Of the lines I carry, I spent time at the Dean booth, speaking to a number of people I'd done business with as well as chatting with Dean endoresees Michael Angelo Batio (www.angelo.com) and Rudy Schenker of the Scorpions. I got autographs from both, and my picture taken with MAB. Next was the Vintage booth, where I got to chat with the distributor as well as a UK rep and Trev Wilkinson, the man behind the Wilkinson hardware. Trev is a very down to earth guy, easy to talk to and willing to answer any question (I asked quite a few technical questions). I spent time in the booth for the
Washburn/Marshall rep looking at the new products they have.

As for new product, I am currently investigating bringing in some printed material. I know I've said I've been trying to do this for a while, but now I actually have people I can call. Acoustically, I'm looking into bringing in some more of the Takamine Jasmine line, and will be closely investigating the idea of adding Breedlove (http://www.breedloveguitars.com) acoustics to the store. I also made contact with a company that deals with magazines, and I am considering bringing in a small display of music magazines. If there are any that you normally get, and you'd like to see in the store, please contact me and let me know.

Pictures taken at MIAC should be on the website shortly.

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. The first Sunday will be this coming Sunday, Sept 16.

Christmas is coming

I know no one wants to think of Christmas in September, but if you are planning to get something specific for Christmas from the store, please let us know with as much notice as possible. We want to be sure that the item in question is ordered so it's here in time.

Jam Sessions

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

Current Schedule for Jams (starting around 1 pm):

Acoustic Sept 9
Electric Sept 23

I have been negligent in taking pictures of the last few jams. I will be trying to get more taken and on the website.

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.)

Group Lessons Starting this Fall

At this time the classes and times are as follows:

Beginner's Guitar for Men is scheduled for Sept 24th at 6:30 pm. Anyone interested that has not contacted me already is asked to do so. I need to know how many are interested so I can have appropriate seating available. Cost is $5/person.

Beginners Guitar for Women is scheduled for Sept 26th at 8:00 pm. Anyone interested in this class is asked to contact me. This class is going to be run after my current women's class. If there is a conflict of time, I'll need to reschedule the classes to resolve it. Those who are interested in attending are asked to contact me, and let me know that you're coming and whether there is a preference to the time slot. Cost for this class is also $5/person.

Guitar Chops

In the past we have talked about classical finger style playing, how to read tab, how to play the blues and the blues scale, and even touched a bit on the bass.  This month we're going to go into a bit of musical theory. Let's talk about chords.

Many, if not all, of you know how to play a little, some play a lot. You can play a few chords, but do you know why you put your fingers in those positions? Let me explain it to you.

The musical "alphabet" consists of 7 letters, A through G. When you reach G, you start over at A and continue, thus making the next A the eighth note, or octave. A chord is a minimum of 3 notes played together. A Power Chord is not truly a chord by definition, as it only consists of 2 notes. More on this later.

So let's see how this works. A standard MAJOR chord is based around the root note (the note the chord is named for like C) and the 3rd and 5th notes above it.  Let's try making a C Major chord.

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Starting at C and counting it as 1, we can see that E is 3 and G is 5. This would make a C Major chord C-E-G. This works for all chords. So let's do a D chord.

D E F G A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Alright, so that makes D Major D-F-A. But wait a minute, D-F-A are the letters in a D MINOR chord. D Major is actually D-F#-A where # is the sharp sign. Well how does that work?

The letter or note for the MAJOR 3rd is a specific distance from the 5th. It is 3 half-steps or frets lower than the 5th. So let's put this together. We know that a C Major chord is C-E-G, but is it really?

Ok, let's check this. Starting at G, we need to count back 3 frets. That means that F# is 1, F is 2, and E is 3. So in this case E actually is the Major 3rd.  With D, we are going to start at the 5th which is A and count back. G# is 1, G is 2, and F# is 3. So for a D Major chord, D-F#-A is the proper Major.

This may seem confusing, but take a little time, and it should all come together.

Let's work on MINOR chords now. The only difference between a MAJOR and a MINOR chord is the 3rd note. A MINOR chord uses a flat 3rd, or a flattened 3rd, which simply means that you take the Major 3rd, and lower it by one fret or half a step. For example, let's take our C Major chord of C-E-G and make it a Minor chord. So we flatten the 3rd note, the E, to make it Eb (the b represents the musical sign for flat). This makes our Cminor or Cm chord C-Eb-G. Likewise our D chord goes from D-F#-A to D-F-A.

In most musical notation, if a chord does not have any additional letters or numbers it is considered to be Major (eg.C is C Major, E is E Major) All other chords will have additional qualifiers for the chord (eg. Am, Cadd9, Dsus4, etc).

Well, that's all fine and dandy, but how does it apply to the guitar?

Let's look a the D chord. Click the link to see the diagram from the BBM Website:

              

On the diagram we see that the two left strings are not to be played by the use of the Xs below those strings. The first string you play is the 4th string open which is D. In most cases, the lowest sounding note played in a chord SHOULD be the root note. The next is 2nd fret on the G string, which is A. Third fret on the B string is another D, and 2nd fret on the e string is the F#. So you get D-F#-A.  To play a Dm chord, shift your finger to the 1st fret on the e string to sound the F in D-F-A.

Next time we'll talk a little about power chords.

Tech Talk

Let's talk a bit about maintaining your instrument. Beyond tuning it when it goes out of tune, and wiping it down occasionally... for some of you, it's not very frequent, what else is there to do?

Well that depends on the guitar in question. There are more things that should be done to an acoustic than an electric, but all should be done on a regular basis.

Let's start with the basics.

Cleaning

To clean a guitar, it's best to use a cleaner with a high water content, as water is the universal solvent, and cleans very well with damaging the finish. Also use a soft cloth. The cleaning product I normally have in the store have high water content as well as some other stuff that helps the finish of a guitar. If you don't happen to have any polish or
cleaner, water itself will work fine. Dampen a soft cloth to clean the instrument.

Why should I clean my guitar?

Well, first off it makes it look nice, and shows respect for the instrument.  Secondly it's GOOD for the instrument. It's recommended that you wash your hands before playing to remove any dead skin and oils, but we rarely do, so it's good to clean that stuff off the guitar and strings. More importantly to acoustics is the fact that the body of the guitar vibrates to produce the sound, and dirty guitars don't vibrate as well as clean ones.
It'll make the guitar sound a little better, extend the life of the strings, and make it look like new... and who doesn't want to play a new guitar?

Care should be taken with guitars that are finished in a satin finish.  Excessive rubbing can cause the satin to turn glossy, thus ruining the overall look. Satin guitars are by their design resistant to fingerprints.

Any unfinished wood should be given an light rub with lemon oil to moisturize and protect it. On most guitars the only part that is unfinished is the fretboard. I usually give the fretboard a good cleaning and a light coating of lemon oil whenever I change the strings. Lemon oil should never be used on a maple fretboard. Maple fretboards are
sealed at the factory, and usually react poorly to lemon oil, discolouring the fretboard terribly. For maple fretboards, water is best for cleaning and there are safe products available for moisturizing.

Maintaining

We are only going to touch on two things here. If you have any questions please email them to me, and I'll answer in the next column.

The two types of maintenance I want to discuss are adjustments and proper storage.

Storage is more important to acoustics than electrics. Most electric guitars and basses are what is called "solid body" instrument. This means that the body is made from a solid slab of wood, either single piece or a few pieces glued together. Guitars with an inconsistent grain on the back are likely multi-piece bodies, though still considered solid. Electrics can be safely stored in the open, on a stand or hung on the wall because of their construction. Acoustics, however, are much more sensitive to the climate, and recommended storage for an acoustic is in it's case. Why you may ask? The construction of an acoustic instrument consists of thin pieces of wood. Thin wood is more susceptible to changes in the climate, particularly humidity. Those of you with acoustic may have noticed that the neck will flex more in certain times of the year, usually when humidity increases. It's one of the reasons that guitar manufacturers started installing truss rods in the necks. How does it sitting in the case help humidity? By itself it doesn't, but you can add products like humidifiers to the case to help control the amount of humidity within that enclosed space. A Relative Humidity of 45% is optimal. Planet Waves makes a product called a Humidi-Pak which absorbs or exudes moisture to maintain a proper 45% R.H.  The guitar should also be played on a fairly regular basis. This will help move
the wood's natural oils within the wood to prevent cracking. Additionally, if the guitar is going to be unplayed for an extended period of time, loosening the strings will keep the neck from warping.

Adjustments will likely be needed from time to time no matter how stringent the care taken to protect the instrument. These adjustments revolve around the truss rod within the neck. The neck with generally move in one of two directions, the direction of the pull of the strings, or against the strings. This will result in either a high action or string height
making the guitar hard to play, or cause the strings to vibrate against the neck causing a buzzing sound. Adjustments made in summer may not be sufficient for winter. Neck adjustments may also need to be made when restringing or changing to a different guage of string (light to medium).  We will make the necessary adjustments here in the store for a small fee.

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.