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When I am not playing gigs, I like to go to live music events of different genres and different levels…after a while, tired of seeing the same things done wrong over and over I thought of writing this short post. 

So there you go: 5 mistakes a live musician should never make!

1. Noodling Before/Between Tunes

Very unprofessional, it will make you look like you have been playing for less than a week. It usually also gives away the tune that you are about to play which ruins the surprise effect on the audience. Bad Bad Bad! Even tuning nowadays can be done without making a sound (no excuse to be out of tune ever!). 

2. Long gaps between tunes

Oh lord…seen too many times (what are we doing next?). It is ok for a last minute change, but this is the reason why there are setlists!! Each member should have one printed big enough to be read with very little light. Even a last minute show with people you never played with should be as close to a real show as it gets. No setlist? Think of what tune to play next while you are still playing!

3. Being Late

It's not 'fashionably late'. It's just late. And it is not good. You don't need to be there six hours before a gig, but I find that half hour preceding the start is vital to make sure everybody knows what's going on, to make last minute changes or to make a good setlist if you are playing a last minute function, and to check that all your gear works.

4. Not bringing spares

You need and extra guitar, extra strings, basic tools to fix a last minute gear problem. Nowadays even a dead amp can be replaced with a small multi-fx with speaker simulator, plugged into a PA…regardelss if you like the tone or not, it will get you to the end of the gig.

5. Entertain

Because it is not fun to look at four guys staring at the floor for two hours, no matter how good you music is or great you are. Thank the crowd for coming to your gig, and the staff at the venue…they will remember.

THIS OFFER HAS NOW CLOSED!

I recently updated my 'Contemporary Blues Soloing' book for the physical printed version which should hit Amazon.com and other retailers shortly.

For the whole month of February 2010 I decided to offer this blues guitar method at the promotional price £5 only (roughly $8 or €6, depending on Paypal exchange rate),  when you buy in the digital Ebook format  from this site www.PlayGTR.net or my personal site www.GianniChiarello.com. The price will go back to £12.99 on March 1st (roughly $22, €15)

This is a digital download so the delivery of the E-book is immediate (right after a successful Paypal checkout you will be redirected to a download page).

Of course, once more, thank you to all of you that purchased this book in the past and sent positive feedback!

Right below, all the info for the book: you can download a sample of the book free!

Contemporary Blues Soloing

FEBRUARY 2010 PROMO FOR NEW EDITION: 
Until 28 of February buy the E-book securely with paypal £5 ONLY! (roughly $8 or €6)

Download the Contents table and a sample of the book with Mp3 recording free!

An in-depth, 66-page journey through many of the techniques used by contemporary blues artists like Robben Ford, Scott Henderson and many more. Includes over 40 Mp3 Tracks audio examples.
From the Introduction:'I have written this book with the intent of helping the intermediate blues/rock player to break out of the well known ‘box standard pentatonic shape’ and venture towards more contemporary sounds. The blues language has developed in the last few decades from just being pentatonic based, to a more articulate language, thanks to fusion and jazz influences. I have been asked too many times during my years of teaching how to go beyond the usual pentatonic phrases that we have all heard way too many times, so I thought of collecting a wide array of ideas to steer your playing in different directions, not only harmonically, but also rhythmically'. The ebook is a digital download in the popular Pdf format and includes a recording of all audio examples in MP3 format.

NEW! Buy 'Contemporary Blues Soloing' in Physical Format (yes, the old style book that you can touch!) and eBook at lulu.com, just click on the link below!

As a self-promoting musician I have learnt the hard way that time is a precious commodity. Being organized is of paramount importance if you want to dedicate only the necessary time to the boring and repetitive  promotional stuff and concentrating on what is more important: your music. So I have learnt to keep a “Press Kit” folder on the desktop of your computer. It won't take you long to put it together, and you'll be able to use it every time you need it.

This will contain:

1. Samples of your music:

At least 3 full tracks from  your latest album ready to go. Also I have found handy 3-4 shorter 30 sec samples of your best tunes that are quick to attach and email.

Make sure your MP3's are fully tagged (use this: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) and the files contain your name, song title and site:

ARTIST_NAME_SONGTITLE_www_ArtistName_com.mp3

2.  Pictures:

A few small, medium size and a high-res picture of you (must be great professional promo shots!), a pic of your logo or band logo if you have one, and album artwork (again in 3 sizes) of all your discography.

3. A well written and appealing biography written in different lengths:

- Long version with a lot of detail of what you have achieved in the past, and your vision and goals for your career.

- Medium version – two or three paragraphs, this is usually what you see on the Net in a Bio page.

- Short version 1 paragraph…it must be great, appealing…imagine one paragraph that contains your bio and your vision.

- One-liner – one compelling line, that must say everything about you and your music.

4.  Press and quotes from reviews: 

Scan anything meaningful that you have in terms of press and appearances on magazines and newspapers, plus one big page/file (like a word file) were you summarize your press
and best quotes from these articles. Put in there endorsements and anything that people said about your music (even comments on your Myspace page if you think they are great!). Think outside the box here.

5. A Links page:

A document (again a word doc or plain text will be fine), where you have all your important web links (Myspace, twitter…) ready to be copied and pasted anywhere.

6. Showreel

If you plan to put this material on line (and make it into a EPK or electronic press kit) I suggest you to have a showreel ready, make  it a mashup of performances, pictures slideshow with your music in the background, and the odd interview section where you talk about yourself and your music in first person.

In a few words, any time somebody requests something to do with you as an artist, think 'will I need that again?' if the answer is yes, make sure you leave a copy in this 'press kit' folder on your desktop. And if you are out of inspiration, just browse the web and don't try to copy, but try to improve what you see and like in other artist's pages.

Thank you to all of you that downloaded and sent positive feedback about my Guitar Kit in the past year. I have uploaded a new and improved version. The main reason to upgrade is so that now it is all at 300dpi (print quality) and all the layouts are more consistent. Also, it is now a single PDF file (I am sure your computer will have Adobe Reader), much easier to navigate and print.

Make sure you read the 'legal' and 'printing tips' in the Read Me file! 

The Guitar Kit (v2.0): Guitar Templates (Free Download)

This is a free product from my free online video guitar lessons website www.PlayGTR.net. If you find 'THE GUITAR KIT' useful (and I am sure you will) consider making a donation so I can keep adding free lessons and products for you all to enjoy! Use the DONATE button on the right of the screen at www.PlayGTR.net to make a donation safely through Paypal.

Printing tip:
When printing make sure you tick the ‘fit to page’ box in your printing options, so that all these templates will show correctly on any paper size. The ‘Scale Fingerings’ will print best in landscape format.

Legal:
Feel free to pass on these templates, or use them for private studies or teaching. You don’t have the rights to modify these templates in any way, to remove the PlayGTR.net logo, or for commercial use. For any enquiries get in touch: Visit the Contact Page

STAFF PAPER:

• EMPTY STAFF TEMPLATE
• TREBLE CLEF STAFF+TAB
• TAB ONLY
• GUITAR NECK BOX

CHORDS:

• BASIC CHORDS CHART
• 7TH CHORDS (maj7, m7, 7, m7(b5))

SCALE FINGERINGS:

• PENTATONIC SCALE/ BLUES SCALE (5 SHAPES)
• MAJOR SCALES (5 SHAPES)
• MAJOR SCALES 3 NOTES PER STRING (7 SHAPES)
• MELODIC MINOR (5 SHAPES)
• HARMONIC MINOR (5 SHAPES)
• WHOLE TONE – DIMINISHED SCALE

EXTRAS:

• HARMONICS CHART (PDF)
• MODES OF C MAJOR (PDF)
• MODES OF C MAJOR, PARALLEL APPROACH (PDF)

All © Gianni Chiarello – www.PlayGTR.net

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After being frustated with my tone tools for quite some time, I moved onto trying to to build my own. It is not as difficult as you would think if you have basic soldering skills and a predisposition to problem-solve and troubleshoot. Of course a simple circuit like a Fuzz pedal or an overdrive is possible to achieve with basic tools and knowledge but semething more complex like a delay pedal migth call for a printed circuit or maybe a kit if your skills are not top notch.

There are quite a few great sites and forums for you to learn the craft (I will post quite a few here). I am sure you will start up with a small selection of tools, but this is highly addictive stuff, so you will see your arsenal of tools grow very rapidly. for the UK the goto place is still Maplin Electronics as for the US Radio Shack still rules the high street.

What you will need:

Soldering iron (nothing too strong 30w will do to start, then maybe a temperature controlled station)

solder (try to get some decent one, maybe with silver and rosin core)

a selection of resistors and electrolytic capacitors, small value capacitor (learn how to read them, it's not that hard) and stranded wire in a few different colours (you will soon learn the common coding). I'd suggest at the beginning to first to pick a project  and try to find all the components, but you will soon realise that most pedals use similar components as they all run at around 9v.

Hammond metal enclosures (you will find predrilled ones online if you are not keen to use a drill), dpdt, 3pdt (for true bypass) switches, jacks, led's and a set of knobs of your choice. 

Here's a list of great sites :

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com – projects and kits, lots of famous pedals and tweaks of famous pedals. A must.

http://www.tonepad.com – Lots of schematics for the most famous pedals and some good step by step picture tutorials.

http://www.runoffgroove.com – original schematics, this site has been around for quite a while and I have built some of the pedals. highly recommended the different variations of Ruby amp. 

www.muzique.com – by Jack Orman, this site has been on since 1995, and it is a must for original designs (don's quote me on this but it seems that Fulltone took a look to this site for his famous fet booster…)

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/ - one of the top forums for the pedal mad.
 

Where to find Parts and components:

www.smallbearelectronics.com – great site (stateside)

www.banzaieffects.com – german based businness that serves europe. I have bought quite a few times from them and they are great. 

http://www.pedalpartsplus.com/ - not the biggest, but a great shop especially for the powder coated enclosures

Some of my creations:

'Income Booster' – just a clean volume boost, similar to LPB-1 EH, just a clean and fat volume boost.

OCD clone – Great pedal, made a clone to see how the circuit worked (basically 2 Fets used to clip) and liked the sound after a few tweakes…now in my pedalboard.

Fuzz Face variation:

Swtich pedal for Line 6 MM4 (and all that serie of pedals): This has been on youtube for ages…and I am glad to see it has spakerd quite a conversation and more mods…

Disclaimer: I love making original circuits and cloning existing pedals: the latter should be an exercise and never used for commercial purposes. Companies and individuals spend a lot of time and money to develop those pedals: respect other people's work. Pay attention to soldering and extra attention if you want to venture into etching and making your own PCB's, I will not be held  responsible for any damage!

We have seen in one of my videos how to transpose music. I have stumbled a couple of days ago on a site that has on preview this little nifty software, soon to be released for free (this is what the site states, don't quote me on that!)

You can check out the site here:

http://www.theoreticallycorrect.com/transposer/index.html

It basically promises a very fast and accurate transposition of chord in songs that we can find online. It looks a bit like a text editor that will recognise the chords, just check out the quick demo video on the site and you'll see what I mean.

It is quite a handy way for songwriters, beginner guitarists or singers that want to find a way to play their favourite song in a more comfortable key.

In a way it is what the site chordie has online, in a portable format, in case you had no connection.

These are great tools, but in my opinion not to be used without knowing the theory behind transposing music, a necessary skill if you are serious about making music.

A while ago I posted a video of the prototype of this innovative guitar tuner

http://www.playgtr.net/new-guitar-tuner-that-lets-you-tune-all-the-strings-at-once/

now this is the finished product by TCelectronic:

you can find the product info on the TCelectronic page here:

http://www.tcelectronic.com/polytune.asp

This is innovative as you can see you can tune all the string at once. Not only that, it switches between the 'old style' tuning one string at the time and the new mode automatically…and it is true bypass.

another promo video:

In the UK this is £75 on-line for now…I am sure it will come down in price once all the brands will align to this new technology.

Ear training is the skill of recognizing pitch, intervals, chords, chord progressions, rhythms and more. A lot of people think perfect pitch (or absolute pitch) is essential to be the next Beethoven. I think relative pitch is probably more important. Yes, perfect pitch is great if you want to transcribe a solo and you don’t have your instrument with you, but I think to recognize progressions relative pitch helps a lot more. And relative pitch is easily acquirable.

This is a good list of websites to check out to develop your skills: 

Ear Training:

http://www.good-ear.com/servlet/EarTrainer

http://www.trainear.com/

http://www.musictheory.net/trainers/html/id90_en.html

http://www.solfege.org/

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/article/44

http://www.miles.be/

http://andyvn.ath.cx/aquallegro

Rhythm Training:

http://www.therhythmtrainer.com/

http://www.practicesightreading.com/index.php (this is about sight-reading rhythms, but you can record yourself and then train your ear by transcribing the rhythms)

To practice all of the above (and to practice in general) you need a good metronome: this is a free Java metronome from Seventh String (also the creator of Transcribe! An innovative transcribing software)

This is the page with the demo and the info about this cool looking metronome that you can use freely online or on your desktop by downloading the zip file (second link):

http://www.seventhstring.com/metronome/metronome.html

http://www.seventhstring.com/metronome/ssmetronome.zip

On a different note for all of you out there who love jazz and use real books they have on their great site a master index that helps you find any tune on most fake books:

http://www.seventhstring.co.uk/fbindex.html

Now you don't have any more excuses to keep your ears in top conditions…get practising!

Of course remember that ear training and rhythm training are just a few of the skills you need to be a 360 degree musician: read PlayGTR.net's Master-plan!

10 Classic guitar solos you should know…and the guitarist that played them, with video, in no particular order.

1. Sunshine of Your Love – Eric Clapton 

2. Sweet Child O Mine – Slash

3. Jump – Eddie Van Halen

4. Hotel California – Joe Walsh & Don Felder

5. Alright Now – Paul Kossoff

6. Bohemian Rhapsody – Brian May

7. Rosanna – Steve Lukather

8. Sultans of swing – Mark Knopfler

9. Stairway to Heaven – Jimmy Page

10. Comfortably numb – David Gilmour