Three for the Sunday

I am no longer intrigued by speed; if you are a good player, speed is optional. Phrasing & feel are everything. If you regurgitate the stuff you learn from magazines/ videos, you are a nobody. Whatever you have acquired, you need to apply it in an original context, start creating because only creation makes you a somebody. It forces you to think of what to play, how to play it, when to play & who to play it to. The who factor is the least crucial because you create music for yourself, first & foremost. The audience comes later after you have made a statement for yourself, then your playing will take a turn for the perspective, you are more sensitive to how critical others are of your compositions.

Your gear plays an important part in defining your music. We often hear tone is in the fingers- I'm not one to embrace this mindlessly. You can't carbon copy feel for sure; the same material you play on a Strat will not have the exact feel blueprint should you replicate it on a Les Paul. You are bent on playing that same material your way regardless of whichever guitar you embrace because you are you but tone, underlined by feel, won't manifest an identical outcome. We also forget that our fingers are nothing without our gear.

So today, I salute the 3 factors that help me the most in sculpting my ideas & the intended tone (based on the ideas of course) each & every time I play: My amp, my guitar & everything in between- for today, that will be my pickups.