The ’80s were tough on guitars. Last weekend I went to a memorial service for a music pal I hadn’t seen since the ’80s. Judging by the pictures I saw and the stories I heard, Brett remained the gentle, generous music lover I’d remembered till he died in his sleep a few weeks […] 
Writers and musician always steal from each other. How many great novels and stories take their titles from music? How many great songs and compositions are inspired by works of literature? (Answer: a metric buttload!) But strangely, musicians have been slow to pick up on one of best practices of modern writers. I refer to […] 
Bronze isn’t so bad after all! A quick update to last week’s post about bronze and nickel strings: Over in the forum, Bear suggested trying 80/20 bronze strings. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I thought some of the strings I’d stocked up on and tried were 80/20s, but just realized they […] 
Of the dozens of videos I’ve posted at the tonefiend YouTube channel, most have dealt with gear, and a few with general technique. But this is the first one I’ve done dealing with music theory. Which is sort of odd, since I’m a terminal music theory geek. Aside from covering a cool and underused […] 
Like Talos the Giant from Jason & the Argonauts, most modern acoustic strings are made from bronze. Like him, they can be cruel and inflexible. UPDATE: I’ve updated the audio examples to include 80/20 bronze strings, as detailed in this newer post. Can I share my steel-string psychodrama? I’m lucky enough to […] 
A sad, desolate place — but not for long! One cool thing about going indie with tonefiend is that fact that I can finally host my own geek forum! It’s already up and running — but it’s a sad, vacant space that desperately needs to be populated by cool people and cool ideas. […] 
Tonefiend hearts Seymour. Seymour Duncan’s year-long sponsorship of my blog has drawn to a close. If you’re reading this, you’ve already found the blog’s new home. Meanwhile, everything we said and did over the past year will be posted both here and in archived form at its old location on Seymour Duncan’s site, […] 
Now with more secrets — and less secrecy. Last winter I tried an odd experiment: a website where players were encouraged to post their best tone secrets — the kinds of tricks and techniques that are almost too good to share. But in order to get, you had to give: The site was […] 
“I always forget — which end gets hot?” Somewhat embarrassingly, I never got around to changing one of my own pickups until I was knocking on senility’s door recently. I owe part of the inspiration to that fabulous DIY Fest known as the Maker Fair, where each year hundreds of little kids learn […] 
Can we all agree that it’s a good thing when guitarists and bassists cultivate their own style? Even a jaded old cuss experienced music journalist like me still gets a thrill upon discovering a new player with a startlingly original voice. I am not any of these people —but I pretended to be […] |
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