It's not every day that you stumble across a "hard to find" gem of a guitar like this on Craigslist. And especially at such a bargain price. I'm just working under the assumption that the photo was fuzzy because of the magical aura that this guitar gives off. Any guesses on the custom paint job? Oysters on the half shell? Dalmation spots? Randomly painted white blobs outlined in black on white finish?

I feel confident in saying that over the past decade of catching acoustic guitarists playing in bars and small clubs, over fifty percent were playing Taylor acoustics. The playability and easy to use electronics have made these guitars a favorite among those who could afford them. Taylor is now setting their sights on staking a small claim on the electric guitar market. Share My Guitar has given the Taylor Electric Solid Body guitars a very thorough review. The review covers everything from the case, to interchangeable pick guards, and even audio samples. For around two thousand bucks you get a well made and versatile electric guitar. Check out their review for the full details and decide if you want to give Taylor's foray into the world of electric guitars a test drive at your local store.

Take a look at our new free lesson on learning a standard tuning slide guitar version of Amazing Grace. This arrangement by Roger "Hurricane" Wilson can be played by beginning or intermediate slide guitarists with it's single note melody line. The youtube version is embedded below but you can check out the tab and higher quality Quicktime video here.

If you have a Fender Strat you may have noticed that the metallic rods or polepieces on your pickups are at varying heights. Not all Strats have the staggered heights, but those that do are compensating for not having adjustable polepieces. But really this is just getting us to the question of why you would want to have staggered or adjustable polepieces. Fender explains:

"staggered polepieces help bring the volume of each individual string into balance so that one string or a couple strings aren't disproportionally loud compared to the other strings. This is a sonic phenomenon that can and does happen, and depending on your ear for tone it can range from mildly noticeable to outright maddening"

To read more about this concept check out the article
. I adapted the photo above from hyperbros to highlight the polepieces with my super high tech green arrows.

see more Funny Graphs

We have a new free lesson by Jody Worrell on playing a guitar lick like Stevie Ray Vaughan. The youtube video is embedded below but you check out the lesson page for the higher quality Quicktime video and tab.

Billy at 300 Guitars answers the question "how many watts should my amp be?" Like most things, the answer depends on how you will be using the amp. Performance at a noisy club? Practicing at home? Luckily, Billy provides a quick primer on the basics of amps and gets you started on the right path of picking out what works best for you.

"From the above definitions watts and decibels are two different things. You can have a relatively low powered amp that is very loud and would be able to keep up with a drummer on a stage with no problem. Just because you have more watts does not always mean you are going to be louder and the watts increase is not directly proportional to the decibel increase. Take for example two Marshall heads. Let’s say one is rated for 50 watts and the other 100 watts. By looking at the watts you would think that the 100 watt head would be twice as loud because it has twice the power right? Wrong! The loudness difference between the 50 watt amp and the 100 watt amp is only 3 decibels (dB) which is not really a drastic difference. It would take 10 times the power of the 50 watt head to be twice as loud as the 100 watt head which is 500 watts! Ouch…..!"

(photo by the yankee quido)