Six String

In a way, Henry was carrying on Les Paul's work on that one. The Firebird X is the "Les Paul Recording Model" of its era. Both were flops in the market. Those that do not study History are doomed to repeat it.

I hardly ever play my Strat, but I only recently un-decked the bridge (loosening the springs and doing a new set up) to restore the ability to use the tremolo arm. Guess I'm out of phase with everybody. Always someone clapping on the 1 and 3.

Apparently Billy took the advice to heart because the inter webs say he plays 7's now. My touch is so heavy I can easily fret a note sharp on 10's in the heat of battle. I think I'd be all over the place with 9's and can't imagine playing 7's.

Great progress. Keep on working at it!

I'll eventually get around to replacing the plastic pins on my old Washburn, because the are marked up from being pulled so many times. Doubt it'll make an audible difference except that part of hearing that is affected by our eyes. lol My Breedlove doesn't use Bridge pins, so I can't fancy that one up that way.

How old is "old"? A 50's or 60's LP would be very valuable but a major repair would drastically reduce that value. A 70's or later model is just an old Les Paul. It might be a great guitar, but if it needs significant work to make playable, you likely could not recoup what it would cost to fix it. If you got the SN you can get an idea when it was built but you'd need a good luthier to tell you what the fix would entail. Good Luck.

I think the Telecaster and Strat have the same 25.5 inch scale vs the 24.75 on most Gibson's. It may feel shorter due to where the body shape places it. I know the neck on my EPI SG SEEMs way longer than my other guitars, but is the exact same length as my Les Paul. Its just that the body shape puts more neck off to my left. (The guitar is neck heavy and the headstock tends to drop if you take your hands off while strapped up and standing.) Other than that, all I can say is if you like the way the guitar plays and sounds, I'd buy it. Not sure you'd need to mod it, if you like it as is. Some of the Squire Series guitars are very well regarded and play and sound like guitars costing several times their price. I have the Squire Classic Vibe Tele and think it more than holds its own against my more expensive guitars. Edit to add: This model has vintage style 2 strings each saddle so I did replace the stock saddles with compensated ones to get closer to perfect intonation. Not an issue for the model you are looking at with the modern 6 saddle bridge. Good Luck.

Maybe start by taking a poll of what songs songs you have in common and go from there? If you don't have any in common, Freddie Kings "I'm going Down" or "Blue on Black" by Kenny Wayne Sheppard are fairly easy to learn rhythm parts that sound harder than they are. You could all learn those and work on improvising some blues solo's over them. Depending on how "beginner" the least experienced person is you may need to pick a song or two with just your open chords so everyone gets to participate and learn. The first attempt may (likely) feel like a train wreck, but try to keep it up and you will all learn a lot from each other.

Snip - So, how do you guys do it? Short answer is I don't really know. You are ahead of me if you have decoded modes, but I've pretty well got down the pentatonic forms with added blue notes. Bends and slides are important tools but the best sounding players I've played with all have a great vibrato and can do it on top of a bend. I'm taking a Truefire blues power chord course that is helping with my improv progress. The upshot of the course is to target roots and 5ths. You can play them as power chords, arpeggios or individual notes slide into the 5th from 4th, bend 4 to 5 to root or the powerchord, etc and it will sound good. They always sound strong and stable, so they are your target notes to come back to and spice with the other notes of the scale. You can build some phases on these ideas to expand on. I'm also spending a fair bit of time trying to improve my vibrato especially vibrato on top of a bend. This is not a skill that is coming easy for me. Good Luck

No. 1 with a bullet! Great job.

Congrats on the new Axe! On the topic of Guitar shows, I've always wondered why they aren't more of a thing. There are quite a few of us Guitar people out here and Guitar people are always wanting to buy and sell gear, so you'd think they would be popular. Seems like there is a gun show within 25 miles of me every other weekend, but I've only seen one local Guitar show several years ago and the closest big one is up in Philly. Philly is not too far to make it impossible, but its once a year and invariably clashes with some must attend event for me.

Awesome CapM. Long overdue that you stepped on stage and took the spotlight. The talent is there in that band to be a really, really good act that can get bookings at will. Working through the boo-boos, learning each others strengths and weaknesses, covering for each other and learning to fit yourself in to serve the song is what being in a band is all about. Best of luck when you go on tour and, hope to see you at a venue near me soon! Bill AKA Six String

Congrats! I've always been partial to the looks of an SG, even back to before I began to like Les Pauls.

A similar topic re: what strap locks are the best is a recurring theme on guitar boards, usually popping up after someone experienced a disaster, or narrowly averting one. After the shock, they start looking for what locks are the "best". In reality, all strap lock methods have failure modes and checking the pins themselves regularly is one way to stave off that looming disaster. When they loosen you can usually just tighten the screw a quarter to half turn and be good to go for a while, but if the screw hole gets stripped out, the toothpick trick is an effective fix. The best advice is to remember to take a look at all the components of your preferred strap lock system frequently and you'll dramatically reduce the odds of having the disaster yourself. Good luck!

Yeah well if someone has to get run over while multitasking, I'd rather them be playing guitar rather than looking at their phone. lol

Hey Ian, I really liked the song, and though I have no skills in songwriting, only in listening, I don't think I'd advise changing it much. Songwriting is no easy thing, especially the lyrics and I think this is a really great effort. Also, there is no sin in taking a simple progression and making an interesting song of it. Tom Petty was a master of it and the band had a saying "Don't bore us, get to the chorus". Many of the lyrics I've looked at by evolving song writers are closer to a novel than a song. The genius of songwriting is the paring away of the unneeded until every word carries meaning and the whole is more than the sum of parts. I think you have a really nice song here that works. My two cents, for free.

Awesome. Growth comes from pushing beyond our comfort zones and that is what you just described.

Your skepticism is not entirely misplaced as there are some pretty bad Youtube "tutorials" out there, but I can think of at least 4 or 5 guys that do very very good lessons and sometimes you can pick up bits from even the bad ones when that's the best you can find. Certainly not a fool proof source, but Carl Brown, Guitar Sage, Marty Jamz, Justin Guitar and many others can teach you a lot.

I appreciate the kudos, but don't think that's true in my case. There are many players on this forum that are way better guitarists than me. Like you, I rely on brute force to cram in practice as much as life will allow. Being in the band just keeps me focused and forces me out of any sort of comfort zone. I also believe it helps desensitize me to the fear of flying without a net and that sometimes leads to getting into a zone where you play above yourself. That said, I'm often way over my head and not in the zone, and if you isolated my guitar track you'd see it ain't all that. I know and accept this, but I'm too old to wait until I'm "really good" to play with others, so I'll just try to be good enough, for long enough, that "really good" happens one day when I'm not looking. As to learning from a magazine, I've found I cannot focus on those articles long enough to get much out of them. I have learned from a few exercises I picked up from magazines over the years but they have never been a key source of learning for me. You can find a Youtube tutorial for just about any song you can name, and if the song was popular you will usually find several very good teachers have done lessons on it. Taking bits a pieces from Youtube lessons and my bandmates is how I've learned nearly every song I play. I never strive to play exactly like a recording, but to try to get the tone and rhythm and then play it my way (which I hope is recognizable). I think focusing on learning a few songs you really like from Youtube would be far more motivating than trying to learn from a magazine. Edited to add - I should add that you should stick with LMG at least through session 8-9, then work through Mel Bay's Barre Chord book before setting off on the Youtube path. That will give you enough music theory to have an inkling of what's going on and give you time to develop the physical ability to play the chords you'll need for the other stuff. Playing a riff as an exercise cleanly is one thing, playing it for 3+ minutes staying in the groove the whole time takes a while to build up to. YMMV. Good Luck.

Well done!

Thats great! The importance of having Band-mates you enjoy hanging out with cannot be overstated and this is definitely a fun crew.

I knew you'd kill it. You sounded great and some really awesome song choices in there. You'd love my friends band, The Virginia Hipnecks. Those songs are right up their alley, as both guitarists are huge ABB fans. They've been playing together at least 20 years so they are pretty good at it.

Very well stated. Some folks may get lucky and fall in love with their first guitar but for most it is a lesson in what we want in our second guitar.

Without a budget or idea of the music she might be interested in its hard to make a recommendation but at a moderate price point the Classic Vibe Squires from Fender are pretty universally praised for being a lot of bang for the buck. I and at least a couple of others here have, or have had the Classic Vibe Tele, and think there are a few that have the Strats as well. The guitar she likes is the best one to buy, but these would be good ones to check out.

Bummer. Its funny how once you've invested a certain amount of time in guitar how you start to worry about just this sort of thing. Thankfully this sounds like it will be a temporary setback and you'll be playing again soon. Hoping for a quick recovery.