But for once in the purchasing process of your instrument, brand names are important. That’s because the right names invariably point at those manufacturers who have taken the trouble to build quality instruments which are not only tuneful and which resonate authentically, but are designed and built to make the process of learning to play so much easier. Once you have read this and you know better what you are looking for, you can expect to try instruments from the likes of Yamaha, Tacoma, Gibson, Takamine, Washburn, Seagull, Tanglewood, Taylor, Martin and a few others. Custom-built guitars is a whole different area with the best of those costing thousands. We are targetting the hundreds!

But back to business.

The height of the strings or the ‘action’ of the guitar, the weight or ‘gauge’ of the strings, the thickness of the neck, the bulk and dimensions of the body, the woods chosen, all combine to make the guitar what it is to the new player – an unknown quantity which may or may not be the instrument to get you playing within hours. And if the instrument is right and you have the basic skills and determination, a good instrument can help you play your first tune literally within minutes of getting started.

On the other hand, a badly made or inadequately prepared instrument, can see you still struggling painfully to play a song weeks later!

The action of the guitar – the height of the strings from the surface of the neck of the guitar – is critical, as is the gauge of the strings employed. Your fingers are sensitive to the steel strings so the strings should be ‘light’ enough and easy to press down with your still weak fingers. A lower action with you using say 008 or 009 gauge strings will make your efforts to play your first chord a breeze, so when buying the guitar, you can check the action at the outset and see if the factory set-up has been good and the strings are easy to depress. You must also check at this stage if the neck of the guitar fits comfortably in the light grip of your hand and if your hand moves smoothly along the neck over what should be a silky smooth surface under or behind the fingerboard.

Which leads us to the key parts of any guitar, something you should know as you, like so many before you, are probably about to fall in love with your ideal instrument and enjoy a lifelong attachment to this wonderful new friend!

The Acoustic or Electric Guitar
Now let’s walk through the critical components of the steel-string acoustic and the electric guitar, as they share a number of common features. Once you are proficient on either, you can readily switch to the other with almost no difference in demand on your new skills.

The Body
The body of the guitar comprises the Top, Back and Sides minus the neck. On an acoustic guitar, the body itself provides amplification while on a solid body electric, the body is largely a home for the pick-ups and other controls.

Top
The top of an acoustic guitar is the key component of its sound. A solid top acoustic guitar will sound better than a laminate top guitar while speaking of the top on a solid body electric guitar, it is most often in reference to a carved top of quilted or flamed maple that is glued to the top of the solid back of the guitar, done entirely for cosmetic purposes. Guitars with highly quilted or flamed tops can fetch thousands of dollars on the boutique guitar market.

Woods
The two most popular woods for acoustic guitar tops are Spruce and Cedar. Spruce produces a bright sound and Cedar produces a warmer sound. Spruce is most often preferred by guitarists who use picks (flat-pickers) and Cedar is most often preferred by players (finger-pickers) who only use their fingers.

Sides
The Sides of an acoustic guitar may be solid or laminated. But solid wood is preferable to laminates on an acoustic guitar.

Back
The back of an acoustic guitar is often noteworthy for its cosmetic appeal often graced with an exotic wood in the guitar’s construction. On an acoustic guitar it is just another component with about as much tonal importance as the sides. It is the top that is primarily responsible for the acoustic guitar’s distinctive – if any – tone.

Headstock
The headstock – at the end of the neck – is most often where a company sites the logo or brand identifier of their guitars. It is also the home of the tuners. Many popular guitars are recognizable just by their headstocks.

Tuners
Tuners are used to tighten and loosen the strings and are usually located on the headstock. They can be metal or plastic.

Neck
The neck of the guitar connects the headstock to the body. A strong, nicely machined neck is essential in a good guitar. It can be glued or bolted onto a body or it can be of neck-through-body construction running all the way through the body. The neck of an acoustic guitar is usually glued to the body but some companies bolt the neck to the body.

Truss Rod
The truss rod is a steel bar inside of the neck that is anchored at each end. It may be tightened or loosened to straighten or bow the neck. It is used to offset the tension created when the guitar is strung.

Fretboard
The fretboard is glued to the surface or top of the neck. A guitar fretboard usually has 21, 22 or 24 frets. Most acoustic guitars are not designed to be played high on the neck so there often are fewer frets because they aren’t needed. Some acoustic guitar fretboards only have 18 or 19 frets.

Frets
A fret is piece of wire that is hammered into the fretboard so that a specific note is played when a string is held down against it. Each fret is a musical interval of one half step. Move one fret up the neck and you’ve moved one half step or a semi-tone. Move twelve frets and you will have moved an entire octave. A 24-fret neck is a 2-octave neck.

Nut
The nut is the thin strip of bone,metal or plastic at the top of the neck, just below the headstock. This holds the strings in line above the frets on the fretboard. The nut was traditionally made of bone but nowadays graphite or plastic is often used.

Bridge
The bridge is where the strings pass over at the tail end of the guitar. Acoustic guitars utilize a one-piece bone or plastic bridge that is staggered for proper intonation set into a wooden tailpiece. The position of the bridge is vital in the intonation of the guitar.

Saddles
Saddles are almost never present on an acoustic guitar. The saddles are the individual (hopefully moveable) parts on which the strings actually rest on the bridge of an electric guitar. These are extremely important in amplifying any electric guitar.

Pickups (Electric Guitars)
There are basically two types of guitar pickups: the Single Coil and the Double Coil or the Humbucker. For easy comparison, the Single Coil pickup is best represented by the Fender Stratocaster and Humbucker pickups by the Gibson Les Paul.

Traditionally, Single Coil pickups produce a hum (electronic noise) when plugged into an amplifier and their tone is noticably thinner than a Humbucker. Humbuckers have a full, fat tone and produce no hum when plugged into an amp, and are well suited to a heavy, distorted sound because of their superior output and hum-canceling characteristics.

Both styles of pickup have their own distinct tonal qualities, and each is available with a wide range of power and tone modelling characteristics.

The Classical Guitar
In contrast to either the steel string acoustic and the electric guitar, the classical or Spanish guitar is typically strung with nylon strings, plucked with the fingers, and played in a seated position. Well made guitars of this style are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar’s wider, flatter neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and challenging chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone.

Archtop guitars
These are steel-string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved from a solid billet in a curved rather than a flat shape. This violin-like construction is usually credited to the American Orville Gibson (1856-1918) and Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars soon after designing a style of mandolin of the same type.

The typical archtop guitar has a large, deep, hollow body whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings

The Build
The build or construction of any acoustic guitar is critical to the final output of the instrument – the sound. The typical and familiar cross-bracing typical of the modern steel-string was actually developed in the 19th century by American luthiers of whom C. F. Martin is the best known. Martin acoustic guitars are among the most sought-after today challened only by the likes of Gibson and Taylor, also known for the quality of their work. Originally used on gut-strung instruments, the strength of the cross-bracing system allowed the guitar to withstand the additional tension of steel strings introduced in the early 20th century. Steel strings produced a brighter tone, and according to many, a louder sound.

The acoustic guitar is a ubiquitous icon today used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz, and blues. There are a huge variety of ‘builds’ and designs, among them the classical-sized ‘OO’ and ‘Parlour’, to the large ‘Dreadnought’ and ‘Jumbo’ variations.Innovative luthiers Ovation make a modern variation with a rounded back/side assembly molded from artificial materials.

“Once you’ve been touched by music then age doesn’t matter” PAUL WELLER

“D’you fancy a cup of tea?” asks Paul Weller. “I’m just about to make one.” In his dressing room before the final show of a five-night run at London’s Roundhouse, the Modfather is getting the drinks in. A few years ago, celebrating a No 1 album or backstage at one of his gigs would mean a full-on party. But today, a teetotal Weller doesn’t touch anything stronger than a cup of Tetley’s.

“I haven’t had a hangover in 18 months and I feel great,” says Weller, who admits that he was an alcoholic.

“Life is good and I’ve even been driving home after these shows. That would never have happened before.”

Sonik Kicks, Weller’s 11th solo album, is not only a winner in sales, topping the album charts on the first week of release, it’s also one of the most critically acclaimed of his 35-year career.

And it is remarkable that in the past few years the ex-Jam and Style Council singer, now 53, has given us his three most experimental albums with Sonik Kicks, 2010′s Wake Up The Nation and 2008 double 22 Dreams.

He says: “It’s been a great creative time for me and I’ve lived and worked long enough to know you have times in life where you’re very, very on it and others when you’re not. This is something I want to keep going with.”

And it’s not only his music that is experiencing change but his personal life too.

His new wife Hannah, 25, gave birth to twin boys, Bowie and John Paul, in January.

Dressed in a stripy shirt, Paul looks as dapper as always but since quitting booze, he looks fresher-faced than in the past and his new lifestyle clearly suits him.

Sipping his tea, he says: “My lovely mother-in-law has been up to help us out so we’ve slept more this week than we normally do.”

Proudly showing me pictures of his sons on his phone, he says: “Look at them. They sleep facing each other but they don’t acknowledge each other yet.

“They’re doing well. Both of them have doubled their bodyweight already, which is not normal apparently. Twins only do that at six months. Here’s another photo. One of my other sons has been taking millions of pictures of his skateboard, I see,” he laughs.

The birth of Bowie and John Paul takes the Weller brood up to seven, ranging from 23 to two months and Dad is intensely proud of all of them.

His eldest, Nat, 23, and Leah, 21, are from his marriage to Style Council singer Dee C Lee.

Then there’s Dylan, 16, who was born out of a short relationship with her make-up artist mother Lucy, then Jesamine, 12, and Stevie Mac, six, from his long relationship with ex-partner Samantha Stock, who Paul left when he met Hannah Andrews who sang on his album 22 Dreams.

They married in September 2010 on the Italian island of Capri.

“Life throws things at you and you never know what’s going to happen next,” he says.

“You might have all the plans in the world but that doesn’t mean anything. Life holds its own secrets and you have to go with them. Sometimes change is painful but ultimately it’s good.”

Sonik Kicks is also a family affair. The psychedelic Dragonfly is adapted from a poem by Jesamine.

Hannah duets with Weller on the jazzy Study In Blue and Leah and Mac sing on the album’s closer piano ballad Be Happy Children, a tribute to Weller’s beloved dad and manager John who died in 2009 after a long illness.

Weller says: “Not all my kids are musical. My two eldest ones are and Mac’s going to follow in my footsteps, I think. He’s just started to play guitar. He just asked me to show him one day and he’s only six.

“And I hope I have the same relationship with my kids as I did with my dad. He was a brilliant dad and we were great mates. And we got to spend so much time together which is pretty unheard of in life.

I still miss him at times but I’ve got more of a philosophical view as I think he’s with me in whatever form you want to think of it. I can see that carried through to me and to my kids and hopefully to their kids too.

We don’t entirely die as part of us is carried on and continued in the next generation.

“As for singing with Hannah, Study In Blue is a great song. I really love it. We wanted the right song to do a duet, without it being too slushy.

“Hannah sings with me but she’s not a professional singer and she hasn’t got any aspirations to be that.

“She was brilliant when the twins were born. A proper little trooper. And they were big for twins. One was 5lb 10oz and the other one was 6lb 3oz.”

Latest single That Dangerous Age is based around a riff similar to The Kinks’ All Day And All Of The Night and David Bowie-style vocals. He says: “Yes, there is some Bowie in there. I like a lot of his stuff and Hannah is a massive fan.

“I suppose the song’s theme is born out of when me and Hannah first got together. Because of our age difference, people really took an interest in it, saying I must be having a mid-life crisis. But we just fell in love and that’s it.
“I’m of the opinion, once you’ve been touched by music then age doesn’t matter. What are you supposed to do, put away your records and clothes when you get to a certain age?

“My mum is 71 and she still listens to the records she’s always listened to.

“That Dangerous Age is a character study about a guy who’s in mid-life, who’s got a good job and is dissatisfied and regrets all the things he’s never done.

“But it’s certainly not about me. I had my mid-life crisis when I was in my thirties.”

Dragonfly and The Attic feature Blur’s Graham Coxon. He’s not the only mate Weller’s got in on the album either.

Noel Gallagher plays on three tracks — The Attic, Around The Lake and When Your Garden Is Overgrown — and long-term friend and Ocean Colour Scene guitarist Steve Cradock appears on a number of songs.

“Yep the extended family features on the record as well as the family,” he smiles.

“It was a fun album to make.”

One relationship that has suffered, though, in recent times is that of co-songwriter and producer Simon Dine, who has been credited as helping with Weller’s rebirth.

The pair fell out over money, and went their separate ways.

Paul says: “Yes, we both worked on this record together but we fell out towards the end. I don’t really want to go into it but it was over money.

“I know there’s been mention of him being the reason behind my rebirth,” he smirks.

“But for the past 35 years I’ve put out pretty good records without him too.”

Listening to electronic music, Weller thinks, has really shaped his new sound on Kling I Klang and album opener Green, a psychedelic mindbender that might even surprise some of his die-hard fans.

“It’s certainly one to make people sit up straight away and realise we’re in for a different ride,” he says.

“It’s bold, with a Kraftwerk thing going on. There are about two or three tracks on the album that they have influenced.

“Electronic music is something I’d never heard before but I checked some out a couple of years ago.”

On Paul’s five nights at London’s Roundhouse last week, he played Sonik Kicks in its entirety. And he says this year will all be about selective shows so he can spend time with his family.
He explains: “We’re just going to do some one-off shows and make them as special as we can.

“A few dates in Europe and we’ve got a couple of gigs in New York then other stuff later in the year, like the Latitude festival. It’s all about picking and choosing really.

“You just get to a certain age and you can’t really do it anymore.

“It’s the same with smoking. I quit for nine months then started again in the last month — it must be stress — but after tonight I’m stopping again.

“The changes have been good for me, so has my new family.

“It’s all about looking ahead and there’s plenty of that to come.”

Sonik Kicks is out now.

• 9:30 pm Zero Hero [Alternative /Concrete /Rock]
• 10:30 pm Domina Claudia [Fetish]
• 10:45 pm Bone Clone [Garage Rock]
• 11:45 pm Franky’s [Punk/Folk]

Zero Hero is a classic Thai Indie rock band while Domina Claudia is from Italy and will be stopping in Bangkok on her way to Tokyo to give us a taste of her unique schtick… She, we are assured..’will bring you to your knees’, and then Bone Clone is ‘gonna blow your doors off’. Franky’s eclectic interpretation of our favorite Irish and American classics and English punk songs will ‘raise your head, let’s raise the dead’. Tokyo Joe’s is located at 25/9 Sukhumvit Soi 26, roughly 300 meters into the soi from Sukhumvit, on the left hand side. It is located diagonally across the street from St. James Hotel.

CHINA GIGS FOR MUSOS WITH CHOPS  CHINA GIGS FOR MUSOS WITH CHOPS  CHINA GIGS FOR MUSOS WITH CHOPS  CHINA GIGS FOR MUSOS WITH CHOPS  CHINA GIGS FOR MUSOS WITH CHOPS  CHINA GIGS FOR MUSOS WITH CHOPS  CHINA GIGS 

Eric Johnson in Hong Kong is an agent who needs bands urgently for gigs in Asia and the Middle East with several band openings for 5 star hotels in Asia and Middle East for end of 2011 and also in 2012.  3-6-12 month contracts. He requires:

Male/female or 2 female DUOS

TRIOS: 2 female/1male

4-piece – 7-piece BANDS: at least 1 or 2 female members in the lineup.

Large bands should have high-energy on stage, dance moves, choreography etc.

All acts need to be well dressed and look professional.

Style of music can be pop, R&B, rock, jazz, dance, hits, latin etc.

Performance 4 sets of 45 minutes per day, 6 nights per week.

The following is provided for free for all artists during the contract: accommodation, meals, visas, flights, use of facilities etc…
Salary ranges from US$1000 – 3,000 net per person per month, depending on quality, experience, nationality etc…

If interested and available for gigs in Asia and Middle East, please send your current video links, photos and info.

Send your application to:
newactsubmission@live.com