Paul Williams
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A new challenge - to learn to play the guitar.

10/8/2020

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Now I've had a guitar hanging on the wall for the past 20 years or so and during the early stages of the lock-down my youngest son who was home from Uni' and on ferlough from his part-time job asked if he could have a 'play'.  So I duly took it off the wall tuned it's ancient strings and gave him a printout of some basic chords.  When his ferlough came to an end and he went back to Wales the guitar was loitering against the wall and I decided to pick it up and see how it was sounding.  It was quite obvious that  the machine heads (tuners) were past there best as of course were the strings.  I quite enjoyed playing around with the guitar so starting looking at perhaps buying a more modern instrument and a few weeks later bought an Ibanez electric  from Sound Unlimited in Plymouth and although it was probably the cheapest thing in the shop, the service was superb, full set-up and new set of strings fitted.  I was also interested in a Fender Practice amp, which they didn't have in stock but were on order, so going above and beyond, they loaned me a different amp to get me going - superb service.

So what about the old guitar, well after a few weeks I decided not to hang it back on the wall so put on a set of Wilkinson tuners and a friend took it away to dress & condition the fretboard prior to re-stringing.  Now this is an old 'cheap' guitar and the new tuners and strings are probably worth more than the guitar itself!  Add to this it has no truss rod (used to adjust the straightness of the neck) a high action (distance of the strings from the fretboard) a very wide flat (by modern standards) fretboard, which was also mildly 'S' shaped along its length and it is never going to be an easy instrument to play, but it actually does sound very nice.  So it is still getting the occasional outing and of course it makes going back to the electric a real pleasure.

At the same time all this was going on a new Meetup Group for guitar player popped up with a free four week beginners course - via Zoom.  So I joined that to add some structure to my learning - many thanks to Thomas & Fiona at The Guitar Social for an entertaining introduction to the world of guitar playing.  This is going to be an ongoing challenge as; I've no real talent, lack any sense of rhythm and think I may be tone deaf!  Only time  and lots of practice will tell...
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    Born in 1956 (so getting on a bit now) I'm married  and have two wonderful children  we all live in Devon in the South West of England - on the Cornish border.
    I'm University Educated with a Degree in Applied Statistics with Management Science and have recently retired from my work for an Independent Health Care Provider supporting the NHS.

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  • Home
  • BLOG - What's Up?
  • Galleries
    • People >
      • Street Photography
      • Seafaring...well maybe
      • America's Cup at Plymouth >
        • Onshore entertainment
      • Medieval Pageant
    • Places >
      • Enchanted Saltram 2019
      • Dyffryn House - August 2018
      • Dewstow Gardens & Hidden Grottoes - July 2019
      • Lost Gardens of Heligan - 2019
      • Pinetum Gardens - June 2019
      • Dyrham Park - September 2019
      • France August 2011
    • Wildlife >
      • Slimbridge September 2019
    • 'flora
    • Garden Art
    • Rust
    • Watches >
      • Low Cost Chinese
      • Micro Brands
    • Product
    • Fish Eye Fun >
      • High Cross House
      • Castle Drogo
    • Random Audio Equipment Pictures
    • DIY Hi-Fi Builds >
      • Bottlehead Paramour Amp Build
      • Bottlehead Quickie
      • Bottlehead Smash
      • 7 Pi Speaker Build
    • At Play >
      • MIOPS
    • Scans from 'Old' Negatives
    • Fujifilm X10 Compact
  • Photography
    • Cameras & Lenses
    • Multiblitz Studio Flash >
      • Multiblitz Manuals + Miscellaneous
    • Elinchrom Studio Flash
    • Studio Thoughts
  • Favourite Music
  • Film
    • Best Films
    • Worst Films
  • £66 Guitar upgrade
  • Watch Reviews
    • Geckota K-01 Pilot 44mm
    • Zelos Swordfish Bronze
    • Aragon Divemaster V1
    • AVI-8 P-51 Mustang Bottisham Limited Edition
    • Geckota P-01 Dress Watch
    • Phoibos Wave Master Diver
    • Seiko 'Bottle Cap' Desk Diver
    • Laco Aachen Flieger
    • RLG Atlanticus Compressor
    • Laco Augsburg Flieger
    • Orient Ray II
    • Zelos Eagle E-1D
    • Citizen Eco-Drive Titanium
    • Marloe Coniston
    • Geckota G-01 1950's Style Diver
    • Smiths NATO PRS-40
    • Aragon Regeneron Diver
  • Audio Equipment
  • Contact Me
  • Links