My Music History
Here is an outline of my music background
As a teenager
When I was about 11, my mother persuaded me to take up playing the Violin, and to that end I attended lessons. I remember my tutor was a very old lady. (Probably about 60 years old). I reached the dizzy heights of the Royal Schools of Music level 2 . I played until I was thirteen,.
The Shadows and the Ventures first appeared in 1958 , and their influence on this thirteen year old was really great. All the time I wanted to be playing a guitar. So I gave up playing the violin and took up the guitar. I persuaded a friend of my brother to teach me. I think his names was Don. He worked for a guitar maker and had had an accident at work and lost a couple of fingers on his right hand. This meant that he couldn't play fingerstyle guitar, but that was OK because he wanted to be another Hank.
My first few guitars were acoustic guitars and I learned to play chords and played rhythm to Don's lead. I bought a clip-on pickup and bought a little 4 watt amplifier and this was fine for me. Although it wasn't loud enough, so I made a two valve pre-amp using a tobacco tin as a base. The circuit was found in a magazines like Radio Shack and Popular Electronics. I think it used an ECC83 and an EL84 valves. This preamp gave an overdriven effect along with loads of hum.
I made a wooden box and built a number of effects circuits into it. It was like a pedal board in the end. It had a Treble booster, graphic equalizer, tremolo unit, spring reverb and a fuzz box all made from circuits from Radio Shack magazines.
My first electric guitar was a Vox blond. I think it might have been an Ace model.
We teamed up with a drummer and the three of us played a total of three gigs at different locations in Southend-on-sea.
It was soon very clear that playing in a live band wasn't for me.
Music taste
The Shadows and the Ventures had a massive impact on me and I loved any instrumental tunes. I loved playing Shadows numbers and I started following them.
When playing guitar on my own began with Donovan and Dillon. I learned to knock out a tune on the Harmonica whilst strumming guitar and singing very badly. I still have the wire mouth organ support so I can play it whilst playing guitar like Bob Dylan.
Over the years my taste changed and I focused on a a range of artists that I admired.
These included Lonnie Donegan. (Who remembers "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose it's Flavour ?"), Bob Dillon, Donovan, The Everly Brothers (They left me with a passion for harmony.), The Beatles of course, Simon and Garfunkel. Bobby Darren, The Beach Boys and the Who, Roy Orbison. So many wonderful groups and performers...the list goes on.
I also loved the romantic ballads from people like Connie Francis and Bobby Darrin. I think I'm a romantic at heart.
However, I never lost the force pulling me back to instrumental groups, predominantly The Shadows.
For most of my working life I played guitar as a hobby and jammed with anyone who played guitar and passed my way.
YouTube
In 2009, three years before I retired, I discovered YouTube and I thought this would be a good outlet for my guitar playing, but up until then I had been playing songs from my head, so to speak, without any structure. YouTube required structure so I started using Backing Tracks.
I found recording for YouTube so much easier than playing live. If I made a mistake, well I would just do it again. You can't do that on stage. This meant far less stress and hence, less mistakes. Although I had learned to read music all those years ago, it had been long forgotten. However I had learned to "Play by ear" over the years, and had become pretty good at it. As long as I knew the tune, I could pick out the lead pretty easily.
I never did learn to use tabs properly and even now I will only resort to them if I am really stuck on something. A problem with playing by ear is that the tune in your head isn't necessarily the same as the original and this sometimes shows in my music. So if you pick up a tab for a song, the chances are I will be playing it totally differently.
It was during this period that I met Steve Reynolds. I had been browsing through the Shadows Club page, and I came across Steve wanting to start a band. Although I wasn't interested in joining a band, I was interested in finding someone to Jam with. We met up and became very good friends.
Steve suggested to me that I should monetize my channel, and I am very thankful he did as it has paid off well. So thank you Steve. Steve and I continued to make duets together for YouTube, but unfortunately Covid 19 interrupted our meeting up. I was hoping that we could continue duets in 2021, but then I heard the terrible news that Steve had passed away. RIP Steve. See Steve's Tribute Page.
My Style
Although I play many instrumentals, I also play many songs. I see myself as a Karaoke singer, who can't sing and so play the guitar instead.
It is obvious that singers enhance their performances by the use of vibrato in their voice. I find this very effective in guitar playing too. I tried initially to rhythmically bend the strings to achieve this effect, but found it difficult and rather painful. Also I noted that this method increases the pitch and then back to normal. The average of this effect makes the note slightly sharp. So I adopted the use of the tremolo arm to achieve this instead. This allows the note pitch to increase and decrease which balances nearer the original note, and doesn't sound off key. This use of the tremolo arm has become automatic in my playing. In fact if I play a guitar without a tremolo arm, my hand tends to move anyway. lol. I don't hold the tremolo. I just let it float in the circle of my thumb and forefinger holding the plectrum.
I can't play fast, and don't try to. It is far more important to me to get a nice sound. I don't concentrate on achieving an exact copy of Hank's sound (Whatever that is). Instead I will try to get a sound that matches the original singer where possible.
Many people talk about Hank's sound but in fact he has many sounds. If you compare his early tunes with those of the 80's, his sounds are clearly very different.
My wife bought me a Korg Toneworks AX3000G modelling processor for my birthday some years ago, and this lovely machine gives me the sounds I need.. I have tried many other pedals, but my preference is always the AX. (I even have a spare one!)
As I have got older I have become a little hard of hearing. This has caused me some problems because I use earbud headphones to minimise the noise I make playing guitar. I still use the earbuds, but over the top of my hearing aids, so you will often see me pushing the earbuds into my ears as they often come loose.
I hope this page gives you some idea of my background and my passion for guitar playing.