Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
What is Mother-of-Pearl?
For hundreds of years, mother-of-pearl has been used to decorate clothing, knives, guns, watch faces and turquoise jewelry. Many musical instruments include mother-of-pearl accents, including acoustic guitars, saxophones, banjos, violins, and trumpets. Natural mother-of-pearl has the capability of being tinted to almost any color that will complement the piece it accents.
Another name for mother-of-pearl is nacre. Freshwater pearl mussels and pearl oysters as well as other mollusks produce nacre as an iridescent inner shell layer. The majority of mother-of-pearl is produced by abalone native to California and Japan and the pearl oysters of Asia.
Founded in 1974, Taylor Guitars is a California-based company that makes extremely high-quality guitars and guitar cases. It specializes in hollow-body acoustic guitars and semi-hollow and solid body electric guitars. While Taylor guitars are not inexpensive, they are high quality and will serve you well for a long time. Many famous musicians play Taylor guitars, like Taylor Swift, Dave Matthews and Jackson Browne.
A Taylor acoustic guitar was even in the news recently, due to the breakout popularity of the YouTube video “United Breaks Guitars.” Canadian musician Dave Carroll was travelling with his band on United Airlines when he witnessed his $3,500 Taylor guitar being thrown by baggage handlers. It was broken, and United would not compensate Carroll after a year of his requests. Finally, he wrote the song “United Breaks Guitars” and filmed a YouTube video to go along with it, which finally prompted United to get in touch with Carroll. United even asked Carroll for permission to use his video to train baggage handlers, so other musicians’ Taylor travel guitars may be able to survive the journey!
You can find just about every musical instrument in some kind of electrical fashion. The most common are electric guitars. You can even find an electric violin. Every musical instrument nowadays has a rock type of feel to it.
The use of electric banjos is most common with blue grass and country music. It has a distinctive sound to it. You can point it out in any song that it used in. It is amazing the different techniques that are used for playing instruments.
There are all types of instruments that you can choose to play. If you are more of a brass instrument then a trumpet or tuba will be up your alley. If you like an acoustic instruments then a acoustic guitar is something to look into. Violins are another instrument if you enjoy a more classical feel.
Cellos are the second largest instrument in the violin family. This type of instrument has been known to have the closest to a human voice. In modern music it is not that common. Cellos do have a strong presence in European Classical music.
My daughter is a musical genius. She can pick up any instrument and start playing. So when she wanted to start a band how could I say no? What I wasn’t prepared for was the new instrument that she wanted to pick up.
She decided that she was going to be the bass player in her band. Her band would practice everyday after school. They were quit entertaining with their song choices and costumes. She went through quit a few bass strings throughout the weeks. As she would say to me “ I am a hard core rocker.”
Whether you are a lefty or a righty, truth be told lefties have a little bit harder time when it comes to supplies. It’s not as easy to find things like scissors, left handed school supplies, and left handed computer accessories just to name a few. Most of the common things you have to go to a specialty store or order it online.
My mother is a lefty and she told me that she would take trips to Pier 39 and go to the Everything Lefty Shop. That way she could stock up on what she needed. When I went to visit her she took me to the store and because I wanted to show people back home that you can get anything left handed I purchased two left handed banjos. It is quit a conversation piece.
Ukuleles are traditionally made out of wood, although varieties have been made entirely of plastic. Cheaper ukuleles are made from ply or laminate woods. Some cases, it can come with a soundboard made out of spruce, which is an acoustically superior wood.
There are multiple sizes of a ukulele. The most common are the soprano ukulele, concert ukulele, tenor ukulele, and the baritone ukulele. The standard ukulele is the soprano. This type is the smallest, which is the standard size. In 1920 is when the concert size was developed, which is the soprano. The largest is the baritone, which was created in 1940.
We’ve heard of the “King of Pop.” We know about the “King of Soul.” We are aware of who the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” is. Have you ever heard of “The Duke of Drive?”
Terry Baucom, is the “The Duke Of Drive.” He has a hard driving traditional style, hence the phrase “The Duke Of Drive.” He’s been a professional banjo player for forty years. He has been the founding member of more bands then most other banjo players. It’s amazing that after forty years he is still going strong and loves it just as much today as he did forty years ago.
Okay, I have to confess, there was a time, years ago, that I was a “stomp box” junkie and bought every new fangled pedal that came out. Yes, I had a pedal board. And yes, the rest of the band was set up and ready for sound check before I had all those pedals hooked up and tweaked!
Then came the digital age and everything changed. Legions of engineers designed pedals with a plethora of effects built into a compact package. Suddenly the need to acquire a multitude of guitar effects pedals was abolished.
Even so, many guitarists – especially fans of the Eastman guitars, like me – still prefer the use of analog stomp boxes over their digital counterpart. Talk to ten different guitar players and you’ll get ten different answers as to the merits of one over the other.
You still haven’t gotten the right gift for your friend’s birthday? They also happen to be a musician? Here are some great gift ideas.
~Electric Guitar – Who can resist the electric power and energy that channel through the wiring of this amped music machine? They’ll feel like Slash in no time.
~IPod – These awesome music and media devices are the heart’s desire of musicians and everywhere; rest assured if they don’t have one they want one.
~Gibson Banjos – A unique and magical instrument for any musician; it’s an amazing present, especially if they can already play the guitar.