Some terrific insight into Canadian Broadcasting and the CRTC. People sometimes voice their wonder at how I get my opinions developed so strongly. I read. You should all broaden the horizons too. Some of you do of course and recommendations are always welcome here.
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Pam's big adventure. I'm amazed at her capacity to plan! I am not worthy.
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I've been playing guitar a lot lately. I regard "a lot" as at least two hours a day. Snoot is forcing me to be far more intentional about my practice time which is nothing but good. Biff seems always to get so exasperated with my efforts with music. I suppose it's because I don't play songs he knows, but it could also be from the fact that I resist structure. Maybe not resist, but certainly have some challenges in colouring inside the lines, if you know what I mean.
Learning some more structure to improve my capacity to improvise has been fun. Snoot and I went out to friends on Friday night for a good meal and a long jam session. We played for five or six hours. They had a wide variety of instruments and we took three guitars and an amplifier. Playing with a cello and keyboard was a lot of fun. I love it when my gut is moved by sound.
They had mics for vocals and no end of other toys to throw into the mix. I took the opportunity to throw as many different combination's together as I could think to meld. Chris and Brenda are young and unpretentiously welcoming of any music. They create a very comfortable environment for learning. Snoot was a bit intimidated irrespective of the high tolerance levels, but she played strongly anyway. She didn't sing much of the work she's been accumulating recently. We didn't get home until very late.
Chris's hand made electric was a fun beast. He is quite well versed in the various parameters of electric guitars so I peppered him relentlessly with my questions and learnt more about how these things work. Mine is so delicate in it's fretting that I'm forever smearing strings sharp. It would be OK if I couldn't hear it, but I've been playing enough over the last few months that my ear is more picky than it used to be. One of his guitars had a fretboard that was "scalloped." That means that ones fretting fingers (all puns legal?) never aim to touch the fretboard, but only to bring the string down to contact the fret and make a clean sound.
A very light touch is required for modifications like the scalloped fretboard where the fingerboard has been carved away between the frets. Scale length matters, as does the gauge of the strings. I have light strings on just now where the lightest is .009" and the heaviest is .042". I was pushing these guys all over the place. I'm looking forward to trying some strings more suited for jazz that will be in the .012" range. The tone should be richer from the heavier strings too.
I had no idea the degree to which scale length plays a role in the feel of the guitar. My electric has a scale length of 25.5" and when I picked up a Gibson copy I felt much more at home with it's 24.75" scale length. I think the biggest benefit from the whole evening was gathering some perspective on just how lightly one can fret my electric. It's such a different game than the acoustic.
I love my acoustic and we've been playing together for eleven years now. She's still coming into her own. One of my favourite things about this particular acoustic is that you can hit it hard and not over drive it. If I hit it as hard as I can with a 1mm pick it's not going to be complaining. What is contradictory, for me, between the acoustic and electric is that the harder I play the acoustic the harder I have to hang onto the fretting, where as with the electric if I want it to be louder I move a potentiometer. It's messing with my muscle memory! It' fun like crazy though.
Rhea and her brood were over on Saturday for a bonfire and weenie roast. There were five of them I think. It was difficult to keep up to speed with everything. I was tired and some of the kids were fast! I got in early with the two budding teen girls when I found out they'd had some guitar at school. I set the electric up in the summer kitchen, showed them how it worked and how to put it down safely and left them to it. I would venture a guess they ended up spending about 2.5 hours playing that day. By the end, K, had improved markedly so I introduced her to two simple chords on the mandolin and proceeded improvise a melody on guitar while she played. She went on and on and on. I couldn't really tell whether she was enjoying herself or not because she had her head down and her hair was in the way. I got the message loud and clearly when she finally came up for air with a face splitting grin. What sweet reward kids are if we look to the sunny side of life. She'll never be the same I'm sure. She understood that what she was experiencing was music and that it would be impossible to get too much of that good feeling. It was written all over her. I love those gifts.
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Mighty was home for the weekend. She's doing so well. She even ran with me! Not only ran, but in the last half mile she thought she needed to pick up the pace. We ended up running a tempo pace that I'd guess was somewhere in the +nine minute mile range. I didn't know she could do that! Apparently they have real coaches for her rugby team this year so good on them all for stepping up. Mighty also got the call to be trained up to be a jumper which has her all jazzed up about playing again. I think she's dumped about 20 pounds over the winter which has got to help with the energy required to play with gusto. I'm still eating pecan pie and wondering why I'm not getting any lighter.
Besides the 32km walk and reseach work during the day, Boo is working the bar on the weekend slinging beer and mixing drinks in the metropolis of Val Marie. Her first night was pretty profitable as I understand it. She's always been a great tip generator. One guy apparently was hounding her a bit too closely and made some crack about the lemons that were printed on her t-shirt. In the style that makes me proud, she wrangled that into a big tip too by coming back to him with "I don't think so. This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy." and walked on. She does prefer to have fun that one.
Snoot is all done with Peter Pan and is now onto participating in track. Today she's off to a meet in Winkler to try and make the cut for the provincial meet in the 100m and the 4 x 100 Jr. girls catagory. The senior girls stole one of their junior stars, which will make that four seconds in the 4 x 100 tough to make up.
PU is lively again now as spring is doing more than just threatening to drive flower beds and gardens to life. The shop garden is almost all hand turned and PU is sleeping well. I'll be surprised if she's on time for dinner as she's got to pass a greenhouse she likes on the way home. We've been enjoying each other.
I'm behind in my correspondence, but atoning for those sins here I hope. I'm trying to cut a swath through the paying work to shut down the shop for a few days and try my hand at some wood work. Mighty helped throw some ideas around last weekend. I'd like nothing more than to just drop the ball on my other obligations, but I can never bring myself to do that. I'm just so slow! Two clocks remain and it's only Wednesday!
The trail to the wood pile is moving along at an encouraging pace. It looks like so little is done there, but the man hours involved are crazy when one works without machinery. Tractors and bulldozers sure are quick, but they don't leave as friendly a walk way either. It feels like gardening more and more as the changes become more visible. The smell of the split wood in the spring air is fantastic. Acrid and potent. No smell of the balsam yet. Maybe I just need to check one more time. It's wonderful to be outside here as things burst into life.
One clock will be done shortly and the parts for the other are likely waiting at the post office. I wonder if Snoot needs to go fishing soon? I know I do.
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