Behind the Bridge:
Hendrix, Korea-Style

This is perfectly awesome:

Luna Lee is playing a gayageum, a Korean zither related to the Japanese koto, Vietnamesese dàn tranh, and the Chinese guzheng. She’e got other fun blues and rock covers posted on her YouTube page. Lee’s version of “Voodoo Chile” is the internet hit, but I dig her “Bold as Love” […]

Playing with Pain

I’m lucky — I’ve never suffered from any playing-related pain. (I mean, other than expected stuff, like spurting blood all over a guitar when you bash it a little too hard, or picking up a soldering iron by the wrong end.) But I’ve been blissfully untouched by carpal tunnel syndrome, numbness, arthritis, etc.

Until […]

Pinn Panelle’s Derek Song:
12 Million Views and Counting

Pinn Panelle’s Derek Song.

A highlight of this year’s NAMM show was hanging out with Derek Song, a 23-year-old digital guitarist whose band, Pinn Panelle, has racked up an astonishing 12.5 million YouTube views with their realtime cover versions of electronic music hits, especially their version of Skrillex’s “Scary Monster and Nice Sprites”

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My Flatwound Addiction

So smooth. So sexy. So frickin’ expensive!

Hi. I’m Joe, and I’m a flatwound addict.

It took me a long time admit it. “What wrong with a little recrational flatwound use?” I used to ask. “I can quit anytime I want.”

Sure, I’d sometimes put flatwound strings on my Guild archtop. And sometimes […]

An Alternate-Tuning Capo

UPDATE, 03.07.13: I should have mentioned a point that several readers noted in comments: The capo only alters the tuning of open strings. Which means that while you can play many harmonies normally available only in dropped tunings, any notes above the capo appear at their usual frets. For example, all barre chords are […]

My Friend Bill

William Bennett, 1956-2013

I lost one of my oldest and dearest friends yesterday — and one of the deepest musicians I’ve ever known.

Bill Bennett, longtime oboist with the San Francisco Symphony, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage onstage last weekend while performing Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto at Davies Symphony Hall here in San Francisco. He […]