Chris Thomas, Senior Artist Relations Manager for Martin Guitar, shares the new editions to the Performing Artist Series unveiled at the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, California on January 23 – 26, 2014.
The GPCPA4 Shaded Grand Performance cutaway and the DCPA4 Shaded Dreadnought cutaway are the warmly shaded top versions of the GPCPA4 and DCPA4 models.
Find out more at martinguitar.com
Dean Markley has introduced its new XM acoustic pickup.
From the company:
Achieving true, transparent acoustic tones through amplification has always been a struggle.
Dean Markley’s new XM Series acoustic pickup is specifically designed to deliver true acoustic sound while eliminating the common problems of other amplifying techniques.
In addition to working with acoustic guitars, the XM series features a model that will work with other acoustic instruments such as fiddles, mandolins, banjos, bajo sextos, ukuleles, cello and viola. All three models are available now and are made in the U.S.
The XM (Xtra-fast Mounting) is a connection system using the popular Dean Markley ProMag Plus, ProMag Grand and Artist pickups. The XM series utilizes a 24-inch low noise cable hardwired directly to the pick and terminates at a female 1/4-inch jack. At the female 1/4-inch jack is a strap button mount that allows a musician to connect any instrument cable or wireless system. All XM units install in seconds to amplify any acoustic instrument into any amplifier, PA system or recording device. There is no drilling or modifications required so that the integrity of the instrument remains intact.
The Dean Marley Artist XM is a transducer pickup that mounts directly to the soundboard of the instrument without invasive adhesives or hardware. It is specifically designed to accommodate traditional acoustic instruments such as fiddles, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles, cellos or violas. It can also be used to amplify hollow body jazz guitars without sound holes or electronics.
Here's a photo of the Artist XM in action:
The Dean Markley ProMag Plus XM is the continuation on the original design introduced 25 years ago. The single coil pickup floats directly under the strings of an acoustic guitar or bajo sexto and is suspended in place by two foam inserts that gently caress each side of the sound hole.
Its unique design allows the pickup to capture both the sound of the vibrating string and the sound projecting from within the body of the instrument, transmitting the true, transparent acoustic tones. The suspension foam pieces also allow the user to adjust the proximity of the pickup to the strings to compensate for the actual tones created by the guitar.
Dean Markley’s ProMag Grand XM offers the same features of the ProMag Plus but houses a humbucker pickup for hum-free signal that is desired in studio recordings.
MSRP:
Artist XM – $79.95 USD
ProMag Plus XM – $109.95 USD
ProMag Grand XM – $129.95 USD
For more information, visit DeanMarkley.com.
Let’s just say I walked into King’s concert even-keeled, and I left vulnerable and in need of a gentle celebratory hug.
I know that’s wild but it’s true. This show is amazing!
In a sold out hall at BRIC House in Brooklyn, amongst strangers and in the dark, Kaki King makes you feel like she’s playing for you and you alone.
She’s a dynamo guitar player. Scratching, strumming and beating—she lets every inch of the guitar not only tell a story musically, but now you can see the story, too.
More than a concert of King’s incredible new music, her innovative spirit wows again as she experiments with projection technology. Collaborating with Glowing Pictures to turn an all-white guitar of plastic resin into a sensory projector, she gives the instrument a life-like dimension you shouldn’t miss. The guitar’s entire surface is like a video monitor.
For the first time ever we can watch someone perform on guitar and have the instrument display a real-time response. In this show, King makes the guitar as much of a crowd-draw as she is. Don’t believe me? Check out King’s Kick Starter page where fans watched a short video of the guitar and then nearly doubled her campaign request of $25,000.
Yup. There was a sensational buzz right from the start and the show doesn’t disappoint. Professional and serious about her craft, King stepped out on stage, dressed in white from head-to-toe and silently took her place on a velvet bench behind the stationary guitar.
That’s right. The guitar sits propped between two rods, fixed in place for the whole show. It’s intriguing to say the least that someone could ever play the guitar like that. She sat quietly regal and the crowd silenced. We were ready. She was ready. Game on.
To watch her work was a thing of beauty. Every song pulled you with its own unique immersive quality. A pro at crafting instrumental musical works; she took me on a musical journey. There were mellow acoustic numbers filled with warm ambient spaces and then tactile friction scratching and tapping sections.
The set was truly diverse. She creates melodic textures fit for textbooks…she could teach a thing or two about experimentation. Adults and children of all ages were enthralled as she seamlessly switched from groovy wah wah pedal, to gritty psychedelic rock, to some sort of speed fretting.
My eyes couldn’t keep up with how fast her fingers were flying! Even with all the detail I’m sharing, I’m giving nothing away. There’s so much to this show. I haven’t even told you about the huge movie screen that sits behind King. The on-screen images interplay with the guitar’s surface as if in dialogue. It’s dramatic and emotional and like I said, I almost hugged a stranger by the end.
The two packed shows she performed on March 6 were premiere viewings. As of now, there aren’t any additional concert dates posted. But don’t fear! King spoke of tour dates in the works. My advice—if you can snatch up tickets when new dates are announced, do it quickly! You don’t want to miss The Neck is a Bridge to the Body. There’s literally nothing else like it.
Here’s her site so you can check back often! KakiKing.com
Johannah Ridley is a budding songwriter and audio engineer. A quirky and all around cool gal. Find her at a social network near you ~ Facebook& Twitter
The National are a band with an unimpeachable sense for orchestral, classical beauty.
I’m not talking about an Yngwie Malmsteen type, let me show you epically I can shred in a classical scale sense.
They recognize that the most powerful emotions can almost always be conveyed through other, more subtle channels. At their best, they are a band that presents you with a loaded image.
The band’s impeccable rhythm section works perfectly in tandem with the band’s twin-brother guitarists, Bryce and Aaron Dessner, and the band’s unmistakable singer, Matt Berninger. Their songs are stirring, deeply layered and emotionally complicated.
They’re a band that could only hail from New York. New York is often just as much of a character in their songs as the people themselves. Rainy, impossibly large and daunting and yet somehow claustrophobic, the National at their finest provide an ultra-clear portrait of a grayscale city that always seems to keep its cards hidden.
So, take away all the layers of the studio, and what does that leave you? As it turns out, The National are just as emotionally stunning in an unplugged setting.
Check out The National unplugged:
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The dazzling open notes of “This Is the Last Time” tell you all you need to know. The ultra-intimate setting brings out the direct language of Berninger’s lyrics, laying them bare and out in the open. Even more so than the other three songs off of their most recent album, Trouble Will Find Me, that they play in this session, “This Is the Last Time” shines without electricity.
Not that the other three songs come up short or anything. “I Need My Girl” is as simple and beautiful a love song as you will ever hear. The emotional tug of Berninger’s longing lyrics is all the more palpable in the video, accented by the song’s brilliantly simple riff.
More piano-driven, “Pink Rabbits” is beautifully resigned, as Berninger addresses the main character of the song, asking them directly “am I the one you think about when you’re sitting in fainting chair drinking pink rabbits?”
Even the hard-rocking “Sea of Love” translates brilliantly into acoustic form, with the song’s show-stopping bridge made all the more hushed with the acoustics.
The National are a band that work well in every setting, and even without the studio mastery that has made their discography one of the most formidable in rock music, they shine as one of rock’s brightest lights. This acoustic mini-concert is something special, and a fantastic example of a band perfectly translating their songs across the musical spectrum.
See more of The National here
Ernie Ball's new online series, Real to Reel with Slash, debuted February 25 on Slash's official YouTube channel.
Part 3 of the series, which you can watch below, shows Slash & Co. — better known as "Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators"— hard at work at a studio in Los Angeles working on their next album.
Each clip in the series showcases a behind-the-scenes peek at the band's sessions. This episode puts the focus on the overall recording process. You can check out Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Stay tuned for the next episode and continuing news about the upcoming album.
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Occasionally, I'll kick my '63 Fender Reverb unit to get an unbeatable crashing sound during surf shows — but what the guy does in the video below takes that to a whole new level, to say the least.
In the clip, which was created to demonstrate the durability of Four Force guitar amps, a dude kicks the amp, drops it off a ladder, throws it and more — all while a guitarist plays a funky rhythm part.
From the company:
"Ever wanted to pick up your amp on stage and smash it, but were afraid of breaking something so valuable? Check out this indestructible amp from Four Force!"
You'll notice the amp doesn't stop working during the video.
For more information about Four Force amps, check out this review that appeared on GuitarWorld.com last year (with audio), and visit fourforce.us.
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Korg has introduced — or shall we say re-introduced — the Nuvibe. The classic Korg modulation effect is being offered again with modern enhancements.
From the company:
In the Sixties, Korg debuted a modulation effect pedal that drew the attention of guitarists around the world when it was used by a legendary guitarist in a historic performance at Woodstock.
For more than a half century, the inimitable sound of this distinctive modulation effect has captivated guitarists and audiences alike. Now, under the original engineer's supervision, this legendary classic has been reborn in its new incarnation: the Nuvibe.
As with the original, the Nuvibe effect pedal offers a switch for selecting vibrato or chorus, plus Intensity and Speed knobs for producing its distinctive sound. The buffer circuit that was an integral part of the original's sonic character has been re-designed for the modern player by the original engineer. The CdS photoresistor that was the heart of the original pedal has been recreated using 79 transistors, providing an accurate simulation that meets today's standards.
Nuvibe also includes some newly designed features not found on the original effect unit. Most notable are the ten WAVE sliders that allow users to not only create a variety of effects faithful to the original, but create their own sounds via custom LFO waveforms as well.
As on the original, a dedicated expression pedal enables guitarists to use their foot to control the modulation effect. An unlatch switch lets the modulation effect be easily cancelled.
The Nuvibe runs on both batteries and AC power. It will be in stores in early summer 2014 for a U.S. Street price of $499.99.
For more about Korg, visit korgusa.com.
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Deep Purple have released a promo video for the upcoming deluxe reissue of their classic 1972 (U.K.) and 1973 (U.S.) live album, Made in Japan.
The album, which will be released May 19, will include previously unseen footage on DVD, bonus material and mixes, memorabilia and a hardback book. It's available for pre-order here.
The album was recorded live over three nights — August 15 to 17, 1972 — at Festival Hall, Osaka and Budokan, Tokyo. Four of the tracks come from the band's 1972 Machine Head album.
It featured what many consider the classic Deep Purple lineup — Ian Gillan (vocals), Richie Blackmore (guitars), Roger Glover (bass), Jon Lord (organ) and Ian Paice (drums).
Originally recorded only for the Japanese market, the album has since become seen as one of Deep Purple's seminal albums and one of the greatest live albums of all time.
The Made in Japan formats are:
• Limited Edition Super Deluxe 4 CD+DVD+7" Boxed Set
• Limited Edition Super Deluxe 9LP Boxed Set
• Deluxe Edition 2CD
• 180g 2LP
• Blu-Ray Pure Audio
• HD Download
• Mastered For iTunes Digital format
• Standard Digital formats.
Since its appearance in Guitar World in 1990, Steve Vai's intensive guitar regimen has been the Holy Grail for serious players.
In our new book, Guitar World Presents Steve Vai's Guitar Workout, you'll find the lessons that shaped a generation of guitarists. Vai sat down with guitarist/transcriber Dave Whitehill and outlined his practice routine for the January 1990 issue of GW. Never before had a guitarist given such an in-depth explanation of his musical exercise regimen.
It became a must-have for guitarists. Many of the players interviewed in GW have cited it as an influence on their development as guitarists. Here's a chance to experience the workout in its original form and to learn some of the things Vai has done to develop his formidable chops and remarkable music vocabulary.
In this book, Vai reveals his path to virtuoso enlightenment with two challenging guitar workouts – one 10-hour and one 30-hour – which include scale and chord exercises, ear training, sight-reading, music theory, and much more. These comprehensive workouts are reprinted by permission from Guitar World magazine.
This book is available now at the Guitar World Online Store for only $14.99.
Here's a fan-shot video of Paul Gilbert and Guthrie Govan jamming on ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses."
The video, which was posted to YouTube last October, was shot at Gilbert's 2012 Great Guitar Escape at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York.
Note that while the clip itself is pretty lengthy, the song actually kicks off at the 5:01 mark. The guitar solos take flight at 7:08.
This August, Gilbert is hosting the G4 Experience, which he describes as, "more than a show, more than a seminar, more than a backstage pass." Attendees will give you inspiration and ideas that'll keep you playing guitar for years. Those who have attended Gilbert's Great Guitar Escape camp know he puts everything into making these camps into unforgettable events.
Gilbert will be performing, teaching and offering everyone who attends a chance to jam with him. For the G4 Experience, Gilbert will team up with Joe Satriani, Andy Timmons and Mike Kenneally.
For more about the G4 Experience, visit g4experience.com.
GuitarWorld.com is revisiting Steve Vai's classic mag column, "The Ultra Zone," for this crash course in ear training.
I could never overstate the importance of a musician’s need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good “inner ear” — the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening — is the most important element in becoming a good musician. Possessing a healthy imagination is a necessary ingredient for creativity.
But without the ability to bring those imagined sounds into the real world, one’s creative aspirations will remain crippled. Training one’s ears to understand and recognize musical sounds and concepts is one of the most vital ways to fortify the connection between the musical ideas in one’s mind and the musical sounds created on one’s instrument.
All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her “ear” — the understanding and recognition of musical elements — for guidance.
This is also true when trying to emulate a piece of music, or transcribe it, or even just finding inspiration in it. No matter what one is playing, one’s ear is the navigational device that steers the musical ship where it will go. Without a good ear at the helm, you could find yourself musically adrift at sea.
I have always been fascinated with looking at music written on paper. When I was in college, I took a class called solfege, which entailed learning how to sight-sing. Sight-singing is the art of looking at a piece of written music and singing it. First, you identify the key center, and then you sing the written pitches, using the “doe-ray-me” phonetic structure, just like that song in the movie The Sound of Music. “Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do” (pronounced “Doe-ray-me-fa-so-la-tee-doe”) represents a major scale; there are other monosyllabic sounds that represent the other pitches that reside within a 12-tone octave. These solfege classes in college were difficult courses, but they were well worth the time invested. A thorough study and analysis of solfege within the confines of this column would be impractical, so I can only encourage you to investigate it on your own.
I’ve always considered transcribing to be an invaluable tool in the development of one’s musical ear and, over the years, I have spent countless glorious hours transcribing different kinds of music, either guitar-oriented or not. The most well-known example of my guitar-based transcribing labors is The Frank Zappa Guitar Book (Hal Leonard), for which I transcribed, among other things, the entire Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar series of recordings. Many musicians, however, do not have the ability to pull the sounds — guitar solos, rhythm parts, melody lines, etc.—off the records that they love. Transcribing is an art that takes a lot of practice and a study that I encourage everyone to experiment with.
But fear not: you do not need to have the ability to sight-read or transcribe in order to practice ear training exercises. If you are just sitting there with a guitar, there are still a great many ways to develop your ears, in the quest to strengthen the connection between your head and your fingers. Below, I have outlined some of the ways a guitarist can work on ear training exercises using just the guitar.
As guitarists, there are certain things that most of us do that are simply part of the program: we learn some scales, develop some exercises intended to improve our physical abilities, work on chord forms on different parts of the neck, etc. I believe it is extremely important to put aside some time dedicated solely to focusing on ear training.
One of the easiest ways to begin working on ear training is to sing what you play. For example, you can play a C major scale (C D E F G A B) in any position — preferably one that is physically comfortable for you—and sing each note of the scale as you play it, being very careful to sing on pitch as accurately as possible. Start with one note: play the note, sing it, and then play and sing the note simultaneously. Then go to two notes. Once you feel comfortable, take a little piece of that scale, say, the notes C, D, E and F, and create a very simple melody with these notes for you to sing simultaneously, à la jazz guitarist George Benson.
This is an easy way to get your ear in sync with the sounds your fingers are creating. Whether you’re soloing over a rhythmic vamp or are playing alone in free time, you have to really stick with it, and don’t allow yourself to slip up or drift into something else. The idea is to endlessly improvise and sing what you are playing, using any key.
Another good thing to do is to record a simple one-chord vamp to play over. First, only play/sing notes that fall within the key, staying within a basic note structure of a five-, six- or seven-tone scale. Don’t start wandering off into your favorite guitar licks to play; save that for another time, when you’ve developed your ear to the point where you can sing just about anything you can play. This is an exercise in discipline: do not play anything that you cannot follow perfectly with your voice. Whether you stay within one octave of the guitar, or you sing the notes an octave lower than the sounding pitches, or you use falsetto to hit the high notes, you must be able to recreate all of the notes played on the guitar with your voice.
If you work on this every day, you’ll find yourself getting better and better at it, and it will become easier to do. The cool thing that happens is that you’ll begin to hear music more clearly in your head, allowing you to formulate musical ideas—write music—within your head, without the aid of a guitar. When you finally do pick up the instrument, you will discover that you will instinctively be able to play these ideas that have taken form in your mind.
To take this a step further, try this exercise: without a guitar at your disposal, picture the guitar’s fretboard in your mind, and then envision playing something so that you will “hear” and “see” the notes as they are played. It may be helpful to sing the notes as you imagine them being played. This is an excellent exercise that will fortify your mind-fretboard relationship and actually improve your ear by strengthening the acknowledgment of “pitch relativity” (how one pitch relates to another, in terms of sound and placement) on the guitar’s fretboard. You may discover some cloudy areas in your mind’s eye/ear, but if you work through it, the picture will soon become clearer and clearer.
These techniques do not address the act of playing one thing on the guitar and singing something completely different. Someone like Jimi Hendrix had the uncanny ability to play very complex rhythm parts and single-note riffs while singing complementary parts. This technique requires a whole different set of brain muscles and is very difficult for many players. Playing one thing while singing another must be worked on as an independent field of study. If I could play the guitar and sing at the same time, hey, I might have a career! I’ll be back next time with some more effective ways to help you to develop your ear.
Gibson has introduced its new limited-edition 1965 Donovan model J-45 acoustic guitar. The guitar is based on the Gibson J-45 Donovan bought on Sunset Boulevard in the mid-Sixties.
"I wrote every song on it from late 1965 into ’70, when it was stolen during a college-town gig," Donovan told Guitar World last month.
This meticulously recreated J-45 honors Donovan and the music he created on the original guitar — and bear in mind, we're talking about rock classics that include "Sunshine Superman,""Season of the Witch,""Mellow Yellow,""Wear Your Love Like Heaven,""Hurdy Gurdy Man" and many more.
The body radius, neck, finish and Sixties-style adjustable bridge were carefully recreated in order to build a custom-shop signature model for one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the last century.
The guitar features the LR Baggs Lyric acoustic guitar microphone, an amplification system featuring a bridge-plate-mounted, featherweight microphone. You can check out Guitar World's review of the Lyric system right here.
Labels on the guitars are personally signed by Donovan; all his proceeds from the guitar will be donated to teaching transcendental meditation. The guitar was built in Bozeman, Montana.
"I was speaking to Peter Leinheiser from Gibson two years ago, and I said, 'My little J-45 still hasn’t turned up'," Donovan said. "I think he said, 'You’re being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Why don’t we make you one?'”
For the rest of this conversation (during which Donovan discusses the guitar, his picking style, working with Jeff Beck, Rick Rubin, Jimmy Page and more), check out the "Dear Guitar Hero" feature in the upcoming May 2014 issue of Guitar World magazine.
For more about Donovan — and his guitar master classes — visit donovan.ie. For more about the limited-edition Donovan J-45, check out the specs below and visit gibson.com.
GIBSON DONOVAN J-45 SPECS:
Body style: J-45 series, with a Sixties period-correct radiused body
Wood: Sitka spruce top, mahogany back and sides
Binding: Multi-ply top, single-ply back, multi-ply double-ring rosette
Finish: Period-correct Cherry Sunburst, Nitrocellulose Lacquer
Electronics:LR Baggs Lyric microphone
Strings: Gibson light gauge .012-.053; La Bella Silk & Steel strings are included in the case
Tuning machines: Vintage-style white button, 15:1
Pickguard: Tortoise Fifties-style pickguard
Bridge: Traditional rosewood belly up with adjustable saddle
Scale: 24 3/4”
Fingerboard: 12-inch radius rosewood with MOP dot inlay
Nut width: 1.725” bone
Neck-to-body: Compound dovetail secured with hide glue at the 14th fret
Neck: One-piece mahogany
Below, check out "Faith Is a Room," a new song by KXM, a band that features guitarist George Lynch, Korn drummer Ray Luzier and King's X bassist dUg/Doug Pinnick.
The song is from KXM's new self-titled album, which was released yesterday, March 11.
"When you’re working as a pro musician in LA, you're frequently running into other players who you know and respect," Lynch told RevolverMag.com.
"A lot of times, the 'dream band' conversation comes up. It's fun to talk about. A lot of times, it's the alcohol talking. But the reality for most of us is that we're locked into other commitments and obligations that in the cold light of day don't really afford us the time or flexibility to pull off these projects that look great on paper."
For the rest of this conversation with all three members of KXM, visit RevolverMag.com.
KXM’s self-titled album was released March 11 and is available at ratpakrecordsamerica.com.
Hi everyone, and welcome to my new column for Guitar World.
Over the next few months, I will be demonstrating many of the totally awesome solos, rhythm parts and techniques I use in creating the incredible music for my band, Steel Panther, surely one of the greatest heavy metal bands to come out of Canoga Park in the last three years.
I’d like to kick things off with a song of mine called “Gold-Digging Whore.”
This is a topic I think everyone can relate to, even you eight-year olds out there, because there’s always some girl that is just talking to you because you have extra lunch money. It never stops. At my age, ladies see me driving by in my ’92 Toyota Corolla with 22-inch rims and they know immediately that I have a lot of expendable money.
The solo in “Gold-Digging Whore” is a timeless classic, so let’s focus on the rhythm and lead parts for this section of the song in this column.
FIGURE 1a illustrates the primary four-bar rhythm pattern (see Gtr. 1 part) behind the solo. Starting on C#m, I use a palm-muted low C# note as a pedal tone, played in steady eighth notes. This note serves as a common bass note for the next two chords, B/C# and A/C#, which are both accented on the last eighth note of bars 1 and 2, respectively.
This four-bar rhythm part is basically played three times, but the third time I end it by going to the “five” chord, G#5. This is shown as the first bar of FIGURE 1b, at the end of bar 12. The G#5 tonality holds through bars 12–15, with little power chord slides between A5, G#5 and F#5. In bar 16, I descend to F#5 and E5, ending with a vibratoed D# note, which is the fifth of G#.
Onto the solo, which is shown as FIGURE 2 (see bars 1–16). In most of my solos, I like to rely on melody and slow, wide vibratos, because I know this is what the ladies like to hear. In bars 1–4, I use notes from C# Aeolian, or natural minor (C# D# E F# G# A B). Bar 5 features a cool lick built from repeated hammer-ons that move across the first through fifth strings, starting with a wide stretch on the high E, with the index finger at the fourth fret and the pinkie hammering onto the ninth fret.
Let me tell you that, even though they don’t have Grammys for guitar solos, this solo was nominated for a Guammy on the island of Guam, for Best Solo, based on the note choice alone.
PART ONE
PART TWO
Never has it been easier for songwriters to get their music heard. But never has it been harder to get paid for it.
As more music streaming services flood our lives with songs, songwriters find that their revenue stream from the music stream goes from small to miniscule.
Have you seen the pie chart that represents how many sales of various kinds it takes a songwriter to earn minimum wage? You can check it out here.
Basically, it says that it takes over 4 million plays a month on Spotify for a musician to earn a living at minimum wage. Four million. I don’t have that kind of airplay. Do you?
Long gone are the days when music mattered enough to attract patrons who supported musicians while they enriched our culture.
Now, even long standing folk venues are closing down, and musicians are increasingly being offered nonpaying gigs for "exposure." But, as a friend of mine pointed out, people die of exposure.
Songwriting as a profession teeters dangerously on the precipice of becoming songwriting as a hobby.
An outdated revenue stream
It is no surprise, then, that royalty streams are of ever greater importance to the performing songwriter. Until recently, performers and composers have earned royalty income through two separate mechanisms: the right to publicly perform their works and the right to make reproductions of their works and distribute those reproductions.
The section of the United States Copyright act that regulates how much writers and performers are paid was drafted in 1909, and dictated the rate of 2 cents per song per use. And in the more than 100 years since then, the rate has risen to only 9.1 cents per song.
The minimal increase is due to the current law that directs the Copyright royalty board (the body responsible for setting the standard rate) to apply a rate that does not reflect the true market value of the work. The current Section 114(i) of the Copyright Act limits the evidence the federal rate court is allowed to consider when determining songwriter compensation, and forbids the courts from even considering sound recording royalty rates as a relevant benchmark when setting performance royalties rates for songwriters and composers.
The result is an untenable situation where the performances of sound recordings are valued at 12 times those of the musical compositions that underlie them; songwriters and composers receive substantially less for a performance, or “stream” of a song than for the sound recording of the same song.
New legislation
But Legislation introduced last month by Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), members of the House Committee on the Judiciary, hope to address this inequity by updating those two key provisions in the Copyright Act so that songwriters, composers and publishers receive fair compensation for the use of their intellectual property.
The Songwriter Equity Act (SEA), H.R. 4079, will allow a "rate court" to consider other royalty rates as evidence when establishing digital performance rates for songwriters and composers, and it would adopt a fair, free market rate standard for reproduction (mechanical licenses).
"The Songwriter Equity Act is an important first step toward a more effective and efficient licensing system that will benefit everyone – consumers, music licensees and the songwriters and composers who are the foundation of the rapidly changing music environment," ASCAP president and chairman Paul Williams said in a statement.
"But while technology is creating amazing opportunities for music to reach new audiences, it’s also creating real challenges for songwriters and other creators when it comes to licensing our work, because the rules that govern how we do business haven’t kept pace...By updating the outdated provisions of the Copyright Act in Sections 114(i) and 115, Congress has an opportunity to modernize the music licensing system so that songwriters and composers can thrive alongside the businesses that use our music."
Strong support
The bill has received public support from The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), Broadcast Music, Inc, (BMI), and the Recording Academy (The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences), and SESAC.
For the insomniacs among you, the full text of the bill can be found HERE.
Tweet your support here
Singer-songwriter Laura Zucker wins audiences over with a hard-won perspective and a positive spin. The powerful imagery of her songs and stories ring so true you might think she’s read your diary – and you’ll find yourself humming her infectious melodies for days to come. She’s a two-time finalist in the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk competition in Texas, 2013 West Coast Songwriters Association Best Song of the Year, and has received numerous accolades and awards from the organizations around the world. She has released four CDs of original songs with the latest, Life Wide Open, released in late 2013. Find tour dates, music and more at LauraZucker.com
If you're a Led Zeppelin fan, June 3 is your Celebration Day.
That's the day Atlantic/Swan Song will launch its massive reissue campaign of all nine of the band's studio albums in chronological order, starting with Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin III, all of which have been remastered by Jimmy Page.
Led Zeppelin will also open their vaults to share dozens of unheard studio and live recordings, with each album featuring a second disc of companion audio comprised entirely of unreleased music related to that album.
"The material on the companion discs presents a portal to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin," Page says. "It is a selection of work in progress with rough mixes, backing tracks, alternate versions and new material recorded at the time"
For more photos, check out the photo gallery below!
Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin III will each be available in the following formats:
• Single CD - Remastered album packaged in a gatefold card wallet.
• Deluxe Edition (2CD) - Remastered album, plus a second disc of unreleased companion audio.
• Single LP - Remastered album on 180-gram vinyl, packaged in a sleeve that replicates the LP's first pressing in exacting detail. (For example, III will feature the original wheel and die cut holes.)
• Deluxe Edition Vinyl - Remastered album and unreleased companion audio on 180-gram vinyl.
• Digital Download - Remastered album and companion audio will both be available.
• Super Deluxe Boxed Set - This collection includes:
o Remastered album on CD in vinyl replica sleeve.
o Companion audio on CD in card wallet.
o Remastered album on 180-gram vinyl in a sleeve replicating first pressing.
o Companion audio on 180-gram vinyl.
o High-def audio download card of all content at 96kHz/24 bit. (Live tracks are 48kHz/24 bit).
o Hard bound, 70+ page book filled with rare and previously unseen photos and memorabilia.
o High quality print of the original album cover, the first 30,000 of which will be individually numbered.
o Led Zeppelin will also include a replica of the band's original Atlantic press kit.
The companion audio for Led Zeppelin features a previously unreleased performance recorded October 10, 1969, at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. The nine-song set features seven tracks from the album, including an epic 15-minute version of "Dazed And Confused," as well as "Heartbreaker" and "Moby Dick," which would debut on Led Zeppelin II later that month.
The Led Zeppelin II companion audio gives fans the first peek into the band's recording sessions, with alternate mixes of five songs from the album, backing tracks to "Thank You" and "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)," and the previously unreleased track "La La."
The nine tracks featured on Led Zeppelin III's companion audio continue to offer a window into the band's recording process with seven studio outtakes of songs from the album as well as three previously unheard compositions: "Jennings Farm Blues" (an instrumental forerunner of "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp"), "Bathroom Sound" (an instrumental version of "Out On The Tiles"), and their take on the blues classics "Keys To The Highway/Trouble In Mind."
For more photos, check out the photo gallery below!
You can check out the track listings below. For more information, and to pre-order, visit ledzeppelin.com.
Led Zeppelin Track Listing:
01. "Good Times Bad Times"
02. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"
03. "You Shook Me"
04. "Dazed And Confused"
05. "Your Time Is Gonna Come"
06. "Black Mountain Side"
07. "Communication Breakdown"
08. "I Can't Quit You Baby"
09. "How Many More Times" Companion Audio Disc
Live At The Olympia — Paris, France, October 10, 1969:
01. "Good Times Bad Times/Communication Breakdown"
02. "I Can't Quit You Baby"
03. "Heartbreaker"
04. "Dazed And Confused"
05. "White Summer/Black Mountain Side"
06. "You Shook Me"
07. "Moby Dick"
08. "How Many More Times"
Led Zeppelin II Track Listing:
01. "Whole Lotta Love"
02. "What Is And What Should Never Be"
03. "The Lemon Song"
04. "Thank You"
05. "Heartbreaker"
06. "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)"
07. "Ramble On"
08. "Moby Dick" Companion Audio Disc
01. "Whole Lotta Love"
02. "What Is And What Should Never Be"
03. "Thank You"
04. "Heartbreaker"
05. "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)"
06. "Ramble On"
07. "Moby Dick"
08. "La La"
Led Zeppelin III Track Listing:
01. "Immigrant Song"
02. "Friends"
03. "Celebration Day"
04. "Since I've Been Loving You"
05. "Out On The Tiles"
06. "Gallows Pole"
07. "Tangerine"
08. "That's The Way"
09. "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp"
10. "Hats Off To (Roy) Harper" Companion Audio Disc
01. "The Immigrant Song"
02. "Friends"
03. "Celebration Day"
04. "Since I've Been Loving You"
05. "Bathroom Sound"
06. "Gallows Pole"
07. "That's The Way"
08. "Jennings Farm Blues"
09. "Keys To The Highway/Trouble In Mind"
Hello, and welcome to my new Guitar World instructional column.
In the coming months, I’ll share with you some of the guitar-playing concepts and approaches that have helped me develop my technique and overall playing style. I’d like to start off with an examination of ascending scalar shapes that, by design, cover the majority of the fretboard.
I have found such patterns to be very useful for both melodic and shred-style playing and also very helpful in regard to the “greater mission,” which is to gain a fuller and deeper understanding of the construction of musical ideas within the framework of the guitar’s fretboard.
The following examples are built from phrases made up of three notes per string that are played across two strings, resulting in various six-note shapes. I play these shapes in a rhythm of straight 16th notes, however, so there is an inherent “threes on twos” kind of rhythm that is alluded to throughout.
All of the phrases in this lesson are based on the E natural minor scale (E F# G A B C D), also known as the E Aeolian mode.
In FIGURE 1, using alternate (down-up-downup) picking throughout, I ascend the D and G strings, beginning on the note E on the D string’s second fret, fretted with the index finger. I follow with two more notes on the D string, fretted with the ring finger and pinkie, and then I move over to the G string and play three ascending notes fretted in exactly the same manner—index to ring to pinkie.
On the upbeat of beat two, I shift up to the next fretboard position of E natural minor and use my index finger, middle finger and pinkie to sound three notes per string on the D and G strings. A third six-note shape then appears when we move up one more time, with the index finger, middle finger and pinkie employed for the wider stretch needed for the subsequent pair of three-note shapes.
Notice that, as you ascend through this riff, there are slight variances in the shapes used on each specific string in order to accommodate the notes of E natural minor. If we move the idea down to the bottom two strings, as shown in FIGURE 2, we find that the same fretting shapes are used, albeit in a different sequence.
And the same is true when we move the idea up to the top two strings, as illustrated in FIGURE 3. Only three different physical shapes are used to form the three-note patterns, and this is good, because it enables one to develop muscle memory in the fret-hand, which is immeasurably beneficial.
The only exception to this consistency of shapes occurs when playing similar patterns on the G and B strings. That’s because these two strings are tuned a major third apart, whereas the adjacent strings in the other pairs are tuned a perfect fourth apart.
As shown in FIGURE 4, one must move up an additional half step—one fret—when crossing from the G string to the B. FIGURE 5 offers a clearer representation of this B-string shift within a longer example that moves across all of the strings. Once you have these shapes under your fingers, experiment with moving them to every area of the fretboard, and then transpose the patterns to all 12 keys.
PART ONE
PART TWO
This month I’d like to demonstrate the technique I use to perform the two-handed-tapping riff that occurs during the bridge/chorus section of the song “Sevens,” from my Erotic Cakes album.
Before getting to the “Sevens” lick, I’m going to break down the technique involved so that you will be able to apply this idea to creating riffs of your own. The genesis of the lick was in trying to find a new way to play a major-seven arpeggio. I started out by breaking it down into two notes per string, as shown in FIGURE 1a.
Using the index finger and pinkie only, I descend from the major seventh of Eb, D, at the 22nd fret of the high E string, to a low Eb on the sixth string’s 11th fret. I then took this idea and performed it with fretboard tapping, as shown in FIGURE 1b. Now, the higher note in each pair is sounded with a pick-hand fretboard tap, and the lower note is sounded with a fret-hand “hammer-on from nowhere.” Be sure to tap hard onto each note so that it will sound clearly, and try to not allow any of the notes to ring into each other.
The next step was to break up the descending pattern and play it non-sequentially. What I arrived at was FIGURE 2. Here, I sound consecutive single notes on the high E and B strings, both sounded with fretboard taps, followed by the lower associated notes on the top two strings, sounded with fret-hand hammer-ons. The fret hand mirrors this approach by also using the pinkie and middle fingers. Start by playing this pattern slowly and then increase the speed.
Now let’s take this same approach and apply it to the four-note groups on the lower pairs of strings, starting with the B and G strings, as shown in FIGURE 3. I use the same technique here but switch to the ring and middle fingers for both the pick-hand taps and the fret-hand hammer-ons.
In FIGURE 4, I’ve moved the idea down one more pair of strings to the G and D. Here, I tap with the middle and ring fingers of the pick hand but use my frethand pinkie and middle finger to fret the other notes.
FIGURE 5 then runs the three patterns together. You can take this idea further by continuing onto the two bottom pairs of strings, as demonstrated in FIGURES 6a and 6b. Now that you’ve got the idea, try some different arpeggios: FIGURE 7 outlines Ebm7, and FIGURE 8 begins with Efsus4 and then moves through Ebmaj7 and Ebm7.
Finally, the “Sevens” lick, appropriately played in a meter of 7/4, is shown in FIGURE 9. Using the same technique, I move through the different pairs of strings in a specific alternating pattern.
This list of Guitar World's 10 essential classic metal albums is part of a much larger feature — Guitar World's 100 Essential Guitar Albums — which you'll be seeing in the weeks ahead.
For the time being, we'll start you off with these 10 masterpieces from guys named Tipton, Hammett, Young and Slash.
And, to help you get into the spirit of the music on this list, we thought you could use some inspiration:
INSPIRATIONAL VERSE:"I'm on the highway to hell!"— "Highway to Hell," AC/DC
INSPIRATIONAL LICK:"Iron Man," Black Sabbath
THE LOOK: Leather trousers, demin jacket and long, unwashed hair. Shirt optional.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE:
• Guitar: Gibson Les Paul, Gibson Flying V
• Amps: Marshall JCM800 (with 4x12 full stack, dude!)
• Effects: Rangemaster Treble Booster, DOD 250 Overdrive/Preamp, Dunlop Cry Baby Wah, MXR Flanger, MXR Phase 90
The all-new April 2014 issue of Guitar World is available now!
In the new April issue, we check in with guitarist Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons, who celebrate their upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with a pair of revealing interviews about their 40 years in Kiss. Also, Stanley and Simmons rate Kiss guitarists past and present: from Ace to Tommy Thayer.
In addition, we make the case for 15 artists still waiting to be admitted into the Hall of Fame, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dimebag Darrell, Ted Nugent and Soundgarden.
Also, read about how a new generation of acoustic guitar fingerstylists is blazing a daring style of percussive, alternate-tuned shred. Then, try it out for yourself! Guitar World presents an instructional guide to the inspired techniques of percussive acoustic guitar playing.
Finally, the Scorpions wrap up their nearly 50-year run with a new Unplugged release and a farewell album of songs from their Eighties heyday.
PLUS: The best gear of the New Year — Guitar World picks the greatest guitars, amps, effects and accessories from the 2014 Winter NAMM Show.
Five Songs with Tabs for Guitar and Bass
• Daryl Kellie - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
• Kiss - "Black Diamond"
• Lamb of God - "Now You've Got Something to Die For"
• Daft Punk - "Get Lucky"
• Arctic Monkeys- "Do I Wanna Know?"
The April 2014 issue of Guitar World is available now at the Guitar World Online Store!
