Rick Stone's Music Blog

My Gear

rickstonemusic — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:41:05 +0000

Okay, after answering an email for the umpty-umph time regarding the “secret” of my sound on Samba de Novembro, it finally occurred to me that I should write a blog post about it.

First I’d like to say that there are no big “secrets” really as I’m sure I’ve posted about this stuff on the newsgroup rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz over the years, and sound is just as much about touch (probably more) as what equipment you use. But here’s what I can tell you about my sound on that CD;

Guitar: Comins Classic 18″ in tobacco sunburst with floating Kent Armstrong pickup, made by master luthier Bill Comins. Bill later made the blonde Comins Classic 17″ for me (which is the guitar you see me with on the cover).

Strings: D’Addario Chromes (flatwound) I used to use the .013 set, but later switched to the .012 set (can’t remember which I was using when that CD was recorded) but I’ve ALWAYS swapped out the E & B strings for a heavier guage (so if I was using the .012 set, I’d put an .013 and .017 on the E & B. If it was the .013 set, then it would have been an .014 and .018 on E & B).

Picks: Dugain – I used to use the wooden ones he made. I tried all the different woods, but favored the Guaicum or Coconut. I used to sand them with VERY fine sandpaper (#400 and #600) to maintain the shape and smoothness of the tip. More recently, I switched to the Acetate ones as they’re a bit more consistent and don’t wear out as quickly.

Amps: I use all kinds of different amps and can usually find a tone that works for me. Back then I had a Deluxe Reverb that I loved, but the day before the session, it developed a buzz, so I wound up borrowing a Penn (a hand wired boutique amp modeled on a Fender tweed bassman). I ran that amp through a vintage Ampro speaker cabinet from 1951 that had an old AlNiCo magnet Jensen P12N in it (still my favorite speaker!)

Other Gear:

As well as the Comins guitars, I’ve got several of the Korean made D’Angelico’s. Bill Comins had been hired to redesign some of their line and I came along with him as an Artist Endorser. I’ve got a couple of the older ones, but am really loving the Excell-SS that Bill redesigned. Unfortunately the company is going through some changes and I don’t know if these guitars are still being produced.

I’ve got a Vestax electric nylon string prototype that I used on some tracks of my friend Carol Leven‘s new CD “Between the Lines.”

I love tube amps and have a Comins 2-10″ model made by George Allesandro, a silver face Fender Deluxe Reverb that’s been modified quite a bit, and a couple little Epiphone Valve Juniors (which sound surprisingly nice for recording).

On gigs I usually just bring either the Polytone Minibrute II, or the AI Clarus 2R with an extremely lightweight 12″ speaker cabinet that I built myself (the whole rig, including a pedal-board fits into a nice Samsonite suitcase with wheels and a handle, perfect for schlepping on the subway to gigs in New York).

In the living room, I’ve got a cheap little Fender Frontman 15G which works just fine. I also picked up one of those Crate Limos (which runs on batteries which is nice when you have to play somewhere that doesn’t have an electrical outlet).

Blog Site News

rickstonemusic — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:28:07 +0000

Okay, I just setup this WordPress site and imported the posts from my other blogs. but I can see that although it brought in the text and tags, it didn’t bring in the graphics or the video links.

So anyway, I will be bringing all this stuff back online here. I appreciate your patience.

Using Chromatic Notes in the Dominant 7th Scale

rickstonemusic — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:26:42 +0000

Here’s a brief lesson on how to insert chromatic notes into Dominant 7th Scales as taught to me by the great bebop pianist Barry Harris.

The Art of Transcription (Part 1)

rickstonemusic — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:38:55 +0000

Transcribing is basically just the art of playing back and/or writing down something you’ve heard. Learning songs, licks, phrases and solos by listening to recordings is a time-honored tradition among jazz musicians.

Many people believe that they can’t transcribe. They think that you need to be born with great ears or some special ability. But the reality is that transcribing is a simple learned skill like any other, and involves a great deal of work.

The big payoff is that transcribing regularly is one of the best ways to improve your ears and your playing.

In earlier times musicians learned from records, carefully dropping the needle in the groove to listen to a lick or phrase over again (and before that, it came from imitating other musicians playing live in real time). Then came cassette recorders with cue and review functions which made finding those notes so much easier (not to mention saving countless vinyl records from ticks, pops and skips). Now we have looping devices and computer software that help make these tasks so much easier.

The tools of the trade:

Transcibe! is a wonderful program available from www.seventhstring.com. After trying Amazing Slow-Downer, and several others, I found this one and have been using it regularly for about the last six years.

Manuscript Paper: available at any music store or print your own at http://www.blanksheetmusic.net.

Notation Software:

There are several good programs out there and which one you choose depends somewhat on factors like your budget, you expectations, ease of use, the quality of the finished product. Let’s first look at the two key players for “publisher” quality music engraving.

Finale http://www.finalemusic.com/ has for many years been the industry leader. It’s extremely powerful and customizable, and will allow you to produce just about any notation style you can think of. But all this power comes at a price and it does have a pretty steep learning curve in the beginning. It’s also expensive (about $500 retail, $250 with an educators discount). They do however offer several scaled down versions which may suit your needs.

Sibelius http://www.sibelius.com is a younger program, and is Finale’s main competition for those requiring a serious notation package. Although Sibelius taughts their more intuitive interface, having been a Finale user for about 15 years, I actually found Sibelius to be somewhat confusing. However, I know many musicians who would disagree with me and the charts that they turn out with Sibelius certainly look fine. It is priced similarly to Finale and offer several entry level options as well.

Rather than take anybody’s word for it, I think you should download the demos for these programs and try them both out. See which one fits your style of working.

Tablature Based Programs:

I’ve never been a great fan of Tab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature and a few years ago, would never have believed that I’d be saying this, but for transcribing work, I’m actually finding that a Tab program is fitting quite nicely into my work-flow. The reason is this: If you transcribe something and get all the notes down in Standard Notation, you still need another step to add the string and fingering indications, and since there are many possible ways to play the same note on guitar, no computer program can do this automatically. All the notation programs force you to use a different tool to enter finger and string information than the one you’re using for entering notation, so you’re forced to make two passes. However, once you’ve entered a particular finger on a string at a certain fret as in Tab, it always produces the same note! Hence, it’s much easier to generate good Standard Notation from TAB than it is to generate good TAB from good Standard Notation. There are several of these programs out there:

Guitar Pro http://www.guitar-pro.com is the one I’ve been using lately. I really enjoy the ease with which I can quickly enter guitar music in the Tab mode, while simultaneously generating standard notation. The notes appear on the upper staff the instant you enter the fret number on a string (as opposed to Finale, which makes you cut-and-paste the Tab staff into the standard notation staff. Guitar Pro is also by far the easiest when it comes to entering chords and chord diagrams. Really a snap (although I wish they would allow you to extend the chord box beyond 5 frets). But the program does have some short-comings in the standard notation department. I’ve noticed that in certain situations C flats and F flats will mysteriously turn into C sharps and F sharps (they assure me this is fixed in the next update). Also sharps and flats often collide with each other (and sometimes with note-heads) when used together in chords. There are also some non-traditional uses of common fingering, string and picking indications that I’d like to see fixed. But all-in-all, a pretty good program, and you can’t beat the price (just $59). It allows me to bang out a lot of decent quality work very quickly, and while it’s not too flexibile, if I really need something to be publisher ready, I can always export to MusicXML format and import into Finale where it can be tweaked.

Some other popular Tab programs are http://www.power-tab.net and http://www.tabledit.com. I haven’t worked extensively with either of these, so I won’t try to review them here. As always, it’s a good idea to download and try the demos first.

So that concludes our brief tour of some of the modern tools available to use. Next time, we’ll talk a bit about the actual process of transcribing.

Rick Stone – Wave

rickstonemusic — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:22:00 +0000

This video is part of a series that I’m putting together for my students at Hofstra. This part deals with repertoire development by demonstrating the Antonio Carlos Jobim tune “Wave.” The solo has been notated, and we go over it phrase by phrase in our lessons, examining the relationship of my lines to the chords. The analysis is also part of the video series.

Long Form Cmaj7 Lick

rickstonemusic — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:14:00 +0000

Here’s a line on Cmaj7 that moves up the neck quite nicely. You’ll notice that I’m intentionally avoiding the 4th finger, opting instead for a 1st finger stretch. Doing this actually creates a momentum of the hand and encourages lengthwise movement on the fingerboard (whereas using the 4th finger tends to encourage you to play across the strings).

Jonathan Kreisberg Lick on Ab Major

rickstonemusic — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:39:00 +0000

Transcribing licks and phrases is great for building technique and a good jazz vocabulary. The following phrase is one I’ve heard Jonathan Kreisberg use regularly. Practice it in all keys by transposing up and down the neck.

Jazzmobile Advanced Guitar Class 2/14/2009

rickstonemusic — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:40:00 +0000

Here’s a summary of what we covered this week:

Applying Dominant 7th Lines on IIm7b5 V7alt: We talked about playing over the minor II V progression IIm7(b5) V7#9 by converting to equivalent Dominant 7th lines:
Practicing IIm7b5 V7alt in Tunes: We applied lines built using the dominant conversions to the Changes of “Woodyn’ You.”

Gm7b5 = Eb7
C7alt – Gb7
Fm7b5 = Db7
Bb7alt = E7
Ebm7b5 = B7
Ab7alt = D7

Chromatic II-7 V7 Substitution: We used a chromatic II-7 V7 to embellish the changes on the Bridge of “Woodyn’ You.”

Jazzmobile Advanced Guitar Class 2/7/2009

rickstonemusic — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:38:00 +0000

Here’s a summary of what we covered this week:

Practicing Dominant 7th Lines: Practicing modulations up/down in half-steps, whole-steps, minor-3rds, major 3rds, circle of 5ths. 8-bar, 4-bar, 2-bar, 1-bar phrases. Using Aebersold Volume 21 “Getting it Together.”
Applying Dominant 7th Lines : We applied dominant 7th lines over the changes to John Coltrane’s “Lazy Bird.”

Jazzmobile Advanced Guitar Class – 1/31/2009

rickstonemusic — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:51:00 +0000

Here’s a summary of what we covered this week:

5 Dominant 7th Linear Studies : We talked about the importance of fluency when playing over Dominant 7th chords in Jazz and went over these studies covering the entire neck of the guitar for G7. Looked at the construction of the line, use of forward motion, enclosures, etc. (if you weren’t there, remind me and I’ll bring you a copy of the hand-out.)
Practicing Dominant 7th Lines in Tunes: We went over the use of Dominant 7th lines over “Sweet Georgia Brown” chord changes.

Here’s a video example I made demonstrating the use of Dominant 7th lines through the circle of 5ths with Jamey Aebersold’s Volume 84 play-a-long: