One More, and the Truth, and You're All Set

This is a little bit of the µ thing. We're talking a 2 or 9 chord. Well, add9, as when you talk a numbered chord, you're usually talking all the odd numbers leading up to it. A 13th chord should have the 7, 9 and 11. Here, we're just tossing in the 2/9, so we're getting the root, 2, 3 and 5.

C2

E -------------
B ------1------
G ------0------
D ------0------
A ------3------
E -------------

F2

E -------------
B ------1------
G ------0------
D ------3------
A ------3------
E -------------

These are a pair of nice chords that work great together, being root and 4th/5th of each other. You can nail a lot of jam to the wall with those chords, and they sound groovier than non-mu cowboy chords. With that C, you play either of the open Es and it comes off as an add2, while it's a sus2 if you don't.

While I'm at it, I came along this B minor in an open position that's nice. Playing acoustic, I'm always on the lookout for open-position chords, and this is useful. You don't have the fifth, and if you don't really want the seventh (and who doesn't want the seventh?) you can just mute it and have the root and third. You can always grab an F# on an E string if you really need the fifth. It isn't the prettiest B minor position, but it's a fast way to get to it if you need to switch chords quickly.

Open-position Bm7

E -------------
B ------0------
G ------2------
D ------0------
A ------2------
E -------------

Well, that's three chords. Don't know if you could use 'em together, but there you go. Truth? That's something you're going to have to work out for yourself. Sorry.

What does "Stone the Crow" mean anyway?

I think this sounds like Southern Metal, like Southern Rock that starts to thrash at the chorus.

And they prove you can do metal with a Telecaster.

Practice and Performance

Tuesday. night, we had practice for Sunday. Drummer[1] wasn't going to be able to play, so instead Drummer[0] came to play. And it was interesting.

Drummer[1] is a young guy, a metal guy. Can do rolls on double drum pedals, and likes to do so. The key to the Thundering Herd, and the reason they build glass cages for drum kits. Drummer[0] ... isn't. He's an older guy, a more mellow guy. Great player, but tasteful. I always like hearing his cymbal work. And you know, that's really a key. One change in players can change a lot. We weren't a hard-charging rock machine with Drummer[0] like we are with the other. It's interesting what one player does.

But that's talkin' about the Sunday band. The Wednesday band was good, too. Of course, it has the same guy on keys and acoustic guitar. I haven't been happy with my acoustic tone, getting too much sizzle, so I used Wednesday to tweak my settings. I also switched to the lighter Fender acoustic strings (.012-.053), which should be nicer to my finger, too.

Also, my Stew-Mac abalone 6mm dots are in. Not just "I have received them". I have installed them. The holes were tight enough that I just had to shove 'em in. No glues necessary.

And I haven't forgotten why I'm here

Rainbow Guitars also has a 1954 Esquire that's just cherry. Why am I on the internet if not to drool over Tele-style guitars?

Killer L5

Rainbow Guitar calls this "the 'killer' Gibson Blonde L5". They have a gift for understatement.

The Allman Brothers, "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed" Jan 29, 1971, Fillmore West

Thank you, Wolfgang's Vault.

Gibson's Five Ideas That Will Not Work

Jonah of Gibson's Lifestyle website has five ideas to Save the Music Industry. I for one am entirely unconvinced by them.

• Fix Ticketmaster — Just what business are we talking about here? Generally, if you're talking the "music business", you're talking about selling music. If you're in the venue business, you're using the alcohol business, using the band to attract an audience. Just like the business of newpapers and magazines isn't the text, but using the text to sell the readers to the advertisers. Just like talking about Shell and BP has little to do with the auto bailout, fixing Ticketmaster, while in general a good idea, will do nothing to fix Warner and Capitol, etc.
  On the other hand, if we're talking about the big rooms, the concert halls and the stadiums with blue mats on the basketball boards, they can only do it if there are big acts to fill them, and you need to have small venues pushing small acts that grow to be big acts, or else the system dies when the last big fish dies.


• Shift The Focus From CDs To Vinyl — CDs might suck ("They’re easily scratched, ugly and make album artwork so small that it’s difficult to see without a magnifying glass ..."), but consider this. There were singles, individual good songs. The 50s were all about singles. The 60s only started to not be about singles toward the end. It was the 80s when the rock single died, and even then, it kinda didn't. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the video, the "single" even when no single was released. Same with "Rockin' in the Free World". We wanted singles, but we couldn't buy singles. Then came MP3s, and iTunes and such. We have singles again. Vinyl sales are constant to DJs and audiophile geeks. CD sales are slipping. With downloads, you have good-enough music quality wherever you want, without having to build a Hi-Fi shrine to music in your living room. That's a dog.


• Make Better Music — If only it were that easy. On the one hand, you think you're going to make "better" music than the Allmans, the Beatles, Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, Bach? (Depending on what you're going for.) On the other hand, you could make the best music possible and if nobody hears it, it goes nowhere. Radio is dead, and it's dead by self-inflicted wounds. Until you work out how people know about your music, making it "better" is futile.


• Make the iTunes Store More User-Friendly — Amazon MP3 is plenty user-friendly to me.


• Look to the Past for Perspective — It just might be that the era of recorded popular music, call it from the Bristol Sessions to Napster, has been what economists would call a bubble, and it's just done burst.