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Just a couple things.....

4/24/2015

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It’s Friday again – yeah! – so time again for miscellaneous thoughts and observations of my guitar world.

My buddy Tony from Down Under suggested I write about a basic issue all guitar players face: how much pressure is necessary and advisable with the hand you use to fret the strings. He said he is often guilty of subjecting his guitar neck to the “death grip” and that is both fatiguing and results in slower movement. He also pasted in some thoughts other guitarists have on the subject.

I agree that sometimes we use too much pressure with our fretting hand. This is part of the formula to achieve clean, clear tone. Simply put, if we don’t press down hard enough the string or strings cannot make solid contact with the frets, resulting in buzzes or muffled tone. My experience with hundreds of guitar students is that a bigger but less obvious problem is not placing the fingers close enough to the frets. The farther away from the frets we are, the harder we have to press to make the strings make firm contact with the fret. This is usually because it is difficult to achieve adequate separation of the fingers. There are very few things we do in every day life where fingers must separate radically and apply pressure so training them to do this is a big chore! Dropping the wrist helps. Many men seem to want to use what I call the “baseball bat” grip on the neck of their guitars and this in turn makes it just about impossible to achieve adequate finger separation.

This also can lead to a general tensing up of the entire arm and even the whole body. The point that the writer of the text that Tony sent makes a case for using only enough pressure to make the firm fret contact. I agree with this to a point but I wonder how many people are able to make a conscious decision to do this? My feeling is that most people come to that point naturally and adding another conscious element to the pressing down of the strings could be counter-productive. I could be wrong about that, of course! In any case, there is no denying that subtle technique tweaks can only make you a better player.

One of my students had an interesting experience at the Boston Guitar Center store last weekend. I have VERY mixed feelings about GC and their online arm, Musician’s Friend. I’ve done a fair amount of business over the years with both and the best thing I can say is that they have the best return policy in the business: a 30-day, no questions asked refund or credit policy. However, their advertised prices are nothing special, typically about 20% off list price. Apparently they will match any advertised or direct quoted price but I have no experience in that. Where they can and often do fall down is in the in-store sales experience. And that is what my student encountered.

She went into the store and decided to try out a nylon string guitar, which she had not played before. She is a pretty shy lady and took a guitar down, found a quiet corner to sit and play (not an easy thing in most Guitar Centers where every teenage rocker wants to show off his best licks via an electric guitar and a loud amp!). Almost immediately a young salesman appeared as she was picking her way through a basic version of “Blackbird,” which she has worked hard to learn. The first words out of his mouth were: “So, do you play guitar?” She kind of looked at him in disbelief, and being a bit of a smart@ss, she replied, “Oh no….I just had my first lesson!”

Without asking, he took the guitar from her and proceeded to play a much fancier version of that song, then gave it back to her. You can probably imagine her reaction.

“So, do you want to buy the guitar?” he said. “I will throw in a free bag for it.”

As I understand it, she basically said that not only did she have no interest in buying the guitar, she had no intention of ever going into another Guitar Center.

So to review, here’s what Mr. Young Guitar Center Stud accomplished, beyond losing a sale of course. He lost someone who might have become a long term customer, and made her feel bad in the process. And not only did he drive away a customer from that Guitar Center, he drove her away from EVERY Guitar Center. But hey, I’m sure he had a good story for the other hot shot salesmen on his coffee break about the lady who couldn’t play “Blackbird” correctly.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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Put me in, coach, I'm ready to play

4/10/2015

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Please excuse the baseball references in this post, especially my friends in Australia who will probably have no idea what I’m talking about (!) but with my beloved Boston Red Sox off to encouraging early season start I just can’t resist.

“Base hit!” The new Martin Dreadnought Junior. Just received one and this will be a sure winner for Martin. It is a 7/8-size guitar with the same shape as the iconic Martin dread, designed as a “travel guitar” but certainly appropriate for anyone with a smaller frame who wants a guitar that rivals its larger cousins in tone and volume. I’ve owned a few Taylor GS Mini’s and up to this point I’ve considered them the best option for a travel guitar but this new Martin is superior in every way. Sound-wise, this is probably due to the fact that unlike the GS Mini it is constructed of all solid wood, with a solid spruce top and solid sapele back and sides. The fit and finish are all Martin, too. My only complaint, a small one however, is that the gig bag that it is sold with is not as well padded or designed as the one that comes with the GS Mini. But this is a small issue – you can always buy a more robust gig bag. And with the astoundingly low price of $599 (with built in Fishman pick up), I am sure Martin will sell many, many Dreadnought Juniors.

“Swing and a miss!”  The highly touted new Taylor 6-series guitars. Granted, I have only played one, but the 614ce First Edition I bought – and sent back the same day – was dull, lifeless and with its deeper than the normal neck (by Taylor’s standards) it was not even all that easy to play. What made it so appealing was not only the gorgeous brown stained maple body and redesigned bracing system but the “torrified” (heat treated) tops that are used with this new series. I was expecting some resonance and character from the sound of this new series but alas, it just wasn’t there. As I said, this was just one guitar and not a fair sample but at $3k I feel I was reasonable to expect much more.

“A solid pitching performance!”  Stewart McDonald, supplier of guitar parts and accessories. Not only does StewMac have just about everything you could need to repair and upgrade your guitar, their site www.stewmac.com features an ever expanding library of “how-to” videos that explain various guitar fixes clearly and in detail. Their latest one, just posted yesterday, shows the very basic but interesting way to set up and string a classical (nylon string) guitar. Also has a nice bit of bossa nova playing from a young Brazilian guitarist. Check it out!

“Rain delay!”  If you live in a part of the country where the seasons are changing don’t be surprised to find the action and even the sound of your guitar changing, too. Winter has finally (??!) loosened its worst-ever grip on New England and in spite of my diligence in maintaining stable humidity levels in my studio I’m already beginning to notice some slight changes in the sound of my two primary guitars, a Martin 000-18 and a Gibson J-45. Both have mahogany bodies, which are generally less affected by humidity changes than rosewood but I’m noticing a certain subtle loss of crispness and resonance that will only become more apparent as we get into the humid days of summer. Not much to be done about that, unfortunately. The action hasn’t changed – yet. But I fully expect the action to get higher as the humidity increases and the wood absorbs it, becoming more pliable and easily bent by the pressure of the strings. It will soon be time for a slight tweak of the truss rod. Oh well, so it goes. I’ll still take that over the 4+ feet of snow I’ve been looking at for the last three months!

“Double play!!”  The duet performed by Sara Jarosz and Alison Krauss on the recent broadcast of “Transatlantic Sessions” on PBS television. Truly, like two angels singing together. Sara is an absolutely amazing young singer/songwriter and of course Alison is in a league of her own (oh – baseball reference again!). I was unfamiliar with this series and this was the first one shown in this country. See it if you can, the music is wonderful.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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The march of time....

4/2/2015

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Some years ago I spoke with a family friend who was at that time well into his 6th decade and health issues came up. He was a pretty robust guy, very active and proud of his outdoor activities. But he said something that stuck with me.

“You know, I don’t really have anything wrong with me but it’s the damn little things that get to me, those little aches and pains that are there all the time. If I wake up in the morning and nothing is hurting, I count that as a win!”

I didn’t really understand that but I do now. And I have to factor that in with many of my guitar students, the majority of whom are in their mid 40s and older. A few, much older. The pain, lack of flexibility and reality of their physical limitations is often very frustrating to them and I have to be very careful with my lesson planning and what I present to them. Everyone wants to see progress but the harsh realities of aging cannot be ignored.

One of the first things I try to get across is that it’s just not realistic to compare their playing to mine. I certainly do NOT claim to be a hot shot guitar player – far from it. But there is no substitute for five decades of experience (even though I really didn’t progress much in a couple of those decades, for various reasons….) and I am blessed with fairly narrow fingers, which many men are not. Combine wide fingers with reduced flexibility and perhaps a guitar with a narrow neck and it is very, very tough to get the clear, clean sound that is required to play even the simplest song well. Women who are older often have a different challenge. They too may deal with flexibility issues but they sometimes have fairly weak fingers compared to men so it takes longer to build up the muscles to the point they can achieve accuracy and clarity of tone. All of these things can be very frustrating and disappointing and it’s my job to be constantly aware of that, and plan lessons accordingly.

A somewhat ironic part of the equation is that these problems seldom have much to do with practice time. I never have problems with adults in terms of putting in a sufficient amount of practice, compared to youngsters. One of my current students was expressing his frustration with his results recently and when I asked him how much he was practicing he explained that he routinely spends a half hour or more on exercises I’ve given him, then goes back and works on older songs for at least an hour, then spends an equal amount of time on his current lesson. Wow. What I suggested was a plan to better budget his practice time and if he follows it I’m pretty sure he’ll see better results. I admire his dedication and frankly wish mine were as good!

Finally, what I always try to do with older students is remind them to look at the big picture. It’s almost a dead certainty that you are playing better (or in a more advanced fashion) than you were a few months ago – take comfort in that. Also know that all of us fall into the trap of only hearing what we’re doing wrong, rather than what we’re doing right! Do you sometimes feel you play better in the first few minutes of a practice session than you do after an hour of concentrated work? Yeah, me too. What that means is that we’re just hearing the bad stuff and taking for granted or ignoring the good. This is a trap.

My late father who was a superb musician (drummer) took up the guitar later in his life and although he was never prone to colorful language I remember him calling me one day and saying, “Gene, I had no idea how many ways there were to f**k up playing the guitar!” I laughed but tried to assure him he was doing just fine, and as I mentioned above, to look at the big picture. I think he took that to heart, and did, but that didn’t eliminate moments of frustration.

The key is to temper your expectations, take pride in what you CAN play, and deal with the minutia as best you can with the confidence that it may never be perfect but it will most assuredly be better, sooner or later.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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