Here's Teddy Kumpel interview. He was in Paris touring with Joe Jackson so we took the opportunity to record this video the morning after the concert. I met Teddy at the 2016 NAMM show through Julie Cord from Blue Mouth Promotions (thanks Julie!).
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“Blues For Alice” is a great Charlie Parker tune. It is a 12-bar Blues, but it moves through a lot of ii-V sequences. That modified version of the Blues is usually referred to as “Bird Blues” changes.
Blues for Alice (Part 1/6)
The lead sheet shows the fingerings I use. Keep in mind that those are only suggestions.
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Taylor Guitars has recently done a full rework on their 12-string Taylor guitars range. We took this opportunity to do a Skype interview to talk about it with Andy Powers, the master builder at Taylor Guitars in San Diego.
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Here's Sungha Jung interview done during the latest Musikmesse in Frankfurt. Sungha was there on the Lakewood booth to promote his signature model and play a couple of shows in Germany.
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During the NAMM I was intrigued by theDV Mark Micro 50 amp. It's super small and quite powerful with 50W. DV Mark is a brand more established in the bass amp market but big players like Greg Howe or Frank Gambale are using their guitar amps so it says something about what they propose.
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Here's Toni Götz interview done during the Guitares au Beffroi festival in 2016, a perfect opportunity to hear the whole Maybach Guitars story. This brand is proposing a full range of high quality Vintage inspired instruments with an excellent price/quality ratio.
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Maybach is a guitar brand launched a few years ago with a line of instruments manufactured in Prague, Czech Republic with German pickups.
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All 7 Diatonic Arpeggios in Major Key by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Monday, 18 April 2016
This exercise will have us play through all of the arpeggios of a same tonality.
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Phil X interview, Bon Jovi’s guitar player at the 2016 Musikmesse
Friday, 15 April 2016
Here's an in-depth PhilX interview done at the 2016 Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany right after Phil got out of stage for an unplugged set.
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Here's an interview with Pepijn 't Hart, european responsible for Eastman Guitars which was an exhibitor at the Guitares au Beffroi festival in Montrouge near Paris.
Interview with Pepijn 't Hart about Eastman Guitars
Photos of the Eastman Guitars booth
Here are a couple of pictures taken on the Eastman booth during the guitar fair :
The range of instruments proposed by Eastman is very wide, from acoustic to mandoline including hollow-bodies and archtop guitars:
The wonderful back of the mandolin presented in the interview:
Until the next interview, keep on playing the guitar!
Pierre.
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Playing in and out of position (part 2/2) by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Tuesday, 12 April 2016
Here's the second part on the Playing In and Out of Position theme (part 1 is here).
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Marco Viola (MOV Guitars) is a luthier based in Italy. He was one of the exhibitors of the guitar show during the 2016 edition of the Guitares au Beffroi festival.
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Reviewing pickups is by definition difficult since they are necessarily installed in a guitar which itself has an enormous impact on the sound. However if we consider that the pickups are on electric guitar what an engine is to a car, we can agree that it is a very important factor. To review this "engine" built by Seymour Duncan, we used a "frame" from the Paul Reed Smith race squadron with a Custom 24 model.
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Playing in and out of position (part 1/2) by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Monday, 04 April 2016
Here's the first video of a two part series on the Playing In and Out of Position theme. When we first learn our Major scales, we are generally told to practice them in position. We visualize certain shapes all over the fingerboard and that helps us play more efficiently, more smoothly.
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Luthier Linda Manzer interview at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show
Wednesday, 30 March 2016
Discover in this Linda Manzer interview at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show one of the rare women who is very well known in the luthier world. Linda worked for musicians like Pat Metheny or Carlos Santana just to name those two.
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Here's a video review of the Friedman BE100 plugin available in the Universal Audio Apollo interface. Friedman is well know for the quality of their high gain tube amp. That's why I was very curious to test drive the plugin based on the BE100 model.
Here's a screenshot of the plugin in what I call the simple mode where you see only the amp settings:
Here's a screenshot of the plugin in what I call the rack mode where you see in the top half all the settings to fine-tune the sounds : noise gate, cab and mikes, delay, etc.
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Bob Taylor full unedited interview – President of Taylor Guitars
Monday, 21 March 2016
While The Guitar Channel was in sunny California in January for the 2016 NAMM show, I took the opportunity to do an in-depth interview with Taylor Guitars president and co-founder.
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The luthier Tony Girault (giraultguitars.com) based in Normandy at Evreux makes excellent electric guitars. Here is in test the Origin Tattoo which is no exception because it sounds great with its two humbuckers. Origin Tattoo by luthier Tony Girault Until the next gear review or interview, keep on playing the guitar! Pierre Journel. [cta_video]
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Here's the Adam Miller interview recorded during the 2016 Winter NAMM show. In 2014 I did an audio interview with Adam while he was in Paris, you can listen to it in this article.
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Pedal Review – Drive Recovery Thrilltone overdrive Made in France
Saturday, 05 March 2016
It's not everyday that you get to review a French overdrive pedal based on a new fully analog technology. The Drive Recovery Thrilltone pedal is such a product. It's a double pedal with two stages.
Here's a Brian Wampler interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM show. It's always a pleasure to meet and interview Brian as he is very open about sharing information about his work in the pedal domain.
Wampler website: www.wamplerpedals.com
The 2016 NAMM Wampler booth
Brian Wampler interview
Add Brian Wampler (and me) on Snapchat
Brian Wampler is always ready to embrace new tools to engage with guitar aficionados. He is now on Snapchat, add him in your friend list, it's worth it.
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On this new Luthier Chronicle, I asked Nik Huber the shakespearian question: to relic, or not to relic?
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Comping Study for Jazz Blues in F by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
Comping means “to accompany”. In our case, it implies that those chords can be used when accompanying a soloist who is improvising over a Jazz Blues chord progression.
Comping Study for Jazz Blues in F
Each diagram represents a full measure, except when slashes are written above the chord—in which case those slashes represent the number of beats for that particular chord. The circled dots are optional replacement bass notes.
All of the chords have the root in the bass, except for the diminished 7th chord used as a substitution for the D7 chord.
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Here's the Paul Reed Smith interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM show. It's always with great pleasure that I meet and talk to Paul as he is one of the leader of the high-end guitar world. This encounter with the PRS Guitars founder was the 4th one.
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Here's Josh Smith interview during the 2016 Winter NAMM. I recently discovered this awesome musician by listening to the No Guitar Is Safe podcast by Jude Gold from the magazine Guitar Player.
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Here's a Mike Moreno interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM. It is thanks to my official Jazz advisor Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert that I contacted Mike.
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Here's Don Alder interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM show on the Seymour Duncan booth. It's always a pleasure to meet and interview such a gifted musician who plays equally well a harp-guitar, a baritone or a regular folk guitar. We talked about his latest news and projects.
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Here's an Andy Timmons interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM. The Guitar Channel has been looking for a way to do an interview for a while now and it happened at Anaheim thanks to the introduction made through Blue Mouth Promotions.
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Andy Powers interview – Taylor Guitars master builder – NAMM 2016
Monday, 25 January 2016
In this interview, meet Taylor Guitars master builder Andy Powers. Meeting and getting to talk with the luthier involved in the development of all the guitars at Taylor was very interesting to understand more how a huge player in the industry like Taylor operates. In fact Taylor builds around 600 guitars per day with an unsurpassed level of quality in the industry.
Taylor Guitars website: www.taylorguitars.com
Taylor master builder - Adam Powers interview
Here's the full interview with Adam Powers.
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