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Tips & Fun Facts

AKUSTIK TRAVELS

World Music lovers, composers for medias using acoustic samples, electric guitarists who want to expand their scope enjoy a tour of World Guitars: Oud, Banjo, Bouzouki, Saz, Dobro and more! Check out these useful tips, tunings, historical facts, including grids and become familiar with techniques, tunings, musical phrases and genders inspired from instruments that share close relations with the guitar.

Cuban Guitars

Behind the name "Buena Vista Social Club" you will find the most talented Cuban musicians who, established Salsa and Cuban music. It all started in the cuban countryside where musics from Africa, Spain and France (via Haiti) blended to give birth in the first part of the XXth century to the "Sound".

Banjo Tips for Guitarists

To understand banjo techniques in order to apply them to the guitar, you need to know a few banjo basics, about the instrument itself and how it's tuned.

The Slack-Key Guitar, Hawaiian Style

You could translate the term Slack Key by explaining that it's a guitar that has strings that are loosened up (slack) by turning the keys. So the expression comes from the hawaiian "ki ho’alu" (literally: "loosening the keys")! Why loosen the strings? Here comes the history part.
by Claude Samard Polikar for Guitarist Magazine

Historical & Fun Facts

The guitar is catalogued in the family of 'long-necked luths' (whose neck is longer than it's body). The guitar is a mixed combination of arabic, with the Moors travelling north thru Spain to Northern Europe, and Asian relayed by the Gallo-Romans.

During the IXth century, the term 'cithara' appears (from the greek 'kithara'), to name the guitar. Other names will be used after 1250, depending on the region, the era & the phonetic evolutions: kitaire, guiterre, guiterne, quitarre, quitaire...

The countries best known for their contribution to the guitar's evolution are France & Spain; Italy, Germany & England to a lesser degree. Since the end of the XIXth century, most innovations originate from the 'New World'.

by Claude Samard Polikar for Guitar Magazine

Historical & Fun Facts

The guitar is catalogued in the family of 'long-necked luths' (whose neck is longer than it's body). The guitar is a mixed combination of arabic, with the Moors travelling north thru Spain to Northern Europe, and Asian relayed by the Gallo-Romans.

GUITAR HISTORY

The Steel-Guitar Story

Here’s a little guided tour of what is known as the "slide guitar" family, aka the hawaiian, lap steel, Dobro and Pedal Steel guitar.
Pipa neck close up
GUITAR HISTORY

Pipa: the Chinese lute

The Pipa also called the Chinese lute is an instrument that plays a significant part in Chinese music.
GUITAR HISTORY

From the Oud to the Guitar

3,000 years separate the arabic luth from the guitar although ancient paintings found in Egyptian temples show that the main characteristics of the the luth family (neck, strings, soundboard) already existed.
TIPS AND DRILLS

Guitar Picks & Strumming Techniques

Going over the choices between a «basic» upstroke strum or a more «ethnic» technique, like the one used to play the oud or the mandolin, that will have a wrist-breaking technique associated with what some might call “economy picking”.

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Tips and Drills

DADGAD Chords, The Irish Tunings

This tuning synonymous of Celtic music has gone way beyond it's original folk frontiers. Still used by Adrian Legg, Michael Hedges, Dan Ar Bras & Pierre Bensusan among others, as well as by a few Hard Rock guitarists such as Aerosmith's Joe Perry, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in Kashmir & in Black Mountain Side.
Tips and Drills

Open Strings

The contrary of Doisy's recommendations in his guitar method published in 1801, is to intensively use open strings (he undoubtedly was thinking of differences in sound occuring when playing 'played' strings and 'open' strings, that were at the time, very unstable gut strings).
Historical & Fun Facts

The Slack-Key Guitar, Hawaiian Style

You could translate the term Slack Key by explaining that it's a guitar that has strings that are loosened up (slack) by turning the keys. So the expression comes from the hawaiian "ki ho’alu" (literally: "loosening the keys")! Why loosen the strings? Here comes the history part.
Historical & Fun Facts

Cuban Guitars

Behind the name "Buena Vista Social Club" you will find the most talented Cuban musicians who, since the 1930's have established what we now call the Salsa and Cuban music. It all started in the cuban countryside where musics from Africa, Spain and France (via Haiti) blended to give birth in the first part of the XXth century to the "Sound".

Tips and Drills

Old School Right Hand Technique

The current popularity of World Music, whether it be cuban, oriental or gypsy, has made western world guitarists think more and more about upgrading their right hand technique, to the ways of the true «World» vibe.
Fun Facts

The 12 String Guitar:
a must have!

In the land of 12 strings, Leadbelly, Leo Kottke, Roger McGuinn (ex-Byrds) or Roger Hodgson (ex-Supertramp) are kings. We will use them as examples to learn more about this instrument. Tunings, studio tricks and testimonials from these performers should give you the incentive to add this very special guitar to your act.
The Celtic Guitar

The Celtic Guitar

Our stop in Ireland is the ideal opportunity to talk about the Irish Bouzouki, a handy little instrument for any guitarist to have around and a living specimen of what is known as a successfull musical mixture.
GUITAR HISTORY

The Banjo's African Ancestors

the Banjo's ancestors lie in the heart of Western Africa and like the modern banjo, the Ngoni or the Gimbri are covered with dried animal skins and fitted with a neck that's wedged through the body frame.
TIPS AND DRILLS

Crosby Stills Nash & Young Tunings

For those of you who weren't born in the 60s or for those of you who are already showing the first signs of Alzheimer's, let's look back at the band and their unique and somewhat revolutionary open-tuned sound.
Tips and Drills

Indian Flavour Guitars

The 60's were greatly influenced by the Indian culture and it's gurus. Through these tunings CSN found a way to emulate a sound made popular by the Beatles & Ravi Shankar without the hassle of learning a new instrument and a different musical system based on microtonalities.
Tips and Drills

A Tuning Digest

I know for a fact that most times some musical experimentations would never happen if it wasn't for these few simple tips. A true musical re-birth of inspiration awaits you in this quick refernce guide...
Fun Facts

Guitars from Central & South America

Columbus and the Conquistadors came to the Americas with their musical traditions followed by the African slaves, mixing different musical styles and giving birth to a new genre, filled with cosmopolitan and hazardous rhythms, harmonies and melodies.
Tips and Drills

Banjo Tips for Guitarists

To understand banjo techniques in order to apply them to the guitar, you need to know a few banjo basics, about the instrument itself and how it's tuned.