walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jan 19, 2022 19:34:35 GMT
Top man, ben. Well done.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jan 12, 2022 9:54:38 GMT
I experimented with a cheap one decades ago, because Alfie Bass was scheduled to come in to Pebble Mill and do a medley from Fiddler On The Roof. I bought a soundtrack album and caught some of the feel from that, but having no idea how to tune the instrument (no internet, y'know...) put it in GDA.
The thing was painfully pointy, had a weird curvy back and nowhere to fix a strap, making it difficult to handle, and it was every stiff, being made of wood that felt like it must have been sourced from old primary school chairs. Realistically it was always going to sound awful. In the end I did the set on a mando, which I thought worked nicely.
I hereby apologise for wasting around £25 of BBC petty cash on a shitty instrument at a time when £25 would buy you TV licence. In my defence, this is nothing like the number of licence fees the Beeb wastes by shuffling today's unfunny "comedians" between panel games which all seem to be overseen either by an oversized speccy git or posh people with catarrh.
In answer to your original query then, I've played a balalaika but I can't play a balalaika.
On the plus side, I've dug out that old double album of Fiddler and it sounds fantastic.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Sept 27, 2021 17:20:31 GMT
I use Fender heavies for every instrument, I suppose as much out of predictability as anything else. I know exactly which grips and pressures of pick stroke they work with.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Sept 23, 2021 22:57:31 GMT
A lot of what Marty does harks back to the old Grand Ole Opry days: sharing a mic for vocals so you're actually hearing the person you're singing with rather than monitoring them; playing clean and as part of the band, rather than as the front act. No surprise that he served an apprenticeship with Bill Monroe And His Bluegrass Boys, in which many such values solidifed.
Must admit that the black Nudie suit covered in crosses he wears on occasion creeps me out though.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Sept 21, 2021 11:19:14 GMT
I use a teaspoon placed bowl-down against the saddle to lever out stubborn bridge pins. No sharp edges and steady leverage make teaspoons seem designed for the job.
People may wonder why you carry one in your guitar case, mind, so it's probably a good idea to carry a revolver in there as well, to distract them from the notion that you could be a druggie.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 28, 2021 22:57:50 GMT
Given that you can buy good and even great sounding budget guitars nowadays the only real criteria to apply are 1) Do you like how it sounds? 2) Is it comfortable for you to play? 3) Are Ferraris or Porsches worth the money? (I see skyetripper expressed a somilar sentiment to the latter)
A friend who recently retired from teaching music maintains that all playable instruments are starter instruments, by the way, and none are easy because there is so much to learn about technique and music itself. The rest comes from any natural talent (which can take different forms) and hard graft.
"You never stop learning. I learned something watching a kid this morning." Charles Mingus.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 17, 2021 9:45:37 GMT
In his autobiography All You Need Is Ears George Martin describes the way the chicken sound effect at the end of Good Morning morphs into the reprise of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as "The luckiest edit you could ever get." I think the real luck lay in having a producer with ears acute enough to notice the "remarkable similarity" between a particular guitar sound and a single cluck from a chicken.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 14, 2021 1:20:12 GMT
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 11, 2021 20:59:16 GMT
That'll do nicely.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 10, 2021 12:00:28 GMT
That's downright beautiful.
Sadly, albums by the Woodstock Mountains Revue, the very fine folk and country supergroup that did the original version of that song, aren't available now. John Prine did a version, though it's a bit too bouncy for me. Time to crank up the record deck and get out the vinyl again.
EDIT: It's on Youtube, though the sound is a bit 'bottled.'
Great lyrics, as it goes:
Leaves were falling just like embers In colors red and gold, they set us on fire Burning just like a moonbeam in our eyes
Somebody said they saw me swinging the world by the tail Bouncing over a white cloud killing the blues
I am guilty of something I hope you never do because there is nothing Sadder than losing yourself in love
Somebody said they saw me swinging the world by the tail Bouncing over a white cloud killing the blues
Somebody said they saw me swinging the world by the tail Bouncing over a white cloud killing the blues
Now you ask me just to leave you To go out on my own and get what I need to You want me to find what I've already had
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 7, 2021 15:44:35 GMT
One of the greatest pleasures in learning how to do something is showing others what you can do. Otherwise there would be no need gold medals or places like the Plucky Duck. If I could play like Tommy I'd want to show off but 4 minutes was a bit too much for me to enjoy as a watcher. Impressed for the first 2 minutes but getting hard work to keep up from then on. It's a bit like adding sugar to your perfect brew. I would love to see him play live though. I remember a lad on the old Acoustic magazine forum (the one whose ashes this one was built on by Martin and Keith) posting a version of Mississippi Blues. It could be accused of coming straight from Stefan Grossman's tab, but it had musicality, dignity - it had something. Then someone else posted a video of Emmanuel doing a version - it could be that sort of forum at times - which was, indeed, technically phenomenal. The stately old bues was speeded up, stood on its head and kicked into as many shapes as the can of peaches in Three Men In A Boat. Impressive - but not as much so as the version by the lad who had got inside the music and made it his own. I think "superpicker" technique can get in the way sometimes. Listen to Doc Watson's early recordings and they're steeped in the oftentimes dark inherited tradition of his family and music he had been inspired by, where later he seemed preoccupied with impressing an audience. The standing ovations came from playing Black Mountain Rag at the speed of light, not some minor key song about an English cuckold which had somehow found its way to the Blue Ridge. it needed a sensitive collaborater like David Grisman to occasionally draw the old Doc out of hiding. I dunno, maybe it's me being cranky again. John Hartford once remarked in song that style is based on limitations and I immediately seized on that, perhaps as an excuse to inwardly talk up my own constrained abilities.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 7, 2021 12:33:13 GMT
I can't stand him. Showmanship over taste.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jul 23, 2021 23:49:35 GMT
Billie Holiday used to babysit Billy Crystal. Images of a wide-eyed child cowering beneath the covers as a stoned Billie tries to sing him to sleep with Strange Fruit.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jul 23, 2021 9:34:53 GMT
Still on people not getting proper credit, Shakin' Stevens was either the most or one of most successful singles artists in the UK during the '80s. You can't consult the almost infallible Guinness Encyclopedia Of Popular Music on the matter because it neglects to mention him at all.
Burl Ives, he of Big Rock Candy Mountains and Ugly Bug Balls (no photographic evidence for the latter, but it must be true) was a nark for the McCarthyites, naming Pete Seeger among others to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Pete, being Pete, eventually forgave him.
Zal Zanovsky of that most-summery of groups The Lovin' Spoonful was a nark of a different kind, turning in his dealer to the police. That led to a backlash against the band from among the counter-culture. He left soon after, with the group claiming "musical differences."
The Grateful Dead's involvement with Timothy Leary and The Acid Tests is part of their legend, but it was roommate Rick Shubb, he of capo fame, who introduced Jerry Garcia to LSD.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jul 17, 2021 11:47:15 GMT
While we're on iffy crediting, it's surprising how many people credit the guitar riff that constitutes the only real hook of Layla to Clapton, when it was Duane Allman's creation.
On the other hand, Duane is often credited with the work of Dicky Betts. An NME journalist once assumed he wrote and played on Jessica, which was written after his death.
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