"...The essence of any musical instrument, is Beauty..."
- for Ikmal & Najeeb
The guitar is no exception. In fact, the guitar is one of the most popular musical instruments of all time. While it has less strings than a piano, it is by no means a lesser instrument. After all, which other instrument has spawned so many clones, models, varieties and even styles of playing? If you don't believe me, try playing a harp with a bottleneck... But why is the guitar so popular? I guess no other instruments can be as versatile, polyphonic and portable as the guitar. From the smallest Ukulele to the humongous 5-neck electric guitar, this instrument has been used by many people for various purposes. Classical, Folk, Pop, Metal, Rock, Blues and even Jazz.
A guitar to me is truly a thing of beauty. From the body to the headstock, using different types of woods, one can create a magnificent piece of art. All the types of body styles, headstock designs. But I'm not here to talk about the way the electric guitar evolved to it's current state. If you want to read about that, you can find that here, or here.
I'm actually more concerned about what it is about a guitar that really gets me going: the tone. Tone is a very powerful thing. Like the power of love, it can:"make one man weep or another man sing."
The kind of music I play is now commonly known as progressive rock. Prime examples of this music type would be: Rush, Yes, Dream Theater, Kings X, so on and so forth... Being the only guitarist there is in my band (my band is a three piece), I have to handle all the textures, sound effects, melodies and rhythms of the song. If I didn't have good tone, then all you would hear when I play is mush. I would fade away in the background and never be heard from ever again. I like a distinctive tone. One that I find, I can only get from my Ibanez JPM which happens to be the 90th anniversary model. Here is a picture of three of my guitars... the only one missing is the Ibanez 440R.
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This guitar was designed by John Petrucci of Dream Theater who also happens to be the largest influence in my playing. Petrucci himself has to compete with a really powerful drummer (Mike Portnoy), killer bassist (John Myung), wizard keyboardist (Jordan Rudess), and fantastic vocalist (James LaBrie). And the only way he can do that is if he has a very smooth and distinctive tone. Smooth enough to blend in and compliment the song while distinctive enough to scream through if and when he needs to. While I don't have Mike Portnoy or John Myung to worry about, I do have a very stable bassman (Najeeb) and a powerhouse drummer (Ikmal) to contend with, and believe me, with these two, it's quite a task... but with this guitar, it really makes the job a lot easier. That and my trusty MultiEffects Pedal, the BOSS ME-30. Nowadays, I only play Ibanez Guitars for electrics and Takamine Guitars for Acoustics...
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| John Petrucci's Guitar | Mike Portnoy's Drumset | John Myung's Bass |
My list of the world's top guitarists (In no particular order)
1. Steve Vai
3. Joe Satriani
5. Eric Johnson
6. Paul Gilbert
By the way, I am also currently searching for a keyboardist and a vocalist. So if you live in Singapore, can handle progressive rock, and can write songs, drop me a line! You can mail me, or ICQ me @ 1720211. We''l meet up for a jam...
For all you active desktop (Windows 98) guys out there, you can actually use the beautiful JPM on my cover page or the new JEM as a wallpaper. You can download either of 2 files here:
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There are instructions on how to use these images in the readme file. Please don't take the images here as they don't look half as good as those meant for downloading.
