OllyNo1UK, Paul Gilbert is playing a demo/clinic at Canford School, wimborne, on August 19th. Tickets on sale at Guitar Mania only. I am so excited about this....anyone else interested?

Delfino, how would you feel about taking a train to bournemouth/poole next friday and seeing your idol in a 300-seat theater?

Delfino, sorry man, god only knows why I asked if you'd fancy taking a train to the south next friday! haha, we all know August 19th isn't next week! Anyway, yeah, it's a Paul Gilbert guitar demo/clinic, which means up-close and personal, in a small venue at the school where my sister works! hehe. Its on Friday 19th August, doors open at 7pm. If you could make it that'd be ace, but let me know cuz I'll need to get you a ticket in the next few days. You don't have to worry about the ticket cost, it's hardly anything.

Oh, and no, believe it or not, that really is my name! I checked out that article....it's pretty shocking. Then again, it's no different to me hoping I'll be with a 30-year-old chick when I'm 70! haha

PhryDom, "it's about people making assumptions and then chucking their toys from their prams"....I didn't make any assumptions, and I didn't chuck any toys....I just politely put my track up for everyone to hear. And I don't think Aarrens reaction can be described as chucking toys out the pram.....that's a bit harsh.

Cuthbert, yeah it sucks. Fighting the system never really works out :-(

meandmrvai, hell yeah brotha! It's the subtleties in Eric's music and arrangement that get me every time. Actually no it's not just the subteleties, 'cause everything about the way he crafts his music is simply beautiful. Bloom is still killing me, it's such a good album, and Columbia really stirs up some emotions. I haven't listened to Venus Isle in a while....think I'll have to go give it a listen! hehe. What do you reckon the chances are of an EJ live DVD?

Also, what Legacy cab do you have? I'm guessing a top cab rather than bottom....I got the base cab cause it's a little tighter on the low frequencies, and with the Legacy, perhaps more than most amps, you can really tell the difference.

Also, I was playing about with it a bit, nothing severe, but was playing some bluesy stuff and hit the G string quite hard and the trem warbled. I couldn't believe I was getting trem-warble off a 2-grand guitar.

Next to the Jem was a prestige thru-neck RG, also a shade under 2-grand. I tried the same thing on that and it too warbled. I picked a JS100 off the wall, which has the lower-budget hardware and supposedly lesser-quality bridge, and it was perfect.

It played great, it had character, the bridge was stable and useable, and no matter how hard you pick any of the stings, it didn't warble.

Happy Birthday Joe! Keep on rockin!!!

Yeah the thick tone is pretty awesome, you've got to love it! If you find a '57 Re-issue Strat in a shop, give it a try. That's where a lot of that tone comes from. Fender appear to have wired the '57's pickups differently to all other models.

Also, sorry, no synch picking was as in synchronised....just plain up-down speed picking with a pick-stroke synchronised with every note played with the left hand.

meandmrvai, EJ's old tutorial videos are cool, very useful. I would love to see a live DVD though....I've checked out all the videos he's put on his site and they are so good!

Sorry to hear about your seizure.....have you had this problem before? Hope everything' okay :-)

Delfino, hey dude, I just picked up your Paul Gilbert ticket....I really hope you can make it! You've got almost a month to save up the train fare, and I can easily pick you up from the station! hehe. Sorry.....I don't mean to pressurise you, I'm just keen for you to see him cause it's going to be an awesome night out!

We all know that comment was about Steven Wilde and I'm telling you, cause nobody else has told you yet, that Steve is one of those few really important people who everyone should just have respect for. He is just a simply nice person, very honest, and always has time for everyone else, rather than being a completely self-centered c*ck-jockey like you.

For the record, I don't normally resort to profanity and name-calling, but I figured I should deliver my post in a way that you would understand.

Yoda,

1) Do you own any tuitional DVDs/videos? Yes

2) If yes, do you find them helpful? Which ones are they? If yes, why? If not, why not?

Eric Johnson: Total Electric Guitar Eric Johnson: The Fine Art Of Guitar Abe Laboriel: Beginning Funk Bass

And I have borrowed Petrucci's DVD and two Paul Gilbert Hot Licks videos.

Petrucci was very boring and I didn't learn anything. Judging by the label on the front, it was very expensive too. Paul Gilbert was better, and along with a hilarious presentation and useful on-screen rolling tab, his exercises and techniques were useful and inspiring. If I owned his videos myself I'd probably get more out of them. Abe Laboriel (he's mainly a teacher rather than a player like the others) was fairly useful, but it's definitely for "beginning" and is best as a teaching aid. His presentation was good and it was well-worth ten quid.

Eric Johnson's videos are both excellent. The first one is pretty old now, but it's still really insightful and inspiring. He covers a load of different points in both videos, including techniques, influences, gear, and at 20 quid each it they were worth getting.

3) If no, do you think you would find this kind of medium helpful?

4) What kind of content do you think should be covered on a tuition DVD/video? Tuitional videos often cover a fairly specific subject area, so I guess that roughly defines what content would be appropriate.

5) What kind of content do you think should not be covered by a tuition DVD/video? "Behind the scenes" band anecdotes....An artist who spends half of the DVD telling funny stories of things they once did on the road would not be teaching me much. If it's educational, it should be ok.

6) Ideally, how long do you think a tuition DVD/video should last? A couple of hours. DVD format, especially, lends itself to being split into small parts, which makes it far easier to get a lot out of.

7) Ideally, how much do you think a tuition DVD/video should cost (approximate GBP if possible please)? Up to 25 quid. If it's more than that I'm not going to be keen. However, the cost of making these videos is obviously fairly high, especially with the relatively low return that the artist/producers get for it, so I would expect it to cost twice as much as a normal DVD movie.

8) Do you think there are enough quality tuition DVDs/videos currently available? No, there's always room for improvement, and I've seen too many DVD's aimed at youth-rock-loving school kids who only need to be taught a few Blink 182 songs....that's the sort of thing that can be found on the internet or in a book (or by listening to the song) without need for a video.

There's also plenty of "guitar for beginners" type videos, and we definitely don't need any more. I haven't seen anything yet on gear and it's maintenance/setup.....that could be quite useful, especially for a player of an intermediate-beginner level who needs to start founding out what "tone" really means and how to exploit it.

9) Would you buy a tuition DVD/video from an 'unknown' guitar player? When you say "unknown" do you mean someone I've never heard of or someone that most of the guitar-playing world haven't heard of, like Andy Timmons, for example?

"Pants Charmstrong"

Hahaha, that's hilarious! As was the story about PAT members who want the word "Fail" replaced with "deferred success".

ATN, I meant to say and forgot, it's great to see you on here again, and it's good to know you're still in contact with Stevie!

It's confusing though.....the attack a fortnight ago was very coordinated and very destructive. Yesterday, only the detonators went off, and nobody was hurt. Also, the Met Police said the bombs contained Acetone (nail-varnish remover) and Peroxide (bleach). The only thing I can think of is that they made these bombs along with the others 2 weeks ago, and the chemicals "went off" and wouldn't detonate, which is very possible.

LucySorets, amazing, thank you so much! I think I'll wait and download it over the weekend when I got more time, it's a pretty big file for my dial-up connection! haha.

nos vemos! ;-)

For those who aren't:

3 plain-clothes police officers pursued a man onto the underground. He jumped a gate at the station and they chased him, and then he tripped as he reached the train.

Two of the officers held him down on the ground while the third shot him 5 times in the back of the head.

Sledgers, technical knowledge of what? sorry, I missed your question, run it past me again...

Anyone else seen any news this evening? I just heard that the dude that the police shot (5 times) yesterday, in London, was an innocent Brazilian just visiting the city.

PhryDom, an armed police officer isn't given the responsibility to kill because he might "fear that someone is going to detonate a bomb".

He or she is given the responsibility to kill because he or she knows that someone is going to detonate a bomb.

Throughout their small arms training they are taught the "double-tap" technique, which quite simply is two rounds fired in immediate succession at the same point on the target, namely the brain-stem. They are not trained to shoot someone 5 times, just to make sure.

Also, do you know how hard it is to hear stuff in an underground station? If police officers told me to stop there's a very great chance I wouldn't hear them, especially if I was hurrying to catch my train.

And two officers held him down on the floor while the other emptied an entire third of his magazine into the poor guy's skull. It's a good thing the carriage wasn't full of terrorists 'cause he would have run out of rounds long before he shot them all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not aiming all that at you....I just feel very strongly that incompetence and grossly insufficient intelligence meant an innocent man got executed, and that that is not acceptable.

I'd really like to know why they feared he was carrying a bomb, and I'd also really like to know why the police officer fired 3 more shots than he was meant to.

mikesb, agreed, Billy Sheehan really is a good player, and he's a good improvisor too.

I tired one in my (mahogany-bodied) SA1260, bridge position, and you couldn't hear the mid-tones of a chord at all, it was horrible. I've now got a Norton in there and it is beautiful. It's a very nice open, fat, warm sound with some bite too.....it doesn't get muddy under high gain. I don't know how different it will be in a guitar with a non-mahogany body, but it's tonal characteristics suggest that it will be much the same.

And yes, F spacing does make a difference. Not so much with the neck pickup, but definitely in the bridge position.

I'm not happy about this life-path stuff though, aparrently I'm a materialistic loner who, as long as I remain positive (?!?) will be succesful in business!

JS_JS, Spanish Gypsy is one of the "modes" of the Harmonic Minor scale, so it sounds a lot like double harmonic.

southernbelle, like Steve T said, there's lots of cool folks here who can help. If his question was directed only at Joe then the chances are we wouldn't have interfered, and Joe doesn't get much time to post and doesn't usually answer general guitar-technique questions, I guess cause he knows we've all got it covered! Anyway, tell your boyfriend to get his ass back on here and we'll see if we can sort out his picking technique! :-)

Also, welcome to t2j!