Camp guitars still available

I've decided to continue the special on "camp" guitars.

These guitars are being discounted because they are used or have minor cosmetic damage to them.  Nicks, scratches, small dings, things that impact the look of the guitar, not the way it plays or sounds.

We have one guitar still available and in stock with more on the way.  They play well and sound good, and since they're a little damaged, you don't have to worry about taking your "good" guitar to the camp or cottage.

So if you're looking to get a inexpensive guitar for the camp or cottage, or just want a low priced guitar to learn on, come in and see our selection.

New Classes at BBM

With the success of my Women's Only class, I've decided to see if there's interest in a Men's class and a Music Fundamentals class.

The Men's class will be very similar to my Women's Class, starting from the very beginning of ways to hold the guitar, through playing a song and learning music fundamentals.

The Music Fundamentals class is going to be a more intense and in-depth look at the hows and whys of music as an art and science, not so much in the actual playing, though practical application of the theory will be demonstrated and possibly practiced.

Neither of these classes are scheduled at this point, I'm just looking to see how many might be interested, and based on that feedback, I'll decide if the class will be scheduled.

For more information, contact us at the store via email or at 902-637-1691.

Jam Sessions

Now that lobster season is officially over, I am looking forward to seeing the jam attendance climb back up, however, I am told that many in the area go to the camp, cottage, or simply go into the woods for the next several months, so at this time, I don't know if I'm going to continue the jams for the summer, particularly the acoustic jam.  The electric jam is being attended faithfully.

I will be sending out a link to an online survey in a few days.

The current schedule is as follows:

Acoustic:

                June 10th

Electric:

                June 24th

Tell your friends, and invite them out to a jam session.  Come out yourself and bang away on your fiddle, learn something new and meet new friends and players.

Pictures are available for viewing on the BBM website in the Jams Gallery (we are looking into the possibility of video taping a jam, and placing the video on the website in the future as well.)

Guitar Chops

This month I'm going to explain how to read tablature or tabs to you.  This may seem like closing the barn doors after the horse is gone, but I have a feeling there are some of you out there who don't quite understand how to read tabs.

What is Tab(lature)?

TAB or tablature is a method of writing down music played on guitar or bass.  Instead of using symbols like in standard musical notation, it uses ordinary ASCII characters and numbers, making it  ideal for places like the internet where anybody with any computer can link up, copy a TAB file, and read it.

What Tabs will tell you....

TAB will tell you what notes to play - it will tell you which string to hit and which fret to fret it at.

TAB will tell you where hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, slides, harmonics and vibrato are used.

TAB will tell you what tuning the piece is in.  If this isn't given explicitly, assume normal tuning.  TAB should also give you information on use of capos etc.

TAB will give you an indication of the ryhthm of the piece - i.e it will tell you which are the long notes and which are the short notes. 

However it will not tell you exactly how long or how short they are.

This leads me on to...

What Tabs won't tell you....

TAB will (usually) not tell you the note lengths of the notes - so in most cases you will *have* to listen to the song yourself, with the TAB in front of you to work out the rhythm of the notes.

TAB will not tell you which fingers you use to fret which note.

TAB will (usually) not tell you anything about picking and strumming - you will have to decide for yourself where to use upstrokes/downstrokes and so on.

Basic TAB Notations

TAB is simple to read, and should be simple to write if you want to submit a song you have worked out yourself.  The idea is this:

You start out with 6 lines (or four for bass). These correspond to the strings of the instrument.  The top line is the highest pitch string, and the bottom line is the lowest pitch string.  Below is a blank bit of TAB with the string names at the left.

e --------------------------------------------------

B --------------------------------------------------

G --------------------------------------------------

D --------------------------------------------------

A --------------------------------------------------

E --------------------------------------------------

Numbers are written on the lines to show you where to fret the string with the left hand. If a zero appears, this means play the open string.  Like standard musical notation, you read from left to right to find out what order to play the notes.  The following piece of TAB would mean play the sequence of notes (E F F# G G# A) on the bottom E string by moving up a fret at a time, starting with the open string.

 e --------------------------------------------------

B --------------------------------------------------

G --------------------------------------------------

D --------------------------------------------------

A --------------------------------------------------

E ---0--1--2--3--4--5-------------------------------

OK so far?

Here we have notes being played one at a time. If two or more notes are to be played together, they are written on top of one another, again just like standard notation.

In the next example we have a G barre chord.

e ----3---------------------------------------------

B ----3---------------------------------------------

G ----4---------------------------------------------

D ----5---------------------------------------------

A ----5---------------------------------------------

E ----3---------------------------------------------

So this means play all these notes together as a chord.

You might see the same chord written like this :

e --------3-----------------------------------------

B -------3------------------------------------------

G ------4-------------------------------------------

D -----5--------------------------------------------

A ----5---------------------------------------------

E ---3----------------------------------------------

Which would mean strum the same shape starting at the bottom string, so that each string is hit slightly later than the last string, but all notes will ring together.  Below is an example of the same shape again, but now the gaps between the notes are bigger - so you would probably pick the strings separately instead of slowly strumming the shape.

e ------------------3-------------------------------

B ---------------3-----3----------------------------

G ------------4-----------4-------------------------

D ---------5-----------------5----------------------

A ------5-----------------------5-------------------

E ---3-----------------------------3----------------

You might ask - How do I know how fast or slow to play this?  Are all the notes supposed to be the same length? 

This is where TAB differs from standard notation. Most often TAB will *not* give you any information on the note lengths.  It is usually left up to you to listen to the song to pick up the rhythm.  This is no longer entirely the case.  Most of the new guitar magazines I've read lately are starting to incorporate timing notation into the TAB they are publishing, however, if you are getting your TABs from the Internet, you will still need to listen to the song to get the proper rhythm.

However - don't despair. TAB should give you some indications of timing.  In the example above all the notes are evenly spaced so you can reasonably assume that the notes are the same length (maybe all eighth notes or quarter notes) but this may not always be true - it depends on who wrote the TAB.

 As a general rule, the spacing of the notes on the TAB should tell you which notes are the long ones, and which are the short and fast ones, but obviously it won't tell you if a note is a triplet or anything like that.  Again, this will depend strongly on the person who wrote the TAB.

As an example, here are the first few notes of the American National Anthem in TAB.  You should see fairly clearly that the different spacing corresponds to the different note lengths.

e ---------------------0-------4--2-0---------------

B -0--------------0--------------------------------0

G ------1------1---------------------------1----3---

D --------2-----------------------------------------

A --------------------------------------------------

E --------------------------------------------------

Obviously it will be a lot easier to play the TAB for a song you know well than for a song you've never heard of because you will already be familiar with the rhythms of the familiar song.

This will give you a head start on any tabs you're having trouble with. Next month we'll look at additional notations.

Tech Talk

One final note on pickups before we move on; you may notice that some pickups, particularly old ones, or ones from more inexpensive guitars will have different pole piece sizes.

Different pole sizing will have a direct effect on your sound.  Most times the poles on one pickup will be the same size as one from another manufacturer.  In the case that they are different, your sound or tone will change.

Small pole pieces will tend to focus the magnetic field, and give a "thinner" sound due to the fact that the magnet can only sense the string in a reduced area, when compared to a more common size.  On the other hand, pickups with larger-than-normal pole pieces will tend to generate a "thicker" or "fuller" sound because of a wider magnetic field, and how it can pick up the string movement over a wider area.

Some pickups don't use traditional poles at all, and instead use blades; which has it's pros and cons.  One of the biggest cons is that on standard pickups with six individual pole pieces, you tend to get more string definition, whereas on the blades, it's a little more muddied because you only have one "pole".  Most pickup manufacturers that produce bladed pickups counter this by using stronger magnets and more windings, making for a hotter pickup.  While this helps, it doesn't quite give a true "sound". 

Additionally, when using stronger magnets, you run the risk of killing the sustain of the guitar by "magnetic drag" on the strings.  One of the good things about blades is that there is no way to create the dreaded "ghost note".  A ghost note is most commonly encountered when bending strings and occurs when the note being bent forces the string out of the magnetic field for the pole piece beneath it, causing the note to fade dramatically.  A blade, which reaches across the full width of the pickup, has no spot where the string isn't in the magnetic field.

Bladed pickups are not very common, and those that are available, tend to be humbucker pickups.  Bladed single coil pickups do exist, but are even less common, and can usually only be found on eBay (the only ones I've ever seen were from a manufacturer named Bill Lawrence and were out of a vintage guitar.)

Rentable Space

I've been approached by a local band to know if I'd be willing to rent out the store (after hours) for practices.  I haven't made a final decision as of yet, but I'm curious how many bands are looking for jam/practice space and whether this would be worthwhile.

If you or your band are looking for a place to jam or practice, contact me through the store or the website with your information and preferred days, and if there's enough interest I'll draw up a schedule and fee structure.