The advantage of movable frets is that we can set the frets so that all the available notes are in the scale we want (no wrong notes) and we have access to all the notes… not only the ones in the standard 12 tone even-tempered scale of contemporary Western music. We took the opportunity to explore scales from non-Western cultures, and purely experimental scales, including ones the kids came up with themselves.

Yes, Paul, I’m sure all the children loved to explore the music of other cultures, but, more fun to little ears, I would imagine, is that ability to play microtonally, which has all kinds of horrible noise-making potential.

Check out a performance by his students at the Urban Arts Festival, put on by his elementary school:

Neat stuff, no? Well played, Mr. Rubenstein. Well played.

According to the Toronto Star, United Airlines has agreed to donate $3000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Dave Carroll had insisted that any compensation he receive from United be donated to charity. Dave Carroll did a nice thing to drag United kicking and screaming back to the planet of human decency most of us live on.

I’m not sure why businesses do this time and time again. United Airlines could have corked this PR nightmare in a matter of minutes for a paltry sum of money (paltry by their standards, of course). Instead, they happily dug their own grave. Even if Dave Carroll is the only customer they lose over this (not likely), this idiocy has cost them thousands of dollars in future revenue.

Previously on Guitarbalooga:

Early last year, Dave Carroll and his Sons of Maxwell bandmates were sitting on an airplane at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, waiting to deplane, when a passenger shouted, “My God, they’re throwing guitars out there!”

Dave saw a United worker carelessly toss a bandmate’s bass guitar and realized that his $3500 Taylor must have been thrown before it. Needless to say, it ended up with a broken neck. Here’s Dave in his own words:

On March 31, 2008 Sons of Maxwell began our week-long-tour of Nebraska by flying United Airlines from Halifax to Omaha, by way of Chicago. On that first leg of the flight were seated at the rear of the aircraft and upon landing and waiting to deplane in order to make our connection a woman sitting behind me, not aware that we were musicians cried out: “My god they’re throwing guitars out there”. Our bass player Mike looked out the window in time to see his bass being heaved without regard by the United baggage handlers. My $3500 710 Taylor had been thrown before his.

I immediately tried to communicate this to the flight attendant who cut me off saying: “Don’t talk to me. Talk to the lead agent outside”. I found the person she pointed to and that lady was an “acting” lead agent but refused to talk to me and disappeared into the crowd saying “I’m not the lead agent”. I spoke to a third employee at the gate and when I told her the baggage handlers were throwing expensive instruments outside she dismissed me saying “but hun, that’s why we make you sign the waiver”. I explained that I didn’t sign a waiver and that no waiver would excuse what was happening outside. She said to take it up with the ground crew in Omaha.

It’s my favorite excuse and a running joke where I work: “I don’t know, I just work here.” A close second is the ever popular: “I’m on break.”

Well, 9 months went by and Dave still hadn’t been compensated for his broken guitar. United wouldn’t budge…until Dave wrote a song about it, and it went viral. Not surprisingly, United has suddenly found God and decided that Dave does deserve some compensation.

Here’s his tune, but I gotta be honest, the 80′s-style video may burn your eyes:

(via sfgate.com and blogs.suntimes.com)

I tried playing one of these things years ago at Berklee. It ain’t easy!

(via musicradar.com)

Playing slide guitar in standard tuning – as opposed to an open chord tuning – is very different, and quite difficult because you have to take extra care in damping the strings. When you play slide in an open chord tuning, you always have that chord to go back to. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in standard tuning.

As you’ll see in this lesson, the chord positions are few and far between in standard tuning, but they do exist. Particularly for the G (or A) position, the Em position, and of course, the top two strings which are consistent with what you’re usually doing in E tuning.

This year, Howe and C.F. Martin & Co. collaborated to create a new model inspired by the early 1980s MC-28, the one Martin that’s been a mainstay in Howe’s guitar rack for decades. The MC-28 is notable for its grand auditorium cutaway body, oval soundhole, 22-fret fingerboard, and superb tone, and Howe suggested it be the starting point for the MC-38 Steve Howe Special Edition.

Retaining the East Indian rosewood of its inspiration, the MC-38 also features a Carpathian spruce top that provides remarkable responsiveness and power. Forward-shifted 5/16-inch scalloped top braces enhance clarity and dynamic range. Style 42 abalone pearl snowflake position markers begin at the fifth fret on the African black ebony fingerboard, with Steve Howe’s signature inlaid in mother of pearl between the 21st and 22nd frets. White Style 45 bridge and endpin are inlaid with abalone pearl dots. A mother of pearl Yin/Yang symbol is nestled on the polished ebony head plate. The low profile 111/16-inch (at the nut) neck with a square slotted headstock and diamond volute is carved from genuine mahogany.

I really like the looks of this guitar. It’s got a touch of Maccaferri to it that I like. Entry deadline is Sept. 30, 2009.

“Mississippi Queen” has one of rock and roll’s all-time great guitar riffs. Do you think writing great riffs is a dying art?

I don’t know. I can only talk about my own style. I play the guitar with only my first and fourth fingers, on my left hand. I never learned to use all my fingers, like you would playing a scale. What I try to do is play to my strengths. I can’t play fast, so I try to play slow and melodic. I remember someone telling me that “less is more.” In Alfred Hitchcock films the music is really intense, but then there will be this dead silence. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but that silence is deafening. I try to play around with dynamics in a similar way.

It’s one of those tunes you never get sick of and sounds as relevant and awesome now as it did when it was released 40 (!) years ago.