Guitar Lovers

When you learn to play the guitar your first stock in trade is the number of chords you can play. To get any decent sort of repertoire you need to learn as many guitar chords as possible. For the beginner it can be very confusing and overwhelming because there are literally thousands of chords. Using a printable guitar chords chart for reference is very useful for the first year or so.

Learn the main forms of the chords

There are obscure versions of chords that you can ignore at first. So for the chord of A you only need to learn 3 versions. A major, A minor (Am) and A seven (A7). So when you come across a piece of music that asks for A two or A nine just ignore this and play one of the 3 main chords. This will usually be the major version of the chord.

Second Stage Of Learning Guitar Chords

Once you have mastered and remembered the 3 main chords in each key you can then start treating yourself to some of the more unusual guitar chords. If you forget your standard chords you can just refer to your guitar chords chart to jog your memory. The second stage of learning chords will have you sounding much more interesting. There is a music phase or fashion at the moment of replacing the Major version of a chord with the 2 chord. What this means is that you replace A Major with A two (A2). The other very popular chords are the bossa nova guitar chords such as the major sevenths. For example C major seven (CMaj7). As soon as you add these bossa nova chords and other variations your playing will change and become much more interesting.

Changing The Bass Notes

All the chords discussed here will be on any guitar chords chart. What you will not have is the alterantive bass notes. The Group U2 are the greatest exponents of this technique. What you do is keep the same bass note playing all the way through while you change all the other parts of the chord. So in the key of A you can play the chords of A, D & E but leave the 5th string open with the Bass note of A playing for all the chords. This would be written A. D/A, E/A. A good learning technique is to play around with these alternative bass notes when playing guitar chords.

Everything is possible. Even you can play a guitar the rock star way. Those who are still new with this, then you have to learn the basics. Even those who are big names in the music industry started from scratch.

If you are grim and determined to learn the guitar like a pro, it takes constant practice and guidance from the expert. Learning to play can both be physically and mentally draining.

To many, the first step in learning the guitar is by familiarizing the guitar chords. This way, it would help you to strengthen your fingers, wrists, and most specially the hand.

This strength that will be developed will eventually help you in mastering the art of guitar playing. Constant practice on learning and playing the chords will be a big help to coordinate the picking hand together with the hand which is voicing the chords.

Though this may be considered as one of the basic ways in guitar playing, this would serve as your solid foundation in your further endeavors in playing the guitar. If you are now confident that you have mastered the basics of playing the guitar, then you can let some of your friends and families witness your new talent.

By doing this, it will give you greater confidence and inspire you to work hard in practicing.

When planning to play the guitar, remember that the longest journey starts with a single step. If you want to learn how to play the guitar, then do it now.

There are now many free resources on the internet teaching people how to play the guitar. There are also many online guitar learning courses such as Jamorama that provides a step by step guide online. These are prefect for people who are busy and can’t attend a traditional guitar learning class.

You can go online anytime of the day when you are free and learn guitar online. Most online guitar learning courses provides videos and software that makes learning easier than ever before.

Know the secrets of the guitar masters. The guitar effect pedal is an innovation in music artistry. Transform the sound of your guitar into different kinds of instruments and effects. The reverb effect prolongs the melodic tones to several bars. The wawa effect was made popular by Chet Atkins that allows the sound into “wawa” eclectic sound.

The foot pedals amplify your guitar licks into crescendo mode and they can multiply the effect to make it sound like more than one guitar is playing. One click on the device will change an electric guitar’s sounds into that of an acoustic classical guitar. This amazing device will amplify your guitar skills to make you sound like a guitar master.

 There are a very different types of bookings to play solo guitar for weddings. For one thing, they pay pretty good money and it’s very rare that you have a problem getting paid. Another aspect that makes them different is that almost no one acknowledges your presence as you sit in the corner playing song after song. This is something that you have to be prepared to accept. You have been hired to provide live background music, and most of the people attending the average wedding don’t really care if you are there or not. The best you can hope for is while you are packing up afterward one or two kind souls might come forward to tell you they enjoyed your music. It’s kind of nice to be able to zone out and just play most of your repertoire without everybody staring at you in silence.

To play for weddings, here are some of the things you need; 

1. A good list of at least fifty songs, mainly classical.
2. A good suit and tie.
3. A quality classical guitar with amplification
4. A reliable car.

My list consists of classical standards.  Along with these I play Classical Gas, Blackbird and a variety of songs from several genres. All in all, you’ll find that almost anything you play on a nylon string guitar can be made to fit at a booking like this. Yoy also need a binder with about forty-five minutes worth of music that you can sight-read on demand as a back up for the pieces you have memorized. Every now and then you’ll get a booking that has you playing one more set than you’re used to, and this comes in handy then. Keep the pages in heavy plastic holders to minimize the effects of high winds for the outdoor bookings.

There are two types of wedding bookings: Cocktail hour and Processional.

Cocktail hour is usually the time spent after the ceremony and before the dinner and the musician is there to provide a nice backdrop while the guests have a few drinks and chat. These are almost always a two hour gig. You play two lengthy sets with a break, and occasionally you get booked to play during the dinner instead of Cocktail hour, again for two hours. Charge $250.00 for these dates, and more if there is a long drive involved.

The Processional is usually a one hour date and goes something like this: You start playing about thirty minutes before the actual wedding ceremony is scheduled to take place. Then you play until either you’re given a preset cue, or until you notice that the processional is about to begin. At this point, you play Romance until everyone in the processional is at the front facing the Priest/Justice or whoever is performing the service, then you gracefully fade out. After the couple has been married and “announced”, play until everyone has left the area. This being a one hour booking, charge $150.00 and up, considering driving distance. These monetary amounts may vary depending on where you live.

How to Get the Jobs.

Ads in local newspapers have had mixed results mostly. Sometimes they make the phone ring and sometimes they don’t. The main source of bookings comes from people calling the local Musicians Union office, where you can be a member. Because to belong to the union and  file contracts with them on all the jobs, they know you’re  reliable and will gladly give you’re name and phone number out, along with several other union members who are known to do a lot of wedding work. Another avenue is to leave demo tapes and business cards with stores in your area that supply party needs such as printed napkins, folding chairs, flowers, etc… you can get some results that way as well.

When You Get a Call For a Job.

The first thing to do when you get a call is find out the time and date they want you for and check your calender to see if you’re available. If you’ream available, answer all of the callers questions, fill them in on what you usually do and ask them if they would like a demo of your music. If they do want a demo we now have a couple of options: the demo tape/CD that you mail them, or the Internet. Always ask if they have access to the Internet before you mail out a demo, because if they do, and if they have a sound card, I direct them to your website where they can see a picture of you and listen to a couple of your songs – in particular, the Romance mentioned earlier. If you don’t have a website, MP3.com will give you a free page where you can post a picture, write up some text about yourself, and put up as many songs as you like. These sites also allow anyone visiting to send you an e-mail. The only thing you have to be careful about is ownership of rights to the songs you are posting. If the songs are public domain and you are not using a copyrighted arrangement of someone else’s version, you are OK. If you are going to go this route, go to the classical music category at MP3.com and check out the guitar chart. You will see many time honored classics already posted by other artists.

Once they have heard your music and spoken with you on the phone many of these people are ready to book you. However, sometimes they want to meet  in a local coffee shop before they make a decision. Always agree, and show up on time well dressed and have a pleasant chat over a cup of coffee.

Once You Have the Gig.

When someone has agreed to hire you for a wedding, the first thing to do is type up a contract and get it to them so they can sign and return it. This not only protects you, but it protects them as well – now you can’t take that “better offer” that came in at the last minute and leave them in a lurch. Also, a properly filled out contract gives them your mailing address, thus enabling them to send you a nicely worded thank you note that can be used as a reference in future. At this point, you want to make sure you have good directions to the location in question and you may find that some of your clients like to phone once or twice in the weeks leading up to the wedding to ask questions about your repertoire and what you will be wearing.

Learning to play at least one musical instrument in your lifetime is already a great accomplishment. You will experience the joy of creating music that can soothe your soul and delight your senses. Guitar playing is one of the most rewarding things you can learn. It will build flexibility in your hands and enhance your memorization skills.

Playing alone, in a band or simply jamming with friends can be fun. When you have already mastered your beginner’s guitar, you can progress to buying more expensive brands that give out better sounds. Don’t forget though to take care of your instruments well. Always keep them in guitar cases when not in use to prevent them from encountering accidents that may cause damage.

by Gerald Klickstein

Introduction
Most of us have heard the old joke: “A guitarist spends half his life tuning and the other half playing out of tune.” Could it be that we’ve earned this reputation? Although every guitarist aims to tune as quickly and accurately as possible, most students and many professionals have significant difficulty tuning by ear. Why are tuning problems so common? There are two fundamental reasons:

1. Conventional tuning methods are difficult to use accurately. 
2. Few materials have been available for learning and mastering essential tuning skills. As a result, numerous guitarists lack these skills.

To address these problems, I began formulating a new tuning system in 1983. My work culminated in 1996 when Mel Bay Publications released my 61-page book Tuning the Guitar by Ear. In this article, I’ll summarize the contents of the book and explain how any guitarist can learn to tune with ease.Tuning Skills
Tuning involves three skills:

• Playing clearly.
• Listening astutely.
• Adjusting strings precisely.

To play clearly, we should sound the strings with a vivid, sustaining tone, damping unplayed strings to prevent sympathetic vibrations.Listening astutely involves hearing the pulsating sounds called beats. Beats occur when two sustaining pitches differ slightly. Listening for beats is the easiest and most precise way to tune.

Adjusting strings precisely encompasses having sensitive control of each tuning knob.

For a guitarist to tune quickly and accurately, he or she must know exactly how to play, listen and adjust.

The 5th-Fret Method
Although it works perfectly in theory, the 5th-fret approach seldom produces swift, accurate results. This is partly due to errors being compounded as we tune from string to string. It’s also because the 5th-fret method doesn’t allow us to easily listen for beats while adjusting strings; so instead, we listen for changes in pitch. Accuracy suffers because it’s tricky to recognize very small differences in pitch.

A Better Way To Tune
The 5th-fret method is easy to play, but like other conventional methods, it makes listening and adjusting difficult. A better tuning strategy is to facilitate listening and adjusting since they are the focus of tuning. I designed my tuning system accordingly and also eliminated problems of error compounding. It’s a bit more difficult to play than other systems because it involves playing harmonics and damping unplayed strings with the right-hand fingers. However, by clarifying listening and adjusting, this trade-off enables you to tune with utmost speed and accuracy.

My approach integrates “tuning” and “testing”, much like common piano tuning methods. “Tuning” is the act of adjusting a string’s pitch. “Testing” evaluates tuning accuracy. To listen for beats while “tuning,” the left hand must be free to turn the tuning knobs. Consequently, for “tuning” I use only harmonics and open strings since these will sustain without left hand involvement. Fretted pitches are used for “testing.” Compound errors are avoided by testing each string against a single reference string. This combination of tuning and testing yields optimum accuracy and speed.

Tuning synopsis
Here’s a very brief overview of the tuning procedures. First, the 5th-fret harmonic of the fifth string is tuned to the A-440 from an electronic metronome. We sound the A-440 and the harmonic, damping the unplayed strings with the right-hand fingers to prevent confusing sympathetic vibrations. We lower the fifth string to where beating is clearly heard, then raise it to beatless. When beatless against the A-440, the string is in tune. The fifth string then becomes the reference for testing the other strings.

Next, the fourth string is tuned and tested. We sound the 5th-fret harmonic of the fifth string and the 7th-fret harmonic of the fourth string, damping the unplayed strings. The fourth string is lowered, then raised slightly sharp of beatless to beat at a rate indicated in the instructions by a metronome marking (if you tune the two harmonics identically, the 4th string will play flat—see FAQs below for more information). We then test the 4th string by playing the 12th-fret harmonic of the fifth string and the 7th-fret note (not harmonic) of the fourth string, damping the unplayed strings. If the fourth string is in tune, this test will be beatless. The remaining strings are tuned in a similar manner and each is tested against the fifth string. Finally, all strings are evaluated with test chords. Guitarists who master this method tune accurately in one minute or less.

Learning to Tune
When most of us first learned tuning by ear, we were shown a diagram with the 5th-fret method and told to practice—few of us were ever taught how to play, listen and adjust. Thus, most guitarists have underdeveloped tuning skills and insecure tuning habits. To enable reliable skill development, Tuning the Guitar by Ear includes ten preparatory exercises. The initial five exercises address playing harmonics and damping unplayed strings, the rest develop listening and adjusting skills; string-by-string tuning and testing instructions follow. All procedures are shown in easy-to-read graphic notation and include precise instructions for playing, listening and adjusting. A two-page summary is included to aid in memorizing the system. To fully master the standard tuning procedures, it takes anywhere from a few hours to several weeks, depending on the individual guitarist.

Guitar Fitness
The effectiveness of this tuning system depends not only on the guitarist who uses it, but also on the guitar itself. If an instrument is not properly set up, it will be impossible to tune with any method. In fact, setup flaws are quite common, even with expensive instruments. What’s more, all guitars need occasional adjustment. Because of this, Tuning the Guitar by Ear begins with guitar fitness guidelines. These include directions for replacing strings, maintaining tuning gears, controlling humidity levels and performing a general evaluation of your guitar’s condition. A simple test is also included to check for accurate intonation. Most setup flaws are easily repaired, so if you’re ever uncertain whether your guitar plays in tune, have it evaluated by a technician—avoid attempting repairs yourself unless you’re fully qualified.

Tuning Theory
Guitars are fretted in equal temperament. As a result, the twelve half steps that make up an octave are equally sized and all keys sound equally in tune. This equality is achieved through compromise, that is, some intervals are more in tune than others. For example, octaves and unisons are perfectly in tune and sound beatless. Major thirds, however, are quite sharp and beat noticeably. That’s why when we play an E-major chord in open position, the G# on the third string sounds sharp—it IS sharp and it’s supposed to be. If we lower the third string to make the G# less sharp, the third string will sound flat for other intervals.

The inherent complexities and compromises of equal temperament add to the widespread confusion about guitar tuning. In order to tune well, however, it isn’t necessary to fully understand tuning theory, you only need to know how to tune. Tuning the Guitar by Ear is designed as a practical manual that focuses on how to tune, while at the same time providing sensible, easy-to-understand explanations of why guitar tuning works the way it does. This blending “how” and “why” contributes toward building the secure tuning habits that every guitarist needs.

Conclusion
Rapid, accurate tuning requires reliable tuning habits. Tuning the Guitar by Ear is designed as a comprehensive resource for guitarists to learn and master precise tuning skills. It was created to address the pervasive need for better tuning and thereby fill a gaping hole in guitar education. The book includes instructions for standard tuning and three alternate tunings plus tuning methods for beginners, guidelines for tuning on stage, and more.

by Robert Denman

The date of June 9, 1915 was a special day in the lives of George and Evelyn Polfuss, as a baby boy was born to them. They named him Lester William. Little did they realize the impact this child would have on the world of twentieth century popular music. Lester was born to sturdy German stock and would learn the value of motivation and dedication to hard work from his mother. From early on, she was the driving force to propel him forward to excel at everything he did, especially his music.
As a young child, Lester taught himself the harmonica and progressed to the guitar after just a few years. The first influence on Lester was Pie Plant Pete, an entertainer from Chicago’s WLS radio station, who played a guitar and harmonica at the same time. Soon, Lester had managed to copy this man’s act. Evelyn had given Les the stage name of Red Hot Red, because of his red hair and his “red-hot” music. By 1929, Les was doing solo dates around his home town of Waukesha, Wisconson.

In the spring of 1931, Lester met Sunny Joe Wolverton, who had a profound influence as a mentor on the lad. Sunny Joe was a string player with Rube Tronson’s Cowboys. They became instant friends. After Sunny Joe had left the Cowboys, Rube Tronson offered Lester a job in his band. At the age of 17, in 1932, Lester went on the road with Rube Tronson.In the meantime, Sunny Joe had landed a job with KMOX in St. Louis as a staff musician. Joe offered Les a job at the station and Les dropped out of high school and went to St. Louis in October, 1932. Sunny Joe gave Les a stage name of Rhubarb Red, playing off the name of Pie Plant Pete, rhubarb being a synonym for pie plant. Lester was a devoted student of the guitar under Sunny Joe’s tutelage, and soon Sunny Joe purchased for Lester his first Gibson guitar, an L-50 arch-top, as a gift. The Depression caused KMOX to make cutbacks and both young men were let go, and soon landed a job together at KWTO in Springfield, Missouri. At this time, Joe bought for Lester a Gibson L-5, as Lester was progressing so fast on the guitar. In 1934 they were hired by WBBM in Chicago, and were still playing hillbilly tunes and moving toward more big band songs in the pop field. The job at WBBM soon ended and the lads got a job playing at the Chicago World’s Fair in the summer of 1934. It was here that Lester and Sunny Joe had a falling out in August of 1934. Les wanted to play jazz and experiment with the electric guitar, while Sunny Joe preferred to remain in country music and use his acoustic guitar. Lester Polfuss remained in Chicago performing on a variety of radio stations as Rhubarb Red. Shortly thereafter, he was hired by WJJD to perform as Rhubarb Red and at the same time working at a sister station, WIND, playing jazz under his new stage name of Les Paul. Listeners did not realise that Rhubarb Red and Les Paul were the same person. During this period in the mid 1930′s, Les was listening to the piano of Art Tatum and was much influenced by this man’s playing. Also, Les had acquired recordings of Django Reinhardt, the gypsy jazz guitarist from the Hot Club of France. Soon the style of Django became the style of Les, although he would never admit the influence Django had on him.

Les began jamming at night with other jazz musicians around Chicago and enjoyed his experiences with Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge, Nat Cole, and Earl Hines. In 1936 and into 1937, Les recorded 20 sides on the Decca label with Georgia White, a popular blues singer. Les was 21 at this time.

One problem Les was having was to find a decent sounding amplified guitar in order to be heard better in the noisy clubs. None of the currently available electric guitars satisfied his sensitive ear. At this point Les began building pickups powerful enough for his use. He mounted them on second-hand guitars as he experimented with the placement and tonal qualities these pickups would offer. Les discovered that the vibration of the guitar’s top seemed to interfere with the sound of the vibrating strings when using his pickups. He was determined to find a way to stop the vibration of the top so the pure sound of the vibrating strings would be heard alone. The Larson Brothers of Chicago built him a guitar with a half-inch-thick maple top and no sound holes. This would stop the vibration of the top. Les was the first guitarist to place 2 pickups on his instrument. This guitar with the thick top was his pioneering idea later to be found in the solid body guitars to come.

Les’s custom-designed electric guitar generated favorable response, and he started playing with George Barnes, another convert to the early electric guitar. At this time, Les had built a primitive disk-cutting lathe and taught himself how to overdub on a single disk. It was this machine that would be the forerunner of the sound on sound recording technique that would make Les Paul famous.

In 1937, the Les Paul Trio was formed with Les, and guitarist Jimmy Atkins (older brother of Chet Atkins), and a bassist, Ernie Newton. Les was the lead guitarist, and Jimmy played rhythm guitar and sang.

Les, then 22, yearned to travel to New York City to play jazz in the big time. So, the trio left for New York to seek their fortune in the genre of jazz. After failing to get an audition with Paul Whiteman, Les managed to convince Fred Waring to listen to the trio. Mr. Waring liked these young fellows at once, and hired them to play with his orchestra, The Pennsylvanians. The Les Paul Trio was a featured act with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians on radio as well as live perfomances. Most listeners had never heard an electric guitar and were intrigued with Les’s sizzling single-note technique. In fact, Les began receiving more fan letters than Waring himself. Other young guitarists were influenced by Les’s work with Waring. Johnny Smith, Tony Mottola,and Charlie Byrd were some of the great guitarists who were impacted by Les’s work with Waring.

After hours Les would jam with Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Stuff Smith, and Roy Eldridge. He even traded licks with Charlie Christian on the bandstand at Minton’s in Harlem. Many musicians jammed all night with Les in the basement of his apartment building. In 1939 the Trio cut some records on their own.

In 1941, the Epiphone Guitar Company permitted Les to use their factory on Sundays for his experiments refining his electric guitar. Here, Les built his Famous “Log”, a 20 pound guitar made from a 4″X 4″length of pine. He added a neck and two pickups he made. And to make it look like a guitar he installed a pair of side wings from an Epiphone acoustic. Les played the “log”,and his modified Gibson, along with his customized Epiphones in clubs.

In the spring of 1941, Les received a severe electric shock from his microphone stand in the basement of the apartment building. This injury prevented Les from playing for some time while he recuperated. Les and Waring were in conflict anyhow from Les’s recordings he made outside of the Waring Orchestra, and Les disbanded the trio and resigned from the Pennsylvanians. He accepted a job as music director for 2 radio stations in Chicago and returned to WJJD and WIND. Les began playing again and left the two stations for the WBBM studio orchestra. This lead to a regular spot with the Ben Bernie Orchestra broadcasting on WBBM. His astounding guitar work attracted a young Bucky Pizzarelli to the radio broadcasts to marvel at Les’s technique.

During this time, Les brought the “Log” to M.H. Berlin, the president of Chicago Musical Instruments, which had acquired Gibson. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce Les’s idea for Gibson to manufacture a solid-body guitar. After declaring the “Log” to be nothing but a broomstick with pickups, Mr. Berlin laughed Les out the door.

In 1943, Ben Bernie retired to California due to poor health and promised to groom Les to take over his orchestra. Les, now 27, made the drive to Hollywood envisioning a leap upward in his career. He even had the desire to approach Bing Crosby to work with him. By this time Ben Bernie was too ill to be of any help to his young protégé. Mr. Bernie passed away in October, 1943. Les wasted no time in forming a new trio and they soon got jobs with NBC in Hollywood as staff musicians. This was the home of Bing Crosby’s weekly Kraft Music Hall show.

Les’s plans were interrupted by the draft in 1943. Fortunately, Les had a friend in Meredith Willson, the music director of NBC. Major Willson was commissioned by the army to be the music director for the Armed Forces Radio Service, and pulled strings to get Les into his unit. This experience proved to be one of the greatest breaks in Les’s career. He edited many hours of prerecorded entertainment into variety shows for Armed Forces network distribution. Les was now into the study of audio engineering. He formed a new trio and associated with many Hollywood stars featured on the network. The nice part is that Les could still live at home and work close to home. Within months, though, Les applied for a medical discharge and was out of uniform by early 1944. He still made transcriptions for the AFRS through C.P. MacGregor Recording Studio, and recorded with many outstanding musicians, including alto sax man Willie Smith. Les learned audio work from the McGregor engineers in order to satisfy his thirst for knowledge in the field.

In June of 1944, Les was invited by Nat Cole to join his trio in playing a show, Jazz At The Phiharmonic, in Los Angeles. This concert along with other JATP concerts was released on records and sold well. Les returned to NBC after his army stint was over, and continued as before. He finally got the chance to play for Bing Crosby and was invited to be a frequent guest on his show with the new Les Paul Trio. A few months later the Les Paul Trio backed Crosby on the Decca label with the song, “It’s Been A Long, Long Time”. The song became a number one hit. Crosby, being impressed with Les’s technical recording skills, encouraged him to open his own studio. Les built a studio in his garage and even built his own recording lathe, using a solid steel Cadillac flywheel for a turntable. It was driven by dental belts. His studio also served as a guitar laboratory where he experimented with his guitar designs matching parts from various guitars. He came up with a modified Epiphone to which he bolted a steel plate to prevent the top from vibrating. With his own hand wound pickups mounted on the top he got the long-sustaining sound of a solid body guitar. Over the next five years, Les’s experiments in his garage studio, would produce the new guitar sounds and audio recording techniques that would help to change popular music forever.

During this time the garage studio became a busy cottage industry as he recorded many stars from the period. Les was also busy with over a dozen sustaining shows on NBC as well as being a guest with George Burns and Gracie Allen, and continuing as a guest with Bing Crosby. He also did a number of recordings with his trio on the Decca label.

One year after Les’s hit with Bing Crosby, he teamed up with the Andrews Sisters to record a hit record, “Rumors Are Flying”. A few weeks later, Les landed his first Hollywood night club gig at the Club Rounders. With his group, he would play jazz standards mixed with some of his old Rhubarb Red hillbilly tunes. Les was then booked by the Andrews Sisters on their next road tour. The trio opened for them and accompanied their performances. During the tour, Les tried out his new headless aluminum guitar. However, it went in and out of tune due to the heat from the spotlights playing on it, and generated a lot of laughs.

Les now found himself in a crossroads of his career. He watched ecstatic audiences dancing in the aisles to the Andrews Sisters and their rendition of “Rum and Coca-Cola”, and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, while his jazz numbers were not getting across to the listeners. He decided to come up with a new approach to music. He resolved to make his music more accessible to his listeners. This signaled his shift away from jazz into middle-of-the-road pop music. Upon returning to the west coast he went into his garage studio and began his work.

After many hours of work alone he came up with his method of overdubbing to produce a clean effect with many parts being layered. He was way ahead of the contemporary audio engineers and had them baffled. After 500 discarded disks, Les finally produced a mutilayered arrangement of 8 guitars on the song, “Lover”, in 1947. Capital Records put it on the market and Les had a big hit. The “New Sound” of Les Paul was born.

Les decided to hire a female vocalist for his Rhubard Red show, one of several sustaining programs he did for NBC. He auditioned Iris Colleen Summers, a lovely young country singer. This led to a partnership with Les giving her the stage name of Mary Ford. While traveling through Oklahoma in January, 1948, the couple’s car skidded off the road and plummeted 20 feet into a frozen creek bed. Among Les’s many injuries, his right elbow was shattered. After a series of operations, his right arm was repaired, but it was many months before he was able to train his arm and hand to play again. During this time his new rendition of “Lover” was selling everywhere and receiving much air time. One day Bing Crosby dropped by and presented Les with a get-well gift of a new Ampex tape recorder.

By 1949, Les was ready to play in public with Mary and had a debut with her at the Polfuss family tavern in Waukesha. Then a series of appearances around Milwaukee followed. Mary was in. They toured together in 1949 and in December they returned to Milwaukee and were married on December 29. Les began experimenting with his Ampex tape recorder and figured out how to overdub on tape by adding a second playback head. The modified Ampex now was a portable recording studio which they used to record their many hits in hotel rooms while travelling between shows.

The couple soon began making radio shows together for NBC. The fifteen minute radio program, “Les Paul and Mary Ford At Home”, was pre-recorded and broadcast every Friday night. Also, several more potential hits were being released by Capital Records. Les and Mary did all their recording at home or on the road and submitted the masters to Capital, with Les dicatating to the record company what songs were destined to become hits.

After extensive touring and recording the couple decided to leave Hollywood and head for New York City to make the crossover from radio to television. They took a cramped apartment in Les’s former New York neighborhood. It was here that they conceived and recorded their arrangement of “How High The Moon”, a hard-swinging multilayered arrangement containing twelve overdubs using the guitar and Mary’s voice. Capital was not ready for this one yet, but after Les had scored several more hits with Capital in 1950 and 1951, including, “Tennessee Waltz”, and “Mockin’ Bird Hill”, it was easier to persuade Capital to put out “How High The Moon”. Released in March of 1951, within one month, “How High The Moon” and “Mockin’ Bird Hill” captured The Hit Parade’s number 1 and number 2 spots, respectively. Les and Mary were in the big time.

The first solid body electric guitar was introduced to the market in 1948 by Leo Fender. Compared to the hollow-body electrics, the solid body guitars offered long sustain and a sharp treble, without the problem of feedback. Ted McCarty, the president of Gibson at the time, felt the need to address the competition from Fender, and instructed Gibson’s research and development department to design a solid body guitar. After a few months the team at Gibson built a promising prototype. It featured a mahogany body with a single cutaway sporting 2 P-90 pickups. A neck with a fingerboard of 22 frets extended the range of the instrument. The top was carved in such a way to appear like the arched tops on the Gibson acoustics. A gold finish applied to the top earned the guitar the nickname of “the Gold Top”. The next strategy would be for McCarty to figure out how to market the new design. He thought immediately of Les Paul as an endorser of the instrument. After all, Les was one of the country’s most highly acclaimed players and was well known for his own work on improving the electric guitar. In the fall of 1951, McCarty presented the prototype to Les for his advice and counsel. The new guitar pleased Les very much, and a five-year contract was drawn up that night for Les to endorse the guitar for a royalty on each one sold. Les also was required to play only Gibsons in public. In regards to the design of the new solid body, Les had one suggestion. It was to use a trapeze tailpiece with a cylindrical bar that he had recently developed. Other than this modification, the guitar was entirely a creation of Gibson’s research and development department. Les convinced McCarty to give the guitar the name of “The Les Paul Model”. Les unveiled his new Gold Top for the first time at the New York Paramount in June, 1952. Les used the Gold Top to record “Tiger Rag”, which became another big hit.

Les and Mary had earned $500,000 by the end of 1951, and had recorded more top ten hits for the year than Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and the Andrews Sisters combined. They also tied Patti Page for top selling recording artist, having sold more than six million disks since January of 1951. Les bought a big Cadillac to use on their expanding road tours with plenty of space for all their electronic gear. Next came the woodland retreat in Mahwah, NJ, in the Ramopo Mountains. Renovations began to turn the house into a mansion including Les’s recording studio and an echo chamber carved out of a neighboring mountain. In September, 1952, after cutting “I’m Sitting on Top of the World”, Les and Mary sailed for London to appear at the Palladium Theatre, where they debuted before the Queen and the royal family.

In 1953 the couple recorded the song that would be the largest seller of their career. In June, 1953, “Vaya con Dios” hit the record bins, and sailed to the number one spot. Following this success the couple started to host their own daily television broadcast from their Mahwah home. Sponsered by Listerine, it ran for 3 years as the Les Paul and Mary Ford Show. Les and Mary enjoyed their success by working even harder. They managed to put out 28 hits between 1950 and 1957. In early 1955, rock and roll came along and eventually threatened the popularity of many performers including Les Paul and Mary Ford. Rock and roll left Les stranded and he was baffled by the rising appeal of rock and roll performers. In fact, the electric guitar which propelled Les into popularity had become the instrument of his professional doom in the hands of the rock and roll entertainers. Les and Mary were showing the serious signs of strain from the years of living a show business life style.

Les then turned to his other interest: electronics. In 1954, he toyed with the idea of stacking eight recording units to produce multigenerational music. He went to Ampex with his ideas and in 1957, Ampex brought out “the Octupus” as Les called it. This eight track machine revolutionized the recording industry.

In 1956, Les devised a remote control little black box attached to his guitar that would enable him to operate the taped accompaniment he used during live performances. An invitation to play at the Eisenhower White House was the first chance for Les to test his new device called the “Les Paulverizer”.

Les and Mary left Capital and signed with the Columbia label in July, 1958. But, the move failed to restore their declining career. Their marriage was also failing and their many professional and personal setbacks resulted in a divorce in December, 1964. Les now layed low in New Jersey, playing some and working on his electronic experiments. He liked to jam at home all night with his old friends. Les had ended his association with Gibson around 1961, due to the waning popularity of his guitars. In 1967, Les persuaded Gibson to utilize his new low-impedance pickups leading to several new Les Paul Models to emerge with these new pickups. However, the new pickups never caught on and by the mid 1970s, Gibson dropped the concept.

Les’s old friend, Bucky Pizzarelli, called Les in 1972 and wanted Les to join him as a duet for a gig. Les was well received once again and this began a return to the mainstream through a number of new opportunites. Les was doing personal appearances again and was featured in a few videos. In May, 1975, Les and Chet Atkins recorded an album, “Chester and Lester”. The album became a popular and critical success and earned the two guitarists a Grammy award in 1977. Later in 1977, Les was badly shaken by Mary Ford’s death and the passing of his personal manager, as well as Jimmy Atkins and Ernie Newton(from the original Les Paul Trio). Shortly after this, Bing Crosby also died.

In 1980, Les underwent quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. His recovery was a very slow and difficult process. Eventually, Les was up and playing again despite severe arthritis in both hands. His friend and fellow guitarist, Wayne Wright, landed a gig at Fat Tuesday’s, a jazz club in New York City. Together with Gary Mazzaroppi on bass the trio debuted at Fat Tuesday’s in March, 1984, and enjoyed a long standing engagement each Monday night for several years. Les was being called the “Living Legend” and his life and music suddenly appealed to the young rockers looking for a hero. His guitars had been in the hands of major rock stars for some time and his recording studio innovations had been adopted by these younger recording artists. Many younger guitarists were astounded to find that Les Paul was a real person, and not just a guitar. The “Living Legend” had returned to center stage. The very culture that put Les out of business was now chasing after him, even though Les never played rock and roll in his life. In January, 1988, Les was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not because he was a rocker, but for the instrument he had helped to create along with his invention of multiple-track recording. In February, 2001, Les received a technology Grammy for 6 decades of contributions to the recording industry including the Les Paul Guitar, multiple-track recording, overdubbing techniques, tape echo, and his eight-track tape recorder.

Since 1996, Les and his trio have played at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City each Monday night, and at the age of 86, despite frail health, Les is determined to continue. Les has a photo website at: www.redhotred.com.

Les Paul is indeed the “Living Legend of the Electric Guitar”.

As guitarists, we tend to use the minor pentatonic scale way too much, especially as beginners. Let’s stop disrespecting a great music style by playing the same thing over and over
again. There’s more to the blues than just 1, b3, 4, 5, and b7.
First, let’s talk about the most basic of the blues style: the 12-bar (I-IV-V) blues progression. Usually someone will noodle with the I Minor Pentatonic over that. One thing that often confused me is that the I chord is usually played as a major chord, yet we play a minor scale over it. Isn’t that against the rules? Well, the modulation of the major and minor 3rd is the foundation of that sound we call “blues”. You should use the b7 tone instead of the major 7 tone, because the b7 tone sounds more bluesy, and the b7 can be found in both major (Mixolydian) and minor (Dorian, Aeolian, Locrian, Phrygian) scales. So, you can sound a little more original by simply making the chords minor and using a Mixolydian Pentatonic scale (1, 3, 4, 5, b7), and still get the blues sound.

To expand your melodic approach even more, let’s try using a scale that isn’t pentatonic. In my opinion, the two best modes to use over blues are Mixolydian and Dorian. Why? They only differ in their third – Mixolydian has a major third while Dorian has a minor third. So, we could use Mixolydian when we’re playing over minor chords and Dorian over major (remember, we want to get that modulation of the 3rds going). Or you could just make an 8 tone scale consisting of 1, 2, b3, 3, 4, 5, 6, b7; this would put the modulation in the lead line. Then, you could also do that in the harmony (play a minor 7th chord and hammer-on/pull-off the major 3rd note).

To expand your harmonic approach, we can do chord substitutions, or add color tones to the chords. A simple way to make the progression sound more jazzy (better) would be to play something like I(13)-IV(9)-V(13). The Miles Davis tune, “All Blues” uses a I(7/min7)-II(m7)-bIII(maj7)-II(m7) progression (the “7/min7″ means modulate the chords 3rd from major to minor quickly, usually with hammer-ons/pull-offs).

The main thing that I want to get across is that the blues sound is created by the dominant 7th tone, and by the third, modulating from major to minor. This is an important realization for any blues or jazz player.

The guitar is designed and tuned to give the player a ton of possibilities and to move closer to making music. This repetition of the same notes and chords in different positions is also the reason the guitar seems so complicated.
Fortunately, the guitar compensates for this by allowing for movable chords, something keyboard players can only dream about. The first movable chords we learn as beginners are bar chords. I can’t remember the last time I played a full bar chord. My style of playing has no use for them, but this move applies to any finger pattern on the fretboard. Every time you discover a new inversion of a chord, say a G major 9 over it’s III (B), you have also learned all the other major 9’s over III, simply by moving your shape up or down the neck. That’s the beauty of the guitar. Take good advantage of it and train yourself to analyze ever thing you play and to apply it to all keys. Move these discoveries around, and add them to your musical vocabulary. This analytical approach to playing/practicing sounds cold and boring, but it quickly becomes second nature.

The most difficult thing about learning anything is finding the lowest common denominator, some bottom line that everything else can be viewed against. As a beginner, I knew there was some underlying pattern to the guitar that could become just that. The bottom line, the least you could think about.

Once you know that, you can build back up as far as your fingers allow.