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The Nintendo Guitar

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I have to admit that at one time in my life, quite a while ago I might add, we were addicted to the original Nintendo Game machine. I think I got a bad case of Nintendo Hand-itis. way back in the day. We use to pick up tons of illegal game cartridges all over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). It got to a point where we were on this thing WAY TOO MUCH!

The Nintendo Guitar

I came across a picture of this weird custom made Nintendo Guitar and upon looking at the body of this thing I had a flashback to those addicted to this game years! I can’t image playing this thing for extended periods of time, but I guess it would be fun picking on it for maybe 1/2 an hour.

Keep on Jammin’





George Harrison’s replic Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar

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So Gretsch guitars are paying tribute to the late George Harrison by recreating a limited quantity of the 1962 Brown Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar that he made famous.

If your not all that familiar with this model, it is the one that you see George playing while he was with the Beatles when they were performing in the legendary Cavern Club in Germany. If you can’t recall it, then look at a copy of George’s Cloud Nine album. If you haven’t notice yet, I’ve got a Gretsch on this page. On this cover George looks an awful lot like a buddy of mine Tim M. in this picture to me that is!

Even his son, Dhania Harrison, gave the replica a two thumbs up. Dhania is quoted as saying “I’ve never seen a more precise and detailed replica of any guitar in my life.” Hell, Guitar Hero even has a replica one!

Don’t expect to pay the same price for this Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar that George did back in the day, which was around $210 at the time. The suggested retain price has shot up to around $20,000. Expect them to show up in selected stores about May of 2011.

I find it a unique approach that the designer used in making George’s replica Gretsch. This designer, a master luthier named Stephen Stern, went ahead and took his original guitar and brought to some who had a CAT scan machine, and scanned it.

Using this technology, you can see even the tiniest of imperfections in the instrument that the naked eye would easily miss. It would be able to differentiate between cracks and fractures that would affect sustain and resonance just to mention a few. You never know, all those little flaws that appear in or on the guitar really might make it have that distinctive sound that you might be searching for.

Talk about over kill but on the other hand, for $20,000 it might as well be as precise as possible!

Keep on Jammin’

Mohan Veena is where East meets West, musically that is!

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Through the eyes of the average North American, the Mohan Veena appears to look like a modified acoustic guitar with a generous sprinkling of the Sitar added in for good measure. At first glance most guitarists wouldn’t know whether to look for the strap on this thing or just lay it across their laps.

The name, Mohan Veena, is drawn from it’s creator Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.

The basic form of the Mohan Veena is taken from a modified Archtop acoustic guitar. It consists of 20 strings, three strummed and used for melody, five drone strings strung to the peghead, and twelve sympathetic strings strung to the tuners mounted on the side of the neck. The next part of the instrument is directly taken from the sitar.

Pandit took a tumba (made up of your basic gourd) then attached it along the back of the neck with screws. The neck itself is hollow. This allows the sound travel up from the body towards the head of it. By having a greater hollowed out, wooden area, which gives the sound more area to vibrate, it helps create a much warmer, distinctive and improved sound quality to it.

You hold the Mohan veena just the same as you would any slide guitar, on your lap. The strings on the Mohan Veena has excess of around 500 pounds of stress between the tuning pegs and the lower body of it, when it is properly tuned that is. Also, the player uses metal finger picks and a metal slide to create a very interesting musical sound.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have an old sitar upstairs, but it has definitely seen better days. The bottom of the sitar is beginning to split so I have to keep the strings loose on it, the screws that hold the tumba or the gourd on the neck needs attention, but it still looks awesome!

I just became aware of how beautiful this multi-stringed wonder is today and I felt that I had to share it with someone! So enjoy. If you’re curious about what this instrument looks like, please take a peek at this video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50gpwxARSrA

Keep on Mohan Veenan’!

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