walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Nov 28, 2016 11:36:04 GMT
Two. A Vintage V300 and a Squier Tele with a little Pignose amp.
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walkingdecay
C.O.G.
Posts: 1,676
My main instrument is: brownish and rather small.
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Post by walkingdecay on Nov 28, 2016 11:30:26 GMT
Copies of lyrics and sheet music (for putting on a music stand and cribbing (blows raspberry)), a teaspoon (good for pulling out sticky bridge pins, bowl down), tuners, various flat and fingerpicks, a pack of Beatles commemorative stamps which someone gave me and I've never moved to somewhere safe, a yellowing CDR of some of my songs, several strands of hair, unidentifiable gunk.
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walkingdecay
C.O.G.
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 26, 2016 8:49:50 GMT
You know those exercises and warm-ups you see in tutor books but only try once because you'd rather be playing a tune? Well, many of them are worth learning and playing at least a few times a week. They can help you to move across the strings and around the fretboard more efficiently, teach new and useful techniques and help you to develop rhythm, tone and flow (about which more later).
I didn't bother with such things myself until a couple of musical mentors set me on the path. I noticed improvements in my playing soon after that and still find particular routines helpful. I often find that running through some warm-ups sharpens my playing on days when I start out awkwardly, and have come to recognise that scale and interval exercises have helped me to "hear" where to find particular notes in my head and to play by ear.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 25, 2016 15:44:00 GMT
If you're using a pick (hillbilly for plectrum) try not to grip it too tightly or you'll find the strings resist your strumming motion - and that they produce a metallic clanging sound that doesn't really resemble music. It's surprising how little physical pressure of finger and thumb is needed to keep a pick in place whilst allowing just enough give to enable a nice strumming acton.
If you're worried about the things flying away and you're using plastic picks, try using a paper punch to make a hole in the plastic where the ball of your thumb will rest. It offers a bit of added grip and may help you relax your grip in the short term. You'll soon find that you can use picks without the hole and that they're not the escape artists you originally thought.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 25, 2016 14:18:55 GMT
A bit like Scruggs-Keith D tuners on a banjo, except I don't think you can use them for string lengthening special effects like this:
I have a pair on my old banjo, but I admit I've rarely used them for quick retuning but only for the whoiiing! sound.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 25, 2016 14:09:08 GMT
We've all been through the sore finger stage of guitar playing. If you have any tips for newer player, perhaps things you wish you'd known when you got started, please post them here.
My first advice for any new player would be to use your little fourth finger on the first string when making a G chord. This may seem counter-intuitive as the fourth finger is not quite as strong as the oft-employed third, but it not only makes for easier movement to other chords but starts to train it and strengthen it right away. You'll soon find how useful and agile fourth finger can be in all sorts of playing techniques.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 23, 2016 9:04:34 GMT
Thanks to you Jonny. I've really enjoyed playing around wth that one again.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 23, 2016 8:01:41 GMT
I'm afraid I have no idea whether such a thing exists, Jonny. In my mind it is more a chord progression with a neat resolution.
For what it's worth Glen Campbell's version went C Cmaj7 C6 Cmaj7 Dm Dminmaj7 Dm7 Dminmaj7 Dm Dminmaj7 Dm7 G7 (fifth moves to turnaround) C Cmaj7 C9 (easy one to miss but prepares the ear for a new verse) C to top.
Banjo is a little more complicated, because John Hartford tuned his down to suit his voice, while to suit the Campbell version you have to play in C, which isn't a friendly key when you might want to keep the low D string in play and shadow the rise and fall of the song's bassline. On the couple of times I played it with Val Doonican I chose to capo at the fifth fret and play out of straightforward G rolls. Whether that is the received wisdom or not I don't know.
The song is a bit of a masterpiece I think. The chord progression actually reflects the classic country themes of movement and return, with the parts were you hang around in D minor variants acting as a sort of pause for reflection. Val pointed out that you can speak the lyrics rather than sing them and it will still work.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 18, 2016 14:13:22 GMT
Bobby Weir's back with a new album, which is a big thing to an old Deadhead like me. It's darned good too, much to my relief.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 18, 2016 13:36:39 GMT
Has she got that serial killer yet? I gave it up after the first series when the killer made so many mistakes Clouseau would have caught him in ten minutes, and there were plot holes you could drive the Titanic, that iceberg and Greenland through without any of them touching the sides.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 14, 2016 7:06:46 GMT
Mr Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate His Bobness and offer genuine thanks for the inspiration, motivation and plain enjoyment I have gleaned from his work down the years. From overalled balladeer to adept poet who is chronicling what it's like to get old and still be alive into the 21st century it seems he is always been with us.
Keep going Bob. You and what you do are still needed and will always be relevant.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 12, 2016 9:35:09 GMT
Also thanks for facilitating the 72 Tele Deluxe I just bought...oops Please don't. After a fruitless search for my workhorse 1970 Tele with B-bender, sold in a fit of madness in 1984 (had a genuine lead but the guy who had it wouldn't say who he sold it to on Ebay), I am trying to resist.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 12, 2016 8:50:23 GMT
Aging pros who need the words is a completely different matter. (Sadly) I don't think it's just oldies. The ability to memorise is a skill you can have more or less of, like musical ability, and language itself works in different ways in the minds of different people. As someone with a packrat memory I actually wish some performers would use crib sheets instead of leaving me sitting there thinking, "OK, what happened to the verse where the nurse is asleep whilst the babe bitterly doth weep? I like that bit."
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 10, 2016 14:00:00 GMT
This thread has had a salutary effect of helping me decide not to go to singers' nights anymore. In these parts they're mostly to be endured rather than enjoyed, and I was attending out of a sense of duty. No more.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 10, 2016 13:53:55 GMT
Cakewalk Sonar for me, because my first copy came with my Samson mic and then took advantage of a very cheap upgrade offer, but I'd be happily using Audacity otherwise. Audacity makes good clean recordings and it undoubtedly has the least fiddly interface of any DAW out there. While I know my way around most of Sonar now (there are features I'll never use) it's taken a long time, whereas with Audacity I made my first multi-tracker within an hour of downloading it for the first time.
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