Acoustic tone

Greetings, rockers!

Whew, what a crazy and fun few weeks. I'm less than a week away from closing on the first (of many) real estate deal of my life. I'm buying a house! Needless to say, I've smashed through my minutes limit on my cell phone, covered pages of paper with notes, and have been going hard. So, that's why The Doghouse hasn't been barking quite as much lately. I've still got readers waiting for their questions to be answered. I really do apologize for the delay, but I'll get to 'em as soon as I can.

Here's a couple of neat ideas for you today. The first comes from acoustic guitar wizard Al Petteway. I've had the privilege of attending a clinic hosted by Mr. Petteway, and his tone blew me away.

I'm a very electric player. When I pick up an acoustic guitar, I pick it up, beat on the strings, try to squeeze the non-existent sustain out of the strings in a guitar hero bend, beat on it, slam it around, and... wonder when the shop is gonna have the electric fixed.. Haa!

My brother said "hey, even I know that's not gonna work!"

I've always sorta thought that acoustic guitars only sounded one way. I'm extraordinarily tone aware with an electric rig, but I never paid much attention to my acoustic sound.

But check out this vid of Al. I think you'll see how crazy my thought process was. Man, what tone he's got! An interesting thing to me is the way he lets some strings ring out to fatten up the sound. Sort of like sustain on an electric guitar.





The second point today is the inclusion of the word "Meh" in the Collins English Dictionary. According to the AP:

Publisher HarperCollins announced Monday the word had been chosen from terms suggested by the public for inclusion in the dictionary's 30th anniversary edition, to be published next year.

The origins of "meh" are murky, but the term grew in popularity after being used in a 2001 episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer suggests a day trip to his children Bart and Lisa.

"They both just reply 'meh' and keep watching TV," said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries.

The dictionary defines "meh" as an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring. Examples given by the dictionary include "the Canadian election was so meh."

The dictionary's compilers said the word originated in North America, spread through the Internet and was now entering British spoken English.

Man, can you imagine being Matt Groenig? He got a word in the dictionary! Actually, that's a testament to pop culture evolving a language. And so too is it with music. Blues doesn't really fit with Mozart's view of the musical universe, and Hendrix turned rock on it's ear. But we shouldn't stop with "Purple Haze!" How can you evolve the artform?

(Hint - start by just being yourself, and playing that with sincerity.)

Rock on!

Josh "Donald Trump, jr"