After writing a few music cues for Warner Brothers earlier this year, I’ve been looking into becoming more involved in composing music for picture, so I headed down to Los Angeles for the Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa on Monday and Tuesday October 24 and 25.

As guitarists, most of us sooner or later find ourselves in pursuit of tone.  A talented guitarist can find a way to make anything sound good, but there should be no doubt that our equipment and the tone it provides can inspire and help fuel our creativity.  In pursuit of tonal inspiration, we need to develop a vocabulary to help us find what we’re looking for in our sound.    The Audible Frequency RangeMost guitarists start out by learning the names of the musical notes corresponding to a particular string and fret number, but they are not initially aware that these notes also correspond to the fundamental frequency of the vibrating string.  For example, the sixth string played at the 5th fret (low A) in standard tuning has a fundamental frequency of 110 Hz.  Any doubling or halving of a frequency is an octave, so the next octave up from 110 Hz would be 220 Hz.  In order to develop a vocabulary for tone, we have to think in terms of frequencies as opposed to musical notes.The audible frequency range for us human...

I had heard his strange tones on various YouTube clips over the years, but never knew what to expect from this unusual and provocative guitarist in a live situation. Rather than try to make this a review, I thought it would be more like a brotherly retrospect from one guitarist on another. Oz Noy is an interesting fellow to say the least. Like Hendrix’s arrival on the scene, he is like an invader who comes into our sphere and disrupts the balance of things and all that has come before. His gear seems pretty normal. A 1965 Bandmaster head through a vintage Matchless 2x12 with ceramic magnet speakers. A stock Vox wah and a host of rotary simulators and Uni-Vibe-like phasers. A germanium transistor fuzz pedal, a ring modulator and a couple overdrives finishes out his mid-sized pedal board. His guitar looked like a relatively stock 1966 big-head three tone burst Strat—probably a custom shop model with a stock tremolo. I didn’t interview the cat for details,  so for all you Oz Noy freaks out there please forgive any...

Travel has given me the opportunity to literally and figuratively see and hear the world from a new perspective. As a musician, when traveling I always look for an occasion to explore the local music scene by seeking out live music as well as checking out the music stores.

Let me start by saying that not every vintage guitar, amp, or pedal sounds good—just like not every vintage Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Page, or Blackmore recording sounds good. A lot of old gear sounds like crap, and so do some old recordings.