I picked up a Stagg L-320 electric guitar today and turned in my 4 month old electro-acoustic Stagg SW206. I love the new guitar – here’s a picture of it:
Stagg L-320
As you can probably imagine, I have retuned this to EBEBEB and am happily playing Carnatic on it. The strings being smoother, the sliding and tapping is easier and less fussy. The great thing about the new equipment is my new amplifier. Its a 20W Fender which I picked up for a low price ($40) but has reverb and distortion and great quality. I like the sound of the guitar so far and being more acquainted with acoustic guitars, I am exploring the wide variety of sounds in the new one. I recorded a Hindolam with the new guitar, so here it is:
I sound so much like myself despite new equipment (which is sane, but boring). There are a few new tricks I can attempt with sustain and the new reverb function. Hope to be posting more music yet!
2 Comments
September 25, 2008 at 12:56 pm
congrats. The guitar sounds very nice. You know it seemed like suddha-dhanyasi also to me
– basically the shadjam wasnt resolved in my mind clear enough (particularly in absence of any tampura) and I guess I latched on to the ma.
Also the snippet between the 7s and 10s reminded me of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac which I believe is minor pentatonic i.e. suddha-dhanyasi – (could be wrong) – that may have been the culprit for me.
Arun
September 25, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Thanks Arun. It did sound like Shuddha Dhanyasi to me too! Second listening. I should try playing “Narayana Ninna Namada” once, maybe I can see where I made prayoga differences, since I think the swaras were very much Hindolam. Its possible that the Shadjam was not clear. I’d like to record some kind of MP3 with the S-P going on in the background so that I can get the hang of the rhythm.
It’s possible that the song sounded like The Chain, probably because I shifted into the lower octaves. Interesting that The Chain is minor pentatonic and that a Shudda Dhanyasi can be derived from Hindolam (as with Mohanam and Shudda Saveri)
Wikipedia says, “Hindolam’s notes when shifted using Graha bedham, yields 4 other major pentatonic rāgams, namely, Mohanam, Shuddha Saveri, Udayaravichandrika (also known as Suddha Dhanyasi) and Madhyamavathi. Graha bedham is the step taken in keeping the relative note frequencies same, while shifting the Shadjam to the next note in the rāgam. See Graha bedham on Mohanam for more details and illustration of this concept.”