Rest Day Ruminations: Know Me, Know My Guitar

Wah wah twang

Post-coital chords?

Here’s a Rest Day Ruminations post. Thank you to my lovely paying subscribers who make some of the posts open to all, as with this one.

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Know Me, Know My Guitar

I was given this classical guitar by a friend some years ago. 2014, I think. Shit, that was a decade ago. Time flies. “Karl’s First Guitar”.

The guitar. In my office.

It’s a friend, keeping me company when I sit in the garden with a beer in the summer. It’s a lover, as I caress its strings and stroke its lustrous veneer. It’s a mistress, as I buy it thoughtful gifts like the vegan tartan guitar strap that ties it to Scotland. It could even be a weapon, when the zombies rise and I need to bludgeon them in order to survive another day.

(Actually, no, that wouldn’t ever happen. I’d hate to destroy it, even so I could protect my – limited – braaaaiiinnssss.)

I’ve had it for years, but recently noticed a few of the strings were getting frayed, and it was time for another thoughtful gift.

A full set of new nylon classical strings.

It would have been easy to take the simple option of paying someone to restring it, but that would be a cop put. I like to learn new skills. I like to understand how things work, whether it’s a principle of mechanics or a language construction. I think the most precious gift you can offer is your attention, your time, and your patience. In August 2015 I had drilled a small hole in the guitar and added a strap stud. If I could do that with no issues, I knew I could handle strings.

So I lit the log fire and laid everything out. I watched videos. I got confused about when you loop under, versus over, or around. But I took my time.

When you replace guitar strings it is tempting to just remove them all at once, but that’s bad. B. A. D. The classical guitar’s neck is held in a state of careful tension, without an internal truss rod. Release all that tension by cutting every string at once and all sorts of things can go wonky (technical term). So you remove one string only, then attach and secure its replacement. Then move to the next.

I proceeded in the logical order. First the wire-coated thick strings EAD, then the plain nylon thinner ones, GBe. The two E strings wind to the outer edge of the tuning peg, and all the others to the inside edge, as you can sort of see below. That stops the strings crossing over.

Yes, I should dust my things more often

A key element is to make sure there’s enough string around each tuning peg that it won’t slip. For this reason you don’t want to be too quick to snip the excess cable, in case you need to redo it. That’s why you can see my strings have yet to be snipped below.

All strings go out of tune over time. New ones in particular need to stabilise. Another reason not to be too quick with the snip. Once they get to the point where I can pick it up to play and they no longer need tuning, I know it will be safe to tidy things up and cut off the excess.

It took a while to do it myself, but it’s a good skill to have and feels more like I have a connection with the guitar. It’s like gardening or making love, you end up with more of a link to something after you’ve made contact with hands and fingers. The connection is no longer abstract, but real.

(Don’t worry, the old strings don’t get wasted. Reduce, reuse, recycle, Dude. In this case they’ll replace the broken cables holding my home-made wind chimes together; I’d assembled it out of things found in the garden, such as old nails and a horseshoe. After storms I usually have to repair it, and the replaced guitar strings will be much better than the old shoelaces that currently hold it up.)

I took this video a few minutes ago after retuning the strings. Yes, that is Dolly making a rude comment about my playing.

Which reminds me about something I did in 2017.

Back when I was a librarian, I taught classes of hundreds.

As an author I’ve done readings to ... well, fewer than hundreds, but still some pretty big groups.

I’d never played music in public though. I was self-taught (which is why I have so many bad guitar habits, no doubt). Maybe my love of music is why I wrote 2000 Tunes.

Well, I did once play a public gig, in April 2017, after doing a short practice course for adults, where you rehearse a set of songs for a few weeks, and play together in a pub at the end. In my case, Rummers of Aberystwyth.

Weirdly, I wasn’t nervous at all, and just had a great time. It was over before I knew it. Here’s a couple of pics of my band’s performance to prove I was there. They were a lovely set of band mates to perform with.

(Dolly hated the rehearsals at my house, mind you.)

And that’s the friend who gave me my first guitar!

There were actually two mini bands for the rock school performance. My band did these songs:

• Creep (Radiohead)

• All The Small Things (Blink 182)

• Go Your Own Way (Fleetwood Mac)

• Bad Reputation (Joan Jett)

Chugga Chugga Whammy Kerrang Wahwah Slide

There was also a brilliant open mic session after we finished, so much talent – it’s why I try and go to those whenever I can. You get goose bumps when you hear brilliant music live, and see the talented people who can make it.

Do you play any musical instruments?

Lastly, since some of you like to know what I do at the cinema: yesterday I showed 5 Broken Cameras. We were packed out: every seat was filled, and we had to turn people away. It’s an important film. Afterwards we held an excellent and thought-provoking Q&A session.

Peace! Karl

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