The roaring 60’s – early influences …

"Know thy instrument"

I continue my journey into the land of music and guitars. As previously when relevant I will add comments and fun-facts from my late father (he was much wiser than understood at the time).

Lesson one (from the old man): Know thy instrument!

Without knowing your instrument, background, history etc., it will only be a sound reproducing artefact. The guitar should be integral and an extension of you in order to bring it to fullest “life”.

The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six.

A guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides." The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas.

(A chordophone is a musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification.)

The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German Gitarre, and the French guitare were all adopted from the Spanish guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic qitara) and the Latin cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek kithara.

Enough of this for now …

I will return to the subject later.

Let’s move over to the musical part of this blog, the roaring 60’s …

Lesson two (from the old man): For god’s sake, this is not music! (rock & pop music).

What more does a young soul need to explore the “forbidden”, than his father’s disapproval of something … You have all been there, I bet.

Some bands that easily spring into mind ,  from 63 up to abt. 66 - 67:

·         The Rolling Stones,  - always with me;

·         Herman’s Hermits had some melodic hits that I liked, but it was more of a fling;

·         The Who, rebels, My generation still is a strong tune. Later the rock opera Tommy;

·         The Troggs, especially “wild thing”, still got the ring to it …;

·         The Small Faces,  "Itchycoo Park" (you can probably smell the weed ;)), "Lazy Sunday", "All or Nothing", "Tin Soldier", and their concept album “Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake” – a really serious concept at the time; 

·         Kinks, "You Really Got Me"  "A Well Respected Man" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" are worth mentioning, and Ray Davies (founder & front member) still release albums, though not often;

·         Beatles, - needless to say!

For those you who se eye-to-eye with me, - run and revisit your roots!

To be continued …