Branding Your Guitar - Ask Zac 118

well hello friends and welcome to
0:54
another Ask Zac hope you're doing well
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today we're going to talk about
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personalizing your guitar i think you
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got plenty of fair warning with the the
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opening pictures that you saw
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so I'm going to talk about that going to
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talk about what i did on my guitar a
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little bit of the history of that
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and then I'll even uh show some of the
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chords that i learned from kind of a uh
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not the usual suspects uh kind of guy
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that i learned those chords from that i
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used in the opening little instrumental
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all right so while you're thinking about
1:26
it if you haven't done it already and if
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then also you get
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these with the Ask Zac logo on them so
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that's part of
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supporting me so all right so let's dive
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in
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all of this started for me recently
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with
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doing the episode on jimmy Bryant so
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that was a fun episode i love jimmy
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Bryant
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and one of the really great things that
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i learned about him was that on his
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early broadcaster and early telecasters
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that he used
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on a number of them he had clear pick
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guards that had graphics underneath him
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which of course I've imitated here
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his had his name and then a a cowboy
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on a horse and then he had another one
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that had his name but it was it was
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white leather
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so
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i kept thinking about it and i was like
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why why does that remind me of something
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where have i I've seen this done before
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now it wasn't done before
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chronologically but it was something
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that i was exposed to long before that
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and then i remembered
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um
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a college friend of mine
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had a uh a telecaster that he put
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a a clear pick guard on
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and i let this friend borrow a magazine
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and
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because i thought he would enjoy it you
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know because it was a he he's you know
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he's into country music and uh
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and uh this was country guitar which was
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uh a offshoot of guitar world this was a
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great magazine
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and i let him borrow it
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and when i got it back
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it had this stuff you know kind of
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coming out of it and that was because
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there was an article on junior brown you
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know the get steel player
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and he decided that he was going to turn
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that
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into
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a
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you know material to go underneath his
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pick guard
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so that's what he did
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i thought that was pretty funny and of
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course i still have it because i still
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have the magazine because i i enjoyed it
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so much
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but uh this guitar player friend of mine
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he has continued to do that to this day
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so he uh he has always had guitars with
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clear pick guards on them and he's put
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different graphics uh underneath him
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sometimes he's even put fabric
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and so i was reminded of that which
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somehow i had forgotten
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and i thought you know what it'd be
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really fun to do something like this
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um
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another thing that popped up was i
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recently got the pine caster book which
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you can see behind me the uh gigantic
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four volume
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uh
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you know wonderful wonderful history of
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of early electric guitars and
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you know telecasters black guard
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telecasters and the prototypes made out
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of pine and such that's where the pine
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caster name comes from well in looking
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through that i was surprised by how many
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guitars
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had still had initials on them
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you know of their former owner original
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owners or even where they had spots on
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the body where you could see where a
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decal or letters had been removed
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so
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it seems that that really became a
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popular thing you know
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very much so in country music but even
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beyond that i mean
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think about you know some of the photos
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that you know you saw in the opening
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little montage i mean you saw bb king
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and he had his name in the radio station
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that he played on he was using his
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guitar as kind of a billboard
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and then you have you know earl hooker
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that on his double neck he had his name
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and you know just not inlaid in the neck
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but just you know stickers that he had
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put on the headstock especially you got
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a lot of room on that 12 string
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headstock
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and then you think about Stevie ray
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Vaughn and jimmy Vaughn both those guys
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they uh you know
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they both took mailbox letters and put
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them put them on their guitars why
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well I'm sure it's because of the
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hillbilly you know the country
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hillbillies that they saw because that
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was the thing to do in the 50s it was
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very much a big thing and that's why so
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many black guards have them on there is
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because it was a huge deal it was cool
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to put your name on your guitar and so
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so many people would just get get
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mailbox letters you know because a lot
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of guys didn't think about
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trying to have a clear pick guard made
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or a leather pick guard some guys did do
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that of course you have gate mouth brown
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and other guys that did have leather
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pick guards made or jimmy Bryant but a
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lot of guys just took these mailbox
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letters and put them on their on their
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guitar and uh and i love it that Stevie
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ray Vaughan and
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jimmy Vaughn both did that all through
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the through the 80s and of course jimmy
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continued to play his old guitars with
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the letters on them you know even to
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this day
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so
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yeah i think i kind of came to the point
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where it was
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i just thought it'd be fun
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and also a non-permanent fun thing to do
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so i started thinking about what what
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did i want on there and of course you
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know i thought it'd be fun to have my
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name on there and then i thought what
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kind of graphic would i want on my
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guitar
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and well I'm a Texan and you know i
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lived the first
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20 plus years of my life there and I'm
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still you know
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a Texan through and through
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and if you uh
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dare to follow me on instagram you know
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you'll see that i uh post things like
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the other day i uh i smoked a brisket
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you know for uh you know for ten and a
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half hours and i uh yeah and that that's
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a you know that's one of those crazy
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Texan things to do is just to uh you
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know cook some old tough piece of meat
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until it's tender and uh
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and do all you know and wrap it and
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you know butcher paper and do all sorts
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of stuff to get it to where it's a good
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tasty piece of meat so yeah so i decided
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to do a cactus and i decided to do like
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the i guess what you call prickly pear
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because that's what i grew up with down
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in south Texas i got many uh cactus
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thorns in me you know running through
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the
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the brush as it were so yeah so i
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decided on that so my friends
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uh jay and Christy smith and so jay
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is the guy that uh designed the Ask Zac
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logo
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and uh his wife Christy
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is an amazing uh
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you know artist she does a lot of hand
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lettering and a lot of you know drawings
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and a lot of wonderful artwork
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and so she you know designed the uh
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you know the uh the cactus and of course
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drew up my name and i was i was really
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enthused that the the z you know kind of
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lined up with the curve of the body so i
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thought that was really really cool
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yeah so and then the the pickguard was
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just a clear pickguard that i got from
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all parts
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and i think most pickguard companies
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will produce one
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i think i i you know i
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probably would have gotten if I'd known
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that deco boom which they're the ones
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that made the pickguard that was on this
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guitar because that's what um Dan strain
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uses i probably and i might i might have
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gotten one of those but uh anyway this
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is an all parts one from Katy Texas of
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course
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and uh yeah so that's what's what's on
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there and uh Dan strain was kind enough
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to kind of bevel the edges on this
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and kind of polish it up
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and then my friends you know jay and
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Christy smith
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you know printed this out and they
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printed out on special paper so you
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probably can't see it but the paper is
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kind of card stock and then it has
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little flecks in it
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and so yeah this was a really really fun
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cool project so i was glad to
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get to involve them and get to do it and
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also it's something that you know i can
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i can change out you know i can i can do
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this if i want to change it to something
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else if i want to go back to a regular
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old piece of plastic on there i can or
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you know
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i can i can live with this so but this
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is this is a lot of fun and uh
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yeah
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so that's one you can easily do yourself
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and like i said before
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like my old college buddy uh he's taken
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the clear guards and he's put fabric and
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all sorts of different things to uh
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you know personalize guitars that don't
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have
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crazy shapes on the body and that's all
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i can say
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all right so now
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i want to talk about
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uh the chords that some of the chords
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that i used in the opening little uh
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instrumental piece you know where it was
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kind of I've got a woman the old ray
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Charles tune um kind of playing that
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and uh the chords that i played besides
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just the regular old eb7 kind of thing
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you know
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when i went up higher
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uh i used one was this a9 that you it
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only takes you know two fingers and
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that's i learned that from my guitar dad
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pat grogan who used to play with willie
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nelson
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[Music]
11:17
and there you just got you know you've
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got one finger on the on the fifth fret
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on the d string
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and then on the sixth fret on the g
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string and then the rest of the strings
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are open and you don't need to hit the
11:27
low e string
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so that's a fun chord
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but then the other
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like fancy chords i learned from robin
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ford who
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come to think of it i mean he's a great
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telecaster player and probably one of
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the guys that has popularized uh the
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telecaster you know the most outside of
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country music in the last like 20 or 30
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years because of how
11:50
how much he's played one and he has that
11:54
i guess the 60 or 61
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you know slab board you know blonde
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telly that he that he plays a lot and uh
12:02
which of course he makes it sound
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wonderful and it and and you know and
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that's of course just
12:08
i hate it when people say you know that
12:09
guitar sounds great well
12:11
you know robin ford makes any guitar
12:13
sound great but that that is a great
12:15
guitar that he makes sound great
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so
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on one of his videos that he did a while
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back he was showing some some guitar
12:23
some chords some big nice rhythm chords
12:25
and he did something like this
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[Music]
12:44
so
12:45
i just love that and so
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this is just this this big you know kind
12:50
of e9 chord that uh of course you get
12:54
that nice low open e string then you
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have uh on the on the d string you've
13:00
got the fifth fret
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actually that's the a string is on the
13:04
fifth fret on the d string you're on the
13:06
sixth fret on the g string you're on the
13:08
sixth fret and on the b string you're on
13:10
the fifth fret so you get this
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and of course you can kind of come from
13:16
a half step below
13:20
[Music]
13:22
or go up a half step
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uh then the secondary shape which is you
13:26
know i only used three shapes or
13:28
actually two actually
13:30
um is
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you start on the on the a string you
13:34
play the
13:35
fourth fret on the d string you're on
13:37
the fifth fret on the g string you're on
13:40
the fourth fret and on the b string
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you're on the fifth fret and so you get
13:45
this
13:48
that's your a
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[Music]
13:52
then if you just move it up two frets
13:54
you have your b
13:57
you wrap your thumb over the top to get
13:59
that bass note
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[Music]
14:07
[Applause]
14:16
and then there was one other thing where
14:17
i
14:19
where i took the a up to c
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[Music]
14:27
so
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and then you have that
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ending lick which is just the same thing
14:31
over and over again
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[Music]
14:39
all right guys well i hope you've
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enjoyed today's episode and uh yeah I'll
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see you next time bye