Strings and Things

Gosh, yes, it's been over two weeks since my last post. Boring, busy life intrudes.  But I've been thinking about guitar-related items to post and this cloudy, rainy day seems the perfect time.

Despite my better judgement (and my own advice) I changed the strings on the Tetomas acoustic.  Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't do it.  I know I said I'd leave it to the professionals, but (shrug) eh, whaddaya gonna do?  It was almost a challenge I couldn't resist.  Besides, I had the strings.

The first thing I did was inspect the pawnshop Fender and see what I did wrong.  I knew I'd wound one side wrong and John said I needed to have more string winds around the posts.  I made a diagram:

Making the diagram, I got the fundamentals pretty well entrenched in my brain and I went for it.  I removed the old strings and polished up the wood as well as I could.  It's an old, scratched up guitar but it looks better for the effort.  The neck in particular.  It was nasty-dirty! 

I started with the 1st string, what I call "e."  I wasn't sure how much slack to leave, exactly, in order to have enough for winding around the posts so it was purely trial and error.  Mostly error, I'm sure.

Do overs


At first, I didn't think I'd left enough so I took it apart and started over, and on a few I knew I had too much.  I'd have to take it apart and start over again.  It got to be pretty funny, actually.  That's one good thing about being able to laugh at yourself.  This isn't a life or death situation. 

Of course, the more I took the strings off, the curlier they got and more unmanageable they became.  Patience and humility were my friends in this project.  Eventually, I got them all installed.  Some have more wound around the posts and some have less, but I think they at least all have enough. 

Before trimming

The large-wound bass strings, D, A, and E definitely have the most string wound around the posts.  Honestly, it's comical.  Hahaha!!  Eh.  (Shrug)  Whatever. 

Tuning

So now comes the tuning.  I'm not too bad at tuning since I have a keyboard which I can use for reference.  The trouble I've always had with tuning is breaking the "G" string.  It's ridiculous.  I've got a couple of packages of strings that are missing the "G" because of breakage.  Duh.

I've discussed this with John and he showed me how to stretch the strings while tightening them up during the re-stringing process.  As the slack becomes less, you push the strings to the side with your fingers, not too much--don't pull the pegs out-- but enough that tension is evident.  Do this often during the process and breaking a string while tuning shouldn't be an issue. 

For lessons, John tunes my guitar to match his using a Korg electronic tuner.  Turns out, either my husband or my brother gave me one exactly like it years ago, but I was never very confident using it.  After seeing John utilize it, I've used it a little more, though I still prefer my ears and the keyboard. 

The way the Korg works is, one end of the cable is plugged into the guitar and the other end is plugged into the tuner.  As each string is struck, an indicator needle and lights tell how far off, or on, the note it is.  Since I've been using it the nights before my lessons, I've been pretty close to perfect when I get there.  It's a neat little gadget.



Plug-in end of the Korg electronic tuner

So I got the Tetomas cleaned up, strings changed and tuned.  It plays pretty well, but it's a lot smaller than the pawnshop Fender, and for all the abuse the Fender took before it came to me, it has the better sound, by far.  

So there ya' have it.  I trimmed up the ends of the strings to about an inch/inch and a half, and it sure does look a lot nicer.   I haven't thought much about changing the strings on the electric.  Probably a good thing. 

By the way, I used strings that had been around here a while, but were still sealed up in their original plastic bag, so they were still good.  I'm not sure how I came to have so many full sets of strings--I guess one of the music stores was having a 3/$10.00 or a BOGO sale.  They are all D'Addarios.  There is one set of Martin acoustic strings--missing the "G" of course.

 



From China Grove to Bristol Shore

Yeah, I didn't post last week.  I was a little discouraged, trying to make "Sunshine" fluid.  John gave me the rest of the song so I could play the whole thing, but I wasn't confident I was getting it. 

He also gave me a choice on what new song to learn.  He said, "Eric Johnson or Van Halen?"  Just hearing EJ's name makes me smile and I think I said, "Whaddaya mean?" but who the heck knows?  Anyway, he picked out the intro to "Bristol Shore" and I was grinning like a lunatic.  I told him I definitely wanted to learn that kind of thing--that it was one of the original goals I set for myself. 

And what about Van Halen?  He played VH's cover of "You Really Got Me" which looked more like what I'd been practicing, with the power chords and all, so I chose that.  It looked like I could do it, with enough practice, and he tried to show me how to palm-mute.  He makes it look so easy.

Nephew Conner Fersner
showing off the wah-wah
we bought him

Then on Sunday, we had the opportunity to hear our nephew, Conner, play.  Oh my God!  He is so good!  He made all those songs just . . . flow.  And he made it all look so effortless.  He said, "Here, get Dad's guitar Aunt Mary O.  We can play together."  I was like, "Are you out of your mind?!"  I'm nowhere near his level, and now I can understand why his dad, Joe, is somewhat discouraged with his own lessons.  Man!  That kid's good.

So I was a little down walking into my lesson on Monday.  But as has been the case after all of my lessons, I was grinnin' like crazy upon leaving.  John said I wasn't doing too badly--I was actually doing pretty well.  He reminded me that Conner's been taking lessons from him for a long time--four or five years.  'Course then, I had to laugh--how good did I expect to be in a month and a half?  Hahaha!!

For this next lesson, I'll have two weeks of practice because I'm not going to make it next week.  On top of practicing the songs I've been doing, and the techniques involved, John also gave me the Doobie Brother's "China Grove."  I'm having a lot of fun with that. It's got that string-dulling, chunka-chunka sound I like so much.  I saw Conner do it on Sunday and I was envious of his skill.  (I shouldn't be envious.  I'll never catch up to him, but I sure am proud of him!)

With the extra practice time I'll have before my next lesson, I asked John about "Bristol Shore" and he showed me.  I was so psyched!  I came home and listened to the song and then started to work.  Gosh, I can't believe it, but I'm really doing it!  Not only that, but you can even recognize "China Grove."  That makes me happy!  Chunka-chunka!