Play a Little Guitar: Tuned In, Tune Doubt

Friday, March 5, 2010

Tuned In, Tune Doubt

I just had one of those privately embarrassing moments. I was plucking around on the Hummingbird and it sounded awful, just awful. Like the sound of two cars colliding while cats scream through a bullhorn.

"Jeez," I muttered. "This is ridiculous. How'd this thing get so far out of tune? I know I don't play that badly."

So I whipped out the trusty Korg GA-30 tuner and cranked it up. Much to my eternal chagrin, each and every string was perfectly tuned. It turns out I do play that badly.

8 comments:

Christie said...: Great band name: Bullhorn Cats.; March 6, 2010 8:58 AM
DAG said...: I think all of us talent challenged guitarists have those moments. On the other hand, sometimes you have a day when everything sounds great and sweet. This is usually when I wake up.; March 7, 2010 1:01 AM
Anonymous said...: There are tuners? Good info.

sg; March 7, 2010 2:10 PM
ALittleGuitar said...: SG -- yes, there are tuners and you should tune your guitars at least once a year.; March 7, 2010 7:43 PM
ALittleGuitar said...: DAG - that's true, too. i think i'm better in the morning, too.; March 7, 2010 7:43 PM
ALittleGuitar said...: Christie -- think we could persuade a certain someone to go a band called Jackson Eli and the Bullhorn Cats, featuring Stinktown Willie?; March 7, 2010 7:44 PM
duke wisdom said...: You're just "avant garde."; March 8, 2010 11:16 AM
drsyn67 said...: I love your Blog. Your posts like this keep me sane, as I am also a relatively new guitarist often experiencing struggles that you have written about. (Age 42, playing for 2 years, 7 guitars... I can't stop). Thanks for sharing... keep it up!; March 16, 2010 10:08 PM

GUITARTALK

"I play every day and I'm still chasing that dream about the guitar and how to get inspired. It's been a huge reward but I have to try harder. The pleasure's all mine."
— Jimmie Vaughan

"I got my first guitar when i was about nine years old. It took me five years to learn how to tune it but it was easy from there on."
—The Edge

"The one I've got in my hand at any particular time."
— Keith Richards on his favorite guitar

"Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded."
— Jimi Hendrix

"I want to get a T-shirt made that says, 'Jesus says do not cling to earthly things,' and on the back it will say, 'But Jesus never owned a '57 Strat.'"

— Keith Urban

"It's the only instrument that you put your arms around. You hold it right to your chest and it becomes part of you. To be a guitar player is the most fantastic and exhausting thing."
— Randy Bachman

"No matter how long you play guitar, there's always something else to learn."

— Tom Petty

"About 10 years ago I knew three chords on the guitar. Now, in 1982, I know three chords on the guitar."
— Freddie Mercury

"Some people think they're just pieces of wood."
— Stevie Ray Vaughan

"Every time I see a guitar it’s like Christmas. Guitars are gorgeous, beautiful pieces of creation to me – every one of them."

— Steve Vai

"It's one of the most comfortable things in the world -- just to hold a guitar and play. A security blanket, so to speak."

— Rich Robinson

"Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor."

— Leo Kottke

"I sang because it was my ticket to getting to play the guitar. To this day, if I had my preference, I'd be a guitar player in some singer's band."
— Merle Haggard

"I’ve deliberately left certain things vague about the guitar because I like the primitive aspect of the way I play and think about the guitar ... I just start to play and hope for the best."
— Elvis Costello

"Guitar playing is a release, liberation. Put simply, it is freedom."
— W.C. Handy

"I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks."
— John Lee Hooker

"I'd think learning to play the guitar would be very confusing for sighted people."
— Doc Watson

"Elmore James only knew one lick but you had the feeling that he meant it."
— Frank Zappa

"When I first started playing guitar when I was 12, I just never stopped."
— Robert Cray
"The guitar is such a great friend, easy to carry from room to room, house to house. If you play guitar, you are already blessed."
— Pete Townshend
"I began to learn a lot of chords and rhythms. It was a bit boring at the time but came in very handy later on."
— Alvin Lee

"My first love was the sound of a guitar."
— Boz Scaggs

"I always liked the idea of the guitar because cowboys played the guitar."
— Tom Petty

"I can't say I've really mastered the instrument but I'm able to get it to where it speaks for me."

— Dave Mason

"A friend of mine ... came up one day with an old guitar. I don't know where he got it, I don't know how long he'd had it but he knew about two chords on it. He proceeded to teach them to me and then we proceeded to go crazy over music."
— Charlie Daniels

"A guitar is something you can hold and love and it's never going to bug you. But here's the secret about the guitar -- it's defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know."

— Les Paul

"The guitar obsession started for me at a very young age -- before I could even wrap my hand around the neck. But I knew that's what I wanted to do."
— Robbie Robertson

"A man can't have too many guitars or shotguns."
— Robert Earl Keen, who has about 25 of each

"I took the guitar with me to the bathroom. Everywhere I went, I played it — because I loved it."
— Chet Atkins

"I got my first guitar at age 7 and never laid it down. Mama taught me G, C and D and it was off to the races, son!"
— Jerry Reed

"When I sit down and play the guitar, I'm 20 years old again."
— J.J. Cale

"I'm really very embarrassed about my guitar playing, in one way, because it's very poor. I can never move but I can make a guitar speak."
— John Lennon

“I am very primitive in my guitar style. Frankly, I need some new tricks.”
— John Hiatt on his plans to take guitar lessons in 2009

"The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well."
— Andres Segovia

"I can only play six chords on the guitar."
— Patti Smith

“The intrinsic personality of the instrument transcends genre. The guitar, by its nature, is filled with personality and imperfections that all players share.”
— Jorma Kaukonen

"Discovering the guitar is like finding a new continent that exists within your fingertips."
— Will Hodgkinson in "Guitar Man"

"When you play the guitar, you don't have to say nothing. The girls would say something to you."
— Buddy Guy

"When I walk on stage the guitar is just sitting there and it says, 'Play me.' That's my whole thing."
— Stephen Stills

"The first time I ever saw him play I was made to understand / The music may start way down in your heart / But it's got to come out of your hand."
— Jon Dee Graham in the song "Jesse Taylor"

"The guitar is a really weird, primitive instrument."
— Ry Cooder

"I wanted to learn how to do everything a person could do on a guitar. Of course, that was impossible."
— David Bromberg

"My chosen instrument is guitar and, fortunately, I'm able to muddle through that. I can play guitar to the point where I can express myself artistically."
— Joe Perry

"You don’t need talent, you don’t need rhythm, I can teach you guitar ... What I’m trying to say is this is easy and anyone can jam with me and have some fun."
— Nils Lofgren, E Street Band guitarist

"The thing about guitar players is we're all like a brotherhood or sisterhood. We don't care if you're great, good, bad, in between or whatever. As long as you love it, then we're all going to help each other."
— Tommy Emmanuel

"What inspires me at this point is just the guitar itself."

— Slash

"Pain or romance. That’s what I do with the guitar. I don’t do scales. I either make it sound like it’s in pain or in love."

— Dick Dale

"I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself."

— James Taylor

"The two of us even look alike. My musician pals haven't carved and written their names on me the way they have on Trigger but we're both pretty bruised and battered."
— Willie Nelson in his book "The Tao of Willie"

"An uncle of mine emigrated to Canada and couldn't take his guitar with him. When I found it in the attic, I'd found a friend for life."

— Sting

"I have a guitar made out of a 2x4 that I bought in Cleveland. You know, in Iraq, you can't have a guitar in the window of a music store because it's too sexy. You know, the curves. so I could go over there with these 2x4 guitars and really take the country by storm."

— Tom Waits

"I have always felt — from the very first day that I picked up the guitar — that this journey was never going to end."

— Steve Vai

"There’s so much that can be done on the guitar. And that’s what is so good about the guitar — everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it’s all about. Right?"
— Jimmy Page

"If I look like a good guitar player it's because that's my whole thing — to look like I'm playing the guitar — but really I'm not."
— Pete Townshend in 1968

"Once I found the guitar, I had the key to the highway."

— Bruce Springsteen

"To me a guitar is kind of like a woman. You don't know why you like 'em but you do."
— Waylon Jennings

"First guitars tend to be like first loves: ill-chosen, unsuitable, short-lived and unforgettable."
— Tim Brookes in "Guitar: An American Life"

"I started taking guitar lessons when the Brooklyn Dodgers left Brooklyn. I was so depressed, so my parents bought [me] a guitar."
— Neil Diamond

"If something is too hard to do, then it's not worth doing. You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your shortwave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle and we'll go inside and watch TV."
— Homer Simpson

TELECASTERTALK

"You can throw it off your roof on to your driveway and it won't break. You can go down pick it up and it will still be in tune. It's an amazing guitar."
— Randy Bachman

"There are two kinds of people in the world: those that play Stratocasters and those that play Telecasters ... when that big rock 'n' roll clock strikes 12, I will be buried with my Tele on."
— Bruce Springsteen

"When I started playing the Telecaster, I realized I'd graduated. This was the big boy's tool!"
— Keith Richards

"I had enjoyed playing a Gibson but the Tele seemed to embody the term 'electric guitar' so much more."
— Albert Lee

"It's a California guitar. It's a masterpiece. Thank God for America. Thank God for Leo. It's a beautiful guitar. I play it like a chainsaw and it's still beautiful."
— Pete Townshend

"It's one of those things they got right the first time."
— Bill Kirchen

"Sure, I like country music
I like mandolins
But right now I need a Telecaster
Through a Vibrolux turned up to 10"
— John Hiatt on "Memphis in the Meantime"

"I was 12 or 13 years old and I walked past the local music store and there in the window was a beautiful blonde Telecaster ... My dad took me down the next day to try it out, and we picked it up for I think around $300, which was an awful lot of money back in those days. Ever since then it's been my life."
— James Burton

"What I do love about a Telecaster is it’s just so simple in its design and it’s just this chunk of wood that cost $120 when it was made and it’s really stood the test of time quite well."
— Vince Gill

"The Telecaster has two sounds -- a good one and a bad one."
— Jimi Hendrix

Life, by Keith Richards

He lays it all out there in an irresistibly candid, unapologetic way. There are some interesting insights into the Stones' songwriting process. But why so disdainful of Bill Wyman.

Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues, by Alan Govenar

Lightnin' was the king of Dowling Street in Houston and then became a leading figure in the blues/folk resurgence in the 1960s. The biography shows him as one cool, influential cat.

Texas Tornado: The Times and Music of Doug Sahm, by Jan Reid & Shawn Sahm
He was one of the most important figures in Texas music but this autobiography comes off as underdeveloped and superficial.

What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock 'n' Roll Survivor, by Jessica Pallington West

The philosophy of Chairman Keith, who sums it up thusly: "It's not that easy to be Keith Richards but it's not so hard either."

It Ain't No Sin to Be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen, by Eric Alterman
An examination of the songs and mindset of El Jefe.

Ronnie, by Ron Wood
The Rolling Stone sounds like the most likable guy in rock 'n' roll and knows everybody but his writing style is a bit scattered. I was expecting better anecdotes, too, but I guess he forgot all the really good ones.

Guitar: An American Life, by Tim Brookes
A look at how the guitar became such a cultural icon, interspersed with the author's account of the construction of hisown guitar. Very well written by an NPR veteran.

Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, by Joe Nick Patoski
He's Texas and music, all rolled into one.

Guitars: A Celebration of Pure Mojo, by David Schiller
A small-scale coffee table filled with great pictures -- what's known as "guitar porn."

Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love That Guitar More Than You Love Me, by Will Hodgkinson
The book I should have written -- a beginner's quest to learn guitar.

Slash, by Slash and Anthony Bozza
Great guitar but I guess I'm getting old because I just wanted to reach into this book, grab him by that overdone hair and say, "Straighten your ass up, dude!"

Skydog, by Randy Poe
This Duane Allman biography was too short on personality, too long on the play-by-play of recording sessions but it did help me rediscover the ABB.

Stoned, by Andrew Loog Oldham

They say he "made" the Rolling Stones but I'm thinking they made it in spite of him. I believe wanker is the British term.

Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road With theGrateful Dead, by Steve Parish

The roadie confirms what a long strange trip it was.

Between the Strings: The Secret Lives of Guitars, compiled by John August Schroeter

Loving tributes to wire and wood from dozens of players, both famous and not so famous.

Stone Me: The Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards, compiled by Mark Blake,
What Would Keith Richard Do?: Daily Affirmations From a Rock and Roll Survivor, by Jessica Pallington West

"It's not that easy to be Keith Richards," he says, "but it's not so hard either."