Quality, Not Quantity

Last year I had worked many gigs by this time of the year. I was everywhere, playing with anyone.
It was wild fun and very necessary for my musical ego.
Trolling for gigs like this results in many jobs that are not as satisfying, don't pay as much, et cetera.

This year, I have played far, far fewer gigs. But the times I have played have been so much more satisfying and rewarding.
Why?

In a word...sharing.
I learned a long time ago that as humans, our greatest joy comes from sharing. Be it a joint, a thought, feelings, or music. The act of two or more people seeing and digging the same thing is a minor miracle.
Music is one of those things that is personal, intimate and yet at the same time it can be shared by many people at once. Witness Woodstock.

This year, I got to do one number with a guy I admire very much and in doing this number laid a few bugaboos to rest.
Friends of mine that I have known more than thirty years got to hear me play for the very first time.
My mother...got to hear me playing in a setting other than a cacophony eminating from her basement.

I did more open mics than last year - standing on your own feet does a lot toward that feeling of sharing. That is intimacy at its most public. You are alone, they are watching no one but you.
And what a rush it is!

I found someone else to play as a duo.
Doing less of what others want to play or think is what is expected. I am out to have a blast and make a dollar or two doing so. And if I get to share my inner feelings and get applause in exchange for it...how much better can things get musically? In truth...things can get so much better that all I see is "blue sky."

And so I pursue things. I talk to people on FaceBook in an effort to expand my network - get a job.
I picked up a new instrument (mandolin) in an effort to expand my repertoire.
I meet new people all the time - and when we click, it is sharing once again.

Share with me. It is my greatest joy.

Have a Happy Halloween.

Tele Truss Rod Adjustment Alters Tone - Film at 11

The Baja Telecaster I had bought in May had a real curve to the neck.
More relief than I wanted.

However, I have to date not adjusted a Fender style truss rod. Never had to.
A shim did the trick as far as action/buzz went so turning the rod just never happened.

This guitar had a pronounced curvature in the neck.
I thought I'd have access to the truss rod screw by just removing the pickguard - and for a minute it did look as though I could get a bite on the rod...but no, it was not to be. The pickup was in the way.
Sigh.

Strings came off, and then I removed the neck. It was obvious the original owner had been down this road...he had scored the screws affixing the neck to the body. With his adjustment there was just too much relief in it for me.
 So I tightened the truss rod about a half a turn...which was at the top of the threads - as far as it'll go. The neck was very close to straight. A teeny weeny bit of relief. (Without any relief all the strings would buzz)

Restrung it, and as I was doing so I caught wind of the buzzing which must have made this guy add so much relief.
Funny thing was, with the neck close to straight the action was more than low enough...too low.
 The 'G', 'B', & 'E' strings needed a half turn to feel comfortable to play. I decided to let the low 'E' buzz.

 Holy merde!
Okay...new strings have a lot to do with the wow factor in the tone, but the slap of the strings...it is part of the quintessential tele sound. The bass strings have a thump to them that is very unique. No strat has it.


Well the effect of having the strings closer to the pickups is just not to be believed in what it can do to the sound. Such a small change having such a large impact.
 Obviously I could have raised the pickups to achieve the same result sound wise;l however that would not address the feel of the neck.
I disliked the feeling that the action was changing the higher I played.

 So...got a tele? Raise your pickups! Or peer down your neck and check your relief.

Almost Perfect Pitch

Name any song I know and I'll sing it a half step below the actual tonic.
I hear it in my head a half step flat. (A cosmic joke, methinks)

I am playing the mandolin...Grendel, even with the new strings is starting to sound dull.

Temperatures change greatly where I live. A forty degree swing from the low to the high during a day night cycle is not out of the normal course of things.
So the strings on any instrument will stretch and contract with the rise and fall in temperatures.
I check my tuning before I begin...every time. It is a must. I also mean with an expensive strobe tuner, not by ear.
Piano tuners are tuning pairs of strings much like the mandolin. They do not tune the strings to perfect pitch. i.e.A is not set at 440 hz. But the first of the two strings might be at 438 while the upper is at 442.
This intentional dissonance causes the note to ring out. The waves are alternately canceling and then reinforcing each other which makes a slight vibrato effect. Your ear hears sustain.

So that's why the new strings sounded better? They were settling in...moving. I tuned them and after a few minutes had slipped out of tune. I heard notes ringing out and thought it was the new strings!

So the trick I have is to tune the first of the pair a bit sharp and the second a bit flat. A bit is maybe two or three cents (pronounced sonts) at most. Next I should try reversing that, the top flat and the bottom one sharp.
We'll see.

Strings

Fender OEM strings are awful.
Plain awful...rotten...dead...lifeless.

I had sat with the mandolin and was starting to bond with it, finding my way with it last week.

On one of the forums dedicated to mandolins, there was an ongoing thread about a brand of flatwound strings. Flatwound strings have the wrapped covering flattened rather than just wrapped about the core - which makes for normal roundwound strings.

D'addario makes strings for most stringed instruments. I had used them for years on my guitars. Sometime in the 1990s they went to a "unisex" package in which opening the pack for one string meant opening the container for all of them. No more individual envelopes. While I understand the savings the manufacturer would see, it made the strings far less useful.

Break a high E? Open the whole pack and the remaining five strings begin to age as well. How to store the remaining strings? At a gig this meant a mess. At home I could change all the strings...D'addario's intent all along?

I had sworn off them and reverted to Ernie Ball...strings of my youth.

Back to the mandolin.
A set of regular strings; a mandolin has eight strings, run anywhere from $4 to $10. Flatwounds, on the other hand are closer to $40 a set.
I am too cheap for that. I get two sets of guitar strings for $9!?!
Plus I am new to the instrument and don't want to assume that throwing money will magically make me a better player.
Back to the forum - The Mandolin Cafe
Someone starts a thread about D'addario FW-74s.

As I investigate, I find they are about $10 a set?!
My favorite online string shop, Just Strings, has them. I order a set and wait for them to arrive.
Stringing a new instrument is an adventure.

Mandolins, unlike guitars, have the bottom of the string terminated with a loop that is meant to be put over a cut out tab on the tailpiece.

You loop the end, pull the string up and through the tuner, trying to maintain tension so the loop doesn't fall off the tab and then wind like a guitar.

It took the better part of an hour.
But what a difference? Once I had it strung and tuned, I played a few notes and they rang. The notes didn't decay, but droned on. And clear! Very little bleed between strings. Striking one didn't cause the adjacent string to vibrate as much.
The instrument sound 100% better. Easily.

The pick and the strings that you use, contribute no small part of the overall sound.
I think I have been converted - again.