Guitar Tremolo Picking 101
Tremolo picking, sometimes called "up and down" picking, is someting that's a little difficult to start with only because many beginner players aren't instructed what not to do, which the video covers. Things like what not to do for palm position, what not to do for strength of picking and how not to use your whole arm to pick when your wrist can do 99% of the work.
The only thing I didn't go into detail about are the picks used.
On electric guitars you can use whatever you want, but generally speaking it's easier if you purposely use a thinner pick such as Fender 351 picks in medium thickness.
On acoustic guitars it's a different story because you may not want so much "flap", as in pick noise. To decrease the flap, using a pick made of delrin with some good flex to it helps out a great deal, such as the Dunlop Tortex in .60mm size (the "orange one").
You'll have to experiment to see what works best for you depending on what type of guitar you're playing. With electric, the pick noise can be masked somewhat by the use of light overdrive/distortion. With acoustic there's nothing to hide behind, so to speak, so you'll have to use different picks to get rid of pick/flap noise.
if i had to own a typewriter...
One of the interesting parts of being born in the '70s is that in my elementary school days I saw no typewriters whatsoever. The school I went to had Apple II computers, as in the green-screen kind where everything was in upper-case letters whenever you typed on it. The only real typewriter I ever saw growing up was the one my dad had, and I barely remember it. I have fuzzy memories of him using it only twice. For the time it was one of those ultra-moderinzed typewriters where everything was totally electronic, including the carriage return; there was almost nothing manual about it. I can't remember the manufacturer but I do remember it being off-white colored, similar to the putty color of PCs in the early 1990s.
I have never typed up a document on a real typewriter in my life, and if you sat me in front of one, it would take me a few minutes to even figure the thing out.
There is, admittedly, a part of me that would like to own a typewriter just because it's a very organic writing experience. And of course it's a lot easier on the eyes.
Okay, I have to explain the eyes thing. Even if you type up all your stuff on a laptop (like I do) and dim the screen during long haul writing sessions, your eyes simply get tired and everything starts to blur; this happens to people even with the best of eyesight. However, on a typewriter you are basically only limited to how long your hands can hold out until they cramp up from writing so much. In other words, you could spend 6 hours typing on a typewriter if you were suddenly inspired to do so. But can you do the same on a laptop or PC with a backlit screen? No way. Yeah, I know there are gamers out there who can play for 10 hours at a time, but this isn't gaming, this is writing. Totally different. And if you're wondering how you'd get what you type on paper into digital format, that's not a problem as there is free OCR (optical character recognition) software you can download to do just that. Plunk down the paper on the scanner, scan, software reads it and translates into editable digital text. Yeah, I know that sounds like a pain, but for some it's an amicable solution.
Amazingly, new electronic typewriters are still made today, and that's cool. The cost to get one is under 120 bucks. One is the Brother SX-4000. And there are, incredibly, manual typewriters still available for sale new, which costs a little more at just under $140. But I'd go with the electric.
If I had my choice of whatever I wanted, I'd go with a 1980s-era Smith-Corona electric in blue with the sterling cartridge just because of how awesome it looks.
Before the electrics came around, this same typewriter in manual form had white keys and the electrics had black. Yeah, I'd prefer the white keys but heck, I wouldn't refuse it. :-)
Getting one of those 70s/80s era Smith-Corona electrics isn't a problem because they're actually pretty cheap. What is a problem however is getting one that works 100%. It's totally possible that a $35 Smith-Corona of the 1980s bought today would need $200 worth of refurbishing just to get the thing working right. Worth it? Yeah, I think so because when refurb'd it can last 20+ years. I mean, they still work today even though some were made 30+ years ago, so refurbishing one should easily last a few decades. But it's an investment, no doubt about that. You'd have to find someone that actually knows how to completely refurbish/restore one of those things from top to bottom and everywhere in between.
Anyway, even though I've never actually typed up a complete document on a typewriter, I'd like to someday because it's just a different way of writing.
What would I use a typewriter for? Not for blogging because that's inherently an internet thing and always was. But I would use it to type up letters to send to others in the mail. As in postal mail. I could set up a PO box for people to send me letters, and then I could send reply letters back.
Why bother doing that (especially since it costs money for paper, envelopes and postage)? Because it's a lot more personal and genuine. Yeah, we have email and Facebook and all that and it works pretty well, but at times electronic communications are a bit impersonal. To actually get real mail on real paper that was manually typed out is just plain cool. You're excited to receive something like that. It makes you happy; that's why you do it.
"I can't get that guitar in my country"
Something that genuinely makes me feel bad is whenever I feature a guitar - especially one that I own personally - and get a comment on this blog or my YouTube channel from a fan that says, "I like the guitar you're playing, but I can't get it in my country."
Now I'm not talking about just expensive axes here. But just for the sake of example, if I had the money and wanted a Fender American Standard Stratocaster, I could go buy one tomorrow (I'd go with Olympic White, personally). And you could probably do the same in the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Germany and several other nations. But what about the low-cost guitars like the Epiphone I just bought?
Why do these guitars seem to be mostly here in America and nowhere else?
The answer is Guitar Center.
GC gets all the good guitars both for expensive and cheap before anyone else because they're the #1 instrument retailer in the world. The way they've become huge is by acquiring a bunch of other companies over the years. They own Musician's Friend and Music & Arts (the largest school music dealer in the US) to name a couple of them.
I'll put it another way. GC has 10,000 employees and has a revenue report of 1.78 billion. Yes, that's billion with a big fat B.
To put this in perspective, I have my choice of not one but three GC's I can shop from in Florida, that being Tampa, Clearwater and Lakeland. And that's not even including the other GCs or competing instrument retailers in Tampa Bay.
I am very aware that I'm really lucky to have all this wonderful gear be so accessible and so close right where I live. But at the same time I'm also very aware that players who live in countries without a GC presence literally have to fight just to get the guitars they want, and usually pay triple the price for them (usually because of shipping fees and import duties). And yeah, I know, that's not fair at all. Not for a second.
I'm not Mr. Money, I don't drive a fancy car and I don't live in a mansion. But I do have the luxury of having three GCs within driving distance of me, and that's why I have so much gear that I can go and try out at a moment's notice. And it's also why I can get said gear for so cheap.
No, I'm not saying any of this to brag; that's not my intent whatsoever. It would be really nice if the guitars I can readily acquire could be available anywhere in the world for the same price I can buy them for. But as small as we like to think the world is, it's not. The world is huge and the major instrument retailers like GC only spread out to where they can make the most money. America happens to be one of those places.
The only advice I can really give to anyone outside the US to save a bunch of money on guitars here is to actually come here to buy them.
Here's the strange-but-true facts about flying over here to get the guitars you always wanted:
Even with the cost of travel and the shipping/duty fees to ship the guitars back to your country, chances are pretty good you'll still save a bunch of money.
First of all, GC usually offers 15% right off the top when you buy in person. That's big cash saved right there.
Second, when you're here you'll have access to all the used gear. You can search by particular store for the ones you plan to visit. Used stuff doesn't stick around long, but it gives you more buying options.
Third is access. The biggest problem buying guitars outside the US is actually getting to play the thing before buying it. When you're here, you can touch it, play it, plug it in and do all the stuff normal players do when trying out guitars.
Combine all these things together, plan your trip out accordingly, and you can save a ton of money while getting the guitars you always wanted.
When you find what you want, you can either have GC ship it direct to you, or buy and then head over to a local UPS Store and have them do it (which will cost more but sometimes it's worth it for the extra insurance you can add in).
Yeah, I know it sucks that non-US guitar players have to go through so much crap just to get the axes they want, but that's unfortunately how things are.
However if you're planning a trip to America and think buying some guitars while here is a good idea, you can at least project how much you would spend before even coming here. When you have GC and UPS shipping readily available while on our shores, it makes the guitar buying process while in the US a whole lot easier.
the phone book (tampa 813)
It was either this past week or the week before that I was working on something in my place and I heard a loud THWAP! outside, and then heard a vehicle driving off. So I go outside and in front of my front door...
...are a pair of phone books in a bag. One for business, the other for residential. The mailman dumps them on the ground because they are obviously too large to fit in the mailbox.
Small side note: The mailbox for the house I grew up in in rural Connecticut had the mailbox directly on a rural route, so the maildude couldn't put the phone book on the ground. Instead he crammed it into the mailbox. This was before the post office wised up and started putting the book in a bag (to protect it from the rain) and then hanging it off the mailbox flag. Yes, they really did that and probably still do to this day.
There's been talk for a while that the printed phone book will cease to exist, yet it still gets printed, year after year. And nobody really knows why the phone book still gets printed. Some say it's for the benefit of people that don't have internet connectivity and refuse to use 4-1-1 directory assistance, but I don't buy that. The phone company loves producing the phone book that nobody uses for the simple reason they make a ton of money from advertising revenue. To them it's a very safe, very easy cash cow and has been for decades.
Is the phone book actually useful? Actually, it is. I decided to thumb through it to see if there was any information the book could provide that I'd actually want to know. I mean, I get the stupid thing every year for free, so I might as well take a look before I toss it. As it turns out, it does have some stuff in it that's worth keeping the book for.
The most important info in the book is in the first 20 pages. A list of every single area code in the US is there, as are all international calling codes. A full time zone map is in there. The evacuation routes for Florida (in case of natural disaster from hurricane) are listed. All government offices are listed. Emergency shelter locations for my particular area are listed.
Were you to try and get all this info online, it would take a while. Probably a few hours (especially for the government office numbers and locations). But in the book it's all there right up front. And I mean literally in the front of the book.
So... I guess I'll keep the book. Either that or I'll just tear out the first 25 or so pages and toss the rest.
There will come a point where if you want a phone book that's ink on paper, you'll have to make your own.
The importance of getting while the getting is good
Recently I bought two guitars, the Fender Modern Player Stratocaster HSS and the Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90. Both guitars were selling for discounted prices when I bought them, and as of now they've both gone back up in price.
With the Fender, I bought that at a 6.25% discount over what it would ordinarily sell for. Not a lot, but it was money saved. Fender typically does not deep-discount their models, so you have to take what you can get.
With the Epiphone, that was a biggie as it was selling for almost 31% less than what it ordinarily sells for. For a new model that is insanely rare. And as it turns out it was a weekend-only sale at the time I bought it. The day I went to pick it up, the Guitar Center store I went to had just received them that morning. They had 6, with one 2 in the color I wanted, and I bought one of those 2. When I returned to the store a week or so later, 5 of the 6 were gone and the price had gone back up.
I got really lucky with the Epi, and there's no question about that.
With the Epi, those guitars flew off the racks. In fact, many of them were probably sold even before the store got a chance to take them out of the boxes they arrived in. The guitar was not listed as a weekend sale, but I'm sure the moment the first day's sales figures came in, the decision was made to make it only a 2-day thing so the stores could make more money.
With the Fender, that didn't sell as quickly (mainly because the price was a bit high to begin with even when discounted), so the discounted price stuck around until the end of 2012, and went back up when 2013 rolled around.
Concentrating on the Epi again, I knew the guitar would sell really fast just based on the discounted price of $89 alone, so I made the decision to go for it since it was actually in stock in the color I wanted at the GC I go to. With the Fender, I knew I had time, so I thought about that one more before I went for it. In both situations I got the discount I wanted.
The way to find cool deep-discount guitars like this is not some guarded secret. What you have to do is look at new listings often - online. What guitar companies typically do when releasing a new or updated model is to first offer it at a discount to see how many people buy it to gauge consumer interest in the instrument. If it's good, the price goes back up quickly. If not, the discounted price sticks around for a little while.
Online is pretty much the only way to do this - unless you're looking for used gear. With used, you have to go to the store because those axes are the last thing to be put as searchable guitars online since the store considers them a low priority (new stock is always preferable to move over used).
I don't have magic powers in my ability to find deep-discounted guitars. I just check the listings often.