I'm Sittin' On Top Of The World

This is a today-only kind of blog post, friends, because Today Only google is celebrating what would have been Les Paul's 96th birthday with a guitar logo you can strum with your mouse. Even better: using the little black box, you can record thirty seconds of your very own Les-Paul-inspired guitar(computer) song.

Also courtesy of google: everything you ever wanted to know about Les Paul.


Oh, there he is.

(Forever link - to prove it really happened.)

So Long To Good Times

No more Guitar Hero? What will Kiri Miller study now?

Just Me And My Guitar

I started this post looking for photos or video of Christian Marclay's phonoguitar (a modified turntable he could strap around his neck and "play" [he especially liked recreating Hendrix tunes]), but: turns out that's difficult.

I did, however, find a video of one of his newer works, Guitar Drag (2000). Yes, that's an amplified Fender with a rope around the frets, dragged behind a pick-up truck over rural roads in Texas. Obviously.
The piece is a sort of homage to guitar mythologies, instrument smashing and shock performance, as well as a response to the 1998 lynching-by-dragging of James Byrd, Jr. And (with no good way to segue back into the relatively trivial) Guitar Drag is also about sound: fourteen minutes of what the Washington Post calls "found-art power chords." There's even a commercial recording out there somewhere.

I Love You Baby / But Not Like I Love My Guitar

American Air Guitar Championships 2010. Romeo Dance Cheetah is the winner (the video is one of last year's performances).
Flickr pictures. News article.

I like this one.

The World Championship will be held in Finland this August.

(via nerdcore)

X Is The Shape I Drew Through Your Face / In Permanent Marker

This is certainly one way to remember your chords...



(The arm belongs to Cedric Paul Mamuri; the original post belongs to Neatorama.)

When The Power Chords Come Crashing Down

Little did Professor Leon Theremin know to what use his invention would one day be put...



Theremin Hero: The Website (brainchild of Greig Stewart)

(via metafilter)

The Whole World In His Hands

Less-than-greater-than-or-equal-to six-hands piano (aka piano triet)? You decide.



(For comparison purposes: Exhibit B)

Swing 42

Joscho Stephan & Swing Manouche: sitting around in a café playing Gypsy jazz. This is very much how I imagine my life in sideways-world.

Strange Things Are Happening Everyday

I like when instruments are played non-conventionally. This looks like a particularly good time, ouais?

He Could Play The Guitar Just Like A Ringing A Bell

Crazy guitars of the musical and famous: "50 Guitars" courtesy of the LA Times Magazine.

World's Greatest Ever

"I didn't imagine being this good...but I guess I am."

Chris Chike is the Guinness-Book-recognized #1 ranked Guitar Hero III player in the world.



(via CBS on youtube)

If You Liked It Then You Should Have Put A Ring On It

Oh Francisco Táregga, you turn of the century composer you! You thought you would write a nice waltz (a "Gran Vals," in fact), but alas! what it has become...

Here's a version of the original (you'll recognize it):



(via metafilter)

Drove My Chevy To The Levy

Charlie Nothing and the Big Ding
circa 1975
1954 Chevrolet redesigned
"I make my guitars out of American Cars"

Charles Martin Simon

(via metafilter)

I Need A Hero / I'm Holding Out For a Hero

But this is what happens when our heroes go over to the dark side: GuitarHeroBrokeMyKnee.com.

Blackbird / Fly

Voilà Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's new installation commissioned by the Barbican in London. Messiaen would be proud.




In other news: I wish there were more birds in the city. Zebra-finches > Pigeons. Who's with me?

(via neatorama)

Our House / In The Middle Of The Street

An Hui Province, China.
There's an elevator in the violin that takes you to the piano-house. Think on THAT.


(via HomeSweetHome and coolpictures)

Cause I'm Bluffin' With My Muffin'

Classical guitarist Igor Presnyakov plays a little Gaga. He's stunnin' with his love glue-gunnin'.

Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar

Why listen to one guitar when you could listen to one hundred? Loud.

Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 13: Hallucination City (for 100 guitars)

Oh Say Can You See?

This is the world's smallest guitar.
Made out of crystalline silicon, it's about the length of a single human blood cell. And the strings? We're talking maybe 100 atoms wide.

Sure, but how does the sound hold up next to a Martin D-50 K-2 Deluxe?

Cornell University Nanofabrication Facility, 1997
(via weburbanist)