Learning The Guitar At 50

My Latest Wallpaper

4:04 P.M.

It's 4:04 in the afternoon and I am at the library with a pile of stuff to work on this Wednesday.

Learning Music

I am holding myself to the standards of the likes of Tanya and Dorise and Paul, the guitarist for Doreens Jazz band, and, as such am being very critical of my own music and am digging into Jazz Method books, as well as Scott Joplin piano rags.

There are guitarists (Giovanni Chiaro) who play the rags on guitar; and, while I used to think that was just making things hard on oneself; I can see how it could open the door to learning Bluegrass and other styles.

I went through the chords this morning for "Bluesette," by Toots Thieleman, which is in the unfriendly guitar key of B-flat; and it made me realize how always playing in my "pet" keys, and never in the "horn keys" such as B-flat has made me pretty much ignorant of those keys.

It is "back to the drawing board" for me; with scales and arpeggios; and studying Jazz standards; like "Satin Doll," by Duke Ellington; and "Sir Duke" by Steveland Morris (Stevie Wonder).

A Better Guitar

I have reached the point where my Jasmine guitar, as much as I love it; is holding me back, musically.

Dorise (of Tanya and Dorise) was playing her second guitar this past weekend, because hers in in the shop having the electronics worked on, and she was complaining about how hard it was for her on that particular steel string after having played so long on her nylon stringed poly carbon fiber (or whatever it is) guitar, which she described as such: "With that guitar, I don't have to do anything..." meaning that she only has to do about half as much as I do to get notes to sound.

Take her onus of that steel string (which was still a nice guitar) and multiply it by 3, and I think that is where I am at with the Jasmine.

I recently took a recording that I made in the ferry terminal and sped it up digitally by 30% and it sounded good and made sense.

I think I am just laboring a bit with the Jasmine. I might take the bridge piece out and file it down to lower the action; and not worry about any intonation issues that might arise; I have enough of those now that I am becoming good at working around them...

Can't Share Music Yet

Speaking of the recordings that I am making in the ferry terminal; it is MUCH more quiet than previous recording spots, and has a nice natural reverb.

I have not found a way to hook up an mp3 converter (or have mine in the wrong directory) and so I can't share any of these early recordings.

This is probably a good thing, because now I can take them out and refine them and take a few days instead of a few hours to finish them.

Luck Grows Cold

I am broke again, but don't care.

We have had 3 days of very chilly air; and somebody said that it had gotten down to 28 degrees the other morning.

I don't believe that, as, none of our drinks froze, but it was definitely close.