Guitar Legends

Hey people this section will be specific to all time legends of guitar.....

hey people first in the list will be legendary Eric clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in his grandparents’ home at 1 The Green, Ripley, Surrey, England. He was the son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (b. 7 January 1929, d. March 1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (b. 21 March 1920, d. 1985), a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in England during World War II. Before Eric was born, Fryer returned to his wife in Canada.

Eric always had music around him, her mom was a pianost and his real father was also a pianost who played in several bands.
Around the end Sixties...Rock n roll was ruling the world...He got his first guitar at his 13th birthday...

In 1961, when he was 16, Eric started studying at the Kingston College of Art. He was expelled at the end of that year for lack of progress as he had not submitted enough work. The reason? Guitar playing and listening to the blues dominated his waking hours.



Eric tried to explore the roots of rock in American Blues.Sometime in 1962, he asked for his grandparents’ help in purchasing a £100 electric double cutaway Kay (a Gibson ES-335 clone) after hearing the electric blues of Freddie King, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and others.



In early 1963, 17 year-old Eric joined his first band, The Roosters.Following the band’s demise in August 1963, he spent one month in the pop-oriented Casey Jones and The Engineers. Before turning to music as a full-time career, he supported himself as a laborer at building sites, working alongside his grandfather, a master bricklayer and plasterer.



Keith Relf and Paul Samwell-Smith recruited him to become a member of The Yardbirds because Clapton was the most talked about guitar player on the R&B pub circuit in october 1963. He earned his nickname, Slowhand, and recorded his first albums: Five Live Yardbirds and Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds during his 18-month at yardbirds. The band also recorded the single, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”. But, Eric had not abandoned his serious research into the American Blues. When The Yardbirds began moving towards a more commercial sound with “For Your Love”, he quit. His path in music was the blues.


John Mayall invited Eric to join his band in 1965 and named it john Mayall's bluebreakers.
With this band he got a new reputation as "god" as a lead guitarist.
In july 1966 Eric teamed up with Eric teamed up with jack bruce, Ginger baker to form cream
Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, and Wheels of Fire where regared as all time hits and gave the band that reputation

In the summer of 1970, Eric formed Derek and the Dominos with Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Bobby Whitlock from Delaney & Bonnie’s band . The Dominos would go on to record the seminal rock album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. A concept album, its theme revolved around Clapton’s unrequited love for George Harrison’s wife, Patti. The band would drift apart following an American tour and a failed attempt at recording a second album.

Hit hard by the break up of The Dominos, the commercial failure of the Layla album and his unrequited love, Eric sunk into three years of heroin addiction. Although he rarely emerged from his Surrey Estate, he filled box upon box with tapes of songs. He kicked his drug addiction and re-launched his career in January 1973 with two concerts at London’s Rainbow Theater organized by his friend, Pete Townshend (The Who). The concerts represented a turning point in his career. In 1974, he reappeared with a new style and sound with 461 Ocean Boulevard. Eric had become an assured vocalist and composer in addition to a guitar hero.

With each album after 461 Ocean Boulevard, Eric reinvented himself musically. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, albums and tours would follow year in and year out. In 1985, Clapton found a new audience following his performance at the worldwide charity concert, Live Aid. Annual stands at the Royal Albert Hall and successful albums like August, Journeyman and the Crossroads box set kept him well in the public mind. In the late 80s, he carved out a second career as the composer of film scores. His career went from strength to strength and reached new heights in 1992 with the release of Unplugged and the Grammy winning single, “Tears In Heaven.”

In 1994, Eric returned to his blues roots with the release of From The Cradle. The album was Clapton’s tribute to his musical heroes and contained cover versions of blues classics. 1997 brought an excursion into electronica with the release of TDF’s Retail Therapy . Eric posed as X-Sample in the studio “band” TDF. In 1998, he released the soul-influenced Pilgrim, his first album of all new material in nine years. In 2000, he continued his love affair with the blues when he recorded an album with American blues legend, B.B. King. Riding With The King was released in June and within three weeks of release, was certified gold.


Shortly after the release of Riding With The King, Clapton was back in the studio recording his next solo project. Reptile was released in March 2001. In late 2002, he began to record a new studio album. Work continued through the summer of 2003 and enough material was recorded for two albums. In addition to new solo material, Eric recorded covers of Robert Johnson songs during these sessions. The Johnson songs were assembled and in March 2004, Eric’s tribute album, Me and Mr. Johnson was released. The solo material recorded during these sessions was released in 2005 on Back Home


In 2005, Eric also revisted the past. He, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce re-formed Cream for four very special reunion shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The concerts took place at the venue where their farewell shows took place 37 years earlier, in November 1968. In October 2005, the men performed three further concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The London shows were released on CD and DVD in late 2005.

In his more than 40 year career, Eric Clapton has received many awards. He is the only triple inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame (as a member of both the Yardbirds and Cream and as a solo artist). He has also won or shared in eighteen Grammy Awards.

Eric has also contributed to numerous artists’ albums over the decades. The most well known session occurred in September 1968, when he added guitar to George Harrison’s composition, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It is on the album, The Beatles (best known as “The White Album”). He can also be heard on albums by Aretha Franklin, Steven Stills, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon and Yoko Ono), Ringo Starr, Sting, and Roger Waters.

Eric is married. He and his wife, Melia, have three daughters - Julie Rose (b. June 2001), Ella Mae (b. January 2003) and Sophie (b. February 2005). The couple married on 1 January 2002.
Eric’s eldest child is his daughter, Ruth (b. January 1985).

His son, Conor (b. 15 August 1986), died on 20 March 1991 when he fell from a window in his mother’s New York City apartment. Conor’s mother is Lory del Santo, a film actress / television personality.

Eric married his first wife, Patti Boyd Harrison on 27 March 1979. They had no children and divorced in the late 1980s.

hope u all would have liked this bit of history of eric clapton at his official website..http://www.whereseric.com/ a major part of this writing was taken from it....

next guitar legend This weekend....this time it is all famous band "Red hot chilli Pepers".....
Plz leave your comments and suggestions....they are always at welcome....

How guitar works...

Hey people do you really know how guitar really works....

so here it goes....

First, something about sound:

Try putting your finger on a loudspeaker you will feel it vibrate - if it is playing a low note loudly you can see it moving. When it moves forwards, it compresses the air next to it, which raises its pressure. Some of this air flows outwards, compressing the next layer of air. The disturbance in the air spreads out as a travelling sound wave. Ultimately this sound wave causes a very tiny vibration in your eardrum.

(PLZ OPEN THE IMAGE IN OTHER PLACE IF U CAN'T SEE IT PROPERLY)

At any point in the air near the source of sound, the molecules are moving backwards and forwards, and the air pressure varies up and down by very small amounts. The frequency which is measured in cycles per second or Hertz (Hz). The pitch of a note is almost entirely determined by the frequency:
high frequency for high pitch and low for low.
For example, 110 vibrations per second (110 Hz) is the frequency of vibration of the A string on a guitar. The A above that (second fret on the G string) is 220 Hz. The next A (5th fret on top E string) is 440 Hz, which is the orchestral tuning A. (The guitar A string plays the A normally written at the bottom of the bass clef.In guitar music, however, it is normally written an octave higher.)
We can hear sounds from about 15 Hz to 20 kHz . The lowest note on the standard guitar is E at about 83 Hz, but a bass guitar can play down to 41 Hz. The orginary guitar can play notes with fundamental frequencies above 1 kHz. Human ears are most sensitive to sounds between 1 and 4 kHz - about two to four octaves above middle C. Although the fundamental frequency of the guitar notes do not usually go up into this range, the instrument does output acoustic power in this range, in the higher harmonics of the most of its notes.


The strings The pitch of a vibrating string depends on four things.
1) The mass of the string: more massive strings vibrate more slowly.
- On steel string guitars, the strings get thicker from high to low.
-On classical guitars, the size change is complicated by a change in density: the low density nylon strings get thicker from the E to B to G; then the higher density wire
-wound nylon strings get thicker from D to A to E.
2)The frequency also depends on the length of the string that is free to vibrate. In playing, you change this by holding the string firmly against the fingerboard with a finger of the left hand.
-Shortening the string (stopping it on a higher fret) gives higher pitch.
3)Finally there is the mode of vibration, which is a whole interesting topic on its own.
4)The strings themselves make hardly any noise: they are thin and slip easily through the air without making much of disturbance
- and a sound wave is a disturbance of the air.
-An electric guitar played without an amplifier makes little noise, and an acoustic guitar would be much quieter without the vibrations of its bridge and body.
-In an acoustic guitar, the vibration of the string is transferred via the bridge and saddle to the top plate body of the guitar.

The body serves to transmit the vibration of the bridge into vibration of the air around it.
For this it needs a relatively large surface area so that it can push a reasonable amount of air backwards and forwards. The top plate is made so that it can vibrate up and down relatively easily. It is usually made of spruce or another light, springy wood, about 2.5 mm thick. On the inside of the plate is a series of braces. These strengthen the plate. An important function is to keep the plate flat, despite the action of the strings which tends to make the saddle rotate. The braces also affect the way in which the top plate vibrate. The back plate is much less important acoustically for most frequencies, partly because it is held against the player's body. The sides of the guitar do not vibrate much in the direction perpendicular to their surface, and so do not radiate much sound.

The air inside the body is quite important, especially for the low range on the instrument. It can vibrate a little like the air in a bottle when you blow across the top. In fact if you sing a note somewhere between F#2 and A2 (it depends on the guitar) while holding your ear close to the sound hole, you will hear the air in the body resonating. This is called the Helmholtz resonance and is introduced below. Another way to hear the effect of this resonance is to play the open A string and, while it is sounding, move a piece of cardboard or paper back and forth across the soundhole. This stops the resonance (or shifts it to a lower frequency) and you will notice the loss of bass response when you close up the hole. The air inside is also coupled effectively to the lowest resonance of the top plate. Together they give a strong resonance at about an octave above the main air resonance. The air also couples the motion of the top and back plates to some extent. The Helmholtz resonance of a guitar is due to the air at the soundhole oscillating, driven by the springiness of the air inside the body. I expect that everyone has blown across the top of a bottle and enjoyed the surprisingly low pitched note that results. This lowest guitar resonance is similar. Air is springy: when you compress it, its pressure increases. Consider a 'lump' of air at the soundhole. If this moves into the body a small distance, it compresses the internal air. That pressure now drives the 'lump' of air out but, when it gets to its original position, its momentum takes it on outside the body a small distance. This rarifies the air inside the body, which then sucks the 'lump' of air back in. It can thus vibrate like a mass on a spring. In practice, it is not just the compression of the air in the body, but also the distension of the body itself which generates the higher pressure. This is analysed quantitatively in Helmholtz Resonance.

Hope you would have gained a bit of knowledge of how guitar works....
for furthur refrence go 2 university of sydney website....which is doin research in this field.....
bye for now....next post tommorow.....

History of Guitar.

Do we all know where really did guitar came from????
we always play this instrument....but we never wonder where are the roots of guitar...by far the most popular instrument in world today.......

so here is some histroy about the instrument we all love.....

The Ancient Roots of the Guitar:-

The guitar has a noble and ancient history. A plucked string instrument with the in-curving sides of the guitar is to be found on a tomb sculpture of the King of Thebes of the thirtyseventh century B.C., and a relief sculpture from Cappadocia of c. 1000 B.C. even shows an Egyptian guitar-like instrument with signs of frets. Evidence exists also of plucked instruments of extreme antiquity in Persia and Arabia.

Early Guitar Masters:-
In the Christian era, the guitar is mentioned in two forms in the thirteenth century: the
Latin guitar and the Moorish guitar. Both are illustrated in beautiful miniatures in the
Manuscript “Cantigas de Santa Maria” attributed to Alfonso the Wise of Spain. Of the two, the Latin guitar is closer to the figure-eight shape of the guitar as it developed in Spain and Italy.

In early sixteenth-century Spain, the vihuela became the instrument of choice for the serious musician. The vihuela was in fact an early form of the guitar, with six pairs of strings. Vihuela music may be played without alteration on the modern guitar. The only significant difference was the pairing of strings to produce a stronger sound, comparable to the 12-string guitar of today. The vihuela was played with the fingers, and a considerable repertoire of music existed for it in the notation form known as “tablature.” The tuning was like that of the Renaissance lute, which in the rest of Europe was considered the “King of Instruments” and whose music is now a fertile source for guitarists. At the same time, a smaller guitar, first with four and then with five sets of strings (known as courses), developed as a less sophisticated instrument for chording and the strumming style known as rasgueado used as accompaniment for the dance.

Surprisingly, at the end of the sixteenth century, the vihuela went out of favor and it was the humbler form of guitar that survived, now established with five courses. The name Spanish guitar became attached to this instrument, possibly to distinguish it from the earlier fourcourse variety, although guitars were also well known in Italy. Francesco Corbetta (c. 1615– 1681), a famous Italian player, published extensively in the finger style that went beyond simple chording. Corbetta’s playing was so popular that it soon became the rage among seventeenth-century courtiers in France and England, launching the guitar in those countries. In France the talented Robert de Visée (c. 1660–c. 1720) played frequently for Louis XIV, to whom he dedicated his collection of pieces published in 1682. Back in Spain, Gaspar Sanz’s famous 1674 instruction book included detailed technique instruction and a fine collection of pieces that are still widely played.

The history of the guitar includes periods of fantastic popularity followed by periods of decline. The eighteenth century proved a time of low ebb for the guitar, until at its end the double strings gave place to single ones, and the sixth string was added to create the familiar form of today’s guitar. Sheep’s gut was used for the first three strings. The basses were formed by winding silver-plated copper wire onto a core of silk thread.

With the sixth string came a new wave of popularity with the public, led and inspired by
virtuoso players who also composed and wrote instruction methods for the guitar in its new form. The main centers were Vienna and Paris, and great players such as Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829) from Italy and Fernando Sor (1778–1839) from Spain were drawn to emigrate to he north where enthusiastic audiences and students awaited them. Both composed extensively or the guitar, and laid the foundation for the solo repertoire. Ferdinando Carulli 1770–1841) produced a guitar method that is used to this day, and the “25 Melodious Studies” of Matteo Carcassi (1792–1853) are still part of the standard student repertoire. Following this great wave of popularity came a period of decline and neglect, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the guitar was little played and rarely heard in concert. It was really thanks to Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909) that public interest was again awakened.

Although not as active a performer as Sor or Giuliani, Tárrega’s reputation spread due to his wonderful compositions and his ability to produce an extremely beautiful and distinctive sound. This was due partially to his intimate knowledge of the guitar fingerboard and use of the higher positions on it to achieve a particular romantic quality. The general public tended to become familiar only with the first five frets or so of the guitar, and to favor student pieces that stayed within this limited range. Tárrega ignored these limitations to concentrate on works that exploited the whole guitar, and as a result founded a school of playing and composing that survives today.

Although not a student of Tárrega, Andrés Segovia (1893–1987) in a sense carried on the
tradition and played Tárrega’s works extensively in concert. Where Tárrega had been somewhat retiring as a player, and really preferred playing for intimate groups of friends and admirers, Segovia took the guitar to the world, and brought the world into his concerts with a hitherto unknown level of virtuosity and musicianship. It was due to him that the guitar is now recognized as an instrument worthy of serious study, and his interaction with composers inspired the bulk of the existing repertoire.

In parallel with the growth of composed music for the guitar came popular developments in the field of folk music. In Spain the guitar had been used since the earliest times as a
strummed accompaniment for dancing, and it had a long and respected history as an accompaniment for the voice. In the nineteenth century, the style known as flamenco evolved as accompaniment for the songs and dances of Andalusia. Inspired by the gypsies and deriving from their songs and dances as they blended with traditional folk music, the style developedinto a complex and vigorous art form.The guitar was the principal instrument of accompaniment, and the continuing search for variety combined with a spirit of competition among the players resulted in an elevation of guitar technique to its highest levels. Many flamenco guitarists do not read music, and the style evolved primarily through exchange of ideas and experimentation. The legendary Ramón Montoya (1880–1949) is credited as the originator of many of the best falsetas, the name given to the musical phrases used to intersperse the verses of the songs and to embellish the dance accompaniments. Traditionally flamenco has not been considered as a solo art for the guitarist, the player being essentially a skilled accompanist for the song and dance. However today flamenco guitarists appear in concert and play improvisations based on their accompaniment skills to the delight of the fans or aficionados.

In the academic world of today the guitar has achieved a level of recognition and respect that was certainly lacking 50 years ago. Today many universities and music conservatories offer a music degree with the guitar accepted as the major instrument. In the popular field, the guitar holds its own in spite of the comparative ease of playing of the synthesizer. Though the sound is electronically amplified and often deliberately distorted, the human touch is always apparent, and no keyboard can ever quite simulate the effect of fingers on strings.

The Guitar in America:-

The acoustic guitar came to America in the 1850s, thanks mainly to immigrants from Eastern Europe. Guitar maker Christian Friedrich (C. F.) Martin left his native Germany because of dissatisfaction with the restrictive guilds that oversaw all instrument making back home. Meanwhile, factories were built to turn out inexpensive guitars by the dozens, and mail order catalogs like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward began selling five-dollar instruments. In the nineteenth century the guitar was promoted as a parlor instrument for young ladies to play. In the time before phonographs and radio, music-making was a favorite amateur activity. Young women were especially encouraged to learn music as an important social skill. While the piano was large and ungainly, the guitar was small and sweet-voiced; at the time, most guitars were far smaller than today’s jumbo models, and they were all strung with gut strings in the classical style. Because of this, the guitar was thought to be an ideal instrument for young ladies, and it soon became popular. As stage performers began taking up the guitar in the early twentieth century, they clamored for louder instruments that could fill a concert hall. Guitar makers responded by making bigger guitars; others began experimenting with different shapes for the guitar’s body to improve bass response and volume. The Martin company made an important contribution in the teens with the introduction of their so-called D or Dreadnought guitar. With a wider lower bout (or half of the body), and with construction strong enough to withstand the newly introduced steel strings, the instrument was immediately popular for its loud bass volume and carrying power. In the twenties and thirties, guitars began replacing banjos as the instrument of choice in
jazz bands. Jazz players needed guitars that were louder still. The Gibson company introduced jumbo-sized instruments with carved tops and f-holes that were ideally suited to the new jazz music. Soloists like Eddie Lang helped popularize the guitar in jazz, although it took a French gypsy musician named Django Reinhardt to really show the jazz potential of the guitar.

The search for louder guitars led to some odd hybrids, including all-steel-bodied guitars with built-in, cone-shaped resonators. But it was the experiments of player Les Paul that led to the biggest innovation of them all: an electric guitar featuring a solid wood body. Instrument maker Leo Fender was quick to pick up on Paul’s lead, introducing three solid-body models in the 1950s: the Broadcaster, the Telecaster, and the Stratocaster. The latter two instruments are still made today and remain favorites of rock players everywhere.

The Folk Revival:-

In the sixties, there was a veritable guitar renaissance, sparked by two different movements. One was the so-called “folk revival,” in which young people with guitars performed topical songs of the day. Bob Dylan was the best known and probably the greatest of these singer/guitarists, and his songs influenced hundreds of others.
The second big influence was the arrival of the Beatles in America, and the British Invasion. When the Beatles first appeared, everyone copied their hair styles, clothing (down to their boots), and—naturally—musical instruments. The Rickenbacker guitar, favored by John Lennon, and the Hofner bass, played by Paul McCartney, were soon the most in-demand instruments in music stores across America. Instrument makers rushed to give the Beatles free instruments so that they could benefit from the publicity.

The British Invasion also spawned guitar gods like Eric Clapton, influenced by American blues players. A veritable war broke out among partisans of the Fender Stratocaster versus the equally popular Gibson Les Paul—some defended one as the “holy grail”
of guitar sound, while others went for the other. Added “effects”— from wah-wah to fuzztone—were an additional arsenal in the guitar’s acoustic army. One of the first guitarists to use these effects in a truly musical way was Jimi Hendrix, whose flamboyant stage presence only added to his popularity.

Today the guitar is firmly ensconced as one of the most popular instruments among amateur musicians. Knock on somebody’s front door, and you’ll probably find a guitar in the house. It’s easy to play, portable, and adaptable to just about any style of music.