Tag Archives: guitar

The Year of the Dragon

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Bruce Lee

李小龙

李小龙

This year is the year of the dragon in China. I was born in 1988, so this is my year, which only happens every 12 years. So why not talk Bruce Lee, the “Little Dragon”? I went to watch a documentary about him a week ago, called I am Bruce Lee. This is a really good documentary, it touches on every part of his life from his childhood up until his tragic death at age 32. There was also lots of celebrities who talked about him at length, including his wife, daughter, Kobe Bryant, UFC President Dana White, etc. It’s all very interesting, and I think more people should watch the film, about a man who sought to defy racial stereotypes and promote Chinese pride over 40 years ago. He brought Chinese martial arts to the west, was the father of mixed martial arts (his ‘style’ is called Jeet Kune Do, the way of the intercepting fist), the first major Asian star in the U.S, married a white woman (still rare today that Asian men marry white women), and a great philosopher who constantly strove to improve his body and mind. All that, and he died young. Perhaps those that God loves die young.

Acoustic Guitar

I’ve recently decided to focus more on acoustic guitar. I’ve played guitar for 8 years now… and up until recently have focused on the electric and shunned the acoustic. I’ve always thought electric guitars could do anything, emulate any instrument like violin, and guzheng, and piano and even acoustic guitar. Although I can make it sound similar, there’s something about acoustic guitar that feels really natural, and I love the portability of it, not needing an amp to play. I can easily bring it to a friend’s house, unlike an electric. So all this is short for ‘I bought a new acoustic guitar’. Yup. A Martin OMJM for $2500.

Martin OMJM

Martin OMJM

What can I say? It’s really really good, and I love playing it. An acoustic guitar only has one factor in the tone besides your playing, and that’s the guitar itself. An electric guitar however, has lots of factors like the guitar, pickups, cables, pedals, amp, strings, etc. An acoustic guitar really only has strings and the guitar itself, hence the pricey investment. Here’s a video of me playing it.

Social Life
Finally,  I found that its still been hard for me to make friends here. Mostly because of my chronic shyness. Why is it so easy for me to talk to someone online but in person I lose all courage and become so shy? Perhaps I am afraid of people reacting to me.. but I want to fix it, how do I fix being a loner? Go out and meet people. Join meetup groups. Attend church services. Volunteer. Go to clubs and events. Take courses. Look for ways to connect with people from the bay area. Find a roommate once my lease is up. Most importantly though, I have to keep practicing talking with people, especially with talking with  a group of people, and sustaining a conversation, which I find difficult. Because I’ve been a loner since I was young, this is something that needs a lot of practice. If I don’t practice, I will be doomed to be forever alone… =( .

Blues Guitar

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My biggest hobby is probably playing guitar, and if you’ve read some of my blogs, you’d know I like to attach some videos of myself playing. My favorite type of music to play on guitar is blues. This is interesting, because blues isn’t a very mainstream kind of music, not like rock or punk or pop. Blues music originally came from black musicians, near the Mississippi delta. Later on, there became different types of blues like delta blues, Chicago blues, Texas blues, etc.

A lot of people find this interesting because its very rare that an Asian guy like myself would listen to blues music, let alone play it. And to be honest, there’s very few Asian American rock musicians, and even fewer Asian American blues musicians. However, someday I hope I can produce and record my own album, that would be cool.

I love to jam, improvise and record without any constraints on my music. This video is a blues jam in A minor, I used a bit of overdrive here, with a looper for the background music.

Here’s another funky blues jam that I fingerpicked, John Mayer style. I find this way you can get a lot of neat sounds and rhythm in. No backing track, but there’s a delay for a cool slapback effect. Both of these clips are near 10 minutes long, since I tend to lose track of time when I record >.<

Blues will continue to be one of my favorite genres of music. Its especially suited to guitar, and the first scale I learned on guitar (I’m self taught) was the pentatonic minor, which is the basis of blues. To get a better feel for blues music, listen to some Robert Johnson, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B King, Albert King, Freddie King, Albert Collins, etc for some of that old 50s style blues. For 60s and more ‘electric’ type blues, take a listen to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, Eric Clapton (while he was in the Bluesbreakers), Mike Bloomfield, Roy Buchanan and Rory Gallagher. Those are some of my favorite blues artists.

Tips on improving guitar tone, equipment

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Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

Alright, a break from politics for a while. Since I’m one of the rare Asians that can play guitar better than piano, some ask me for improving their tone on guitar.
Well, there’s several key guidelines to follow.

Firstly, tone is subjective. What kind of tone do you want? Hendrix? Metallica? Slash? Those all have very different tones. Personally though, my tone tends to go somewhere in between Jimi Hendrix and John Mayer with a bit of Eric Clapton on the side. Though I do play blues, it’s not the overwound, in your face, Stevie Ray Vaughan type. For this reason, I tend to play clean alot. Here is an overview of what equipment I use and what tips I can give people:

1) Amplifier: Your amplifier is probably what constitutes most of your tone. I recommend a good tube amp, because tubes sound more natural and organic than solid state, plus they can be driven louder. However, tube amps are pretty expensive. That’s why I suggest starting out with a solid state amp and then progressing to a tube amp. Good tube amps for clean tone include Fender Twin Reverb, as well as Fender Vibroverb, Fender Bassman, or any other Fender amplifier. Vox are also a good choice for that British sound. If you are looking for a more boutique amp, try Victoria Amp. I personally use a Traynor YCV20.

2) Speakers and Tubes: This kind of goes along with the amp thing. Speakers and tubes affect the amp, which affects your tone. Popular tubes include JJ Tubes, Electro Harmonix and Groove Tubes. 6L6 power tubes tend be a better fit for clean tones than EL84 or EL34s. For speakers, try Celestion, Jensen, Tone Tubby and Eminence. I personally use a 12″ Celestion Alnico Blue for my small amp.

3) Strings and Cables: Yes, the type of strings and cables you use for your guitar affects your tone. Use a good quality set of both. For strings, there’s Ernie Ball, D’addario, and Dean Markley. I personally use Elixir Strings because of their longevity and smoothness. For cables, there’s a bunch: Pro Co, Monster cable, Planet Waves, but personally I just use Fender cables.

4) Guitar: yes, obviously the guitar affects the tone. I prefer and have always used Fender Stratocasters for their versatility and gorgeous clean tone compared to any other type of guitar, but for clean tone, good calls can also be made for Fender telecasters, Epiphone Casinos, Gibson ES-335, Gretsch Country Gentlemens, etc. I usually prefer nitrocellulose finished guitars as opposed to polyurethane finished because the nitro lacquer is a thinner layer of paint, which gives the guitar more room to resonate, and therefore more tone. However, most new guitars these days will be poly finished, and the only way to get nitro finished would be to get a vintage guitar or a vintage reissue. I personally have a 1960s reissue American Stratocaster in sunburst with nitro paint and it plays wonderfully.

5) Pickups: Yes, guitar pickups affect tone. There is evidence that handwound pickups sound better than machine wound pickups because of their uneven wind and dispersed frequencies. Therefore, try to get handwound pickups, even if they are expensive. The big three pickup makers include Dimarzio, Seymour Duncan and of course, Fender. More modern pickups are Lace and EMG. However if you want handwound pickups, try Lindy Fralin, Lollar, Bareknuckle, Rio grande, and a whole bunch more of small pickups businesses.
Generally, Alnico magnets sound better than ceramic (Alnico II, III and V are most used for single coils). Either formvar or enamel wire is used for vintage pickups, and make sure they are staggered for your neck (ie. vintage radius 7.25″ should have vintage stagger and modern necks should have flat stagger pickups).
I personally use a set of custom wound Rumpel pickups, and they have been amazing.

6) Pedals: What I’m going to say is… try not to use too many pedals. Too many interferes with tone purity. If you are going to use alot of pedals, make sure they are true bypass so that they don’t color your tone when they are bypassed, and use an equalizer or compressor to smooth out your dynamics. A side note that analog effects tend to be warmer sounding than digital effects, but that’s just personal preference for me. It’s almost like a vinyl record vs a CD player. They sound similar, but the analog sound is created more naturally. You have many different effects makers today. Digitech, Boss, Dunlop, and most large gear manufacturers such as Ibanez, Vox, Marshall, Fender, and even Seymour Duncan. I personally use BBE and Tonerider (who also makes a great set of pickups), because they are cheaper, and are good quality. But if you really want the best tone, there are boutique effects makers such as Keeley, Fulltone, Teese if you really want to spend more money to get the best.

7) You: Most importantly, tone is in your fingers, so you can’t really improve this one with money. You’ll have to practice and get better, make sure notes have vibrato, smoother licks have legato, and quicker licks have alternate picking and staccato, and so forth. You can visit Ultimate guitar if you want tabs or tutorials.

And that’s it! I’ve been working on my tone for a while now, and I think it’s getting better and better. I will continue to post more videos as soon as I get some more songs recorded. I’m also thinking about getting a good microphone, studio monitors and mixer so I can do a professional video recording, but that will have to wait until my financial situation clears up.