Quality Versus Quantity Part Deux

One of my strengths as well as my number one weakness on the guitar is...itchy fingers, digital diarrhea, how many notes can one squeeze into a measure, syndrome.

George Harrison had a mastery of "less is more." He could play four or five notes and say more than most of us say in an entire piece.
Colin James has a knack for answering an unspoken call with three or four notes that  - say-it-all.

And for the life of me, I could never figure this out. I tried to slow my thought processes. I tried thinking and not just reacting to the music played.
I have been trying to achieve this for thirty years? No success.

And then a friend turned me onto a guy named Keith Wyatt.
In this lesson, Keith explains how to answer calls during a "call and answer" segment in a song.
He is fun, fact filled and very succinct. The entire video is eleven minutes.
And he makes a lot of sense, musically.

Part of the driving force behind my rediscovery of "less is more" is my renewed interest in the television show Becker. I love the show for the writing as well as the excellent ensemble cast.
There is a guitar belonging to Jason Miller...with it, he plays small, tight ten second phrases to lead in and out of scenes of the show. I very much enjoy his talent and envied his ability to take a few notes and make a complete musical statement.

I am sitting watching the show when it struck me. The act of answering in Keith's lesson is the epitome of the "less is more" philosophy.
In other words, you need not be answering a call made in the piece - it may be implied...it could be in your head. It need not exist at all.

All of a sudden, I can play like Harrison! I was floored. Epiphany...a moment of clarity.
It is a relatively easy thing to hear a lead in and then "answer" it, whether it exists in the song or not.
How strange it is to have something so easy elude you for SO long and then be revealed in eleven minutes.

Perspective is so very integral to learning. Look at a problem one way and it is a Gordian Knot. From another point of view, it becomes easy as pie.
I'll have another piece of pie, please.

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.

Bonding With A New Instrument

I have trouble keeping more than one guitar. I don't need nor do I use two or three or more. I have one acoustic and I need one electric.
So I sell.

Flush with new money I ran to Styles.
"Lou I need a travel guitar and a mandolin."

I have seen a lot of music in the last twelve months. Not as much as last year, but what I have seen has been far and away the best music I have heard in a long, long time.
One of the truths in the "Music Business" is the need to be as versatile as possible. How many instruments can you play, and well?

And in the style of the folky rocker there are a lot of people playing...mandolins?!
These are not Bluegrass or Country and Western players. No...
These are troubadours, balladeers & bards. Traveling musicians that are wise in many arts.
I determine to expand. I already have a violin that I noodle upon. But I never pursued it with any vigor. There was no passion. I haven't been able to bond with the thing tucked underneath my chin.

I bought the lonely Fender mandolin that Lou had...dusty and neglected. I think he ordered it either out of pity for the Fender rep or a mandatory buy to be able to get a price on the Strats and Teles that earn his cash.
I know it is nothing but a student item.

The craftsmanship is non existent. If I were new to fretted instruments, I would have thrown my hands into the air. I set and reset the action. And then read...and read. There's "chop," and two fingers chords. And it's upside down when compared to a guitar.
And small?
A friend asked if it made me feel ham handed, but at the moment of the new purchase it seemed to fit...I have small hands. They kept me from pursuing the bass. But now, yeah - they were starting to feel rather thick.
Sad face.

All the "normal" thoughts raced through my head. If I went and bought something three times as expensive, I'd like it that much more, right?
I hit the brakes. Nah...Jimi could make a cigarbox guitar sound good. The excuse or victory is mine.

A really talented guitarist, Caleb Hawley does a solo arrangement of Bruce Hornsby's, 'That's Just The Way It Is.'
By himself, he makes what is a very layered and lush song sound just that. Layered and very full - by himself. He keeps time on the body of the guitar and plays both the bass line and the piano theme.
Good God, this kid is good.
Anyway...I put the song on and grab the mando (I'm hep to mandolin speak)...And rather than trying to apply a thought process, I aim for notes that fit and then intervals built from that. It comes, the rhythm, the picking...I'm sure the notes will follow, eventually.
Holy Merde...I am flying along the fretboard, playing pedestrian garbage, but I am bonding with this pig of an eight stringed beast.
She shall be Grendel.
Fuck you, Beowulf.

Epilogue:
 Growth is a good thing. With the rest of life it is usually a painful process. Even when you enjoy the endeavor - college for instance.
In music, I have moments of buyers remorse but no pain. It makes me dance.
I gotta jam with Beppe Gambetta!
<3

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

My laptop has been slowly dying. The graphics card has gotten so hot in the past that it literally unsoldered itself from the motherboard. Luckily, at that time I had an extended warranty - a week or so and I had a new computer.
This past Sunday it would no longer boot. A B.S.O.D. (Blue Screen Of Death) every time.

After admitting to myself the trouble was beyond my capabilities, I went to secure a new computer.
By Tuesday I had to be up and running. I could not wait for Labor Day sales...pity.

I ran to Best Buy and started my search. They had a dozen desktop computers. I quickly narrowed it down to two. While money was being transferred electronically, I picked up the box of the last remaining example of either model and checked out.

Boy, this thing is fast...Huge too, more storage than I'll ever use - I said that about a twenty megabyte hard drive in the 1980s; yeah, that didn't last.

But then came the task of transferring all that data. Pictures, music (11,000 mp3s), et cetera. I was looking at quite a task.
I began by opening DropBox; cloud based storage - 2gb is free.
To rent 50gb of storage is $9.99 a month or $99 a year in advance..A 100 gb is $19.99/199.00.

At 2 gb a shot, it was going to take a long, long time.
By Thursday I began to think about how much bandwidth was being eaten by these 2gb swaps going on twelve hours a day (2gb up from the laptop and then 2gb down to the new computer).
Ah, but that made me think of an 8gb sd card I recently bought!

Plug it in to the old computer (which I got to boot, somewhat stable, but no graphics) grab 8gb of data at a time and then insert the card into the new computer. Inside of a few hours I had cleaned a major portion of the old computer - with no bandwidth consumed.

Each time we upgrade - a new smartphone, a new computer; we also inherit the task of setting all the attendant parts of our digital lives. The email accounts, The bank logins. Cloud storage, file hosting...on and on...
And with each day we are establishing new accounts for new purposes. FaceBook, FourSquare, Tripit...
So that with every new device, the time to be "up and running" is  growing longer and the improved technology barely keeps pace.

I'm a geek, but I have been bitten upon the ass by Technology.