Music is the universal language
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” - Luke 2:14
Norse Guitar Feeds
Walnut Handle for a Fretsaw
The saws aren't sharp upon arrival and I have to give the teeth more set so they will cut proper sized kerf required for the fretwire I use. And the saw blade is backwards, the teeth cut on the pull stroke, but they are not filed and shaped like a Japanese saw. I was always told by old time carpenters that that fancy bit of folded brass on the saw's back is supposed to help keep the saw cutting straight, and they said there was no need for a Westerner to cut on the pull stroke.
The Case For Active Listening
Music is everywhere. We listen to it in the car, while we're working, when we're exercising, and while we're doing things around the house. With streaming services, smartphones, and wireless speakers, it's probably easier to listen to music now than at any other point in history. I think this is a great thing.
However, I'm not sure we're always really listening.
There's nothing wrong with putting on an album while you're doing something else. I’m often listening to music in the background when I’m doing some task.
I can’t imagine driving for any distance without having some kind of music or audio on the radio. I often like to have music on when I’m working at my day job. But there's a difference between hearing music in the background and actively listening to it.
Active listening means giving the music your full attention. Instead of treating it as background noise, you focus on the song and try to understand what's happening. You listen to the melody, rhythm, arrangement, production, and individual performances. You notice how the different parts work together and how the song changes from beginning to end.
For guitar players, I think this kind of listening is especially important.
When I first started listening to music, I mainly paid attention to the most obvious parts. Usually that meant the vocals, the drums, or the guitar solo. If a song had a great riff or an impressive solo, I liked it. I didn't spend much time thinking about some of the more intricate parts of the arrangement or production.
As I became more interested in playing music, I started hearing songs differently. I began noticing what the rhythm guitar was doing underneath the solo. I paid more attention to how the bass connected the guitar and drums. I noticed that a drummer could change the feel of a song without playing anything particularly complicated.
The songs hadn't changed. The way I listened to them had.
One of the benefits of active listening is that it helps you understand why a song works. It's easy to say that a song has a great groove or that a guitar solo sounds good. It's more useful to figure out what creates that groove or why the solo fits the song.
Maybe the drummer is playing slightly behind the beat. Maybe the bass player is leaving more space than expected or maybe even playing busier than expected. Maybe the guitarist starts with a simple phrase and gradually builds towards the hook of the song. Maybe the producer removes instruments from a verse so the chorus sounds bigger when everything returns.
These details can be easy to miss when music is playing in the background. When you listen closely, they become much more obvious.
Active listening can also help musicians develop better timing. Instead of only following the main riff or melody, try focusing on the relationship between the bass and drums. Listen to where the snare lands and how the bass notes line up with the kick drum. Pay attention to whether the musicians are playing directly on the beat or pushing and pulling against it.
This is especially useful when listening to blues, jazz, funk, and other styles where the feel of the music is difficult to communicate through written notation alone. Two musicians can play the same notes and still sound completely different. Often, the difference is in the timing, dynamics, and phrasing.
Dynamics are another thing that become more noticeable through active listening. Many of the best performances aren't played at the same intensity from beginning to end. The musicians leave themselves somewhere to go.
A guitarist may play softly during the first verse and become more aggressive during the solo. A drummer may move from the hi-hat to the ride cymbal to open up the sound. A singer may hold something back early in the song so the final chorus has more impact.
If you're only listening for the loudest or fastest parts, you may miss the way the musicians build toward those moments.
For guitar players, active listening is one of the best ways to improve phrasing. It's tempting to focus on the number of notes a player uses or the difficulty of a particular lick. However, some of the most memorable solos aren't especially complicated.
Listen to where the guitarist begins and ends each phrase. Notice how long certain notes are held. Pay attention to the bends, vibrato, slides, and spaces between phrases. In many cases, the notes that aren't played are just as important as the ones that are.
Tone is another area that rewards careful listening. Guitar players spend a lot of time thinking about guitars, amps, pedals, and pickups. Those things are important, but recorded guitar tone is also affected by the player's touch, the arrangement, the microphones, and the way the guitar sits in the mix.
A guitar tone that sounds thin by itself may work perfectly in a full band arrangement. A large, heavily distorted tone may sound impressive on its own but cover up the bass, drums, and vocals. Active listening helps you hear the guitar as part of the entire recording rather than as an isolated instrument.
A few ways I go about active listening is to listen to the song a few times in a row, focusing on a different instrument or aspect of the song each time.
For example, during the first listen I might just experience the song as a whole piece. I might just focus on the guitar part on the second listen. Then, the drums and how the rhythm impacts the song.
Once you’ve listened to the individual parts you want to focus on, I suggest listening to the song as a complete piece again. See if you hear something new.
Headphones can be useful for this, especially when listening for subtle parts. Depending on the recording, you may hear instruments panned to different sides, background vocals buried in the mix, or small production details that aren't obvious through speakers. These types of things often get lost when playing music on your phone or in your car with a lot of ambient sounds.
However, you can listen actively even if you’re aren’t using headphones. The most important thing is to remove as many distractions as possible and give the music your attention.
It's also useful to compare different versions of the same song. Listen to an original recording and then listen to a cover. Compare a studio version with a live performance. Pay attention to what changed and what stayed the same.
A live version may be faster, heavier, or more loosely arranged. A cover may use different instrumentation or emphasize a different part of the melody. Sometimes a musician will change a song so much that it becomes something new while still preserving the qualities that made the original work.
These comparisons can teach you a lot about arrangement and interpretation.
Transcribing music is probably one of the most focused forms of active listening. You don't necessarily need to write the music down. Simply learning a part by ear forces you to pay close attention to the notes, timing, articulation, and tone.
At first, it can be frustrating. A phrase that sounds simple may be more complicated than expected. On the other hand, an impressive-sounding lick may turn out to be based on a familiar pattern played with excellent phrasing.
Either way, the process helps connect what you hear with what you play.
Active listening also makes it easier to move beyond your primary instrument. A guitarist who only listens to guitar players may eventually begin repeating the same ideas. Listening closely to singers, horn players, piano players, bassists, and drummers can introduce new approaches to melody and rhythm.
I like to think of active listening as part of my practice routine. Time spent with an instrument is important, but so is time spent understanding how great music is put together. Technique gives you more options. Active listening helps you figure out what to do with them.
If you find yourself mostly listening to music passively, try putting on an album and doing nothing else; no phones, no television, just the music. Listen to instruments you normally wouldn’t. See how they interact with the guitar and work within the song. You might be surprised by what you’ve been missing.
If you’re not including active listening as part of your musicianship, give it a chance and see if it helps you improve how you hear the guitar within a song context.
Keith Richards is fed up with technology: “AI is killing me… Do I fear for the future of music? I fear for the future of everything”
Keith Richards is sick of modern technology, and has no desire to get on board with the progression of AI and those “damn phones”.
While other members of The Rolling Stones – he names Mick Jagger as an example – are much more open to moving with the times, Richards tells The Guardian in a new interview that he likes to stick to his old ways and that his daily use of modern tech extends to “an electric kettle” and not much further.
- READ MORE: Mick jagger says he “absolutely would love to tour” Rolling Stones’ new album Foreign Tongues
Richards says he’s “had it up to here with technology” and celebrity culture, noting that his grandchildren “are not quite as imbecilic”: “If it wasn’t for a cassette, there wouldn’t have been a Satisfaction, because I got the riff in my sleep, hit record and then the next day played it back and it was Satisfaction in a very raw form,” he explains.
“I stick to the old ways, as my dad would have said. I’ve seen records go from being made on two-track tapes stuck to the wall, to suddenly eight tracks, then 16, 24, then digital and it hasn’t really helped the music at all. But it’s something you live with.
“I mean, personally, I think the world would be better off without the damn phone. AI is killing me, you know. Do I fear for the future of music? I fear for the future of everything. They don’t know what the hell it does, so now we all dangle and wait,” he warns.
The Stones announced their 25th studio album in May. Titled Foreign Tongues, it will mark their first release since 2023’s Hackney Diamonds and is due to land on 10 July. Just like their previous release, it has also been produced by Andrew Watt.
Learn more about Foreign Tongues or pre-order the album now via the Rolling Stones website.
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“There aren’t many American guitar players that are well known for restraint”: Joe Satriani on Sammy Hagar’s underrated guitar skills
Joe Satriani has revealed what he considers to be one of the most remarkable yet underrated aspects of Sammy Hagar’s guitar playing
In a recent chat with Thinking About Guitar, Satriani – who’s spent the past few years sharing a stage with the Red Rocker on The Best of All Worlds tour – explains how Hagar’s greatest strength as a guitarist comes from the same place that made him such an effective frontman.
“I always thought that one of the coolest things about his guitar playing was that he somehow took that knowledge of being a really good lead vocalist and applied it to the way he played guitar,” says Satch.
“And, you know, he’s kind of a crazy shred guitar player on the one hand. But on the other hand, he’s got this editorial process that I personally recognise as being a lead singer.”
According to the virtuoso, Hagar possesses an instinctive understanding of what a song needs, and just as importantly, what it doesn’t.
“I’ll play too many notes, but he won’t,” he says. “And I always ask him, ‘Well, what is that?’ And of course, he doesn’t think about it. It’s totally natural to him. He’s just a completely natural player. But he somehow plays the right notes with the right kind of vibrato. And that still fascinates me, as it did when I was a young kid growing up.”
“I was thinking, wow, restraint,” Satriani continues, adding that “there aren’t many American guitar players that are well known for restraint.
“I always saw that as something that would come from the UK or Ireland. You have these players like [Eric] Clapton or Brian May who just play the perfect notes. They don’t turn the amp up to eleven.”
Hagar, he argues, belongs in that conversation.
“Sam had this thing, because he really liked Clapton. I think he would take that one step back from the edge of the cliff and make sure that he could pull it off.”
“I hear it over and over again as a thing that really good lead vocalists have,” he says. “And they apply it to their guitar playing.”
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John Mayer says he’s already used his Neural DSP plugin on records: “I’m just not going to tell you which ones they are”
For a player whose rig lore has spawned countless forum threads, gear rundowns, and YouTube deepdives, John Mayer has revealed that some of the sounds fans have heard on the record may have come from a plugin rather than a tube amp.
The guitarist says he has already used his Neural DSP signature plugin on professional recordings – he just isn’t telling anyone which ones.
The admission came in a recent video for Neural DSP discussing Archetype: John Mayer X, the plugin released last December that captures some of Mayer’s most sought-after amps, pedals and tones in software form.
“If I were in a pinch, I would always use this plugin and I have already on records. I’m just not going to tell you which ones they are. And I don’t think you’ll know,” the musician teases.
Mayer says that part of the appeal is how naturally the plugin slots into both recording and practice setups.
“What’s really cool about using the plugin in a DAW is that the Archetype plugin works really, really, well as the first stage of a signal chain. It gives this kind of water pressure to the rest of the sounds you want to put on top of it.”
These days, he says, his home rig consists of little more than a laptop with the plugin on it, an interface, and a pair of studio monitors. That simplicity is a far cry from wrangling with dying 9-volt batteries, faulty pedals and amps that seem perpetually in need of maintenance.
“I’ve forward to the year I would be able to simply have one cable, a laptop, and two
speakers and have that be the whole rig,” Mayer says. “It’s such a natural authentic emulation of amps, it just does what amps do except it’s already chained in to [your DAW] and have all the flexibility.”
That said, the guitarist stresses that none of this should be interpreted as a declaration of war on tube amps. Despite joining a growing list of high-profile players embracing digital tools – with Joe Bonamassa recently admitting he’s been won over by Fender’s Tone Master series despite ‘really wanting to dislike it’ – Mayer says Archetype: John Mayer X was never intended as a replacement for traditional amplifiers.
“I think more options are better when it comes to technology taking the place of very heavy, expensive things that spend a lot of time in the shop,” he says. “There is always going to be a really good reason to use amps. I will always continue to use amps. I don’t believe you’ll see me on a stage playing in an arena with a laptop. I don’t think that’s that cool.”
“That is not meant to replace an amp,” Mayer continues. “It’s meant to give you more options. It’s meant to bring the experience of owning a tube amplifier and owning this gear into your home. No matter who you are, it’s meant to democratise the gear.”
Learn more at Neural DSP.
The post John Mayer says he’s already used his Neural DSP plugin on records: “I’m just not going to tell you which ones they are” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Beyond the hype: are we entering a new era of guitar technological innovation?
Talking about innovation in the world of guitar is a slippery topic at the best of times. On the one hand, the instrument has endured as a key vehicle for popular musical expression for over 70 years – with each new generation finding new ways to use the instrument to express themselves. On the other hand, many of the tools of the trade that we use today are nearly identical to the ones artists were using in the 1950s – in some cases they are literally instruments that were made in that period.
But despite the inherent conservatism of guitar players, there have been clear moments of innovation and technological breakthroughs that have stuck in one way or another – effects pedals would be one example, whereas digital emulation is clearly another.
The first modelers were primitive. Fine for sketching ideas or practice, but their tones weren’t convincing enough for players to fully switch over. They always defaulted to the tried-and-true practice of using gear that moved real air.
But over the last few decades, that has changed dramatically. Whether that’s via the huge leaps forward in digital modelling, or the development of profiling technology, it’s now totally normal to see guitar players use digital rigs and sound just as good as their tube-amp counterparts.
But what’s going to be the next sticky guitar innovation that will change the way we play in the same way that pedals or modellers have done? Could it be new endlessly customisable instruments, or something that uses machine learning to enhance and expand our palette of sounds?
The wisdom of the last 70 years would indicate probably neither, but people were pretty quick to write off the Maestro FZ-1 until Keith Richards used it on Satisfaction – you never know what’s going to capture the musical collective imagination.
Modular mayhem
Modular guitars have been around in some shape or form almost as long as people have been modding their instruments. People forget that asides from the whole lucite body thing, the most interesting thing about Ampeg’s Dan Armstrong guitar was its innovative swappable pickup modules.
In the last decade though, the idea of what a modular guitar can be has flourished and expanded in ways we’ve not seen before. On the more conservative side of things, Swedish brand Relish has developed a pretty innovative pickup-switching system that has since been adopted by other brands – most notably Cream T.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Boaz One promised to be a modular guitar in the truest sense but before that project had a chance to prove its worth things got weird – really weird.
But there are clearly a growing cohort of builders who believe that modular builds are the future, or as Bayram Tekçe of modular maker Shark Guitars tells it, “Guitar V2.0”.
And you can see why on the face of it – modular designs let players hotswap elements like pickups, bodies, necks, nuts, and bridges. Some even include onboard effects. For studio guitarists that need access to a variety of tones it’s a unique value proposition, but introduces complications for live use.
Some might feel that the nature of modular designs compromises the feel and soul of the instrument. Ian Reddick, founder of Reddick Guitars and creator of the modular Voyager states, “I believe the soul lives in the craftsmanship and history of the instrument”.
The idea is fascinating, but where does it fall short? Aaron Maisler, founder of Fern Guitars says, “There are some limits. Primarily alternate tunings in a live setting. [But] with a modular setup, two guitars cover the same territory [of six] since you can freely interchange the electronics.”
Modular guitars offer seemingly endless tonal possibilities, and the idea is appealing. But that modularity is tied to the maker – what happens when something breaks down? You can’t just take it to any luthier for repair. What happens if you want something that the maker doesn’t offer?
The promise of distilling all your guitars into one is captivating, sure – but do any of us really want just one guitar? Isn’t part of the magic of this hobby the fun of trying new instruments, new looks, new everything?
The Smart And Not So Smart Guitars
For decades now, people have been trying to cram technology into guitars in often innovative but usually doomed ways. Built-in effects and onboard MIDI controllers are perfect for someone like Matt Bellamy, but they don’t have a lot of mainstream appeal.
When you try to tell the man or woman in the street their guitar needs to be loaded with onboard technology the answer seems to be well, remember what happened to the Firebird-X…
Still, there are plentiful modern examples of how technology and guitar is starting to blur into one thing. Lava’s smart guitar platform has won it scores of fans around the world for the way it makes learning and practice more fun and interesting. Positive Grid’s Spark amps have brought technology and player together to create the ultimate practice amps. Enya Music’s Sonic integrates a bluetooth speaker and onboard effects into the body of the guitar itself.
Next-gen guitars are addressing issues like tonewood sustainability and sound versatility, but the burning question is do players actually want their guitars to be connected?
Not long ago a guitar player’s main concern was feeding their gear dirty power. But smart guitars introduce concerns about WiFi dropouts and signal weakness, not to mention vulnerability to hackers.
Are modular and “smart” guitars the instrument’s future or just a flashy fad? It could come down to longevity. Traditional guitars work with proper upkeep, no firmware or software updates required.
When manufacturers stop product support or fold altogether, a guitar with an end-of-life OS or modeler can become effectively useless. The appeal of modular guitars is obvious, but carries risks traditional guitars don’t, especially regarding repairs.
Proprietary systems depend on manufacturer support and survival. Investing in technology-dependent instruments comes with uncertainty. Also consider resale value. Vintage guitars are proven investments that appreciate worth. Technology-dependent guitars likely depreciate in value as the tech ages or turns obsolete.
Neural Networks
There’s little doubt that the word “AI” is a polarising one in the guitar world at the moment, with many musicians being reflexively opposed to anything that has those two letters in them. And clearly there are legitimate and valid ethical and environmental concerns about the use (or indeed imposition) of large language models in our modern lives.
And there are unquestionably some products that are using AI as a means to float some pretty uninspiring products under the noses of an unsuspecting musical public – the less said about the TemPolor Melo-D the better.
But machine learning has been benefitting guitar players for a long time now, and many of the most jaw-dropping leaps forward in digital modelling technology in recent years has been enabled on some level by artificial intelligence operating under the hood.
AI amp modeling is moving fast, and neural networks are the new movement. The most notable one of these is perhaps the open-source Neural Amp Modeler platform. NAM uses advanced neural networking to learn the sonic behavior of a real world amplifier – it’s different to what the likes of Neural and Kemper do with profiling, but the results are impressively similar.
The result is amp tones that sound and feel much closer to the real thing than most modellers can offer – and various brands from Poly Effects to Two Notes to Blackstar are starting to incorporate it into their pedals and amps.
Increasingly, guitar players are coming to accept the blurred lines between digital and analogue, but there are plenty still who feel that digital is still not quite there in terms of replicating the true feel of a valve amp – the pick attack response, playing articulation, and acoustic space response are physical elements that contribute to the experience just as much as the sound.
There’s also the question of the long term viability of such things. Your valve amp from 50 years ago still works because it’s easily repaired by any qualified tech – like any other modern piece of consumer electronics, there’s a big question over how long the companies building these connected products will continue to support them.
There’s also the question of what happens when everyone is using the same digitally recreated tones – anyone who has played through a lot of amps knows that there’s a great deal of variation even between identical models. Democratization of tone is an exciting concept, but puts sonic distinction in jeopardy.
Text prompts vs. twisting knobs
If there’s one area of guitar technology that isn’t afraid of progress and innovation, it’s effects – the digital and boutique revolutions have transformed the stompbox arena into something where some of the weirdest and most wonderful ideas have come from small builders trying interesting things with modern technology.
But with talk of “Peak Pedal” being mooted in recent years, after a decade of huge expansion and innovation, where is the next pedal frontier?
Increasingly, some makers are looking to AI as a means to enable creative experimentation – and in the last year or two we’ve seen AI-enabled pedals from makers as diverse as Quilter, Chaos Audio and newbie Groundhog Audio.
Polyend is another manufacturer leading the charge. The brand’s Endless pedal turns ideas into effects by describing them through text prompts or hardcoding. But do players really prefer inputting text prompts over twisting knobs? It’s an interesting idea.
The company deliberately distances itself from the buzzword “AI” for practical and philosophical reasons. Founder/CEO Piotr Raczyński posits, “AI has become a very overloaded term. It often creates expectations that don’t match what the system actually does.”
Endless works by generating DSP structures from natural language akin to LLMs like ChatGPT, but that’s where the comparisons end. This opens up worlds of new sounds not available in standard pedals, but the trouble is in getting there.
Inputting text prompts is simple enough, but hardcoding takes a certain acumen. Another element of AI built into effects is that the more it’s used, the more it learns user preferences. Either way it’s not as easy as turning pots or flipping switches.
Raczyński continues, “We’re not interested in using AI tools for imitation. We’re interested in enabling people to create original tools they couldn’t build before”.
There’s a laudable aim of putting more creativity in guitarists’ hands at play here – the question is does it actually make sense in the real world? As our review of the Positive Grid Reactor recently alluded to, prompting an LLM to do what you want can be more frustrating than twiddling knobs ever was.
Complexity can also be an enemy of creativity – text prompts open up worlds of new sounds, but require extra effort. In that regard, knobs and switches will beat menus and touchscreens every time.
It’s really intriguing to use an LLM to offer unique features that aren’t available in traditional pedal designs, but option paralysis is a real thing for many guitar players as it is – if you effectively give them a blank slate, is that really going to help all but the smallest percentage of creative musicians?
Culture clash
This is far from the first time guitar has faced rapid technological changes. Modelers were supposed to replace analog amps altogether. They didn’t. Guitar synths were supposed to revolutionize the instrument. They became a niche.
Guitarists adapt to changing technology on their terms. Ideas with the biggest hype around them may only find a select audience. Healthy skepticism around “revolution” in guitar tech isn’t hesitance, it’s pattern recognition.
The overarching question is will the traditionalist guitar culture embrace how fast, and in what ways, technology is changing?
Disruption or distraction?
As time proves, new doesn’t equate to better. Oftentimes it’s the opposite. Some products don’t catch on until they’re out of production, and some never do.
Plenty of voices in the guitar industry are shaping the conversation around evolving guitar tech, particularly AI inclusion. Josh Scott, founder of JHS Pedals, argues that AI gear might be solving the wrong problem altogether. “AI gear is optimizing for speed in a domain where speed was never the constraint.”
But there are as many proponents as detractors. Edward “Bud” Cole, CEO of Fender, says “I strongly believe that AI will create opportunities that are unimaginable today for players to learn, create, record, and express themselves”.
It’s human nature to focus on the novelty of technology before examining its efficacy and necessity. That might speak more to the “invisible hand of the market” than inferior design. But hit or miss, creators keep creating.
New horizons
The future of guitar is here, and the technology is changing faster than ever.
Some gear catches on, some gets relegated to time. But one thing is certain. No matter what innovations and advancements come out, the venerated gear and tools guitarists have relied on for the past 75-plus years will always be in style.
Great tone has never required more technology. Historically, constraints drive creativity, they don’t inhibit it. Where guitar technology is going – and what will stick – will always be uncertain.
But there’s one direction it’s not moving. Backward.
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