Guitar Review - Yamaha Guitalele GL-1

I've been craving a classical guitar for quite awhile, and still don't own one.  But around New Years, I stumbled across the Yamaha Guitalele (GL-1) for around $100, and concluded that it might help me hold off the urge for a real classical for a bit longer.

In most respects, this is a real guitar.  It's certainly not a toy, and is quite nicely made.  The Guitalele name comes from the fact that it is similar in size to a ukelele, though it has 6 strings, and is tuned similar to a 6-string guitar.I say "similar", because due to the small size, the guitar is tuned like a guitar with a capo at the 5th fret, i.e. A-D-G-C-E-A, low to high.

It feels good in my hands.  Frets are closer together, of course, actually very much like playing a guitar with capo.

The neck width at the nut is 1 7/8", the same as most classical guitars.  The neck section is a shallow C that's comfortable in my hands and feels "right".

The guitalele is built in Indonesia, and workmanship seems very good.  I don't see any sloppy glue work, and the inside of the instrument is very clean and well done. The nut is nicely rounded at the edges, and the frets are all smooth at the ends. The instrument is quite pleasant to play as a result.

The tone is relatively bright.  The nylon strings and spruce top give it a relatively bright sound, not too different from a ukelele, though the lower strings bring out a lot more bass than a uke.  The nato neck (aka eastern mahogany) and sonokeling (rosewood) fingerboard and bridge look and feel good.  The neck meets the body at the 12th fret, like a classical guitar.

Intonation on the Yamaha guitalele is very good.  I'm pretty down on cheap guitars these days, particularly because the intonation tends to be pretty poor, and they just don't sound very nice because of it. I've particularly been watching small guitars, because we have some kids in the family... and a cheap Denver 3/4 steel string guitar here turned out to be pretty bad.

After having found this guitalele, I'm thinking this might be a better choice for a first guitar for a small player, rather than buying a short scale regular guitar.  The size is significantly smaller than something like a Baby Taylor [which I quite like], and may be a better choice for younger players.

The main thing I really like about playing an instrument like this is that the different voicing makes me instantly play things that I don't normally play on a regular guitar. Just that different tone and feel somehow inspire different music, which I find really great.

For $100, this is a great instrument.  Small and portable, and cheap enough not to worry about it... shove it in the supplied gig bag and hit the road.  It's small enough to fit in the car with other stuff and be available when you just want to pick up an instrument and play.

Of course, the final question is... did it convince me not to buy a "real" classical guitar?  Well, I haven't bought one yet, so at least it postponed it a few months.  But I'm still yearning for one, and I'll probably buy relatively soon.  I have my eye on a La Patrie concert guitar (not a purist classical, since it's got a cutaway).  But I certainly don't regret this little Yamaha purchase at all, and I expect it'll remain in regular rotation in the family for a long time to come.

Recent Music Industry Reads

[I suspect I should post each review separately, but frankly the point of commenting publicly is to potentially introduce others to some things I've read/listened to, etc. that they might not have heard of.  Separating them might just cause people to miss something great. That is, if anyone reads any of this stuff...]

The Music Lesson -- by Victor L. Wooten

If you love music and you've never heard of The Music Lesson, I really recommend having a look/listen.  I read this one last year via Audio Book (from Audible.com).  [I've been listening to quite a few books recently, as I find it a great way to consume a book while doing other things (particularly driving).]  More than any other audio book I've read, this one truly deserves to be listened to...

I was aware of Victor Wooten's great bass playing before I read this, but I wouldn't have called myself a "fan". The book is a kind of dream/fantasy story which is essentially autobiographical [if no doubt fictionized], about a struggling bass player.  Victor narrates the story himself in the audio book, which is great.  And there are quite a few guest voices through the story, which keep it fresh and interesting.

Of all the books I've read in the past year, this one has really stuck with me.  I'm not sure if it has really changed my outlook on music or practicing my instrument, but maybe.  At least it's made me think a bit more about many aspects of music.

The story is centred around a set of 10 music lessons, most of which I thought were insightful and illuminating.  The one I took away the most was an early one in the book: "Never sacrifice the groove to hit the right note."  I'd say that lesson alone is worth the cost of the book, and the soundtrack within the story is great... much better than a book on paper.

The Godfather of Soul - An Autobiography -- by James Brown

I'm a fan of funk, and always thought James Brown was a pretty interesting character.  I hadn't owned any of his music until a couple of years ago when I bought a compilation overview of his career.  I took a couple of good friends and my now-wife to see Brown when he played his last show in Vancouver in January, 2006.  By that point, Brown was getting a little feeble, physically, though he still showed a whole lot of energy.  The show was an eye-opener to me, though, because it was so "entertainment" oriented... not just music, but a true Event, reminding me of P.T. Barnum.  And the band was so hot!

The book is a good read.  Easy to get through; filled with interesting stories, people and places.  For me the biggest eye opener was how focused he was on business success.  From ensuring he owned the rights to his songs to buying radio stations so he had an assured marketing channel... this guy was really on the ball from a business perspective.  To some extent, certain parts feel a bit boastful, but really I can't argue with the fact that James Brown was a very significant success, in an era when "coloured" entertainers had a hard time of it. Oh, yeah, and the other surprise to me was that Brown was ethnically a lot of things other than negro... I always looked at him as an African American, and I think that's how he was seen by the world.

Life - an Autobiography -- by Keith Richards

OK, I'm only a bit over half way through Life right now, but it's worth adding at this point.  I think there are lots of reviews of this out there... my main points are few.  I'm listening to this as an audio book, and what's fascinating about it in this medium is that it's read by Johnny Depp, in a darned good impersonation of Keith Richards.

I'm not particularly a Rolling Stones fan, but I certainly appreciate a lot of really great tunes they put out over the years, particularly in the late sixties and early 70s.  I wasn't particularly aware of Keith's role in the band, other than being a solid rythm guitar player... the book makes it clear that he and Mick Jagger are the guys who wrote the songs and led the band.  It also is quite interesting in digging into the methods they used to write songs, often in rapid succession.

The book is also something of an eye opener regarding the use of drugs, particularly heroin, and some interesting insights into that world and how Keith managed to survive it.  It's not a pretty story, and is definitely not something to play on the car stereo while the kids are in the vehicle.  Overall, I'm quite enjoying it, and am listening to it most of the time that I'm driving these days.

Jazz -- by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

Jazz is another book I read in audio format.  It's a relatively short (9 hours listening) overview of the history of jazz music, from its roots in blues and ragtime and creole music styles through to modern times.  It really focuses a lot on the early days, and kind of tapers off once arriving in the 1970s, with little attention to the modern jazz scene.

Overall I found it a worthwhile primer, since I haven't studied jazz history in any significant way.  It's probably of limited value to those with a strong jazz history.  It wasn't really great, though.  Three stars out of five seems about the right rating based on my own experience.

Rock On -- by Dan Kennedy

Actually reading a paper book in this particular case, and again I'm not quite finished with it.  But this one is easy to summarize... it's the story of a fellow who starts his career in the music business working for a record label at the beginning of the 2000s, just in time for the industry to start to self destruct.

Rock On is a quick, fun read that pokes fun at office life and how self-important the record industry executives saw themselves.  It's a book that can't end well, but is quite fascinating on the way down.  Not a deep read, just some light fun and an interesting look inside the record industry.

I have one or two more books about music lined up and not yet started, including Room Full of Mirrors, about Jimi Hendrix.  I'm curious what others have been reading in this area.  Thoughts?

Music mini-reviews

It's been too long since I posted some thoughts here. Today I'm summarizing my view on a few recent music purchases.

Joe Satriani - Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards

I hadn't owned any Satriani previously, and bought this latest album when it was released. It's actually a really solid collection of music, and doesn't become monotonous (as I think some instrumental albums do).

After owning this for a bit, I bought a few of Joe's best-selling tracks for comparison. I'd say most of the Wormhole album is better than the older stuff. This impression was borne out when I attended a January Satriani concert in Vancouver. I thought the Wormhole material was really solid and enjoyable and was the best music of the show.

I think the second tune on the album, Dream Song, might be my favorite. It opens with a cool riff on the wah pedal and is memorable. I've rated quite a few songs on the album as superior, with only a couple "average".

Rodrigo y Gabriela

I bought the eponymous CD from Rodrigo y Gabriela from a Borders store that was closing down while on a recent business trip to California. I was hoping it would be as good as their 11:11 album I reviewed earlier. After having given it a few listens, it's still growing on me. At first listen, it's pretty similar to 11:11. Perhaps just a bit less polished, though the playing is impressive. A few songs seem very similar to tunes on 11:11 that I take to be the origins of those later tunes.

If you haven't heard Rodrigo y Gabriela, they're a real treat, playing excellent Latin-influenced tunes on a pair of classical guitars. But these two are solidly rooted in rock music, and the all-instrumental album is very enjoyable.

I think my favorite tune on the disk is a cover of Stairway to Heaven. They carry the classic melody on the guitar and stray just far enough from the original to keep it fresh. And ripping throughout that famous solo on classical guitar is very cool.

Scarlet Runner -- Groove Thing

I had never heard of Scarlet Runner and just stumbled on this album while pulling a thread in the iTunes store, after looking up something else. Well, this is an enjoyable and surprisingly fulfilling rock album with a blues edge to it.

I'm less fond of the first few tracks, personally, but feel that the album becomes more and more awesome as it goes on. There are a lot of tracks on the album and most of them are really solid.

My favorite tune of the collection is the title track Groove Thing, which does in fact have a great groove. There's also a really solid cover of > Use Me Up. Overall a really enjoyable find!

Joe Bonamassa -- Dust Bowl

Joe's latest album was released a couple of days ago, and I didn't hesitate to buy it up. I had really enjoyed his previous disk, Black Rock, which I wrote about last year.

Now up front I have to say I'm not a big country fan, and I was a bit worried before hearing it that this album might have strayed too far in that direction for me. Not to worry, with one exception.

I've probably been listening to too much Bonamassa lately to give this as fresh a listen as I'd like. But I'm having trouble avoiding his most enjoyable rockin' blues guitar. I particularly thing that his "Stop!" is incredibly powerful, and have been enjoying both the studio and live versions (Live from the Royal Albert Hall).

Dust Bowl is more great playing from Joe on a bunch of solid and enjoyable songs. I have only one beef: the third track on the album is a pure country:bluegrass tune that I just can't seem to get into. I'm sure some others would appreciate it, and it's perhaps not a surprise since the album was partly recorded in Memphis.

Dust Bowl opens with a really interesting slow blues tune Slow Train. Nice effect to kick it off. The title track is next, and it's a memorable tune that leaves me feeling dusty.

I think my current favorite tune on the album is a really typical JB tune, The Meaning of the Blues. It's catchy and memorable and the guitar work is great.

Joe does a great job of letting you feel the strife of hard working folk in songs like Black Lung Heartache and the great ballad The Last Matador of Bayonne. It doesn't hurt that Joes guitar tones are mouth-watering and his singing voice just keeps getting better.

I convinced my brother to buy tickets to Joe's show next week in Toronto. Sadly I can't get there and sadder still there is no sign of the Dust Bowl tour coming near Vancouver. Great album and I know it would be amazing live.

Ok and one last one. I'm writing this on my phone while flying across the Atlantic, so I've got nothing better to do.

Al di Meola -- Pursuit of Radical Rhapsody

Another album release in the past week, and another really great one! This recording continues the World Symphonia mix of various cultural influences into a lovely whole. There is still quite a strong tango influence in the album

Al is playing both acoustic classical (and steel string, I think) and electric guitars on the album and it steams with lively guitar playing, really interesting beats and great accompaniments.

The most memorable song for me is a cover of Strawberry Fields, which is really pretty, and wanders between rather true to the Beatles approach, and then veering off in unanticipated directions.

There is also a gorgeous cover of one of my favorite songs of all time: Over the Rainbow. The whole album is beautiful, and I actually find it quite inspiring. And never boring. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise by now.

Ok that's it. With a touch of dawn on the horizon over Greenland and only 2200 miles to fly, what's playing on the soundtrack to your life tonight?

What's wrong with paying for music?

Maybe I'm just a goody-goody who was brought up "right" and likes to follow the rules.  Certainly I think of myself as Responsible.  I find myself at a loss to understand how the whole music industry could be in such turmoil based on the widespread illegal downloading of music in bulk.

I try to stay connected with what's going on in the music industry, and I can certainly see that it's a real problem.  Total music sales are way down.  It's logical that CD sales have fallen off drastically with the availability of good online options for accessing music.  But less logically to me, a lot of people seem to be resistant to paying for music downloads, despite the cost of music being the lowest ever.  I guess I equate stealing music to driving down the side of the highway to bypass a traffic jam... it appears to put personal gain ahead of the good of society.

Personally, I still like to get my hands on a nice CD once in awhile, but I will admit there are few options to find a good selection of CDs at reasonable prices, particularly after the demise of Vancouver's A&B Sound a few years ago.  So mostly I buy online, pretty much exclusively from iTunes.  As a consumer, the shopping experience there is pretty good, the prices are better than brick and mortar stores, and of course there's the instant gratification factor.

I know quite a lot of people who claim music collections in the many tens of thousands of songs.  My iTunes is a bit over 2500 songs, which I find to be quite a lot of music.  And I find it hard to truly appreciate all the music I have, which leaves me scratching my head about how people can enjoy collections an order of magnitude bigger than that.

I loaded my whole CD collection into iTunes a number of years back and enjoyed listening to my music on the computer while I worked.  The addition of an iPod made that experience much more mobile and enjoyable.  For many years, I mostly played my tunes randomly, listening to whatever came up.  Or skipping the tune if I wasn't in the mood for it.

My iPhone 3G has changed my habits a bit.  With 16G for music, apps, photos, etc. I've found that I can't load all my music on the iPhone.  So I have become somewhat brutal with it, and offload anything that gets less than 3 stars in my rating system, since I only have space for about 1500 songs.  New music isn't rated, and gets on the iPhone until I've given it stars.

What I found interesting, though, was that I've also started listening to Albums a lot more than I did, and really getting a bit more into the "old" music experience.  With so much music coming to us so easily, it's hard to get the level of appreciation I used to have for albums I'd had to save to buy.  I used to listen to new albums many times, and read all the liner notes.  In the past few years that wasn't happening for me, and I wasn't enjoying the new music I bought as much as in the old days.  But my new focus on ensuring I listen to new stuff quite a few times is paying off in a deeper appreciation for that music.  [I'm also thrilled that liner notes are starting to reappear in a lot of downloadable albums... Joe Bonamassa's Black Rock is a great example.]

A nice side-effect of the new technology, though, is that I can throw out the crappy tunes, and pare down albums after a number of listens to include only the material that I think is good.  And I suspect that because I then don't have to listen to the mediocre tracks, I get more enjoyment out of the remainder of the album.

Of course, many good albums have little or no material that I dislike.  But some others still turn out to be full of quite a few dogs, even though I've typically test listened to the 30-second samples on iTunes before buying.

I appreciate the huge effort it takes to make an album, and I want to ensure I support the artists who are creating great new music.  It makes no sense to me to steal the material, when music is so important to my enjoyment of life.  I probably get twice the new music per year now than I did 10 years ago, despite paying probably a similar amount of money.  And right now, I'm probably enjoying that new music more than I did 10 years back, so to me this is win-win.

What Music Apps are on Your iPhone?

I've had an iPhone 3G for over two years now, and I really love it.  So what are the keeper Apps on there?  I'll stick to apps somewhat related to music... presented in the order they appear in my phone, rather than anything more scientific:

1. WikiPanion - Simple interface to Wikipedia.  Frankly, this one gets quite frequent use, particularly in conversation or watching TV/movies.  Real handy to find out that in fact that favorite guitarist is much (older/younger) than I thought, etc.
2. Remote - Apple's wireless remote control application for controlling iTunes (etc... I don't yet have iTV) is pretty great.  I use an AirPort Express to stream music from my Mac to my stereo, and it mostly works very well.  And occasionally not well... I haven't yet figured out what causes the interference that messes it up sometimes.
3. Guitar Toolkit - This is a great app containing a very good guitar tuner, as well as interactive chord diagrams.  It's aware of multiple guitar/bass tunings and provides tunings for a number of other stringed/fretted instruments, including Ukuleles and Mandolins.  I paid real $ for this app and it's my favorite tuner application.  I think it's better than the built-in ones on some of my guitars, and seems more accurate than the other iPhone apps I've used (just a gut impression).
4. PolyTune - I had eyed the ads for PolyTune tuners in the guitar magazines, and was intrigued.  This app seems to be $10, though I don't recall paying that much for it at the time.  But maybe I did... cheap compared to buying a pedal to see if I like it.  Overall, I rather do like the PolyTune approach, and will probably buy one of their pedals eventually for playing live.  The idea is that you can strum all your open strings at once and see immediately if any of them are out of tune.  Then playing a single string brings up a traditional tuner interface to fine tune the string.  In the iPhone, I think this app is a decent tuner, but I frankly find the Guitar Toolkit one nicer to work with.  In a pedal, though, muting my electric for a second and checking the tuning of all strings together would be awesome.
   
   
5. Guitarist's Reference HD Free -  I downloaded this one awhile back.  It seems to be an OK chord reference, but I don't ever use it.  Though I never removed it from the iPhone... guess I figure I'll eventually use it to find some chord.  Again, though, I'm more likely to use the Guitar Toolkit instead.  It does provide left/right handed chord setup, which might be useful for lefty players... I noticed that my left-handed daughter had some difficulty with chord diagrams, etc. which are written right-handed.
   
   
6. SPL - This sound pressure level device reports noise level in DB, in a few different types of modes that are unfamiliar to me.  I find it occasionally interesting to understand the background sound level, or how loud some "really loud" noise is.  I haven't compared it to professional devices, but did read review comments on it originally that suggested it was reasonably accurate.
   
   
7. FourTrack - This four-track recording software is simple and it's always in my pocket.   Probably doesn't compare to a dedicated device, but it's very handy for recording a tune that's in my head, whether experimenting on my guitar, or whistling something I want to remember.  I suspect there may be better similar apps out there, but I haven't tried them.   The sound quality on this one is extremely good, given the tiny microphone in the iPhone.  My only beef is that the sound level is very low if the input signal isn't loud.  That is, it's much nicer for recording something I'm playing through an amp, than for recording an acoustic track that I'm playing quietly in my bedroom.  Definitely worth having this or something like it at all times, though.  I have imported recordings from this into GarageBand and been pretty impressed overall.  That said, I rarely record more than one track on it.  I'll note that multiple tracks are exported as separate files (WAV? I can't recall).  They then need to be imported separately and aligned inside the recording software, though I didn't find alignment to be a problem.
   
   
8. Shazam - I use the free version, which is just fine.  This is a great app for recalling the name of a tune or performer from some recorded music playing over the radio.  It often works very well in places with a lot of background noise that I'd have bet would not work at all.  It's useless for archaic music, though, or recordings that are not published [in iTunes, I think].
   
   
9. MiniPiano - I carry this with me always, and yet very seldom play it.  It's a pretty useless sounding thing with only one octave, but serves the purpose on occasion.  I'm sure there are better apps for this out there... I just haven't looked in a long long time.
   
   
10. PremierGuitar - Online magazine reader.  It's free, and frankly I'm kind of impressed with Premier Guitar magazine, which I've only found once in print copy.  Quite a well rounded magazine, and the app lets you see the table of contents of the current issue (or back issues, I think) and access individual articles directly.  No paging through like the online experience of GuitarPlayer... as an app it's nice, and I occasionally pull it up to read in waiting rooms, etc.
    
    
11. Matrix Music Pad - I was looking for something along the lines of the Korg SynthPad product, and found this app.  It's kind of entertaining, but I think is just a toy without much practical value.  Still, it does provide the basis on which an electro-dance track could be built pretty easily.
    
    
12. Moog Filtatron - An analog synth program from Moog, Inc.  I have played with it some... only got it about a month ago.  I had read a complaint on the App Store page about it eating batteries, and I think I have confirmed this in my experience.  I'm running iPhone 3G, which does not support background applications, and yet when this app has been exited, I found my phone battery drained quite quickly. Only after rebooting the phone did it get back to normal battery behavior, so I suspect there's something wonky with this app.   That said, I think this can generate some very cool sounds, which can be exported and integrated into a music project on your computer.  I suspect I will use it to craft some interesting sounds in the coming months.  Yeah, I don't have an analog synth, but would like one, so this is attractive to me.
    
    
13. CraigsPhone - App interface to Craigslist... a good way to pass the time looking at music gear for sale. 

OK, that's plenty for today.  I hope one or two of these are helpful to you.