The guitar has come a long way since its evolution from the archaic guitar-like instruments of Europe, Egypt, and Mesopotamia over the past centuries. Even since the development of the modern classical guitar in the 19th century, guitar technique and technology has undergone huge changes and revolutions. Perhaps most exciting are the developments the guitar has made in rock music, particularly between the 1950s and 1970s.

The rock and roll genre of the 1950s drew its influences from blues, country music, and gospel, among other American styles of music. While people may disagree about which of these musical styles had a greater influence on the development of rock, each played an important role in developing rock and roll, from basic song structures to instrument techniques.

The way the guitar was used in early rock and roll music made its roots very obvious. The guitar tone Chuck Berry got out of his archtop electric guitar on his 1958 single “Johnny B. Goode” has a warmth and jazzy tone which clearly references early guitar playing and music genres. Yet, while Chuck Berry’s guitar sound lacked later rock guitar elements such as overdrive, his unique style revolutionized guitar playing and forever changed the direction of rock music.

It was Link Wray who pioneered the overdriven electric guitar sound with his 1958 instrumental, “Rumble”, which once again revolutionized the electric guitar sound and opened a world of possibilities for future guitar greats. Yet, even Wray’s distorted guitar was a comparatively soft and polite thing; it didn’t have the aggression, dominance, or volume that came to typify later guitar music.

The 1960s saw new guitarists build onto the work of these early innovators with the emergence of important rock bands such as The Grateful Dead and The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds were an important 60s band in that they focused on guitar solos, distortion, feedback, and helped make the guitar an even more central element of rock. Members of The Yardbirds went on to form other important 60s guitar bands such as Cream, The Jeff Beck Group, and Led Zeppelin. The Grateful Dead pioneered the “jam band” sound during this period with their emphasis on long musical improvisation.

The late 1960s and early 70s saw the dominance of guitarists Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix in particular developed a unique guitar-centred rock sound, with heavy distortion, feedback, complex solos, and electric guitar virtuosity. But as new and innovative as Hendrix’s guitar playing was, it was also influenced by older music, particularly blues, as is evident in the scales he based his solos on and the chords that made up many of his songs. At the same time, Led Zeppelin, with their focus on complex songs and musical virtuosity, became one of the biggest rock bands of the 1970s.

The 1970s continued its focus on over-driven guitar-centered music, with an emphasis on guitar solos and virtuosity, and a further development of psychedelic effects and techniques. Rock music of the 1970s continues to influence the music of today. Indeed, it can easily be argued that today’s rock music is created in a continuous reference to the benchmark music of the 1960s and 1970s Golden Age of Rock.

- Axel

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Learning how to play acoustic guitar can be a great hobby. But unless learning the instrument is approached thoughtfully and carefully, the new guitarist can run into problems which might affect how enjoyable playing acoustic guitar can be. Without an understanding of how to develop good playing technique, and a basic knowledge of acoustic guitars, the new guitarist can run into snags very quickly.

This article offers some very basic tips for new acoustic guitar players. But even people who have been playing acoustic guitar for some time can find this information useful. Keep reading for some helpful tips and information that will make learning the acoustic guitar a smoother and more enjoyable activity.

Picking a good acoustic guitar can be a confusing thing for new guitarists. The range in price and quality of acoustic guitars is enormous. New acoustic guitarists usually don’t want to pay huge sums of money for a guitar, especially if they’re not sure that they’ll stick with the instrument. This can lead to people buying very cheap guitars. Unfortunately, cheap guitars come at a great price, as inexpensive guitars are typically poor quality. Besides not sounding good, they can also be quite difficult to play. If the action (string distance to fret) is too high, which is often the case with cheap acoustics, it can invite the new guitarist into forming bad playing habits. See our article on buying a guitar.

New guitarists should make a compromise when buying acoustic guitars. The trick is to buy something relatively cheap, but that can still be played happily. A great option is to buy a second hand guitar. Second hand doesn’t necessarily mean worn-out, and it is very possible to buy great pre-loved guitars at low prices.

Another option is to buy a low-range model from a good acoustic guitar manufacturer. For example, Martin and Taylor guitar companies are renowned for making great acoustic guitars. The good news for new guitarists is that these companies also make affordable models that still sound great. Guitars from the Martin X series and the Taylor 100 and 200 series are both relatively inexpensive and high quality.

Learning how to use a guitar pick is one the most essential skills for acoustic guitar players. The pick should be placed between the knuckle and the finger-tip of your index finger. The thumb is then pressed down onto the pick to create an “X” shape with your index finger and thumb. It’s best to make sure there is not too much pick hanging out from your thumb and finger. In order to have more control of the pick, it should be held quite deep, with only a small part of the pick hanging out.

Training your fingers to be strong is important for being able to play guitar comfortably and with stamina. The more you play, the stronger your fingers become, but it’s still a good idea to do some basic finger strengthening exercises every time you practice. See our blog on finger exercises.

Learning good hand posture is something a lot of guitarists fail to do. Good posture means greater ease when playing the guitar. More often than not, guitarists have bad left-hand posture, but training the left-hand to maintain good posture is not a difficult thing. The left-hand knuckles should run parallel to the bottom of the fretboard. The thumb should not come over the top of the back of the fretboard unless it is absolutely necessary, such as when forming particular chords or performing some other technique such as bending strings.

Keeping the above hints in mind will help new guitarists learn how to play acoustic guitar well. Being able to hold a pick properly, performing finger strengthening exercises, learning good hand posture, and knowing how to find good beginner guitars puts new guitarists at a great advantage. Even seasoned guitarists suffer from not following these simple guidelines, so they should be learned as early as possible.

- Axel

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It’s not what you play, it’s how you play it.

There are lots of ways to make guitar solos. Most guitarists focus on ‘what to play’ versus ‘how to play things’. Fact is, the nuances of phrasing (‘how’ the notes are played) often matter MORE than the notes we actually play. How many times have you heard someone play a solo ‘without’ much emotion? Often there was nothing wrong with their choice of notes. The solo lacked emotion and interest because the ‘phrasing’ was weak.

Guitar Phrasing is the most important aspect to creating great guitar solos, yet very few guitar players learn to develop this key element of their guitar playing.

One of the best things you can do to make better guitar solos is to carefully study your favorite singers. In the late 1990s, I began to study the vocal styles of my favorite singers. I learned to play on guitar every little nuance of their vocal phrasing and vibrato… and most importantly, the ‘musical contexts’ in which they made various phrasing and vibrato choices when singing. Singers cannot do many of things that we can do on the guitar, but they can naturally and effortlessly do things that are not common (but are still possible) to do on the guitar.

Listen to your favorite singers and notice the difference between their vocal phrasing (‘how’ they sing notes and phrases) and your guitar phrasing (‘how’ you play your notes and phrases). Then listen carefully to how these singers construct their phrases and compare that to how you create your guitar solos. When you really pay attention to this, you will probably make some very cool and powerful observations. This can be one of the best guitar solo lessons you can ever have. It can be a real eye (and ear) opening experience that can lead you to discover MANY new ideas that you can use to make your own great guitar solos.

Here are three things you can learn and implement into your playing immediately so that you can consistently make better guitar solos.

Delayed Vibrato: Listen to how many singers sing a note (without vibrato at first) and then begin to apply vibrato to it a few moments later. The vast majority of guitar players don’t do this when soloing; instead they apply the vibrato immediately to the note. Although this can also sound good, it gets old to always immediately apply vibrato when you use it. So play a note on your guitar, let it ring out naturally (without vibrato) for a moment, then apply vibrato to it. In addition to creating a more ‘vocal style of guitar playing’ you may also notice that the note you just played sustains longer. (more on this in the video below).

Movement between notes: As you know, when playing notes on a piano there is no ability to ‘bend’ notes. Singers frequently ‘bend’ notes in both directions (up or down in pitch), although downward ‘bent’ notes are more common in most vocal styles. Guitar players frequently bend notes, but 99% of the time they only bend notes ‘up’ (in pitch).
(more on this in the video below).

Intuitive Emotional Expression: Singers often manipulate tension and dissonance intuitively. They might sing the 9th of a chord because it makes a very specific emotional feeling. Most (non jazz) guitar players would naturally play the root while making a guitar solo (especially at the end of a phrase). This happens because guitar players typically are thinking about patterns and scale positions. And thus the ear is conditioned to find the consonant notes’ when beginning and ending phrases while creating (or improvising) guitar solos. Singers don’t have ‘patterns’ and ‘positions’ to think about. They are only focused on their intuition - the emotion of each note they sing. This results in more natural options for the singer (compared to many ‘inexperienced’ guitar players) particularly at the beginnings and endings of phrases.

Watch the video below to see exactly what I’m talking about and hear a live demonstration of each.

Tom Hess is a professional guitarist and teaches electric guitar lessons online. To get more help with your guitar playing check out my 10 Free Guitar Solo Tips.

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Guitar tablature (tab) is the easiest and most convenient to read and write guitar music. Students taking acoustic or electric guitar lessons are usually introduced to guitar tab within their first few lessons. But some guitar tutors don’t teach tab, and many guitarists don’t take guitar lessons at all. For these guitarists, the quicker they take steps to become literate guitarists, the quicker they can become great guitarists.

But before learning the basics of guitar tab — a word of warning. These days, it’s easy to find the guitar tabs to almost every song imaginable by searching the Internet. That’s great news for guitarists. Unfortunately, many of these guitar tabs are not completely accurate. This is because most guitar tab is tabulated by amateur guitarists. New guitarists should exercise caution and only use guitar tab from trustworthy websites. Better yet, using professional guitar tab books from music stores guarantees accuracy.

How Guitar Tabs Work
A guitar tab is made up of lines and numbers:

• Lines. There are six lines which represent the six strings of the guitar. These are — from the top of the guitar to the bottom — E, A, D, G, B, and e. The “E” is the thickest string on the guitar; the “e” is the thinnest.
• Numbers. The numbers used in guitar tab represent the frets that left-hand fingers (for right-hand guitarists) are pressed down onto to create notes.

Here is an example of a very simple guitar tab:

e——-1———————————————————
B—————————————————————–
G—————————————————————–
D—————————————————————–
A—————————————————————–
E—————————————————————–

One of the first things to notice about guitar tab is that the strings are written upside-down. The “E” string (the thickest string on your guitar) is at the bottom of the guitar tab, while the “e” string is at the top. It might take new guitarists some time to become used to reading guitar music that seems upside-down at first. A good exercise is to find and name the strings of the guitar, and then locate them on the guitar tab.

The number “1″ on the above guitar tab indicates that a left-hand finger should be pressed onto the 1st fret on the “e” string. The “e” string is then picked with one’s right hand to produce a note.

Below is a more complicated guitar tab, which shows a picked melody, and a strummed guitar chord.

D Chord
e–0-1-2-3——2————————————————-
B—————3————————————————-
G—————2————————————————-
D—————0————————————————-
A—————————————————————–
E—————————————————————–

The numbers in this example are written in two different ways: horizontally and vertically. When numbers are written horizontally, this means they are played one after another. So, the “0 - 1 - 2 - 3″ on the “e” string are notes that are to be picked one after another. The “0″ represents an “open string”; in other words, a string which is played without putting a finger down on any fret.

The numbers that are written vertically are to be played all at the same time. This is how guitar chords are written. The guitarist is required to put their fingers onto each of the frets indicated by the numbers and strum these all at once. The name of the chord — in this case “D” — is often written above the tabulated chord.

Besides lines and numbers, there are also several other symbols that can be used to write guitar tab which indicate various guitar techniques, such as hammer-ons and and pull-offs. Good guitar tab and guitar tab books should explain these symbols for the guitarist.

Being able to sight-read guitar tab is a great skill to develop. The above information should provide the guitarist with a good starting point to being able to read any tab. Thankfully, reading guitar tab is quite simple and becomes second nature very quickly.

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To do any kind of work we need tools. When it comes to guitarists most people think our tools of the trade are our guitar and amp. This is true and we spend many hours every week making sure our tools are in good order but we often neglect our most important tools, our hands.

New and seasoned guitarists alike need to keep their hands and fingers in good shape in order to develop and maintain dexterity. Having strong and quick fingers is essential for being able to change chords smoothly, play speedy solos, and pick and strum in perfect time. Playing guitar really is a physical activity, and like training for any physical activity, particular muscles need to be developed. If hand and finger muscles aren’t developed, they can become tired or cramped when playing guitar.

To develop strength and speed, guitarists need to do finger strengthening exercises as often as they can. A good finger strengthening exercise should always challenge the fingers and hands. This means that as muscles and skills develop, exercises should be made more and more challenging.

Aids can be used to challenge and track progress, such as a metronome or a stop-watch. Increasing the tempo on a metronome allows a guitarist to increase their playing speed. A good challenge is to set the speed of the metronome faster with each practice. Alternatively, a stop-watch can be used to time how fast a guitarist is playing through a particular pattern or exercise. Times can be recorded, and guitarists can then try to beat their best speeds.

One very important thing to be kept in mind when doing finger strengthening exercises is that sound quality should not be sacrificed for speed. While part of the challenge of finger strengthening exercises may be to play faster and faster, this should not be done at the cost of good tone and timing.

Left Hand Guitar Exercises
One of the most useful exercises for strengthen the left hand is playing variations of the chromatic scale. The basic chromatic scale below can be used as a starting point. Guitarists can play through this scale at a pace they are comfortable with. With each practice, the playing speed should increase slightly.

e—————————————–1-2-3-4———-
B———————————1-2-3-4——————
G————————-1-2-3-4————————–
D—————–1-2-3-4———————————-
A———1-2-3-4——————————————
E-1-2-3-4————————————————–

Having played the chromatic scale, it can then be played backwards. For example:

e-4-3-2-1———————
B———4-3-2-1————-
G—————————–
D—————————–
A—————————–
E—————————– etc.

From this, alternative patterns can be introduced. Playing the chromatic scale with the below variations helps a guitarist’s hand become accustomed to stretching in different ways:

e———————————————————-
B———————————————————-
G———————————————————-
D———————————————————-
A———————————————————-
E-1-4-3-2—-4-2-3-1—-2-3-1-4—————————- etc.

Right Hand Guitar Exercises
For electric and acoustic guitarists, playing with speed and strength with the right hand means using a guitar pick well. One very useful exercise for developing right hand muscles is to play the above chromatic scale using different patterns of up-strokes and down-strokes.

A down-stroke is when a guitar pick is used to pick a string (or strum strings) in a downward motion. An up-stroke is the opposite; strings are picked from bottom to top. By changing the pattern of up-strokes and down-strokes, the right hand can be trained to move in ways that it may not be used to. This will help strengthen finger muscles as they will be used in new ways.

In the above chromatic scale, four notes are played on each string. This makes it convenient to create picking patterns based on different combinations of four up-strokes and down-strokes. For example, “down, up, down, up” is a very basic picking pattern that can be used to pick the chromatic scale. More complex patterns could be “down, down, up, down”; “up, up, up, down”, “up, down, down, up”, etc.

Once the guitarist practices the basic chromatic scale with different combinations of up-strokes and down-strokes, a greater challenge can be introduced. Using complicated patterns of up-strokes and down-strokes while playing more complicated variations of the chromatic scale with the left hand can provide a real physical and mental workout for the guitarist.

The best part about these guitar finger exercises is that they develop finger muscles, but as they become more complicated, they also train left hand and right hand fingers to play complicated patterns simultaneously. In that sense, these exercises are as much a physical activity as they are a mental activity.

So remember its your hands that do the work. Keep them in good shape and you can make any guitar sound good.

- Axel

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Becoming a good guitarist takes a lot of practice unless you’re a Jimi Hendrix or an Axel Bay who just pick up a guitar and it becomes another appendage to your body. But for normal people it takes a lot of practice. Developing good practice habits is something that many guitarists fail to do. So keep on reading for 5 tips and techniques for healthy and effective guitar practice.

Make Time - It’s important to find a time and space to focus on guitar practice. I know we all get lazy and sometimes setting aside a certain amount of time each day for practice seems like a chore but it is important to have some time set aside where you can concentrate solely on practicing guitar. However, the guitar doesn’t always have to be played in such a strict and formal way; just strumming a guitar when watching TV or running through scales while chatting with friends is another great way to become comfortable with the guitar. I knew a Chinese girl who was a great guitarist, all due to the fact that she never put the guitar down. She was always playing regardless of what she was doing. The Emmanuel Brothers used to sleep with their guitars as kids, and look how good they got. The more time spent with the guitar the better, but at least part of this time should be focused, quality time.

Make Practice Fun - As above, guitar practice doesn’t always have to be strict and formal. But even when you are practicing in a formal way, there are ways to make the practice really enjoyable. Playing along to favorite songs, playing with friends, making fun challenges such as playing scales as quickly as possible — all of these techniques can be used to keep guitar practice from becoming a chore.

Play To a Metronome - It’s important to develop a good sense of timing as early as possible or you will end up playing like Steve Jones (Sex Pistols). Playing to a metronome or a CD will help you learn to play in time. Another option is to play with a drum machine or a good drummer. If you only practice alone without some sort of timing device you could develop bad habits which will make it difficult to play with other musicians.

Strengthen Weaknesses - When practicing, you shouldn’t just cover the things you can already do well. Practice should be a time for developing new skills, and this means understanding your weaknesses as a guitarist and remedying the situation by practicing the techniques that you are having problems with until they become easier.

Understand Music Theory - Being a good guitarist will always be more than just having quick fingers and a good ear. With no comprehension of music theory, it can be difficult to understand chord progressions, how to play solos well, how to read music, and a myriad of other important skills. The best option is to develop your fingers and mind simultaneously. This doesn’t mean spending years becoming a music theory pro, but it does mean learning some basic theory principles.

By balancing fun with hard work, and practical skills with theoretical knowledge, you can develop healthy practice techniques. From this, you can become well-rounded with a wide range of technical abilities and musical knowledge. It all starts with developing and maintaining a good practice schedule. The sooner this is done, the quicker you will progress as a musician.

- Axel

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In a recent blog (is that what they are called these days?) I wrote about rock legends and the crazy things they got up to on and off stage. Well, in the good old days when we actually had rock heroes to look up to many of their fans would copy their antics to prove that they were in fact true fans. Here are the top ten things to know that you are a rocker as follows:

You go to sleep listening to Led Zeppelin

Because you can’t get to sleep with that nagging other half in your ear, so you slip on the headphones to drown out the background noise and if you are a true rocker, its gotta be Led Zep.

You wake up listening to Led Zeppelin

Because you left the cd player on repeat.

You love stage diving

You go to great efforts to fight your way through the frenzied fans, battle with security and struggle up on to the stage simply to dive back off into the crowd. Just make sure they catch you. See my tip on stage diving. (Tip #7)

You are slightly deaf in one ear

From standing side on to the stage when attending gigs while you chat with your mates and eye off the talent, to avoid this try facing the stage and looking at the show.

You think Eminem is candy

well isn’t it? I like the red ones.

You don’t mind snacking on the odd feral animal

This is for the major fans of Ozzie Ozbourne and Alice Cooper. Although, I don’t practice this myself or recommend it, I do admire those who have the guts to bite the head off a live bat.

A volume setting of 10 is not quite loud enough

This is the other reason you are slightly deaf in one ear, from leaning over and actually trying to squeeze just a little more out of that 100 watt Marshall amp.

You can only count to 4 (unlike roadies who can only count to 2)

Because you only play rock music, if you played waltzes you would only be able to count to 3. And as for the roadies, I will let you figure that out for yourself.

You have uncontrollable urges to destroy furniture

Again for the hardcore fans of Joe Walsh and Keith Moon. Don’t do this at home!

You have calluses on your forehead from head banging

Ok you really gotta step back from the stage a little or you’re gonna get brain damage.

So there you have it, a list to know whether you are a rocker or not. If you are reading this I am sure you can identify with at least half of the items on the list, if not, you are not trying hard enough.

- Axel

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Last month, the world lost one of the greatest guitar innovators of all time. I am referring to Les Paul who died on 13 August 2009. This is my tribute to the great man.

We all rave on about who has been the most influential guitarist of all time. We throw names around like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and even Robert Johnson but we forget about Les Paul.

Most people know and relate Les Paul to his solid body guitar development. It was the development of such guitars that has given rock music its direction and sound ever since. But Les Paul even did much more than this.

Born Lester William Polsfuss, June 9, 1915 just near Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the USA (that’s where the TV show Happy Days was set) of German immigrant parents. It was only later that he took the stage name of Les Paul.

Like many kids, Paul began playing harmonica at the age of eight and took up the guitar when he was older. In his early teens, he invented a neck worn harmonica holder so he could play his harp and guitar at the same time. This device is still manufactured today using his basic design.

It was when Les Paul moved to Chicago in 1934 that his music career really took off. He jammed with, played with and backed such artists as Django Reinhardt, Jim Atkins (Chet’s big brother), Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Nat King Cole and the list goes on.

In 1945, Les Paul met Mary Ford with whom he formed a band and later married. The couple had many hits of their own.

At the height of his playing career, in late 1948, Paul broke his right arm and elbow in a near fatal car wreck. The doctors could not rebuild his elbow and told him that his arm would remain in whatever position they set it in. This wasn’t a difficult choice for Paul who chose to have his arm set at just over 90 degrees so he could still play his axe. It took him almost two years to fully recover.

During his early playing career Paul was never happy with the unwanted feedback and lack of sustain on his acoustic electric guitar. This led Paul in 1940 to build his own guitar nicknamed ‘The Log” which was just a piece of 4×4 hardwood with a bridge, guitar neck and pickup attached.

Paul’s “The Log” was one of the first solid body electric guitars ever built, however, Gibson showed no interest in the guitar. It was not until Fender and Rickenbacker started producing solid body guitars that Gibson joined the party, and in 1952 built the first Gibson Les Paul Standard, a gold top guitar based on Les Paul’s design. Speaking of vintage guitars, can you imagine how much one of those babies would be worth today?

In 1948 Les Paul started experimenting with multi-track recording. He originally used acetate disks, which is a type of grammar phone disc that you could record directly on to.

Not long after Ampex released the first reel to reel tape machine, Paul began using this for his recordings by simply placing a second playback head before the record/play head in the machine. That way he could record while listening to his previous recording. Through, his experimentation with the reel to reel tape machine he developed tape echo which was used widely right up until we entered the digital world. I can remember using those tape echo machines years ago. They were great and you could get a delay that lasted a week if you wanted.

Amazingly, Les Paul did not receive many awards throughout his career, although in 1988 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So here is to Les Paul, guitarist, inventor, genius.

And just to re-cap on his amazing musical inventions - Les Paul was responsible for:

• The harp holder.

• The first solid body guitar.

• The design of Gibson solid body guitars.

• Multi-track recording.

• Multi-track tape recording.

• Tape echo.

This legend will be missed by every guitarist out there.

-Axel

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What happened to our rock stars? Do we actually have them anymore? Or are we surviving on those who still remain from days gone by?

In my day we only had one kind of music, rock ‘n roll. We didn’t have this techno pill popping crowd, dancing around like headless chickens and drinking copious amounts of bottled water paying homage to djs that just don’t cut it as stars. Our heroes were true rock stars who performed outrageous acts on and off the stage.

It seems like the real rock star is a character from yesteryear and the only ones we have left are all in their sixties; guys like Keith Richards (who still practices stage diving, albeit out of palm trees), Ronnie Woods, Steven Tyler (still too drunk not to fall off stage), the prince of darkness himself, Ozzie Ozbourne, who, as the story goes bit the head off a live bat during a gig and Alice Cooper, who used to cut his own head off during his show.

And then there are the true legend rockers like Keith Moon from The Who, who drove his Rolls Royce into his next door neighbor’s swimming pool just to annoy him. Moon was also renowned for his practical jokes whilst on the road; apart from trashing every hotel room he ever stayed in, it was reported once that he broke into Pete Townsend’s suite and glued all his furniture to the ceiling.

And speaking of trashing hotel rooms no article on rock legends would be complete without a mention of Joe Walsh who was addicted to (among other things) throwing TV sets out of high rise hotel room windows. Yes Joe trashed many hotel rooms and even wrote about it in his song “Life’s Been Good.” ‘… stay at hotels tear out the walls, I’ve got accountants to pay for it all….’

The stories continue about guys like Jim Morrison from the Doors who was prone to disappearing just before a gig only to be found a few days later drunk, at a local brothel; the band having appeared on stage without him. And the amazing guitarist Roy Buchanan who would wander off just minutes before curtain call and be found later chatting to locals in the street. One time old Roy got himself into a fight and ended up in jail; the gig was canceled.

And I am sure you are aware of the incredible on stage showmanship of Jimi Hendrix but you may not know some of the things he got up to offstage, apart from the endless amount of drug taking and womanizing. Hendrix would often, for some unknown reason, hock his guitar just before a gig. This was not a trivial problem with an easy solution like grabbing another guitar from somewhere else as Hendrix was left handed and his guitar had to be set up just right. Fender wasn’t big on left handed guitars in the sixties. So his manager, Chas Chandler, would firstly have to locate Hendrix, retrieve the pawn ticket from him and then go and buy the guitar back so they could do the gig.

There are so many great stories that have almost become urban legends, even myths about our rock stars from the sixties and seventies. These days all we hear about is whose been arrested for solicitation, drink driving and drug offenses. The stories have lost their edge, the current breed of stars have lost the flair for creating the legendary headlines of old that will remain part of rock history forever.

-Axel

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Legends of Rock is a post from: Axebay Used Guitars Blog

So a well known airline broke a guitar, hey? Is anyone really surprised? Have you ever sat on the plane waiting to get off (the plane I mean) and watched them start to unload the baggage? Well, I have.

Four gorillas unloading a plane; one driving the little go-kart thingy with the two trailers attached but now he is just sitting there waiting for the other guys to put the bags on his trailers. One guy throwing the luggage onto the trailers and the other two just standing there watching. Why couldn’t the guy who drives the go-kart unload the plane? Why do they need four guys when they really only need one?

And unloading, man is that the wrong word? It’s not unloading its throwing stuff as hard and roughly as you can and at least trying to hit the trailer. Ah yes that’s why they have extra guys there, to pick up the bags that miss the trailer and end up on the ground.

I have traveled a lot and seen a lot of mishaps when the baggage handlers are ‘unloading’. I have seen bags split open after hitting the ground, I have even seen a dog shit itself (literally) after a baggage handler threw the dog’s cage onto the trailer and it skidded off onto the tarmac. They just left it there until they were finished unloading and threw it on top of the other bags. The poor dog whacked off its nut on sedatives, sat there trembling the whole time and there was not one word of comfort from any of these guys; not even the ones who weren’t doing anything.

As I have had suitcases destroyed by baggage handlers I am not surprised that a guitar was broken. What I am surprised about is that it is not reported more often. So how do we protect our beloved axes if we have to travel on these huge hunks of flying metal? Here are a few tips to follow when traveling by air:

• Make sure you have a sturdy hard case for your guitar.
• Make sure the case is lockable; you don’t want to get to your destination to find your case in good order but no guitar inside.
• Make sure your guitar fits snugly in the case, you might have to pack extra rags, paper or bubble wrap to ensure it’s a tight fit.
• Even if you guitar has a custom case throw some extra padding, be it bubble wrap or foam on top of the guitar before you close the case.
• Put extra padding under the neck as this is the most fragile part of the guitar.
• Loosen the strings – the neck will contract because of the cold temperatures that flying imposes on baggage. Loosening the strings will minimize the bend in the neck from the contraction.
• When you arrive don’t open your guitar case immediately. Let it sit for a couple of hours so the guitar can adjust to the new temperature slowly. Quick changes in temperature can dramatically affect the neck.

There is not much else you can do except buy a second seat for your axe because you know they won’t let you take it on as carry on. It’s an expensive way to travel but at least you know your guitar is safe. Besides you could strum a few tunes to kill time.

I was wondering though if your guitar has its own seat does that mean it has to have its own ticket, whereby it will need a full name and id or passport if you are traveling internationally.

-Axel

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Travel Tips for Guitars is a post from: Axebay Used Guitars Blog