Back to Guitars

Posted on September 25, 2018 by SusanG

Oh yeah! Back to the Guitars. That’s so much better. I can’t even tell you. It felt so good to just play for hours and then play a little more. And then play more the next day, and the next, to the point I had to take a day off because my fingers were sore.

Yes. That does mean I passed the test. For now I have my free time back to myself. I don’t know that I won’t have something else to work on after this. For now though, I’m very happy to be back to figuring out how to play this and how to play that, and all that good stuff.

I’ve been thinking about the fact that some of the guitars in my collection, haven’t really been getting the love they should. I gave some thought to why and found that there was something about a few of them that I just didn’t like as much as I had when I first got them. Either the sound wasn’t doing it for me, or it didn’t feel right, or I didn’t like the way it played. With that in mind, it seems a waste to hold on to them when someone else might find them to be exactly what they want. Maybe it’s time to see about letting go of those.

Yes, I have culled my collection. This was a big step, big decision, for me. There is one guitar that I had in my teen years that I sometimes wish I had not gotten rid of so when I started playing again, and acquiring guitars, adopted the attitude that I wasn’t ever getting rid of another guitar. However, as I started seriously looking at my collection, what I play, what I don’t play and why, and what I want, it didn’t make sense to hold on to that attitude. Now I’m working from the idea that if I don’t love it, I won’t keep it.

I’m more interested in having a high quality instrument, with a sound and feel I love, even if it means paying more, and owning fewer instruments. One of the things I have finally come to understand is that a really good instrument not only makes you sound better for where you are, it also makes you want to be better. It took me a while to understand that and now that’s what I’m going to focus on with my guitars.

That’s not to say that I don’t have a few guitars that I keep for sentimental reasons. I do. That’s a different sort of love for the guitar. So those stay.

I gained quite a bit of mental space when I passed that test. It’s no longer something I have to continue to worry about and spend a lot of extra time on. I also gained mental space when I traded in those guitars. It’s amazing how much space they were taking up in my brain. So now that I have that bit of mental space, I’m ready and excited to get back to learning new songs and techniques. Though I admit, I feel a little like a kid in a massive toy store, I want to run all over the place and work on this over here, and that over there, and that over there, and wait, what’s over there. There’s just so much I want to play.

I’m going to need to find a little focus pretty quick. There’s another Blues Jam coming up this weekend and possibly the week after that as well. So I don’t have a lot of time to run all over the place trying to figure out what I’m doing. I need to just get busy. And with that, I’m off to figure out a practice plan for the next few days, and play some more. Here are a few more pictures from that last jam. Now that I’m not studying I’ll work on getting the video from it posted. That will be good to work on when my fingers need a rest, just before they start to blister.

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Chasing Tails, Tests, and Hurricanes

Posted on September 18, 2018 by SusanG

It’s just crazy. Nearly every time I sit down to write a post these days, I end up writing three before I have something I’m happy with. And that’s pretty much the case again, with this post.

I started a post last week. Trying to tell about the jam and the interesting experiences I had. One was the relief it gave me from the crazy few weeks I’ve been having and the other had to do with playing with someone of a caliber and skill level that I strive for. I thought it might be a nice thing to talk about since I haven’t really had much in the way of jam experiences to discuss recently. And then I got stuck.

Earlier in the day, before I sat down to write, my nice quiet relaxed world went just a little sideways. I thought I’d been staying on top of the stuff I have to take care of for the part of my Grandfather’s business that falls to my sister and I. Apparently not, or something else came up. One phone call sent me chasing my tail and a few other things for the better part of the week, ultimately. So when I sat down to write, I had a little trouble getting my thoughts to come together in a manner that would be interesting, not ramble, and not sound too weird. At that point I walked away with the intention of finishing it the next night.

That approach has worked in the past. It didn’t work this time. I never got back to what I had written. Things just kept sliding right on by. All making it not just difficult to focus on writing the post, also making it difficult to retrieve the feeling and experience I had wanted to write about.

And then there was the hurricane. First and foremost. I am extremely fortunate and grateful to live where I do. The weather event, while tedious in it’s duration and lack of drama for me, it was only tedious and lacking in drama. Fortunately. I did not sustain any damage, flooding, or prolonged power loss. Yep. I got to watch the weather coverage all weekend. Not healthy. However, it was just about all I could do for a good bit of the time. The anticipation is killer. And I find it to be especially debilitating when it comes to hurricanes. I have a more than healthy respect for Mother Nature and after living in Central Florida in 2004, I have an extreme dislike of wind events. As I imagine many who were there for that time do.

So. As a result of all that. And still studying for my test. It’s this week by the way. My week was not nearly as musical as I prefer. It was not particularly calm. And for me, it wasn’t conducive to writing. With last week in the history books, and more information now at hand, my biggest concern and worry for this week is my test. I really want to pass. I’m really not sure how it’s going to go. I will continue to study and then go in and just do the best I can.

As you might surmise, how I do on the test will likely impact my plans for the rest of the week as well as how I approach next week’s post. Here’s hoping it goes well and I can return to obsessing over guitar strings, pick up heights, guitar setups, and the need to dig into my recording software.

For now, here are a few pictures from the jam. It was a lot of fun and I think I did pretty good. I took some leads and while they could have been better, I took the leads without hesitation so it’s progress. There is video and as soon as feel like I can spare the time editing it, I’ll get it posted.

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As I Expected

Posted on September 4, 2018 by SusanG

That stay-cation went pretty much as I expected. Which was, not at all as I had hoped or planned.

I’m back to the day job this week and as I reflect on this recent time off I can honestly say, that did not go anything like I had hoped or planned. And while some of that was ok some of it was a little more difficult to deal with. I did get some of what I hoped to work on either done completely or a lot of progress made. Most of it took much longer than I anticipated. Some of it was much more involved, or I made it so. And there was an unexpected trip that needed to be made.

I had planned on taking one of my pet birds to the vet because she has been having a lot of trouble getting around. I suspected she is dealing with arthritis but wanted to make sure it wasn’t something else that was being neglected. It’s arthritis. There isn’t much I can do for her other than more comfortable perches and pain medication. Comfortable perches works for her. Pain medication not so much. She was cooperative about taking it the first two or three doses and from there she got increasingly less cooperative. She got really good at hiding from the dropper. She figured out how to bury her beak into my hand and leg and jacket so good that I had no chance of getting to it.

All the effort and struggle to give the bird her medicine was just more than I thought she could take and I didn’t want her mad at me so being the soft touch that I am when it comes to animals, after her dosing, she got proper head scratching. A process that could go on for forty-five minutes to an hour easily. I got tired before she did. Yep she’s definitely got me trained.

In addition to the vet trip, the other pet related activity on the list was a deep and thorough cleaning of the bird cages. I have two birds and three cages. I started with the empty cage thinking I’d use that as a holding pen while I cleaned one of the other cages. That didn’t work. The little bird that was getting medicine sat in a plastic hospital tub that she hated. The other bird, hated that tub so much that he insisted he was going to sit on my shoulder while I put his cage back together and dried everything off. He’s not normally a shoulder rider, so that was interesting. He’s still pissed that I cleaned his mirror though.

Major cage cleaning accomplished. I thought I was going to move on to other tasks. Like trying to get through the new study material that is a compliment to reading the official text for the test I’m taking. That was taking longer that I had expected. Though, I thought I was going to be on a good track to have some time at the end of my break, just before going back to work, to relax and not have to worry about it. And then I got a call that changed all that.

My family is fairly small and there aren’t a lot of our little nucleus left. And now there is one less. A week before I went on break I received a call that my Grandfather was in the hospital. His wife called to let me know and was really good about keeping me, and thus the rest of my family, up to date on how he was doing. After a little over a week they moved him to hospice. This was the first week while I was on break. Saturday morning after that I received the call that he had passed. So a trip back to Oklahoma was now in play. I have a sister and she and I are next in line there. My father passed five years ago and he was an only child. My Grandmother passed 15 years ago. Both his brother and sister passed a few years ago as well. He was 94. He lived a good long life and he out lived most of his family and friends. I went back for the funeral and to help with cleaning up what little bit of stuff I could. It’s not a trip you ever want to make and no matter how much we might intellectually accept something like a death is coming, I’m not sure you are ever totally prepared for it when it finally happens.

There are lots of experiences and feelings and events that can occur as a result of someone’s passing. The hospitality of a stranger was not one I was expecting. As you can imagine, staying at what had been my Grandfather’s house was going to be tight since there was other family coming in. So I was anticipating grabbing a hotel for the couple of nights I was going to be there. Except, a neighbor lady, who I had never met and had only met my Grandfather’s wife a few months ago, offered the use of her spare room with an en suite bathroom and shower. I am in admiration and appreciation of her hospitality. She was a very welcoming hostess. And quite an exceptional person with some great stories of really amazing adventures that have been her life. I am very happy to have had the chance to meet and converse with her, and again appreciative and grateful for her hospitality.

My trip to Oklahoma was short, just two nights, so I traveled as light as I could. I expected that I might be coming back with a few more items than I went with and I really wanted to make the return trip as easy as I could. So I did not pack a computer. A kindle yes, but not the laptop. So studying while I was there was out. Not that I would have had the time really. That meant that upon my return I was going to be spending much more of my time left studying just to make up for the time away. And I did. I have a little more to read, just one chapter, and some quizzing to work through. I’m far enough, and what’s left is more peripheral information so while I’ll still be studying this next week, I have at least made it through the bulk of the information and am a little less stressed about getting through the material in time for taking the test. The next step there is to schedule it. I’ve already purchased my voucher so it’s paid for, now I need to commit to a day, time, and location.

As you can tell, my stay-cation, not only wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, it turned out to not even be a stay-cation. Oh well. I will be testing soon and while you would think that would mean things would lighten up and get back to a more ‘normal’ type of routine, I know that won’t be happening. I’m not quite sure what a ‘normal’ routine looks like these days. I will still be playing music. There’s a jam coming up this next weekend and I will be there. That’s about as close to a normal routine as I get these days. I hope to have some new music related tales and pictures soon. For now I’ve included some pictures of my adventures with medicating my bird as well as some pictures of my Grandfather over the years. Yes, I’m in a couple of them with my sister. Enjoy.

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Aack!

Posted on August 31, 2018 by SusanG

Or should that be ‘eek!’

Things went nothing as I had planned, or hoped, for this week. Events totally beyond my control occurred that meant I was busy planning for a last minute trip instead of writing an article for you lovely people.

I’m back from the last minute trip, and for the most part things will settle back into something approaching normal for me, and I’ll be back on track. I just wanted to give you a quick little update and share this Lego Wall-e picture with you again.

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Getting The Stay-cation Started

Posted on August 22, 2018 by SusanG

Stay-cations are deceiving. They offer the illusion that you have all this time to get all these things done while still relaxing and recharging. How all that is actually supposed to happen is beyond me. For me, stay-cation relaxing means ignoring bed times and
alarm clocks. I stay up later and get up even later. And then, the stay-cation is over before you know it and it’s back to whatever your regular routine is.

Yes, my two week stay-cation has begun. I kicked it off Friday night with a Netflix movie and pizza. I followed that up on Sunday by playing at the Charlotte Blues Jam. Which was fun!

I was pretty excited and pumped about the jam to begin with and then with that first set, it was so much fun and felt like it went so well that that same feeling of excitement comes surging back when I think about it or watch the video of it. Yes, there is video. Yes, I will get it posted.

It turned out to be a little eventful for me. A harp player I’ve been chatting with about some of the music finally came out to the jam and brought his gear. And played. I got to play with him in that first set. It was pretty cool. Playing with a harp player, at least in my experience so far, brings a certain energy and dynamic to the experience that I like. I really have a great time seconding a good harp player.

In addition to that first set being a blast of a good time, it also provided the opportunity to solve two issues I’d been having. The first was a volume or gain issue that’s been a little puzzling.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but if I have now the story has a conclusion. Because I usually play clean, no effects pedals engaged, it seems the amp doesn’t get quite enough signal from the pickups on my Gretsch. It’s a bit longer story, to explain why the pedals matter and how I figured this out, than I want to cover at the moment. The short explanation is simply that the pickups on my Gretsch aren’t as hot as the ones on my Les Paul or Telecaster.

So for this last jam I took both my Gretsch and my Les Paul. I chose to play the Les Paul. I left the pedals as they were. I didn’t disengage anything so I ended up with at least a bit of overdrive with some bite. This time I had the opposite problem. I had lots of room to turn the guitar up and no room to turn it down, and it was plenty loud. Now you can hear me.

The other issue that got solved was how to handle the stops or breaks that some songs have. I love singing and playing ‘Don’t Start Me to Talking’ but it has these breaks where you talk sing a line followed by a punch of sound from the band and then a break and so on for about four to eight bars and then it finishes out a regular 12 bar blues pattern. I’ve been having trouble playing, singing, and getting everyone on point with those stops. Fortunately, Kevin helped out by directing from the floor. He did it just enough for me to pick it up. Light bulb on! Being able to do that and get everyone in sync made playing that song even more fun.

It was great to finally get to play with Kim. It’s always a great thing when we have new people join in. And, he wasn’t our only first timer. We had a couple few others as well. They all brought incredible talent and skills. As is sometimes the case. Not everyone had a lot of experience playing in the type of setting that is the blues jam. It was fun watching a couple of the more experienced drummers mentor and coach a young drummer who is fairly new to the jam experience. See, it’s not only some of us guitar players that need a little help.

I hope all the new and non-regulars that came out to play this time come back soon and often. They were a great addition to the evening.

I’m still pretty pumped from the jam. And. I still have the video to edit. I would like to thank Kevin for his directorial assistance. Man. That helps so much. I’m excited to get the video posted. I’m hoping to have it up in a couple of days. I still have one more batch from the previous jam to get up first. Then I’ll get to this latest one. And I think I need to look for a couple of new songs to start learning. I’ve got one in mind for sure. I wonder what else I can find.

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