Any guitar-players around here ?

Subject: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Harald
Date: 25 Sep 97 - 08:02 PM

Well, everybody´s talking about lyrics. Lyrics here, lyrics there. What about the MUSIC ??? Is there anybody who is interested in exchanging music ? I´m not asking for lyrics this time, my favourite song this week is an instrumental. Anyone who knows "Red´s Favourite" from Renbourn/Jansch and who is able to play it ? I had to give up, only the record is not enough for me concerning this one.
I´m very curious if there´s somebody around there who dares to face this one ( ;) as I said:I didn´t get too far...)
Greetings all around the world, Harald

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: pete savage
Date: 25 Sep 97 - 09:25 PM

i'll admit to being a guitar strummer, and only on a 4 string tenor at that... but from the discussions i've heard, i'll bet there are loads of GOOD guitar players out there...

best regards,

pete

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From:
Date: 26 Sep 97 - 08:44 PM

Harald,

http://celtic.stanford.edu/instruments/celtic_guitar.html

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From:
Date: 26 Sep 97 - 08:51 PM

Harald, Obvioussly as amember of this list I am a lyric feind but I feel that If you don't have a good canvas than your painting is going to suffer. I think a good way at becoming a good guitar player (or whatever you play) is by arranging songs as instrumentals. Once you have a good backdrop then add the words to the picture and tweak it till you recieve the desired effect. How many times have you heard someone with an upbeat (and out of place) arrangement to a sad song. It just doesn't work. Here is a URL for an article I wrote on good Celtic Fingerstyle/flatpicking guitarists. It should be up at the Ceolas website in a few days (the server crashed). It is a good intro to Celtic guitar. I would also suggest some slack key guitar music from Hawaii (anything on Dancing Cat Records) or anything by Madagascan guitarist D'Gary (shanachie records) for inspiration.

Cliff PS: Here is the URL http://celtic.stanford.edu/instruments/celtic_guitar.html

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Cliff
Date: 26 Sep 97 - 08:51 PM

Harald, Obvioussly as amember of this list I am a lyric feind but I feel that If you don't have a good canvas than your painting is going to suffer. I think a good way at becoming a good guitar player (or whatever you play) is by arranging songs as instrumentals. Once you have a good backdrop then add the words to the picture and tweak it till you recieve the desired effect. How many times have you heard someone with an upbeat (and out of place) arrangement to a sad song. It just doesn't work. Here is a URL for an article I wrote on good Celtic Fingerstyle/flatpicking guitarists. It should be up at the Ceolas website in a few days (the server crashed). It is a good intro to Celtic guitar. I would also suggest some slack key guitar music from Hawaii (anything on Dancing Cat Records) or anything by Madagascan guitarist D'Gary (shanachie records) for inspiration.

Cliff PS: Here is the URL http://celtic.stanford.edu/instruments/celtic_guitar.html

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: BK
Date: 27 Sep 97 - 03:07 AM

I'm also a ballad type; nowhere near food enuf on 6-string guitar - let alone 12, mando, banjo... but still I putter and generally find an experimental evolve-as-you-go system seems to work well for me; first learning the tune and most of the words, and then finding a good key and the picking or strumming, or combo, that feels best, changing as I gain familiarity and my mind plays with how I feel abt the ballad. and how I want the song to feel; of course I get great feedback from my adult supervisor (wife) who is not shy abt sharing her REAL assessments. In all of this, though I'm hardly much of a guitarist, one still knows the instrumental accompanyment is extremely important because it sets mood or background, supports, emphasizes, caresses, clowns, punctuates... etc etc..

BTW, i noticed a good example of the effect and importance of accompanyment when listening to some Stan Rogers the other day - heard an early recording of "the Bluenose," with a sort of usual folkish background, and compared it w/the probable last recording of him doing it; this time with the dramatic background setting Garnet is so good at, and is now using w/his own singing. It has crashing, ringing guitar - sounds like 12-string - mixed with Garnet's magic on the fiddle with electronic effects. This performance is, I believe, a true masterpiece - you can virtually see and hear the gulls wheeling and skreeling in the background as the Bluenose puts out to sea; you can damn near feel the salt spray, it's wonderful! At least someone like myself, who spent years around the sea and have some of my mom's very active celtic immagination, can easily believe it! it works for me, and I think that's one of the things that music - like many other art forms - is about.

also - some sad songs somehow just don't feel like they want to be sung down-tempo; "San Francisco Bay Blues" comes to mind.. it just won't let me sing it sad... I can't help it!!

wow -wandered far afield.. well, look at the time.. gotta get my ugly sleep.

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Ralph Butts
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 06:09 PM

BK.....Your style approach appears quite similar to mine. My guitar is good - banjo and mandolin still weak. Repertoire very eclectic, but with emphasis on folky, bluesy. Recent focus is Nova Scotia, which is why your Rogers comment caught my eye.

Usually, when I find someone with similar tastes, he most likely comes from Tasmania (apologies!). BTW - I'm in Connecticut......Tiger

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Shula
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 09:35 PM

Dear Guitarists,

Have been enjoying this thread.

Any suggestions for someone who played guitar for accompaniment for 20 years, followed by a 15 year period of near-abstinence, now struggling with the effects of time, arthritis, and medicine to "get it back" ? Really missed my old 3/4 size Martin, finally had the neck repaired. Find the spirit willing, flesh painfully weak, esp. thumbs. Exercises? Bright ideas?

Thanks to all,

Shula

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Elwooddelta
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 10:52 PM

Shula, tune open G or open D, get a Jim Dunlop #222 brass slide and play your blues away. Exercises area agood be also.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Robert Lee
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 11:45 PM

Shula, I also came back from a lengthy "retirement" and had similar problems. Technique came back surprisingly quickly, but it was a couple of years before I could play for hours without suffering for it.

The weakness might be partly inflammation of joints and tendons, in which case a couple of asprin or advil a day will help. (Got that advice from my mother, and it sure helped me.)

I also endorse Elwooddelta's slide-playing suggestion, but go for a Craftsman socket for the slide. Extra weight for the bass end, and they come in sizes! (but the hardware guy looks at you real weird when you try them on)

btw, I say Craftsman because their sockets are the only ones I've found that don't have writing and stuff carved into them deeply enough to interfere with a clean slide sound.

I've heard that squeezing a foam-rubber ball is good exercise for guitar-playing hands. I used to give the steering wheel of my car a good firm "death grip" twice a day. Can't say that it did anything (good) for my driving, but it might have helped get the hand strength back.

But mostly, I think it's just a matter of play when you can, stop when it hurts, and it'll come back in time.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Elwooddelta
Date: 12 Oct 97 - 12:50 AM

Now Robert, I thought I was the only one that ever used a Craftsman socket. I found it too heavy for bottleneck.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 12 Oct 97 - 06:03 AM

Shula,

If you're not a slide player there's always nylon, absolutely gorgeous sound, although most of these steel rail locomotive types probably think it's kind of Fem.

A very good, albeit odd, exercise for any guitarist is to spend a few minutes playing without using your thumb (really!). Possibly the single most common mistake is to squeeze the neck more than is necessary. If you spend a few minutes getting used to the minimum amount of pressure required, you can save yourself a lot of aches & pains. I sometimes try this in between tunes ( just a few notes or so ). Nobody likes to hear this, but scales are the ultimate exercise.

Frank I.T.S.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 12 Oct 97 - 06:12 AM

Craftsman sockets???

Are you the guys who go around Europe planting menhirs in the ground???

Stunned in the Swamps.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Robert Lee
Date: 13 Oct 97 - 07:08 PM

Yikes!

We better lay off with the menhirs for a while, Elwood. We've been found out.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Elwooddelta
Date: 13 Oct 97 - 08:48 PM

Uhh, OK but what is a menhirs? Or who is a menhirs. Maybe it's like "they got theirs an' this one's me n' hirs'" Never been to Europe anyhow!

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 09:12 AM

You people are such an inspiration. I've been an EX guitar player for 10 years and although I think some of the folk music I like to sing needs a little background, I had decided I'd never be able to pick it up again. Well, thanks to reading this thread I'm going to try. Luckily, my old guitar has nylon strings and my husband buys ONLY Craftsman tools.....

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: The Fenian
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 11:54 AM

Shula, If your fingers are hurting try burning the ends ends of them. It may hurt a bit but it will toughen them up in a hurry.( I am Serious)

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Bert
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 11:54 AM

Go here to see some menhirs

http://members.aol.com/janbily/brettny.htm

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: The Fenian
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 11:57 AM

Shula, If your fingers are hurting try burning the ends ends of them. It may hurt a bit but it will toughen them up in a hurry.( I am Serious)

If your hands are to weak try lifting some weights or gettin' one of those wrist squeeze strenghteners.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Bert
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 04:18 PM

"""try burning the ends ends of them"""

And I thought "I" was crazy

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Robert Lee
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 08:15 PM

OK. Advice to "returning" guitarists so far:

1) Accessorize at your local hardware store. (sockets for playing slide)

2) Set yourself on fire. (burnt fingers are tough)

We're opening the Home Improvements school of music, right?

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Elwooddelta
Date: 15 Oct 97 - 09:10 PM

Craftsman tools work fine, so to Snap-On, Matco, Mac and many lesser name sockets. I think the best socket I've played is a 17mm Snap-On deep socket. I used it on a friends Martin E.C.. Boy was he nervous! :}

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 16 Oct 97 - 10:07 PM

As a guitar teacher of almost 50 years, I'd like to suggest two things: a) make sure the nut on your guitar isn't too high (If you find playing easier with a capo on the first fret, it probably IS too high), and b) really work on placing your left-hand fingertips as close as possible to the fret. It really reduces the need for pressing hard, and the subsequent pain and calluses.

Subject: RE: Any guitar-players around here ?
From: Angus McSweeney
Date: 18 Oct 97 - 08:54 PM

OK, here's my tip...

I wasn't on hiatus for several years, but my guitar playing was really in a rut. After playing for 30 years I probably hadn't added anything new in the last ten. So I took a desperate plunge: I took about ten lessons on bluegrass style guitar and started learning fiddle tunes as guitar instrumentals. Although I got a few sideways glances from my folk friends it gave me a quantum leap forward in my versatility. Now that I'm back to mostly folk style and finger style guitar, I still use those fiddle tunes for warm-up and an occasional change of pace. Took my lessons from Adam Granger, picker for the former "Powdermilk Buscuit Band" of Prairie Home Companion fame. If you live in Minneapolis-St. Paul area, he's available...and great!

Also...when warming up and getting those fingers back in shape, try a chromatic scale up and down the first four (three) frets of each string. If you make sure to follow the positioning of first finger only on first fret, second finger only on second fret, etc. you can get some good stretching exercise. And concentrate on clean, precise sound. Hope it helps. Angus