This morning I was in the mood for GNR (the new one, I mean, yes, that one that I don’t actually consider to be GNR) so I started to search for it on Youtube, I couldn’t find the original This I love but I found this one here and I must admit I didn’t expect that this guy actually sing this song this good.

You know that damn feeling that you have when you are waiting for the guy to screw up at every note he takes. I had this exact feeling with this guy so at the end of the song I found myself tensed because I waited for him to not be able to sing high notes. So I listened the song again, this time more relaxed, actually enjoying it…

After I watched the video I realized the guy gives rock singing lessons. So I can only say keep it up, dude, you rock! Literally! He also has a site, http://www.rockstrip.com.

How about it?

And remember to visit Buddy and Hopkins online store

OK, not THAT Cuba, but a local club here that was recently open.

Last night we were invited by the house band to play there as guests. I can tell you we had a great time, i really felt good and the fact that there was another band there that was used to the environment lightened up the atmosphere quite fast.

I can tell you that quite fast everything turned into a gear discussion, look, I have this new guitar, I use this new amp.. Ok! My Variax guitar was a bit different and it was for a short while the subject of discussion.

We played, as expected, mostly covers since we were in a club, people there enjoyed every song, we had a great time, people actually sang along and this is always nice.

Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures from the show, I didn’t bring my camera and also none of my band mates did so you just need to trust me on this, we’ve been there. We’ve been in Cuba!

PS: For me the evening ended a bit earlier since I got a call from my wife who didn’t join us yesterday evening. 2 days ago a neighbor next door died. She phoned to ask me to come home because she is really afraid to stay alone…

Women…

I was telling you a couple of days ago about the fact that we (the band) intend to record a few songs to put them together on an album. I have already been to a recording studio in Bucharest to speak to the guy there, who’s the keyboard player of a quite popular band here in Romania, Spin where a buddy of mine plays the guitar. He actually pointed us to this studio, they also record there. Of course, when it is your studio it would be strange to go to the neighbor…

Me and the guys spoke about recording this album and finding a record company to produce it/publish it and here our ideas went apart…Me and the other guitar player wanted to contact a producer to put his/her mark on the record since a bit more experience never hurts while the lead singer doesn’t want to hear about it. And I really know why: we had 4 such experiences with producers over the years and everybody wanted a different thing, in the end doing nothing but making us lose our direction and this is bad… You actually need a direction, one of your own and stick to it.

So we got to the idea to build a website (doh!) and publish what we record there, on YouTube and other similar sites and forget everything about recording companies. Original, huh? I guess nobody did it before, right?!!

I guess making yourself known is what really matters after all, if you sign with a record label that does nothing but keep you in a closet, doesn’t help you too much, right? Better to make yourself known to the public using other media channels such as the internet. And if you manage to come up with a few good songs you could be spotted and signed by somebody.

The fact is that we really want to do this since at a moment we took kind of a break, then re-united with new forces, new gear and started to make music again.

We decided to cover also a few good songs that we like and this is not something that we used to do, I can tell you in the past we only covered 1 or 2 songs, it was all about our songs.

When we reunited we decided to cover a bunch of songs to glue together again and I can’t say it hurt. By the way, Costin, the lead singer just sent me an SMS, he is an club where a buddy plays and he says the atmosphere is great and tries to arrange a show for next week. Now, in a club you definitively need covers…

Also, since we decided to record something, I came up with 2 new songs that are not bad at all, seems I didn’t lose it completely

So, I just wanted to post that here so you know I didn’t completely vanished…

I just have things to do but I need to get in shape soon!

Yesterday evening we were part of a cultural event: my buddy and band mate Costin released his 3rd poetry book!

It’s a very interesting side of culture, I am a musician and I am also a keen amateur photographer but poetry is something a bit outside my regular interest area so being part of such an event is always great since it opens new worlds to me and makes me aware there’s something more around us! Plus that I know the artist, I took the pictures and I designed the poster and the invitations. So I was also involved in this, in a way.

I don’t know much about poetry to I won’t dare say anything about the book itself, there were 2 critics there that did their jobs when presenting the book.

And of course, because the poet is also a musician we also had good guitar music to create the mood. The guitar player in the pictures below is an old friend, a very interesting and complex guitar player, I always liked to joke asking him if he still uses all of the available chords in every single song he composes

He always answers me he does…

By the way, the guitar here brings back some nice memories since he lent it to me when recording one of our songs that is very dear to us.  He promised to give it to me again when recording since the guitar has a lovely, clear sound. The guitar is a Cort, I would recommend it to anyone.

That’s about it, guys! I go to bed now since it is late and I think I got a cold since my back muscles hurt when I move and my eyes too…

See you tomorrow!

Thanks to Jason Nocera, I give you again another comic strip with our friends Buddy and Hopkins.

Enjoy!

And remember, for Funny Music T-Shirts, Bumper Stickers and Mugs Visit The Buddy and Hopkins Online Store!

Seems I haven’t updated my blog since a good while, haven’t I? Well, I feel I owe you, my readers a few words about it.

Here it goes:

Last week the company I used to work for just died. Period. The administrators decided that given the difficult economic period we are all facing, the best thing to do is close the company or at least freeze it for the time being. This being said, here’s the unemployment notification and off you go!

Well, honestly I have been expecting this since a while since the new management didn’t show many signs they can put the company where it should have been. I mean, beside Everything is going to be OK and we have trust in the team and we are going to bring contracts, not much happened.

Just for the record, we used to be a team of .NET developers that had a quite high technical specialization, developing over the years programs that were quite complex. Personally I have worked in this company since 2002 and for 6 years I have been part of a research project that was very interesting and complex.

Now, everything is down and dust sets over the whole thing.

As I was saying, I can’t say I was too upset since I was expecting this since a while. I don’t know, you just see it and feel it coming.

The period is not good also, we are right before winter holidays, it is a difficult time to find work, no matter you are looking for a job or for a contract on your own. Which, by the way, it is what I have decided to do.

I have decided to not look for work anymore, the whole thing pissed me off, the company kind of took every bit of energy I had, the whole process of closing the company was a mess and a pitiful thing to do. Not because of the situation itself but for the people involved in the process. Whatever.

So, I have decided to work for myself, to find jobs and to live the dream, my friends!! I have decided to go on my own way, as an entrepreneur and do my own things.

I will keep you posted on this one, I don’t wanna talk much about it for the moment.

From another point of view, my baby girl who just turned 7 months old yesterday suffered a pneumonia (I still wonder why that happened) and I had to put her in the hospital, Ani, my wife stayed with her there and myself too for 2 full days, then I started to also leave for short periods since I had things to do, but generally speaking, 5 days were just lost from all points of view, trying to put our wonderful baby girl on her feet. Hypotetically speaking since she doesn’t yet stand.

So, those being said, not much reasons to blog, is it? But I plan to come back to bloging since I have another reason to do it: we plan to record a few good songs and put them together as an album. There.

We have already spoken to the studio, I will speak again with the guys there on Monday, we are trying to go in the studio somewhere in December to start recording. Most of the songs will be old songs that we will try to record in a trully professional way but we also have some new material.

I will keepp you posted on this one also.

Meanwhile whish me luck and I will keep you posted.

Again, Jason Nocera sent me one of his wonderful comic strips with our two guitar buddies, Buddy and Hopkins. I started to look forward for his strips every week now.

And remember to visit Buddy and Hopkins online store

This is funny, if you consider we have a band here in Romania called Free beer…

Some time ago I have decided to post here guest posts from other fellow guitar bloggers, hoping this will bring something now to the table, different from what I usually write about. So, this being said, today I will post here an article of Anton Emery, the Community Manager of http://www.RhythmStrummer.com. This site offers easy guitar lessons in a fun & patient atmosphere, taught by teachers who care. Students learn songs & technique lessons across a variety of genres, including Folk, Country, and Classic Rock- all with NO advertising.

Anton sent me today an article about an overview of different tonewoods for acoustic guitar and I am happy to post it here today, hoping we would all learn something from it. Enjoy and comment!

To the beginner buying an acoustic guitar can be an over whelming decision. They come in a myriad of body shapes, all with different specifications and woods. How are you supposed to know what makes one better than the other? In this article we will look at some of the various tone woods that acoustic guitars are made of, and how they impact the sound.

First off I want to say that tone is a very subjective. The words and images I use to describe tone may be different than the ones you use. So while these kinds of articles are good as a guide, there is no substitute for your own experiences and using your own ears. Go out and play a bunch of guitars and be your own judge in the end.

Acoustic guitars generally use one type of wood for the top, and another type of wood for the back and sides. Occasionally you may see one type of wood for the back, and another for the sides, but usually they are the same.

Top Woods

Spruce is by far the most common top wood. It comes in many varieties including Sitka, Englemann, and Adirondack, to name a few. It is a sturdy, stable wood with a high strength to weight ratio, well suited for guitar tops.

Sitka spruce is a good all around wood, being to stand up to heavy strumming and picking, but on the right guitar also being responsive enough for a light fingerstyle player. Of course a lot of this is dependent on how the guitar is built and braced. Sitka spruce has a very loud strong tone, with a decent amount of sustain. I feel as a top wood it tends to emphasize the fundamentals more than the overtones, but there is enough there to keep the sound interesting.

Engelmann spruce is lighter in weight and less stiff than sitka. It responds well to a lighter attack, resulting in a more immediate sound, and one more lush with overtones than the other varieties of spruce. Folks say that Engelmann does not hold up as well to heavy strumming. I can’t verify this, I only know I have really enjoyed the Engelmann topped that I have played fingerstyle. I have a pretty light attack, so they seem to suit me quite well.

Appalachian or red spruce was widely used before World War II. A lot of the great pre war Martin guitars are topped with red spruce. Then the wood was over harvested and folks began switching over to sitka. Red spruce is a fairly heavy and stiff wood. It has good volume, a lot of dynamic range, and generally favors the fundamentals though also includes a good amount of overtones in the sound. Red spruce is generally very expensive as guitar top, and usually only available as an upgrade.

Besides spruce, cedar is another fairly common top wood seen on acoustic guitars. It is much softer than spruce, and more prone to nicks and dings. The appealing thing about cedar is it sounds rich and played in from the start. It responds very well to a light attack, and is a popular top wood among fingerstyle guitar players. Cedar top with rosewood back and sides will make for a very rich and deep sounding guitar right from the start. If you want a lot of clarity and note separation this may not be the ideal top wood for you. Some folks say cedar does not hold up that well to vigorous strumming or a harder attack, and that the sound breaks up or gets muddy. I can’t verify this for myself.

Irish guitarist John Doyle plays a cedar topped Lowden and he is quite a rocking player.

Another topwood you will see sometimes is Redwood. It is said to be the best of both worlds, combining the sensitivity and richness of cedar with the durability and volume of spruce. Folks I know who have redwood topped guitars rave about them, so definitely worth checking out.

Back and Side woods

One of the most common side woods is Rosewood. It has a lot of, richness, volume, and sustain that many players find very appealing. Indian rosewood is the most common and available choice these days. Brazillian Rosewood is another option, though it is a very expensive upgrade. It is illegal to import Brazillian Rosewood logs now, so most of the supply that guitar builders have is from before the ban, making it very limited and desirable.

The other common back and side wood is Mahogany. It is lighter and less dense than rosewood. In my opinion mahogany is kind of under valued as a guitar wood, with folks usually opting for the richer sounding rosewood. Obviously this depends on the sound you want and playing style, but mahogany is a very fine back and side wood. It will have a drier, more fundamental sound than rosewood, with good clarity and note separation. Paired with either a spruce or cedar top a guitar with mahogany back and sides will be a good recording instrument, with a clear fundamental sound easily captured by the mics. Often rich sounding rosewood guitars are great sounding to the player and an audience, but can be harder to record.

Maple is another wood you will sometimes see for the back and sides. It has a very bright and penetrating sound, but paired with the right wood can make for a great sounding guitar.

Other woods you will sometimes see for the back and sides are cocobolo, ebony, Honduran rosewood, and zirocote. These are less common, probably more seen on higher end instruments. They all have a very rich sound, with some people comparing them to brazillian rosewood. Ebony in particular is very dense, and will make for a heavy guitar.

Hopefully that sheds some light on the various guitar woods and will give you some ideas of what to look for when shopping around. Depending on what price range you are looking in, you may not run into all these options, but they are good to know about. And above all else, let your ears be the final judge, not what folks say on the internet.

I bet you all love cartoons! I know I love them; I love cartoons and comic strips! Yeah!
And we all love guitar music…
So what can be cooler than a comic strip about…playing the guitar?Maybe a comic strip about playing blues?!!

Well, to make a long story short, I give you Jason Nocera, a professional cartoonist who does a blues/music themed comic strip called Buddy and Hopkins!

He owns a site where he publish niche cartoons, http://www.nichecartoons.com, a very cool idea to enter the market, if you ask me, I would never have thought about it, really.

He was more than kind to allow me to publish his work here, so you can all enjoy it.

Today I give you the first one, more to come in the next weekends.

Jason also owns a store on cafepress.com, so for funny music T-Shirts, bumper stickers and mugs visit The Buddy and Hopkins Online Store at http://www.cafepress.com/bluestshirts

Enjoy and comment!