tailsawaggin
Forum Replies Created
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My advice is to get your hands on and many different guitars as you can and see what sounds and feels good to you. Do you have a Guitar Center within reasonable driving distance? They can be a great resource for test drives.
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These work really well for my wife and me — https://www.amazon.com/Stakmore-Solid-Folding-Chair-2-Pack/dp/B07JJM4C3B. We got ours at Costco, where they were sold individually and for about half this price, but things come and go at Costco, and at present they have gone. Any padded armless chair with a flat seat and straight back works well for me, though, unless it has wheels, in which case I end up scooting around like a sugared up six year old. Hopefully you find something that suits your preferences as well!
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Dogs and guitars are two of life’s greatest things. It’s great you’ve found a friend with whom you can share both!
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I had a hard time getting a guitar to sit comfortably and went through a few different seats (and guitars) in the course of trying to work it out. The couch is too low. The stool is too high. I felt like Goldilocks trying to find the one that was just right, and then I got a simple folding chair with a flat seat and straight back, and boom — I could finally find some agreement with the guitar on how we ought to sit.
Some people prefer to stand and play with the guitar strapped on, and I tried that, but some shoulder issues cause my fingers to go numb pretty quickly that way, so unfortunately that one’s out for me. It might be good for you, though. Basically, just keep trying different things until it clicks into place for you.
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It’s not harder, it’s just different, and it sounds like you’ll enjoy it and won’t lose anything on it, and you’ll regret not going for it, so do it. 😁
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Welcome! No, it’s not you. Start by hitting the little three line menu opener upper at upper left, and go to Skill Courses. That will take you here — https://tonypolecastro.com/courses/ — and from there, there are two great places to start. First is 30 Days to Play, which can take a lot longer than 30 days (it took me about 75 days), so stay positive and focus on your wins. That one is here — https://tonypolecastro.com/courses/30-days-to-play/.
The other one has to do with stretching and keeping your body in good form. A lot of people think they’re going to pick up the guitar and start playing songs right away (looks at self) but the fact is you’re going to use a lot of muscles and joints in ways they’ve never been used before. It’s kind of like going to the bike shop and getting a sweet new mountain bike, then expecting to go on a 12 mile cruise along the fire roads. A person has to build up to that kind of thing, so start with this daily stretching routine to help yourself get warm and limber — https://tonypolecastro.com/courses/guitar-players-daily-stretch-guide/.
Most of all, enjoy the journey!
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Good replies already, but I’d like to look at it from an energy perspective, since the volume of sound from your guitar is ultimately a function of how much energy goes into it. So, let’s get physical. 😉
We know a lighter string takes less energy to excite than a heavier string, but because it is lighter and pulls with less tension, it also puts less energy into the guitar than a heavier string vibrating at the same amplitude. But, since the heavier string is heavier and pulls with more tension, the heavy string needs more energy to get that same amplitude. In other words, light string easy but weak, heavy string hard but strong. So far so good?
Now that energy is, of course, coming from your finger, and energy is a function of mass and velocity. So, the faster the finger moves, the more energy goes into the string. (Let’s assume the mass of your finger is pretty much always the same. 😁)
Your finger also has harder bits and softer bits, and the hard bits will transfer more energy than the soft bits.
We’re definitely taking the long way home here, but all of this is why a good hammer-on is FAST. Snap that finger down, and use that well-earned callous to really slam the thing. Then keep it down — we don’t want to damp those vibrations we just worked so hard to make.
For practice and strength-building, I like to pluck an open string with moderate force, then hammer on after. The hammered note should be about the same volume as the plucked one, and if it isn’t yet, just keep at it, and eventually it will be. 🙂
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Yep, that’s my favored shape since it frees up the index finger for all kinds of shenanigans. Ultimately, though, it’s good to have access to all the shapes, since like @Bill_Brown said, transitions to some chords are more graceful from one form than another. There are some songs where I’ll use that G and the four finger G at different points in the same song, depending on where I need to go next. 🙂
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I’ve played one, and I briefly owned its 6 string brother, the 322. In my opinion they are wonderful instruments. I’m a mid-size person and they played really comfortably for me — noticeably smaller than my Guild dread, which is probably a fair comparison to your D28 in terms of size — and they have a really nice warm, balanced sound.
One thing, though — don’t let anybody tell you “they sound bigger than they are.” That always seems to come up with these guitars, and it just isn’t true. They sound exactly like what they are, so it’s not going to be a boomer like your dreadnought, but it is going to be lush, smooth, and noticeably richer, fuller, and more nuanced than your Mini. It will make good bass, but dig in hard and it will compress like any smaller guitar will.
I hope you get to play one and love it!
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Yep. Some days the instrument is a stranger. Just seems to be part of the process.
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Two things come right to mind. The first thing I’d do is check my finger position in the fret. If the finger is too far back from the fret, it takes a lot more effort to get it to play cleanly, and conversely, if the finger is right on top of the fret, it will sound dead. There’s a sweet spot right behind the fret where it’s easy to press and it sounds nice.
The second thing is the guitar’s setup, broadly speaking. First thing is the strings. Lighter gauge string are softer than heavier gauge strings, and uncoated phosphor bronze strings are softer than coated strings, and nickel strings are softer than phosphor bronze strings. If you already have nice light and soft strings, then check the neck relief and the string height at the 12th fret. If it’s higher than about 7/64″ on the bass side, it’s almost certainly going to feel a bit stiff, and if working on your guitar doesn’t feel like a good idea, a good tech can get you sorted for not a lot of money. 🙂
Finally, the best finger exercise is playing. Work on your scales and your fingers will get stronger naturally, and so will your scales. 😁
Hope this helps!
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@Cadgirl my 12 is a Guild D-125-12 from 2014 or 2015. It’s a great sounding instrument with a really nice, mellow voice, and it’s surprisingly easy to play. The neck is wide, but it’s relatively thin like all the Guilds I’ve played, and the string feel is very soft. If you can wrangle a dread, I heartily endorse this one.
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I too was waiting with anticipation for it to open up, and to hear that they did such a spectacularly bad job of letting us know it was available is fairly frustrating. I would have happily paid for it had it been announced, but now that the crowdsourced option is starting up in January, I’ll give that a try instead.
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@MikeGaurnier deserves a big thumbs up for that excellent reply, and I’d like to add just one thing to it about right hand-only training. Since the guitar’s standard tuning isn’t terribly musical when it’s played open, I’d take one of the guitars and put it into a tuning that does naturally sound nice. Open D is really pretty, and so is DADGAD, especially if you have a big dreadnought or jumbo that can really sing the low notes. I don’t know about anyone else, but the more pleasing my guitar is to my ears, the more I’ll play it!
Good work on focusing on solutions to your problems instead of getting bogged down. That’s a huge part of the battle right there.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by tailsawaggin. Reason: Words are hard
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This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by
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As a recovering vice gripper, I’d encourage you to banish it now. It causes nothing but trouble. 😁