The Bassist and Guitarist thread

[ColinJ]

Another distraction... (are you beginning to see a pattern here, and get some idea of why my gnat-like concentration span is a factor in my non-player status? )

Interesting, but (to my eyes) ugly frets!



On the subject of tuning... The 'Tune bottom E, then tune others using frets 5/5/5/4/5' method works nicely on my classical guitar but I was never happy with the result on my Tanglewood steel-strung acoustic. The top E always ended up slightly flat so I would either use the old tuner on every string or (when the battery was flat!) I'd use 5/5/5/4/5 to get it almost right, tune the top E to be perfectly 2 octaves above the bottom string, and then tweak the middle 4 strings to sound good. I don't know if the frets are not positioned quite right or what...

THIS ARTICLE is quite interesting.

 

[Drago]

Tune bottom E and then tune the harmonic on the next string up, a smidge more accurate. Or download Guitar Tuna on your phone.

 

[delb0y]

Here's a short clip of me playing a Jazzy number about 20 years ago.

https://www.mixposure.com/guy-boden/audio/515/just-is

That's really nice, Guy!

 

[ColinJ]

Tune bottom E and then tune the harmonic on the next string up, a smidge more accurate. Or download Guitar Tuna on your phone.

I have decided to buy one of the Snark tuners mentioned above by @Asa Post. I like THIS ONE because it has a frequency (Hz) readout which would enable much finer tuning (and appeals to the nerd in me!).

 

[ColinJ]

Oh - the ST-8HZ. I don't know why they have signified Hz (unit of frequency) as H.Z. on the front of the device?

Now I am wondering what to spend £6.60 on to get free delivery... Any guitar related suggestions? I don't need more strings (yet) and have a capo (somewhere - I can't find it!).

 

[GuyBoden]

Oh - the ST-8HZ. I don't know why they have signified Hz (unit of frequency) as H.Z. on the front of the device?

Now I am wondering what to spend £6.60 on to get free delivery... Any guitar related suggestions? I don't need more strings (yet) and have a capo (somewhere - I can't find it!).

A guitar teacher, I took lessons with when I was younger, said that Electronic Guitar Tuners had made his life much more bearable, he could now listen to his students play and sometimes they were in tune.

 

[DCBassman]

A guitar teacher, I took lesson with was I was younger, said that Electronic Guitar Tuners had made his life much more bearable, he could now listen to his students play and sometimes they were in tune.

Studio engineers, too...

 

[ColinJ]

All is fine with well-designed digital tuners, or tuners with batteries that aren't semi-flat...

I am waiting for my new tuner to arrive so am temporarily still using my clunky old one. I was only half paying attention today, listening to the TV news while tuning the guitar. It eventually dawned on me that something wasn't right... I'd wound the bottom E up to about 3 semitones sharp but the tuner was still showing that it was very flat. It turns out that the damn thing doesn't check its battery voltage and indicate when it is too low, it just becomes very inaccurate and carries on regardless! 👎

I found a replacement battery and all is now back to normal.

The guitar has hardly been touched for years and the tuning pegs have become very stiff to turn. They resist moving until I twist a bit harder then they slip and I overshoot the string tension that I am aiming for. I'll have to put some kind of lube on them...

Now that I am trying to learn chords I have been reminded how difficult I find some of them. Barre chords are definitely out for now, but I even struggle on any simpler ones needing my little finger to stretch over to the bottom 3 strings. I was staring at my left hand just now and think that the little finger looks a bit TOO little! It is 3.5 cm shorter than my 3rd finger - is THAT 'normal'? Not that there is anything I can do about it if I have mutant hands! There must be people with shorter fingers than mine playing full-size guitars but how they do it beats me...

[Post "Practice Colin; LOTS of practice" comments below!]

 

[GuyBoden]

All is fine with well-designed digital tuners, or tuners with batteries that aren't semi-flat...

I am waiting for my new tuner to arrive so am temporarily still using my clunky old one. I was only half paying attention today, listening to the TV news while tuning the guitar. It eventually dawned on me that something wasn't right... I'd wound the bottom E up to about 3 semitones sharp but the tuner was still showing that it was very flat. It turns out that the damn thing doesn't check its battery voltage and indicate when it is too low, it just becomes very inaccurate and carries on regardless! 👎

I found a replacement battery and all is now back to normal.

The guitar has hardly been touched for years and the tuning pegs have become very stiff to turn. They resist moving until I twist a bit harder then they slip and I overshoot the string tension that I am aiming for. I'll have to put some kind of lube on them...

Now that I am trying to learn chords I have been reminded how difficult I find some of them. Barre chords are definitely out for now, but I even struggle on any simpler ones needing my little finger to stretch over to the bottom 3 strings. I was staring at my left hand just now and think that the little finger looks a bit TOO little! It is 3.5 cm shorter than my 3rd finger - is THAT 'normal'? Not that there is anything I can do about it if I have mutant hands! There must be people with shorter fingers than mine playing full-size guitars but how they do it beats me...

[Post "Practice Colin; LOTS of practice" comments below!]

Colin, you don't need Barre chords, just the 1st, 5th and maybe 3rd, maybe 7th, maybe 4th notes of a scale.
I've never used them since my Punk Rock days.

The basics of all you need:

C Power chord C G (The 1st and 5th notes of the C Major scale.)
C Major Chord is C G E (The 1st, 5th and 3rd notes of the C Major scale.) or C E G (The 1st, 3rd,5th notes of the C Major scale.)
C minor Chord is C Eb G (The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C minor scale.)
C Dom Chord is C E Bb (The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C Mixolydian scale.)
C Sus4 Chord is C G F (The 1st, 5th and 4th notes of the C Major scale.)

(Obviously in more keys.)

 

[ColinJ]

Colin, you don't need Barre chords, just the 1st, 5th and maybe 3rd, maybe 7th, maybe 4th notes of a scale.
I've never used them since my Punk Rock days.

The basics of all you need:

C Power chord C G (The 1st and 5th notes of the C Major scale.)
C Major Chord is C G E (The 1st, 5th and 3rd notes of the C Major scale.) or C E G (The 1st, 3rd,5th notes of the C Major scale.)
C minor Chord is C Eb G (The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C minor scale.)
C Dom Chord is C E Bb (The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C Mixolydian scale.)
C Sus4 Chord is C G F (The 1st, 5th and 4th notes of the C Major scale.)

(Obviously in more keys.)

Interesting!

I'm going to have to take a few shortcuts since I am effectively starting at 64 and don't have decades to learn as much as I would want to if I were still young.

I have a guest about to arrive but I will try to work out later what you mean by all of that.

 

[ColinJ]

I am waiting for my new tuner to arrive so am temporarily still using my clunky old one. I was only half paying attention today, listening to the TV news while tuning the guitar. It eventually dawned on me that something wasn't right... I'd wound the bottom E up to about 3 semitones sharp but the tuner was still showing that it was very flat. It turns out that the damn thing doesn't check its battery voltage and indicate when it is too low, it just becomes very inaccurate and carries on regardless! 👎

I found a replacement battery and all is now back to normal.

And then the replacement battery went flat and I had the same problem again!

I found a rechargeable 9V battery and gave that a full charge. The tuner is working well again. It doesn't matter much because the Snark is supposed to be delivered tomorrow, but the old one will now work upstairs for my other guitar.

The guitar has hardly been touched for years and the tuning pegs have become very stiff to turn. They resist moving until I twist a bit harder then they slip and I overshoot the string tension that I am aiming for. I'll have to put some kind of lube on them...

I just used a few drops of chain lube on the mechanism of each peg. They are nice and smooth in operation now, but the guitar smells like a freshly lubed bike! I've wiped off the surplus lube and the smell should dissipate once the volatile parts of the lube have finished evaporating.

 

[Oxford Dave]

Played a real fun gig last night, with my old band in the pub in the village I live in. So the drive to the venue was only about one minute, makes a change from trekking to London or Yorkshire (next two gigs with my current band).
Nice to play stuff I hadn't payed for a couple of years with good friends in the band and the audience.

 

[Drago]

I've got a gig next weekend. Going over the set list with the boys later today.

 

[ColinJ]

I hope you chaps keep the volume down to a reasonable*** level? I haven't been to a live gig in years. The last couple were at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge and they were stupidly loud. How loud was that? Well, it is a small venue which can probably hold no more than a couple of hundred people. No need for lots of power but the guitar player was so loud that I couldn't hear the drums. I was standing directly in front of the drummer and he was a beefy guy seemingly trying to smash his kit to pieces, so he must have been very loud himself, but inaudible over the guitar. Crazy loud! I reckon some of my hearing loss came from that one gig...

The next time we went there I wore earplugs but even then the levels felt a bit on the high side.

Oh, just remembered - I went to a pub in Hebden Bridge a few months ago on open mic night. It is open plan now but I was at the far end away from the musicians, tucked away in a cubby hole. Despite that I couldn't hear what my friends were saying less than a metre away! I think that a steel-strung acoustic guitar played hard with a plectrum shouldn't need lots of amplification in a small venue with only 30 people in it. The singers were probably loud enough too.

Too much of levels set to 11! I have a lot of hearing loss already without speeding up my aural decline...






*** Excitingly loud peaks but not loud enough to cause instant hearing loss!

 

[MontyVeda]

...
Now that I am trying to learn chords I have been reminded how difficult I find some of them. Barre chords are definitely out for now, but I even struggle on any simpler ones needing my little finger to stretch over to the bottom 3 strings. I was staring at my left hand just now and think that the little finger looks a bit TOO little! It is 3.5 cm shorter than my 3rd finger - is THAT 'normal'? Not that there is anything I can do about it if I have mutant hands! There must be people with shorter fingers than mine playing full-size guitars but how they do it beats me...

[Post "Practice Colin; LOTS of practice" comments below!]

my little finger's 3.5cm shorter than the one next to it.

Simple fact is, barre chords are hard to begin with. Some players (Jimi Hendrix, David Byrne and Wilko johnson) tend to barre the bottom (E and A) strings by hooking their thumb over the top of the neck rather than using their index finger as the barre. Might be worth try. There'll be a time when you'll need to play an F major.