Originally published by me at Introduction to Guitar » cogdog (see it there)

As it happens, I had just finished lighting the fire in MY woodstove, when I clicked over to Alan’s post and listened to his rockin’ version of Light My Fire.  I retreated to basement, found the tenor guitar, used the Guitar Toolkit app to find a few chords and a Dorian scale in Am. I think that ‘Santana-esqe’ sound is often captured in a Dorian kind of mode. (Which I don’t know much about to be honest, just basically this)

So armed with my tenor, and the scale (pictured below) I joined in the LMF jam via GarageBand and Soundcloud. As I was messing with it, that little theme came out and that formed the basis for most of what I did. There’s also some cringers and clunkers of notes and chords in there, but it’s jamming after all. Thx @cogdog for stoking the fires!

Originally published by me at Introduction to Guitar » cogdog (see it there)

The excuses for not playing this week are worn thin. While lighting my wood stove, it did not take much of a leap to hear “Light My Fire” in my head, but maybe a more bluesy acoustic version. None of the tabs I found felt right, so I startet varying some of the chords. I really like just running rhythm so I left a wide open patch for someone to riff in some solo or maybe a harmonica (or a tuba?). Or do something about my vocals, please.

The tabs I found had the chorus as Am / F#m plus a few capo options, but I was not liking them, so I just started switching it up- I really like the ringing sound of an Am7 – I tried doing the bar on three strings for the F#m, but found I liked what I think is a D5 – and normal 3 finger triangle D, nut leave the top (E) string open. I was playing with also trilling the 6th string G back on top of it.

So that’s the verse, and what I think is behind the long organ and guitar solos (maybe, I lost track while strumming to the Doors version).

The chorus was fine in the tab I used. G – A – D “Come on Baby Light My Fire” twice. I did a variation on the open G of moving my finger from the 1st string 3rd fret (the high G) to the second string 3rd fret (adding a “D”). I also tossed in the Dsus4 back to D cause it was like the first variation I learned (I think it was Boston “More Than a Feeling”) and it sounds good. The last line switches to G – D- E – E7 (“Try to set the night on FIRE”).

I doodled up a sketch of my own chords used here:

My goals again are to try and find my own variations on songs I like, not just mimic them. Maybe its because I am bad at mimic-ing them! But I like that 2 chord Am7 – D5 riff, it has a maybe Santana-ish feel to it.

And that is my fire in the soundcloud widget It’s lit.

Originally published by me at Introduction to Guitar » cogdog (see it there)

Free form wandering trying to keep with the Wolves baseline, it’s so easy to fall off the train! I listened to the song omce cause its new to me.

This was with some anonymous acoustic that belongs to my girlfriend’s daughter. I kept doing the suspended 4th on the D (one my favorite chord variations) and some turning the Em into an Em7. And then wandering off into who knows where trying to solo.

Trying not to self censor here and learn

Originally published by me at Introduction to Guitar » cogdog (see it there)

Free form wandering trying to keep with the Wolves baseline, it’s so easy to fall off the train! I listened to the song omce cause its new to me.

This was with some anonymous acoustic that belongs to my girlfriend’s daughter. I kept doing the suspended 4th on the D (one my favorite chord variations) and some turning the Em into an Em7. And then wandering off into who knows where trying to solo.

Trying not to self censor here and learn

Originally published by me at Introduction to Guitar » cogdog (see it there)

Somehow I managed to do my homework ahead of time, since my intro video included the story of main main guitar, an acoustic I’ve had since age 15. I thought I would turn this inside out and talk about 2 guitars I do not have, since they have stories too.

Once in a year or two the natural progression on my new road to fame as the next Jimmy-Pete-Eric-Keith guitar star was to get an electric. Through an ad in the classifieds of the Baltimore Sun, I called the dude on a landline (just double aged myself), and bought this beauty, a blonde Telecaster:

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I just liked to hold her, she was beautiful (and heavy). The amp that came with it was a Peavy Backstge. My career with it pretty much was limited to solos in my basement, save one party when some friends brought a keyboard and drumkit (parents were on vacation ha ha ha). When I moved west to Arizona in 1987 for grad school, it was one thing I decided I did not need. Arethe might spell it R-E-S-P-E-C-T, but my song is R-E-G-R-E-T. As sort of a way of keeping it in the “family” I sold it to my friend Kevin for a ridiculuous price, $25, with the quasi undestanding we would buy it back off of each other on a regular basis.

Except I did not stay in contact with him.

Fast forwrd to more recently, and Kevin and I met up when he was in town for a conference in Phoenix, and we’ve been well connected since; I’ve visted his home in Pennsylvania a few times. The good thing is the guitar is in his family, and being put to use by his son, Cal, who can really really play it well. When I visited in September of 2011, we went to Cal’s house, and I got to hold her again:

Cal, then a student at Penn State, played in a trio called Think Twice, Dublin, who play some rather avant garde complex music, beyond my 3-chord repertoire for sure. Cal has a deep music love, appreciation, and facility (as he shared some unique vinyl). Their web site then http://thinktwicedublin.bandcamp.com/ featured a photo of Kevin with the Telecaster back in the 1980s when we shared an apartment in Baltimore. Cal even has the original hard case, which was falling apart when I got the guitar in 1980. Long live duct tape.

A video of them, playing in the outdoors (I never got out my back door)

It is fascinating to watch a love of connection of music between my friend and his son- you expect music tastes to divide parents and children, but here it bonds, genuinely. I could not be prouder to be a small part of this chain, and as Kevin said last night to me and Cal (and agreed by us three), “The Tele is here, but it really belongs to all of us.”

When I wrote about this encounter in 2011, I mashed up my own then and now photos, 31 one years in the making.

Like the Dude, the Tele abides.

I could not be happier not to have it anymore. You might “keep” guitars, but the music is not ours to hold.

The other story, not so dramatic. I might have the timing off when I traded the guitar to Kevin, because it was earlier then I moved to Arizona when I picked up a cheap Fender Mustang as a less than decent replacement. It was okay to play since it was light, but it was no Telecaster, and it actually broke beyong repair.

Since I always had dreams of being Pete Townshend, on a party before a time I moved away (maybe that was when I went to New Mexico– for 2 days– another story, they wont stop connecting).

So for this party, I actually did get the guitar out of the basement– to smash it Pete style on a big rock in the yard. It’s actually harder to really bust it than it looks! Fender Electric guitars are solid! I carted around for a while a piece of it long gone. A very grainy scanned photo of the smashing event:

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I am now, at 49, thinking again of getting an electric guitar, maybe I will keep it.

And play it.

Originally published by me at Introduction to Guitar » cogdog (see it there)

It’s really late and I need to wake up stupid early, but when I saw Jabiz’s tweet, and his video, and his stack of papers.. I said I’m in.

I blabbed a bot in the video, compeltely leaving out that I live in a tiny town in Arizona called Strawberry (yes its real, look it up) (and I have snow outside my house right now, go figure). I’ve had the chance to hangout and play with Bryan a few times, and always learn alot. And I am going to visit Jabiz in March, so I’m looking forward to strumming his black shiny guitar.

Oh yeah, my real name is Alan Levine and I first found my way onto the web in 1993 and have never left, I hang out at http://cogdogblog.com/. Cya there