I come to you now with two sore fingers. Why? Because I changed the strings on my guitar last night and he didn't take to it kindly. Then today, when I picked up the guitar to practice today, I broke one of the new strings I'd just put on and had to replace it . . . and that's when I got whacked the second time. This post is about the flip side of music, the non-fun stuff. The struggles and the chores and the mental side, too. All the foundational crap that you go through in order to get to the fun.
But, to make up for all the pensiveness, there will be pictures :) Now that I have a good camera, I am able to take better pictures, and I've got some of Babe. By the way, I've been using my new camera (a Kodak Easy Share C182 12 mp point-and-shoot) for about 5 months in all sorts of lighting and so far, the only thing it chokes on is being in the dark without a flash. With a flash, it's still fab. So if anybody's in the market for a relatively cheap yet quite nice camera, try this one.
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Guitar strings, for those of you who are new to the recreational sport of creating welts on your fingers, are made of various metals or nylon (mine are steel, bronze and brass) and are under significant tension when they're properly placed on a guitar neck. 180 pounds minimum, to be precise, all the way up to 220, depending on what kind of strings you use. And so, Gentle Readers, 200 pounds of pressure divided by 6 strings means that each string is carrying 33.3 pounds of pressure. And when it releases unexpectedly . . . hence why I have two sore fingers.
My guitar fights back. Now I don't know if anybody else's guitars hate to have their strings changed, but it appears that in addition to being, as far as I know, literally the only completely acoustic lefty *blue* sunburst pattern 6-string Fender in the universe, it's also the only guitar in the universe that actively resists getting new strings. I can tell we're going to have a long, complicated relationship.
Here are some pictures of the culprit, below.
I bought Babe (it's a pun, 'cause Babe is a big blue axe, as opposed to being a big blue ox, you know, from the Paul Bunyan stories? No? Well, ok, here's the short version. Minnesota is supposedly the land where Paul Bunyan played and worked, the 10,000 lakes we have are supposedly due to him and his blue ox, Babe, leaving their footprints on our state. And as a Minnesotan, naming my guitar Babe seemed like a good thing to do. Get the pun now? Ok, good.) from a music chain that is now defunct, although most of their music operations (and their luthiers, thank goodness) have merely moved to another chain (Minnesota has luthiers up the wazoo, which is good, keeps prices down!). I bought Babe 8 and a half years ago and since I play left handed (another long story involving my autism, arthritis, and strong natural if repressed -- thank you Catholic school -- tendencies towards left handedness) I had to have him modified so that I could play him. It's not enough, Gentle Readers, to merely switch the strings out. In order for a guitar to play properly, the strings need to fit their correct slots, among other things. You can see the modifications in this close up shot of his body:
I paid $50 to have a real bone (instead of plastic or resin) lefty bridge and saddle put on my guitar and had I thought of it I would have had them switch out the pick guard too (that big black thing on the body), although now that I can actually play my little blue bastard I'm glad I didn't. Instead, I will simply have them put another one on below. You can see in the closeup of my guitar's body where all my fingerprints and so on are. The pick guard that's on there now isn't useless -- when strumming, my left hand goes all the way up as well as all the way down -- but if I keep playing I'm eventually going to wear out the wood on the opposite side, so, time to get a pick guard that's properly placed.
But I digress. As I said, I bought this guitar 8 years ago and at the time my . . . well, I don't know what you'd call it, my soul, my self, my self-esteem, whatever it was, I was totally unable to feel safe expressing myself through music and I just couldn't allow myself to learn to play. Besides, I didn't have the self-confidence chops. You really need to believe that you have something to give to the world and that people want to hear what you have to say, in order to play a musical instrument well, and I didn't have it back then. It was frustration piled on top of inability plus a good helping of defeatist thought. So, I put it away, believing that I just couldn't play the guitar.
Fast forward 8 years. You all know,Gentle Readers, if you read this blog, what happened this past August to me, how the music in me got rekindled (and I will forever be grateful to Great Big Sea for that), and how, finally, now, I've actually had enough growth and change and so on to be able to play.
But I came across a new challenge recently because it was time to change the strings. Even though they'd only been actively played for 8 weeks, they'd been on Babe for a full 8.5 years. I'm guessing he got used to them. And since I don't play in public or perform nightly or any of that, changing strings really hasn't been a priority but now, it was time. The strings were dull, they'd lost all of their texture, and they played pretty flat too. Even though, originally, the luthier had originally lowered the action of the guitar for me (I have small hands, Babe is a full sized dreadnought, in other words, HUGE, and I wouldn't be able to play a typically high rock action), these strings were practically resting on the fretboard, little life left.
As an aside, what does one do with old guitar strings? Tis a puzzlement. I'm sure they're good for something, but what?
I put on new guitar strings and holy cats, it was like trying to learn the guitar all over again. The new strings are as slippery as goose . . . well, really slippery things, and the action is higher (which means I have to learn all over again how much pressure they need) and the low E rings like a bell . . . and resonates . . . I love the new sound . . . I would have loved it better if the bronze phosphor strings hadn't broken . . . now there's a blend on there of regular 80/20 bronze and bronze phosphor strings, until I have money enough to replace the strings, again (and won't that be fun!). Also I would like to point out that the new strings, though I stretched them multiple times and tuned them multiple times and did everything right, are still losing their tuning every ten seconds. Gaah. I can't even play a song 1 time through without having to stop and retune. I've done so much re-tuning that I had to put another set of batteries in my tuner! Below, there's a closeup of the head, you can still see the new high E string in toto, I hadn't cut it off yet in the pictures.
It sucks, Gentle Readers, it really does. It's part of why I'm writing this post --I just don't want to fight with my guitar anymore, at least, not for now. I needed a break. And I think there is something wonky about my A string, but I can't figure it out. Maybe that's the way lefthanded guitars wind up being strung, who knows. There aren't enough players out there that I know where I can check.
And hey, I said I was going to be honest in this blog . . . how many other musicians will tell you about the !(#&$#^!)!@&#*^$*(!!!!! that they go through with their instruments, huh? I mean, how many other people will actually admit that they want to go throw their instrument in the lake? I am, I do, I will. You don't get that kind of honesty other places on the Net, Gentle Readers, that's for sure.
Just for fun, here's a close up of the sticker on the inside of Babe's soundboard :)
Just for S&G's! It's got his model # and everything on there. And despite that the fact that he was born in Korea, apparently, Babe has got a truly lovely tone. When I bought him 8 years ago, he was more than a little bright, and quite loud, (really, truly, the kind of LOOK AT ME, LISTEN TO ME I'M A ROCK GUITAR and I am IN YOUR FACE that Fender is known for) but now he's mellowed nicely. Still loud, but with very little brightness and, thanks to the new strings, some lovely harmonic resonance. I can hardly wait to really get out there and play. But hours and hours and hours of study and practice and so on come first. I know that. Doesn't make it any easier, though, I am still impatient, even as I understand the need to do the work. Even as I actually *do* the work (and one of these days, I *will* remember where Bminor is, I promise . . . ). I still want to get out there and show off.
Now, if I could just get over my phobia about playing in front of other, real, people . . . .
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