For Old Guys Only

And a lefty boot! They are a special bunch they are. Looks like you fit right in with the young ones. Jackie and I really enjoy being around younger folks that will bother to give us the time of day and hopefully when I'm done with them they are glad they did. Either glad they got to hang with me or glad that they don't have to do that again. Keep rockin' old fella.
Dan
 
And a lefty boot! They are a special bunch they are. Looks like you fit right in with the young ones. Jackie and I really enjoy being around younger folks that will bother to give us the time of day and hopefully when I'm done with them they are glad they did. Either glad they got to hang with me or glad that they don't have to do that again.

Keep on Rockin'
Dan
 
I spotted the left handed guitar right off, since I am left handed myself. I own a couple of fender guitars but can only strum a few cords, too many years of working with my hands my fingers are so stiff that after a few minutes I have to stop. I started learning right handed but after destroying the joint in my little finger on my left hand I changed but never got very good at it.
 
Ludwig,

It must be a laugh to be playing with guys that young but then again it must be an honour for them to play with a man who was there when the music was real and fresh not something that they heard about 30 or 40 years later.

Steve.
 
Well, it works for all of us. We were jamming at a party and the bass player said they were going to do Who Do You Love, "but a bit weird, was I ok with it?" What do you think? I have 40 years more weird than them :)

For playing, I started late (32) with work hardened hands and it took a few years to develop the spread on the right hand, and passable dexterity for what I do. I will never have fingers of fire, so I use timing and space to achieve what I want. Playing pure slide tuning helps, the techniques need work to be right, but it removes the absolute need to have fast hands.
 
Useful trick for loosening the hands up is to soak them in water hot enough for you to know about it, not hot enough to be dangerous, and work at extending the reach of the fretting hand by spreading it and easing the fingers wider apart with the other hand. 5 minutes of that before playing makes a real difference.
 
Don't know that one, but a few minutes getting the circulation going and the hands warm and supple pays dividends.

The other thing is finding a guitar that sits well with you and is comfortable to play. There are different neck profiles and thicknesses and widths, and different amounts of radius on the fingerboard. String gauge, action (height of strings above fingerboard), scale length, where small hands benefit from a short scale, big hands from a longer one.

Sitting down with a reputable guitar technician for an hour or two to achieve a good set up costs far less than hunting round and chopping and changing for a mythical "right" guitar.
 
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I've heard that from a few musician friends who were in the know. You never really find the perfect guitar for you (unless you're extremely lucky). You find one you like that is close enough for your hands and arms, and you have the technician set it up to fit you and your playing style. Then it becomes yours. At least, from what they tell me, that is what you do if you're serious about your guitar.
There used to be a folk music shop in Cleveland named Goose Acres. Run by an old friend of mine, Pete Smakula. He's dead now. :( But he could custom-build acoustic guitars, banjos, and even some very fine violins. If he couldn't set you up with something that fit you like a glove, he'd build you one. He wasn't cheap. But he was the only one I'd let fix my violin when it cracked. You couldn't even see the repair when he was done. And it sounded just like before. Good heavens, I miss old Pete.
 
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That sums life up, perfection is almost impossible, so find damned good instead and work on yourself to make up the distance.

I've set my Yellow Bittch Strat up to suit me, 12 thou strings, plain 3rd (fitting a new one is like threading an iron bar) and a moderately high action. It lives in open E, because open G is coarse and clumsy when you want to play melodic bits.

Even the strap is optimised. It's a leather belt screwed in place under the strap buttons so there's no adjustment.

It's an odd thing, Strats have a name for instability in tuning but mine doesn't go out of tune very often. Perhaps the tension the neck and body are under has squeezed all the flex out?
 
I'm jealous of you guys. I've always had trouble being coordinated enough to sing while I play. I guess my brain is wired funny. I've tried ever since I got a keyboard for my birthday long, long ago. But I've never gotten the hang of it for some reason.

But I can do plenty on a violin - early music (I was a middle-ages reenactor) Irish jigs & reels, troubadour songs, minnesinger songs, and almost anything I hear.

I also have an eleven-string Ud (five courses and a base, and it's a forerunner of a lute). I love the sound and I love to play it but, to be honest, I spend almost half the time tuning and the other half playing. It's kinda twitchy.
 
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