tag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=1Blog2022-12-02T06:03:44-12:00Jeff Wahlfalsetag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/71157682022-12-02T06:03:44-12:002023-10-16T02:56:40-12:00Let me know if you need help learning any of my transcriptions<p>I've noticed a lot of people downloading transcriptions of my songs and arrangements recently. That is great. Thank you. Please feel free to ask my any questions you have about playing these songs. I don't think my songs and arrangements are all that difficult to play, but I do use some sort of unorthodox, self-taught techniques that might be tricky.</p>
<p>I lot of my songs are played on classical guitar and I do play on a standard size, wide neck. But I do use my thumb a lot to hold down bass strings, all the way to the 4th string. That can be quite a stretch. If it's causing you pain or just not working, you can probably play those chords by using another finger to hold the bass notes. I grew up playing mostly electric guitar and a little acoustic, and mostly playing rock music, so I learned or picked up the technique or habit of using my thumb after I learned a Jimi Hendrix song where it was notated the he used his thumb to hold down bass strings. After I learned that one song, I think it was Purple Haze, he often held standard, E based barre chords down using his thumb for the bass string, I just started using it all the time. When I started playing a lot of nylon string guitar, it was really hard to keep using the thumb, but I'm pretty stubborn and more than a little lazy, so I just kept using it. I've gotten used to it, but at first, it was painful to stretch my thumb around that wide, classical neck.</p>
<p>And, of course, there's the delay pedal trick that I use in songs like "Waterfall." People usually think I learned this from listening to U2's guitarist, The Edge, who uses this trick all the time. I love The Edge's playing and I think U2 is great, but I actually learned that trick from listening to Steve Stevens, the guitarist who plays with Billy Idol. He uses that trick very sparingly and only on a few songs. There's a song called "Shooting Stars" by Billy Idol that you'll hear Steve Stevens use this trick on. He wrote an article in "Guitar for the Practicing Musician," in which he explained how to do that trick. That's where I learned it. Come to think of it, that's where I learned the thumb/bass trick from the Hendrix song as well. That was a great magazine. I think it changed names a few years ago to "Guitar One" or something like that. I haven't read it since I was a kid, but it sure was a great magazine for me. I learned so much from it. I think I have a YouTube video out here somewhere in which I explain how to set up that delay trick.</p>
<p>I use a Boss delay pedal. I use the old ones, I think it's the DD-2 as well as some of the later ones, DD-8 maybe? Nothing fancy. Anyway, don't hesitate to email me if you want any help learning any of my songs or arrangements.</p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/70996542022-11-10T09:20:00-12:002022-11-10T09:20:01-12:00Saw Leo live again last night<p>I saw Leo Kottke play live last night in a wonderful theater just down the street from where I live. I've probably seen Leo play live about 10 times at this point. I've been listening to Leo's albums since I was in high school and I've been seeing him play live shows since I was in college. I've sort of grown up with his music. Every time I've seen him play live, it's always different. He has such a repertoire of music to pull from. Anyway, it was great, as it always has been.</p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/69115162022-03-02T04:50:14-12:002022-03-02T04:50:38-12:00The Coolest Guitar I Own<p>People often ask my who my guitar heroes are. I have the obvious answers: Leo Kottke, Michael Hedges, Tuck Andress, Christopher Parkening, Steve Stevens, etc. But the original guitar hero for me was my Dad. When I was a kid, my Dad would get out his guitar and play little concerts for me and it was the most mesmerizing thing in the world for me. It was just amazing. My Dad could strum an acoustic guitar and sing like no one else I've ever heard, to this day. Imagine Jim Croce with a lot more rhythm and a better voice. And that's saying a lot, because Jim Croce was one of the best ever. My Dad truly was that good, and even a little better.</p>
<p>And, factor this in as well. My Dad was right handed, like I am. And right handed guitarists use their left hands to hold down the strings on the guitar neck, and use their right hands to strum or fingerpick. That's just how it's done. It seems odd, but that's how the brain works with the guitar. Left handed guitarists do it the other way around. Look at pictures of Jimi Hendrix or Paul McCartney playing and you'll notice how it's backwards of what you're used to seeing. That's because those guys are left handed. Well, my Dad's left hand only had three fingers, and the fingers were sort of fused in a way that basically made holding down individual guitar strings impossible. So, he took a right handed guitar, turned it upside down, and played it backwards to what his brain naturally would do. He was right handed but he played the guitar as a left handed person so he could hold down the strings with his right hand, which had 5 fingers. It's pretty amazing. So, not only was my Dad a great guitarist, but he had to do everything on the guitar upside down and backwards to how his brain thought. Any time I find myself complaining about how difficult something is to play on the guitar, I remember what my Dad had to do to play the guitar, and I stop complaining.</p>
<p>Anyway, my Dad was certainly my original guitar hero, and anytime I play guitar and sing, I'm really trying to emulate those magical concerts my Dad played for me when I was a kid. When I play in that style, if there's anyone I try to sound like, it's him.</p>
<p>His guitar wasn't an amazing guitar, quality wise, but it was really cool. It was an acoustic archtop, which is a pretty rare instrument. An archtop is sort of like a jazz guitar, with "f holes" to the sides of the strings, for the sound, instead of the standard open hole under the strings like you see on most acoustic guitars. I remember what the guitar looked like and I remembered the brand, so I started digging online to see if I could find one. As rare as this guitar was when my Dad got his, they're even more rare now. But, after a lot of searching, I found one, the same color, brand, and model, and from the same time period. I could only find one on the market, but due to the magic of online commerce, I was able to buy it and have it shipped to my home.</p>
<p>It's really great to be able to own this guitar now. It wasn't very expensive, it isn't really a collector's guitar and it really never was a high level instrument. But in my Dad's hands, it came alive and created some of the most magical memories I have, and planted the seeds of my own musicality. I don't play it very often, but I keep it in my guitar room on display now and it makes me feel good every time I look at it. It's definitely the coolest guitar I own!</p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65471622021-02-11T00:00:00-12:002021-02-12T11:59:27-12:00Thumb pick or no thumb pick? That is the question.<p>I go back and forth and back and forth on this issue. My early years of playing guitar, from the age of 12 to about 16, I only ever used a flat pick to play the guitar. I rarely finger picked. Then, when I started to learn solo jazz guitar at 16, I started to use a flat pick in conjunction with some basic finger picking with my middle, ring, and pinky fingers. A few years later, I got really into playing classical guitar and some basic "fingerstyle" guitar. Then, eventually I sort of stopped using a flat pick altogether and just finger picked.</p>
<p>Then, I saw Tommy Emmanuel in concert and everything changed. After I stopped myself from burning all my guitars after that show (a common reaction for guitarists after seeing TE play live for the first time), I decided I should ALWAYS play with a thumb pick because TE had just changed the world of guitar playing and he played with a thumb pick. I did this for a few years, but I never really liked it. It's certainly louder and creates a more powerful sound. It also very much makes it sound like two guitar players playing at once. But it sort of slowed me down and I felt kind of disconnected from the guitar. Also, I've gotten very used to the mellow sound of just fingers with no pick.</p>
<p>The amazing thing that Tommy Emmanuel does that I've never seen anyone else do is that he uses the thumb pick to play his bass lines, but then he also can use the thumb pick just like a flat pick. It's amazing if you've never seen or heard him do this. I really wanted to learn how to do this, and I did, but it has always been a little clumsy.</p>
<p>So, as of right now, I don't use a thumb pick. You can probably find some older YouTube videos of me playing with a thumb pick, but as of right now, I'm not using one. It feels a lot better to me to just use fingers, but I've had to let go of one big thing: Stop trying to be Tommy Emmanuel! There's only one of that guy and no one else can compete with him on being him. He's a one of a kind, like all great guitar players, and you can't be someone else. It feels very good and very freeing to let go of that. Trying to compete with Tommy Emmanuel on guitar is like thinking you're going to beat Michael Jordan in a game of one-on-one. It ain't gonna' happen in this universe or any other dude. It's a lot better for me to just play the guitar the way that feels right for me and not worry about how it stacks up compared to anyone else.</p>
<p>So, that's my answer right now. It helps that I recently realized that I can use my index finger fingernail as a flat pick and can play fast flat picking runs that way while still having the ability to finger pick. Holding onto a flat pick makes it a lot harder to do any actual finger picking beyond basic "plucking" for me. Carl Perkins and George Harrison could do it, but if I'm going to finger pick, it's easier to not be holding on to a flat pick. Also, the sound of a fingernail on the strings sounds a lot more organic and "real" to me than the sound of a plastic or tortex pick. I've gotten used to that more "organic" sound I guess.</p>
<p>Anyway, that's what I'm doing this week. That might all change by next week.</p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65143132021-01-15T11:59:09-12:002021-01-15T11:59:09-12:00Edward Van Halen R.I.P.<p><span class="font_large">Like many others, I was shocked to hear of Eddie Van Halen's untimely passing this last year. What an amazing guitarist. Due to the acoustic and mellow nature of my music, some people might be surprised to learn that I listened to and tried to play Eddie Van Halen's music as much as I could when I was younger. What an incredible musician. Eddie Van Halen changed everything for electric guitarists, actually all guitarists. Acoustic guitarists tap pretty regularly now, and say what you want, but very few people were doing any sort of tapping before Eddie Van Halen. Yes, I'm aware that Frank Zappa, Billy Gibbons, and even Ace Frehley were tapping before Eddie Van Halen appeared, but no one did it like him. The way Van Halen Tapped changed what the world believed was possible on a guitar.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I remember the first time I heard "Eruption," EVH's unaccompanied guitar solo from the first Van Halen album. The only thought in my mind was the word, "magic." It didn't sound like a guitar, it just sounded like pure magic. I learned how the play the tapping part on my <a contents="Ibanez Roadstar II" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://ibanez.fandom.com/wiki/RS130" target="_blank">Ibanez Roadstar II</a> played through my little Gorilla practice amp, and it was great, but I could never make it sound as good as Van Halen. No one could.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I actually met Eddie Van Halen once. It wasn't a great experience. Through a strange set of circumstances I found myself sitting in a "green room" at a guitar event with a few guitar celebrities. I wasn't one of the celebrities, I was just there and I think someone forgot to kick me out. So, I just sat there on the couch hanging out. I remember The brothers from the band, "Nelson" where there and Traci Gunns from "L.A. Guns" was there. There were only about 10 people in the room. Out of nowhere, Eddie Van Halen came and sat next to me on the couch. I tried to be cool and I didn't say anything for a long time. But, eventually I turned to him and told him how much his music had meant to me and that he was a big part of why I had devoted so much of my time to playing guitar. He didn't say anything to me. He got a strange look on his face, looked at one of the other guitar celebrities and started laughing a little. He then shook his head and said something like, "Can you believe this guy?" I guess he heard things like I said a lot and it didn't really mean much to him at that point in his life. It was pretty humiliating for me. I should have left the room but I didn't really know that to do. I just sat there feeling completely humiliated. I wanted to crawl under the couch and hide. I figured if I got up and left the room it would cause another round of laughter so I just sat there for another half hour next to Eddie Van Halen, saying nothing, feeling like a complete idiot.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I also was about 20 at the time and had a particularly bad hair style. I wanted to be at least somewhat of a rocker and I knew that you had to have long hair to be in that group of musicians, so I let my hair grow pretty long. But, my hair doesn't ever get "long," it just gets "big." So, I had pretty big hair at the time and I probably looked a little odd. I've destroyed all of the photographic evidence of that particular hairstyle. He might have been laughing at my hair. I don't know. At any rate, it wasn't a good experience.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">It's one thing to be laughed at by a regular person, but when a hero of yours laughs at you, it's particularly no fun. He actually was pretty cool to everyone else there, even other non celebrities, but he definitely didn't want to talk to me. I also probably came off as a fan boy and he probably considered that he was having a day off from having to deal with fans. I don't begrudge him for it, but I certainly never tried to meet any other musical heroes of mine after that experience. That day cured me of any desire to meet any of my heroes again.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I think if you're really famous like that, it must get old for people to tell you how great you are all the time. What do you say when it happens multiple times a day? I'm certainly not famous, but I do have people I don't know contact me pretty regularly to tell me how much my music means to them. I personally can't imagine that ever getting old. I love it! It makes my day when someone goes out of their way to tell me how much they enjoy my music. That will never get old for me. And if a kid who plays guitar tells me that my music really inspired him/her to play guitar, (which happens somewhat regularly), that is so meaningful to me. I personally can't at all relate to that being something to mock, even if the person does have really big hair. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">But, I still love EVH's guitar playing, even if meeting him was a disappointment. So what? He's still the person how revolutionized electric guitar for my generation. He was the Hendrix of the 80's and "Eruption" still sounds like magic to me. May his brilliant soul rest in peace. And thank goodness I keep my hair short these days!</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65143122021-01-05T11:52:33-12:002021-01-05T11:52:33-12:00Notate your songs<p><span class="font_large">O.K. This is a big topic with guitarists. Guitarists generally seem to compose original music fairly easily. I've worked with a lot of music students and it seems like guitarists always write original music of some kind while that is rare with other instrumentalists for some reason. Maybe it's because the guitar is such a visual instrument in which you can sort of "see" all the notes right there on the fret board. But, and you guitarists know what I'm going to say here, guitarists resist reading music more than any other instrumentalists. This is probably because it's pretty natural to play the guitar by looking at it and finding the notes, or from using your ear to find the notes. The guitar is actually written in standard notation up an octave from where it actually sounds and the notes on the guitar can be found in many places. Once you change positions on the guitar, meaning you move your range of motion from open to 4th fret to being more based around the 5th or 7th fret, the position of all the notes changes.</span><span class="font_large"> Believe me, I get it, standard notation can be difficult to ready for guitarists.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, we generally are sort of afraid of reading music. Since reading is sort of rare for guitarists, writing music out for compositions also seems pretty rare. And, of course, tablature is lot easier to read than standard notation. I learned to read standard notation on the guitar and I did that pretty much exclusively for years. These days, I use tab almost exclusively. I feel a twinge of guilt or weirdness writing that even now. The guitar teachers I had very much looked down on reading tab and I get that, but I use tab all the time now. Sorry guys. I know that isn't allowed but oh well. Too late to change and you can't flunk me now!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">If you compose music or if you come up arrangements of other songs, I think it's extremely useful to physically write out your music. I know what you're going to say, "I record my songs and I don't need notation." How many songs have you written? It gets pretty difficult, at least for me, after the number of pieces you've written grows. Also, I have a pretty good memory but I can't remember every song without notation, especially since I write in a lot of different tunings, another reason I use tab for writing out songs now.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I have had the terrible experience before of forgetting what chords or fingerings I used for a particular song. It's no fun to not be able to play your own songs. I also used the "I'll just record everything" method for years until I kept having that experience of forgetting how a piece was played. At this point, I physically write out all of my music and arrangements, if only so I can use it later to remember how I played the song. But, also, it's really useful for me to put the notes and fingerings down on paper so I can see what's going on in a composition or arrangement. I always use pencil and I erase all over the place. Usually the pages are pretty messy by the time I'm done and often the final piece has to be rewritten to make it even legible. When I studied music arranging in college, my main professor taught me that the paper should look really messy if you're really working on the composition. If you're really experimenting and trying different things out, you'll end up erasing and crossing things out and putting little arrows all over the pages. Make a mess. It doesn't have to be pretty. The arrangement is basically a tool. When I used to show my compositions to my teacher, he would say, "Why is the page so clean? At this point in a new composition, the pages should be messy with lots of eraser smudges on them. Bring it back next week but it better be messier." I didn't really understand what he was talking about at the time but I get it now. If you're really working on a piece, the pages will generally look messy.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">A lot of people use GuitarPro or some other digital music notation program for this. I use GuitarPro for the final arrangement if I'm going to put it online for others to use, but I never use it to notate the songs while I'm writing them. Using a paper and pencil isn't very high tech. but it works better for me to do it the old fashioned way. I'm also thinking I'm going to stop using GuitarPro altogether. I get very frustrated with it and it takes me a long time to notate songs on it. It's sort of fun, but it sure is time consuming.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I'm also very aware that there are many guitarist composers who are much better than me who never write anything out. Their memories are either better than mine or they don't mind forgetting pieces or they don't mind going back to the recordings to try and figure out what they played. So, I'm sure a lot of people can write effectively without writing their pieces out, but I also know that I am not one of those people. I have a big filing cabinet in my music room filled with compositions and arrangements that I've written out. It's nice to be able to go back to these to relearn a piece I've forgotten how to play.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, my free advice to guitarists who are starting to compose is to get your self a big stack of blank tablature paper, a whole bunch of mechanical pencils, a box of file folders, and some kind of filing system. Writing out the compositions long hand was good enough for Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart and it's good enough for me. Also, if you ever see pictures of Beethoven's hand written scores, they are very, very messy. </span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65072502020-12-24T10:11:53-12:002020-12-24T10:11:53-12:00Merry Christmas!<p><span class="font_large">Today is Christmas Eve at the tail end of the strangest year any of us have ever seen.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">As many of you know, I released a solo guitar Christmas album a few years ago that has been surprisingly popular. It sure surprised me how popular its been. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I've heard it played in many places at Christmas time. It's a very strange experience to hear music over a sound system in a store and not know why the music is grabbing my attention until I realize it's me playing over the speakers. That's really strange when I hear it on phone services when I'm hold. It's really cool, I think it's great, but it's always a little strange.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">You may have heard this music on a Christmas playlist or Christmas station on a streaming service and haven't known it was me. But one way or another, if my music is a part of your Christmas celebrations, thank you so much. What an honor that is to know how many homes my music is shared in a Christmas time every year. It's really an amazing feeling. And what a miracle of technology it is that something like that is even possible.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, I'm glad we made it through this year and I'm very happy that my guitar playing is a part of so many people's Christmas seasons. Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65055892020-12-22T07:07:23-12:002020-12-22T07:07:23-12:00On tracking down and acquiring a vintage "Mel Bay" chord book<p><span class="font_large">In the last few years, I've developed a habit of tracking down and purchasing collectible memorabilia from my youth. The internet has made this pretty easy and it's amazing what you can find. My worst habit here is tracking down collectible Star Wars memorabilia (comic books, action figures, toys, etc.). But another area that I like to track down are artifacts from my early life with the guitar. That sounds weird. I don't know how else to say it, but now that I wrote that sentence, it just gave me some other ideas for things I'd like to track down. It's sort of like consumerist detective work and it's probably silly, but it's something I do.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, my life with the guitar really began by asking my Dad to teach me how to play guitar. My Dad was a really good guitarist and pianist. He was completely self taught and he couldn't read music. He was just a complete natural. My Dad was right handed and he was missing several fingers on his left hand. For right handed people, you use your left hand to hold down the strings on the guitar neck and you pick or strum the strings near the bridge of the guitar with your right hand. I don't know why it works this way, but that's the way it naturally works out. My Dad couldn't really do what he wanted to do as a right-hander on the guitar since he was missing fingers on his left hand. So, he turned a right handed guitar upside down and essentially learned how to play the guitar as if he was left handed. He played all the chords upside down and he literally played the guitar upside down. Anyway, I don't mean to discount anyone's challenges with playing the guitar, I really don't. When I used to teach guitar, I always heard, "I can't play guitar because my fingers are too small." or "My fingers aren't strong enough." If my Dad could learn the whole instrument upside down, and convert his mind to see it as if he were left handed, there are very few excuses that I can accept that would prevent a person from playing the guitar. You'll notice in photographs of Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney, they regularly played guitars upside down. That's because they were both left handed and in those days, guitars made specifically for lefties were very, very rare. They basically didn't exist. They're still rare today. It's very impressive that those left handed guitarists learned this way, but at least they were left handed and the placement of their hands and fingers was in line with how they saw the world. My Dad not only had to learn the guitar upside down, he had to force his brain to rewire the way he used his hands and fingers to match how a left handed person sees the world. Pretty amazing guy.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Anyway, my Dad's view of the guitar was so completely different than anyone else's due to how he had to learn the instrument, that he didn't really know how to teach a right handed person, learning the guitar right side up, seeing it as a right handed person would naturally see it. What he did have was a guitar he would let me practice on and a copy of "<a contents="Elementary Guitar Chords" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Mel-Bay-Elementary-Guitar-Chords/dp/B000M1QB2S" style="" target="_blank">Elementary Guitar Chords</a>" by Mel Bay, that he would let me use. He showed me C, A minor (Ami), G, and F, handed me the book and said, "Good luck."</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The book is great. It's a book with chord diagrams for every chord and then a photograph of Mel Bay's left hand holding the chord. Those photos were so helpful to see what the chords really looked like with your left hand fingering it. The guitar forces you to sort of twist your hand and fingers into strange positions to hit all the notes needed for some chords so it was really useful for me to look at the photographs of Mel holding the chords correctly so I could see how I would have to angle or twist my hand and fingers to correctly hold them down. So, remember, I was really working on my own to learn guitar and my Dad couldn't help too much because if I looked at his hand holding the chords, the guitar itself and his fingerings were all upside down. So, this book was really great to have.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">It was such a struggle to learn those chords. I wish I could say that I just picked up the guitar and it flew into my hands and my fingers danced over the strings immediately and it was just "meant to be" and finally I felt free! But, it was the opposite of that. I really, really wanted to play the guitar, but it was anything but natural for me. I would hold the chords just like the book said to, I would then strum the strings, and all I would hear would be a muted, "thunk." Occasionally a stray open string would ring through, but anywhere my fingers were, a muted, awful "thunk" would be all I heard. People struggling to learn the guitar will be familiar with this horrible sound, and it really <em>does</em> sound like, "thunk."</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, the process of me learning these chords was to hold them and then strum each string independently until I could make each fingered string actually ring through with a clear note. Then I'd move on to the next string. By the time I got through all the strings, the first finger I had cleared up would have returned to "thunk" status. Then, of course, there is the next battle. Getting the fingers to hold down the strings clearly is one issue, but then, you have to keep those fingers from unintentionally resting on other strings that are supposed to ring open, which is very easy to have happen. So, once I'd start to get the fingered strings to ring correctly, then I'd have to try and angle my fingers so they didn't mute out other strings. It's really pretty complicated. Plus, while my Dad's guitar was great, it was a beautiful archtop acoustic guitar. No one that I had ever seen besides my Dad played an acoustic archtop. That's really a jazz guitar but my Dad had no interest in jazz. It was just really cool and unique, which was very fitting given who my Dad was. But, the strings on this guitar were about a mile off the fingerboard. The "action," as guitarists call string height, was not friendly to say the least.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, eventually I got C, Ami, and G to sound not terrible. Eventually those started to sound like actual chords. However, and this is a big however, anyone who has ever tried to learn guitar chords on an acoustic guitar with high action is very familiar with the dreaded F chord. C, Ami, and G all rely on a lot of open strings and all of the fingers just hold down notes with the tips of the fingers. F is different. It has no open strings, and, this is the kicker. With F, you have to hold two strings down with one finger. This is like a baby barre chord. A barre chord is a chord that requires you to hold a number of strings down with the side of one your fingers, generally your index finger. This F chord only required holding down two strings with one finger, but it was not easy. Thunk City. It was basically impossible for me.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">You have to understand, the guitar was a big part of the overall plan for my life. I had it all worked out. The guitar was the key open up life for me and make everyone love me. As a kid, I really wasn't good at all the things I had decided that I was supposed to be good at. I was really good at drawing, reading and writing and I was an o.k. trombone player, but those things didn't really count for much in the "cool" department unfortunately, and I desperately wanted to be cool. If a sport involved a lot of hand/eye coordination with a ball, as most sports did, I was lousy at it. So, that avenue of being cool was pretty much closed to me. In hindsight, looking back, I know now that "cool" is not defined by all these predetermined things. I know now that being a good artist, reader, writer, and being a good trombone player really does make a person pretty cool. But I didn't know it then. All I knew was that I didn't really like myself and I felt that there was basically nothing interesting that I could do.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I don't know how I decided that the guitar was the key to opening up the world to me but I definitely did, even before I ever played it. I just somehow knew it was going to be a big part of my life. You would think that the next part of the story is that it magically flew into my hands and it felt like I had always known how to play it. I've heard those stories before from musicians and that's amazing, but that isn't what happened with me. What happened when I held the guitar in my hands was "thunk." So, running head long into that F chord was pretty devastating. I knew that as impossible as the F chord was, F was considered to be a pretty basic chord. If I couldn't even make it past that F chord, the rest of the guitar playing world was certainly going to be off limits to me. There's a famous quote from one of the ancient Stoic philosophers that I'm going to mangle here. The quote goes something like this. "Disappointment and despair occur when a cherished belief about the world has a head on collision with the reality of how life really is." That's what I experienced with that F chord. I held my fingers just like Mel did in the picture, I strummed it over and over again. But unlike the C, Ami, and G chords, no matter how much I tried, I was never able to get it to stop sounding like one big, ugly "thunk." </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, that F chord threw off my whole plan for how I was going to become a spectacular person. Remember, I basically believed that I was worthless and the guitar was my one ray of hope for acquiring some worth. Obviously, this isn't healthy thinking but I didn't know any better. Also, what in the world is a 10 year old kid doing disliking himself that much? This is probably why I'm drawn to collecting memorabilia from childhood. I wasn't really there to experience my childhood, I was living in that depressing world of illusion. At any rate, that's where I was and the guitar was going to save me from all of this and make me like myself and make everyone think I was great too. So, that F chord derailed more than just playing guitar for me. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">After about 4 months of trying every day to play that chord and only hearing "thunk," I sort of gave up on the guitar. Somehow I then got into learning the electric bass guitar. I had always loved bass and that seemed pretty cool too. I loved Iron Maiden, and Steve Harris, the bass player, was the leader of that band. Gene Simmons was cool and he played bass. So, I got another book on how to play the bass, I borrowed a bass from the band department at school and I started learning the bass. I found the bass to be much friendlier than the guitar. It was great. The bass really did come pretty naturally to me. I progressed really quickly on the bass. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I have a strange and funny memory of learning bass that just returned to me. I was learning to play bass so I could play in the "Stage Band" at school. I was going to be a "double threat," trombonist and bassist. So, the band director let me borrow the bass as long as I learned to read standard notation. The world of guitar music is split into standard notation and tablature. Tablature is a system of numbers on a staff that correspond to the number of strings on an instrument and tells you exactly where to put your fingers. It's great, and I love tab, but it sort of removes you from the being able to relate to music written for a band, since that's all written in standard notation. The "teach yourself to play bass" book I had was great but each exercise was written in both standard notation and then a second staff beneath would have the notes written out in tablature. Tab is a lot easier so I learned everything from the tab line and pretty much ignored the standard notation. When I went back to play for the band director, he said, "That's great, but you have to be able to read standard notation."</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, I went back home with this book and I put strips of duct tape over all of the tablature staves in the book to force myself to learn standard notation. Since I knew how the exercises were supposed to sound from learning them in tab, I could tell when I was playing the notes correctly with the standard notation. Also, bass music is written in the bass clef and it's a concert pitch instrument, so the notes were all the same as what I was used to from the trombone music. So, it really wasn't that difficult.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I got pretty good at the bass pretty quickly. I'm thinking now that maybe I should have actually focused my musical life on playing bass instead of guitar. I still own a few basses. Maybe I'll return to that eventually. O.K. Back to the story. So, the bass was what I played and the guitar was that instrument that sat in the corner collecting dust now. All I played was bass. Then, one day, just for old times sake, I picked up the guitar again. This after playing the bass all the time for probably about 4 months or so. The weirdest thing happened when I picked up the guitar this time. I could play all those guitar chords, C, Ami, G, and even F perfectly. Even F! It was so strange to me. I hadn't realized it, but after all those months of playing the bass, with its huge strings, my fingers had become very strong. When I picked up the guitar again, with those skinny, little strings, it was like a joke. It was like a toy. The guitar strings were so easy to hold down compared to the huge bass strings. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">It was so strange. After months of never touching the guitar and completely giving up on it, I picked it up again and I could immediately play. It sounds odd to say, but after that, most things on the guitar came pretty easily to me. I play the guitar all the time now and it's like another limb on my body. It's so natural to me that it's like walking or talking. I still encounter things that I can't play and I still make mistakes all the time when I play, but playing the guitar is like speaking or something now. The guitar is amazing to have in my life, but contrary to what I believed as a kid, it didn't make me any cooler than I already was. I was also surprised to learn that being able to play the guitar really naturally didn't make me any happier either. Later in life, I had to figure out how to be happy and I learned that it really didn't have anything to do with guitar or music. Music and the guitar are wonderful parts of my life, and they do make me feel very happy if I already have the capacity to feel happiness. But if you aren't capable of feeling happy, nothing can make you happy. I'm glad I eventually figured that out.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, I lost track of that initial Mel Bay book or my Dad took it back when I didn't need it any longer. I sort of forgot about it until I walked into a music store recently and saw that the store had an original copy of the book on display. It brought back such a flood of memories. I asked the people in the store if I could hold the book and they said "no." I went home and did my detective work online until I found a copy of it. It really wasn't expensive at all to buy a copy. And just like playing the guitar, owning a copy of this vintage book hasn't made me any happier. But, it's really cool to have.</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65028142020-12-18T06:16:17-12:002020-12-18T11:45:05-12:00My long journey to alternate tunings<p><span class="font_large">I'm sort of known for playing a lot in alternate tunings these days so it might come as a surprise that I resisted alternate tunings for years and even considered alternate tunings to be "cheating" on the guitar. Wow. How funny when I remember that opinion. It was just a fear of something unfamiliar, envy of a technique that seemed unfathomable to me, and some weird thought that it was was "wrong." That seems crazy to me now, but I inhabited that frame of mind for years.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">For those of you who are unfamiliar with alternate tunings, here's what that means. The guitar is generally tuned to what's called "standard tuning," which is E, A, D, G, B, E. This tuning is great and I think it's the most versatile of all of the tunings, I completely understand why that tuning was decided on as the "standard" guitar tuning. It makes it easy to play in any key and it makes the instrument very relate-able to other instruments when you play music with pianists, horn players, etc. It makes the guitar fit nicely into the world of music at large. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">But one really cool feature of the guitar is that it has very easy to access and very easy to turn tuning pegs up on what's called the headstock of the guitar. These are used to tune up your guitar. However... they can also be used to completely change the notes on each string. So, while standard tuning is what the guitar is generally tuned to, it doesn't have to be. You can change the notes the strings are tuned to to be any note you want. This makes the guitar very, very unique compared to other musical instruments. The piano can be tuned, but you have to open up the instrument and use wrenches. It's very complicated and you certainly couldn't do it between songs. Horns can be tuned a little bit, but just to bring them closer to pitch, you can't change actual notes associated with horn fingerings. Violins, violas, cellos, and upright basses can be tuned, but as far as I know, they don't use alternate tunings, I might be wrong about that. I played a little violin and cello for a string techniques class in college and from what I remember, tuning a violin is pretty tricky and the tuning pegs generally aren't as mechanical as a guitar's tuning pegs so it might not be practical to change the tuning on those types of stringed instruments. Again, I could be completely wrong about that.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">But, with the guitar, you can tune the strings to whatever notes you choose, which is pretty amazing. I believe this practice evolved in Hawaii when people had guitars but not a lot of instruction in playing. The guitar in standard tuning sounds great when you finger a chord, but just strumming it open doesn't sound good. You have to arrange your fingers on a guitar in standard tuning to get anything that sounds good. So, the story is, people in Hawaii had guitars left behind from the American cowboys who were brought in to establish a cattle industry in Hawaii.</span> <span class="font_large">Since picking up the guitar and strumming it in its standard tuning didn't sound good, the Hawaiians began using the tuning pegs to tune the guitar until it did sound good just strumming it open. This created a very brilliant tradition of what is called Hawaiian Slack Key guitar. They created slack in the strings by lowering the chosen notes on the guitar, hence "Slack Key." Anyway, this new, beautiful style of guitar eventually made its way back to the mainland of America and now alternate tunings on the guitar are a normal part of guitar technique. Maybe not "normal," but not really unusual any longer. I'm sure there were many people in other cultures who discovered this same technique, but that's the story I tell about the origin of this and that's the one I'm sticking with.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Anyway, I learned the guitar playing only in standard tuning, as most guitarists do. I focused mainly on electric guitar in those days, which rarely uses alternate tuning unless you're Keith Richards or you're in the band Sonic Youth. So, growing up, I never encountered alternate tunings. I listened to the music of Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges, but I had no idea what they were doing. To me, those guitarists sounded like they had come from another planet so I didn't even try to understand what they were doing. I remember in both of those examples just saying, "O.K. There is no way that's one guy playing without overdubs." when I heard their music. I still can't quite fathom how those guys don't have several extra sets of arms and hands when I hear their music.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">When I went to college, I encountered a number of guitarists using alternate tunings. I thought it was really cool but I found it pretty intimidating since I didn't understand it. So, I naturally thought of it as "wrong" or "cheating." Nice huh? In reality, I was just upset that I thought it was so cool but I had no understanding of it. As a rule, I have generally resisted learning anything new in life once I'm established in any area of knowledge. Good policy huh? I'm working on changing that.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I also believed that my jazz guitar teachers wouldn'</span><span class="font_large">t approve, and I was pretty into doing whatever my teachers said I should do, even though I really never became a "real" jazz guitarist. I still play a lot of solo jazz "chord melody" songs but I never really saw the point of just improvising endlessly on songs, and I was never that great at that type of improv. where the key of the song changes all the time. I realize now that my guitar teachers probably had no problem with me learning to play in alternate tunings. Maybe they did. I'm not sure. I know that at the time, my teachers completely abhorred anything they considered "New Age" music and I think they considered alternate tunings to be a part of the "New Age" world. On that topic, I don't think there are any musicians who have ever willingly been labeled as New Age. My music has been put into that category a lot and I really don't care what category it's in if it helps it sell. Forgive me. I know musicians aren't supposed to be interested in sales. Sorry. Guitars, guitar strings, recording sessions, amplifiers, and psychotherapy all cost money!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I secretly sought out a teacher at a folk music school to try and learn the art of alternate tunings. I had one lesson with him in which he explained to me that he had no idea how to use alternate tunings either. I don't think he charged me for the lesson.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, when it finally happened, when I finally went over to the Dark Side of alternate tunings, I just jumped in, like the earlier Hawaiian guitarists and figured it out myself. Here's how I remember it, and I do think this is accurate. I was probably 21 or 22 years old. I was head over heels in "love" with a girl I had met at college. I know now that an experience like that isn't really love, but when you're that age, it sure feels like it. I was just going crazy with how much I was infatuated with this girl and when I'm overwhelmed with emotion, I generally turn to the guitar. I needed to write a song about my feelings for this girl. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The guitar in its standard tuning wasn't doing it for me on the night I began writing this song. So, I took my classical guitar out and started changing the notes it was tuned to. I tuned it until it sounded good to me. I landed on what guitarists know as the standard D Major tuning, D, A, D, F#, A, D. I didn't know I had "discovered" a tuning that guitarists had been using for generations. Anyway, once I was in this alternate tuning, the song just basically wrote itself. It was amazing. It was so easy to write this song.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I think that what happens with alternate tunings is that it forces you into unfamiliar intellectual territory on the guitar, so you write more intuitively or emotionally and less based on what you know analytically about the guitar. When you are always in standard tuning, you tend to go to chords or scales that you are familiar with and it's easy to just write what you know. When you get into an alternate tuning, you don't know where the chords or scales are so you just write what sounds good to you regardless of whether you know what you're doing or not. It can create really unique compositions you would never have thought of otherwise if you were familiar with the tuning. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The amazing guitarist Will Ackerman takes this to an extreme. I think that almost every one of his songs is in a different tuning. He very much wants to keep himself unfamiliar with the terrain so he makes his choices based on what sounds right as opposed to what he knows or is familiar with. Michael Hedges was that way too. I saw Michael Hedges play live about 5 or 6 times and he would retune his guitar between pretty much every song.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Anyway back to my tale. So, after that, I just kept doing this with the guitar. I made up tunings for different songs and then eventually I started to get tabs of guitarists who played in alternate tunings. I eventually sort of settled into a few "standard" alternate tunings that are very common. I mainly use [D,A,D,F#,A,D], [D,G,D,F#,A,D], [D,A,D,G,A,D], [D,G,D,G,A,D], [D,G,D,G,B,D], [C,G,C,G,C,E], and [C,F,C,G,C,E]. I still use standard tuning as well.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Now, I use those tunings as my home base, but I play with those as well. So, for example, if I play in [D,A,D,F#,A,D] on 12 string, I'll often tune it down to be a whole step lower. So, it's actually [C,G,C,E,G,C]. The fingerings are the same as D Major tuning but it's lower and easier on the fingers. With C Major tuning, [C,G,C,G,C,E], if I'm playing 12 string, I'll play that as [B,F#,B,F#,B,D#], [Bb,F,Bb,F,Bb,D], or even [A,E,A,E,A,C#]. You can only go so low before the string buzzing starts to sound bad. But the 12 string is such a monster that buzzing is sort of a part of its sound. Don't ever play 12 string. You'll be sorry. You'll get hooked on it. No one else will really like its sound but you, and even though it's ruining your musical life, you won't be able to stop playing it. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">And, I usually play standard tuning tuned down 1/2 step so it's really [Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Bb,Eb]. I considered that cheating for years as well until I found a tab of an Eric Johnson acoustic guitar song that was in that tuning. If Eric Johnson does it, it can't be wrong. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, now playing in alternate tunings is pretty natural for me and is a big part of what I do. I never would have been able to predict that when I was younger. There are so many aspects of my musical philosophy these days that my younger self would have absolutely cringed at. I'm so sorry younger Jeff, but it just became too hard to resist the music I wanted to write, whether it was cheating or not. Please forgive me younger Jeff for not living up to your musical purity standards.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">O.K. What about that song that I wrote for the girl I had the painful crush on? There's a reason they call them crushes - that's what it feels like inside. That's a quote from a movie but I can't remember which one, probably an 80's movie. Well, I recorded the song on my 4 track (early cassette based home studio) and I mixed it down to a cassette tape. I took this poor girl aside one day and played the song for her. What in the world could she say? She liked the song but she didn't really like me, at least not in <em>that</em> way. Ouch!! </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I always thought that you could woo a woman with a song, or you could work a magical spell with music that would make a woman fall in love with you. That probably has worked for many guitarists, but I can't remember it ever working for me. I think if a person already is very attracted to you, writing them a song can really make them go further down that road they're already on, but if a person isn't into you at all, writing a song for them just makes them really uncomfortable. Anyway, it's so funny to think back on now. She was very nice about it, but she basically said it was a nice song but she already had a boyfriend. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, I didn't get the girl but I ended up with a great song. The song I wrote for her is my song "Guinevere." Stop laughing, now! That title isn't funny! O.K. Yes, it is funny given the story right? Guinevere is the legendary Queen in King Arthur's Camelot who everyone falls in love with but no one can ever truly possess. Forgive me, I was young and I took myself very, very, very seriously. I still think it's a cool title even if it is a bit much. I didn't realize that Crosby, Stills, and Nash had a famous song by the same title or a similar title. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Anyway, I still love that song. It's one of the best ones I've ever written and I think it does perfectly capture in music how it feels to have a terrible crush on someone who will never feel that way about you, even if you write them an amazing song. But, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that song. That's the really, really cool thing about writing music or being involved in any sort of creative endeavor. You get to translate your painful experiences into works of art that live on. I've played that song for audiences many times and people really love that song. I do too. And writing that song basically opened up the world of alternate tunings for me and I never looked back, even if it <em>is</em> cheating!</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65019272020-12-17T08:53:24-12:002020-12-17T08:53:24-12:00New album "Symmetry"<p><span class="font_large">I just put out a new album titled "Symmetry." It's a little different. It has sort of mix of styles, 12 string, classical, folk, world, spacey stuff, etc. It's got a pretty good variety of songs, all solo guitar. Please check it out on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, or where ever you listen to music.</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/65019222020-12-17T08:51:08-12:002020-12-17T09:02:26-12:00Musicians perform music for people to listen to.<p><span class="font_large">Musicians perform music for people to listen to.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">There, I said it. I know a lot of musicians bristle at an idea like this. Many musicians feel that they perform music only for themselves. I understand that, and there always has to be a very personal element to it, and you have to play what makes you happy. But, I think that many musicians (myself included), often lose sight of the idea that if they're performing or selling music, someone else, a listener, who isn't performing with you, needs to able to enjoy your music.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I studied with a lot of jazz musicians when I was younger and I really respected their commitment to always wanting to play music that challenged the ears of their listeners. But I think that jazz musicians sort of painted themselves into a corner as many have come to associate the word "jazz" with music that just doesn't appeal to them. I think that's because if you never consider the listener, that's going to happen naturally. I love jazz and I don't mean to put jazz musicians down. I have a tendency to forget that the point of the music is to sound good to listeners. It's something I have to remind myself of. Most of the jazz oriented teachers I had actually stressed this to me. Sometimes I would play a very complex arrangement of a jazz standard for a teacher and he would say, "That's great, but I have no idea what song that was because your arrangement is so complex I can't make out the melody." </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">My big challenge is that I want to write songs that use new or difficult techniques. I want to push the limits of what I can play and I want to compose "innovative" music, music that is using very different guitar techniques. That's cool as long as I don't fall into the trap of composing music that only other guitarists can appreciate. And, in truth, if a piece of music just doesn't sound good to the ears, even serious guitarists won't listen for long. There are many pieces of music I've seen performed or heard recordings of that leave me saying, "Wow, that's amazing. I'll probably never listen to it again, but that sure was neat." I don't want my music to fall into that category, but it's so easy to fall into that trap. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Working with some sort of recording device while I write helps a lot. There are so many things that I write, and I do actually <em>write</em> out all of my music, at least in tablature. I was taught to be somewhat of a snob about using tab but I don't feel that way at all anymore. It's easier and it saves a lot of time. Anyway, I firmly believe that I really don't know how a piece of music I've written really sounds like until I hear it back on a recording when I'm not playing it. A piece that's really fun or really challenging can play tricks on your ears when you're playing it, maybe because your brain is so focused on playing it. I use a Tascam DR-40, a very simple little digital recorder that is easy to use for making quick demos. No, Tascam doesn't pay me to say that. I'm nowhere near that famous or influential. I don't have any sponsors. That DR-40 illuminates the truth about how something really sounds all the time for me. Sometimes the truth isn't kind but I prefer to know the truth of how a listener will experience the music. Just because it's hard to play or contains very innovative techniques does not mean that it sounds good to the human ear. But, those very innovative pieces always sound good to me when I'm playing them.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I think the marketplace is also pretty accurate in determining the value of music. Yep, once again I said that which is forbidden for musicians to ever say. Some recordings sell much better than others and that's generally due to the fact that something about a certain recording really sounds good to people. What a revolutionary statement huh? But musicians, myself included, will go to great lengths to explain why one project didn't sell. We'll blame everything and everyone and insist that the project that bombed really was amazing, people just don't get it. But, sadly, if you're in the business of selling your music, you have to be pretty attentive to what people like and what they don't. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I think musicians should always push the boundaries and I will always try new things. But, I'm also pretty attentive to what works with the public and what doesn't. You have to throw a lot of things out there and not everything is going to work. I think that when you do find something that works, it's a good indication of an area where it would be wise to focus your energies. We've all had the experience of paying to see a concert of a favorite performer, or purchasing the latest album by a favorite musician only to experience the person abandoning the style of music that you loved and insisting on only playing the new style that they are into right now. It's no fun to be at that concert as an audience member or as a performer. I'm sorry, but play the hits, at least some of them. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I know that a lot of this can really offend musicians. I'm sorry. In our day, musicians are seen as somehow more "special" than other professionals or something. It is special and unique to be able to compose music, but it really is for the ears of the listeners, if you're going to put it out there in any professional context. It's no fun to pay someone to paint your house and then realize that the painter doesn't care about what you want your house to look like and is just going to paint your house any color he feels like painting it. I think house painting is every bit as valid as writing music and both skills generally have customers. The customer really has to be considered. If not, I don't really see the point.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Now, if you just want to play music for yourself and it's just something you love and you have no desire to market it or play it for anyone else, that's great too. I sometimes think that would be great. But I <em>do</em> want people to hear my music and I want them to choose to include it in their lives. For that to happen, I have to consider what they like and I have to pay attention to audience or listener feedback. It's really hard when I put my Soul into a piece of music and no one but me wants to listen to it. That's hard, but that's reality. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">This is how I feel about it, you might feel completely different about this. It took me a long time to come to a point where I saw it this way. If I would have read a blog post like this when I was younger, I would have cried, "Sell Out! Have you dignity?!" So I understand the opposition to this opinion, I held it for many years. And it's a very valid point of view that a person doesn't really have to "grow out of." </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Miles Davis would have punched me in the face if I had tried to explain this point of view to him. That being said, I really don't understand why he refused to perform the songs from "Kind of Blue" live the way they sounded on the record. I believe that "Kind of Blue" is probably the most beloved, best selling jazz album of all time. But I don't think Miles Davis really performed those songs live in that way. I have seen some performances of his band playing "So What," but it didn't sound anything like the album. I have seen one recording of a television special where his band played the songs from "Kind of Blue" in a recognizable arrangement, but that's all I've ever seen. I know that Miles Davis never made another album that sounded like that again. I don't understand that. I love that album, even people who hate jazz love that album. If he would have made "Kind of Blue" part II, part III, part IV, and part V, I would have bought them all. And I didn't really like his later electric albums. There, again, I said it out loud. I'm sorry. Those albums are cool, but they aren't enjoyable for me to listen to. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Anyway, hopefully I've expressed this idea without offending too many musicians. I totally get the other side of this coin. But, for me, I'm really focusing on trying to record albums these days that people seem to enjoy listening to. If that makes me a "sell out," that's o.k. I also really enjoy the albums I'm recording these days (at least most of them). I feel that I have a certain gift for writing music that not everyone has. I think that gift is not just for my enjoyment but hopefully for others' enjoyment as well and that has to be considered. The 22 year old me would be soooo offended over this post. I'm so sorry 22 year of Jeff, this is where we eventually end up. The horror... the horror.</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/64965642020-12-10T12:24:10-12:002020-12-18T06:30:15-12:00What a year huh?/How an album gets recorded<p><span class="font_large">What a year? We are living through certainly the strangest time I've ever lived through.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I put out a few new albums this year/end of last year.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The Hymns Album</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Jazz on a Classical Guitar</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Symmetry </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Christmas Guitar, Volume 2</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Lots of work. Recording an album can drive a person crazy. There's several different phases of an album.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">1. You write the music, or in the case of covers, you come up with arrangements. I do this by writing out all the songs on tablature paper. I read standard notation but I greatly prefer writing out songs in tab. I was taught in my guitar studies when I was younger that using tab was bad or cheating or something. I get that opinion and I'm glad I had strict teachers, but I use tab pretty much exclusively these days. Anyway, I write everything out or I forget the songs. A lot of guitarists can just remember all their songs without any notation but not me. I've written hundreds of songs and arrangements and I'm not a spring chicken so my memory needs all the help I can get. Anyway, I also use a Tascam DR-40 digital recorder. I use that to "demo" sections of songs to listen back to see if the ideas are any good. I've learned that my ears are very deceptive. I've paid a lot of money for recording sessions in professional studios before when I realize upon hearing the playback, "Wow, that doesn't sound good." It ain't the recording equipment or the microphones. Songs I write sound different when I'm not playing them. There are so many things I've written that while playing them, they "sound" or "feel" brilliant to me. But when I hear them back on a recording, I realize that they actually sound different to someone not concentrating on playing the instrument. Very weird. Anyway, I use the DR-40 to record and listen back to. If the song is any good, I write it out.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">This is the bulk of time it takes for me to record an album. I do 95% of the work with pencil and paper in the practice room.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">2. Eventually the songs are good enough to record.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">That means I can play them without any mistakes, all 14-22 songs it takes to make an album. Are albums going to continue to be a thing? Anyway, I have a studio I like to work with and that I trust the engineer. I book a full day in the studio and I attempt to record the entire album in one day. Usually I'm successful. Remember, I don't go in there until those songs are totally second nature to me. I rarely need more than two takes per tune. That's not bragging. That's the way it has to be. Your favorite band can afford to take up residence in a studio and take 6 months to record an album. I don't have the money, the backing, or the attention span for something like that. Also, the studio I use is very in demand and the engineer is also a very in demand professional musician, much more in demand than I am. So, I get studio dates when I can and I have to maximize the time I get in there.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">3. You have to mix the songs.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Then, after the recording of the tracks is done, you have to mix them down. That means you use a mixing board (all digital these days), and you do everything you can to make the music sound as good as you can make it. Generally, for me, that means finding the right EQ settings, high end, low end, and finding the right amount of reverb to add. If you've heard my recordings, you know that I use a lot of reverb. I love that sound in the music I listen to. I love big, spacey, open, echoing music and I want my guitar to sound like that. I want my guitar to sound like an orchestra. I try to make albums that don't end up necessarily sounding like most solo guitar albums. Anyway, we record about 5 tracks of everything I play. That means there is one microphone pointed at the neck of my guitar, another microphone pointed at the bridge of my guitar. Then, I also use an amplifier when I record. So, there is one microphone in front of my amp, and a direct line going out of the amp. I'm probably boring you all. I'm sorry. Anyway then there is an overhead mic over the top or behind me that captures the overall sound of the room. In the mixing, we "mix" all of these tracks into one, big guitar track. It's all just one take of me playing the guitar, but the mix is 5 different aural perspectives on that sound. I have to work with an engineer for this. I could never do it myself.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">4. Copyright the album.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Then, the most frustrating aspect of this process. You have to register the music on the album with the Library of Congress. This didn't used to be too awfully hard when it was manual process of mailing your order in physically to LOC, but now that it's all digital, the process is horrible and it takes forever. And usually something goes wrong and you have to submit more than one. Sorry LOC, bad experience this year.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">5. If you have any cover songs, you have to purchase "Mechanical Licenses."</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">If there are any cover songs, you have to purchase the rights to record and release these songs. In the past, this was all handled by one organization that I will not name. They were horrible to deal with and since there was no competition, they never improved or simplified their system since you had no choice but to deal with them. Now, there are a few different organizations you can deal with for this service so it's easier now, but it ain't cheap! </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">6. Get photography or artwork done for the album.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I worked with a great artist named Peggy Collins for the covers of all the albums I released this year. I had some photography done too but I didn't like the photos. The photographer was great but I'm not a model, so the photos looked pretty ordinary simply because I'm a very ordinary looking person. I don't look at all like how my music sounds. I wish I looked that good but I don't. My guitar playing is far from perfect, but it's pretty darn good. Anyway, let's just say the photos didn't work out, due to the nature of the person being photographed, not the photographer. So, I switched tracks and found an artist I really liked and licensed her work for the albums.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">6. Get the album submitted to the service that manages my music online.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I work with CD Baby mostly for this. They are great, but the process of getting it published online still takes months. I work with a record label that I have a non-exclusive deal with but they don't do much for me any longer. Times are tough for record labels and they simply don't have the budgets they used to. They are also great, but they have a lot of artists on their roster and profits in the music industry aren't what they used to be.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">7. I finally hear the final album on Spotify or another service.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">When I hear it online, I often don't think it's good enough, so then I obsess about it and consider my life a complete failure for a while. Really, that's what musicians do to themselves. If you're a musician reading this, you know I'm not exaggerating. This is really how we live our lives. Yeah, the stereotype of musicians being crazy, that's true. We drive ourselves crazy. The better the musician, the higher likelihood that you are dealing with a person who is at least somewhat crazy.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">8. Film promotional videos for the album.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I just got done doing this. I'll write all about that in another post. I have to do go now.</span></p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/61947192020-01-28T14:30:16-12:002020-10-24T13:43:18-12:00New Album - The Hymns Album<p>New Album out "<a contents="The Hymns Album" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/jeffwahl10" target="_blank">The Hymns Album</a>"</p>
<p>Some of the best memories I have are of the time I spent as a kid in the Church. I can't say I remember any of the sermons, but I sure do remember the music. Those classic Hymns have stayed stuck in my head all of my life. They are amazing melodies set to beautiful chords and the subject matter automatically made the composers feel that they really had to put their all into what they were writing. I played guitar at an aunt's funeral this year and I wanted to work up a few Hymns on classical guitar for the occasion. I then recorded this album of the Hymns I arranged for classical guitar to play at the funeral.</p>Jeff Wahltag:jeffwahlguitar.com,2005:Post/61486772017-09-06T00:10:20-12:002020-01-22T11:49:40-12:00New album out - "Playing with Silence"
<p>I know it's taken a very long time for this, but I finally have a new album out! It's called "Playing with Silence." It's all played on classical guitar but not necessarily all classical music. There's a little bit of everything on there, but it's all very, very mellow. I'm very proud of it, I hope you enjoy it. You can listen to it here. https://jeffwahlplayingwithsilence.hearnow.com/</p>
Jeff Wahl