It was 10:30 at night. I still had 40% of my move goal left to do. Jen was asleep so I snuck down cellar and yogged for a while. Once my move goal was closed (stand and exercise goals had been closed for many hours by then) I took a little time to recover and then…
That’s right, kids, the guitar playing streak is alive. I only played for about 10 minutes but it counts, babie!
The consecutive days of guitar playing streak is up to six days. I didn’t get any playing in last Wednesday as it was a commuting day and I didn’t get up early enough. The following six days, including this morning, I played at least a little bit. I used my SG to put leads on two songs from May. I played especially poorly. I don’t think it was rust this time, I think it was physical impairment. Specifically, my finger tips didn’t work correctly, in part because the calluses are gone but the pre-callus blisters are coming in. Ouch. When I took a shower after I finished my crappy playing the hot water hitting my fingers stung like a mutha.
Oh well. Hopefully I’ll get up early enough to get a little playing in tomorrow, given that it is another commute day. It would be nice to have the streak hit the full week mark.
The playing was bad today and so were the obligatory pointless pictures. I had to take a second batch because the first batch was crap.
Last night I said I wanted to put guitars on a couple of songs today. I did it. Last night I also added a new song idea. That’s one of the songs I played guitar on this morning and boy was it sloppy and bad. Today is going to go down in history as one of the sloppiest playing days I’ve ever suffered through. I don’t care. I also added a new riff idea this morning. We’ll see if it becomes a song. I hope so.
Next on the agenda is writing lyrics and melodies. I have five songs that are ready for them. Let’s see how many I can get to today.
I played my SG yesterday and I didn’t put it away. As I was working out the new song structure last night I did it with the Les Paul in mind. Today, with the SG sitting on the stand I decided to start with a different song and use the SG as a warm up. When that song was done I swapped them. You’d think that playing something else first would have warmed me up for the new song. Nope. I sucked equally on both of them.
I managed to get some playing in today. I put rhythm guitars on two songs. One from June and one from May.
Progress, babie!
Playing with my camera during my lunch break. I would have rather played with my camera at the ocean at sunrise.
If I manage to play the guitar tonight, I am planning on playing my SG.
If you ever wanted to see someone distracting himself from a painful situation and thus being a textbook case of avoidance, this post is it.
As someone who owns two Les Pauls and an SG, this is the single greatest video ever made.
I watched it yesterday before things went south and I was going to post this then, but instead I am doing it now as a form of deflection. If you don’t like it, you can suck it.
I went exactly two months without playing guitar…
…before I played today.
I played my SG because it’s the lightest guitar with the smallest body and I figured it would be the easiest to deal with against my recently sliced open gut.
There were no issues.
Life is good.
New decor?
Eight months ago today I turned 50 and my wife got me an amazing birthday present. She bought me a Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s and I absolutely love it. I adore it. It gets me and I get it and we’re besties now and everything is perfect.
I haven’t played any other guitar since that day, even though I own a small but growing army of electric guitars (five, and my teenage self is in awe).
Well… I just broke the streak. I’ve been thinking of a gimmick for the RPM Challenge. Instead of just double tracking all of the rhythm guitar parts (which I always do), why not double track with different guitars? Maybe even different amplifiers? Sure it will make mixing more complicated, but it could be fun. If I do this, I expect the two guitars to be the new Les Paul and the SG Standard that I bought myself in 2018. Unless of course I finally brave the Covid and go somewhere to trade in my Fender Stratocaster for a Les Paul Junior, in which case the Junior would be the other guitar. That’s not likely to happen though, so it will be Les Paul in one ear and SG in the other.
Tonight I decided to break out the SG and use it on a Record Every Month song for January. I’ve got two songs going right now. They both kinda suck, but I’ll finish them. Now the song that has the working title of REM JAN 01 Mac has SGs where everything else since May has Les Pauls.
I put strings on the SG today. As part of my jonzing for a Les Paul Junior I was thinking about top wrapping. That’s where you put the string through the tail piece backward and then wrap the string over the top of it. For Les Paul Juniors (and standards from 1953-1955, I think) the tail piece is also the bridge so top wrapping is required.
For guitars that have a separate bridge, like all three of my Gibsons, it’s not necessary but I thought what the hell. I did it for one string and then stopped. I would have needed to lower the tail piece for it to work and I didn’t want to do that today. I keep the tail low on the other two Gibsons. Maybe I’ll try it on one of those.
Also, is there anything more useless than these locking tuners? They really don’t do anything at all.
Inside the Red Head's Head 