Guitar Blog

Where does your Guitar live? 'Al Stafford'

It’s the time of year when we start to see a little frost on the pumpkin in Canada.  No doubt you’ve already switched off the air conditioner for the season and fired up the furnace.  Forced air heating makes you stock up on hand lotion, leaves your throat dry at night, and sucks the moisture out of your home.  These arid conditions would be suitable for cactus, but not for your prized guitar.

One of the most overlooked accessories for any guitar is a humidifier.  These are an absolute must for acoustic owners, and players of archtops and semi-hollow body instruments.  Even solid body electrics can benefit from additional humidity where the guitar is stored.

Humidity is less important for the guitar neck because most manufacturers glue fingerboards to neck blocks and leave them for weeks in specially designed driers.  The bodies of those instruments are a different story.  Failure to keep your guitar in the proper environment can lead to split tops and backs, lifting bridges or in extreme cases, cracking around the binding that causes the guitar to literally fall apart.  Repairs can be made in some cases, but they are expensive.  What’s worse, your guitar won’t have the same sweet tone you fell in love with in the showroom.

Fortunately, the solution to the problem of dry air is relatively simple and doesn’t have to be expensive.  St. John’s Music carries a wide range of guitar humidifiers made by Grover, Humistat, Kyser, Planet Waves and Herco.  Most of these work very well, particularly when you store your guitar in a hardshell case.  The Grover and Kyser products are also designed for players who like to keep their guitars on stands or wall hangers.  They are especially useful for gigging musicians who are constantly changing climates with their instruments.

For the home player, you may also want to invest in a room humidifier.  These are not terribly expensive and will ensure the proper environment for your instruments, amplifiers, computers and recording equipment.  While many furnaces are equipped with humidifiers, most are inadequate when it comes to providing enough moisture for sensitive musical instruments. 

If you have doubts about the level of humidity in your home or studio, spend a few dollars at the hardware store on a gauge that measures humidity.  Ideally, your prized instruments should be kept in a room with humidity between 35% and 45%.  Anything less and you are flirting with disaster.  The few dollars you invest in humidity now could save you hundreds in repairs or thousands if your favourite guitar has to be replaced.(Al is manager at the Edmonton branch of St. John's Music)

String selection Equals Tasty Tones 'Al Stafford'

  A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  When assessing the overall tone of a guitar, players spend a lot of time considering pickups, amplifiers, pedals, processors, and the choice of wood for the body, fingerboard and neck.  I’m often surprised at how little attention is paid to strings.

This is painfully obvious on the sales floor.  I would say more than 70 % of customers who buy strings from me don’t know what they currently play.  An uneducated guess at the string display may alter the tone of the instrument.  An uncalculated change in string gauge might also mean the added expense of a setup.

Advances in string technology made strings more reliable, but to date, no manufacturer has created a string that doesn’t wear out.  I can recall a customer coming into the store to replace a broken string.  I asked how long his strings had been on the guitar.  He scratched his head and then blurted out that he had never changed them and his guitar was six years old!  I’m sure he was astounded by the improvement in the tone after buying a new set.

At the 2008 NAMM show in Anaheim, I talked with Australian-born acoustic blues performer Lloyd Spiegel about strings.  He changes strings on his guitar after every gig.  As a finger-style player with a heavy hand, he found he would play the life out of his strings after only a couple of hours.  You won’t have to go to that extreme, but if you want to improve tone, change your strings more regularly.  Here are some thoughts to consider when choosing strings;

First, if you don’t remember what’s on your guitar buy a medium gauge and save the package in your guitar case.  This will give you a reference point when replacing that set.  For you newbies, strings are measured by diameter.  Medium strings for an acoustic guitar range from .013 - .056 inches.  For electrics, mediums range from .010 to .046.  Thicker strings provide more sustain, but also sit closer to the fingerboard so don’t forget to get a setup if you make a big shift in gauges.

Buy the right set for the guitar you play.  Electric strings don’t work well on acoustics.  Nylon strings on a dreadnought don’t provide enough tension and can cause the neck to backbow.  Steel strings on a classical guitar can tear the bridge off the instrument.  Some teachers recommend nylon to start because they are easier on the fingers.  The truth is all strings create some discomfort in your fingertips.  The more you play, the less it hurts.  

For acoustic players, bronze, phosphor bronze and coated strings are the most popular choices.  Phosphor bronze tends to have a brighter tone than bronze.  Elixir was the first coated string to be embraced by players, but manufacturers like D’Addario and Ernie Ball make them as well.  If you don’t like changing strings too often buy a coated set. The coating keeps dirt, moisture, finger oils and acids off the strings so they last two to three times as long.  The convenience of fewer string changes is worth the cost.

For electric players, nickel is the most popular material.  Coated strings are also available and offer the same benefits as mentioned for acoustics.

You might also be surprised to find that your favourite brand of strings sounds better on one guitar than another.  Take the time to experiment and keep track of what you are buying.  You will soon find the tone you are looking for.  And don’t forget to pickup a string card for more savings the next time you visit St. John’s Music! (Al is manager at the Edomnton branch of St. John's Music)

Know Your Finerboard 'Al Stafford'

Question;  What’s the best way to make a guitar player turn down his amplifier?
Answer;  Put a chart in front of him.

It’s an old joke, but the message is as true today as ever.  Somehow many guitar players manage to go from beginner to pro without learning the fingerboard.  Before we begin, a warning; what follows is a basic theory lesson.  But fear not, it will be painless.  The knowledge won’t guarantee you a paying gig, but it will help you get to that level of playing more quickly.

The reason the guitar is played by so many is because it’s user-friendly.  Chord shapes and riffs are routinely shared within the guitar community.  Many players don’t really learn -- they memorize.  There’s nothing wrong with that, except those players are cut off from exploring the outer limits of the instrument.

Let’s look at the fingerboard.  Six strings and 21 frets in most cases.  What you are about to learn here will apply to any six string, regardless of the number of frets.  Those six strings and 21 frets equal 126 notes, each separated by a semi-tone.  It’s usually at this point that many players decide they can’t possibly remember 126 notes, so they don’t learn any…or just a few.  But what if I showed you a trick to easily memorize the entire fretboard?

Step one is concentrate only the notes from the nut to the 11th fret.  At fret 12 a new octave begins, and the names of the notes are simply repeated.  But wait, it gets better.  You only have to learn the notes on three strings.  3 times 11 equals 33.  All of a sudden learning the fingerboard becomes manageable! 

The three strings that require your attention are low E, A and B.  If you know the names of the notes on the low E string, you’re already halfway home.  The notes on the high E string are exactly the same on each fret as low E.  And you’ll find an E on the D string, second fret.  Two strings down, two frets over.  Remember that formula.

Next tackle the A string.  When you learn it, you’ll find an A on the G string, second fret.  Once again, two strings down, two frets over.  All of a sudden it’s five strings down, one to go.  The only one left to learn is the B string. 

Why is this important?  No doubt many of you have come across guitar chords written as text rather than drawn in a box.  G, C and Am are pretty easy to figure out.  But eventually you will come across a Dm7b5, or the greatest rock and roll chord of all time, E7#9.  What do you do?

The simply solution is to play the root chord (E in the last example) without the 7 or the extension #9.  That works, sort of.  It’s like a chocolate sundae.  E is the ice cream.  The 7#9 is the everything else that gives the sundae flavour.  Some beginners and most intermediate players can manage the 7 (referred to by musicians as a dominant 7th) but won’t play the #9 because they don’t know where to find it.

Numbers in a chord merely represent a change in intervals between notes.  The notes in an E major scale are E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#-E.  To play a dominant 7th you need to flatten the 7th note by a semi-tone.  So D# becomes D.  To get the 9 you would have to continue the scale beyond the octave note E.  9 is F#. Raise it a semi-tone and #9 is G. 

Learning the fingerboard, and understand the basic makeup of a scale, gives you the knowledge to find the notes that make up any chord.  Along the way, you might discover two chords with the same notes, but different names.  There’s a reason for that, but I’ll save the lesson on inversions for another blog.  (Al is manager of the Edomton brandh of St. John's Music)

What the heck is an effects loop? 'Al Stafford'

An amplifier is a pretty simple beast.  Plug it into the wall.  Take the cable from the output jack of your favourite guitar and run it into the input jack of the amplifier.  Turn on the power.  Noodle.

We all remember our first axe and amp.  After following the recipe above, we played for a few minutes and said, ‘that’s cool, but what else can I get out of this.’  In that instant we graduated to Club Tonehound.  Eventually you come to realize that tone is an elusive mistress.  If you’ve play long enough you know joining that elite group of musicians put you on a cosmic and confounding musical journey.  And somewhere along the way, you will discover the effects loop.

For those of you with solid state amplifiers and banks of built-in effects, you may not find the next few paragraphs educational yet.  But save this blog to your favourites because eventually you will own an amplifier with an effects loop.

Your amplifier takes the signal from your guitar and runs it through a preamp and then a power amp before blasting it out your speakers.  The preamp gives you the tone and the power amp provides the volume.  Amplifiers without an effects loop only allow you to run your effects before the preamp.  But an effects loop lets you run effects between the preamp and power amp.

So, why is that important?  Think of it this way;  the effects loop allows you to decide if your amp tone modifies your effects, or if your effects modify your amp tone.  It’s the difference between the eight-pack of crayons or the big box of 64.  More colours for your musical palette allows you to develop a signature tone all your own.

Here’s a good place to start.  Separate your pedals into two groups;  modulation and time-based effects.  Modulation includes overdrive, distortion, compression and the wah pedal.  Time-based effects are things like chorus, delay, flanger, phase and reverb.  Plug your guitar into the first modulation effect in your chain.  Go from the output of the last pedal in the chain into the input of your amp.  Now, run a separate cable from your effects loop send to the first time-based pedal in your chain.  Run a third cable from the output of the last time-based pedal into the effects loop return.  Fire up your amp and noodle away.

Feel free to experiment with the order of your effects.  Try some modulation effects in the loop after the preamp.  Every change you make will alter the sound of your amplifier when the effects are engaged.  Eventually, you will find the tone you like.  Remember, there is no right answer and no single correct method.  Pat Metheny, Eddie Van Halen, Carlos Santana and Zakk Wylde have all made the journey.  If you love guitar, it’s a trip you are destined to take.  (Al is manager of the Edmonton branch of St. John's Music)

The Capo - Great tool with a bad reputation. 'Al Stafford'

You could spend a lifetime learning the subtle nuances of the humble six string guitar in standard tuning and never truly master the instrument.  And yet, that’s not enough for most of us.  In our search for new sounds we reach out to the world of altered tunings, and experiment with our treasured instrument in other keys.  Canadian artists like Joni Mitchell and Bruce Cockburn have created entirely new musical environments by manipulating the tuning of their guitars.  In fact, most songwriters are praised for their creativity when they escaped the bonds of standard tuning.

So why then, is the capo dismissed by many as a gimmick used by cheaters?  In this first instalment of our new Guitar Blog on the St. John’s Music web site, we attempt to demystify the capo – the quick change artist of the guitar.

The advantage of the capo is it allows the player to almost instantaneously change keys while maintaining one of the guitar’s most beloved features.  The ring of an open string.  Here’s a good example; play an Eb chord on your guitar in standard tuning.  Most of you familiar with bar chords will do that at the sixth fret, using an A chord shape.  Now, capo your guitar at the third fret and play an Eb chord by using a C chord shape.  Listen to how your instrument opens up with the G and Bb ringing open on the first and third strings.

The ability to change your guitars’ voice on the fly has some real benefits when playing with other guitarists.  I saw a great example of this recently while watching the country pop group Sugarland play live.  During the in-the-round acoustic portion of the set I saw three guitar players all using capos on different frets.  They were all using first position chord shapes, but the guitar voices were different because of where those shapes fell on the neck in relation to the capo.

Capos come in a variety of types beyond the standard C1 Shubb you see in the picture.  There are partial capos so the player can determine which individual strings are clamped off and short capos that allow two, three or four strings clamped on the bass or treble side of the guitar.  One of my favourite techniques is to use a standard clamp capo on the second fret, but leaving the low E string unclamped.  Think of it as a variation on the drop-D tuning.  It adds a nice flavour to the instrument, without a shift away from standard tuning.  You can hear a great example of how this sounds in Steve Earle’s Ellis Unit One on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.

Some things to remember if you’ve never used a capo before:  First, always try to clamp the capo as close as possible to the fret wire away from the nut.  Second, you may need to re-tune when using some less expensive capos because they don’t come with tension adjustments.  That’s one of the advantages of the C1.  The tension adjustment makes it easier to keep your guitar in tune.

The capo is one of the most used accessories in my case.  The only one I use more is my tuner.  If you’ve never tried one, what’s stopping you?  (Al is manager of the Edmonton branch of St. John's Music)

Changing strings - Acoustic Guitar

How do I change my strings?
Our friends at D'Addario and Planet Waves have helped us by putting together this video to teach you how to restring your acoustic guitar.  In this video you will see the technician use tool by Planet Waves called a Prowinder (Click here for more details).

When do I change my strings?
Change your strings at the first signs of corrosion or if you notice a loss of brightness.  Tuning instability is another signal that it may be time for a string change.  If you break a string it is best to change the whole set.

What gauge should I use?
Heavy gauge strings offer larger tone and volume but are harder to play.  Conversely, lighter strings will have slightly less volume and depth but are easier to play. Generally, start lighter (11-52) and work your way up.   Our favorite brands are D'Addario, Elixer, and Martin (Click here to see our best sellers).