Chasing Sound is launching, Fender Custom Shop, Thelonious Monk and more
Hello, and welcome back to another Six String Sunday from Chasing Sound. I have a bunch of great links this week that are sure to get your creative guitar into action, and I’m VERY excited to share with you a small preview of articles and more that’ll post to Chasing Sound, the site when it launches tomorrow, March 20th!
Thelonious genius — One of the sites I visit every single day is an Apple site called MacSparky, run by David Sparks. He’s been nice enough to feature my iPhone’s homescreen, he runs a great podcast called Mac Power Users, and does a bunch of other Apple related things.
He’s also really into jazz and other types of music, and will post cool music-related links from time to time. This week he linked to two incredible pages of quotes from famous jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. Take a look at the post here. Two of my favorite quotes are, “A genius is the one most like himself” and “What you don’t play can be more important than what you do.”
Nation calls for solos — If you haven’t even read The Onion, you’re missing out. It used to be this awesome fake news newspaper that you’d find at cool clubs and in interesting cities. Now it’s entirely digital, but it’s still hilarious. In this post, the Nation Demands More Mind-Blowing Guitar Solos.
If you’re looking for a good laugh, and a pretty cool picture of Yngwie Malmsteen, check it out.
Fender Custom Shop Celebrates 30th Anniversary — Last summer while on a trip for work I got to experience something that was on my bucket list — visit one of the big guitar manufacturers at their factory. I’ve already been to cool shops like Fernandes and other manufacturers, but last summer I got to visit Fender.
I was able to get an after hours tour that included Fender guitars and amps, Jackson, Charvel, Gretsch and more. It was an amazing experience. I saw cool prototypes, custom guitars and amps, and so much more. The Custom Shop is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and to celebrate they’ve created this fun, 10 minute documentary about the shop itself. Check it out to get a behind the scenes look into some of the most amazing guitars, and how the shop came to be.
Knowing a ton of scales made simple — I’m all about different guitar hacks. If I can get better at guitar and spend less time on it, then I feel like I can progress faster and learn even MORE cool things in the time I’d saved.
This great post by Chris Breen goes over how you can know a “ton of scales” in a simple way. The post goes into how it’s nice to have a wide vocabulary of guitar scales to pull from, which is something I’ve said countless times. It also talks about knowing how different concepts in music theory are intertwined. It uses an example of the major scale to quickly learn other scales by using it as the base.
Take a look at the post, and let me know what you think. Would you rather know lots of scales, or be a master of a handful of scales?
Is your guitar holding you back? — Phillip McKnight is one of the best guitar educators on YouTube. In this video, Phillip goes into if your guitar is physically holding you back.
He gets into expensive vs. less expensive guitars, knowing what instrument you’re comfortable with, and other great tips to consider.
Chasing Sound is kicking into overdrive tomorrow — I can’t even believe I’m typing this, but Chasing Sound is finally launching tomorrow. We’ve been having lots of fun with Six String Sunday, and that’ll still continue, but now you can look forward to visiting ChasingSound.com to get guitar lessons, backgrounds on your favorite guitar players and what makes them tick, jam tracks, videos, interviews and so much more.
What can you expect on week one? The first topic I’ll be diving into on Monday are texture players (players like the Edge, and others), who use effects and minimalist riffs to get their point across.
On Tuesday I’m going to be going over one of the most requested lessons I’ve been asked about (stay tuned for more), and later in the week I’ll feature a cool jam track.
I want to hear from you! Let me know what you’d like me to cover on the site, and if you have something cool that’s guitar related, let me know about it for Six String Sunday.
I also want to point you to Chasing Sound’s Twitter and Facebook pages, where I’m sharing lots of great guitar stuff throughout the week, and our Instagram, where I post funny and inspirational guitar related pictures.
That’s about it for now. Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
-Brian Sutich
Have a friend who might be into our Chasing Sound guitar community? Have ’em sign up at the website.
