Everybody's Guitar Blog

Broken finger

2010-08-23T21:08:00.004-04:00

Dear diary, somewhere around mid June (19th?) I played a game of soccer with my kids. The World cup was on so [football,soccer] fever was running high in our household. Unfortunately this cost me a broken little finger on my left hand.

It was a pretty innocent accident that caused it too. I simply dove after the ball and my finger got stuck in the grass while the rest of the hand was still moving along and snap, the damage was done. Unfortunately it was broken right on the first joint so it's been a somewhat unpleasant experience.

It's not so much the pain but the fact that I lost quite a bit of mobility despite exercises given to me by an occupational therapist. I'm back to playing again but I'm still having trouble with a number of things such as open G chords. The finger is also swollen and it may never slim down to its original proportions.

I've also been told on every occasion that I've seen the doctor that I will eventually get arthritis in that joint, possibly in 10-15 years. The first time I was told that I didn't like it of course but the doctor has to tell you these things I guess. I suppose the time frame is a complete guesstimate so I'm not really thinking about that too much.

I do mind a bit that I had to get my face rubbed into that fact on every visit though. You'd almost think that the man enjoyed telling me that I was doomed. I probably should have told him on every occasion that he would die. Probably in his seventies or eighties, nineties if he's lucky. I wonder how he would have liked me telling him that every time I saw him.

Anyhow, I've named my little finger Quasimodo because he looks a bit like a hunchback these days but I'm back to playing and I'm enjoying it again too. Les Paul still played with arthritis when he was 93 even though he mentioned in an interview he had re-learn how to play six times because of it. There is still hope for me I guess.

I'm not taking lessons at the moment, I'm trying to play a lot and make some progress on my own before I head back to the instruction and I'm having a good time doing it. Working a lot on getting my hands loose again and working a bit from the Berklee book. More or less back to the start because my reading is still very poor.

A more formal approach

2010-04-27T19:30:00.007-04:00

I've been playing for a while now and I've learned quite a few tunes with varying levels of success but I've felt the need to learn more about playing guitar with respect to actually reading notes, understanding scales and intervals and what not.
After discussing this with my teacher he suggested that I try working with him according to the Berklee method which was created by William Leavitt. My teacher learned following that method himself and he feels it is an excellent method to really learn how to play.

I've bought the books (actually one book with all three volumes) and I've started working through them. It's going okay and my reading is improving. I find that because I'm forced to play while looking at the sheet music I improve my overall playing as well. That is a great side benefit.

I was wondering about how long it would take to go through this so I 'googled' it and found a page called Tribute to William Leavitt and I was pleasantly surprised to see that towards the end it indicated the expected time it would take a person working through the books as a part-time or full-time student.
Assuming I will go through the whole thing as prescribed there I will be three years further (40 months to be more precise). That is a long time but it's good to have some idea. I'm not going to let it rush me but it's nice to have the yardstick.

New speakers

2010-03-21T17:01:00.004-04:00

I went ahead and ordered a pair of Jensen C8R speakers for my amplifier and installed them last week. The result is a great improvement of the sound the amplifier produces.

Playing songs for playing along through the auxiliary port was always a bit painful because it really showed the limitations of the standard speakers and that is really a thing of the past now. With the new speakers this now sounds great and on top of that the guitar also sounds a lot better.

Well worth the upgrade.

Here are the before

From Everybody's Guitar Blog

and after images

From Everybody's Guitar Blog

sorry, no sounds.

No real news

2010-03-09T23:43:00.004-05:00

As the title spells out, there is no real news but I have to urge to babble so I will write something despite the lack of 'real' news.

I have not been playing as much as I'd like because work and family life have been taking up a lot of time but I've been making steady progress so I'm not complaining. I have been getting a bit disappointed with the sound of my amp though.
I've always been amazed how much better my guitar sounds when I'm playing through the Traynor YCV20 of my teacher so I've been thinking about getting a different amp and possibly a tube amp. Tube amps are more expensive though so I've been holding off on that.
But after using my iPod earphones I found that my amp (Vox DA20) actually sounds very good. I now have also experimented with using the line out and playing through my JVC boom box and I've found that the amp is fine, it's the speakers and headphones I'm using that are the problem.
This of course makes the solution a lot easier, I can get new speakers and headphones and my amp will sound a lot better. I had been advised that buying good speakers for a digital amp would not be worth it but after trying playing through the boom box I'm convinced it will be well worth the upgrade. I can get 2 Jensen C8R speakers for $37 each so I think that will be a better deal than dishing out $500 and up on a tube amp.

For the headphones I've selected the AKG K240 Mk. II. They are quite expensive but that will be a birthday gift for me this year.

Guitar repair part 4

2009-08-25T23:37:00.003-04:00

I picked up some new strings this week. I went to pick up a new trigger for my son's Roland TD-3 V-drum set and while I was there I got the strings as well.

Last night I went through taking the old strings off and putting the new saddles on. I used the instructions in Dan Erlewine's book to line up the saddles and then left the guitar. Today I got around to putting the strings on. I took my time because I had to make sure that I set the height of the saddles first. After that I did the height of the pickup according to the specs in the book which was quite different from what I had it set to.

When all that was done I tuned the guitar and checked the intonation which to my surprise needed no adjustment at all. I guess the instructions were pretty accurate.

Now that it's all done I'm happy to report that the strings line up perfectly and they run over the pole pieces of the pickups as you would expect them to. After all that was done I played the guitar and to my surprise you could actually hear the difference. I don't know what it is, the string alignment, new strings or different height of the pickups or maybe even the combination of it all but the guitar sounded a lot better to me. Especially when I use only the rhythm pickup the guitar sounds a lot better. I'm really happy with the results and as far as I'm concerned the book has already been worth the money.

Now it's back to playing more seriously of course because I've been slacking in the last week.

Guitar repair part 3

2009-08-20T09:33:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I received the new saddles in the mail. I quickly lined them up on top of the old ones and I'm happy to report that they are indeed just a fraction narrower and I'm sure everything will line up nicely now. I'll just have to get a new set of strings before I put them on.

I recently got new strings so I'm not sure when I'll do it. It might be worth mentioning that I switched from 0.09 to 0.10 strings because I found the lighter ones a bit to wobbly for my taste. There is a little less difference between acoustic and electric now and that makes it easier to switch back and forth.

When I ordered the saddles I also ordered the Guitar Player Repair Guide by Dan Erlewine from StewMac. The books comes signed by the author which is a nice touch and it's full of instructions and tips for guitar setup and repair. I'm glad to have it as it will help me get the most out of my instruments.

The only thing that bothers me a little now is that it seems Fender has supplied saddles with the guitar that are not really the proper width. You'd think that putting on the proper ones would cost nothing more but then there may be no point in getting a US made Telecaster. I'm not complaining though, I really like the guitar and small cheap adjustments are preferable over paying a lot of money for a guitar that is not all that different.

Rock Band - Beatles

2009-08-16T11:06:00.005-04:00

I read an article about Beatles Rock Band in New York Times magazine on-line. My son has been begging me to get Rock Band for him. After seeing the demo's and previews on-line and with all the Beatles music he has been spoon fed by me he really wants to get the Beatles version.

We've made a deal that if he learns his times tables I will buy it for him. At this point I don't have too much intention to play with it myself because I rather spend my time playing the real thing.

What is interesting is how the article discusses the same questions I've had revolving the Rock Band game. I like the game but at the same time I'm wondering why you would go trough the trouble of gaining proficiency with the game if you can spend your time learning to play a real instrument.

The article discusses these things in depth but I don't agree with everything it says. One of the assertions is that kids are not involved with their music the same way older generations were but my experience with my own kids is that this is not true.

My son plays drums and as with any kid I sometimes (yes, often) have to bug him to practice but at the same time he is really into his music. He loves Green Day and as I mentioned he is really getting into the Beatles now. He uses his iPod to plug into his Roland TD-3 drum kit so he can learn how to drum along with his favorite songs.

When I'm practicing, a few notes of a song are usually enough to have him singing along and he usually knows the lyrics pretty well. That doesn't match the articles description of kids that don't care about music. It's probably the usual generational gap, I remember my parents complaining about all the things we don't do that they used to do. I do the same with my kids but in the end it's really just a normal process.

The new generation does things different than the previous one, and that's how it's supposed to be. They have skills we don't have and we have skills they will not acquire. As for Rock Band, I'll probably limit myself to singing along with the Beatles harmonies and I'll stick to my real guitar for playing. No matter what, I think it will be a good time spent with my kids when we're playing it.

Guitar repair part 2

2009-08-16T10:37:00.005-04:00

After a week and a half I got the call from Long & McQuade that my guitar was ready to be picked up again. I went the same evening, inspected the guitar and took it home.
I also got a new strap because I have only one and I had put that one on the acoustic again. Because I'm planning to play both regularly to keep up the hand strength I gained from playing acoustic for a week and a half I thought it made sense to have a strap permanently attached to both guitars.

Although the string alignment is much better now it's still not perfect. This is not due to a lack of skills of the repair man but after getting the caliper out I found that the saddles on the MIM telecasters are slightly too wide for the bridge. They should be 13/32" but they are just a fraction wider. Enough to prevent everything from sitting perfect.

In order to solve that problem I went to Stewart MacDonald on-line to order a set of new saddles which hopefully will be exactly 13/32" wide. I hope to have them in a couple of weeks. Next time I put new strings on the guitar I will also replace the saddles and that will hopefully make everything perfect.

In my research on-line I have found that it seems much easier to find parts, upgrades and retro-grades (replace parts with old-style parts) for the MIM telecasters than it is for the US made ones. The MIM telecasters have the holes for the bridge drilled the same way as the older models so it's easy to put an ash tray style bridge with 3 saddles on it if you like that old style look.

I like that look a lot too but I'm not sure there is an advantage to that as it is harder to get the intonation right with those bridges. I could see myself getting different pickups at some point but it makes little sense right now. I don't even have a good amp (read: tube amp) so that is not a priority right now. When I play on the Traynor YCV20WR during my lessons my guitar sounds quite good already so maybe a good amp would be sufficient.

And yes, I know, the real sound comes from the player, we're working on that ...

Guitar repair part 1

2009-08-03T08:16:00.005-04:00

During my last lesson I realized that my low E string was positioned too close to the edge of the fretboard which causes it to slip off every now and then when I'm playing. I had always thought it was my problem but for some reason I suddenly noticed that my teachers guitar has more space there.

After I pointed that out to my teacher we took a closer look and we saw that all the strings are a bit further to one side of the neck and that this is because of how the neck or bridge are positioned. As these things go, once you realize such a thing, it becomes an annoyance so I figured I should have it fixed.

Because it's a manufacturing defect and my guitar is still under warranty my teacher advised me to simply take it back to the store to have them repair it. He even offered to come along but in the end he wasn't home when I had time to go so I went alone.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found I didn't have to argue my case at Long and McQuade and that they even pointed out that I had not used the free setup I'm in title to. It's good to see that some stores are still very good at customer service. It will take about a week and a half and then I hope to have my guitar back again.

For now I'm playing on my acoustic again. I haven't played it much since I got my Telecaster and now I find it's hard to play because it requires stronger hands. Especially the bar chords are harder to get a good sound out of. I am enjoying it though, the sound is different and nice and I believe it's good training for my hands. I think I might start alternating when I get my Fender back again so that I won't lose any strength I'm gaining right now.

Still plugging away

2009-07-29T22:57:00.004-04:00

Haven't written in a while because I've had better things to do I guess. I read my last post from March and it almost seems strange now that I had problems with my arm. It's not that I've all of a sudden turned into a guitar pro but I can't even remember the last time my arm bothered me at all and that is a great feeling.

I've been going through a lot of practice and I've been trying to play more songs that have bar chords and I'm slowly getting better at it. Playing 'All my loving' from the Beatles still gets my arm tired but as I mentioned never painful.

My son and I can play along with 'Nowhere man' from the Beatles pretty good now and that is fun to do. I still have to remind him to practice but he has a lot more talent at drums than I have at guitar so it does not seem to matter than he only practices once a week sometimes.

I have found that I need to start learning my theory a little better so I'm trying to train myself to know all the notes on the fretboard. This makes it a lot easier to play movable chords.

The toughest song I've tried to tackle so far was 'God only knows' from the Beach Boys. Beautiful song but very difficult to play for me so I can't say that I'm able to perform than one well enough for anyone to listen to. I've kind of given up on it for now but at some point I know I will want to pick that up again.

Don't want to stay up late writing so I'll call it quits for now. Until the next rant ...

Some good news

2009-03-25T21:26:00.002-04:00

I'm happy to report that I've been playing with minimum discomfort the last week or maybe even two weeks. Not sure why but maybe the arms are slowly getting used to playing and I'm very happy that I can now practice for longer sessions without getting punished for it the next day or sometimes even right after or during as was the case before.

My arm is not giving me any trouble and my fingers don't seem to act up as much either. I feel I'm getting more and more comfortable with bar chords and at the moment I'm trying to get the first lead guitar for 'And Your Bird Can Sing' from the Beatles down. It's very hard but I'm slowly getting the hang of it although I'm still way too slow to even think about keeping up with the record.

I find that learning how to play lead riffs helps with getting control over the fingers and that in turn makes it easier to play chord progressions. It shows there is some wisdom in the words of my instructor when he tells me that I should simply play as much as I can and learn as many songs as I can.

I'm also trying to follow his advice and not look at my hands while I'm playing. I now find that to some degree you actually get quicker and better when you rely on what the fingertips feel instead of what the eyes see.

I also did a short session with my son on drums again (not sure if I mentioned I did one before) and it was a hoot again even though we play very simple stuff. I play a simple bass riff and he plays a beat that goes with it. Playing together is a great feeling though and I hope we can combine for some songs at some point. He is learning to drum 'When I Come Around' from Greenday so I want to learn how to play that as well so we can do it together. That would be pretty awesome.

Ten thousand hours?

2009-03-04T22:17:00.004-05:00

I read on slashdot that it takes about 10,000 hours to get really good at something. Because I really would like to get good at guitar that means that at my current pace it will take me about 25 years to get really good at guitar. By that time I might be getting physical problems playing so that is not such a great prospect.

I hope that I can increase my playing time (What am I doing writing right now? Good question!) over time and I guess I have to make sure I stay healthy. Yes, that means that I may need to cut back on the pop and sweets but it's worth it.

So what am I doing right now? I'm practicing "Day Tripper" and "And your bird can sing" from The Beatles. The latter is pretty hard but it's good exercise and I hope I will be able to get it down in a decent manner.

My arm is doing pretty good. I still feel it when I play for longer periods but not as bad as before and it does not cause me to skip practises to recover so I can't complain.

I tried out a tube amp which I borrowed from my guitar teacher. It's a Traynor YCV20WR and it sounds great. For now I think I will stick with my Vox DA20CL because I like the effects and I don't really need the blast of sound the Traynor gives me. If I ever get good enough to go on stage I'd love to play through it though.

Now back to practice to fill those 10,000 hours ....

Gear Picture

2008-12-08T22:23:00.005-05:00

I wanted to post an image of my electric gear because I'm so fond of it so here it goes. I work on an Apple Powerbook G4 and I've found the Pixelmator software for image editing a satisfactory replacement for Gimp which I used to use a lot under Linux.

I took a color image, made a sepia copy as a second layer and then used a layer mask to blend the two together. The image that I started with was pretty poor but the result is still neat so I'm posting it until I get something that looks better. I'm experimenting because I want to create a good image to put on the title of the blog.

I can't help myself trying to play with stuff like this even if it is a time consuming affair. Unfortunately I've used up most of my practice time for the evening so I'll add that to the list of life's regrets.

It plays tunes

2008-12-07T17:06:00.011-05:00

Being so busy practicing on the guitar I haven't gotten around to posting articles much. Since I don't think anybody is following this blog I don't think that hurts anybody so it should be okay.

I've been at it for a while now and I've actually learned how to play some tunes and I'm enjoying that a lot. The first tune I learned how to play (okay, it's not ready for stage yet but it is recognizable) is 'Two of us' by the Beatles. The kids like to hear it so that is a big plus. My son even wanted to get the tune on his iPod after hearing the Beatles version. I'm pretending my playing of the tune introduced him to it so I'm mighty proud.

Since then I've learned the chords for some other songs as well; 'Hotel California' by the Eagles, 'You've got to hide your love away' by the Beatles and 'Brown eyed girl' by Van Morrison. I'm still too slow in my chord progressions to play the songs as well as I'd like to but to my surprise I can actually sing along a bit as I go without my family running out of the house so I guess I'm either doing okay or they've built up quite a tolerance to what is still a horrendous sounding act.

I mentioned earlier that when I bought my Telecaster that the Canadian dollar was more or less on par with the US dollar and because of that I got a good deal. Right now the Canadian dollar has plunged down and my guitar would cost me around $70 more than what I paid for it so I feel good about that too.

I'm still very happy with my choice, I hardly play my acoustic anymore because the Telecaster is just a dream to play. I still go into music stores to try out other guitars but I haven't played anything yet that would beat it.

Did I mention I play from 'Everybody's guitar method 1'? I've reached the halfway point of the book but as I said, I'm not playing out of the book as much as I should. I also picked up a guitar music theory book from the Hal Leonard series to help me understand why chords are put together the way they are and such things. I don't pretend to understand everything in the book but it really helps the understanding and because the book is specific to the guitar it's not too dry.

Another important eye-opener is that I've learned about movable chords so that all of a sudden I can make a whole bunch of bar chords with either the low E or A string as the root note. Um, disclaimer here, that is if my hands can handle it.

Speaking of hands, the left arm does not get as sore anymore although it's not 100% okay. I now do have some pain in my index finger on my left hand which I assume is caused by playing but it doesn't bother so much it stops me from playing.

I had no idea I would get all these little pains and aches from playing the guitar but I guess we can apply the familiar 'no pain, no gain' saying here.

So that's the update for the moment, I can play a few tunes but I still have problems playing picking style and reading music as I go. I should practice that more but because it's hard I tend to avoid it. I don't feel guilty about that because instead I play chords and learn to get more fluent doing that which is also an important skill to have.

Gone electric

2008-10-08T21:30:00.004-04:00

I've been wanting to get an electric guitar for a while. Probably ever since I got an acoustic but I figured I first give this thing a try with a cheapish guitar before I splurge on something more fancy. But after playing (again) with a nice Fender Stratocaster that one of my friends owns I realized there was even some therapeutic value to going electric.
The Strat has an awesome neck and the strings are lighter than the ones on my acoustic so it's very light to play and very friendly for the hands and muscles that attempt to form chords and so on. In short, I was sold.
Add to this the sliding Canadian dollar which will probably cause prices of guitars to rise soon and I had a solid case to justify the purchase of a new guitar.
I've made many trips to various music stores to try out gear so I knew pretty much what I wanted to buy. The Fender necks fit me well for some reason and the Telecaster has everything I like in a guitar. It's a simple workmanlike instrument with a great sound and it can be used to play almost any kind of music.

I hadn't really planned to come home with anything because I'd never seen the color I wanted in a store but as luck would have it Long & McQuade had a Standard Telecaster in sunburst in a box so I ended up bringing it home last Monday.
I ended up with a Vox DA20CL amplifier and I'm blown away by the number of sounds and volume it produces. It's a total hoot. It has two aux ports (one specifically for mic) so I can plug in an iPod or something along those lines to attempt to play along or my son can plug in his Roland TD-3 V-drum set to attempt a father/son jam session. The latter is not really advisable, we simply aren't good enough ... okay, I'm not good enough but I hope that we'll be able to do this in the not so distant future.

For the two short days that I've had it the Tele/Vox combo have been a total blast although I can't say I've done much serious practicing because I find myself tinkering with all the amazing sounds the guitar and amp can produce. At some point I hope I'll get over that and then I can get a bit more serious again.

My arm is feeling quite good at the moment, even if it was all in my head it was well worth it because the arrival of this marvellous combo has made aches disappear.

Next time I go for a lesson I'll bring the Tele instead of my acoustic to see what Agi thinks about the instrument. I assume he'll approve because he is a big Fender fan himself. He plays a nice made in Japan Strat which looks like it's been with him for quite some time. He mentioned it's got special pickups and it sounds great to me. Lovely instrument but it helps Agi can play it in a way I can only hope to approach one day. I'm curious to hear what he can get out of my Tele.

I guess this is it for today's ramblings, time to tinker with the Tele. I hope my Tele will look as pleasantly lived in as Agi's Strat one day and that I'll be able to make it sound as nice as he does.

Already injured

2008-10-05T11:38:00.002-04:00

Who knew playing guitar carried serious risk of injury? I didn't in case you're wondering. One of the reasons that I started playing this year instead of last year when I first got my guitar is that I injured my left arm lifting a heavy couch.
According to my family doctor my injury was like a tennis elbow and it would heal with rest and some specific exercises. I thought it was better but now it seems that my playing is causing trouble in the same area again.
I'm not sure it's in the exact same spot and I'm pretty sure that this time it is not a tennis elbow but at times it can be really uncomfortable.

I didn't mention this in my first post but I've started to take lessons as well because learning from a book isn't everything. I won't name my instructor here until I have his permission (which I may never get) because I do want to protect the innocent. For now we'll call him Agi (anonymous guitar instructor) and I can tell you that Agi is a pleasure to work with.

Anyways, back to the injury. I've googled for arm exercises for guitar players and even found some tips for preventing injuries but I can't say I feel I have a good answer to this problem. I've iced it after playing and that seems to really help but I don't know if I feel like icing my fore arm every time I play because I'm a wannabe rock star and not a wannabe major league pitcher.

Agi didn't really know what to do about this either. He is after all an instructor and not a physiotherapist. It's comforting to know he has not dealt with injuries too much because that means he probably teaches in a proper manner because I've read that proper posture etc. does help prevent injuries.

One thing I'm wondering about is if I should switch to an electric guitar. My acoustic is not as easy to play as an electric and I wonder if I'm not putting more strain on myself than I need to. Besides that I want to play electric anyway at some point because it will allow me to play through an amp with a headset so that I don't disturb the rest of the family with my feeble strumming. After all, how many people listen to poor renditions of "For he's a jolly good fellow", "Jingle bells", "When the Saints come marching in" and that sort of stuff for fun?
There are better tunes that I'm trying to master but those aren't really fit for public consumption either so an electric guitar might be the stone that kills two birds.

If anyone who reads this has a killer tip on how to solve my injury problem I'd be very grateful. You will be included in the thank yous on the sleeve of every album that I'm going to publish in my future rock career. You might also be able to become the fore arm fixer for the stars from then on and that can be pretty lucrative.

And now for something completely different

2008-09-28T23:41:00.002-04:00

So here I am. The latest rock star in the making. I'm not competing in some wannabe idol show or next star thing because I'm pretty sure I'd never get past the pre-selection. I might make it to the blooper reel but that is of course not really what I'm aiming for.

This is more of a long term plan and because I'm old enough to be labeled 'old man' by my kids I'm hoping to become a retirement home idol of sorts. Forget being cool with the youngsters, if I understand it correctly the money is with the older crowd so I might as well target them with my quest for stardom.

So what makes me think I can make it? Well, there is that thing called wishful thinking and that should get me well on my way. I also have acquired a really cool guitar so the hardware is in place for practicing as well. I also got a book from the music store which should help me learn how to play so there is really not much to stop me I'd say.

In the next little while I will bore you to tears with progress reports on my playing ability and maybe a description or two of my gear and study material all of which, I'd like to point out, will be collectors items once I make it big. Mental note to self, don't throw that stuff out!

I'll keep this short to keep the fans eager. I'll be writing more soon. Leaving the building for now ...