ABOUT RAR: For those of
you new to this site, "RAR" is Rick Alan Rice, the publisher
of the RARWRITER Publishing Group websites.
Use this link to visit the
RAR music page, which features original music
compositions and other.
ATWOOD - "A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance"-AVAILABLE
NOW FOR KINDLE (INCLUDING KINDLE COMPUTER APPS) FROM
AMAZON.COM.Use
this link.
CCJ Publisher Rick Alan Rice dissects
the building of America in a trilogy of novels
collectively calledATWOOD. Book One explores
the development of the American West through the
lens of public policy, land planning, municipal
development, and governance as it played out in one
of the new counties of Kansas in the latter half of
the 19th Century. The novel focuses on the religious
and cultural traditions that imbued the American
Midwest with a special character that continues to
have a profound effect on American politics to this
day. Book One creates an understanding about
America's cultural foundations that is further
explored in books two and three that further trace
the historical-cultural-spiritual development of one
isolated county on the Great Plains that stands as
an icon in the development of a certain brand of
American character. That's the serious stuff viewed
from high altitude. The story itself gets down and
dirty with the supernatural, which inATWOOD
- A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliveranceis the
outfall of misfires in human interactions, from the
monumental to the sublime.The
book features the epic poem"The
Toiler"as
well as artwork by New Mexico artist Richard
Padilla.
Elmore Leonard
Meets Larry McMurtry
Western Crime
Novel
I am offering another
novel through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service.
Cooksin is the story of a criminal syndicate that sets its
sights on a ranching/farming community in Weld County, Colorado,
1950. The perpetrators of the criminal enterprise steal farm
equipment, slaughter cattle, and rob the personal property of
individuals whose assets have been inventoried in advance and
distributed through a vast system of illegal commerce.
It is a ripping good yarn, filled
with suspense and intrigue. This was designed intentionally to
pay homage to the type of creative works being produced in 1950,
when the story is set. Richard Padilla
has done his usually brilliant work in capturing the look and feel of
a certain type of crime fiction being produced in that era. The
whole thing has the feel of those black & white films you see on
Turner Movie Classics, and the writing will remind you a little
of Elmore Leonard, whose earliest works were westerns.
Use this link.
EXPLORE THE KINDLE
BOOK LIBRARY
If you have not explored the books
available from Amazon.com's Kindle Publishing
division you would do yourself a favor to do so. You
will find classic literature there, as well as tons
of privately published books of every kind. A lot of
it is awful, like a lot of traditionally published
books are awful, but some are truly classics. You
can get the entire collection of Shakespeare's works
for two bucks.
Amazon is the largest,
but far from the only digital publisher. You can
find similar treasure troves atNOOK
Press(the
Barnes & Noble site),Lulu,
and others.
Wikipedia: "Slide guitar
is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. Instead of altering
the pitch of the strings in the normal manner (by pressing the string against
frets), an object called a "slide" is placed upon the string to vary its
vibrating length, and pitch. This slide can then be moved along the string
without lifting (hence the name), creating smooth transitions in pitch and
allowing wide, expressive vibrato."
By RAR
I'm sure that if you took a poll, the vast majority of
Rock and Blues music fans would count themselves as slide guitar enthusiasts.
That would also apply to fans of Hawaiian music and Country, though Country
music sliding is mostly about the Pedal Steel, which is an entirely different
instrument than what people are usually talking about when they talk about
"playing slide". Pedal Steel is to the guitar what the Hammond B3 Organ is to
the acoustic piano, which is to say much more complicated. To play Pedal Steel,
a musician not only has to move a slide across a double-neck guitar, but also
has to manage a dozen pedals, a volume pedal, and about eight different knee
pedals. It's like driving the freaking space shuttle and not something anyone
can do, to any great effect, without years of dedicated study. The Hammond B3
Organ is almost as complicated, relying on an array of valves and things other
than just tickling ivories. Playing it well, like my friend Gary Swan does, is
an extraordinary accomplishment. I don't even know anyone who plays the Pedal
Steel; in fact, I assume that you would have to explore the deepest recesses of
Nashville to even spot such a creature, similar to spotting Bigfoot in the
wilderness. Those dudes are rare.
What is not rare are guitar players who use a slide as a
technique employed on a regular acoustic or electric guitar, and this is
probably why I, personally, have a strong negative bias regarding slide guitar
players.
It's not that there aren't good ones, it's just that it
takes no talent at all to tune a guitar to an open tuning - they usually play in
open D or open G - and wiggle a slide along the raised strings above the frets.
You could hand an open-tuned guitar to a chimp, push a slide onto his finger,
demonstrate the basic technique, and Chita would give you something back that to
most people would sound a lot like a slide guitar.
One of the most revered slide players of all time was the
late Duane Allman. He started playing slide
after he hurt his hand and couldn't play his instrument the way it is supposed
to be played, utilizing chord structures and picking techniques that can be used
well with standard tuning. (I have something of a negative bias against
alternative tunings, as well, because they function as crutches for players who
just haven't mastered their instrument. That will bring me heaps of scorn from
Joni Mitchell fans, but though I love Joni
Mitchell there is nothing that she has ever done with alternative tunings that
couldn't be done by playing full chords in standard tuning. Open tunings are
just short-cuts, from my point of view, which comes from the place of one who
has spent 50 years trying to figure out how to play guitar the "right" way. Note
that there is something to be said for open tunings because unfretted strings
sound clean and clear, and that is used to positive effect.)
Run-of-the-mill music fans love the Rock sound of a
George Thorogood or the Blues of a
Bonnie Raitt, though neither of them really
do anything that rises above cliché. Most musicians who play the slide are
imitating Robert Johnson or one of the other
Delta or Chicago Blues luminaries who leaned heavily on the swampy sounds that
can so easily be created using the slide technique. Here in the Bay Area, we
have Roy Rogers, who doesn't seem to do
anything but play slide guitar and after hearing one song you have basically
heard his entire reportoire because everything guys like him play are major
chords, and for me music has to be a lot more interesting than that. There are
slide players who try to add some regular-level nuance by playing with two
slides, one on their wrapped around thumb, designed to cover just the fifth and
sixth strings, but why? Why wouldn't you just throw the stupid slides away and
play minor chords, and augmented chords, and diminished chords, and everything
else that real guitar players play? I'm sure slide enthusiasts have answers to
all of those questions, but none would satisfy me.
Louisiana slide player Sonny
Landreth is certainly one of the more interesting of the sliding lot,
but you know why? It's because he puts the slide on his little finger so he can
augment his slide playing by using this three free fingers to play melody and
connecting notes outside of the slide, interspersing those into his slide playing. That passes for innovation in
the slide community. Sonny does this exceptionally well, but you never see him
become Django Reinhardt, the Gypsy guitarist
of the pre-1950s Jazz era, who was injured in a fire that essentially fused his
third and fourth fingers and so he did almost all of his extraordinarily complex
jazz using only two fingers. He did not, to my knowledge, say "fuck it", I'll
just tune my guitar to D and use a slide, because you couldn't play complex
music doing that. Likewise, the talented Landreth never really uses his three
free
fingers to play Django-level jazz, but rather just touches on added melody notes before leaning hard
back into the slide. For my money, he is probably the greatest of all the slide
players, but he's still a slide player.
Derek Trucks is the
slide player who seems dominant in the slide world these days, but he is just
playing support parts and the kind of Rock'n Blues slide that you get a lot of
in Southern Rock. It involves a really limited vocabulary, which is actually
what his fans relate to. Music fans who don't care about the ins-and-outs of
guitar playing do respond to familiar sounds, and Derek Trucks serves these up
expertly. But, he's a lot like Roy Rogers and the rest, playing the same licks
over and over.
Eric Clapton scored a
big reputation boost through the slide guitar he played on
The Beatles "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", for
which the technique worked perfectly, because slide guitar can be expressive,
particularly if you want weeping, moaning and whistling sounds. He played parts
created by the vastly under-appreciated George Harrison,
whose slide guitar work became a big part of his signature as a player, though
he never used the technique as anything other than a tool in his fully-realized
arsenal of tricks. Like Clapton, Harrison was an actual guitarist.
Provided below are videos of notable slide players, just
so you can check my points of view and tell me where I'm wrong.
From Guitar
World Magazine:
Five Reasons Why You Suck at Playing Slide Guitar
#1: Your
guitar is in standard tuning. This is the biggest killer of new slide
players. Don’t try to play slide in standard tuning. As a starter,
re-tune your guitar to open D (D A D F# A D) and rake that slide up to
the 12th fret like Elmore James! With an open tuning, the slide becomes
a moveable chord up and down the neck.
#2: Your
strings are too light, and the action is too low. Slide guitar is
different than shred guitar. If you want to grind out some deep grooves
with that new slide on your finger, get some heavier strings on your
guitar that will maintain pressure as you slide. (My electric guitars
are strung with .012 sets with wound G strings.) Also, raising your
action keeps your slide from clacking on the frets.
#3: Your
non-slide friends told you to study Sonny Landreth and Derek Trucks.
That’s like learning to drive a car using a Lamborghini! Sonny and Derek
are amazing players, but they’re the top-level masters. Start where they
started, with the foundational slide heroes. Fill your playlist with
Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, Muddy Waters and even some George
Thorogood.
#4: You’re
putting the slide on an uncomfortable finger. So which finger is correct
for slide? The answer is, there is no correct finger! If the slide feels
comfortable on your pinkie, then that’s where you should wear it. I use
my ring finger. Bonnie Raitt puts her wine bottleneck slide on her
middle finger. Australian slide wizard Dave Hole uses his index finger
and plays with his hand over the top of the neck!
#5: Your slide
doesn’t fit right. This one has a simple solution: Collect more slides!
I now have more than 50 guitar slides, from generic slides sold in
guitar stores to hand-cut wine bottlenecks, spark-plug sockets (they
make awesome slides!), medicine bottles found at flea markets and even
strange contraptions like The Edge Slide, which mimics Blind Willie
Johnson’s pocketknife.
One extra suggestion:
Get a dedicated slide guitar. Heavy-gauge strings and higher
action might not be the best thing for your main axe. Instead, find the
cheapest, gnarliest guitar and convert it to slide. Hound Dog Taylor
played the shittiest, cheapo Japanese guitars through old Silvertone
amps with blown speakers, and it was the greatest sound ever. For some
reason, slide guitar sounds fantastic when played on junky guitars. Old
electrics such as Silvertone, Teisco, Harmony and other off-name brands
from the Sixties are prime axes. But your kid brother’s abandoned First
Act electric guitar will work, too.