldn't hear the bassist. This, unfortunately, is not an uncommon thing. I motioned to the sound man to turn up the bass. At least, I meant to. Thumb up, thumb down, that's universal for volume up, volume down, and I tried to do plucking like a bass instead of strumming, but he turned me up, then turned me back down. Then he dragged in a bass amp for him, and finally, for the first time in years(!) we could clearly hear the bass.

To the extent I heard myself, I guess I did well, but I knew we'd have technical issues, and there were.

Notes From The Front

At this point, because I'm not working from a strong theme of hardware geeking like Stratoblogster and I'm more the student than the teacher, this has devolved into a nearly entirely diary blog. I am sorry.

That being said:

• The leader's out-of-town — out-of-state, even — so we will not have practice this week, again! If we were touring and could just hit the same setlist over and over again, that would be one thing. I hate being so reliable.
• My eldest had his first concert as a high school student this evening. I love my children and want to encourage them, but honestly, going to the middle school concerts was a chore. But this time, every band, from low to high, was just really good. Kudos!
• I've found a decent tone on my multipedal. Reasonably close to the Steve Stevens Top Gun tone, as featured above. At least to my ears. I will put together a video soon.
• Years ago, there was an all-gear magazine called Guitar Shop. In one issue, they wrote about what it would take to convert a standard-scale guitar to a baritone. I can't find my copy, but I have wanted to make a baritone guitar for over a decade. This concept was at the forefront of my mind when I got the Rondo. And now, I have it intonated to be tuned BEADF#B. I think I'd have to move the bridge back further to get below that. Again, I shall have to make a video.

Great Fiddler

This violinist is Ann Marie Calhoun. She's one of two of Steve Vai's violin players. And while this isn't Vai-like, it's good.

The Object Of My Affection

I love classic rock keyboard sounds. The Hammond, the Clavinet, The Wurlitzer, the Vox Continental and of course the Fender Rhodes. I was searching the web while waking up, and I found a mention on Diane Birch's blog of a new Rhodes piano. Yes, they've restarted the Rhodes line. I originally thought "Why didn't anyone tell me?" So I'm telling you. Which made me want to do a rough price comparison with the Nord, which, to my ear, has dead-on perfect Rhodes and Hammond sounds. Just so you know, the Rhodes is running $5000 while the Nord is about half that. If I was touring and making money on it, I'd still want the Rhodes, though.

But, while I was searching, I saw this. The Korg SV-1. What struck me was the tube glowing on the control panel. I know people (Patrick) who would love it just for the tube. And it comers in under both the Rhodes and Nord. I know what's far closer to my price range, but that's what dreaming is for, right?

That Was Fun

Right now, we're at the point where we're learning one song or so per practice and mostly tightening up the old songs. That's a good place to be. For one of the songs, which is B, E and F#sus, I was hitting chord notes on the D G and B strings. The leader, he starts complementing me on my "solo". Solo? I'm hitting chord notes. I'm just playing the chords without being all strummy. But I'm hanging out on a lead tone, not the clean tone I tend to go to, and, well, he thought it was the thing.

I still wish I had a louder clean tone. I'm starting to dial in a not-too-dirty OD setting on my multieffects unit, one that'll give me the more I need without the gain. I like my lead channel, which I call "Freak" because I was trying to get some of the Mattias IA Eklundh high-gain thing with the harmonics popping out. I am beginning to like that. I'm going to have to set it up and get some video of it one of these days.

And when I said freak....


The part I love the most is the noiselessness of it. He's got gain to coax out those tones, but there's no buzz, no sound he doesn't want. As a single-coil guy, that's the one thing I'm jealous of. I think I need a super-strat.