As his TrueFire lessons demonstrate,
Joe Deloro enjoys
exploring a variety of acoustic
and electric guitar styles.
Along the way, he’s arranged
numerous guitar transcription
books for Warner Bros.
Music Publications and Hal
Leonard Corporation. Among
the artists he’s transcribed
are B.B. King, Led Zeppelin,
Neil Young and Crazy Horse,
Van Morrison, and Rush.
As a writer, his instructional articles and CD lessons have appeared in
Guitar Player, How To Play Guitar, and Acoustic Guitar magazines.
In addition, he has acted as an author, arranger, and narrator for the
award-winning UBI Soft Entertainment CD-ROMs,
Plugged-In and
Songs
of Lennon & McCartney.
How many TrueFire courses have you authored?
Two:
Blues Rock Road Trip and
Blues Rock Road Riffs.
Is there something you’d like to teach that you haven’t yet?
I have a number of ideas. At the moment, I’m working on Blues Rock
Road Riffs 2.
Is there a mistake practicing guitarists frequently make?
What
would you suggest to correct it?
For beginners and early intermediate players, it usually has something to
do with rhythm. They tend to practice too fast. I suggest breaking things
into smaller, logical parts and playing them very slowly to get them perfect
before reconnecting them with solid tempo and phrasing. Of course,
working with a metronome throughout the process makes a big difference
as well.
What drew you to blues rock?
Inspiration and improvisation from many great jazz, blues, and blues
rock artists.
What is your idea of good “tone?”
As they say, it’s all in the fingers. Another part of the good tone recipe is
effective use of the “headroom” concept. With blues rock on electric, it
involves using a relatively soft attack with the amp’s volume and tone set
to break up to your taste and much louder than you actually want to project.
That way, the guitar and amp aren’t overworking and there’s a richer,
“power in reserve” approach to your sound. It takes good gear, patience
and practice to develop the feel.
On acoustic it’s the same underlying concept – don’t attack the guitar
too hard, and fly a bit under its tonal and dynamic radar.
Whose tone do you really look up to?
Well, a good tone for one situation or style might not work for another.
There are so many great guitarists with tones to admire that I don’t really
have a favorite, though the quality and variety of tones that Hendrix
achieved on much of the EXP and Band Of Gypsies studio work is
always inspiring.
What is one suggestion you’d give to students trying to improve
their tone?
Besides imagining their sound in their head and having adequate headroom,
they should practice slowly enough to identify and remove extraneous
finger and string noises.
Joe’s Gear Box
Guitars
Fender American Deluxe HSS Strat
Fender Showmaster QBT HH
Fender American Standard Tele
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Amps & Cabs
Pod Pro XT (Blackface Twin tweaked)
Amplitube (Bluesy Combo heavily tweaked)
|
Effects
Reverb, noise gate, and compression from
the Pod and Amplitube.
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www.joedeloro.com