Triad Edude, D'Angelico Mini DC, Justin Sandercoe
The newsletter for guitar players.
Guitar Practice
Let's build on the triad arpeggio exercise from last Thursday's issue. We'll use the same chord progression and chord voicings, but dig into it a bit further, using some picking/note patterns that might take a bit of practice get used to.
As always, take it slow at first. Work on playing it cleanly as slowly as you need to, before gradually working increasing your speed.
Gear Showcase
D’Angelico Deluxe & Excel Mini DC
The D'Angelico Mini DC is a beautiful and inspiring double-cutaway semi-hollow guitar that combines classic tones with modern versatility.
The compact 14” body makes it super comfortable to hold and play (especially standing up), and it’s offered in a number of killer-looking colors usually not found in ES-style guitars (including with a satin finish on the Deluxe models).
The Seymour Duncan Seth Lover A4 humbuckers on the Deluxe model are bright, but easily tamed with the tone knob. The Excel model includes Seymour Duncan 59 humbuckers, which give a classic vintage tone, with clear articulation.
One of our favorite features is the ability to coil-split both the neck and bridge humbuckers. Not only are the coil-split tones surprisingly really good, the middle position when you combine one humbucker with one split pickup sounds incredible.
The Mini DC features the same slim C-shape neck that D'Angelico uses on most (all?) current models. While we'd love to see some D'angelico's offered with a bit fatter neck profiles, it plays fast and it easy to get around.
Due the the smaller body size (compared to something like an ES-335) and the semi-hollow design, the Mini DC's can suffer from a bit of neck dive when played standing up, but this is easily remedied by using a suede strap.
While we're partial to the more premium pickups and electronics included in the Deluxe and Excel models, D'Angelico also offers more budget-friendly versions of these in the Premier Mini DC and Excel Mini DC Tour.
Key Features
- A slim C-shape neck with either a rosewood fretboard (on the Deluxe) ebony (on the Excel)
- Deep cutaways allow for easy access to the upper frets.
- Comfortable and lightweight
- Seymour Duncan Seth Lover humbuckers (in the Deluxe) or Seymour Duncan '59 humbuckers (in the Excel). Split the humbuckers with the push/pull tone knob and get very convincing single-coil tones.
- Some of the best colors/finishes you’ll find in this style guitar
- 22 Medium jumbo frets
- Bone nut
- Also available as a ‘Premier’ and 'Tour' version at a lower price point
D'angelico's demo video of the Deluxe Mini DC is a good watch, featuring some tasty playing by Zack Comtois.
Check out the line of D'Angelico Mini DC's, or view them on Reverb
Guitarist/Educator Spotlight
Justin Sandercoe (Justin Guitar)
Born in Australia, and based in London, Justin Sandercoe is a guitarist, songwriter, performer, producer, and educator - not to mention, being quite a celebrity in the guitar space.
It's probably justified to call Justin Sandercoe the pioneer of online guitar education at this point.
After teaching private guitar lessons, Justin started teaching guitar online back in 2001, and launched JustinGuitar.com back in 2003. With a combination of courses, apps, books, jam tracks, and more, Justin Guitar is one of the most popular guitar instruction web sites in the world - with Justin being the favorite online guitar teacher for hundreds of thousands of guitar players.
Justin's background includes playing in bands and teaching starting at only 12-years-old, attending and teaching at The Guitar Institute in London, and touring with various bands (including playing over 1,00o gigs in a Rolling Stones tribute band!). He's also been published in Guitar Techniques Magazine, Total Guitar, Guitar Magazine, & Guitar Tutor, and has taught masterclasses at music conferences.
JustinGuitar.com features lessons and tools to help beginning, intermediate, and advanced guitar players. Whether you're just getting started with chords and strumming, or want to learn improvisation, blues, jazz, music theory, ear training, and transcribing, Justin covers it all.
While the site contains over 1,000 lessons, it's really the quality over the quantity that keeps guitar players engaged and coming back for more. Justin does a great job breaking complicated things down into simple terms, and he even tells you not to learn things you won't use. He's honest about it and if you want to go deep into theory, the content is there, but there's no point in learning certain things if you don't apply them to your normal playing.
Justin Guitar has grown in part to the large amount of great free content Justin offers, while his premium courses and other products will take your guitar playing to the next level.
For gear enthusiasts, Justin has quite the guitar collection, which includes a 1964 Fender Jaguar, 1965 Gibson SG, 1966 Fender Telecaster (featured in the photo above), a 1969 Gibson ES-335, and many more.
Check out Justin Guitar and his YouTube channel
🎸 Trending
- Ibanez has a new revamped, handwired Tube Screamer Pro. Per Ibanez, the new TS808HWV2 has an upgraded circuit design that maintains the original’s transparent and mid-range-focused tone, and is designed to cut through mixes well.
- Keeley Electronics released the ZOMA Stereo Reverb and Tremolo, which is getting great reviews, and quickly made it's way onto the pedalboards of players including Trey Anastasio. The pedal combines the most popular reverb & tremolos into three different pairs: Spring Reverb & Sine Tremolo, Plate Reverb & Harmonic Tremolo, and Plate Reverb & Pitch Vibrato.
- Michael Palmisano broke down a collaboration between Cory Wong and Billy Strings.
- We're starting to head into Black Friday deal season, and Guitar Center announced up to $150 off Epiphone Les Paul, SG, and ES-335 models.
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