Saturday, January 19, 2008

Acoustic Guitar Playing



Playing the guitar is something else that I have spent a lot of time doing over the years. I have been in a number of bands but at the moment I enjoy playing solo stuff on my acoustic guitar. I play an old steel strung Levin which was made in the early seventies, I bought it in a guitar shop in Southsea in about 1980 for £160 which was quite a lot of money in those days though not on a par with the cost of something like a Martin. Since I bought my Levin they have become quite collectable as they are quite rare and a few fairly famous people use them now. If you have the time have a listen to some of my tunes, most of which I have written myself. There is a live link in the above title "acoustic
guitar playing" hope you enjoy! and if you are learning to play the guitar get yourself a tuning fork in A (440cycles) to tune your guitar with. Don't strike it on a hard or sharp surface but on your knee or something like that, after striking, touch the ball shaped end onto a wooden surface (like your guitar) let it resonate and tune to that. Tuning forks teach your ear how to listen. Tuning forks don't need electricity, wires or batteries, won't go out of tune like pitch pipes do after a while and if you look after them they will last pretty much forever or your part of it anyway. Put away your weapons, pick up your guitar and chill out.

1 comment:

Rob Windstrel Watson said...

I've visted Appledore quite a lot last year because I am an amateur (folk) musician amongst other things.

They had pub playing sessions on Mon, Wed, Fri and Sun the last time I was there. A very musical small town indeed.

On Saturday evenings one of the pubs had a paid for live band too.

Most of the session players in the pubs seem to play acoustic guitars like yourself and they always welcome new faces to join in.

Unfortunately, my penchent is for more traditional English folk music and it's a 100 mile round trip over Exmoor for me with high fuel costs these days, so I've drifted away but, if you've not discovered Appledores pub music tradition yet, I thought you may be interested.

Happy playing

Rob