[dr_dave]

Hey, that’s a great that your son shared that. It’s a real nice touch on Mother’s Day weekend .Happy Mother’s Day. It doesn’t sound like you took the plunge on the guitar, though. Still shopping?

[dr_dave]

I was going to ask if you changed string gauge. That can make a big difference. Heavier strings require more tension, and that will bend the neck more unless the truss rod is adjusted to balance the additional tension. That will make the strings seem like they have higher action (but that’s a misnomer – truss rods adjust neck relief, not action). When the strings are too far above the frets, it has an adverse effect on intonation of fretted strings.

I don’t think a change in string gauge should effect the other aspects of setup (saddle and nut height). If you go to heavier strings than what were on the guitar, it is possible some of them don’t fully seat in the nut slot. This would make those strings sit further from the frets, again possibly causing intonation problems.

I recommend the site frets.com to learn about various aspects of guitar setup. The information is well-organized, clear and authoritative.

[dr_dave]

Gorgeous. Pretty complete command of the fretboard and the ability to solidly land on chord tones. Great ear.

[dr_dave]

These questions (where to find the song vault and where to find tabs for these songs) have occured often in just the few short weeks since the site “steamlining.” It seems it would be a simple matter to create a link to the song vault here within the TAC framework (lots of white space) and to explain where the tabs are hidden on the landing page (or perhaps even j hide them?). I hope this doesn’t sound critical of the site re-design, but this question will continue to get asked frequently. Even if the questions are answered in an FAQ, it is unlikely people will locate the answers they need without help.

[dr_dave]

I love your story, Jean, and that project in Rwanda is an awesome accomplishment. Thanks for hosting VOM and for doing all those other things that you do. You wear many hats. I hope you have a wonderful Mothers’ Day.

[dr_dave]

You say you “have a line” on an FG700S and that you have no way to compare it to your FG150, since the FG700S has been discontinued. From these statements, I infer that you can get a specific FG700S at an attractive price from someone distant from you, such that you can’t try before you buy. I further assume it is in used condition (not likely to be any “new old stock” remaining), so the usual caveat apply to buying from a distant source. If it looks like a favorable seller and you’re confident about the guitar being jn reasonable condition, I say jump on it. Unless there’s a major flaw, you’re not likely to go wrong with a Yamaha. They tend to deliver a lot of value, and I don’t think the FG700S was very expensive. You will therefore not be putting much at risk. You’ll really appreciate having it at the end of this month when the banjo challenge rolls around. My recollection is that the banjo week lessons require open G tuning, and I find that I really appreciate having a second guitar when I want to explore alternate tunings. I don’t mind taking my primary guitar back and forth between standard and Drop D, since it only involves one string, but I don’t like fooling around with three or four tuning machines a couple times a day.

As others have pointed out, you’ll also appreciate it having a somewhat different voice owing to the larger body size.

If you buy it and for some reason you don’t enjoy it, you can probably re-sell and recoup most of what you paid for it or perhaps it would appeal to you to donate it to Guitars for Vets or some other good cause. When I went to ALF 2018, I bought a used Yamaha from Music Villa, then drove it over to TAC HQ on Monday morning and left it with Noah as a G4V donation. I owned that guitar for only about 4-5 days! Don’t get me wrong – I loved the guitar. It was my intent to donate it all along.

[dr_dave]

In general, I think you did a masterful job of staying solidly within the Am scale, using tasteful bends and giving the solo some breathing space. Pauses seemed well-timed; the rests really enhanced the notes you played. (I call that “playing the rests.” Ya gots to play the rests, man!)

I love the blue notes (Eb – tritones) you worked into a few spots, notably around 1:21 and 1:31. They came in very good places with respect to the BT. In terms of the flow integration, I liked the outflow from the one at 1:21 a bit better than what followed 1:31, but that’s being picky.

Specific enough?

[dr_dave]

I understand your situation of wanting to use the month’s list of daily lesons as a scorecard, tracking those that need more work. I don’t think I have personally encountered the “Go Back and Complete the Previous Lesson” in the context of the dailies. As far as I can remember, I saw it only in Fretboard Wizard. I wonder if this is a new wrinkle or just a “burp” in the system. I guess there are alternative ways for you to keep score, but that would be les convenient than what you were doing so I feel your pain. I hope it’s just a temporary shortcoming that resolves back to permitting you to do what you were doing.

[dr_dave]

I echo what @Bill_Brown says. I thought this was a very solid performance, Mr. Scoggins. Great selection too.

[dr_dave]

Thanks for celebrating with us! Congrats.

[dr_dave]

One more thing. The title of the thread is “A second guitar,” but your latest message says you now have three, even though you missed out on the Yamaha, after buying a Gemini instead. What is the third guitar?

[dr_dave]

Just a word of caution. More expensive does not necessarily mean better, though we’d like to believe that. Think about what you like and what you would like to be different. What “problems” or shortcomings would you like the next instrument to solve? Make sure your instruments are really set up to your tastes before making those decisions. If you really believe you need a different instrument to please your ear or some other aspect of your playing, you might nit want to wait. Start looking now. The sooner you get it, the more time you’ll have with your new friend.

[dr_dave]

Thanks!

[dr_dave]

Thanks Mike. Best part is that it has been fun!

[dr_dave]

“The guitar will always forgive us, and it’s not going anywhere.”

That’s a really powerful statement, Loraine. I know I spend way more time on playing guitar than most people, and perhaps more than is healthy, since I am not the best at interacting with family. I do have a very understanding wife who encourages me to play, since she knows how good it is for my spirit. Fortunately we still do a lot of things together: dinners, music, bottles of wine, nights out, sitting on the back deck, occasional hikes or bike rides etc. I’m especially lucky that we have similar, broad tastes in music.