Where Was I, Then?
Updates … I dread updates, I think. I got a note from a close friend on Facebook, about a week or so ago, stating that she “is a bad Facebook friend.” Her reason: It had taken her several days to respond to a message I had sent.
Maybe that was two weeks ago? I don’t know, but I do know that I can make almost anyone look “good” when it comes to timely back-and-forth. I’ll send her a note soon. Ha ha. No really, I’m serious this time.
Moving along … I still haven’t finished the Nils web site. I’ve gotten zero help from several guys who told me, eight weeks ago, that they would contribute higher resolution images, and well-written historical pieces concerning the legendary Montréal band.
People are busy, no grief there. But I feel guilty. Anyway, I have my own excuse, and it’s a doozy … and it’s one of those “multipart” deals: With the assistance (not to mention enthusiastic support of) my girlfriend, I picked up a guitar and amplifier. I hadn’t touched a guitar in 17 years or so. Now, I’m stuck, er, “attached” to it, on a daily basis. All day-ly, ha ha ha.
Over the years I have collected a lot of high-end music and recording software. Why? Who knows? I collect thing, I suppose. So, after the house is repainted (interior-wise) later this month, I’m moving my large desk and music study/production gear out into the front room (adjacent to the kitchen, with a view of, basically, everywhere), and setting up shop.
I’ll post a picture of the guitar/amp. But, for the record, the guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Jr Special. Yeah, I know, too many names, but it’s basically a Standard, without the binding on the body, and it has two of the fat, black single-coil pickups. It sounds beautiful, both electric and (albeit quietly so) acoustically. And it’s the “Robot” model. (Yeah, yet another name)
Robot? Say what? The guitar has a computer chip-driven tuning system, made by an outfit called Tronical. I had read about it, and was skeptical. I’m somewhat deaf (60 dBs, across the board, if you’re keeping track), so a guitar that can auto-tune itself sounded like it was made to order. And it was! Even with relatively old strings it can tune itself to a very finite concert pitch (actually more like a recording pitch, i.e., finer than concert), and it can be instantly switched to any of six tuning scheme variations (dropped-D, open G, etc). It realy works. Unbelievable.
Now, electronic tuners are nothing new, but … This thing has sensors on each of the six, individual bridge saddles, connected, internally to the tuning gears at the other end of the guitar. And, without any need for amplification at all, they measure the tension and pitch of their strings and physically wind the relative tuning gear, automatically, on demand. How amazing is that? Answer: Very.
For the amplifier, I bought a Boogie (60-watt combo) from Mesa Engineering. The amp is 29 years old. it’s the third instance of the exact same model, that I bought two of … 29 years ago. The thing sounds absolutely brand new. And I would know, trust me. I picked up a Mesa extension speaker cabinet, to go with the internal 12″ Celestion speaker, that has a “closed/open-back” switchable design. The extension is loaded with a really great Altec speaker.
It sounds awesome. And it has the usual “slave” output, and an Effects Send/Return loop (between the pre-amp and main amp stage), and a pre-amp output. All in addition to the normal internal-and-external speaker cabinet outputs. Perfect for live, or recording (direct, or miked), and incredibly flexible as far as apparent power/volume and tonal characteristics.
Mesa Engineering (a “local”, Petaluma-based company) has been at it a while. The guy who started the company was out here in the Bay Area, hot-rodding (customizing) Fender Princeton, and Fender Deluxe Reverb amps, for a ton of guitarists. The musicains urged him to build “from scratch”, and that’s what he did. The model I have is the second iteration of the original Mesa amp. Carlos Santana reputedly gave it the name “Boogie”, which is its official model designation. Santana knows a thing or tweo about “tone” and “feel.”
Friends, mainly non-musicians, had told me, back when I was explaining why I no longer played, and “how long it had been”, etc., that it would come back to me, “like riding a bike.”
They were sort of right, as it turns out. Scales, and how they fit together, have been “coming back” to me, in “chunks.” That “chunks” thing is the best way to describe it, for me. I remeber reading once that after emerging from a diabetic coma, Jerry Garcia had “forgotten” a ton of guitar/fretboard knowledge. And he later said that he was rehabilitated, and that the guitar had come back to him, in “chunks.” I understand that now.
The funniest thing about it is that one of the things I “forgot” (apparently) was my old (incorrect, technically) manner of holding the guitar pick. I used to hold like most guitar players; gripped between my thumb and tip of my index finger, with the other three fingers of my right hand kind of spread out, loosely, and sometimes acting as a “brace” against the guitar body. (As if they were being used to gather data about where my hand “was” in relation to the geomtric plane of the strings, themselves.
This astonishing guitar player back in Montréal (who works under the name Jimmy James) was over at my old place a few times, and I’d asked him for tips, or “help” in becoming a better player.
He gave me some “exercises” that were essentially non-musical (for dexterity, and independence of hands-and-fingers coordination, told me to consider quitting drugs (“just for a few months, and see the impact it has on your playing”), and mentioned that I should try to hold the “pick” between the flat side of my thumb and the first “jouint” of my curled index finger, meanwhile keeping my other fingers curled up, like a loose, relaxed fist.
Well, here we are, more than 20 years since Jimmy’s advice, and I’m going on 15 years clean and sober, and somehow, through no fault or “credit’ of my own, as soon as unpacked the Gibson (and to this day, a month later) my right hand very naturall gripped the pick in exactly the manner that Jimmy had suggested.
What does it all mean? I have no idea. Probably nothing. But, it’s peculiar and very cool, somehow.