(left to right) Bill, Rick and Colin open the night
Third Friday of the month is Open Mic night at Cedar Fall’s Cup of Joe and it is the event that guitar playing devotees such as myself use to motivate ourselves to develop new tunes and to enhance out musical technique. , October’s Open Mic was again hosted by Rick Vanderwall and Bill Guernsey, as well as Rick’s grandson, Colin Simpson. They provide the sound system and some sense of order by ushering through performers in 15 minute time slots. Order was required that night as Cup of Joe was a full house by the time performances commenced. The payback for Rick and company is they themselves get to open the night with a performance.
As I said, Open Mic night is big stuff for those of us trying to develop our performing chops. Two of the regulars are my friend Grant Tracey and me. Here we are the day before Open Mic at one of our wood and steel gatherings, checking out some of the finer guitar instrumental offerings at Bob’s Guitars in Cedar Falls. Grant’s holding a Taylor GS Mini and I am twanging away on a Taylor T5z Pro Ltd., which is a singular guitar!
I like to play first, right after Rick, Bill and Colin do their thing. Perhaps it was nerves when I first started doing Open Mic, but now it’s a habit… I am rethinking opening the night in the future as this past Friday it was pandemonium while I was playing, with people milling around in front of me still signing up for slots to play. Very hard to connect with the audience or play cleanly with that sort of chaos surrounding me.
Nevertheless, I managed to get through my set with minimal “shanks” into the musical rough. For the first time ever, I played a medley of Take a Whiff on Me & Stagolee, both being in the key of D. My guitar teacher Tom Garman helped me create a “professional” transition between the two pieces. I also knocked out a couple of my favorite tunes, Cocaine Blues and Railroad Bill. Probably the highlight for me was to play a spirited version of Etta Baker’s Carolina Breakdown, a tune I stumbled through a year ago during my first sojourn into the world of Open Mic. The photograph of me on Friday night was taken by my wife Annette, who showed up just in the nick of time to catch my performance. She’d been on the road with her students touring the fashion industry in Minneapolis earlier that day!
Kudos to my friend Grant who played his set, including a Hank Williams cover and several of his own tunes, all played for the first time at Open Mic on an acoustic guitar. I thought for that venue it sounded far better than the Fender Mustang he’s played in the past! His home penned tunes, such the fan favorite, Black Sky, work really well with acoustic guitar accompaniment.
See you next month… and I must get to work on some new tunes!
My primary, perhaps even exclusive focus in guitar music is to learn and play old country blues, including tunes by such luminaries as the Rev. Gary Davis, the Rev. Robert Wilkins, Elizabeth Cotton and Etta Baker. These tunes were mostly played on acoustic guitar; however, there are enough images out there to indicate that the country blues players were not immune to the charms of the electric guitar… Nor am I, and I play the blues tunes I’ve learned interchangeably on a combination of five different guitars.
Pedaltrain Board replete with a variety of pedals, each serving a distinct function…
I think one of the most fun elements of playing electric guitar is the great range of possibilities when it comes to sculpting a sound, as compared to an acoustic flat top.
Besides the guitar itself, which offers some tone control, electric guitars also have available tone sculpting capabilities with the amplifier itself; however, as depicted above, the marketplace offers a wide variety of pedals to enhance and sculpt the tone emanating from the guitar/amp combination.
To date, I’ve mostly restricted myself to adding tone modulation to my country blues tune such as tremolo, reverb, or delay, along with some compression beforehand, but I’ve been loath to experiment with or add in overdrive or distortion tone modification, which is currently so popular in rock and roll music, especially heavy metal. Those aforementioned tone modifications can have a huge impact on the listeners response to the music and can easily destroy the aesthetic of a country blues tune.
Mesa Boogie Flex Drive…
Well… I am still totally uninterested it big time distortion and wild horses could not get me to sit down and listen to a metal band, but I am going to stick my toes in the “distortion” waters a bit.
I decided to throw my infrequently used Boss Equalizer under the bus and remove it from my pedal board (it is sitting safely in its original box waiting for a rainy day). In place, I am going to put in a pedal that can add some tasteful crunch to the guitar’s signal. I do already possess a Mesa Boogie Tone Burst which can add some slight tone fattening but has limited impact, which is what it was designed to do; however a different pedal is required to get a more noticeable crunch.
The pedal choices for tone modification include overdrive, distortion or fuzz devices. The changes wrought by distortion and/or fuzz devices are so over-dramatic they offend my sensibilities, so I decided to acquire an overdrive, which I think will be more manageable and not destroy the aesthetic of a country blues tune. There are so many of these things on the marketplace that a decision can be overwhelmingly impossible to make from the perspective of my somewhat shallow knowledge base. So I decided to jump into the deep end and trust Mesa Boogie again by grabbing a pedal that was designed to add more crunch to the signal than the Tone Burst mentioned earlier.
Fortunately for me I had the great good fortune of getting a nice discount from Bob of Bob’s Guitars and acquired a Mesa Boogie Flux Drive. Bob has a history of taking good care of his constant customers, which I am. It did not hurt that this particular pedal had been languishing on Bob’s pedal shelf for years and he probably viewed my testing the pedal out as a decisive moment to finally unload it!
Well… my initial experience is very positive with the Flux Drive… the device works by pushing the valves in my Fender Princeton into modestly aggressive overdrive and adds a nice sonic crunch that does not obscure the essential elements of the tune I am playing… Check me out at open mic night because I will probably use it for at least one tune!
I own seven guitars, which to some may sound exorbitant but to most guitarists it’s not totally unreasonable. Of the seven, I only purchased two of them brand new… the other five were acquired on the used guitar market. Three of my used guitars are shown in the image directly above. There were other guitars too I owned in the past that I traded away for different guitars. Consequently, I have first hand knowledge of the cost of new guitars, savings made buying used guitars, and the financial losses associated with trading guitars. By the way, all of these aforementioned guitars that were bought or traded were premium, non-entry level, non-learner instruments.
Why purchase a used guitar? Well… because used guitars are like used cars… just like a new car loses value when it rolls off the lot, so does a new guitar and the value loss can be quite significant. There are exceptions to this rule. For example, collector level instruments like Keith Richards’ Telecaster, or Tony Rice’s pre-war Martin will hold value, if not increase in value over time. However, for the run of the mill premium guitar, expect a significant loss when walking out the door of the guitar shop.
On the other hand, great value can be acquired by purchasing a pre-owned or used instrument. Of the three guitars photographed above, I saved anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the original cost, and they play as well as the day they were pulled off the wall hook and purchased new! Nevertheless, like buying a used car, I’ve learned that being able to critically assess a used guitar before purchase is a worthy skill to possess. Sadly for me, my used guitar assessment skills have been learned experientially not without some minor pain along the way.
All this begs the question: where is the best place to buy a used guitar? While there are probably multiple methods for acquiring a used guitar, I have direct experience with two common and reputable ways:
From a local guitar store.
Online with Reverb.
I’ve had a combination of good and mixed results with both of the aforementioned options and I will speak briefly to the various guitars that I purchased used and my results.
Guitars Purchased Used in Chronological Order:
National Steel NRP Black
I purchased a National Resonator Steel NRP from Reverb as my first recently acquired used guitar. An instrument of this type and caliber was not available in my home town so I went online.
As you might be aware, Reverb is an online national clearing house for used and new musical equipment. Similar to the way ABE Books works, vendors, retailers, and private sellers can use the Reverb portal to buy and sell instruments.
Reverb is an online disruptor, similar to Uber… it’s great for consumers but can create challenges for local guitar stores as buyers have more options… In fact, local Mom and Pop guitar stores are disappearing from the landscape and Reverb may be partially at fault. Fortunately, where I live we still have an excellent guitar shop and in fact, local shops like mine use Reverb too to sell instruments, so it is a knife that cuts in multiple directions.
What I like about Reverb is the potential for negotiation and there are built-in safeguards for both buyers and sellers. In the case of my purchase of the NRP, try as I might, the seller would not budge on his price, but it was more than 30% less than a new resonator and it was supposedly in excellent condition, so a I bought the thing because I really wanted a resonator.
The guitar arrived and it was in immaculate shape. Had it not been, through Reverb, I had the option to return it. My main quibble with this process is you do not get to play or hear the guitar before purchase, so there is a bit of blind faith. On the other hand, when you purchase a premium factory built guitar like a National, the odds are you will get a decent instrument and I did.
National ResoRocket WB
After playing the National Steel NRP, I decided that it would be a great experience to also play a wooden bodied National, so I started shopping around. I ended up looking in Reverb, of course, and then I also communicated with an eccentric collector who was thinking of selling one of his many. Fact is, National makes several wooden bodied resonators and I was unsure of what to get. In the end, I found an immaculate wood bodied National ResoRocket the Dream Guitars was selling via Reverb. Via my iPhone, I was able to negotiate a reasonable reduction from the listed price with the owner Paul Heumiller and closed the deal with a click, and earned another large cost savings of +30% relative to a new guitar.
The guitar arrived in near mint shape, looking brand spanking new and I was not surprised because the combination of purchasing from a dealer who sells premium guitars priced in the 10’s of thousands with Reverb’s protections is a winning combination.
Taylor T5c Hybrid Acoustic/Electric Guitar
My Taylor T5c is a great example of a used guitar purchased in my local shop. The guitar was about 10 years old and in very nice shape. I had a chance to play it several times before I decided to make an offer. In this case I knew exactly what the guitar would sound like.
For a 10 year old guitar, it was in very nice, not “mint” condition, but that should be expected. There was some hazing in the upper bout near the cutaway from where the previous owner tried to buff out, what I would guess, were pick marks. Taylor’s T5’s are not equipped with pick guards and the owner did not mount one after purchase. At my request, the store gave the guitar a more professional buffing and though there is still some minor hazing, it is very difficult to see. I do not like or need pick guards because I play strictly finger-style.
The five way pick-up selector was pretty grungy with embedded dust, but the store guys cleaned that too and also worked out some static crackling that occurred when the pre-amp volume knob was adjusted.
When it comes to purchasing a pre-owned instrument, I don’t think it is unreasonable to barter before closing the deal. In the case of the Taylor T5, the guitar store owner served as an intermediary because the guitar was being sold on consignment basis, which means he gets a slice of the pie. As a result of negotiation I was able to get the price reduced a bit by agreeing to pay for the guitar with crisp $100 bills… I kid you not… It was a little annoying but also kind of fun going to the bank down the street and picking up the wad of cash to close the deal.
Truss rod cover is the triangular shaped, thin piece of wood screwed into the lower portion of the headstock, just above the nut.
Finally, it is important to note that despite due diligence in the store, a used guitar can possess hidden issues. In this case, when I got home I removed the truss rod cover to adjust the neck angle to suit my purposes and found that one of the screw holes for holding the cover onto the headstock was stripped, so that the screw just sat in the hole with no grip. That discovery was irritating, but not a deal breaker and though it is arguably minor, I point it out because there can be mysteriously hidden damages when buying a used instrument. We’ll see more of that in the following discussion.
The Taylor T3c just below was also purchased as used from my local guitar shop. The negotiations were complicated because I traded in a Gretsch guitar on the deal. That kind of arrangement would have been impossible on Reverb, so there are advantages to working locally.
Further, as with the aforementioned Taylor T5c, I was able to play the guitar at length and determine that it was a fit for my playing style, so I grabbed it. The guitar was about 4 years old and appeared immaculate, or so I thought.
Taylor T3c Semi Hollow Bodied Electric
In retrospect it would be ideal when purchasing a used guitar, for time to be taken to examine it centimeter by centimeter before closing the deal.
In my case, had I looked more closely I would have noticed a crack about 2 inches long located along the side at the lower bout where my picking arm would rest. When I got home and discovered the damage. The more I regarded the guitar’s damage, the more appalled I became because it looked like the binding was detaching from the body’s side which is pretty serious.
I brought the guitar back to the shop the next day deeply concerned, but they “pulled me off the ledge” by deftly repairing the crack with cyanoacrylate glue followed by buffing. It is barely visible now, but I know it’s there. Most of the time I can ignore it.
Just noticeable body crack located under the binding after repair.
The Taylor T3c is one of my favorite guitars ever and I was not even aware that Taylor manufactured them, and had it not been for a used one hanging on a hook in my local store I probably would have never purchased one. Still, my experience with this acquisition suggests two things: 1) closely examine a used instrument before finalizing the deal, and 2) if you buy locally, it is likely the store will stand by the purchase and make things right, if necessary!
The last guitar I will use as an example for buying a pre-owned instrument is my most recently acquired Taylor Solidbody Custom Walnut. I decided that I wanted experience playing a sold body guitar and discovered that Taylor Corporation manufactured them for a few brief years beginning around 2007. I am very fond of Taylor necks compared to those on Fenders and Gibsons so I went hunting for one. Since there were none in my local shop, I went online with Reverb and found a handful of them for sale.
Taylor Solid Body Custom (SBc)
It is possible to ascertain the going value for a used guitar by studying the sale price listing for the various guitar models. Further, if you drill down on the Reverb site you can actually find what the specific guitars sold for over the past 6 months or so. With that data in hand I negotiated with a seller, who happened to live just a few hours away from me and we struck a deal, including a personal drop of in the small town of Lisbon, IA.
We met on the main street of diminutive Lisbon and the seller lifted the rear of his SUV and then opened the somewhat beaten-up guitar case. To my initial view, the guitar looked immaculate; however, I was to learn a couple of days later that I really did not possess the wherewithal to make a true assessment of a used guitar.
As I said above, a couple of days later, it was pointed out by the owner of my local guitar shop that the neck of my newly acquired Solid BodyTaylor was twisted and in time I figured out that it was largely unplayable. Rather than return the guitar back to the original owner, I decided to send it to the Taylor Corporation for repair. When they received it, they said the only solution was a neck replacement, which they did as a warrantee repair even though I was at least the third owner of the guitar. What a great company because they did not need to do this service for me. Perhaps, because I owned 6 Taylors (including one I gave my son) they threw me a bone!
Twisted neck before repair
Neck after replacement
Well as you can see from the photos above, the neck replacement is far better than the original, but I was very lucky with this purchase to get it repaired to mint condition for the cost of shipping from Iowa to California and back. So in conclusion, caveat emptor, or let the buyer beware when entering into the used guitar market! Good luck out there!
Last night I finally finished the 700+ page Don Winslow opus, The Border. It was (supposedly) the final installment of a trilogy about the Mexican and Central American illegal drug trade and the development of the infamous cartels. I did not enjoy this last installment at all but pushed myself through it. Full of paper thin stereo-typical characters, a plot spread way too wide, a la Game of Thrones, and contrived over the top political virtue signaling, it was, in my assessment an utter failure. This was an incredibly disappointing summer read as his last book, The Force, was an outstanding accounting of police corruption in New York City driven by an unforgettable anti-hero.
So, I am due for a cleansing science fiction read and out of my queue I pulled Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, which won a Hugo award years ago for its depiction of a post apocalyptic world and a theme of the cyclical nature of human civilization. I think I was vaguely aware of this book, but recently found it on one of those web lists of books that absolutely must be read, so I grabbed it off Amazon… I’ll let you know how it goes…
Exterior of Cup of Joe, on the corner of Main and 1st Street…
In Cedar Falls, Iowa, right smack dab in the middle of flyover country exists a funky little coffee shop that’s been in business for twenty some odd years. The coffee is excellent, the baked goods are great, and the authentic retro-fifties furnishings give it an ambience unlike other coffee shops I’ve ever been to. In short, it is one of those idiosyncratic local treasures that inhabit small towns. The shop is called Cup of Joe…
Besides purveying what coffee shops typically offer, Cup of Joe is also a patron of the arts… The owners rotate through the walls of the shop varying two dimensional art forms, including paintings, sketches, photographs and prints. In fact, a couple of years ago, the shop was kind enough to host an exhibition of my landscape and prairie photography.
Cup of Joe interior… performance space in the far back… Note artwork on the wall…
Most importantly, on every third Friday of the month, Cup of Joe hosts an open mic night for musicians, poets and what have you…
In fact, last night was my first year anniversary performing country blues guitar at the Cup during open mic and a great night it was…
Through some arrangement for which I am unaware, open mic night has been hosted by three gentlemen who referred to themselves as The Three Blind Mice… They consisted of Rick Vanderwall, Bill Guernsey, and the late Rick Nees. They would perform themselves at the opening of the event and then help out others during their time at the mic. As Rick V. was out of town visiting family, the evening was hosted by Bill alone.
Bill and I mugging for the camera…
Here I am with Bill at the end of the show; however, earlier in the evening my friend Grant Tracey and I helped him haul in his equipment as he was working alone that night. He brings in a PA system and microphones, as well as an amp suitable for electric and acoustic guitars. During the show he tweaks and fine tunes the sound such as you can in that particular space. Most importantly, Bill maintains order and keeps the participants in line and within a 15 minute timeframe.
What was unique and particularly fun that night was the shop owner, Dawn’s request that Grant, another guitarist, and I participate in a video feed advertising the night’s festivities. We all have different music in us… Yeah, you can quote me on that… Grant is a singer/songwriter, largely influenced by his youthful devotion to punk rock… Me, on the other hand, I love those old time, deep rooted, foundational country blues and that’s what I play… You can see our introductory video below: (you may have to click twice)
After Bill warmed up the crowd with a Neil Young cover, I opened the night with a fifteen minute country blues set. It’s my preference to play first, and I will arrive at the coffee shop a good hour before set-up just to get my name on the list first.
Here I am playing my set of 4 country blues tunes. That night was the public debut of my newly repaired Taylor Solidbody Custom Walnut electric. I had the guitar signal passing through my pedal board with compression, some gain to fatten up the sound a bit, a dash of vibrato, some slap-back delay and all blended into some hall-like reverb… Even though I painstakingly set up the pedals at home through my Fender amp, it sounded a bit boomy from where I was sitting… fortunately Bill smoothed it out for me with some amp equalization. Still, when sitting behind the speakers it’s hard to assess how your rig sounds… a performer monitor would be nice, but that’s a lot to ask for at an open mic night…
My set included:
I Do Blues – a new tune for me credited to Rev. Robert Wilkins
Police and a Sergeant – Rev. Robert Wilkins, arranged by Catfish Keith
Railroad Bill – traditional, arranged by Etta Baker
Cocaine Blues – traditional, arranged by Stefan Grossman
I was prepared to play more, but Bill put the hook on me as there were a number of others signed for the mic! I did a pretty good job on three of the four tunes, but shanked a few into the rough on Police and a Sergeant, which I played flawlessly at the Bandshell performance last month. Throw of the dice at this stage of my performing career, I guess… It’s not for lack of practice that I shank one, but more dependent on keeping focus and maintaining the brain/finger connection…
My beloved wife Nettie was there to take photos of me playing. She does a great job with an iPhone… I hope to upgrade my iPhone from the current 6s to the latest because the cameras on the new ones are so “dadgum” good and perfect for supporting this weblog.
You’ll no doubt note that, as is typical, I am obscured by a music stand… There are reasons why. First, I much prefer playing sitting down because I have better control of the guitar and secondly, I like referring to the charts while I play because I simply cannot remember most of my pieces which have fairly complicated finger movements.
Before the next time I perform, I hope to convert to an iPad, equipped with a foot pedal, to dispense with the paper and music stand, which should obscure me less while I play…
Lillian and me…
Jacob and me…
After my performance, I had a chance to catch up with one of my former Northern Iowa Textile and Apparel majors, Lillian T. If I missed teaching, which I do not, it would be because of special kids like Lillian… she was an absolute delight to work with in the classroom… I also had a chance to interact a bit with one of the two Jacobs in the coffee shop that night… He is a Northern Iowa music major and a tremendous guitar player… he noted my tasteful use of pedals and the pleasant “acoustic” sound of my guitar, which obviously delighted me to hear!
Grant digging into his Mustang…
The Jacobs laying out masterful Jazz riffs…
After my set, as you can see above, my pal Grant played a 4 tune set on his beloved Mustang, including some soulful picking of individual notes within his chord progressions… The show concluded on a high note with the Jacobs, both exceptionally accomplished jazz guitarists, who laid out their improvisations in masterful style…
September’s open mic night was a night to remember… until next month… I am working on some new tunes as I write… see ya…
It was sometime in my early 20’s when I was in graduate school that I created a fundamental method for myself and that was if you’re going to invest yourself in some activity, first get a book and learn about what you’re doing. Looking back, I think one of the first books of that sort that I’d purchased was the Complete Book of Running, and I ran for years afterward using the knowledge gleaned from that read…
As a result of this practice, my home library has quite of number of background books in such disparate areas as bicycle repair, blues music, civil war reenacting, wildflower identification, prairie restoration, all types of photography, and even dog training.
If you’ve been anywhere in and around this weblog then you will know that one of my keen interests during my retirement life is everything about guitars. As my opening paragraphs would suggest, I’ve dug around trying to find books about guitars to deepen my understanding of the instrument. Thus far, two of the more interesting books I’ve found include, Clapton’s Guitar and the Guitar, An American Life. They were both excellent reads covering aspects of the social/cultural/historical elements of guitars and to some extent guitar construction, but still fell short of really offering a deep understanding about the structure of the guitar, how it functions and how it affects playability. Nevertheless, I recommend both books as fun and informative time well spent.
Then, one day I was noodling around on my computer searching guitar culture and philosophy subjects and ended up on Ervin Somogyi’s website. Mr. Somogyi is a world renowned master luthier, in other words a guitar builder. I had previously read about his apprenticeship program in Fretboard Journal #36 so I was curious enough to explore his site a bit deeper. He had in one section some fascinating and articulate discussions about guitar culture, which I perused and in later meanderings discovered that he had published a two volume treatise on guitar building. The first volume was focused in detail on how guitars behave as a function of choices a luthier might make during construction. The second volume was explicitly step by step how to build a guitar.
The basic pair of volumes (not the leather bound version) was listed at well over $200 which was a bit too rich for me; however, I only wanted the first volume regarding how a guitar functions. I never intend to build a guitar so the second volume was of no interest. Fortunately, I found a used copy of volume one in a Canadian used book store and though it was still more pricey than I would have liked, I bought it anyway and am so glad I did because it is a classic exploration of acoustic guitar design and function written in an interesting and accessible manner.
All elements of guitar structure are discussed. For example, Somogyi evaluates in detail the various trees that are available for harvesting quality tonewoods or general structural elements such as the neck. I was fascinated to learn that mahogany makes a great guitar neck because it is an equatorial tree that possesses balanced longitudinal torque because of how the tree interacts with the sun in its particular region of the world. This matters because the neck is less likely to twist over time. Given that I recently had a twisted guitar neck repaired, I appreciated the discussion.
No subject about guitars is too esoteric and the end notes take up about 1/3 of the book offering even more detail. Subjects of discussion include the various ways in which a guitar top vibrates and how the bracing underneath interacts, or how the back wood of the guitar cooperates with the top wood to project sound outward through the guitar’s sound hole. Everything you need to know about intonation is detailed.
Taylor 510 “dread”…
The aesthetics of guitar shapes are also considered which was illuminating to me. Take for example a comparison of the now discontinued Taylor 510 “dreadnought” shaped guitar versus the new Taylor Grand Pacific.
The 510 according to Somogyi’s view had very little aesthetic appeal. Though a good guitar (I owned one years ago) it was strictly utilitarian in appearance. The shoulders of the guitar are just plain horizontal and flat, the guitar has almost no curve at the waist… it’s basically just a box of wood with a neck and strings, lacking all elegance.
Taylor Grand Pacific…
On the other hand, consider the Grand Pacific. It is a reimagined dreadnought-styled guitar, and its shape is much more appealing. In fact, Somogyi would point out that the Greek Golden Rule of Proportion was applied by reimagining the waist of the guitar to give a perfect ratio of top bout size compared to the lower bout. Further, the shoulders of the guitar add a subtle sloping drop which enhances its elegance giving it an altogether more appealing shape to the human eye!
In sum, if you really want to understand the art and technology of the acoustic steel string guitar there is probably no better book than Ervin Somogyi’s The Responsive Guitar. It took me the better part of the summer to wade through it because it takes time to give thought and consideration to his analysis, but it is a journey worth taking.
As a final side note it is worth mentioning that Mr. Samogyi frequently points out the relative “newness” of luthier built steel string acoustic guitars. For much of the steel string guitar’s history it was an artifact of industrial factory production. The development of custom made luthier guitars grew along with the relatively new tradition of steel string finger-style guitarists. It can be argued that American finger-style playing was historically rooted in older country blues, played on factory guitars; however, Somogyi points to a new aesthetic in finger-style that benefited from guitars designed expressly for that purpose. In a later section of his book he carefully points out the necessary differences in guitar design between flat-picked (plectrum-driven) guitars and finger-style played instruments.
Somogyi points to both Ed Gerhard and Martin Simpson as notable leaders in the new finger-style revolution. I had the great good fortune of hearing the aforementioned gentlemen play live and to spend some “quality” time with them afterwards discussing their guitar philosophy. It was through my association, in the middle late 1990’s, with the Manhattan, Kansas based Birdhouse Productions who hosted several outstanding acoustic guitar players.
When I first announced I was going to retire the most common reaction I received beyond congratulations was a dubiously phrased, “What are you going to do?” Initially, I was caught off guard believing that my interlocutor thought my plan to retire was somewhat suspect. So, in response I would list off the many activities that I engage in, including photography and guitar playing/learning to prove I was worthy of retirement…
Then after I while I became fatigued with trying to prove that I was prepared to retire, and instead stated that, “I would do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to…” which, so far, has been pretty much the case within the resources I want to allocate to the “whatever I want to do” aspect of my time spent.
It’s actually a little more complicated than that… Though it initially it seemed that time is available to do anything/anytime, there are still chores around the house like cleaning and yard upkeep, as well as time at the gym to avoid backsliding health wise… Nevertheless, I do have dedicated activities that I hold sacrosanct and one of them is reading…
I’ve been a devoted reader almost all my life… perhaps when I was a nascent reader it was a little rocky, but by the time I was 10 years old. Ian Fleming and Edgar Rice Burroughs enchanted me into a world of fiction where all things are possible… I am still there in that fantastic world of spies, detectives, space ships and time travelers… I found the vintage paperback covers to some of my gateway books into a life of escape reading…
So, I’ve lead the life of a voracious reader… to prove the point, I was not a lit. major in college, but I managed to take a lit. class almost every semester, including classes devoted to Shakespeare, Greek Tragedy, the Literary Significance of the Bible, and Late 19th Century American Literature…
The fact is, my dedication to literature is a bit of a problem… there is no room in my home for anymore books yet I keep buying them…. I really should read more books on my Kindle, but I feel suffocated and constrained when I read books electronically… I like to flip ahead sometimes and that is difficulty with an electronic reader…
I have to make way sometimes by disposing books… some I give away to friends, others get deposited at the local library’s Book Nook… most if the books I toss off are not what I call keepers… I still hang onto the books that are “classics” or ones that really affected me.
Some of the giveaways make a difference. Yesterday, Coach Chip, a young man who coached my son Parker in club basketball when he was in early grade school and who subsequently gave him private lessons in our driveway shared on FB that his “travel” team just one second place in a tournament. I know how hard Coach Chip works and congratulated him. His response was: Â “All because of the book you gave me!” Well, I think there’s more to it than that but it was fun to hear from Chip. Below you can Coach Chip and the book I gave him… It was a first edition of Dean Smith’s Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense.
If you’ve looked into this nascent blog as it’s developing, it’s quite apparent that I allocate a significant proportion of my time in retirement to guitars… in fact, you could argue that at this stage of my life I am a bit obsessive about playing, and the technology associated with the instrument…
I get a great deal of satisfaction from working with my Taylor guitars, across the spectrum of acoustic, hybrid acoustic/electric, semi-hollow bodied electric, and solid body electric (currently on a UPS truck to Iowa after being repaired by Taylor!).
The commonality among all those guitars is the neck. The neck is where the rubber meets the road for a player and includes such key factors as the contour (radius) of the wood, its finish, and the height of the strings from the fretboard. It’s very easy to switch among the Taylors from one to the other because of neck consistency.
There is a substantial degree of snobbery associated with guitar culture. Traditions play a major role, such as the headstock decal for Martin guitars… I don’t like them, but that’s just me… One of the things that distinguishes the Taylor company besides marvelously playable guitars is their devotion to innovation and technology. Though a bit dated (the below instruments have evolved or been pulled off the market), the embedded Youtube video with Bob Taylor and Brian Swerdfeger speaks to the interesting tech that underlies two of the guitars that I’ve purchased off the used marketplace.
Swerdfeger moved on to Fender to develop a different acoustic/electric hybrid, the Acoustasonic…
I still consider myself a learner… perhaps I always will, and the primary way I continue my guitar education is by learning new tunes. Sometimes I’ll learn a tune that I like just for the fun of it, but more frequently I select a tune that I initially think will stretch me to gain more control over the mechanics of playing the instrument. More often than not I am successful in learning the piece, but sometimes I find myself totally stymied, and not willing to bog myself down, I will leave it behind. Most recently, I was defeated by a Robert Johnson piece, but that’s ok because he played at a very high level… higher than me for now.
I focus my playing efforts almost exclusively on finger-style “Country Blues,” and at this point I am playing strictly instrumental versions of the tunes. I am not interested in singing… I’m a guitar player… There are a variety of reasons why I stick with this blues genre:
I love the sound of the music when played on a solo guitar. You don’t need a band to sound interesting, and frankly I am totally uninterested in playing with a band.
The music itself is so American rootsy and foundational… There’s not an ounce of pretension built into the music… it’s just plain honest sounding and you can hear it echoing throughout early rock n roll, so there’s a recognizable pop culture element to it, but seasoned with a purity that appeals to me…
I’ve been able to find plenty of this type music that is well within my “skill grasp…” I am not saying it’s either simple or complicated, but I can get a handle on it and people seem, like me, to enjoy the sounds of these tunes.
There is a large extant body of music in this genre that can be found in book collections, as well on training DVD’s…
With such a large body of work available to study I feel absolutely NO reason to write a song… the other day, a good friend of mine at the local Guitar Store suggested it was time for me to write a tune as if it were some important ritualized rite of passage. I think there’s enough good songs already available or being written by talented musicians without me adding some pedestrian, self-indulgent POS to the mix.
I’ve developed a modest collection of old blues music so I can recognize the tune or players who’s music I might wish to learn. If you’re interested in old blues, a good place to begin would be the collection of original blues tunes, Confessin’ the Blues, curated by the Rolling Stones. In fact, several of these tunes were covered by the Stones themselves.
What works for me, after I’ve identified an old blues musician or a tune, is to shop around for a training DVD that offers a tablature version of the music as well as basic instruction how to play it.
Guitar Workshop DVD dedicated to Robert Wilkins
To the left you can see a great example of the educational materials I use. It’s a DVD containing numerous tabbed tunes by the great old bluesman Rev. Robert Wilkins, taught by John Miller, who I never heard of, but is a decent teacher of the basics. I was attracted to this DVD because I wanted to learn to play “Prodigal Son” a Wilkins tune covered by the Rolling Stones on their classic LP, Beggars Banquet. Two of the best online locations for training DVD’s are Happy Traum’s Homespun and Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, which is where I got the Wilkins collection.
Tablature and standard notation for Wilkin’s I Do Blues
First, I listen to the song and become familiar with it… I usually choose a tune that will stand up on its own as an instrumental without the lyrics, as I do not feel comfortable singing. Then I will tackle the music which is normally presented in standard notation and tablature. I work with both; however, I would be helpless without the tab. Tablature indicates which strings and frets to press with the left hand and which strings to pluck with the right. The standard notation is important to understand the time/rhythm signature of the tune. The music is typically included in pdf printable format on the DVD, though sometimes it comes as an included booklet. I am totally unapologetic for using tablature… in fact, tablature was the first way of communicating music for stringed instruments like the lute and later guitar. Standard notation followed some time afterwards. Working with tablature is a slow and steady process, during which time the most important steps are to become familiar with the tune and to develop the muscle memory for your hands and fingers, measure by measure. Some pieces come quicker than others but most require lots of repetition for me to succeed.
Before, during and after working with the tablature I will refer to the instructional video that is on the DVD. There are best approaches for how to use your hands during play and the instructor usually goes through those key moves measure by measure. A caution here is that sometimes the tablature and what the instructor does do not always match up, but that is rare. Also, as in the case with “I Do Blues,” Mr. Miller teaches a particularly challenging measure one way, but actually plays it a different way, which is a little frustrating because the way he plays it is easier than the way he teaches it! Some DVD teachers are better than others. I particularly enjoy Stefan Grossman.
More important than learning the measures in the tune is the phrasing of the music. It’s easy to fall into the trap of playing a measure at a time; however, the music flows across measures and getting that proper flow is the key to mastering the tune, and that can be easy or really very challenging with these old blues pieces.
Tom Garman, my teacher… (photo appropriated from Tom’s website, Guitar Antihero.
It is usually at this point that I will bring the piece to my guitar teacher, Tom Garman, who is great at working with adult learners like myself. He’s located at Bob’s Guitars in Cedar Falls, where I live. Tom is great at pushing me on technique and helping me interpret the tune beyond what the DVD instructor can do.
After working with Tom to master the piece (such as I can do), I have two final steps: First I choose a “go to” guitar for the tune. Though I will often play the tune on multiple instruments, there is one that I usually find particularly suited for the tune. In the case of “I Do Blues,” which I initially worked with on acoustic guitar, I found some of the string bends just too daunting with stiff acoustic strings. So I moved to the much easier to play Taylor T5, which is an electric/acoustic hybrid that is much easier to string-bend and the tune sounds great on it! The original country blues tunes were played almost exclusively on acoustic guitars so they sound “more authentic” when played thus so; however, I am not embarrassed to move to a different musical platform to get on top of the tune and also to put my own music “twist” onto the piece also. It is 2019!
Finally, if I am playing an electrified instrument, either electric or acoustic guitar, I will run it through an amplifier and set it up thus so in the event I play the piece publicly at, for example, open mic night in the local coffee shop. Beyond using the amp, this also involves choosing from among my pedal inventory to truly put my mark on the tune. How and what pedals to use is a story for another time.
Here’s a version of I Do Blues by Rev. Robert Wilkins on my newly repaired Taylor SBC:
There’s a slow rolling environmental disaster occurring in Blackhawk County, IA where I live… The Emerald Ash Borer is boring its way through the heavily populated Ash trees that grow in this region, and sadly, my yard had its fair share of those large trees. The Borer digs into the tree weakening it, which eventually results in the tree’s denouement.
Fallen Ash tree in my yard…
Besides the loss of the beauty that the Ash tree lends to the landscape, the tree itself, when compromised, can be downright deadly. If you’ve ever seen a full size tree fall, there’s no warning and it falls immediately with the full force of gravity. A full grown tree is quite heavy and will kill or crush anything in its downward path. As you will note in the photo to the right, we had one unexpectedly drop a few years ago. Fortunately, it did not hit my house or my neighbors, but took out some new expensive landscaping that we put in the season before and destroyed a perfectly good Oak tree as it fell. Finally, it was an expensive clean up.
Not dead, but mostly dead…
With some anxiety Nettie and I recently concluded that the remaining two Ash trees that dominate spaces in both the front and back yards were dying from the Borer invasion. The typical symptoms of sparse vegetation at the top and new odd sized green shoots emanating from the lower portion of the tree convinced us that those two trees had to get got as soon as practical for safety reasons.
So, I took some bids from tree removal companies. Because Ash trees are dying all over the county, the tree guys have more work than they can say grace over, and they can charge whatever the market will bear.
The first tree guy I spoke to we had used before and his pricing was, in the past, reasonable; however, this time his pricing was almost double from last year… See what I mean about what the market will bear? In the end, we could not use him because he cuts strictly from a cherry picker truck and our tree in the back was inaccessible to him. He informed me that we needed a “climber” to get the tree in the backyard.
So, I took two more quotes. The first quote was really depressing as he wanted many, several thousands of dollars. The next guy also wanted thousands of dollars but he was at least two thousand less than the previous guy! I shook hands on the deal with the second guy and his company Twin City Tree Service would do the job.
The wood chipper arrives…
The tree guys finally arrived yesterday after weeks and weeks of waiting. Being retired, I was around for most of the action. They were a professional group, all wearing company t-shirts, hard hats and with three trucks full of equipment.
As you can see below, they used a portable platform to get up into the heights of the tree and methodically whittle it down. Then the tree was dismembered and the remains hauled away. I am not sure what happens to the wood, but a lot of solid bodied electric guitars could have been made from those trees.
Tree removal hardware
Whittling it down
Hauling it away
It was very nice in that the wood hauler used rubber tracks instead of wheels which was much easier on my grass. The final step in the process besides fine cleanup was the grinding down of the stumps, which can be seen below. It was a pro job with the use of curtains to limit the spread of the ground chips.
Grinding down the stump.
Twin City did a great job, but in the end as the title of this entry states, it was “Money for Nothin'” as Nettie and I poured several thousands of dollars into a process that left nothing but a slight depression in the yard. I will miss those trees but I’m glad they’re gone and the worry along with them…
