Guitar Workshops

Yesterday I had the privilege to attend a guitar workshop at Allan's Music, featuring Doug Doppler. He was demonstrating his skills with electric guitar. I managed to absorb a few nuggets of wisdom.

For every musician, there's 3 gauges that makes up their skill: talent, knowledge, and practice. The best musicians have all 3 gauges filled up and overflowing.

I learnt that every musician has to develop his/her own groove. Doug is very expressive. I could see his tears while he soaks himself in music! I'm very tempted to describe his expressions, but I'm afraid I might end up being impolite.

He mentioned about the musician's skills trajectory. Basically, he thinks that most people improve their skills over time. But it's not easy to improve, and some people don't know how to improve. So he shares a few tips.

Drummers have a different mindset, and we have to respect them for it. Playing guitar like a drummer means that we have to take note of the rythms in a beat, including the bass, hi hat, and snare. If it doesn't make sense to you, wait till I learn the technique.

His Ibanez pickup is setup uniquely to imitate sounds from les paul, strat, or tele. Don't know how this works because I play acoustic.

So this evening I attended another guitar workshop by Michael Fix. Michael used to learn from Alan Philip and Tommy Emmanuel. He played mostly classical when he was young, and he likes to personalise some classical and electric pieces with his custom Maton acoustic guitar.

His Maton guitar is made of Queensland Maple back and sides, not the Blackwood. Maple is softer, but if he needs more bass, he would simply turn it up on the pickup. He was more concerned about controlling feedback. He used a feedback buster, which is essentially a rubber bathtub plug for the guitar soundhole. And he shaved a bit off the neck of the guitar, because his fingers are short (that's what he said). Michael doesn't keep long fingernails like other fingerstyle guitar players, and it took him a while to adjust. I like this example, because I personally don't like long fingernails like Doyle Dykes.

Michael also mentioned that it's important to learn how to play the bass and treble at the same time, as soloist. You just have to break down the song into bars, and work at microscopic/lego bars, play it really slow until you get it. This will help you to build confidence.

Playing scales is good, to impress other guitarists. But being able to play music is more important. Scale is boring, but it helps to know how they work.

In the studio, Michael uses a pen mic to record the guitar. It is not directly pointed into the soundhole, but slightly further at around the 12th fret. He sometimes use another one projected towards the body from another angle. If he uses a right angle mic, he would point it directly at the soundhole. Another position that he would consider is near his ear when he bends down to listen to what he's playing. He suggested that all the mics should be equidistant from the guitar to avoid phasing.

He also abused his guitar, albeit not as much as Tommmy. Beating the guitar body at different places is pretty interesting, it creates some percussion effects. That saves some money on stompboxes. He also demonstrated how to play with echo based on the percussions. His Yamaha Magicstomp worked like a charm, showing off some effects like reverbs and chorus.

I like it when he walked down the bass, and when he reached the low E, he went further by unwinding the E string.

Last but not least, he showed us special capos, which only covers 3-5 strings. He used it to achieve DADGAD tuning, and other combinations without messing around with the tuners.

And of course, I like the AER 60 amp. Wouldn't mind that for a birthday gift.

Now, that's what I call inspiration! Thanks to Allan's music for these workshops. I hope I've captured all the essentials, but pardon me if there's some mistakes.