Dr. Guitar's surgery

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 10:59 AM

My dear patients,

May this old doctor sincerely (and belatedly...Christmas duty rosters...) wish all his patients and other Mudcatters all very best wishes of the season and an excellent and most healthy New Year!

First of all a sincere apology to Mr Nickel Creek. I did actually post an answer to you but I think, most unfortunately, it coincided exactly with what I think is referred to by those more computer literate than I as "the 'Cat going down". I shall try, however, to recollect what I said on that occasion. I believe, from the model number, your guitar is an "Eden Fields" model and, if my failing memory serves me correctly, these have a translucent coloured finish. Repairing a crack at the heel is normally not too difficult to do oneself although you may need access to an extra long specialist luthier's clamp depending on the nature of the problem. There is an end block inside the guitar here and, therefore, something to glue (preferably hide glue) against.

A greater problem, and one which may eventually necessitate a trip to your local competent luthier, is refinishing over the crack as the finish is a translucent laquer which may be hard to match up yourself. Cost is difficult to assess without seeing the damage, but if it is localised, should not be excessive.

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 11:10 AM

Dear R. Dolan,

This is a very common occurence for both beginner and advanced player alike and even players of long standing do not always do this job in the right manner.

Rather than "go into the rigmarole" of trying to describe the right way of changing strings here in words alone, I think that, once again, I will refer you to the

Changing strings page (with photographs) on Mr. Frank Ford's very excellent website about common guitar problems.

Indeed, Mr Ford's site is a veritable cornucopia of first class advice on all common guitar procedures and I therefore wholeheartedly commend it to all. Indeed, I should be most worried about Mr Ford depriving me of my patients and therefore purpose in life if I did not know that he is more than happy to leave the most hopeless cases to me here in my humble little surgery!

Yours very sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 11:19 AM

Dear Alona Lott,

As always, you are too kind to an old man! Because however because of my age I am still not sure what "happened"!

Yours most sincerely as always,

Dr Guitar

P.S. I do believe that your finger will have healed by now so you may undo the bandages and discontinue application of the yellow-brown ointment. But do please "resist the temptation" and be on your vigilance in the future, particularly when you band members start again to display their characteristic lack of physical equilibrium.
Dr. G

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 08:52 AM

Dear Doc,

I recently opened up my wife's gitar case cuz I wanted to play it even though I usually play trumpet and I'm better on trumpet than gitar lots better cuz I never really learned gitar but we got some books and stuff on learning gitar and I wanted to just you know fool around with it and mayber teach myself something anyway then I took the gitar out the little wires that wrap round the big wires had all come unwrapped and it was a mess.

What do you recommend?

Thank you, and I remain,

Your humble and obedient servant.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: C-flat
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 07:56 PM

Dear Dr.Guitar,
I'm wondering if you could suggest a way of protecting my new Avalon L355 accoustic from pick marks. I've only had the guitar a week and already there are some pretty unpleasant gouges appearing around the soundhole. At over £2000 I would have expected a pick-guard to be fitted to these otherwise perfect instruments and I have been shopping around, without success, for something robust enough to afford a decent level of protection.
I've tried a variety of picks, finally settling for these, even though a little on the pricey side, and I'm wondering if perhaps a lighter guage may be the answer although I wouldn't want to do anything to compromise my sound as I find I can get a real "biting" tone from this particular pick.
My concern for what this damage may be doing to the re-sale value of my guitar is becoming such that it is begining to affect my playing and so I'm hopeful that you can put on the right road and that I can get back into the swing of things a.s.a.p.
Regards,
Con Crete.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 19 May 04 - 10:43 AM

Dear Mr Rapaire,

Yes, you are right and this kind of thing happens all too frequently.

However, out of disaster often comes good! Do you have a "disgustingly dirty piece of glass" (as quoted in the following site)?

Ways of cleaning disgustingly dirty pieces of glass website

Then what you have found in your good lady wife's guitar case may be a cost-saving alternative to the "Brillo" pad or magic bit of wire. I myself am rather taken with the "magic balls" as referred to in this most useful site as I have never come across those before in my long career! So I am most indebted to you for your query!

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 19 May 04 - 11:02 AM

Dear Mr Con Crete,

Indeed your Avalon is a most valuable acquisition and they have done an admirable job of taking up where Mr. Lowden left off. An acquistion, might I add that it is well work protecting for the reasons that you quite rightly state.

The pick you have described is what I would refer to as "medium heavy" and I believe that you will be able to protect the finish on your prized asset without sacrificing the "biting tone" that you value by switching to the following type of pick:

modelled by the singer Erykah Badu who apparently "hip hops".

Hoping that this has solved your dilemma and saved you valuable investment.

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 19 May 04 - 11:08 AM

Dear Con Crete,

Oh dear, I am losing my marbles in my dotage! Please excuse me!

I meant first to direct you to the primary site

Picks with biting qualities

You will see both American and Japanese models are features. The Americal model potentially will last twice as long although the Japanese model seems aesthetically more pleasing. As with all guitar-related matters, it finally comes down to a question of personal taste!

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 19 May 04 - 11:14 AM

Dear Con Crete,

We will get there in the end (as British Rail used to say)!

I do so apologise for send you hieroglyphics of some description. Here is

Ms. Badu as previously referred to!

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar
(...never give up until the patient is cured)

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: C-flat
Date: 19 May 04 - 01:48 PM

Thanks again Doctor Guitar!
I think that you have helped me to discover the secrets of a certain Mr.Hendrix!
When I think of all that time and effort wasted, trying to "superglue" plectrums to my front teeth! Alas, that was before I had discovered your esteemed surgery. You would have also, no doubt, warned me of the danger of playing "Hendrix-style" with a short guitar strap.
I still have the scar on my forehead.
with grateful thanks,
Con Crete.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 May 04 - 02:55 PM

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Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 04 - 02:33 PM

Must be using a lefty, eh?


A

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 May 04 - 09:44 AM

Oh, good Doctor, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without doubt you have saved my marriage, bettered my marital bliss, increased my wisdom, and even my goldfish no longer floats belly-up but swims around like he (or she, and I'm not going to look closely) used to!

My grass is greener, music is more musical, my garden is more lovely, the mountains are more scenic, fewer golf balls hit my house, and the drought is ended.

Do you think that World Peas will ensue if I ask another question for you to answer?

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 May 04 - 01:06 PM

It's worth a try, Rapaire.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: John Hardly
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 05:10 PM

Dear Dr. Guitar,

I've had this curious bit of physics presented to me and I see it as, perhaps, an opportunity.

As was once discussed here, guitars with larger soundholes (like the famous Tony Rice/Clarence White D28) are louder because (and I know this because I read it on a guitar-related forum) the larger soundhole allows more sound to escape the guitar's body.

From that idea we correctly concluded then, that a guitar that was all soundhole would be incredibly loud. It would allow ALL the sound out. In fact, a guitar this loud would PROBABLY have to be plugged in to an amplifier just so that its volume could be turned down.

Well, now another guitar expert from another guitar-related forum (and as such, I know this information to also be reliable), when discussing the relative merits of a smaller bodied (OM, 000, etc) guitar over a dreadnought, told me (and I quote), "it takes less energy to drive a smaller top".

Hmmm. So, if it takes less and less energy the smaller a guitar top gets .......... eventually, you make a guitar top small enough and that sucker's bound to actually produce energy. I've thought this through for a long time. Probably nearly five minutes. maybe more. Probably less.

Anyway, so now I build myself a guitar with a top so small that it starts producing energy ....I figure I'm going to make a fortune selling this energy back to the power company.

Here's where I'd like your help. Should I sell it back to the power company as electicity or coal?

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 08:15 PM

Dear Dr. Guitar,

John's question has raised another in my mind.

As you know, astrophysicists have found that black holes emit a sound that, when brought into the range of human hearing, is a Bb. Do you know of any way that I might run guitar strings (six or twelve) across a black hole and harness this incredible source of music? And what would I use for the neck and frets?

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 06:10 AM

Freckin' nets!!!

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 05:57 AM

Dear Patients,

Good Heavens! And there was this poor humble old medic thinking that he had lapsed into a well-deserved early retirement! But trusty Mr. Hardly to the rescue once again with a conundrum that is indeed fascinating. I myself, naturally, have been experimenting for some some as to how to use the surplus vibrational energy generated by the guitar and route it into the national grid for the generation of retirement income and the general benefit of society and of the environment in general. After all, one is always dismayed to see the wastage of energy and my interest in this fascinating subject was stirred by seeing the considerable enthalpic exergenic of a so-called "thrasher" at the local performance nightspot some months ago.

I shall today review the physics that underlies Mr Hardly's hypothesis and hope to have a suitable answer shortly.

Mr Rapaire's question is on a somewhat larger topic. Indeed, I am fully aware that the universe, and more specifically black holes, are tuned to Bb which is of course the key of that fine instrument the tenor saxophone. This, of course, was well-known to Mr Adolphe Sax, who little known to modern science and instrument technology, constructed an extremely large hearing horn in his back garden in Dinant, Belgium and perceived a very faint resonance to this effect, thereby inspiring him.

I expect to be turning to the model of string theory or, more properly, superstring theory, to solve this design problem. As Mr Rapaire quite right observes himself, the problem is not so much one of the strings themselves but of more mundane design challenges such as the design of neck and frets and, indeed, where the soundhole should be placed for this will in most probability be a very loud guitar, especially if played by one of Mr Hardly's "thrashers". I am sure that is could produce excess energy too, so by a serendipitous conjunction of logic, the two questions are complementary.

I shall attempt to coax my ailing brains (or should that be branes in the case of Mr Rapire's question) into providing a solution to these most challenging problems, and as sure as Dear Ebbie will not look at the prohibited jazz guitar chord sites, will be back shortly to report on my findings.

Thank you, Mr Hardly and Mr Rapaire, for calling a humble doctor out of semi-retirement to consider such important issues. You have made an old man very happy! (and here I refer of course to myself rather than Mr Offer!).

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:54 AM

Dear Doctor, in my own humble way I do what good I can.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Scrump
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 08:46 AM

So is it worth me painting the hole on my guitar black, or should I leave it the colour it is?

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 09:46 AM

Dear Mr Scrump,

I would personally be inclined in this instance to leave it colourless. Painting it black could potentially result it the unfortunate consequences of sucking members of your audience and of surrounding cosmic artefacts into your instrument and of their potential reappearance in a parallel universe in any one of 16 possible dimensions. For some audiences this could, of course, be a positive side effect but I believe it is a practice generally best avoided in so far as it is possible.

This is in sharp contrast to Mr Rapaire's project where he hopes to exploit that very property to produce a very loud exergenic guitar. However, the design required there necessitates that I peruse my classical, quantum and unified theory intrument-making notes to provide a satisfactory proposal.

Always pleased to be of service, especially to a new patient!

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 09:51 PM

Dear Doc,

Kin I use gitar strings on my banjo?

Thanks for letting me no.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 11:22 PM

Dear Rapaire:

When practicing "perfect pitch" banjo technique the use of guitar strings is recommended to accelerate the trajectory.


DG

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 09:34 AM

My word! It is a long time since my services were called for. I have often wondered if Dear Ebbie is still managing to avoid those prohibited jazz chords.

I think the answer Mr Rapaire is that your banjo is more than like to reject the guitar strings. It's immune system, though feeble, will probably reject anything other than old Black Diamond strings that have been re-sterilised by immersion in sodium hydroxide (NaOH 0.09N) for two hours plus one hour autoclaving at 121°C. This will also remove any prions deposited by the previous player. Modern strings, of course, are equipped with an immune system of their own and will automatically reject the banjo.

Mr Amos's point, while leading in the right general direction needs further elaboration. For perfect pitch to occur into a suitable ferrous target receptacle of opening 8m² (86.11ft²) the normalized trajectory (20.12m or, in old money, 22 yards or 1 chain) for a standard reference bluegrass banjo of mass 4.13kg (9.1lbs) the string will require a tensile strength of approximately 3.74MPa (approx. 542.44lbf/in²) (such a string may be conveniently be borrowed from the bluegrass bass players instrument). I hasten to add that these recommendations are from my own modest experiments on the matter using traditional materials. Modern titanium strings will of course require recalculation of these values to obtain perfect pitch but this can of course be skipped.

Glad once again to have been of value.

Your humble servant,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 09:39 AM

To my more pedantic patients.

I must unreservedly apologize for the disgraceful grammatical errors that have crept into my last post.

Please excuse the degenerating faculties of an ageing practitioner!

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 09:51 AM

Dear Dr Guitar:

Can you clarify whether my English concertina needs a passport when I take it abroad? My son also has a Spanish guitar but a careful examination indicates it is really from Japan. Is this likely to be an illegal immigrant?

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: GUEST,Ebbie, from the liibrary
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 05:02 PM

Dear Dr. guitar, Welcome back. I note that in your Mudcat profile you evidently live inside a guitar, and I think that is so sweet. You walk the walk, indeed.

And yes, I assuredly continue to avoid jazz chords. You, long ago, coninced me of the need.

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 10:56 AM

My dear Mr DMcG

You raise some interesting points!

There once was a golden age of course when all musical instruments were citizens of the world and could pass, without let or hindrance, through ports and between countries. Your English concertina, undoubtedly being venerable, was of this privileged generation and could generally pass between states, often by way of a Wheatstone bridge, where such states were separated by a river.

It is also too evident that countries are now demanding identification, often in the way of passports or identity cards, for even more humble musical instruments. Look at the following example of the poor prima domra which now requires a passport even to enter the country of its origin.

Prima domra with a passport

However much your concertina may bellow and get aerated about this, I think it will soon suffer the same fate as more countries clamp down. Whether this use due to the desire to obtain fiscal revenue from what were formerly free reeds or due to environmental concerns (see following picture of illegal concertina dumping in Northern Ireland) is at present unclear.

Illegal concertina dumping

Regarding your son's Japanese-Spanish guitar, this is of course a modern phenomenon and I personally very much welcome this multiculturalism and cross-fertilisation. It is unlikely to be an illegal immigrant. Indeed I found reference to a Japanese-Spanish Mackerel

Scomberomorus niphonius
        
Does your son's guitar therefore look something like this one perhaps?

Yours most humbly,

Dr. Guitar

Subject: RE: Dr. Guitar's surgery
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 11:12 AM

My daerest Ebbie,

I am heartened to hear of your continuing abstinence from the forbidden finger shapes.

Indeed I do live in a guitar. It is a little cramped but at least low on heating costs for an old and frail practitioner such as myself!

Keep up the good work!

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Guitar