sigh...John Mayer (this is mostly for the guitar geeks out there)
I love DirecTV. They regularly have these free live music broadcasts that run on the pay-per-view channels for about a month before switching to the next artist. I've seen U2 in Chicago, Bruce Hornsby, The Foo Fighters and the John Mayer Trio. They're well shot and edited and fun to watch. I used to really be into concert videos when I was in high school, but haven't lately until DTV came into my life.
Right now they're airing a recent John Mayer show from a medium sized club in New York of him and his band playing stuff from the new 'Continuum' record (I hope he named it that purely for the two 'u's' side by side.) The record is very good and he and his band playing it is also very good.
Naively, but I think understandably, I resisted John Mayer for years until late one night in Raleigh after my Mother in law's surprise birthday party when everyone was asleep and I was flipping channels. I came across Mayer on Austin City Limits in 2003 and after running through a few of his radio hits that I reluctantly recognized but of course had no trouble singing a long with, he began a set with Tommy Shannon on bass and Chris Layton on drums (Stevie Ray Vaughn's Double Trouble) and suddenly this twenty-six year old kid from Connecticut was inhabited by an 83 year old bluesman from the Mississippi delta. There was nothing posed or phony about anything he was doing, it was just pure and genuine talent; the man is truly gifted. I realized at that point that I had already been a fan - I just hadn't realized it yet. (He was also joined by Buddy Guy at one point.)
Fast forward to this evening as I'm watching John Mayer and his band go through 'Gravity' and just as my wife is sighing over how great he "really is!" I realize that the solo he's been playing has gotten to a point where he's actually bending harmonics.
This is the geeky guitar part of the post.
With his right hand he's hitting harmonics on the twelfth or seventh fret (a way of lightly plucking a string at certain points along it's length in order to ring out harmonic frequencies above it's fretted pitch) and then with his left hand he's stretching the string by pushing on it above the nut (the part of the string that goes from the 'nut,' or zero fret, to the tuners on the headstock) thereby bending the note and creating a sound that's similar to a pedal steel or even a theremin and consequently blowing my mind. It's so simple and so cool and I've never thought of it before and I am sure that once again I will find myself sitting around late at night rewatching this concert and scratching my head as John Mayer does things that I didn't know anyone was cosmically allowed to do.
But before that I'm going to go try to figure out if it's possible for a solo acoustic guy to credibly add harmonic bending to any tunes in his set. I'll probably just break a bunch of strings. Sigh....
Right now they're airing a recent John Mayer show from a medium sized club in New York of him and his band playing stuff from the new 'Continuum' record (I hope he named it that purely for the two 'u's' side by side.) The record is very good and he and his band playing it is also very good.
Naively, but I think understandably, I resisted John Mayer for years until late one night in Raleigh after my Mother in law's surprise birthday party when everyone was asleep and I was flipping channels. I came across Mayer on Austin City Limits in 2003 and after running through a few of his radio hits that I reluctantly recognized but of course had no trouble singing a long with, he began a set with Tommy Shannon on bass and Chris Layton on drums (Stevie Ray Vaughn's Double Trouble) and suddenly this twenty-six year old kid from Connecticut was inhabited by an 83 year old bluesman from the Mississippi delta. There was nothing posed or phony about anything he was doing, it was just pure and genuine talent; the man is truly gifted. I realized at that point that I had already been a fan - I just hadn't realized it yet. (He was also joined by Buddy Guy at one point.)
Fast forward to this evening as I'm watching John Mayer and his band go through 'Gravity' and just as my wife is sighing over how great he "really is!" I realize that the solo he's been playing has gotten to a point where he's actually bending harmonics.
This is the geeky guitar part of the post.
With his right hand he's hitting harmonics on the twelfth or seventh fret (a way of lightly plucking a string at certain points along it's length in order to ring out harmonic frequencies above it's fretted pitch) and then with his left hand he's stretching the string by pushing on it above the nut (the part of the string that goes from the 'nut,' or zero fret, to the tuners on the headstock) thereby bending the note and creating a sound that's similar to a pedal steel or even a theremin and consequently blowing my mind. It's so simple and so cool and I've never thought of it before and I am sure that once again I will find myself sitting around late at night rewatching this concert and scratching my head as John Mayer does things that I didn't know anyone was cosmically allowed to do.
But before that I'm going to go try to figure out if it's possible for a solo acoustic guy to credibly add harmonic bending to any tunes in his set. I'll probably just break a bunch of strings. Sigh....
