1

(40 replies, posted in Guitars)

What total nonsense.
""Backward"' means playing the instrument in a backwards fashion, not, obviously, that the student is backward as in dumb...the left hand fretting, except when learning clessical, requires far more effort than the right in the case of a beginner, again obvious..and if left-andedness in so important, why do thousands of piano players every year learn in a normal fashion, not on a reversed keyboard.?

2

(9 replies, posted in Guitars)

Yeah, because the slide tends to hit the frets. To really set a neck up needs not just the truss rod agjusted, but in many cases the back of the nut and the bridge saddle filed down.

Well, you can look at the key signiture, but a real guitarists way is to run up and down the notes on the bass string until you find the note that matches the first and last chord- if the song starts on another chord, the last chord is the best bet ie: if the song ends on a G, the song is in G...if it's in a minor key, the match will come on the note three frets lower, so Em is relative to G, Am is relative to C and so on.

4

(16 replies, posted in Announcements)

It's a pommie anti-convict move !
Good on ya, Mikey default/smile

5

(16 replies, posted in Announcements)

.. what happened?

6

(12 replies, posted in Everything Else)

..me too, or Mr No Name brand works fine- one of the best to bring back a sheen on a neglected guitar is WD40.

7

(20 replies, posted in Newbie Section)

Pain? Why make it harder for yourself- drop back two guages in string size to start, and put metho on the tips of your fingers for the first few weeks- and don't ever, unless your plan is to play classical guitar, try to learn on a nylon string guitar.

8

(16 replies, posted in Everything Else)

Yeah,I sure am, Joe- I don't know how people use little tiny floppy picks..the only way I can get really fast stuff going is with large triangle medium or hard picks- I always use Onyx if they are available... they are not available through the wholesalers we use and I don't mind for a minute taking the 100km round trip to the only local regional  music store that stocks them every few months.

9

(5 replies, posted in Guitars)

Well, the stoke on trent reference sails right over my antipodean head, but if the oatcakes are anything like the ones my missus cooked up once, which seemed to be nothing but a lump of rolled oats cooked like a particulary nasy and tasteless piklet, I'm not missing much.
Floyd Rose set-ups seem to be thin on the ground now as well, here at least- I personaly have never been a big fan of them.

10

(20 replies, posted in Newbie Section)

I agree, rnguitar, and a big welcome to you default/smile

11

(5 replies, posted in Guitars)

Yeah, I imagine it would.
The Flloyd Rose connection hadn't occured to me, but it makes sense.

12

(0 replies, posted in Recording / Studio)

I am due next month to head a composition course for high school students which, while it involves the usual nuts and bolts of notation and song structure, also uses this software. Because it's something I or the kids havn't used before any feedback from anyone who has used it to compose or to record your own work would be very much appreciated.
Also any links to sites which include usage options and instructions for the kids and myself.

13

(5 replies, posted in Guitars)

I noticed Olly recently stated that his electric has a lockable nut, which set me to wondering if they are possibly more common in some countries rather than others..I remember in the mid 90's they were all the rage here on new models, with most electric brands featuring at least one or two guitars which had lockable nuts, and in principal the concept seemed a great idea. While I never owned one, the feed-back I got from students was that they worked as they were designed to do, but in practice in most cases still didn't hold a tuning properly, and made changing a set of strings, something which many busy guitarists do every week or two, a major undertaking. Most students who had them ended up taking them off and throwing them away.
Since the late '90's, they have not appeared in any wholesalers product listing I have seen here, and of the fifty or so students guitars I have seen every week since then I've never seen a one...neither have I seen them in stock in any music store..in fact, I had forgotten they existed until Olly's comment.
Are they still in use in the UK?

14

(9 replies, posted in Misc)

Yeah, congratulations, and have a ball- you both are going to see some changes, I bet.

15

(6 replies, posted in Guitars)

..that's why sheds were invented- then they can send you down the back garden to jam and avoid a rise a blood pressure all round.
I play mostly accoustic these days, and the new resonator is getting a real workout.

16

(7 replies, posted in Everything Else)

Is there an echo in here?

Yep, that's why I headed for the hills twenty years ago, , downsized, Thoreaued, eliminated car payments and mortguage, went off the grid, sourced house water supply from the rain and power from the sun, and got off the radar as well as much as possible. One day the Orwellian black choppers will be landing to take us away, Olly....

Paranoid? Moi..? default/smile

Yes, and if you are talking USD then it's not much different, John, except that the access in most cases is controlled by one former government telecom company which has a very low cap on excess data. A few small film or music files can bump it up to 70 or 80 bucks per month excluding phone...way too rich for my taste.

18

(7 replies, posted in Everything Else)

default/smile  I thought all the swings had been removed because a kid falls off once every ten years- and also because they can't be used by people in wheelchairs so they are not ""appropriate""?
Wow, wouldn't you hate to be a kid today? Fat, fearfull, paranoid about a possible pervert lurking around every corner to grab you when you have more statistical chance of being struck by lightning, and in your country under view by one CCTV camera for every 12 residents

19

(9 replies, posted in Resources)

I notice they mention Heartwood Guitar, which has a wealth of great info and the words and chords to hundreds of songs.

20

(7 replies, posted in Everything Else)

Reso Hangout and Blindman's Blues Forum have some links, I seem to remember. I use slide a lot, and prefer brass, mainly for control and for the crisper sound it makes in open tunings like C or D.

21

(3 replies, posted in Misc)

Yeah, Arizona has done the right thing- only about twenty years too late, I gather.
Illegal immigration is a huge problem here, and there is a federal election underway here in which this is the main topic of both major parties. Even legal immigration is under the hammer, because most of the interior of the country has a climate like Libya or Israel, while the majority of folk squeeze into the limited coastal 500 K's in from the sea's edge, where the climate is like California or the South of France..understandable, but it puts big strains on resources.

22

(11 replies, posted in Misc)

Scary stuff, Olly.

23

(11 replies, posted in Misc)

I've been looking at the oscommerce option since reading your post above, open source commercial options were something I was not aware of, and this looks like it would do the trick...a great forum, as well.
Also, quite a lot of adverse comment about Paypal.

Looks like a geat site- I wish I had broadband to use it. I hear you have some of the fastest and cheapest broadband available there in Japan. In rural areas here the only option in most cases is sat broadband, which I had for a while, but which is totaly useless- and quite expensive if you want to use it to download even a small amount.

25

(5 replies, posted in Everything Else)

Old timer? default/smile You're in good company. I don't have anything printable, John, sorry, everything gets written by hand on manuscript paper and chord grids during lessons.