Axe Care: Avoid Rusty Screws

There are times when you simply hate it.  You want to remove your guitar’s backplate or some other part but you can’t because rust has eroded a screw or two — or more — and your screwdriver doesn’t have anything to latch on to.  You don’t want this to happen to your priceless guitar, do you?

Here’s a tip.  Head off to your nearest aluminum and glass shop and bring a sample screw along with you.  If your guitar uses more than one size, then bring one of each.  Go ask if they sell aluminum screws — which is very likely owing to the nature of their business — make sure you ask for a screw that has the same diameter and thread.  Buy more than enough for spare, just in case you might need more.  If you’re lucky, then you’ll go home with the right screws.  The screws are likely to be wood screws because they are often used to bind aluminum screen frames to wood; besides, if you end up with metal screws, you can use those for wood, but not the other way around.

The ones I got are round-head screws, which match the ones on my guitars.  It’s up to you if you prefer Phillips over slotted, but I guess it won’t really matter as long as you have the right sized screwdriver and you’re well aware that you’re not tightening screws or bolts of a motor engine or some metal or concrete installation that requires brute force.  Common sense will tell you that overtightening your guitar’s screws can damage the wood and you’ll end up ripping out your screw instead.

Remove your original, shiny screws and replace them with the aluminum ones that you just bought.  Now, if and when you ever decide to sell your guitar, put the original screws back to give your guitar a little more resale value.  Oh, and don’t replace those four large screws that hold your neck in place with aluminum ones.  I won’t even replace the ones that hold the tuning pegs because I believe the original ones do a better job of securing the pegs in place.  Obviously, the screws that usually catch your sweat are the ones that rust pretty quickly, so those are the ones that you’d want to replace.

The Dominant Chord: Emily Remler’s Approach

The late, great Emily Remler had a simple but very effective approach to improvising over a dominant chord.  She didn’t care which upper extensions created tension or dissonant tonalities.  Rather, she thought of a chord as either static, which didn’t go anywhere, or dynamic, meaning resolving to some major or minor chord.

Think of the second chord of the progression in the songs  “Girl From Ipanema” and “Take the A Train.”  You will notice that from a tonic chord, the next chord is a dominant chord that just stays there.  Emily would play a melodic minor scale (and of course all its related licks, intervals, sequences and arpeggios) a perfect 5th above.  So if that chord was a G7 or any of its variants, she would use a D melodic minor approach.

Now if a dominant chord was part of a II-V-I progression, say

|       Dm7    /    G7    /        |       CMaj7    /    /    /       |

– when she got to the G7 chord, she would use the melodic minor a half step above, so in this case the Ab melodic minor (again including arpeggios, et cetera).

Simple enough, I agree, but the possibilities are endless.  Go try it and have fun!

Brian Wampler’s Plextortion

Brian Wampler has developed another pedal, and this time it’s a Marshall JCM800 in a tiny box.  If you’re wealthy enough to own or lucky enough to use a Bogner Shiva, then this pedal will drive the Bogner’s clean channel the way it should be.

Anway, go check it out here:

http://www.wamplerpedals.com/members/plextortion.htm

Mordy Ferber, Danny Gottlieb and Jeff Berlin Play "Solar"

At the 2004 NAMM, Mordy Ferber, Danny Gottlieb and Jeff Berlin get together and play the jazz favorite “Solar.”  I really like the way Mr. Ferber bops.  So sit back, relax, and have a cold one.  Or two.

Peter Kienle Playing "Stella by Starlight"

This is really awesome playing by Peter Kienle, who was born in Germany but now lives in the United States.  Check this out.