At Barrington Bay Music

Gina Symonds (and me)

Gina has contacted me and let me know her daughter is fine. The doctors still aren't sure what the problem was, but Paige has made a full recovery.

There is no rescheduled date for our show. The Osprey show schedule is filled until the end of the year, and they are currently looking at scheduling next year's shows, so we will keep you up to date.

While our show at the Osprey isn't happening, we did play live Friday (Sept 28th) as part of the Walk For A Cause cancer fundraiser. I had the performance recorded, and the video is on the BBM website, if you want to see it. It's about 10 mins long, and the recording isn't the best, but you'll at least get a chance to see us. The video can be viewed at:

http://www.barringtonbaymusic.com/CancerConcert.mpg

For best performance, right-click on the link, save the file to your computer, and watch it locally.

Dwight d'Eon - Where is he now?

I have it on good authority that Dwight is currently writing and recording with his band, Never. A concert and release date will be in the new year, but I have no solid timetable. Never's previous release, Brand New Face, is available Barrington Bay Music.

Barrington Bay Music goes to MIAC

The pictures taken at MIAC didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, and I'll need to make some modifications to them before I post them to the website. I do have a professional picture of me holding (and playing) the Six String Nation guitar, a guitar made exclusively of bits of Canadian history (Wayne Gretzky's hockey stick, a fine shaving of gold from Maurice Richard's Stanley Cup ring, a part of the Bluenose II, part of on of Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddles, etc.), which was built by Nova Scotia luthier George Rizsanyi of New Germany. A link to his website is here: http://www.rizsanyiguitars.com/ and the Six String Nation can be found at http://www.sixstringnation.com/en/

Open on Sundays

This is a reminder thBarrington Bay Music is open 7 days a week. However, I am going to be closing every second Sunday from now until November. Due to my wife being in Toronto for a couple months, I am going to close the store on the Sundays when there are NOT jams scheduled. This is simply to allow me to take a day off. I apologize in advance to all if this causes any inconvenience. Once Linda returns, we will be open 7 days a week again and back in full swing for the Christmas season.

Jam Sessions

Sunday Jams are still on, so come on out and join us:

Current Schedule for Jams (starting around 1 pm):

Acoustic        Oct 7
                     Nov 4
Electric          Oct 21
                     Nov 18

I have been negligent in taking pictures of the last few jams. I will be trying to get more taken and on the website. New pictures from the October 7th Thanksgiving Jam will be up in a few days.

As always, pictures are available for viewing on the BBM website at http://www.barringtonbaymusic.com/jams_gallery.html (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

Power Chords

Power chords are called that because they are very strong sounding musically. Why? Because a power chord is the 1st or root note and the 5th above it, optionally adding the octave root note. To sound this chord, you play two or three strings only, depending on the version of the chord you are using.

Why is the 5th note so great?

The fifth or Perfect Fifth belongs to a small family of consonant or stable musical tones, the others being a Perfect 4th and Perfect Octave. These "perfect" notes vibrate together in a more pleasing way than other notes because they are as far from the root as you can get. Let me explain this:

If you were to draw a seven pointed star, you'd end up with a star where one "point" would have two "points" on the opposite side of the diagram (see diagram below).

As you can see starting from any point you have two notes opposite of it. These will be your Perfect Fourth and Perfect Fifth notes (counting clockwise). The other notes, as you move around the diagram getting closer to your starting point, will start to sound worse due to the dissonance caused by the "warbling" of the two notes.

Power chords are mostly used in hard rock, heavy metal, and punk, along with the related forms of those music types. When adding distortion to a guitar or bass, full chords start to sound muddy or indistinct because of the dissonance naturally caused by the 3rd. By removing the 3rd note, the chord becomes more distinct, while providing a "framework" for a lead player to play within.

Because Power Chords are just the Root-5th combination, ofttimes the chord will be described as a x5 chord in musical notation or tab, where x is a specific root note (C5, D5, Eb5, F#5, etc). So any time you see a 5th chord, you can play a power chord.

Ok, so how do we find them on the guitar?

Starting on any fret on the low two strings (E and A) particularly, your fifth will always be on the next string higher, and two frets closer to the body, and because this position is constant, it's very easy to play the power chords up and down the neck because you just move your hand, while your fingers remain stationary, making this chord very easy to play and move around. And the name of the chord is the lowest played note, so in this case taking the 6th fret on the A string, and playing the 8th fret on the D string gives us
an Eb5 or Eb power chord.

Tech Talk

This month let's talk about wood, tone wood in particular. With a few exceptions, guitars are made of wood, but not just any wood, tone wood.

Ok, so I've mentioned the term "tone wood" twice now. What is it?

A "tone wood" is a type of wood that has consistent acoustic properties, the use of which will define an instrument's tone or sound.

It is rare that a musical instrument is made entirely of a single kind of wood. Since sound is generated through vibration, the instrument's primary wood is selected for the particular characteristics of its vibration. In parts of the instrument not responsible for generating tone, woods are selected for other reasons: a hard wood for the fingerboard, an easily-worked wood for decoration, etc. No wood is inherently a "tonewood", the distinction is in the use of the wood.

There are a variety of different tonewoods to choose from. Below is a list of descriptions of the general tonal properties of some of the most widely used tonewoods for guitar making, acoustic and electric. While it is possible to construct an acoustic guitar with a single tonewood, it is common to employ two different tonewoods: one variety for the back and sides, and one for the sounding board, or "top". Electric guitars follow this same process, though the top wood is generally more decorative, with most of the wood "sound" coming from the body and neck.

Spruce - Spruce, though not as pretty as maple, is the all-time winner for the "top" of flat top acoustic guitars. Spruce is light and has a tight grain. This enables the wood, when properly cut, to vibrate much like a speaker cone. Better yet, as the guitar ages, the sap hidden in the grain of spruce gradually dries and crystallizes, further accentuating the bright, resonant quality of the wood. "Engleman Spruce," is considered the best for making guitar tops.

Rosewood - Rosewood, Brazilian Rosewood in particular, has become the gold standard for the backs and sides of acoustic guitars. Dense and beautiful, rosewood lends a full bass, good high-end bite, and a distinctive "piano-ey" midrange to the tone. While rosewood is obviously great for fretboards, guitar makers have had limited luck using rosewood elsewhere in solid-body electrics. The guitars are too heavy, too bright, and/or cost prohibitive. This is because the wood is rare and expensive. Plus its porous nature requires a good deal of "pore fill" (and subsequent labor) before lacquer can be applied.

Mahogany - Mahogany became popular in guitars because it is beautiful and cheaper to get than rosewood. Whereas the high-end Martin D-28 would have rosewood back and sides, the lower-end D-18 used mahogany. Mahogany lends more of a "parlor" kind of tone to the guitar. In other words, it's twangier but not as brilliant. It's not as "big" sounding either, but possesses a distinct character. This character graced most of the acoustic guitar sounds on early Beatles recordings since they used guitars of mahogany construction. As far as electrics are concerned, you can construct an entire guitar (except the fretboard) out of mahogany (a majority of Gibson Les Pauls follow this build policy). The electric tone is marked by a warm sound with lots of low to mid-range frequencies.

Alder - Alder is the classic Stratocaster body material, though the original models were made of ash. Alder is easy to work with because it doesn't require a lot of pore fill. Alder has a full-bodied sound, but doesn't have quite the "bite" of ash. As an electric guitar body, the sound will have a distinctive mid range push.

Ash - Twangy, porous, and heavy are words that describe ash, the classic ingredient
of the Telecaster sound. It also has good bottom end. Swamp Ash is a vintage wood
that comes from Southern swamps. The portion of the tree that is suitable for high
quality lightweight Swamp Ash, is actually submerged underwater for years which yields
a porous lightweight wood. This wood delivers slightly less midrange with full low-end
and nice singing highs.

Maple - Maple's two main uses are in necks and as a "cap" on an electric guitar. Maple is extremely hard and dense. While this makes them ideal to support the stress of string tension as a neck, they are too heavy and too bright-sounding for use as a solid guitar body. The Les Paul Standard utilized the maple cap to add brilliance to the body while retaining the warmth of the mahogany. "Figured" maple also adds beauty to the guitar since patterns in the grain can be enhanced in the finishing process. Maple is sometimes used for the sides and back of acoustic guitars, but not nearly as often as rosewood or mahogany.

Ebony - Ebony, when not used in pianos, is a great material to use in fretboards. The wood is extremely strong, bright, and durable. Gaboon Ebony comes only from the Gaboon Province in Africa. It is marked by deep black color. Macassar Ebony is a tad less expensive, and features brown stripes in the black, though it is often dyed to be all black.

Walnut - Walnut is a good alternative to mahogany. It is strong, warm-sounding and
naturally beautiful. It works well for solid guitar bodies, and acoustic back and sides.
If properly "quarter-sawn" (perpendicular to the wood's annual rings, or a slice down
the center of the log), Walnut is stable enough to use in guitar necks as well.

Cedar - Cedar is one of few alternatives to spruce for acoustic guitar tops. Cedar is
bright, light, and the deep red color adds a distinctive look to a guitar... plus you won't
get any moths in your guitar case!

Basswood - Basswood is a soft wood with tight grains. Its relatively inexpensive of all
the usual guitar woods, and it's easy on router bits in the factory, easy to sand, and
easy to seal and finish. The softness of basswood means that sharp highs are dampened
and smoothened. That helps offset the tinny sound associated with knife edged tremolo
contacts. The softness also fosters a weaker low end. It's light in weight, but not
because of large pores. Rather it's low in mass overall. Deep, breathy sub-lows aren't
resonated in Basswood. The reduction in these outer frequencies leaves the mids
pronounced in a hypothetical response curve. Its very suitable for the typical guitar range, and very suitable for lead guitar, because of its pronounced "out front" sound. Complex overtones are muted along with the highs leaving a strong fundamental tone.

Woods such as purple heart, pau ferro, wenge, and bubinga are finding their way into
solid body instruments. Particularly, these are being used in basses, since bass
manufacturers tend to be more adventurous than their guitar counterparts. Typically,
these woods are marked by extreme strength and density, and are especially useful
when multiple laminates (combinations) of the woods are used in neck-through-body
construction. The result is guitars with incredible stability and sustain. Also of note, global
consciousness is causing these woods to find their way into guitars with more
conventional construction.

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.