Backing Track: Funky riff based jam track in Dm

Here's my first backing track, it's a fairly simple riff based groove in the key of Dm.
The Dm pentatonic works well over the majority of it, but mixing it up with some modal playing can sound good.

To stream the jam track here click on the video above (blogger doesn't have any audio embedding options) or to download follow this link: http://www.supload.com/listen?s=VNxTGA

I will hopefully find a better method of uploading/streaming backing tracks before I do my next one.

Enjoy.

Review: Tonerider Superlush Chorus

Tonerider have made quite a name for themselves in the past few years due to their budget yet high quality pickups. However not many have heard of their line of effects pedals, which boast a similar charm to their pickups.
They all cost roughly £50 and appear to be clones of popular, more expensive alternatives. The Tonerider Superlush Chorus which I am going to look at today is no different. The Superlush chorus is allegedly based off the Japanese made BOSS CE-2 of the eighties, which go for over £100 used.

The appearance of this pedal may seem a bit "early 90s office computer", but behind the looks is a simple two knob, one footswitch set-up. The two knobs are Rate and Depth, as with the BOSS CE-2. The pedal also claims to be true bypass.
The pedal is very simple to operate, though this is not to say that the pedal doesn't produce a great variety of tones.
This pedal has a very wide range of chorus sounds available. With the subtlest of chorus sounds being accessible with both knobs turned low, or more intense "leslie" style sounds with them turned up and every point in between.
The lack of an overall "level" knob ensures that the subtle sounds are subtle and the intense sounds are intense, which can be a bit annoying if you're looking for a different sound. Though a bit of tweaking with the knobs can easily find a good compromise.

This pedal is great for enhancing clean sounds, adding some flavour to fusion licks, getting 'that' grunge tone, any chorus sound you could really want.
The only real qualms I have with this pedal is the jacks are a bit tight and the footswitch is a bit stiff. Though I think this is just a case of needing to be worn in a bit.
Overall this pedal is definitely a great chorus. One that I feel will sit on my pedalboard for a very long time, unless the price of an Analogman Chorus comes my way, I doubt I'll replace it while it's still working.

To hear this pedal in action, check out my video demo of it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Vw6asqMaU

Lick: Non-linear sliding lick.

Here's a lick which deonstrates soething which I've been doing a lot in my playing recently.
It mainly focuses on using slides in a non-linear fashion which can produce quite an interesting sound which works great when trying to incorporate a slight jazzy or "fusion" feel into regular rock or blues playing.

While the video of this lick isn't the best in terms of tone or quality, it gives you a feel for the lick.

Here's the tab and notation for the lick:

I've written and performed this lick in C# Minor but I suggest anyone who uses it learns it in whatever key they're most comfortable in (or as many keys as possible to get the most out of it).

Thanks.

Rory.

Beginners: Introduction to playing the Guitar. (Part One)

In my experience of teaching and knowing beginner guitarists, and even remembering the horrors which came with being a beginner guitarist, there is very little precise help for them on the internet!
Well. There is, but it's relatively hidden, I find that many beginners will search on youtube for "beginner guitar lesson" or something similar to find an "Expert Village" or similar video which teaches the C chord.
This is all well and good, but isn't the best approach for teaching beginners!

What I shall be writing here will be a set of simple beginner lessons which will teach any beginner the basics of playing and understanding scale and chord diagrams, all major and minor open chords, the pentatonic scale, and understanding TAB (which may be looked down upon by many musicians of other instruments or older guitarists, but is a sure-fire way to get learning songs quickly, standard notation can come into play at a later date!) to start learning songs.

This first part of the lesson will cover Major and Minor Open Chords.
This may sound a bit daunting at first, but is actually quite simple.

First we'll tackle the term "chord". A chord is generally more than one note played at the same time.
Though of course, not just any two, three, four, etc notes played at the same time will make a pleasing sound.

This is where the terms "major" and "minor" come in.
To describe these two terms in the simplest way possible:
Major chords are often described as "happy" sounding.
Where Minor chords are seen as "sad" sounding.

Though by now you're probably aching to actually play the guitar!
We'll start with what are called "open" chords, which essentially means that these chords use some of the open strings.

The Major open chords are as follows:

Don't worry if these seem confusing to you (or if you're wondering why I've neglected the letters B and F) I shall walk you through it all.
These diagrams represent your guitar neck. Each vertical line is a string (the left side being the thicker strings, the right side being the thinner strings) and each horizontal line is a fret (except for the thick black line which is the nut of your guitar).

To give a bit of a clearer example, we'll take the A chord. The dots that sit behind the thick black line are open strings, meaning you play these strings without fretting any note.
Then you'll see the three dots which are all on the second row of blocks. This means that you need to hold the second fret of these three strings.

Now, if you play all those strings which have a note on them in the diagram, you should have an A chord. This is where you should be able to hear the "happy" sound that I previously mentioned, which should hopefully match your mood as you've just played your first chord! Congratulations.

Now do this with the other major open chords.

After you're comfortable with these we'll move onto the Minor open chords.
These are as follows:

These should be a lot easier for you as you will now be comfortable with understanding chord diagrams (hopefully! If not, please complain at me for not being clearer and I will help you to understand these!).

Also. As a note, to save time when writing chords down, all of these major chords are simply named after their letter (so "A Major" will just be called "A"). With Minor chords it's very similar, though you put an "m" afterwards. (So "A Minor" becomes "Am")

But as you may notice, there is still no "B" or "F" in either Major or Minor open chord sets. This is simply because there are no open chords for B, Bm, F or Fm!
These will come a bit later if I choose to continue these lessons into more advanced chords.

Next lesson I will write about putting these chords into use, so that you can create music, which is the best thing about playing the guitar!

Thanks for reading, and I hope I helped!

If you have any questions, please comment on this blog post, email me at rory.guitarist@gmail.com or get to me at any of my networking sites:
http://www.youtube.com/roryrockssocks
http://www.twitter.com/rerellison
http://rorybutler.tumblr.com/
http://www.myspace.com/roryrockssocks

First blog post, an introduction of sorts.

Okay, hello!
I am Rory Butler as you may have realised. This blog will essentially aim to be the platform which I shall use to put forth any written things I need to get online, this being any written lessons or columns, write-ups to any videos on youtubes, links to any other work I do, etc etc.

Doing this will hopefully gain a bit of heat and eventually roll on til I gain a bit of attention as someone who is competant with various music related objects!

Though I'm fairly new to this blogging stuff so I'll end this here and I shall leave you with the note that I will be hopefully getting my first written lesson up shortly!