[thechat] Anybody here?

Luther, Ron ron.luther at hp.com
Tue Apr 6 17:13:46 CDT 2004


Morgan Kelsey sayeth:

>>Bah, I don't wanna vote for any of those clowns. I'm gonna exercise my right
>>*not* to vote (not like it seems to matter in this country anyway). 

Hi Nagrom!

+1! 

Heck, I'd rather be strapped to chair and forced to watch TNN than CNN!
Brrrrrrr!


>>Where's that pron, Ron?

Soon ... Been busy, man ... work laying a hurt on me ... too much going on 
with the grandkids ... legal crap, tax crap, crap with the kids, anime 
crap {Ya there Ben? I finished watching Azumanga Daioh over the weekend - man, 
I gotta get me one of those Iriomote wildcats!}, illness crap, and, believe 
it or not, I *finally* made it through all the crappy hurdles to get some of 
my crap up on eBay! (Okay - so it's not actually there yet - it will be - 
really! Very very soon!) Whew!

But I cleaned off the card on the digital over the weekend ... had to get 
a picture of my irises in bloom ... so now it's got some room for the good 
stuff!!  ;-)

<Warning - Guitar / music junk ahead />

I got the neck cleaned up on my old Guild recently and some fresh strings thrown 
on her ... still have some dirty pots to take care of though. Anyway, I ran into 
some guy in the Netherlands who apparently wrote the book on vintage Guild guitars 
- he told me she was built in early 1970, before the specs changed around mid-year 
and gave me a rough idea on the value ... so I'm not afraid to play her anymore!  
;-)  Yeah!  

[Thinking about having her refitted with a tune-o-matic ... that would make it 
easier to get the intonation set properly.]

Anyway, been working on odd stuff ... I start off working on 'Western Swing' 
... which is actually jazz that just happens to get played on old country 
radio stations ... ('Faded Love' is about 3 minutes long and has 40 chords 
in it - chords - not chord changes! Ouch!) ... it's got pretty much nothing 
to do with country ... zillions of those dang [jazz] 'finger-buster' chords 
... {Grab the first two strings at the 7th fret ... now walk your little 
finger down the third string ... 11th fret, 10th, 9th, 8th, arpeggio and out.}
[Oh, and just how do you cleanly play a chord with strings 1,2,6 at the 10th 
fret and strings 3,4,5 at the 9th fret? I run out of fingers! Ouch!] Grrrr!  
Oh well, when I get frustrated with that I work on heavy metal ... it's a 
LOT easier for me to play.


'Course the combination *does* mess with what's left of my mind a bit ... I 
keep getting this overpowering evil urge to throw some b-altereds or 
flatted-5th-flatted-9ths into the middle of 'Paranoid' ... I think it would 
be great fun - a dainty little jazz cascade and then, wham!, back to the power 
chords ... just to see if everyone is still awake!

Man, I just gotta learn more music theory!  

(Speaking of which ... any good sites / suggestions for learning that <snooty 
musician snob tone> "well we've got a basic I-VI-ii-V change coming up, so 
obviously we'll improvise using a melodic minor hexa-dexatrim" </snob> kinda 
stuff?)


Ron
(Who's fingers are still smiling ... for oh so many reasons!)

(I'd count the reasons ... but this is a 'family' list!)



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