Monday 16 May 2011

Guernica, a sorrow scream of our specie

“This picture has not made for decorating rooms. It’s an offensive and defensive war instrument against the enemy”
Pablo Picasso, about ‘Guernica’.

I don’t have chosen a photo. I think Photography is a very cool and interesting art and activity, but I’m not identified with it. Artistic paintings are better making me feel intense emotions. So, I would talk to you about one of the greatest pictures of 20th Century and all over Art History.
‘Guernica’ is the name of the most famous painting of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. He painted it in 1937, referring to the bombing of a Spanish town called Guernica, in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War. It is an oil painting and its dimensions are 3,50 x 7,80 m, using only black and white paint, working with grey scales. The work hasn’t direct allusions to the town and to Spanish Civil War; so, it’s a symbolic painting, full of allegories -some of these were explained by Picasso- and with many interpretations about the whole work.
The most common ideas about Guernica’s interpretation converge in a blue and dark response to the war like an option for societies and the cruel way it manifest for the common people. I really admire this painting, because it transfers to me all the anguish and death feeling of the last century (and current). When I see it or I remember it, I think art is more powerful than weapons and it could be, just like Picasso said, a better and stronger instrument for face up to an evil enemy: The hunger for power.
I wonder you like this post. Before going out, I would share to you a too interesting anecdote about Guernica. In 1940, in Paris, during the Nazi occupation, a Nazi officer interrogated Picasso about a photo of Guernica: “Did you made it?” Picasso answered: “No, you did” (In plural).

Monday 2 May 2011

Save a tree. Make an electric Guitar.



Life without electric guitar is a planet without the piece of madness that it needs. It is noisy and soft, at the same time. It is a great tool for creating music and expressing opinions and emotion. It’s a symbol of ‘rebel sensitivity’, hated by the neighbors, maybe by your parents, but admired if you turn to a master of it. 



Electric guitar is a music instrument based in classic -’Spanish’- guitar but using capsules –little microphones- instead of echo chamber. So, capsules receive strings vibration and transduct –‘transform’- it into an electric current. Signal arrives to ‘processing’ device –amplifier or effects pedal-, and it sends processed signal to a speaker, transducting again from electricity to sound. So, we have a hard-distorted riff, or a beauty and vibrating clean arpeggio. Or a helicopter or the sound of war!


So, we have many options for creating and playing sounds! People like Jimi Hendrix left his mark in music and culture by surprising and delighting us playing electric guitar in their particular way.

I have my electric guitar since when I was 15 years old. I was very happy! It is not a ‘qualified’ guitar but, for me, it is the best guitar in world. Immediately, I started to seek people for playing rock with. I formed a band and, little by little, we are progressing. And, every day, I learn something new about guitar. ‘It`s a long way to the top if you want to rock n’ roll”.