Bruce Foxton: the bees knees

Bruce Foxton for me is one of those bassist I just love to hear play his music

This man is loaded with energy and is always full of life each and every time he plays; he was a vital part of the UK rock band called the Jam which he contributed his melodic bass lines as vell as backing vocals to Paul Weller, Foxton even wrote some of the Jam’s hit songs “News of the world” and “Smithers Jones” two great tracks.

It’s nice to see him play on songs like the great depression and the Jam cover of “Curtis Mayfield’s Move on Up” When he plays on these two tracks he is loaded with movement and energy, when a man like this is in the band and you replace him with another bassist with no stage personality it really dose suck if you’ve been a fan.

I liked his choice of Bass he always played a Fender Precision and seldom played with his fingers his tone came from using the flat pick,  styles like slapping where not him but in my opinion he should have take funk lessons.

Some of the reasons I like Foxton is listed below

• He always played a nice bass line to songs
• He gave a lot of consideration to his tone and stage presence 
• His heart and soul seemed to be 100% into what he was doing and he has a distinctive style 
• He seemed to know what fitted a song and threw in the right embellishments at the right time as well as he always played as a band

I’ve heard other people play Foxton’s music and for me they never emulated his tone well and their sound was way off. A good musician could easily emulate all his sounds.

I often listed to the Jam songs and when an interesting bass line comes along I ask myself “I wonder what was going through his mind when he created it? I like the folk song called Liza Radly, the studio version which is the b side of the song (called start which is a direct take off from the Beatles Tax Man) on the original track Weller does a few overdubs with an acoustic however when he plays it live he uses an electric and it sounds very good, Foxton used a bass line which he uses in some of the track called start however it fits the song nice and apart from that riff it sounds nothing like the song Start. This a very nice song and it’s very melodic and it sounds very original, it sounds like a sad story almost with a happy ending but when you listen to the words and music it leaves you wondering.

Other great acoustic tracks which can leave you in the same mind frame is English Rose a track taken from the classic Jam Album called All Mod Cons, as does “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight” despite not being an acoustic song the arrangement is very meaningful as are so many Jam songs. The first album in the City had some great songs like the cover of “Larry Williams slow down” and the classic track called taking my love. If you do a search on youtube you may be able to find these songs played live and one of the first thing which you’ll notice is even from the very start of the bands career they had a load of energy and they were well worth seeing play live, hardly surprising they’ve so many fans everywhere in the world.

B. Foxton is a very talented bass player and even 100 years from now I’m sure you’ll find few bass players with so much movement on stage, also how many can play as good? Technique with no feel means very little, many players get little recognition as a bass player.
 

 

Guitar speed picking tuition

Guitar Speed Picking tuition has been a favorite by many students at the GL, check them out at Private Guitar Lessons People wanting to learn to play the electric Guitar have this thing about playing really fast.

The Guitar Lessons will increase your technique,  if you have been playing the guitar and want to better your control when picking the notes really fast as utilized by so many great guitarist such as the noturious Paul Gilbert, Gary Moore, and Eddie Van Halen who are only to name a few. Guitarist such as Jimi Hendrix were not really known for their speed but their unique skills in Guitar Improvisation but there is no reason why you cannot incorporate such skills into any type of Guitar music and make it sound pleasing to your captive audience.
When you want to play guitar you really should work on your technique before you start paying big money for an instrument it is far too common people buying having a Guitar Like their favorite Guitarist such as Queen’s Brian May buy despite having his guitar being unable to sound like him and then there is a person with super Technique and a cheap guitar and amplifier yet he can play all the Guitar Solos and sound like their favorite artist this is the art of great technique.

Get yourself a Vairax Guitar made by Line 6 the 300 series which is discontinued or 600 series which is still in production but for more details check their site out. Speed Picking can also give a delusion because using a digital delay like the Roland R20 or the Boss Digital Delay with the right setting on the effect pedal can give the impression you’re picking the strings much faster than it really sounds such useful Gadgets contributes to enhancing your Sound also can make your  Guitar Chops sound more interesting.

The http://www.musiciansonline.org/ have known countless Guitarist playing many different styles often Guitarist into Funk like the great Nile Rodgers use Effects like the Jim Dunlop Wah-Wah Pedal and the octave divider as well as distortion to contribute to the sounds they when playing Live Music 247. They use it so effectively in their style that it still sounds highly listenable as well as very creative hardly surprising he is an innovator to music.

So the long and short is there is no one effect dedicated to one style of music as if used with taste and precision you can make it sound interesting with all music. One great way to listen to all of this music is to use a great mp3 player like the Ipod always make sure you use a professional service like the Ipod Batteries which will save you money.

The Guitar Lesson will see you on the track for learning the fretboard, a preferable choice is a Guitar with 24 frets like Honer’s version of the Steinberg which is a good Guitar to start with as it allows you to get many variations of tone as you will be mastering your Speed Picking up and down the neck of the Guitar.

Following the above will serve as good exercises for allowing you to be flexible with Arpeggios, Scales and Chords which will contribute to you being able create your own riffs and tasteful Guitar Licks, all this and so much more can be taught at guitar speed picking tuition.

60+ rockers that keep going

I recently thought about it a lot of the rockers still going for example Ken Sproul are passed 60 as is more famous ones Pete Townsend, and the Rolling stones. I guess you can stay faithful to a certain style of music no matter what your age. I cant imagine someone like Ozzy Osbourne suddenly developing a passion for diner jazz. Old timers just keep rocking.

God Bless the guitar teacher

Check out the best site for learning to play the guitar, they have bags of experience teaching students on all levels this can be a huge advantage to those who love the guitar and have been wanting to play the guitar but have been put off for one reason or another, it’s time to take advantage of their offer.

Why not look into their teaching skills and find out about some of those free lessons: click here

Simple but effective

I love the Roland RC-20XL its a super replacement to any of its predecessors the reason being it has a huge memory which allows one to make many echo minutes of music so you can play loops of music which are very long, in some cases up to 16 minutes. When you consider people were harping on about loops which only lasted a few seconds its nothing short of a miracle check it out.

In the Crowd written by Paul Weller

Have you ever heard a song that just starts your imagination going into all directions? I am a great lover of music and such thoughts often come into focus, however one which comes to mind now is In The Crowd written by Paul Weller he is a great lyricist as well as terrific song writer and has hundreds of songs to prove it and this classic is no exception.

There is a verse in the song which often comes to mind, here it is “And everyone seems that they're acting a dream'cause they're just not thinking about each other and they're taking orders, which are media spawned and they should know better, now you have been warned and don't forget you saw it here first” This is a part of the song that often just comes to mind and makes me want to play the song.

Paul Weller first wrote the song when was only 18 years old whilst he was in the Jam, its a track taken from a very good album called All Mod Cons. Paul combined intelligent lyrics with good music and despite the fact In The Crowd was written over 25 years ago here in August 2010 it still sounds fresh an innovative. So many good songs have been written by Paul Weller.

The live version of In the Crowd is good but when I compare it to the one off the album I prefer the studio recording from the the two.

Hats off to In the Crowd written by Paul Weller.

Violin Sounds in Warsaw Poland

The sound of a Violin players music was going through my ears and sending wonderful signals through my body, something I felt certain I would have to write about here on musictab. I love it when a musician plays in a way that their playing just seems to touch every part of your body.

I was strolling past Centrum metro in Warsaw in Poland and the melodic tunes from a busker captured my interest. The musician who was busking was sending some pleasing notes to my body, the melody captured my attention, and as a result of his soulful music I felt I should try to project to the world of music lovers just what a great sound I heard. Talented musicians is something which is an ongoing subject at musictab.

Here at musictab we like to be very detailed about the information we give, bringing that point into effect I would like to tell you about the equipment musictab noticed, he was playing an electric violin, through a small guitar amplifier, as well as he had a CD to play the backing tracks. What he really had was the art of projecting an instrument through many hours of studying musical theory, and practising his instrument daily, as a result of this he was able to play a wide range of songs, which some of them were very difficult to play yet he was able to make it seem effortless.

If your a traveller of the world as I am, then you know for sure you can find good music all over the world, and the beautiful sounds which I heard come from the violin player in Warsaw, were no exception to that rule, something we know for certain here at musictab.

Musicians lovers, if you can, always tip a busker as we do at musictab.