Overdrive Pedals vs. Distortion Pedals

Let's start by defining 'Overdrive' and 'Distortion' in the context of guitar pedals and the sound created when using them.

'Overdrive' is essentially everything from sound of an amp being slightly pushed to break up to the crunch and distorted warmth of a cranked tube amp.

'Distortion' is usually everything including, and above and beyond that ceiling of the typical gain that on 'Overdrive' pedal has.

All of my gain or boost pedal on my pedalboard would fall under the 'Overdrive' definition of light to medium gain with natural and traditional amp qualities.

The reason I employ Overdrive instead of Distortion pedals in my setup has a lot to do with the style of music that I tend to play, the dynamic response of Overdrive pedals, the option of stacking multiple gain pedals, and the clarity and more articulate tone response. 

Let me unpack these four reasons:

Style - If your not playing heavy metal, grunge, thrash or a style that needs over-the-top gain and sustain, distortion pedals can sound thin, buzzy and less articulate than overdrives. I play mostly rock and pop live shows and session and find that my guitar will cut through the mixes better if I use less gain on the pedals and try to highlight the natural and transparent sounds of a tube amp at that slightly broken up setting. I can achieve high gain sounds if I need them by combining two overdrives together.

Dynamic Response - With an overdrive pedal I can clean up my sound by softer picking or using the guitar's volume control. I find that I can use a lot more dynamic control with overdrives that help with building with a songs dynamic range. Distortion pedals tend to give you too much gain to dial up or down dynamically and tend to compress the overall sound. 

Stacking - I stack my overdrives all the time in order to use the distinct and special tone qualities of a couple of pedals in combination to achieve new sounds. I might use a mid-range heavy overdrive with a full range overdrive to a cut through a mix for soloing. I might use the gain of one overdrive to push another overdrive over-the-top to get a 'fuzzface' type of sound. 

Clarity - Even though it's a lot less forgiving, I tend to turn down the gain of my pedals for the sake of clarity and articulation. A lot of the great guitar albums of the past have had this same mindset and approach to recording and tone, and I the results are generally a more punchy, defined, and distinct sound quality in both live and studio situations.

Try some A/B comparisons at a local store and find out what fits your playing best.

Enjoying Music

When we talk about the enjoyment of food, we are not generally thinking about the 'grabbing' of a greasy hamburger from the drive-thru on our way to a ball-game that we should have been at 5 minutes ago. When we talk about the enjoyment on nature, we generally don't gravitate toward a picnic in the middle of a busy city street. When we talk about enjoyment of art, our minds don't lean toward discussing the merits of the 'visual perspective and composition' in a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, and when we think about a thing like Canadian culture, crime and poverty might easily take a backseat to Hockey and Peacekeeping.

So in considering music, the pure enjoyment of it shouldn't be: rushed, as in the way we sometime eat; cluttered, with peripheral noise of the busyness of life, like a busy street; frivolous, like the cheap art of cartoons and media; or 'out of context', like misplacing the virtue for the vice in music.

The context for this will be to slow down, let the music take the centre stage, feel it's full meaning and see the good and the beautiful within it's forms.

ENJOY YOUR MUSIC THIS WEEK!

Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. ~Benjamin Disraeli

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific. ~Aaron Copland

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die. ~Paul Simon

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~Confucius

Music can noble hints impart,

Engender fury, kindle love,

With unsuspected eloquence can move,

And manage all the man with secret art.

~Joseph Addison

10 top new-guitarists to listen to...

As classic rock guitar playing loses it's pre-eminence in our contemporary music scene to synthesized radio-musicola, sloppy folk, and endless inane and whiney vocal music, our general connection with the next generation of inspiring guitarists seems to fades into a faint pulse. It's not that we can't see the forest for the tress, it's that all that once was forest is now paved over by a great grey mass of unimaginative music seeking only an audience of teenaged girls and depressed and disillusioned young adults.

Let's just plainly say it, "Rock and Roll is not dead: it's just plain inconvenient, and modern society worships convenience. Rock music is richer, more complex. diversified, and is not passive music like today's radio pop. As adults we can pass along the richness of this music to our children and as children we can develop taste for classic rock that will make modern pop unlistenable.

Here's a list of some great new and semi-new guitarist (in no specific order) to inspire and get you back on track with the instrument that has really defined modern music since Elvis and the Beatles to the present.

1. Simon McBride - blues/rock
2. Joe Bonamassa - modern blues
3. Guthrie Govan - fusion/rock
4. Eric Gales - blues/rock
6. Oz Noy - Jazz/blues/funk
7. Jack White - alternative
8. J.D. Simo - blues/rock
9. Michael Gungor - alternative
10. Derek Trucks - rock/blues/slide

Don't waste you time on fast-food music when great players
and great music can easily be found.

“Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.” 
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar

Buying an acoustic guitar can be an intimidating, foreign and perplexing event for many people: mostly because it's a unique and rare purchase of a relatively unknown, specialized item that will be used in a highly personalized pursuit of technique and art. More simply put; it's beneficial to have some help from someone with experience when buying a new or used guitar.

I will, as very experienced guitar buyer assist in this adventure with 3 different price points: under $400, under $1,000, and over $1,000. We can also label think of these 3 as: beginner/starter guitar, intermediate/semi-pro guitar, and a professional/lifetime/investment guitar.

Buying a guitar under $400

Seagull S6

The main thing to look for in the starter guitar category is choosing a product from a widely know established manufacturer and company with a good warranty and a proven track-record for quality guitars at a reasonable price. Companies I would recommend in the beginner category are Yamaha, Fender, Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Cort, and Art & Lutherie.

Choose a guitar that looks good, feels comfortable and sounds warm and inviting to play. Ask a salesman to play one or more for you so you can judge the differences for yourself. At this level of quality, your main interest is in a serviceable, playable, and affordable guitar that will get you playing and learning without 'breaking the bank'. Most beginner guitars are manufactured from a plywood type of laminate would and will have a limited tone quality. Simon & Patrick, Seagull, and Art & Lutherie are exceptions to this and get my vote every time as the 'best for the least $$$'.

Buying a guitar under $1,000

Taylor 100 series

My wish as a guitar teacher would be that most students skip to this level from from the start. Learning and playing on a good instrument inspires and responds to the growth of player with each hill of technique and repertoire they climb.

Acoustics in this price range generally have solid wood tops and synthetic ivory bridge saddles and nuts which brings the quality of overall tone way up. The use of tone friendly woods in the construction usually adds to the warmth, clarity, and overall character of the sound. In this category, don't be fooled by the fancy paint jobs, flashy electronic pickups, and intricate inlays and binding that can make a lousy guitar tempting to purchase. Companies like Takamine, Dean, and Fender can be guilty of selling many '3's dressed up as a 9' in this price range.

Companies I would recommend for guitars between $400 and & $1,000 are Taylor, Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Godin, Yamaha, Larivee, and Martin. These companies, in my opinion, build with a traditional tone-first strategy, putting more resources into the tone rather than the bells and whistles.

Buying a guitar over $1,000 

Goodall Concert
Jumbo

Buying a guitar that is over a $1,000 should be seen as an investment;  not only in a item that will hold it's value, but in an instrument that will grow with you as time passes, that will inspire each time your fingers touch the strings, and will invite the guitarist to play just by looking at it. For example: my Goodall Concert Jumbo is very beautiful and inviting to look at, ultra-sensitive to every move of my fingers, generates fantastic tone from every atom and molecule it's made from, and it took me 4 years to save up enough to buy it. In my work as a professional guitarist and teacher I have a good excuse to spend on a quality, hand-built instrument but I would rather save and wait for quality over quantity in every area of my life. 


If you find joy in playing the guitar and see it as a part of your future, my challenge to you would be to invest some time in investigating and researching your options and all the benefits of purchasing an instrument of lasting quality and one that's built for performance and ease of playing while your learning and growing as a player.

I sometimes use this example: we will have no problem in dropping $1,000 - $1,500 on a computer that will be obsolete in 3 to 5 years but will choke at the prospect of spending the same on a guitar that will last a lifetime. Find a good fit for you from the 3 categories and choose wisely.

The "ART" of Practice ( part 2 )

In the Art of Practice (Part 1) I mentioned that there was no art to the 'getting to' or the 'doing' of practice. It's just the plain fact that the only sure-fire way of consistent practice for most people is scheduled practice: just like sports or theatre.

I think I can give some advice on the Art of Practice once a regular and consistent practice of the guitar is taking place.

Slow down

We can take our cue on this part of the art of practice from the legendary Canadian pianist Glen Gould. He would often practice new songs at half-speed so he would never make a mistake or error in his playing of a song. He thought (and I think he's right) that mistake our 'videotaped' in our minds only to resurface or replay later in time. So, slow down and practice perfectly and don't get in the habit of practising a mistake. It will only return and replay during performance.

Relax

Learn to work and practice with a healthy amount of patience a let the the success in what you do be just a by-product of doing the work with enough repetition to perfect it. Just like the famous quote, "eat the elephant one bite at a time".

Stradegize

Have a plan on what you want to accomplish during practice. An example of this would be: I want to get a certain number of bars of music down; I want memorize a certain lick or passage of music; I want to understand the harmony behind the chords; or I want to get to know the scales or patterns needed to improvise in this son. So you will practice until that element or part of the work is done.

Conquer (gaining confidence)

Personally, I build my confidence in my abilities by conquering the task at hand. The secret is really simple; "in competing the task I learn to do the task." We just get caught up in too many of the particulars that we're setting ourselves up for defeat.

Play

A big part of practising is having enough play time to keep the joy and remind ourselves of the reason we started playing guitar in the first place. Have unscheduled, spontaneous, and unstructured times of making noise or jamming on your guitar where you just let go and let the fingers fly. I sometimes turn all the lights off in my studio and just jam to mp3 without a care in the world.

DERRIVAL - Finalists in Peak Performance

A former guitar student of mine (Adam Mah) along with his band Derrival made their way to the finals of the 2014 Peak Performance band competition in Vancouver. Making it to the finals is not easy and it will mean that Derrival will win a minimum of $50,000 and a possible of $102,700. The finale is on November 20th at the Commodore Ballroom where they will announce the order (1st,2nd,3rd) of the winners.  Please check out their Facebook page.

Adam was a great student and worked extremely hard from week to week. I'm proud to have been a part of his development as a guitarist and a musician. 

Congratulations, Adam!!!

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”
― Thomas Jefferson

Guitar Heroes ( Where have they gone? )

Some common questions I ask many of my young guitar students are; "who is your favourite guitar player?"or "can you name 5 guitarist who have had an influenced your playing?" or "what is the name of the guitar player(s) in your favourite band?" Most of the time the response I get is total silence or they might just blurt out a name like Eric Clapton or Santana even though they have no knowledge of any of their songs or description of their style.

In my youth, as a guitarist, I had 10 to 20 favourite players who I knew most everything about and who had a profound influence on my playing. These were the people who taught my how: to play, to work hard, to jump around on stage, to choose the right gear, to practice, to get good tone, to use different scales for different styles, to create, and with all that and more they inspired me to great things in music.

Fast forward to present times and besides a few Youtube 'guitar sensations', you have an industry of homogenous and faceless of musicians serving in a utility role of sounding like everyone else, who are trying desperately to figure out what the next "big trend"will be rather than being true inspirational artist
and taking up the guitar heroes mantle. It's like we are in the 'dark ages' of the electric guitar.

“I started out playing guitar because Jimi Hendrix was my hero, so my roots were really based on Jimi Hendrix and his style of playing.” ~ Joe Satriani

More Than Just Guitar...

Here at my guitar studio in Fort Langley I have started some new lessons and courses to meet the musical needs of the ever-changing culture of our modern times and to expand the musical horizons of my students. Included in the area of lessons now offered are Bass, Ukelele, and Songwriting and on the class side of things there is an exciting Digital Recording class and a fun Practical Music Theory course.

These changes have added a lot of variety and excitement to my regular lesson year and will help give students opportunities to grow and enhance their own musical creativity using the tools of technology and a practical hands-on approach to music theory.

Welcome to Grove Guitar Studio

This Blog will serve as a resource to students of Grove Guitar Studio and for information to the prospective students looking for a place to learn the art of guitar. There will be posts on "everything concerning the guitar" plus current updates on new classes, 'spotlights' on student activities and local happenings in the guitar and music community.

"For me, it's about the music. I'm just the messenger, and I hope to do it as long as I live." Eric Clapton