Tortoise Guitar » You Tube Videos

Pete Downs Plays Gibson cs-356

The Tortoise — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:23:33 +0000

Found this video of Pete Downs playing a Gibson cs-356 guitar with a bigsby tremelo. He's also using the Cube 80x amp.

I must say, I love this sound and the style. I guess at my 'advancing' age, more mellow sounds appeal.

VIDEO – Pentatonic Scale with Bobby McFerrin

The Tortoise — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:08:42 +0000

This video shows how we are all programmed to hear the pentatonic scale. We are 'programmed' because of the music we listen to day in and day out from when we were babies.

This experiment at the 'World Science Festival' is a real eye-opener. Check out this video with Bobby and see what's going on here – and have a wee think about it.
[mc src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk" type="youtube"]Bobby McFerrin and the Pentatonic Scale[/mc]

I think it helps prove a point about playing guitar.

The point?…

Well, often we are too scared of making mistakes when we should be closing our eyes and just trusting our hands and fingers to play the right thing. We tend to inject our present consciousness onto what our fingers are doing. We watch to make sure our fingers go where we 'think' they should. This gets in the way and trips our fingers up. This is a major source of mistakes in our playing.

So a solution could be to just relax, put on a jam track, close your eyes and just play along without any regard to your fingers at all.

Just play, damn it! Live in the moment – live inside the sounds you are creating and are being a part of. Let your 'soul' speak. Let go. Your subconscious knows more than you. Enjoy…

Please leave your comments below… I'd love to hear what you think.

Dweezil Zappa Demo's Massive Guitar Rig

The Tortoise — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:21:50 +0000

Here's a cool video showing Dweezil Zappa's massive guitar rig for the "Zappa Plays Zappa" project.

[mc src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRXnPcIK1V8" type="youtube"]Dweezil Zappa's Massive Guitar Rig[/mc]

Check out his different guitars including his new Hagstrom 335 type guitar.

Stevie Ray Vaughan Interview

The Tortoise — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:32:30 +0000

Here's a great interview with SRV. He does some playing too.

If you're into blues guitar, you should learn some of his songs. You can use software like Transcribe to slow down the music and learn his licks one by one.

You can learn a lot just from watching this video.

Phil Keaggy's Salvation Army Band – RC-50 Looper

The Tortoise — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:12:41 +0000

This is a real neat one-man band track by guitarist Phil Keaggy.

He uses an RC-50 looper along with various other effects pedals.

But the main point here is his extraordinary creativity. And the fact that he's not all rip-shit-and-bust. Very tasteful and heart-felt.

You can learn a lot by watching and listening. Enjoy.

Yeah man.