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Category: A Blog… of sorts
Independent Musicianship and Dilettantism
From www.dictionary.com: dil·et·tante -noun 1. a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler. The part-time Independent Musician’s true character? Further investigation reveals: des·ul·to·ry -adjective 1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful. I would have to face the fact that,…
Have a merry… ah…
You know what I mean. If Santa is your anticipated benefactor tomorrow, may he be as generous to you as I suspect he is going to be to me. He always does me proud. Eat, drink, and be merry. And be safe.
You will have noticed…
… the changing look of my blog – sometimes on an hourly basis. Well, I have updated the platform software (WordPress) and have taken the opportunity to mess around with some of the different themes that are available. I hope you are not finding it too confusing. If you like – or don’t like –…
Acoustic Guitars: Mahogany v. Rosewood
Yeah, well. Much has been written. For the uninitiated we’re talkin’ guitar tonewoods here. I have two guitars (well, two that are being regularly played) which are identical apart from some cosmetics and the woods comprising the backs and sides; to whit: one has mahogany back and sides, the other rosewood. Do they sound very…
Diminished 7th Chords
These mongrel chords are the Crewe Junction of the harmonic world. You can come from many places to them and depart from them to many more. But they worry me insofar as I suspect they could be used to cover up a multitude of sins. They strike me as potentially lazy solutions to musical problems.…
Songwriting: On the use of early fragments
I’ve writ elsewhere (all over the world wide web) that I picked up the guitar at an age too early to learn anything proper like an extant piece of music. I was simply interested in making twanging and snapping sounds. I had no loftier ambition than to disturb the peace in our home. It’s true…
Mississippi John Hurt
I owe him a lot. After I had picked up which fingers went where as regards fingerpicking I got a book published by Oak Publications (long gone now, I think) containing the notation (this was before the days of tablature) of this man’s tunes. And I learned and practiced just about every damn’ one. Even…
Chord voicings and “broken” chords
For a couple of months, I will mostly be learning and figuring out chord voicings. It strikes me as dumb and lazy to imprison myself with the root-at-the-bottom cliches that seem to be the foundation of the vast majority of my songs. Certainly, when I have used alternaltive voicing in the past it has been…
“It’s either the guitar or me!”
I was reading a post on an internet acoustic guitar forum not too far from here by a guitar player who had been given an ultimatum by his partner to choose between her and the his guitars. The purpose of his post was to bid farewell to the community since he had decided to sell…
I’ve got a plan
In fact I have several; one for each planable part of my work. This is necessary for me to organise the tasks, their order and priorities and how long they take. Particularly since I have to fit these tasks around my day job and other chores and with whatever energies I have left at my…
