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Like falling off a bike

Nanuq907Nanuq907 Member Posts: 2,552 ✭✭✭✭

Wait... is that the right metaphor? πŸ™„

Anyway I've played guitar for decades and put it down for some reason about 3 years ago. Been kicking myself saying to get back into it, but sorta ashamed it'd probably sound like a rusty hinge on a windy night.

I was just in the store replenishing the Gummy Bears inventory and a song came on, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall. Man was I wiggling my toes and popping my fingers. I love how she plays and she plays a Guild.

So I got back home and got the guitar down off the wall and started figuring out the chords. Inside 20 minutes I had it, and it was astounding how quickly it all came back. Strumming, hammer-on, picking, bending strings... WHAT A HOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now my fingers hurt, but man what a blast. Just like falling off a bike. Here's my baby, a D70, #142 of all they ever made.



Comments

  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 24,454 ✭✭✭✭

    Good for you I always wanted to learn just never took the time

    Congrats on not giving up

    Per my dad his dad and uncles all played some assorted string instruments .got together and do some drinking story telling and played music not much else they could do back then he said he tried but never could pick it up so I got his talent picking my nose and playen the radio lol

  • jimdeerejimdeere Member, Moderator Posts: 25,583 ******

    It takes a while for your callouses to build up.

  • hillbillehillbille Member Posts: 14,121 ✭✭✭✭

    I wouldn't want to fall off a bike so many times I got callouses from it............

  • ridgleyartridgleyart Member Posts: 937 ✭✭✭✭

    I've always liked Guilds, nice guitar and great job on picking it up again, I need to do the same,

  • susiesusie Member Posts: 7,304 ✭✭✭✭

    Haven't got a single musical talent in my bones. Kids on the other hand seem to have been born with it.

    #1 played the cello, #2 played the clarinet and went to the U of A on a band scholarship, #3 played the trombone, #4 played the trumpet.

    My grandmother, uncle and brother all played the guitar by ear. Never read a single sheet of music.

    I too play the radio and nothing else.

  • Nanuq907Nanuq907 Member Posts: 2,552 ✭✭✭✭

    Here's another KT song that I do. I love her creative chords!



  • cbxjeffcbxjeff Member Posts: 17,401 ✭✭✭✭

    Nice D70 Nanuq907. I have a 1955 Martin D-18 that I bought in '62 when I moved to Indy. I don't play anymore as my fingers are just to sore. Neither of my sons are interested in it so I'll probably try to sell it this summer. Sure have some great memories with that Martin.

    It's too late for me, save yourself.
  • Nanuq907Nanuq907 Member Posts: 2,552 ✭✭✭✭

    Oh heck yes. Martins are the instruments of kings.

    That song "Heal Over" starts way up the neck with open and fretted strings and your intonation has to be absolutely spot on or else it sounds like a cheese grater. My poor old Guild wasn't up to it, so I replaced the nut and saddle with fossilized walrus ivory and went to work shaping them, until I got it absolutely perfect, for that one song. I figure it's a good reference point for "what a guitar should be capable of doing". It gives you goose bumps, and it can be tuned to play almost anything with correct intonation.

    But I was listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash with them playing together with their mighty Martin D45s, and thought "Wow, my Guild will never sound like that." It's just the facts of life. There's a reason every serious artist in the 60s and 70s went for the D45. So I sold a couple expensive watches and started the hunt. I didn't want "just another D45" then I discovered Martin made a D42 "Special" for a short time, with the snowflake inlays. It was a D45 with scalloped and shifted bracing, and I knew that was the one. I finally found a guy that was retiring from the bluegrass circuit in the deep south, and he was selling his baby. It has TONS of hours on it, but he kept it pristine. I got it for a fair price and now it lives next to my Guild. What's the difference? The Martin plays so nice it's almost like Autopilot. There are songs I struggle with on the Guild, then I pick up the D42 and they seem to play themselves. And there's a whole 'nother octave of bottom end on that Martin. I can coax that sound out of my Guild, but it's just there on the Martin waiting to come exploding out. Like playing Kashmir by Led Zeppelin, I can do it on the Guild but I play it on the Martin and it's like it plays itself. It's just effortless and "there". Yes indeed, the instruments of kings.

    I also have a Guild F50 jumbo that was owned by Eric Clapton, and it has the thinnest, nastiest, sharpest, most "brassy" Maple sound you've ever heard... until you plug it in. It's got an AMAZING pickup and it sounds just exactly like his recordings. Imagine that? It's also the only guitar I've seen where the harder you play it, the better it works. For live work on stage you can't work it too hard, it just wants more. My other guitars get "rubbery" and weird when you play them hard. But I digress. Sorry! I get carried away.

  • NeoBlackdogNeoBlackdog Member Posts: 16,566 ✭✭✭✭

    I just recently picked my guitar up again after about a 4 year hiatus. Man have my fingers stiffened up!

    The one I play most is a 1960 Gibson ES 330. I'm not good enough to do it justice.

  • Nanuq907Nanuq907 Member Posts: 2,552 ✭✭✭✭

    Yeah you know what really stinks? I was prepping my fatbike for a ride a year ago Christmas, and had it upside down and spun the tire to make sure it was centered in the forks. This is what it looked like, see that lever that clamps down the axle once it's aligned?


    Well I spun it pretty good anticlockwise and was satisfied with the alignment so I grabbed the lever and clamped it down tight, and stuck my index finger right in the spinning disk brake. It whipped my hand around to the caliper and ZIP! The caliper acted like a guillotine and took the end off.

    Now that sorta seems almost comical, and it has grown back nice and it works fine. But they sewed it on cockeyed and twisted so all those thousands of hours of practice and muscle memory are out the window. I try to play the most basic chords and my index finger goes to the wrong place every time.

    So we're in the same boat! My fingers have stiffened up too, for different reasons. :-)

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