Tuesday, May 15, 2018

It's All There

The spare bike has been sold, with enough left of the proceeds to order a set of strings or two to be here by the weekend.
Fixing the Takamine (shown) looks like it will require that I buy a full set of 6 tuning machines, for around 40 bucks. At least that way they will all match. The Epiphone doesn't stay in tune quite as well as the Takamine, which I might have tuned 3 times during a typical 2 and a half hour gig.
I was really hoping to find an individual machine for under 10 bucks that I could order and be playing the Takamine again by the weekend; I still might check e-bay, which I didn't.
Other than that, it is a Tuesday afternoon, and either I go to the park to shoot another video or do something else.
I spent a few hours writing yesterday's story about the Rhonda Harris drawing that I chanced upon on St. Claude Avenue.
Apparently she never tried to make a name for herself as an artist, or if she did, Google doesn't know it.
Last night, I seemed to be doing well, focusing upon the inner space that animates all forms -I'm almost to the end of the current Eckhart Tolle book that I'm reading- and I felt like I was about to make some kind of breakthrough, maybe wake up in an awesome world as if out of a dream...
But, Harold the cat was hanging back, rather than trying to rush through the open door to get in as I held it open to push my bike through, so I left him outside.
Even when 2:30 AM rolled around and I had fallen asleep listening to the Yes "The Ladder" album and then woken up again, I left him out.
I think I was trying to teach him that I'm not going to stand there holding the door open for him while he pauses to stare at something, as if the armadillo that I've seen around the parking lot is on the prowl and he doesn't want to miss a move.
Well, the time is now to go shoot a video in the park. Some of that footage will find its way onto a video.
My goal is just to capture some good singing.
I recently read about how Joni Mitchell "lost" the top octave of her singing voice at a certain age (I think she is near 80 years old now) and how she blamed it on vocal nodes and constricted windpipe (not smoking, though) and it bothers me that the last time I thought that I was singing as well as I can was a couple of years ago.
I've been blaming it on the restricted windpipe that comes with being paranoid about expressing oneself emotionally when he feels like the weirdos that live in his building are pressing their ear outside the door, trying to figure out what ol' whiteboy is in there singing about (it surely ain't about helpin' a nigga out!) type of thing.
Enter the park.
I think I will. Ta ta for now.

4 comments:

  1. The differences in your guitars is probably due to the tuning machines.

    I think tuning machines on guitars are probably like shock absorbers on 1980s motorcycles, they'd put the cheapest ones on and if you were wise you'd get better, aftermarket, ones from Progressive Suspension or White Bros. or someone, and they'd be good for miles and miles.

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  2. Yeah, the $99.95 Epiphone comes with machines that are identical in appearance to ones sold by a certain company and marketed as "economy" tuning machines for 16 bucks online.
    Most likely, this company is making, and stamping Epiphone, on them so they probably account for about 7 dollars of the value of the finished product.
    A 40 dollar set of machines might indeed make it stay in tune like the 350 dollar Takamine.
    I would be willing to bet that the next step "up" in the Epiphone line (to the $149.95 one, perhaps) boasts a more "name" brand of tuning machines, probably even mentions that they are gold in color (as that is the kind of thing that is so important to the Johnny B.,s of the world).

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  3. There isn't physically any other way the string can lose tension, unless the neck is still settling in, due to the vibrations and push and pull upon it, which effects the weakest link in the chain (that pesky b string) more than others, giving the illusion that that particular string has "slipped."

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  4. You might start brokering guitars ... keep an eye on your local thrift and pawn shops and garage sales etc., pick off some nice hardware for yourself but mainly buy that $15 guitar and flip it for $75 etc.

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