Scrappy
Legendary Knight
I remember as a kid in the winter having dry/chapped/split lips and still being made to practice... my old man was a fucking sadist!
So what frivolous things have you bought lately? Why?
- Thread starter GaleForceEight
- Start date
I remember as a kid in the winter having dry/chapped/split lips and still being made to practice... my old man was a fucking sadist!
MartytheMartian
Legendary Knight
My lips are all dry and chapped but no-one's making me do it. My folks didn't encourage me in music at all. I think it was partly due to the fact that instruments cost a bloody fortune back then and partly the fact they just didn't care about music much. Apart from cheapo mouth organs from toy shops I never got my hands on a proper musical instrument until I joined the pipe band at eleven. Learned the practice chanter in a week and was playing the full pipes with the band in a couple of weeks. Really wish my folks had encourage me in music as a sprog Lord knows where it might have taken me.
Scrappy
Legendary Knight
My mum was never in to music, my father was heavily in to classical music. My first choice of instrument was guitar, which my father saw as an instrument of Satan and flatly refused to get me one or pay for lessons. However because my Granddad played cornet, I then expressed an interest to learn cornet and father couldn't get me signed in to music school fast enough, he was very pushy when it was something that he liked. I was told that I had a very natural talent for the cornet/trumpet, my first music teacher bowed out after he had taken me as far as he could, and for my second music teacher I had to audition so that the teacher could satisfy I was of sufficiently high a standard for him to entertain teaching me (I remember he had some connection to the Beatles, but can't recall what). That is when it got tedious and I stopped enjoying it, because I had to practice every day, and play too much and too many technical pieces, plus the overbearing pressure from my old man
- Had I had "normal" parents then maybe like you, it might have taken me on a totally different path.
Don the Don
Legendary Knight
Lucky they did not want you to play the piano
half ton
Legendary Knight
Scrappy after 12 months of practice :=View attachment 13062
I'm going to have another attempt at being a rock god, but I may not have thought it through properly, as apparently it takes about a year to really make decent progress, but I only have two months until the apocalypse so I'm going to need to spend every waking second practicing
@MartytheMartian I'm blaming you for both the apocalypse and seeding the idea of playing a musical (not that I'll be musical for some time) instrument again. I didn't get the trumpet, the guy selling it never got back to me. However it got me thinking and re-evaluating the choice of instrument, and I've always wanted to play guitar, I tried once before although not very seriously and I didn't appreciate just how much time and effort was required, but this time I'm ready for the challenge
Scrappy
Legendary Knight
Brilliant idea, take all the strings off... much easier
fatttbadteeth
Sword of Fenrir
I treated myself to a few online sessions with a proper guitar teacher over lockdown. Best thing I’ve done with regard to playing.View attachment 13062
I'm going to have another attempt at being a rock god, but I may not have thought it through properly, as apparently it takes about a year to really make decent progress, but I only have two months until the apocalypse so I'm going to need to spend every waking second practicing
@MartytheMartian I'm blaming you for both the apocalypse and seeding the idea of playing a musical (not that I'll be musical for some time) instrument again. I didn't get the trumpet, the guy selling it never got back to me. However it got me thinking and re-evaluating the choice of instrument, and I've always wanted to play guitar, I tried once before although not very seriously and I didn't appreciate just how much time and effort was required, but this time I'm ready for the challenge
I’d been playing for 30+ years, self taught, so spent the first lesson and subsequent practice (1 hr a day(ish)) unlearning bad habits. But progression was great. Improves more after a few lessons than at any other time. Maybe it’s just that I knew I had the next lesson in a certain date so thought shit, better practice ready for it!
Epiphones are nice guitars. I’ve a couple acoustics now, and have had their electrics in the past. I’m sure that genuine American Gibsons & Fenders are beautiful things, but let’s be honest, the guitar isn’t the weakest link in this equation.
fatttbadteeth
Sword of Fenrir
MartytheMartian
Legendary Knight
I have to say that I have thought at times that the guitar has too many strings. I have a seven and an eight string as well as twenty odd 'normal' ones and I can say that four strings would probably be a better number for a general use. Few people play or are even capable of playing above the seventeenth fret on top two strings so twenty four frets and six or more strings really is a little unnecessary for more than a few percent of the guitar playing population. Over the last couple of decades I have become a little jaded when it comes to guitar playing which is why I have hardly taken any of my guitars out of their cases over recent years and am really enjoying just battering out daft wee tunes on the trumpet. I very much prefer playing the melody to banging out the rhythm.
chas
Legendary Knight
You and Keith Richards
A few years back when our Bradley was a budding 16 year old guitarist, we took him to Denmark Street in London to buy a "decent" electric guitar. The guy in the first shop we looked in discussed our (limited) budget, gave him a guitar, and said "there you go son, play anything you like". Brad duly belted out the first few bars of Smoke on the water and the guy then said "Anything but that".
Scrappy
Legendary Knight
There is something about guitars, they just look good and can be works of art in their own right... a bit like motorcycles and mechanical watches IMO.
I can see myself developing another addiction
, I've already got my eye on a couple of others if I make sufficient progress... I'd better start saving just in case 
chas
Legendary Knight
The only thing I'd advise (and take this with as much salt as you need) is don't be overly reliant on computer interfaces like amplitube, garage band etc. They use a lot of compression and mask some of the micro harmonics you get when you don't fret something 'quite' right through an amp. You could get bad technique ingrained.There is something about guitars, they just look good and can be works of art in their own right... a bit like motorcycles and mechanical watches IMO.
I can see myself developing another addiction
There's no substitute for moving a 'bit of air' with a big speaker
MartytheMartian
Legendary Knight
The collector bug is bad with guitars @Scrappy although, as you say yourself, it's bad with a lot of shiny things. I have a box full of mechanical watches, forty or fifty Zippo lighters, the four Triumph's, four banjo's, twenty odd guitars, seven sets of bagpipes and, in two months I have acquired five trumpets (a 1932 Couesnon Paris, two Buescher Aristocrat Custom Built ones, one from 1936 and one from 1937 and two modern ones) and a trombone and I will probably buy more of them in different 'flavours' in the future.
Capt. Drunkey
King Of The Schnitzelwiesels
We call it GAS.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome
Therefore, your local guitar-shop would be the GAS-chamber
(non pc? GOOD)
Gear Acquisition Syndrome
Therefore, your local guitar-shop would be the GAS-chamber
(non pc? GOOD)
MartytheMartian
Legendary Knight
I could only give that a 'thumbs up' @Capt. Drunkey but given the choice I would also have given it the 'agree' and the 'laughing' emoji's.
I forgot to add the following 'caveat' to my previous post - Assuming the world doesn't begin to end in February 2022 I shall endeavour to add more Trumpets and Trombones to my collection and I would also like to pick up another early model Boosey and Hawkes Edgeware clarinet as I really regret selling the one I had that could really swing.
I forgot to add the following 'caveat' to my previous post - Assuming the world doesn't begin to end in February 2022 I shall endeavour to add more Trumpets and Trombones to my collection and I would also like to pick up another early model Boosey and Hawkes Edgeware clarinet as I really regret selling the one I had that could really swing.
Capt. Drunkey
King Of The Schnitzelwiesels
Scrappy
Legendary Knight
Was that from eBay? - I saw one a couple of weeks ago
BTW... my fingers hurt
, but hey I can play two chords now A & D, currently working on transitioning between them