instruments
All about musical instruments, their tunes, and the people that play them.
Best CandyRat Records Live Guitar Performances
If you've ever been down the rabbit hole of "Best Guitar Solos" or "Acoustic Guitar Videos" YouTube searches, you've watched a CandyRat Records artist's video, whether you think you have or not. Lesser known by its name, the fusion of the cause of rotten teeth and a rodent, CandyRat Records dominates the indie label experimental guitar performance game with a whopping 375+ million views on its YouTube channel. CandyRat Records joined the YouTube world on May 10, 2006, only a year after YouTube's launch, and has since become known as the go-to for aspiring guitarists and musicians alike.
By Emily McCay9 years ago in Beat
A Modern Day Renaissance Man
Earlier this week I was reading up on the Renaissance for my Western World history class. The era’s prominent characters are now referred to as “Renaissance Men”: A person with many talents or areas of knowledge. As I read about Lorenzo De Medici, Michelangelo, and Leonardo Da Vinci, I was stunned by their ability to master numerous crafts throughout the arts and sciences. I began to wonder if we had any Renaissance Men in 2017. It didn’t take long to realize that we do, and we’ve had one for quite a few years now.
By The Ticket9 years ago in Beat
Sky Vettel's 'Sin From a New Perspective'
A Native New Yorker, electronic musician Sky Vettel is creating what she calls "concept music" - pieces which evoke imagery, emotions, new thoughts and feelings. "Isn't that pretty much all music? Unless it's what's being played on the radio," she says. To her, it's slightly hifalutin but it's to the point and something easy to comprehend upon hearing it. "I want people - all types - to be able to enjoy something. You can't make everybody happy. I don't want to make everybody happy. But I think there's something for everyone." The 26-year-old has a catalogue of over 30 songs - from soothing, relaxing, progressing ambient soundscapes, to gritty smoky, urban trip hop, to upbeat, disco house - and she's not slowing down. "I'm very busy writing new material right now. I'm really trying to create stuff that's improved from my last works... you can't rush organic improvement, but you can certainly work hard at it. I'm excited at the progress in this moment, as well as the anticipation of what's to come with this." What type of music styles would you expect to hear this time around? "There's a bit of hip hop, tech house, and maybe even doo wop, oddly enough," she says. "I've always loved doo wop and just the noodling around with the 50's chord progression on the keyboard made me extremely excited!" What else excites her? "Being in the moment, enjoying everything, and of course, people's response to my music and how they feel, that's great. I definitely want to keep impressing people and make more music that they love."
By Sky Vettel9 years ago in Beat
A Pillar of Rock
In the world of the electric guitar, few guitars have been as influential to music and the innovation of the instrument as the Fender Stratocaster. In its more than 60 years of production, the Stratocaster has been used by many great players from various genres to create legendary music.
By Frederick Park9 years ago in Beat
Odds and Ends
When one thinks of the history of the solid body electric guitar, Gibson is one of the first and most important brands that comes to mind. While guitars such as the Les Paul, SG Flying V, Explorer and Firebird were wildly successful either initially or eventually, Gibson also produced many guitars that are not as well remembered.
By Frederick Park9 years ago in Beat
Iron Reagan: Crossover Ministry ALBUM REVIEW
Iron Reagan continue to keep the flame of crossover thrash burning on this new LP. To listen to this album is to listen to thirty minutes of fast, glorious and straightforward fury. Sometimes it feels good just to shout.
By Roland Tillyer9 years ago in Beat
Brian Eno: Reflection Album Review
When he left Roxy Music in 1973, Brian Eno embarked upon a solo career that would lead him to be regarded as one of the most influential and innovative producers of all time. Since coining the term ambient music when he released Ambient 1: Music for Airports in 1975, he has pioneered the genre. This latest release sees the master release another record in his definitive style, but without the direction and compositional genius that typifies his finest work.
By Roland Tillyer9 years ago in Beat
Rise of the Ukulele
Ukuleles are largely associated with the Hawaiian islands. But they originated from a different island chain-the Portguese Islands of Madeira, based off a similar, small guitar-like instrument known as a machete. In the 1880s, the Portuguese immigrated to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields. Ukulele roughly translates to “jumping flea” in English, which is what Hawaiians first thought Portuguese immigrant Joao Fernandez’s fingers looked like as they played the four strings on his machete. Once immigrants Manual Numes, Augusto Dias and Jose do Espirito Santo fulfilled their contracts on the fields, they moved to Honolulu to work in their former woodworking professions. Nearly a year later, they had each opened their own stores, where they specialized in stringed instruments.
By Adam Quinn9 years ago in Beat
Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff's 'The Jazz Makers'
Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Billie Holliday, Fats Waller, Roy Eldridge, and Charlie Christian are a few of the jazz masters whose diverse and several talents, blossoming intensely over half a century like the dramatists of Elizabeth, Charles, and James, meet in The Jazz Makers a set of critics whose gift and moment it is to capture in prose, in virtually every essay herein, some of the most precise verbal pictures of the music these writers have heard.
By Rhonda Taylor9 years ago in Beat
