John 5, Vai, Guthrie, Chasing Sound’s launch and more
Hello and welcome to Six String Sunday. What a week it has been! Chasing Sound officially launched with 4 posts in 5 days and lots of great people reaching out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
If you’re new to Six String Sunday, welcome! If you’ve been reading 6SS for a while, thank you so much. Let’s get right into the best of what the guitar world had to offer this week:
1) Chasing Sound posts — I couldn’t start without mentioning the 4 posts that showed up on Chasing Sound this week as the site launched. I talked about the Greatest Texture Guitar Players (like the Edge, Jonny Greenwood, and Andy Summers) on Monday. Then on Tuesday we got into how to make a practice schedule. Wednesday I posted a Best of Six String Sunday, to let Chasing Sound readers know what goes on here, and finally on Thursday I talked about Flaunting Your Failures.
I hope you visited the site this week. If you did, let me know what you thought of the first week of posts. Want to see something different? Let me know by reaching out on Twitter.
2) Steve Vai shares his private guitar collection — Steve Vai is hands down one of the greatest guitarists in the world, so it’s big news when he shares his private guitar collection. Some of these guitars we’ve seen before, but these new photos give you an up close look of a handful of some of these beautiful instruments. There’s also a great shot of Vai in his studio. Which guitar is your favorite?
3) Guthrie Govan plays a one-handed solo while drinking water — If you weren’t already impressed by Guthrie, this new video shot at a gig in Tokyo shows Guthrie playing a pretty fantastic one-handed solo while simultaneously drinking a glass of water. The teacher in me thinks there’s some sort of one-handed exercise in there for left hand strength. Check out the video here.
4) EZ Drummer 2 — This week I’ve been working on jam tracks for the website. If you’re a guitar player and you don’t have access to a drummer, you’ve got to check out ToonTrack’s EZ Drummer 2.
I’m a big fan of FXPansion’s BFD, and I even enjoy ToonTrack’s Superior Drummer, but EZ Drummer has an amazing feature that’s unlike any other plugin I’ve tried. You can use the Tap 2 Find feature within the plugin to play different pats of the kit (kick drum, snare drum, cymbals, etc.). After you tap the beat in with your mouse, EZ Drummer finds the closest thing to what you tapped in, in its library of grooves.
Here’s the thing — it works really well. If you want to start creating drum loops for you to play over, take a look at this plugin and try combining drum parts to make a full song.
5) Jazz Guitar Online — One of my favorite places to learn jazz guitar (other than Matt Warnock’s site), is Jazz Guitar Online. If you’re looking to learn any jazz concept, whether it be scales or diving deep on specific players like Wes Montgomery, Bill Frisell or more, check this site out. Here’s a direct link to their lessons page.
6) Gary Clark Jr. — Gary is one of the most exciting blues guitar players of recent years. He was just recently featured on the cover of Guitar World’s May issue, and he has a new live album out. Gary’s voice is smooth and soulful, his guitar tone is fat and vintage, and his playing is refreshing.
On his new album, Live North America (recorded in 2016), he plays some amazing licks. His tone is a lot of fun, and he uses fuzz, wah, and a slide to get some really awesome tones.
Six String Sunday usually spotlights 6 great things in the world of guitar for the week, but I had to wrap up with a bonus album recommendation that I’ve been listening to.
John 5 and the Creatures’ new album, Season of the Witch is a high energy tour de force of great guitar playing. If you haven’t heard John 5 before, he’s played with everyone from Marilyn Manson to Rob Zombie and more.
On Season of the Witch, he’s doing his solo guitar thing. The album shifts as John’s solo albums usually do, from metal to country and other styles. John employs a signature Fender John 5 Telecaster, and the guy shreds no matter what style he’s playing. Check this album out if you want some inspiration this week.
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.
If you have any questions or comments, you can reply to this post, let me know on Twitter or by posting in our Facebook group. I also have a fun Instagram channel where I post fun guitar pictures throughout the week.
