Forum Replies Created
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[quote=”guitfiddle”][quote=”Sylvia”]Hi! I feel your pain. I had problems finding a good teacher in my area and my musical tastes range from celtic to heavy metal. [/quote]
Teaching is a funny thing. My family’s music store used to employ over 120 teachers. I got to know many of them. Interestingly, the best musician isn’t always the best teacher. 😉
Teaching is more about giving. Ergo, it’s difficult to find someone who is genuinely interested in the progression of a student and one who will give wheat is needed. Giving, you might ask? How can this be? I’m paying for the lessons! Yeah, but this does not imply that one will be taught the subtle nuances that will identify one’s playing with the toppers.
Don’t be afraid to change teachers, if you’re not getting what you believe you should. More specifically, one might find a great beginner’s teacher and grow out of that approach. (Not all teachers can work with all students.) When one moves into areas such as improvisation, it might be wise to find someone who can move another along in that discipline.
Of course, the bottom line is: you have to do the work, simply put.[/quote]
Oh so true! The best teachers care about your progress and take pride in your doing so. For me however it was far more important for me to be able to find a teacher who could meld to my schedule since I don’t always feel my best. (as of today I haven’t left my home for 45 days.)
I think that is one of the reasons I like the online place so much. I can take lessons at 3:00 am if I want. I know of no teacher would allow me to do that locally. he he he
The best thing is this new blues instructor. with only 3 lesson so far…I’m already playing blues, transposing the key to another, and am having a great time!
yep… I love my lessons at Jamplay, and I am pay far less then if I had locally. For me it’s the best option.
S
I wrote this for another site….I thought I’d add it here. Hopefully you’ll find it helpful
I’m not an expert, however, I do have several guitars. The things you would want to look for are, solid wood top, a nice smooth fretboard, a nice angle from the nut to the tuners, low action and a truss rod in the neck.
It’s best to go to your music store to try out a few, and ask lots of questions, then armed with your experience go shopping around.
Solid wood guitars can be expensive but if you are savvy and frugal you can poke around some pawn shops, garage sales (boot sales for my UK friends) and other sources to find some decent deals.
However watch for things like bowed necks, warped woods, cracks in the wood, raised saddles, chipped or cracked nuts or bridges, check the saddle and bridge around the bridge pins for cracks and make sure the tuning mechanisms are not loose or at least can be tightened via a nut. (I’ve managed some great deals by pointing out this “flaw” for a discount, then went home and whipped out my wrench and fixed the problem)
Is it solid wood? Take a good look around the sound hole of natural wood or stained guitars, if it’s solid or laminate you’ll see it there. The lines of the wood grain will go all the way through the edge of the sound hole. If it stops half way or you can’t can’t tell if it goes all the way through… it’s probably a laminate, haggle accordingly.
Always haggle over the price! Pawn shops especially are notorious for buying for $25 and selling for $250 or more! If they won’t come down low enough… ask for extra sets of strings, cases and accessories.
(I recently picked up a 2007 Martin 000C-16GTE ($1900 msrp) for $600 that still had the film on the pick guard!! )
Sylvia
There is a 1980 model of this guitar on elderly.com that sold for $850
here’s the link http://www.elderly.com/vintage/items/20U-10332.htm
http://www.ibanezrules.com/catalogs/reference/dating.htm
that site has some interesting serial number info……are you sure it’s a ‘P’ and not an ‘F’
[quote=”rollyn”]Hi people, I need to learn to play the blues guitar and the thing being that its not as easy as it seems cause I cannot find a good teacher to make me learn this and the second thing being the cost of private lessons…. so I am looking for online classes. I have an acoustic guitar with strings made from other than nylon in standard tuning.
I have some basic knowledge and know to play a few chords. But what I need is a crash course or something for beginners to get on going. Please do drop in your ideas to help me. (Hail the great William Christopher Handy who wrote the first blues song “Memphis Bluesâ€)
Thanks in advance![/quote]
Hi! I feel your pain. I had problems finding a good teacher in my area and my musical tastes range from celtic to heavy metal. Anyway, I got lucky and found Jamplay! When I started in February this year they had slightly over 4000 minutes of lessons in several genres including Rock/Blues/Metal/Blue Grass/Slack Key/Fingerstyle…. and the list keeps growing. Today I saw that they finally made it to 8,011 minutes of lessons! Woot! Recently they’ve made it known that they will begin filming a new Blues instructor and I can’t wait.
Anyway they have a few free lessons to check out. And if you sign up use this super secret code for a discount.
Code: OLG
S
[quote=”justinr128″]There is a free program called ScaleTrainer http://www.ecogneato.com/products/stge/stge_bv_product.html that samples my guitar through my computers sound card. It shows my whats right and wrong for a (scale/mode/key combination). You can change the modes for any scale and see what the entire fret board looks like. It illustrates how modes work and relate to each other.[/quote]
Hey! That’s kinda cool! Thanks for sharing.
[quote=”acoustica1″]Hello all
One more toy, maybe the last one…..maybe not!! 😀http://www.open-tuning.fr/SA1.jpg
http://emacmusic.com/guitars/PrudencioSaez/Description/59.htm
Finally, back to nylon and easy little things:
http://www.open-tuning.fr/Valencia.mp3(The title? Oh, just written into the guitar sound hole :”made in Valencia” 😀 )[/quote]
Wow! Very nice guitar…. and such lovely music. 😀
[quote=”Tim”]
Sylvia, I tend to know exactly what I’ll find…dead skin soaked in whiskey and that crusty stuff you get when good red wine dehydrates. And pizza crumbs.
But anyway…welcome to the forum, you’ll be in the top posters soon at this rate!
Tim.[/quote]
Hi Tim.
Thanks for the welcome!! LOL! I worked on a LP Special II a while back… I didn’t disassemble it… but boy when I blew it out with canned air… I was surprised at the amount of fluff and junk that blew out from around the pickups.
It was worth my time and effort though I traded it for a Martin 000C-16GTE 😀
Hi:
Youtube is great except if you are a real newb.
Justin Sandercoe Lessons are decent and free, but he would apreciate a donation.
I joined Jamplay in Feb 08 and have improved greatly! They have intensive beginning lessons that really get you started down the right path and best of all there is just about any type of genre you want to play.
[quote=”1bassleft”]Thanks for the yootoob link, Sylvia. I had a look at it and was mildly disappointed. I didn’t mind that he cut out the screwing, even though I can happily watch someone screwing on a yootoob postup for several minutes, but the aim for the spray from his nozzle wasn’t all that accurate, either.
Secondly, that demo had the guy gingerly lifting the pickguard like it had live cockroaches in the routs and spraying in the general area of the vol pot. Much better to turn it over properly and have a good look at the little scratchy. All pots have a tiny hole and you should aim the nozzle right into this to do the spraylube job properly.[/quote]
Granted the vid wasn’t perfect but it was provided as a brief guide, since some folks are visual learners. I think the reason he was lifting the pickguard so gingerly was to protect noobs from yanking and thus breaking the soldered connections and not that he was afraid of cockroaches LOL!!
On that point, I recently replaced the pickguard on my strat and found a Cheeto and a small allen wrench in there. LOL!! 😯 WTF!! I guess you’ll never know what you’ll find when you open one up.
One thing I neglected to mention was the virtues of the classical hand position. While I suspect that you do not intend to play classical music, the position of the hand in this technique allows your fingers to move freely and get up and over the fret board to fret the strings with your finger tips.
Classical position
If you’ll notice, most accomplished guitarists, even Rock and metal guitarists), alternate between the Classical position and the rock position.
The Rock positions has the neck sitting in the crook of the hand formed by the thumb and palm. This position is good for bending strings and creating vibrato.
Rock position
Finally, if you must look at your frets… try placing yourself in front of a full length mirror and look at the mirror instead of down at your hand. You might see some positioning issues you need to work on.
🙂
Oh dear!! Not good… there’s nothing worse than finding that your baby has been damaged. 🙁
I agree… get those strings off immediately. And if the guitar is worth the price of repair, take it to a professional luthier (guitar builder/repair person) and have it looked at. Then if it’s worth it… have it fixed, if not hang it on your wall as an “art piece”
Good luck
Sylvia
The crackeling in your knobs is the result of dirt in the pots. Go to your local electronics store and ask for some electronics contact cleaner spray. It should be about $15 a can.
I could go watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ERNx97UF0
As for your Rusty parts… well?!! I’ve had some success with super extra fine steel wool and a very light hand. Use care that you don’t get steel wool crumbs inside your guitar. Otherwise use a dry stiff toothbrush to brush away the rust scale as best you can and then everytime you change the strings be sure to clean and polish the metal as well as the wood. (I’ve also use a very fine jewelers rouge to polish and remove small spots of rust)
