One of the most influential artists in the history of rock made a significant contribution today to help support public school music programs. According to a press release, the Van Halen founder and guitarist Eddie Van Halen donated 75 electric guitars from his own personal collection to the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides schools across the country with quality musical instruments.
In the wake of his critically acclaimed album A Map of the Floating City, and the groundbreaking FloatingCity.com transmedia game he co-designed, Thomas Dolby will embark on a 26-date North American tour this March, with a rather unusual vehicle in tow.
Saturday, September 28, 2002 and Sunday, September 29, 2002 marked a historic milestone event and a dream come true for PBS’s televised live music showcase, “Austin City Limits,” with the inception and staging of the inaugural Austin City Limits Music Festival. The first ACL Music Festival was a major success and watershed music event. Since the Festival’s first kickoff year in 2002, it has progressed from its beginnings into a landmark annual event. It is recognized and acclaimed by music artists, music fans, and music industry mavens as one of the most anticipated, significant, and influential yearly music festivals.
Legendary rockers STYX–Tommy Shaw, James “JY” Young, Chuck Panozzo, Lawrence Gowan, Ricky Phillips and Todd Sucherman— will be invading the TV airwaves throughout the month of January, perfectly timed with the upcoming DVD release, Styx: The Grand Illusion/Pieces Of Eight Live, coming January 31.
Severn Records has announced a March 20 release date for Son of the Seventh Son, the label debut from Larry “Mud” Morganfield, son of the legendary Muddy Waters. Severn Records is distributed nationally by City Hall Records.
Some musicians develop a plan while on the road to success, one that involves taking chances and making changes. Amid this strategy there’s a burning desire to perform and the ambition to hone a craft to its perfection with respect to both tone and technique. Instrumental musicians especially, know that they have to possess something diverse, a sound that differentiates them from the rest, one that sustains interest and curiosity. Without a vocalist, the lead instrument must have a voice of its own, one that speaks to the listener with a personality, resplendent with passion and emotion.
Kent Armstrong has long been considered one of the premiere magnetic pickup designers and builders. His custom-made and specially-designed pickups are known for their rich sound, leveled response and unique low noise factor.
As we build Guitar International magazine, it is important for us to know our readers for a number of key reasons, that include: understanding the types of articles and interviews that will interest them, as well as to gain information to help us to build our advertising and sponsorship base that will, in turn, offer us the resources to keep developing the magazine as a free source of news and information about guitar music to our readers.
Love ’em or hate ’em, scales are important to any guitarist. Everybody knows the box method, with the five different patterns for each scale, and some guitarists subscribe to the 3 notes per string approach, but other than that, there haven’t really been any innovations with scales on the guitar lately. Enter New York jazz guitarist Adam Smale with A New Approach to Scales for Guitarists, which puts forth an interesting and useful 4 note per string method of learning and implementing scales.
In January 2007, Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel was handed a Golden Guitar award for “Best Instrumental Performance” at the Country Music Awards of Australia for “Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag” a track off his latest album, The Mystery, released in 2006.
